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
remedy but that we must needs grant all this to be true he taketh occasion to triumph and to frame a bitter inuectiue against our Religion and liues so concluding his wordy preface with an exhortation to his Reader to forsake vs our Religiō to ioine againe with thē in theirs All which because it is nothing but the vaine malitious wordes of a foolish aduersary without proofe or shadowe of proofe which therefore I am sure the wise Reader will make no reckoning of I might very well let passe with this onely answere that whatsoeuer he hath here said braggingly either in the commendation of his Religion Church or to the disgrace of ours is vtterly false and that I haue plentifully proued it so to be in sundry places of this my answere Howbeit seing this is not only his brag but the brag also a nūber of times of Iohn de Albine in the booke following indeed is in effect the only thing by taking whereof granted most subtily they all their fellowes seeke to beguile their simple readers it shal not be amisse because here first we meete with it least otherwise the Reader should be too ready to suffer his hart to be sorestald with this false principle to the preiudice of the truth somewhat to say to make both the vanity falshood hereof to appeare to euery one First therefore it is worthy the marking that the mā though as hee plainly sheweth hee had here a full purpose at least in wordes to giue as great countenaunce as he could to his cause that yet he seekes to giue it credit but by the testimonie of fathers consent of Christian regions and prescription of time in the meane time omitting that which is to be preferd before all these namely the testimony of the vndoubted word of God reuealed set downe in the scriptures wherein he hath dealt but as the nature of his cause requires which hath no countenance from thence and as the fashion of other of his companiōs in this case is For hereupō it is that there is nothing more cōmon in their discourses then to labour by all meanes they can the disgrace of the written word of god and to establish the credite of a word vnwritten which they count to be the traditions or ordinary practise of the Church of Rome To this ende they bestowe so much paines as they doe at least to make shewe of proofe that the scriptures are so darke and obscure so insufficiēt for the direction of the Church in all matters and of so vveake authority of themselues without the authority and testimonie of the Church to countenance them that without the foresaid vnwritten word no man could either fully or certainly be setled and established in the truth So that herein this is their drift that they indeed being without all sounde warrant out of the canonicall scriptures for those thinges which wee count erroneous in thē they yet may make their followers beleeue that they haue as good ground as need be for them in that they can proue thē by the tradition of the Church which they call the word of god vnwritten and which they hold to be not onely aequal vnto the other that is written but also far more full and certaine for the determining the trueth of all controuersies And therefore Soto contra Brentium Canisius cap. 5. of his Catechisme and Lindan lib. 5. cap. 10. of his panoplie are not ashamed to confesse reckening almost all the pointes in controuersie betwixt them and vs that they haue their ground and warrant from tradition not written in the scriptures And hereupon it is that there is nothing more common with any of them then when wee presse them with this that the opinions for the which we striue with them haue no warrāt in the scripture yea that the scriptures rightly vnderstoode are flatte against them therein to flye to tradition which is the cause that this fellowe him selfe was so busie before to abuse Irenaeus for the countenance of that onely foundation of their Religion For this cause we may doe say of them that iustly by their owne confessiō as Tertullian saide of the hereticks in his time they cannot stand if they be driuen once to determine al their controuersies by the scriptures de Resurrectione Carnis cap. 3. Now as for vs Christian reader for all this lewde bragge of his we appeale to these scriptures of god and onely wee allowe of them as of a most perfect touchstone whereby to trye in all matters of Religion the pure golde from the counterfait crauing no further liking nor allowance in any thing then by them wee are able soundly to proue and confirme that which we say and teach And the ancient holy fathers and so the Christian regions in al ancient prescription of time which are the things that he here brags of as it appeares in all sound monuments of antiquity euer since these scriptures were written for the determining of controuersies in their times haue alwaies taken this course to cōfute confound all aduersaries to the truth As for their owne authority or the authority of any other before them no further credit they craue then as they are foūd to agree with these scriptures otherwise the more that haue couseted the lōger they held the worse This I haue made manifest by plētifull testimony of the ancient fathers thēselues cap. 3.5.23 And therfore whiles he sends vs thus to the fathers Christian regions consent prescription of time he sēds vs but about the bush for when we come to thē they will send vs backe againe to the scriptures But whiles they take this course in seeking rather countenance for their cause any where else then at or by the canonicall scriptures in the iust iudgement of god they plainly bewray themselues to euery simple mā to haue but a bad cause that they so shun the light and refuse the most certaine most indifferent triall of it which questionles is by these scriptures whose neither authority nor indifferecy without blasphemy may once be called in question Indeed I read that whē they were pressed with the authority of these scriptures the Marcionites pretēded for the defence of their heresy their paraclet or cōforters visiōs instructiōs that likewise the Mōtanists did fly to their prophecy the Valētinians to their dreams of their Aeons the Manichees to their fundamētal Epistle the Iewes to their Talmud the Turks to their Alcaron belike lest these should be foūd vnlike these their predecessors they will thus fly from the vndoubted authority of god speaking in the scriptures to the vncertaine and variable authority of man Yet if this were true that he saith that they haue the auncient holy fathers the common consent of all Christian regions pre scriptiō of time of their side it were sōewhat some likelihood it were that things were with thē as he saith I must needs cōfesse
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
and not to perfect it is to leaue the Church without a perfect touchstone to trie all doctrines by and argueth that it was either because hee could not or would not perfect it whereof the one robbeth him of his almighty power and infinite knowledge the other of the perfection of loue and faithfulnesse towards the churchâ— therefore most certainely in the writen worde there is left a full and perfect direction for the Church and consequently those vnwriten traditions that some striue for are superfluous Thus you haue your answere to this Chapter The VI. Chapter SAint Augustine in his Epistle a You should say 165. f r there are but 204. epistles in all 365. about the like matter doth set forth all the Popes by order which haue beene from S. Peters time vntill Anastasius which was Pope in his time and by his continuall succession he doeth proue b By the same argument we disproue popery because none of them that hee reckoÌ„s vp there was of the Romish religion that now is that the doctrine of the Donatists is heretical because that none of those Popes which hee did recite nor no part of the Church did receiue it I praie you may not wee saie the like by the c No not by theÌ„ truely whom you call Caluinistes Caluinists and other heretiques The saied S. Augustine in the Epistle that d It seemes you are a learned maÌ„ For Augustine wrote against an epistle so called he calleth not his so The Epithet RomaÌ„ you adde the words al and continual for he speaketh but of succession to his time and yet there he saieth that oâ—â—â—e trueth is to be preferred before all these he doeth call Epistola fundamenti cap. 4. doeth write the reasons that did keepe him vnder the obedience of the Catholicke Roman Church And among other he doeth alleadge the common consent of all nations the continuall succession of Bishops e This sheweth your great ignorance or negligence for of thâ—â— argument Augustine wrote two bookes and in euery booke many chapters there be but this is common with you the more to trouble your reader to send him to whole bookes and beside sometimes to set downe your quotations as though the authour had wrote but one when he wrote mo of that argumeÌ„t or as though he had wrote moe when he had writen but one And in his booke which he made against the aduersarie of the olde and newe lawe he doeth name the succession of the Bishops as most certaine to answere to that that wee saied before of S. * Ephes 1. Paul f You write Ephes 1. for Ephes 4. I mean that he would not haue vs to be wauering and doubtfull in our doctrine but that we should be firme and stable the which stablenesse is obtained by the knowledge and intelligence of the Scriptures according to the traditions of the Church and the succession of the Apostles and Bishops f It continued so to Augustines time that is three or foure hundreth yeares so ergo so a thousand fiue hundreth yeares and more it should so continue the argumeÌ„t followeth not The Church saieth S. Augustine from the Apostles time hath continued through the certaine succession of the Bishops vntill our daies The VI. Chapter IN this 6. Chapter you cite three places though some of them wroÌ„g quoted out of Augustine whereby indeed it appeareth that as Irenaeus did obiect succession euen so did he to confute the heretiques of his time that taught things contrary to the scriptures but as I haue saied vnto you concerning Irenaeus so doe I concerning him You must remeÌ„ber that Augustine liued wrote within 400. yeares after Christ vnto whose time the Bishops pastours whose succession he produceth had continued at least sound in the fundamentall pointes of Christian Religion from which you your predecessours fell away long ago therefore that which he might herein safely and to good purpose doe you cannot doe without perill to an ill ende Againe you must be told that as Irenaeus was not so neither was he in thus doing a Prophet to shew that to the worldes ende it would be safe thus to doe And lastly I would haue both you and your reader to remember that it is not bare personal succession that Augustine here maketh such reckoning of but that wheÌ„ it was ioyned also with succession of trueth of doctrine as it was in his time with them of whose successioÌ„ he speaketh and is not now with you and them of whose succession you brag so much Which three things considered whatsoeuer things further by you or any of your fellowes are alleadged to this purpose out of TertulliaÌ„ Cyprian or Epiphanius which you might haue as well alleadged as Irenaeus or Augustine be answered For they all of them liued within 500. yeares after Christ when as yet the state of the church stood in good tearmes in comparison that yours doeth and they all spoke of succession of persons succeeding also one another in the Apostolicke trueth and they spake but for their owne times they prophecied not that so it would be alwaies And yet thus it is your fashioÌ„ to beguile the simple that whatsoeuer you reade 1000. yeares ago spoken in commendation of the Church of Rome that then was the Catholicke church or Catholicke faith that you would beare them in hand is spoken of your Romish church and Religion now when as yours compared with those times hath no similitude with the Church of Christ then in a great number of weighty points But for the better satisfying of the reader indeede S. August what account soeuer either in these places here recited by you or else where hee seemeth to make of personall succession or of any such outward thing in the church made more account of sole trueth taught only by the canonical Scriptures then of all other things besides For euen in in his 165. epistle which is the epistle as it should seeme which you meant though you quote the 365. which is more by an hundred one then there are in all after he saieth we presume not so much of these as of the scriptures And in the second place by you here cited out of him which ignoraÌ„tly you say he calleth Epistola fundameÌ„ti wheras he calleth none of his epistles so but writes against an epistle of the Manichees which they so called one book in the later ende of the fourth Chapter whereof after hee had reckoned vp the thinges which did hold him in the bosome of the Catholicke church and might likewise hold any beleeuer therein though trueth as yet did not most manifestly shew her selfe he addeth by by but with you speaking to the Manichees sola personat veritatis pollicitatio c. onely promise of trueth rings which truely if it bee shewed to bee on your side so manifest that it cannot be called into doubt praeponenda est omnibus illis rebus quibus in
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
the bare and running with the hounde getteth a man frendes but he that will laye flattery aside tell the plaine truth shal get nothing but hatred Thus in these daies vice is extolled vertue contemned Ill rule is made â—f and good rule neglected O heart dissembled which vnder coulour to be iust true canst cloke vnto vs hipocrisie for deuotion ambition for gentlenesse couetousnes for â—oÌ„petencie cruelty for zeale bolde babling without learning for eloqueÌ„ce florishing Rhetoricke without fruit or reasoÌ„ folly for grauity wilines without wit and fleshly wanton libertie for liberty of the Gospell This is nothing els but the deuils drifte alway couering his poison vnder some taste of suger Fallit enim vitium specie virtutis vmbra g This inuectiue speech we may iustly vse of you and your side For the summe ende of all their false doctrine is nothing els but malice with murther to the ouerthrowe of Christes Religion and the true ministers thereof This is their sheepes clothing for an vnhappy reformation Nam impia sub dulci melle venena latent Vnder sweete honny is deadly venome hid O blinde ignorance and ignorant blindnes O cruell and damnable mischiefe comming from the bottomeles pit of hel O intollerable furiousnes and heresie more detestable then it mate any longer be suffered The greate dâ—spleasure the extreame vengaunce the cruell plagues of God hange ouer our heades if this horrible heresie be not shortly remoued froÌ„ mens mindes O h These wordes iustly we maie breake out into in respect of the infinite blasphemies and abominations held and maintained by your side in this point good god how long wilt thou suffer this intollerable abhomination It shameth me it abhorreth me to thinke that these shameles beastes are not ashamed to speake of the most blessed Sacramentes of Christes Church who is able to expresse either by tongue or penne their wicked abhomination whye haue we a pleasure to forsake the true vnderstanding of Gods most sacred worde and become followers and bondslaues of the deuils counterfaite and deceitfull expositions carnall reasons set out by his ministers who in Religion are i This obiection of the diuersitie of opinions see answered at large Cap. 4. so deuided that now they dreame one thing and now another this day they like tomorowe they mislike one is against another of them euen in the highest misterie of Christ his Religion And no meruaile for the deuill is their chiefe head whom they serue and he is full of lies variaunce diuision and discorde vnder him their Schoolemasters were Hus Luther Zuinglius Oecolampadius Bucer Melancthon and the Archheretike Caluin k Therein there is no proofe that he helde any one heresy whose heresies are confuted in the Discourse hereafter ensuing l This is vntrue These with the rest of that rable did neuer agree one with another in their doings there is no vnity no certainty at all and therefore such masters such schollers come of them And this diuision this vnconstancie of doctrine was a manifest token that they were not the children of our true mother the Catholike Church nor ministers of Christ but the children of the deuill and ministers of Antichrist yea very Antichrists m Which that you papists be is most certain the contrariâ—ty of your doctrine with the auncient catholic e Church considered which I haue noted cap. 17. 29 of my answer For whosoeuer saieth S. Augustine is gone from the vnitie of the Catholicke Church hee is become an Antichrist These Antichrists haue borne a great stroke now too long time in our Realme of England in whom is no constancy no stedfastnesse of religion and doctrine These are they that haue damnably deceiued you and haue with their damnable preachings intised you from Church to Church from an heauenly Church to a malignant Church from a louing mother n This is false to a flattering harlot from the condition of grace to the state of perdition o These words remaining we iustly say to and of you from truth to falshoode from faithfull beleeuing to carnall reasoning from sauing Christ to deceauing Antichrist But good Reader beware be not deceaued be not ashamed to arise that hast so shamefully fallen be not ashamed to come home to your mother the Church sith shee is not ashamed to receiue you Let not folly lose the thing that grace hath so preciouslie offered and purchased Let not wilfulnesse and blindnesse put out so great light as is now shewed vnto thee but embrace most humblie the doctrine of our mother the catholicke church so shall you sit in the lappe of so tender a mother which will cherish you into life euerlasting Choose the best whiles choise lieth in lot What were you ashamed of your preface that you put not your name to it Indeede it is so fonde and friuolous that you might well enough be ashamed to father it An answere to the preface set before Iohn de Albines booke entituled A notable discourse against heretickes c. BEfore I take in hande to say any thing to Iohn de Albine or his booke I must craue of thee gentle reader whosoeuer thou art these two things that thou wouldest first giue me leaue to answere the long tedious and bragging preface prefixed before his booke by the publisher thereof and that then also thou thy selfe wouldest vouchsafe before thou goest any further either to the considering what Albine hath obiected or I answered to take the paines to reade ouer this my answere to the saide preface And though it seeme vnto thee of an extraordinary length so somewhat discourages thee yet the length of his considered likewise I pray thee beare with me and vouchsafe the reading of it thorow before thou proceedest any further His preface thou seest is long but indeede so vaine and friuolous it is that though it seemeth the authour thereof was some bolde and impudent Iesuite or fugitiue of our owne country yet such care he had of his credit that for feare of losse thereof he hath not thought good to put his name vnto it The vanity and weakenesse thereof may euen sufficiently appeare by those marginall notes that I haue affixed vnto it so that if I troubled thee with no further answere vnto it I hope it neither could nor should much moue thee or any other to thinke any thing the better of their Church and religion then thou didst before yet because neither he nor any of his faction for want of a further particular aunswere vnto it shall take occasion to persuade theÌ„selues or other that there is further weight and matter in it then indeede there is I will vouchsafe some more paines about it First therefore this I would haue thee Christian Reader for the coÌ„mendation of the authors great skill to obserue that almost al of it is spent in prouing those things which are needles because we teach graunt defende theÌ„ to
reason is there to the contrary but that according to the rules of decency the preface and the booke whereunto it is a preface shall be conformable one to the other And yet though this be the very methode and matter good Reader of all this his long tedious preface which I thus brieflie haue laide open before thee the poore silly man the authour thereof seemeth to haue conceiued such a liking of his owne doings therein especially towards the latter ende thereof that gloriously and triumphantly hee breaketh out into wonderful complaints amplifications and exclamations against vs. Alas poore man that hee was thought hee to meete with no reader but that would graunt him all these thinges at the first asking Or thought hee that hee had so cunningly and artificially knit those things together that no man could espy the childish losenes of them From his first generall farre set and yet vnnecessary discourse of the duety of all officers hee so suddenly falleth into the next of the properties of Christes sheepe that it was great maruaile that the man â—ooke no great harme by it But hauing recouered himselfe 〈◊〉 litie speaking belike before his wittes were well come to him â—ee neuer can hit after of any thing to the purpose For not onely all his matter and woordes besides a fewe naked assertions of his of the trueth of certaine points of his religion and falshoode of ours skipping in heere and there â—here is nothing but the circumstances of application altered one of vs might far more aptly and truely haue written against them But as those things sufficiently conuince the man and his preface of grosse folly and vanitie so if we consider but howe he hath wilfully sought to abuse his reader in cyting the ancient father Irenaeus and others to persuade his reader by his authoritie to obey their prelates and traditions we shall as plainely finde in the man palpable impiety For page second he cyteth his fourth booke and forty three chapter to proue vnto vs nowe that wee must obey their Church now speaking vnto vs by their prelates because then Irenaeus tolde the heretiques a thousand and foure hundred yeares agoe and more whom indeede the pastours of the Church that then was continued soundly in the purity of the Apostolique doctrine that they were to obey the pastours of the Church that had succession from the Apostles Which any maÌ„ may see bindeth not nor teacheth vs to do the like to theirs vnlesse they could proue theirs to be such as there Irenaeus speaketh of Likewise whatsoeuer else in this preface of his to like purpose he hath alleadged out of Irenaeus Augustine Chrysostome CypriaÌ„ Hierome or the scriptures theÌ„selues is abused for that which they spake of that pure true Church of Christ and her faithfull ministers that he would drawe his reader to think to be spoken euen of the Church of Rome as it is now and hath beene of late yeares and of her prelates which are in nothing almost like either the Church or ministers that they speake of But this is not all his fault in alleadging this testimonie of Irenaeus thus to confounde the prelates and Church with the true pastours of Christ and his pure Church a thousande fower hundreth yeares agoe whereunto theirs are no more like then darkenesse is to light but that also wilfully the easilier belike to beguyle the simple reader hee concealeth that that immemediatly followeth the former words Which is this Quisâ—câ—â— ostendimus cum episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secuÌ„dum placitum patris acceperunt that is which as we haue shewed with the succession of their Bishoppricke according to the will and pleasure of God haue receaued the certaine gifte of trueth and so hee hauing skipt ouer those wordes which hee thought as it should seeme in his conscience would and might be denied not to fit their prelats he goeth on with that that followed these wordes saying Reliquos vero qui absistunt à principal successione quocunquè loco colliguntur suspectos habere tanquam haereticos oportet which is in English but the rest which goe from the principall succession in what place soeuer they be gathered together wee ought to suspect as heretiques Wherein euidently it appeareth he left out the former words staÌ„ding in the author in the midst betwixt the former part of the sentence and the latter here alleadged by him to make the reader beleeue that Irenaeus minde was to teach men simply to obey such prelates without exception as haue ordinarie outward and locall succession downe from the Apostles and that that kinde of succession in place and office is the principall succession that he speaketh of which who so hath not ought by and by to bee suspected of heresy But indeede take al his words together and marke them especially those which craftily he had gelded the sentence of in his quoting of them and it is most cleare that Irenaeus here teacheth obedience onely to such Bishops as succeede the Apostles in the certaine gift of trueth that by principall succession he ment nothing else but succession to the Apostles in that gift of trueth and that therefore he would haue vs to suspect all those to be heretiques that lack succession vnto them in that howsoeuer and wheresoeuer they succeede them else Which is the very cause why according to this rule we think no better of their popish bishops priests then we do what successioÌ„ soeuer otherwise they bragge of for that sure we are that long ago they are gone from this principal succession in trueth This he knew euery one would perceiue if he had faithfully cyted Irenaeus wordes as they lye and therefore hee thought best to shew how he could followe the example of that olde fox Sathan who for his purpose in like maÌ„ner mangled the 91. Psalme Math. 4. It seemeth also that these words quocunque loco colliguÌ„tur in what place soeuer they be gathered together though he recite them in latine he would faine haue smothered for traÌ„slating the rest he omits these doubtles because without any exceptioÌ„ yea euen of Rome it selfe thereby Irenaeus would teach that they ought to be suspected to be heretiques that will not obey those pastours that succeed the Apostles in the gift of truth Which indeede the Bishops of Rome hauing had so little care to doe this great while if this rule of Irenaeus may bee followed they cannot possibly escape this suspition The credit therefore of theÌ„ waying more with the writer of this preface then his owne he thought it was better thus to leese his owne by thus shamefully abusing his reader in prouing this testimony after the popish manner then once to hazard the credit of his holy fathers the popes by right faithfull and honest dealing therewith Howbeit this kinde of dealing of his may giue iust occasion to all that are wise euer hereafter to looke better to the fingers of all such fellowes then vpon their bare
they haue deceiued the simple people vvithall vnderstande welbeloued in the Lord vvhosoeuer thou art first for transubstantiation the very archpiller of their Synagoge that if they bee very busie to seeke out who first gaue inkling of such a matter they shall finde indeede the originall thereof not to come from Marke the Euangelist or anie of his fellowshippe but from one Marke a notable Magitian and filthie heretique of the broode of Valentinian that liued as it seemeth by the stories in the raigne of Antoninus Pius about one hundred and fifteene yeares after Christ For Epiphanius in his thirty foure heresie noteth and when hee hath done plentifully confirmeth it out of the first booke of Irenaeus and his ninth chapter against the heresies of ValeÌ„tiniaÌ„ others that this same heretique by his enchaÌ„tmeÌ„t hauiÌ„g first caused a cup of white wine to beare the colour of blood made his followers beleeue that by his inuocation over it it was so traÌ„substantiated into blood that seing that he had giveÌ„ thaÌ„ks ouer it long praied it might be thought of them that gratiaÌ„ quae est super vniuersa sanguinem suum instillâsse in illud poculum that is that grace that is aboue all things had poured his bloud into that cup by which meanes wheÌ„ he had made them in admiration of him desirous to drink thereof he giues it them with great deuotion solemnity of words so wonderfully bewitched many Indeed this fellow may very wel be allowed for the first auÌ„cient fouÌ„der of this point of doctrin for there being not any one point of popery wherein Antichrist hath more manifestly shewed him selfe coÌ„trary to Christ then in this as in truth there is not because for the establishing vse of this he is both spoiled of the true nature of a maÌ„ office of the only sufficieÌ„t priest of the new testament to offer himselfe once for all for the redemption of his church who can be fitter then this auncient enchauÌ„ter Marcus to be the first author and patrone hereof especially seing Irenaeus speaking of him in the eight chapter of the foresaid booke as it should seeme secretly directed by the spirit of prophesy saith thas he was verè praecursor Antichristi that is truely Antichrists fore-runner Yet how notably soeuer this Marcus caused many simple persons in his time to beleeue his transubstaÌ„tiation of wine into the bloud of Grace yet he was so baited detected confounded for his lewd and cosening dealing therein and in other points by Irenaeus Epiphanius and others that howsoeuer in the meane time Antichrist his successour was busie vnder Leo the 9. in a councell at Vercellis and after in the councell of Lateran vnder Nicholas the 2. about the yeare of the lord 1060. in bringing Berengarius to recantatioÌ„ to reuiue againe this doctrine of transubstantiation yet as their own friends confesse namely Tonstall in his booke of the sacrament of Christs body and bloud it could not nor was not decreed for a certaine and vniuersall doctrine before Innocent the thirds time in another councell at Lateran about the yeare of Christ 1215. before which couÌ„cel the Greeke Church had separated themselues from the Latine and therefore it being a point of Doctrine not receaued as Catholike before that diuision neuer since could it be receaued in the Greeke Church for any Catholike truth How can it then haue countenance of all Christian Regions and times Bertram Berengarius the Waldenses in sundry places by writing speaking opposed themselues against it as witnesseth Bertrams book of the sacrameÌ„t the condemnation of Berengarius opinion about it at Vercellis and the articles of the Waldenses Yea a little before and in this Pope Innocents time a certaine people about Iohn de Albines Tolossa called Albigenses and that in great mighty multitudes as the French Cronicles shew denied reall presence of Christ vnder or with the outward elements in this sacrament in somuch as great warres were raised to subdue them But of this matter also I haue spoken so much chapter eleuenth 17. that here I neede thereof say no more Now touching Images or Idols and the worshipping thereof I must needes confesse that for their dealing about them they may very well pretend both antiquity and vniuersality For it appeares in all stories and in the scriptures themselues that that way not onely all other nations but also euen the people of the Iewes themselues haue beene alwaies wonderfully giuen to pollute and defile themselues but withall it appeares that god in his word writteÌ„ against no abhominatioÌ„ hath cried out either more often or more vehemently then against this But amongst Christians the first that we reade of that worshipped the image of Iesus or any other was Marcellina a filthy companion of the phantasticall heretique Carpocrates but both in Epiphanius heresi 27. and in Augustine ad Quod vult deum we finde this both noted condemned amongst other detestable errours of the Carpocratians This Carpocrates liued in the beginning of the empire of Antoninus Pius Anicet then being Bishoppe of Rome about the yeare of the lord 109. And in Origens time who died as Spanhemensis saith in the yeare of Christ 261. hee in his seuenth book to Celsus noteth that then the Christians neither suffered images nor pillers to be worshipped Likewise in Arnobius aduersus gentes who florished about the 300. yeare after Christ it appeares that the geÌ„tils obiected that as a matter of disgrace against the ChristiaÌ„s that they neither had nor worshipped any such But so far of was it that the christiaÌ„s theÌ„ thought it any disgrace vnto theÌ„ that OrigeÌ„ in the place before quoted saith that the Iewes ChristiaÌ„s hearing the law Exo. 20. not only refuse images of god choosing rather to die then to make or worship any such adding this as a reasoÌ„ that god is inuisible without body And likewise Clemens Alexandrinus who florished 100. yeares before Origen in his exhortation to the heathen confesses willingly this their obiection to be true that Christians had no images that might be discerned by sence but onely by vnderstanding because to vse that deceitfull art saieth he was forbid theÌ„ Yea and that Christians and their teÌ„ples might continue still free froÌ„ them in Constantines time in a councel held in Spaine at Eliberis can 36. it was decreed thus It hath pleased vs to determine that no pictures should be suffered in churches least that which is worshipped or adored should be painted in walles Isid tom 1. coÌ„ci And therfore Epiphaniê° 55. yeares after this councell about the yeare of Christ 390. as it appeares in his Epistle to Iohn of IerusaleÌ„ finding in the entrance of the church at Anablatha in that Iohns dioces the image of a maÌ„ pictured on a cloth there haÌ„ging puld it downe tare it asuÌ„der writing to the foresaid Iohn about it though as he confessed it seemed vnto him that it was made for
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
will shal bee founde flockes of goates and not of sheepe and foxes and wolues seeking the destruction of the sheepe rather then true sheepeheardes But you would make the Reader beleeue that Salomon in this place by you cyted out of the first of the Canticles doeth teach the true Church safelie alwaies to pitch her tentes and to feede by the visible and apparent succession of pastours which from age to age can leade her without leauing her by the waie euen to Christes time Which you saie yours can doe and ours cannot boldlie aduouching that vnlesse we be not ashamed to lie wee cannot shew where our Church or Religion was an hundreth yeares agoe and that wee cannot denie but Luther began to preach our new Gospell in the yeare 1517. And thus againe partlie by this note of visible succession of pastours and partly by vpbrayding vs with certaine differences of opinions amongst vs about the maner of Christes presence and diuerse and sundrie fantasticall heresies that of late daies haue sprung vp and beene reuiued you labour to iustifie your Synagogue of Rome and to condemne our Church of Christ which thinges you harpe vpon very much and often afterwarde in this your treatise Wherefore to aunswere you to all these thinges here once for all first I tell you you offer violence to Salomons wordes in making them to containe a prophesie of any such perpetuall and visible succession of flockes and pastours in the possession of one trueth as you inferre thereupon and make it the speciall marke and note to discerne Christes true Church from all that falsely bee so called For then it should bee contrarie to that view of the state of Christes true Church which I haue set downe vnto you and prooued by infallible arguments in the first Chapter which may not be seâ—ing the scripture alwaies agreeth with it selfe And yet the Church may haue good vse of Salomons aduise giuen her here in her greatest ruins and interruptions of her ordinarie and visible forme and beautie in looking to the visible flockes and sheepheardes that were before that God so chastised her as in Achaz time in looking to and following those that were in Dauids and Salomons timeâ— in Manasses and Ammons time in looking to and following those in Ezechiaths Iehosaphats times in the time of the captiuity in looking to following those that were in Iosiahs time And yet doe not so take me as though I thought that either Christes true Church or the true sheepheards thereof did at anie time vtterâ—â— cease or faile for I am perswaded they neuer did nor shall But this onelie is the thing that I now say that though this place of the Canticles doeth shewe that in no time there is any true flockâ— of Christ but there hath gone before a flocke and shepheardes which that may safely followe euen to the finding of Christ yet it proueth not that there hath alwaies immediately gone before it from time to time some visible so apparent flockes and shepheards one immediately succeeding another as that the names of the sheepe and shepheardes are alwaies famously knowen and therefore easily to be reckoned vp of euery one which are the thinges which you seeme to inferre hereof and therefore require of vs to bee done or else you would faine make the Reader beleeue that wee neither are the Church haue the trueth nor true right ministers thereof Wherein many waies you offer vs great wrong for after you your selfe distrusting belike that in any seate or line of Bishops without interruption this can be performed speaking of your line of Popes whereof all the sort of you bragge in this case most cap. 8. to vpholde and drawe along your right succession you tell vs flatly you meane not when you speak thereof onely of them but of al Bishops elswhere that they may continue it in the interruptions of that liue somewhere else and yet at our handes you require vnder the penalty aforesaied that we should froÌ„ age to age and from person to person orderly succeeding one another deduce ours For when we say it was continued alwaies by some in some other places when wee can no longer finde it in your Romish see whereinto by little and little you haue craftily â—rept and wherein for many hundred yeares before men of our Church and Religion sate and taught you reiect that our answere as a shift Another wrong that you offer vs herein is this that your Antichristian Synagogue hauing according to the prophesie Reuel 12. persecuted our flocke into the wildernes with the sheepherdes thereof you require that wee should euen in respect of such decaied distressed times of the church giue you as euident demonstration of our flockes and sheepheardes as may bee giuen thereof in the florishing and peaceable state of the same For there is no reason in requiring that in the decaies and ruines of the Church which accompanieth alwaies the Church in her prosperous and standing estate Besides herein you offer vs the greater wrong in that notwithstanding it be graunted of vs that both perpetuall continuance of the Catholique faith and also some kinde of succession therefore of teachers be necessary alwaies for the continuation of the Church yet you cannot but knowe especially seing that prophesie before named that also 2. Thes 2. must bee fulfilled of the church of Christ in respect of some time of her soiourning here on earth that thereupon it followeth not that therefore their succession is visible and demonstrable alwaies in your sence or else wee must yeelde that there were none such For who is so simple but hee is resolued that all men now aliue come by lineall succession from some of Adams children and yet fewe or none can bee found that can rightlie no not the skilfullest harrold of them all deduce their pedagree from thence Must it therefore followe that there hath not alwaies beene for all that a certaine lineall descent if you should thus inferre euery one might laugh at your follie For long processe of time distance of place betwixt some of our progenitours and vs lacke of Cronicles or the neglect of such genealogyes in them alterations of names and countries and diuerse such like things maketh the one not onely hard but for the most part impossible and yet no man doubteth of the certainty of the other Euen so in this our present question most certaine it is there haue alwaies beene both flockes sheepherdes to continue both the trueth Christes church For that wee graunt is necessarie but yet through continuance of time force of your Antichristian persecution distance perhaps of the flockes and sheepeheards in place from vs that God in some ages vnder your tyranny hath vsed to continue his church by and lacke of faithfull and carefull writers to cronicle such matters especially your wouluish and foxy sheepheardes beeing alwaies watchfull and mindefull to their vttermost either to blot out their memories quite in not
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
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
before vs agreeing in vnitie of faith as I haue already said For neither the naughtines of h There is no such there mentioned this is your common hap in your quotations It seemes you would haue said 2. Kings 16. Achas Num. 1. nor of Ioram nor of diuerse other great sinners which are inrolled in the booke of the generation of Iesus Christ were not able to withstand the fulfilling of the promise of God made to Abraham that is to saie that he would be borne of this line Euen so the ill liues and conuersation of diuerse wicked Popes that haue followed after Saint Peter haue neuer beene a This is true and yet you neuer the nearer For though al Papists faile in faith yet his church neuer faileth able to moue Christ to breake his promise that is to saie that the faith of his Church should neuer faile Math. 16. and that the gates of hell that is to saie of infidelity which are the portes of damnation should neuer preuaile against it b I see not how that chapter or any thing therein serueth to this purpose any whit at all Esay 58. Our aduersaries therefore that take such great paines to set forth in golden legends the liues of the wicked Popes that haue beene since Saint Peters time thinking thereby to ouerthrowe the succession of the Catholicke ecclesiasticall faith c Your comparison is odiou◠neither doe wee lay open their wicked liues to that ende you speake of but to shew that your glory is your shame doe no lesse offend God then if they should go about to proue the promise of God made to the Patriarches to bee vaine because of the evill liues of their successours Therefore those that doe reproche vnto vs now that the Popes of our daies are not altogither so holie as S. Peter wee doe confesse it But they cannot deny or they will confesse vnto vs that the aboue named euil Kings Achaz Ioram Manasses Amon Iechonias and others did leade no such holy liues as Abraham Isaac Iacob or Dauid yet notwithstanding those euil Kings haue beene set forth in the generation of our Sauiour as the fathers of the iust Iesus Christ Let them iudge then that haue any witte whether this bee a great folly or no to see how these crafty coggers of the scriptures should make many simple persons refuse to be the Popes spirituall children because they were sinners seeking thereby to ouerthrow all the ancient customes of the Church The VII Chapter WHither onely your succession doeth suffice to ouerthrow all our Religion or any part of it though you here confidently say it is and suppose that to be the cause why we reiect it I refer to the iudgement of the reader by that which hitherto hath beene saied by you and confuted by me concerning the same Whereby also I doubt not but euery indifferent reader may perceiue that we haue and doe still yeelde other causes of our reiection of it and not this at all Whereas you call our Religion here heresie that you haue learned of the corrupt Orator Tertullus Act. 24. But as he tearmeth poore Paul there a captaine of the Sect or heresie of the Nazarites and the high Priest and elders saied it was euen so yet hee was not ashamed of the Gospell of Christ which they so tearmed but stoutly saied before Felix to their faces that according to that way which they counted heresie he worshipped the God of his fathers beleeuing all that was writē in the law the Prophets so though you giue vs neuer so many nicknames and tearme our Religion neuer so oft new and an heresie and haue your high Priest of Rome and your elders to bear you out in so doing we neuer a whit the more mislike of our Religion as long as wee are able in trueth to say with Saint Paul which our consciences witnesse comfortably we may that therein we doe but beleeue that which is taught vs in the canonicall Scriptures Indeede not Caluin only but euery one of vs when we haue to doe with you in this question of your succession we tell you your reason drawen frō your succession is of no force seeing the Greekes whom you account heretiques may vse that argument as well as you But to preuent this our obiection against your argument of succession you say They haue not succession and continuance of doctrine the which ought euer to be ioyned to the continuāce of pastors to shew the true recognisance of the Catholique Religion We are glad to see heare that euidence force of trueth hath wrong frō you this kinde of honest true replie to our obiection yet we thanke you not for it at all For ful gladly if our obiections had not driuen you to it perforce would you haue run on which bare succession of Bishops pastours without any mention of this Well howsoeuer you haue beene drawen to confesse thus much thereupon it doeth most euidently followe that if there be as little continuance lesse too in the Apostolicke faith and doctrine in your succession as there is amongst the Greekes then by your owne confession your succession is as weake a recognisance of the Catholique Religion as theirs And therefore the case thus standing you had neede to haue bestowed lesse paines to proue your personall succession and more to haue proued this succession and continuance of the true Catholicke doctrine for the other wtout this you see is nothing What a preposterous course is this then that you haue takē to take such leasure to bestow pains on that which when you haue gotten is nothing to find no leasure to bestow any paines on this which if you could haue proued your aduersaries would haue stoode with you no longer Enter yet into this controuersie when you will I dare vndertake if you will be tried in this case by the canonicall scriptures which as I haue shewed you must of necessity it shall easily be proued that notwithstanding all you can say against the Greekes your popish Religion consisteth of more heresies and is a greater Apostasie from the ancient Catholique Apostolique faith then theirs The greatest thing you charge thē withall is their denying of the proceeding of the holy ghost from the Father the Sonne which indeede if they denied in that sence that is obiected against them by you doubtles therin they were heretiques But it should seeme that they refuse only that word as not vnderstood of thē added as they say without the consent of the whole church to the creede of feare onely least by admitting the word they should thereby be enforced to cōfesse that he came not of one beginning but of two beginnings in the meane time vsing other words expressing in effect the same thing And if it be thus as in the last session of the Florētine councell it should seeme to be els where thē in that respect their cause is not so ill as
ouer all Christendome were not vacant they did not for their debates let to administer the precious body of Iesus and the rest of the Sacramentes to preach and teach the people doing manie other godly deedes d This is notoriously false as the stories witnes at sundry times when there were two or three Popes together each hauing his faction and one banning the other And to be briefe the Ciuill dissention at Rome did not cause the rest of the people throughout Christendome to breake the vnitie of their faith which they held before their discordes The ambition of the Popes of Rome was in nothing preiudiciall vnto those that helde the integritie of their faith nor through the reason of their ill gouernance our Sauiour Christ did not lose his rightful inheritance The VIII Chapter THat which is further alleadged in this Chapter to proue that Scribes and Pharisies must be heard and obeyed sitting in Moises chaire notwithstanding their ill liues doeth nothing at all serue to proue that your lewd Popes were to be heard and obeyed For to sit in Moises chaire is not as you imagine to succeed him in place or office but in teaching the trueth as he did and so your wicked Popes that we speake against neuer sate in Moises chaire nor in the Chaire of any Apostle or Apostolique man but in the Chaire seate in respect of their doctrine of the whore of Babylō But by that you afterwards remember of Caiphas Balaams prophecies it should seeme you were of opinion that to preach and to holde the trueth is inseperable from your Popes Chaire and office and that therefore it may not be imagined but that how lewd soeuer they were they could not but prophecy teach the trueth because these in the places by you mentioned notwithstanding they were lewde men did Indeed very fitly might your Popes these many yeares be cōpared vnto these two they resemble the one so fitly in crucifying Christ againe in his mēbers and the other in seeking to curse the people of God for filthy lucre But that vpon these particuler facts of theirs it should follow as therupon you would seeme to infer that least the Harmony of the misticall body of Christ should be brokē God alwaies hath guided the mouthes of your Popes so that they could not erre in iudgement I see no reason at al. For out of particuler facts rare vncertaine you cōclude a general and constant rule Doeth it folow thinke you Pilates wife learned by her dreame that Christ was innocēt therfore womēs dreams are alwaies true Daniel a young childe found out the vnrighteous iudgement of the iudges therefore young children alwaies shall be able to doe the like Or to cōe to your own exāples doth it follow that because Caiphas Balaā prophecied right therfore neither they themselues at other times could erre nor any of that office The Scripture testifieth the cōtrary For the same Caiphas iudicially pronoūced our sauiour to be a blasphemer Mat. 26. Paul Act. 23. chargeth Ananias sitting there iudicially as hie priest as he had iust cause to giue iudgmēt cōtrary to the law in cōmāding him to be smittē And howsoeuer Balaā the false prophet prophecied there wel it is euident by the text that it was sore against his will and that it came to passe by Gods especial power in guiding bridling his tongue And yet it appeareth after that the same Balaā by his wicked counsaile was cause of that trespasse cōcerning Peor Nūb. 31. and you may read 1. King 22. that 400. false prophets prophecied vntruly to Ahab I doubt not but God when it pleaseth him can cause your Popes as he caused these how wicked soeuer to speake the trueth For Iudas after he had betrayed his master yet before he hanged himselfe iustified his master and the Deuils thēselues oftentimes in the Gospel acknowledge Christ aright to be the son of God but thereupon it followeth not because he can doe it that therefore he wil do it alwaies hath nay rather that which is prophesied 2. Thess 2. is verified in your Popes because they receiued not the loue of the trueth therefore God sent thē strong delusiōs that they should beleeue lies for according to this faith they haue spoken O what horrible intollerable blasphemy did your hart cōceiue your pen to your perpetual infamy vtter when vpon occasion of Caiphas prophecy vttered by him either not woting what he saied or rather as Cyril in his 8. booke vpō Iohn Chap. 3. noteth hauing a malitious purpose thereby to persuade the Iews that it was expedient to put Christ to death least the whole nation should bee destroied by the Romans you doe set downe these words that Christ did confirme his pontificate with the gifte of prophecy with the which hee was as fully inspired as Dauid Esay or any of the rest O what iniury in these wordes haue you done to those holy prophets and to the Spirit of God in them as thus to match them with this cursed hell-hounde Wee must holde that they were indued with the Spirit in such measure as that in their writings and sayings wee must be sure they did not erre or els the ground of our faith which is their writinges is shaken whereas this wretch euen the same yeare as I haue shewed you pronounced Christ to bee a blasphemer and therefore most deuilishly erred And indeede hee was wholy destitute of the Spirit of God not onely then but euen in this also for as I noted before out of Cyrill he in vttering of those words had a deuilish meaning and intent though God by his secret power so ordered his speech as that his wordes might also cary this sence that it was expedient that Christ should die for the saluation of man as there also the same Cyrill obserueth And therefore for this he is no more to be saied to haue had the Spirit of trueth to direct him then you may say the deuils and Iudas had that I spoke of before Why then doeth S. Iohn vpon these wordes of his giue this note that he was high Priest that yeare because it pleased God so to tēper his wordes vnware to him that whereas he spake to hasten the death of our sauiour his word sounded that the people should vtterly perish without the death of Christ which was most true but not his meaning By this monstrous comparison of yours we may learne that it is no marueile that you that durst make this beastly comparison dare compare your pastours and Bishops how wicked soeuer both for life and iudgement in Religion which the ancient true pastours of Christs Church Yet hereby you haue taught vs to trust your lofty and swelling comparisons the worse as long as we liue You striue with your owne shadow in labouring to proue that the effect or fruite of the ministry of the word and sacraments dependeth not vpon the life of the minister For it is a
wil he deny before his father in heauē And S. Paul doth saie Ro. 10. f And so haue ours all wayes in due time and place though to the losse of thousands of their liues done that with the hart one doth beleeue to iustice with the mouth one must cōfes to saluatiō g This is but your cuckowes song conteining neither trueth nor honesty But to saie the truth your religiō was not thē foūd out the Grādfathers great Grandfathers of Caluin had neuer dreāpt of the heresies that now their reformed childe hath set so newly abroach And therefore thinke it not strange if that those people that are not light headed send you to preach in new found landes as one that hath here at home giuen manifestlie iudgement against himselfe h Are you not ashamed to ly so impudently and to reason so foolishly confessing as wee haue alleadged aboue that the Church of God hath vsed the imposition of hands yours hath not done so and therefore it doeth follow that it is not of God that that doeth follow consequentlie is that it is of the deuil For we know that you allow i Neither would you but that your belly is your God and that you mind earthly things vnto which purposes that doctrine serueth you fitly no purgatorie I mean no meane betwene thē both The XIIII Chapter HOw you haue answered Caluin and proued your vocation to be of God by that which now the reader hath heard both parts say let him iudge Our answere to the like demande I haue giuē you Chap. 9. when you first called for it But hauing demanded this now againe of vs insteed of pursuing your demād as one that had streight forgotten what you saied you are in hand againe with our saying to your charge your popes bishops il liues with twise or thrise you were in hād wtal before where you haue your ful answer Herein you say in railing you giue vs the preeminēce but you do so but in words for indeed trueth as al your late books fraught with nothing more then this kinde of Rhetoricke to bring the seruants of God vniustly into hatred doe proue none cā go beyond you herein And as for that which we say of your Popes bishops your own storie-writers and manifest experience doe iustifie to be true therfore cānot iustly be coūted railing But you find fault with vs that hauing writē the lewd liues of your bishops Popes on the one side of the leafe we set not down on the other side in the meane time the succession of those good ones that we had This law you nether haue nor cā alwaies obserue your selfe For though you haue had many good Popes bishops yet a great while your good ones haue bene as hard to finde as cole-black swans And yet you please your selfe and your frends that take pleasure in your giving scoffing in asking vs when your Popes behaued thēselues il at Rome who were the holy doctors at Geneua whē your doctors preached against God vnder what signe our ministers lodged al this kind of Rhetorick of yours is groūded vpō a false principle namely that the Church and ministers thereof haue bene alwaies must be so visible as that in al times demonstration may be made thereof cōtrary to these often alleadged prophecies 2. Thess 2. Reu. 12. 17. And the thing that deceiueth you nourisheth in you this errour is that you expoūd the places of scripture which are vttered concerning the continuāce spiritual beauty of the church of the elect the true heauenly Hierusalē spouse of Christ as spokē of the cōtinuance of particuler Churches or of the outward order state of the Church militant onely and that you either wilfully or otherwise cannot distinguish betwixt the being and continuing of the Church and her pastors and the maner of their being and cōtinuing and so you construe those places that proue her being and their continuing as though therupō followed your maner of visible and apparent being also as though there were no being or continuing of the Church but in your maner Whereas in Israel in Ahabs time you haue heard both the Church and ministers therof ther continued in that euen in that kingdōe Obadiah had hid 100 prophets and God had reserued vnto himselfe 7000. that had not bowed their knees to Baal yet not in your maner For Eliah was not able to make such demonstration thereof who they were and where they were as you require of vs for he thought himselfe alone 1. King 18. 19. O but you very like a diuine proue out of Mat. 10. Ro. 10. because Christ hath saied him that denieth me before mē wil I deny before my heauenly father and Paul requireth aswel confession with the mouth to saluation as beleife with the hart to iustification that therefore they could not be faithful beleeuers because they did hide themselues As though euery one were a denier of Christ that hideth himselfe frō the fury of the persecutour Or as though none confesse with their mouth to saluation that so hide themselues What think you then of the 100 prophetes before named And of Eliah himselfe who as it appeareth in those places hid themselues from Ahab and Iesebels furie Haue you forgotten that the same Christ saieth in the same Chap to his Apostles If they persecute you in one City flie to another And that the same Paul himselfe did sundry times by hiding himselfe from the hands of his persecutours saue his life As you may read Act. 17. and elswhere Who though he were assured in a vision by reuelation from God that with safety of life hee should come to testifie of Christ and his Gospel at Rome yet refused not al good and lawful means to haue himselfe conueied away and so to escape the hands of his bloudy persecutors the Iewes which had solemnly boūd thēselues with an oath that they would neither eat nor drinke til they had killed him Act. 23.11.12 Your diuinity is not so simple I thinke but that you vnderstand that as long as a Christian carieth that minde and purpose that wheresoeuer he is he will be ready boldly to yeeld a sound confession of his faith and therefore when he is called thereunto and iustly occasioned is ready to perfourme that purpose of his and doeth it indeed that man cannot bee saied to deny Christ or not to confesse him with his mouth though by flying and hiding himselfe as long as he may lawfully he seeke to keepe himselfe for the further good of Gods Church out of the handes of his persecutours And therefore you were much to blame by thus wresting of these places of Scriptures to seeke to abuse your Reader But our Religion you say was not found out then and Caluins great grandfather had not once dreamed of his Religion and therefore no maruell though they could not be found that were the
of his trueth out of his written word to call you from this newe found pretended religion of yours to the ancient and true catholicke faith which we haue learned out of the scriptures and of alsound antiquity you not onely burst out into this vaine and monstrously false brags of the antiquity of yours and nouelty of ours but also knowing in your own consciences that your folly therein wil soone be descried you cal then for miracles to confirme and warrant this our commission by which you would faine proue to be as necessarie for vs in this case as it was for Moses in his time thereby to confirme his Wherunto I say as vpon the like occasion S. Augustine said in his time de ciuitate Dei l. 22. c. 8. Whosoeuer yet seeketh after miracles that so he may beleeue he himselfe is a mōstrous miracle who the world beleeuing yet beleeues not For if our doctrine be the same that the Apostles taught as we are alwaies ready and by GODS grace able to proue it to be by the vndoubted woord of God then their miracles are so many seales of this our doctrine and so it beeing thereby sufficiently confirmed already by miracles needles is it to require any further confirmation thereof now by new miracles againe But you seeme to take it for granted that we stand either very much or altogither vpon the extraordinarines of our vocation and therfore supposing that such a vocation must alwaies be confirmed by miracles you call for them the rather thus earnestly at our hands Concerning which point I haue tolde you already that though in such ruins of the church as you had brought it vnto it bee no strange thing with God to stir vp men extraordinarily to seeke the reformation thereof as he did many of the Prophets yet neither the first ministers which in these later daies he hath vsed to this end amongst vs nor those that he hath vsed since to go on with that which the others began rely onely vpon an extraordinary calling for as I haue shewed both the one and the other haue had outward ordinary calling Besides you must vnderstand that a man may haue an extraordinary calling as had Nahū Abdia diuers other of the prophets who yet you cannot shew euer wrought any miracles to confirme their calling withal And to vse Chrysostomes words which he vsed against such as you in that commentary vpon Matth. Hom. 47. which you father vpon him what miracle wrought Iohn Baptist which instructed so many and great Cities For the Euangelist saieth he wrought none Iohn 10. And yet who therefore may lawfully say that he had no lawfull vocation or good commission Againe you know by that which is writen Deut. 13. 2. Thes 2. and elswhere that false prophets yea Antichrist himselfe may and shal seeke to seduce men and to draw men from God by miracles therefore there God forwarneth his people thereof that if notwithstanding they suffer themselues the rather to be peruerted thereby they may be voide of al excuse Wherefore seeing there haue bene sundry true prophets extraordinarily called that yet haue wrought no miracles and also many false prophets that haue wrought them and may doe agayne to what purpose should you thus call for miracles as though they straight might lawfully be refused that worke them not and they safely alwayes followed that doe them Howsoeuer you seeme to pretend that if we should worke miracles you would beleeue vs yet certayne it is that if we should worke neuer so many you would as little for all that beleeue vs as the blinde and superstitious Iewes beleeued Christ and his Apostles for all the myracles wrought by them but this is onely a shift of yours as long as you may to dazell the eyes of the simple For questionles if myracles would serue the turne beside sundry miracles indeede which the stories doe testifie haue beene wrought by God in the protection and propagation of the religiō which we now professe euē this is a miracle of miracles that Luther lyuing in such a time as he did should doe as he did to so great effect wtout miracle yet in the end maugre al his enemies which were many mighty to die quietly as he did in his bed So that al these things considered it appeareth I hope sufficiētly to the indifferent reader that you haue no such aduantage against vs for miracles and you pretend But because your obiectiō in this behalfe is so egerly prosecuted by you I wil not refuse to follow you frō step to step to yeeld you a more particuler āswer to whatsoeuer you haue sayed in this matter First therefore whereas you would insinuate to your reader that we doe wrong in comparing the misery that the poor people were in vnder your Popes to the misery that the people of Israel were in in Aegipt vnder Pharao their deliuerāce frō the Romish yoke to the deliuerāce of that people frō the bōdage of Aegypt we graūt you we make that comparison sometimes we are sure that therein there is offred no wrong at al vnto you For both in vniuersality continuannce of time and extremity both to soule bodie the slauery vnder your proud antichristian Popes hath exceeded theirs vnder Pharao in Aegypt and consequently the deliuerance of the people from that of yours must needes beeing as it is both more spiritual and general then that of theirs was much exceed that of theirs But that therefore it is as necessary that wee should anew work miracles to confirme our vocation to doe this as it was for Moses to confirme his calling to doe the other thereby therin you are both deceiued seeke also to deceiue others For Moses by God was shewed that he should so confirme his and so are not we that we shal or ought so to confirme ours and his calling thereunto was not onely extraordinary whereas ours in great part at least as I haue shewed hath bene to this ordinary but also the thing it selfe and the means to bring it to passe both in the eies of Pharao al others were strange miraculous wheras in this our case in delyuering mē frō your antichristiā seruitude bringing thē to the liberty freedome purchased for thē by the bloud of Christ by the preaching of the worde of God sincerely ministring his sacraments accordingly both are wōted ordinary For what is more ordinary with God then to bring mē frō error to trueth that by these means in his church The thing that Moses was sent to doe was a new strange thing for a man of his quality wtout force of war weapons to deliuer so great gainful a people out of the hands of such an hard hearted tyrāt it is wōderful therfore it was likewise necessary that the means that he should effect that by especially should be miracles Finally there was no certainer way for Moses hauing to
to the same Psal 119. you must also remember that it is writeÌ„ Wo to him that calleth good euil Esa 5. striue to enter in at the streite gate Luk 13. Al this notwithstanding in your opinion we are like to a false merchant pretending to be the Princes seruant in his masters name demaÌ„ding mony of his debtters hauing neither his haÌ„d nor seale to warraÌ„t his demaÌ„d and all this you say would perswade to be true because we worke no miracles as the Apostles did I deny your argument for we haue our Lord masters hand and seale in his writen word in that therby our doctrin is taught as it appears therby is sealed both by miracles with the pretious bloud of our lord sauiour yea but say you if yee be the Apostles successours in preaching this doctrine why doe ye not confirme your doctrine with signes and wonders and say with the Apostle Paul 2. Corinth 12. the signes of our Apostleship haue beene accomplished amongst you with signes and miracles Hereunto I answere that then it was necessarie for them so to doe and yet now it is not likewise for vs because then for the newnesse and strangenes of diuerse things incident to their ministrie miracles for the first confirmation thereof for a time were necessary whereas now we taking vpon vs only to preach the same doctrine as we doe it being then thereby sufficiently confirmed it is needles now to confirme it againe thereby The XVIII Chapter YOu a And so we may still for any reason that you doe shew to the contrary doe answer vs as the Iewes were answered by Christ when they did demande him to shew some miracles * Mat. 12. The generation adulterous peruerse doeth demaund signes but no signe shal be giuen them c. But this comparison cannot bee applied vnto vs for we are not so hard of beliefe as the Iewes nor you such faithfull messengers of God as Christ was of whom the Iewes did demande some signes of obstinate hatred after they had seene so manie lame healed so manie blinde receiue their sight so manie deafe heare and so manie dispossest that had spirites but as for you b The power of our commission hath stretched so farre as to the harts griefe of al your Synagogue your Romish Babylon is so falne that ye eueÌ„ despaire of euer recouering the glorious pompe of your Babylonish harlot againe we haue seene your coÌ„mission not to haue extended so far as to restore a flie to life againe or to heale a lame goose although that greater matters are required to confirme so strange and so new a reformed Gospell These wordes doe make you mad crying out and preaching in euerie place that your church ought c We say and preach thus and we are well able to stand to it not to be called newe but rather that it is olde Apostolicall that your doctrine is the very same that S. Peter S. Paul did preach And to drawe the simple people to beleeue that that you say you doe declare your faith saying that you doe beleeue doe preach that there is one God in Trinitie of persons and the second which is our sauiour became man from the wombe of the virgin and that he suffered and did rise againe to be briefe you shew that you haue profited in your Religion for you haue beene but fortie yeares which is the time since it began in learning the great creede the Pater noster the which you could not learne in a thousand and fiue huÌ„dred of ours But in all this you say nothing to the purpose for we doe not demaÌ„de of you whether you can well your Catechisme d If we had had no better catechisers then you we should neuer aright haue vnderstoode either Creed the Lords praier or the coÌ„mandements the which you hauing learned of vs you teach to others And as Sampson saied Iud. 15. If you had not laboured with my cowe ye would neuer haue hit my riddle That is to saie that if that our Church had not nursed or taught you which are her rebellious children you would haue knowen nothing for it is of our Church that you haue learned the principles of your faith e Howsoeuer these had tâ—â—ir bringing vp and maintenance for a time amongst you they had their learning true knowledge no more froÌ„ you then Paul had of the Pharises She is the Cowe that hath nourished Caluin in a Canonrie of Noyon Theodore de Beza in the Priorie of Louinnam hard by Paris and consequentlie all the other ministers which haue learned all that they know at the conuent of S. Francis S. Dominick S. Augustine and of S. Bennet where ye were nourished spirituallie as touching your doctrine and temporallie as touching the mainteining of your studie at the charge of that church against the which ye doe now so striue f These others haue sought to be thankful to you for these things as Paul sought to be thankfull for the like to the Pharisees and Iews in seeking their reformation and conuersion as the camels which sometime reward their masters for their good keeping with yerking biting so that colour it how you list ye cannot deny but that ye set forth new deuises For although it is so that your heresies which to please the eares of the vnlearned yee call the reformed Gospell pure word of God haue beene in times past g This is but your spitefull vaine of popish railing without either trueth honesty or reasoÌ„ yet they were buried in the verie depth of hell you haue raised them againe cloked with new colours But although it were so that your doctrine were not new but verie olde h If either our office or errand were extraordinary you say somewhat but both being ordidinary there is no like reason that miracles should bee wrought by vs as by them yet ought not you to be more priuiledged then Moses and the Prophets whose simple and plaine wordes the world would not beleeue although they preached no new doctrine no more then you saie that you doe Moses did shew manie miracles in Egypt and why was the principall cause to deliuer the children of Israell out of the captiuitie of Pharao No surelie for to what purpose I praie you should God shew such great power and might against a simple worme of earth Is it like to be true that he should mooue the whole heauens with such great darkenesse * i Exod. 19. to sende so manie notable plagues to bring him to yeelde which had confessed his wickednesse for the torment that he suffered with the flies the frogs and Grashoppers Surelie no he himselfe doeth shew the cause it is to the end that my name be knowen ouer all the earth that is to saie that men should know that he is God If we come to the Apostles wee shall finde likewise that
by the Scripture ill vnderstood for * Mat. 10. 16. our Sauiour doth say that for to be his disciples we must forsake and renounce all that we haue in testimony of the which the first Christians at Ierusalem did sell all their possessions and presented the money of them to the Apostles to giue to the poore And that that is worse the Adamites did maintaine a greater errour then this and more brutish the which is that al mens wiues should be common and they did cal this the true Gospel and the pure word of God alleaging for it the first and eight of Genelis where God doeth say Increase and multiplie and replenish the earth If you doe say that this is a foolish opinion I confesse it to be so but that i This is false that Church condemneth popery for this heresie Zisca Hus and their followers coÌ„demned before you very Church which hath condemned this heresie of theirs doeth likewise condemne yours When the deuill determined to fight with Christ he thought he could no wise aide himselfe so wel as with the holy scripture perswading him that the best way for him to shew himselfe to be the sonne of God was to breake his necke casting himselfe downe from the pinnacle of the Temple And he did alleadge this text saying * Psal 90. as it is writen That the Angels of God should so preserue him that he should not hurt his foote against the stones following that Dauid saied And if I should go about to write al the places of Scripture that the heretikes haue alleaged to maintaine their horrible errours I thinke surely I might make a bigger booke then the Bible The XXIII Chapter YF a O you are your crafts master a man may see in wrong alleaging the Scriptures that the sonne doe hate the father or the father the sonne or if the wife doe hate the husband or the husband the wife they may take the word of God ill vnderstood to defend their cause for he doeth commaunde vs that we shall hate those that are nearest vnto vs as vnder the paine of not entring into Paradise if we doe contrarie But this ought to be vnderstoode that we ought not to prefer the loue of anie creature how neare soeuer they be to vs before the loue of God In like maner he that will saie that we should not eat of the bloud of those beasts that are smoothered he may soone alleadge the scripture for it which doeth saie that at the couÌ„cel that the Apostles held at HierusaleÌ„ beeing present the holie Ghost this ordinance was made as we read in the. 15. Chapter of the Actes And if that one should take in hand to bring al the places of scripture that the heretikes haue alleaged to maintaine their opinions I dare boldlie saie that he shal finde it an endlesse piece of worke For among so great a number of false Prophets there hath bene verie few or almost none but they haue sought to maintaine their opinions by Scripture drawing the places as it were by violence to a depraued and a corrupt sense beeing this the maner of interpreting of the Scriptures called at this daie the pure word of God by those that haue professed to be as long as they liue enemies to the trueth a You should haue saied in his first come 2 booke The learned and auncient Doctour Epiphanius in his first booke against heresies doeth alleage as touching this matter a verie familiar example saying that if some good Caruer had made the image of a king adorned with manie Iewels and precious stones and that another should come afterward and should take the same Iewels and precious stones and make vvith them the image of a Fox or a Dogge and that he should saie beholde here is the Image of a king would not euerie bodie laugh him to scorne and saie that he did it in mockerie or els that he were mad Yes surelie for although they bee the same Iewels and that verie stuffe wherewith was made the Image of the king yet because that this other vvorkeman hath taken them awaie and fashioned them after another sorte it ought no more to bee called the image of a king but the picture of a Fox or a Dogge Euen thus is it vvith the holie Scriptures vvhich were left vs by the Apostles and Prophetes for to paint in rich colours the Image of the great king of glorie b This is euen your owâ—e dealing with the scripture vp downe when you would confirme Popery therewith but seeing that you take those precious stones from the image of this king and doe appropriate them vnto the Image of a Foxe making them serue to cloake your heresies vvithal it ought no more to be called the worde of God nor the holie Scripture but the word of men false doctrine And therefore if you vvill haue it to beare the first name you must set it in the first estate that is to saie c This is certaine and therefore scripture trust interpret scripture and not your Romish spirit that it ought to be interpreted by him that did first indite it It is not by the will of man saieth S. Peter Epist 2. Ca. 1. That the prophecy was brought but by the inspiration of the holy Ghost that holie persons haue spoken c. I know wel that you attribute the intelligence of the scripture vnto your Sinagogue d This we doe not take vpoÌ„ vs. But how shal we beleeue that the holy Ghost doeth dwel more in you theÌ„ in al the vniuersal Church which hath continued froÌ„ the passion of Christ vntil this time I pray doe so much as answere me if you my masters be the lodging of the holie Ghost e Whither our alleaging of theÌ„ agree or not with the holie Ghost it selfe speaking in the scriptures we are contented to let alwaies the true Church of Christ iudge where did he make his residence before ye were borne I know already your answer the which is In the hearts of the faithful And where were those faithful Marie where the holy Ghost was Answer thus stil ye shal be sure that ye shal not be ouertakeÌ„ for it is as good as to play Handie dandie soye shal accomplish the olde Prouerbe the which sayeth It is as farre from Douer to Caleis as from Caleis to Douer But to the ende that all the world maie see the great hazarde of eternal damnation that those run into that are so readie to beleeue euerie bodie thinking that they are assured of their health forasmuch as those that seduce them saie behold there is the scripture it is the pure word of God the verie gospel I wil set forth some heresies that haue beene in times past condemned by the catholicke Church the which notwithstaÌ„ding haue bene a This you can neuer doe aswel yea more largelie confirmed by Scripture then you can confirme anie of yours
and thinking it needefull our selues before we take vpon vs to interprete them to aske wisedome of God and that hartelie and faithfully that we may wisely truely and sincerely open them vnto the people we know and saie with Basil 2. libro contra Eunomium that the word of God is not in the sound and words of the scripture but in the sense and with Hierom vpon the first Chapter of the epistle to the Galathians wee are readie alwaies to acknowledge that the gospell lies not in the words of the scripture but in the sense not in the outward shew but in theinward marow not in the leaues of speech but in the root of reason Now this sound sence of the scripture we take onely to be that which the authour thereof thereby intended for the better finding out whereof after inuocation and praier vnto God for the direction of his spirit to leade vs aright thereunto wee thinke it very necessarie that no good meanes that we can haue vse of be omitted And therefore to this ende we labour for the knowledge of tongues and artes we consider of the phrase of all the circumstances haue before our eies the manifest agreed on summe of Christian faith and good maners confer place with place diligently reade the writings both of ancient writers and newe and that we resolue to be the true since which we finde stands best with the lawfull and good vse of all these In alleadging of them this course we take to make it appeare that by the sound rules of interpreting the scriptures they are rightly cited by vs wee stand not therefore vpon the bare and onely cyting of them howsoeuer that be as you would insinuate but vpon the right and sound alleadging thereof which you can neuer proue is common to vs with other heretiques For howsoeuer they and you ioyne with vs in often alleadging the Scriptures for your defence yet neither they nor you ioyne with vs in right alleadging of them in that you and they alleadge them for the maintenance of your errours and heresies contrary to the true sence thereof and the sound rules of interpreting of them and we according to the true sence of the Catholicke church standing well with those rules to confirme the Catholicke faith And yet as I saied to this ende serueth what soeuer you haue writen in this Chapter and in three or foure moe following namely to proue that the deuill heretiques and others as you write haue by wresting wrong interpreting the scriptures alwaies laboured to countenāce their heresies This we graunt to be most true you see yet thereby you haue gained nothing against vs. For we stand still vpon this may doe for all this that if we haue the Scriptures indeede in true sence on our side thereby we and our doings are so sufficiently iustified as that we neede no further iustification These fiue Chapters as they tend to the proofe of one and selfe-same matter so haue I thought good ioyntly to frame an answere to them togither Be it graunted therefore vnto you that all these heretiques as you haue writen and reported of them alleadged the Scripture and consequently as hereupon you inferre cap. 26. that one may see how the ill disposed may alleage scripture in a corrupt sence to maintaine such heresie as these To what ende haue you done all this It appeareth chap. 22. you entered first into this discourse to proue that though we haue the scripture on our side which we alleadge yet we are not therby sufficiently defended and now hereupon onely you would inferre conclude that a man may see how the ill disposed may alleadge Scripture in a corrupt sence to confirme such heresies as these which we graunt to be most euident and yet it remaineth vndisproued that if we haue the Scripture which we alleadge on our side we are thereby sufficiētly defended For none of these nor any that alleadged Scripture as they did though they alleadge the words of the scripture haue the scripture indeede on their sides because if a man haue not the true sence thereof on his side he hath not the scripture indeede and trueth on his side But perhaps you will say that you intended onely in this discourse this cōclusion that you haue gathered thereupon set downe in the beginning of your 26. Chapter then say I you made an obiection against your selues in our name cap. 22. which you thought to heauy harde for you therefore you thought good thus to slip frō it by and by againe For you were neuer so simple as to thinke that we were of that opinion that we accounted our selues to haue those scriptures which wee alleadged on our side to iustifie vs our doctrine euē for the bare alleadging of the words how far soeuer we were from the true meaning But you beginne in your 26. to tell vs what further meaning you haue had therein as namely hereby to warne the simple people that they should not giue eare vnto false pastours that haue nothing in their mouthes but the scripture the pure word of God And hereupon you take occasion most earnestly to perswade those that are not much vsed to reade the Scriptures nor to heare how the church the doctours doe expoūd the hard places to beware how they reade thē for fear of falling into errour Indeede as long as you would haue them hereby onely to take heede of rash crediting false pastours which would countenance their damnable doctrine with such allegations I like well and allow of your warning hereupon giuen against such but then I can assure you this withall that rather your Popes Bishops pastours will be found these false pastours then they whom you meane I like also very well that not only such as you speake of but further that men of all sorts how much soeuer exercised in the reading of the scriptures or acquainted with the exposition of the Church or doctours should be at all times wary and carefull in reading of the Scriptures in what sence they take them For I graunt as you inferre that if so many men of great learning haue so dangerouslie mistaken them it is possible enough that men that haue little skill or none at all may as dangerously misunderstande them But yet vpon these wordes either to discourage the pastour from countenancing and defending his true doctrine by the Scriptures pure word of God or to discourage the simple people from reading and studying the Scriptures which I feare herein was your secrete purpose though for shame you durst not plainely set it downe I tell you is deuilish and Antichristian For though it be true that the deuill for wicked purpose as you note in you twenty two Chapter alleadged scripture to Christ Mat. 4. out of Psal 91. and all these heretiques alleadged scripture for the countenancing of their damnable heresies yet that droue not Christ nor true Christians from alleadging the scriptures to
disgrace Canus may tearme them a dead iudge which can neither heare nor speake in his Chapter booke before named in like sorte others in the following of this comparison with your good allowance shall may call them incken diuinity what else they list as we ofteÌ„ haue shewed you and them the onely rest vpon them scripture men or men whose Religion and diuinity lieth in rags skins of beasts because of such things the bookes are made wherein they are conteined Many beastly blasphemous speeches and assertions thus tending to the disgrace of the Canonicall scriptures any man that list may finde LyndaÌ„s three first bookes of his panoply Hosius booke de expresso Dei verbo his triple dialogue Cusans 2. Epist ad Bohemos 7. Andradius Florebellê° Priereas almost all your famous writers of these later daies euery where full oft where they haue any occasion to weaken those arguments that we vse against you either for that you are in your positions wherein we dissent froÌ„ you without warrant of scripture or that they are contrary to scripture And wheÌ„ we vrge you that of what credit soeuer the tradition of the church be that you so pleade for yet if it be the word of God aswel as the scripture then it must needes be that it agreeth with the scripture is not contrary vnto it for as much as God is alwaies one selfesame and therfore alwaies agreeing with himselfe therefore presse you with that which by the wordes circuÌ„stances of the text of the scripture we are sure is the true sence thereof therfore the vndoubted word of God theÌ„ you euen the greatest of you are driueÌ„ to these poore base shifts to cry out with Cardinal Hosius in his 4. booke against BreÌ„tius in his booke de expresso Dei verbo before named that scripture as it is alleaged of Catholiques it is the word of God but as it is alleadged of heretiques the expresse word of the Deuill or as he saieth also in the later booke if any haue the expositioÌ„ of the RomaÌ„ church of any place of scripture although he neither knowe nor vnderstand whither how it agreeth with the words of the scripture yet he hath the very word of God And when all comes to all though sometime you would make the pore simple people beleeue that in expounding the scriptures you will follow the vniforme consent of holy fathers and councels yet both this Cardinall Hosius in his triple dialogue and Cardinal Cusan in his 2. Epist ad Bohemos tell vs teach vs plainely to vnderstaÌ„d you that you meane no other sence theÌ„ agreeth with the present practise of the RomaÌ„ church when thaâ— sence is giueÌ„ not once blushing to confesse that according to the variablenes of the fashioÌ„ and practise of that church the scriptures must be vnderstood and therefore Cusan coÌ„mends that obedience that is yeelded thereunto simply without reasoning as the Oxe or Asse obeys his master For whatsoeuer sometimes you talke of Popes not erring of the not erring of generall couÌ„cels or of the authority of the fathers none that haue any thing craueiled in tracing you into your starting holes wheÌ„ otherwise you see you must needs be pinched takeÌ„ to your shaÌ„e but he easily seeth that in trueth none of these no nor all these togither with the scriptures themselues are of any credit and authority with you against the present practise of your RomaÌ„ Church One father or the present Pope if he speake hold with that though all the fathers beside are of another minde thogh neuer so many of his predecessors held otherwise yet farewell they in this case you will and must preferre this one before all the other These things being most true notoriously knowen to all men that with any indifferency haue traueiled in the controuersies betwixt you vs euery one hath cause to see howsoeuer somtimes you would seeme to yeeld some thing to the authority of the scriptures that you are at a flat point that neither they nor any authority els of maÌ„ or men old or new shall or may retaine any sence of force against the present practise and receaued opinioÌ„ of your sinagogue And as loÌ„g as you are at this point whatsoeuer you haue said of heretiques abusing of scripture as though you were the only men that had care rightly to vse them vnderstaÌ„d them euery simple body may see that of all men you are they by the variablenes of your Romish church practise which are most likely to make a nose of waxe and leaden rule both of the letter of the scriptures and sence thereof And therefore whereas in your 23. c. you boldly affirme that to draw the scriptures by violeÌ„ce into a wroÌ„g sence is the maner of interpreting the scriptures called at this day the pure word by those that haue professed as long as they liue to be enemies to the trueth most fitly may be vnderstoode of your selues for you are so in loue with the present practise fashion and opinion of your RomaÌ„ church that though that vary neuer so often euen so ofteÌ„ must the scriptures will they nill they vary and alter their sense Howbeit I am not ignoraÌ„t but that in so writing you meant vs though I am sure you shall neuer be able to proue vs either to haue professed at all any enmity with the truth or so to vse to wrest the scriptures But because this is a matter of great importaÌ„ce and therfore such as caÌ„not be determined either by your yea or our nay it shal not be amisse vpoÌ„ this occasioÌ„ to coÌ„sider what souÌ„d rules of interpreting there be that by the same it may be tried whither your interpreting of the scriptures or ours deserue thus to be called a drawing of the scriptures by violence to a corrupt sence The vniforme consent of doctors you would ofteÌ„ seeme as I haue saied in this case to make reckoning of as of a souÌ„d and Apostolicke rule of interpreting them by but this is but for a fashioÌ„ for you haue giuen vs doe daily manifest proofes that wheÌ„ but one or two against all the rest of theÌ„ hold with your curraÌ„t and present practise of your Roman church that now is that that one or two of them ouer wey with you al the rest And besides if this were a necessary rule then none could be interpreters of the scriptures but those that had all or the most part of the doctours to peruse few or none then ancient doctors writers there haue beene so many their names are so vnknowen to most could be sure when they had the consent of the most and best on their side and so neuer should be sure of the sence and for many places very little or nothing oftentimes haue they writen Though therefore we will not shunne the trial of our interpretations with you by this rule yet we account
the like vnto the aboue named heretickes which haue fortified their caÌ„pe with as manie places more then you doe alleage Now if that notwithstaÌ„ding the scriptures by theÌ„ alleaged you doe condemne theÌ„ as hereticks because that they did interpret theÌ„ coÌ„trary to that that the l Vnderstanding by the Church the true Church that is one of our reasons but that is not al why we reiect them and their maner of alleaging them principally we reiect them because by the plaine euidence of the scriptures we can confute â—hem And to despise the iudgement of the popish Church is not to despise the iudgement of the true Church of Christ church doeth teach to saie trueth you can imagin no other excuse to what purpose doe you take vpon you the names of Catholickes seeing that you commit the like offence The diuersities of those olde heresies grounded vpon the Scriptures ill interpreted doe teach vs that vvee shoulde not permit the noise of your reformed Gospell that soundeth so shrill to make vs reele froÌ„ a Yours is but ancient as Ieroboams religion was when the 10 tribes were brought into captiuity our ancient faith without going so farre to seeke that that we haue so neere at haÌ„d Let vs talke of the present time how manie coÌ„trarie sects doth there raigne How manie heads of heresies b With variety of names you need lesly increase the number as your forfathers were woont to doe with those whoÌ„ they first called Waldenses Some are Lutherans some Anabaptists some PuritaÌ„s some ProtestaÌ„ts some PrecisiaÌ„s all these doe fortifie their caÌ„pes with Scriptures to fight one against another The ZuingliaÌ„s the Caluinists on the other side doe write that al these doe erre and they proue it by Scripture The Anabaptists laugh at al the rest The Prophets Celestes which is another sect doe no lesse grounding themselues vpon their reuelations because that Dauid saieth * Psalm 84. Heare what the Lorde doeth speake in me The Deists or Trinitaries which are come last of al crie out and saie that all they are heretickes and they proue it by the olde and new Testament I praie now tell me which of al these shall I receiue seeing that they doe all alleage the holie Scriptures If we receiue some and not all those that are refused will saie that wee offer them wrong for they haue c This is but your saying still for you shall neuer be able to proue this their shoppes stored with as good stuffe of the scriptures and aswell alleadged as all the rest If we receiue them all it will be a renewing of the olde confusion of Babylon through the neglecting of so manie Gospels If you saie that we ought to follow those that conforme themselues most vnto the pure vvord of God that will come to one ende for if I doe demaunde of you how we shall know which doe conforme themselues most vnto the trueth d Indeade we say and we are not ashamed of it that onely by the assistance direction of the holy Ghost in trying their interpretations by the scriptures it must be discerned who alleâ—geth them best you answere me that it must be done by the grace of the holie Ghost sent by the Lord if with a true heart he is inuocated of the faithful Seeing you know so wel the way how to agree togither how coÌ„meth it to passe that you haue not vsed it this fortie or fiftie yeares which are the precincts of the time since your ancient Church began seeing that you haue assembled so manie times togither e We haue done so and Gods name be praised for it so far we haue obtained our praier that we are able by the light of Gods spirit to discerne who amongst all these and all others amongst whom you papistes are the principall alleages them best with those we holde peace for the rest we morne yet comforting of our selues with this that necessary it is for the trial of the Lords that there be such sects why haue yee not praied vnto the Lorde to sende the spirit of trueth to make peace amongst his Apostles I thinke that you are not so vnshamefast that you will denie the quarels and debates that haue risen among you f The stirre betwixt these two though it hath bene more then should bee yet neither so much hath it bene at least for the followers of Caluin as you woulde seeme nor nothing comparable to the brawlings and furious contentions amongst your selues often I doe not say in light words but in great battailes in railing processes in horrible excoÌ„munications sent from the Churches of the Lutherans vnto the Caluinists froÌ„ the Caluinists vnto the Lutherans as I haue set forth at large in the booke that I made of the Sacrament therefore yee are greatly ouerseene that ye haue not inuocated the spirit of the Lorde as Caluin hath taught you in his Catechisme to the end that you may come to some accorde The XXVII Chapter FIrst here you aske vs whither it be good to beleeue al maner of people that alleage scripture We answere you no but with S. Ioh. 1. Epist 4. We wish all men to trie the spirits whither they be of God or no before they beleeue theÌ„ And we adde further with Iohn in the same place Hereby shall yee knowe the spirit of God Euery spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God and that spirit which confesseth not that is not of God but is the spirit of Antichrist By which wordes wee answere fullie your second demaunde also and giue you a proofe that our spirit is of God and yet neither these heretiques which you name nor yours any better then that spirit of Antichrist which Iohn speaketh of For I am sure you must needs graunt mee if you consider these wordes of Saint Iohn well that hee speaketh here onelie of confessing soundlie and rightly that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh which wee doe as wee are able to proue by the Scriptures truelie alleadged and neither they nor you are able to proue that and therefore this is a plaine proofe that ours is of God and neither yours nor theirs can be They confesse him not aright to be come in the flesh in that one way or other they erred not onelie in the doctrine of his office but also held some heresie or other against the trueth of his person And you confesse him not aright to be come in the flesh because not onely with some of the ancieÌ„t heretiques as namelie the Marcionites for the loue you haue to your fiction of TraÌ„substaÌ„tiation you hold him to haue such flesh as shall for your peeuish pleasures be without all the naturall properties of humane flesh and so a very phantasme and not flesh indeed but also most craftily you take from him that glorious office that the Scripture giueth him and translate it to what you list
of those men then we shall be this other way Seeing therefore Christ tooke this way himselfe both with the deuil himselfe with his chaplaines both to confute their errours erroneous interpretations to confirme the trueth by searching the scriptures and neither he nor his Apostles sent vs either by word or their example to the high Priests then or vnto any other for resolutioÌ„ of the church or trueth this way as the best only way we thinke all ChristiaÌ„s bound to take And in so doing let not any man despaire but that through the goodnes of God he shal be inabled to trie the spirits to discerne who amongst all other alleadge the scriptures soundliest For we see it is the fashion of our God to reueile his trueth and the misteries thereof to those that be his how simple soeuer when he doeth conceale hide them from the great men of the world Mat. 11.1 Cor. 1. But you say If this may and must be atteined by the grace of the holy ghost obteined of the lord by faithfull inuocatioÌ„ of his name how chanceth it that since Luther for no ancienter you say though it be neuer so false our ReligioÌ„ is you haue not obteined that holy ghost to ende your hoat contentions and debates amoÌ„gst your selues that so you might be at vnity yet amoÌ„gst your selues This is spoken as though it must needes follow that either we haue not faithfully praied vnto God for his spirit or els if we haue that then of necessity there neither could be nor would be any difference of opinions and contentions at all amongst vs. If you be of this mind then the manifold differences schismes sects varieties of opinions that haue beene and yet are in your church as I haue noted cap. 4. argueth in your Logicke that your church neuer yet praied faithfully and effectually for the holy ghost But indeede your argumeÌ„t is naught For it appeareth Ioh. 17. that Christ himselfe praied for vnity amongst his Apostles and all that should beleeue their doctrine no doubt of it he was heard in that he praied for Heb. 5.7 and obteined for his heaueÌ„ly father would deny him nothing and yet you haue heard cap 4. after this there were varieties of opinions and hoate contentions betwixt some of them that doubtles of both parts were within the compasse of Christes praier And therefore that praier of Christ and the prayers of his seruants made to that ende are to be vnderstoode to take place and to be effectuall in that there is so much vnity amongst the true members of the Church atteined thereby as is sufficient to holde them togither in the communion of saints which is if they ioyne togither in holding the foundation and fundamentall points of Religion though otherwise there be differences and hâ—at contentions sometimes amongst them And it may not be thought as you seeme to take it that such prayers either are not effectually made or els there must followe thereupon simply an vniuersall accorde in all things For then Christes prayer was not effectuall in that after Paul and Barnabas were at aâ—arre Act. 15. c. That vnity that you speake of the Church may striue for here but she is not to make her account to atteine vnto it before she come in heauen and bee maried to her husband there And so much vnity there is betwixt vs and those whom we count members of Christes Church with vs as that though there be some variety of opinions and therefore also contention but too much yet we ioyne so togither here in the foundation and other most principal points of our Religion that we doubt not but the Lord hath heard our praiers and graunted vs the spirit of vnity so farre forth as that one daie we hope in heauen all to ioine together in perfect vnity notwithstanding the iarres that otherwise in the meane time to trie vs withall be fouÌ„d amongst vs. You know we praie daily that Gods will may be done in earth as it is in heauen and so doe you or you are to blame and herein we hope we are heard and yet simply we neuer found nor shall as long as the world standeth the will of God so done here as it is in heauen For continually there is disobedieÌ„ce to his will here in one thing or other one way or other euen amongst the best but in that in such measure as God seeth this fit to be obteined here he granteth it we are notwithstanding to thinke our prayers effectuall Christ himselfe praied Iohn 17.15 to deliuer his church from euill and yet though that prayer was heard in that God so farre forth preserueth his church from euill as he seeth it expedient for the state thereof here we see daily that many are the troubles and euils that the poore church is encombred withall And therefore to conclude you must vnderstaÌ„d that the faithfull praiers of Gods saints are to be accounted effectuall though the thing they pray for be not obteined in full perfection here as long as so much here is obteined as the Lorde seeth to bee necessary and conuenient for the estate of his seruantes So that notwithstanding the differences amongst vs you might and would if you had the grace ioyne rather with vs in our Religion then continue in that wherein you are the professours whereof are torne a sunder with moe and greater differences then the churches that receaue ours are howsoeuer you deceiue the simple with the vizarde of vnity in that you ioyne together vnder your Pope against the trueth The XXVIII Chapter NOw to turne againe to our former purpose if it were so that of our owne free deliberation wee were minded to forsake our Catholique Religion a If you should be of no Religion whiles all of one were full of one mindâ— you must die a nullifidian I warrant you the iniurious disputations that you vse among your selues were sufficieÌ„t to make vs to suspeÌ„d our iudgemeÌ„t without leauing to any of both parties vntill that we could see more resolute in your opinioÌ„s being the bardest matter the knowing in what cuÌ„try the residence should be kept for that matter b Where wheÌ„ nay our absolute sentence iâ— as our bookes doe testifie and we proue it out of the ancient fathers that your doctrine in this point is but new a very young â—â—ng in comparison of that you would here haue it seeme You haue giueÌ„ absolute senteÌ„ce saying that the Catholique church hath erred euen froÌ„ the Apostles time vnto this present in praying to God for the soules of those that are deade constituted in a third place called Purgatorie You should mee thinke at the least allowe a third place although it bee not that to receaue the soules of those whose consciences you haue so troubled that they know now neither what is their faith nor of what ReligioÌ„ they should be c Such vâ—setled and vnstable persons for all your foolish
thinking so well of your selues as you doe should not teach vs by your often example to doe that which if we doe but once you count an heinous offence in vs. You would haue the best to reforme the rest if your request were graunted you must amend apace or else there will none of you be found in that degree You are angrie with vs for speaking as wee vse to doe against your Popes and bishops and for that in the mean time we giue our selues glorious titles of Apostles Euangelists Prophets c passing ouer the faults of our owne Whereunto most truely I may answere that so infinite and monstrous haue beene the sinnes and abhominations of these your Popes and other prelates for this long time that it is impossible for vs all euer sufficiently to paint out the filthinesse of them and as for our passing ouer in the meane time the faultes of our owne though indeede we neuer deny but that there are faultes amongst our owne for they are men and indeed for all your saying we are the first censurers of our selues oftentimes for those faults what reason is there that you should require at our handes that we should neuer tell you of your faults but that we must withal lay open our owne When this is your fashion we will learne to imitate you and concerning titles which you say we so gloriously set out our ministers withall they are yet but titles by Christ in his expresse word left vnto his Church and of them some we cōfesse were extraordinary and but for a time as Apostles Prophets and Euangelists of whom onely we glory in this that our doctrine is the same that they left vs in writing the other titles of bishops pastors doctors as fit for the true ministers of the Gospel we take vnto vs therw t are we content So that you rather haue aduaunced your Clergie with glorious and vaine titles thē we in that of your own heads not thinking the titles that Christ hath left vs glorious inough you haue your Popes Cardinals and diuers other such strange and swelling names of pride and vanity Yet it grieueth you as it seemeth most that some of vs now and then tearme your Popes and bishoppes rauening deuouring wolues some labour therfore you bestow in amplifying a similitude to proue them no wolues but hirelings and bad shepheards that many of them haue beene a great while yea that their sinnes haue bene the cause of our prospering and preuailing as we haue you will not deny vs. It is wel that the euidence of the trueth and the force thereof hath preuailed thus far with you to cause you to graunt vs thus much I feare me if a number of your Prelates and Popes should come to the reading of this you should haue smal thanke of them for yeelding thus farre Well then hirelings they are and haue beene but too much and too long by your owne confession therefore as you tell them the iudgement of God denoūced against thē Eze. 3 33 is that that they may make their accoūt of which beeing so I cannot see how their veriest enemies should wish them to be worse yet let vs see what reason you haue to proue that they may not bee rightly called wolues Your reason is because in the phrase of the Scripture you thinke there must needs be betwixt an hireling and a woulfe spoken of therein the same difference that is betwixt a naughty carelesse and a negligent shepheard and the woulfe that commeth in the meane time to pray of his flocke whereupon the hireling with you is as the sheephearde but careles and negligent in looking to his sheepe the woulfe is as the heretick and false teacher that cōmeth whiles the other is negligent driues the sheepe from the folde deuours them But you know that similitudes are not to be streatched further then they are brought in vsed for that notwithstanding seeing you your selfe cōfesse that the hereticke is the woulfe we shal well inough maintaine our calling of your Popes and Bishops wolues I warrant you For that is the thing especially that wee stood vpon with you and we desire nothing more thē that you would come once to the sound triall of that point by the Canonicall scriptures whither you and they haue not beene most daungerous heretiques Heresie we account any opinion conceiued helde and stubburnly defended contrary to the sound grounds of diuinity set downe vnto vs in the canonicall scriptures And your Religion to stand consist of a great number of such we are alwaies most ready to proue It is not your saying that your Religion is ancient and receiued and taught alwaies in the Church of God from Christ to this day nor your bragging that we cānot deny it as you doe here again in the later ende of this Chapter and haue often heretofore that will serue the turne in this case for I haue diuerse times heretofore proued the contrarie This is flat euery one seeth it you can hide it no longer that if your Religion be so in deede as you say then you dare bring it vnto this touchstone of the scripture and it wil abide it otherwise that whatsoeuer you say to countenance it with your wordes or with the names and titles of ancient fathers and doctours that in deede and trueth it is not as you pretend I haue meetly well already shewed the opposition and contrariety betwixt your doctrine that taught in the Scriptures cap. 29. and elsewhere and yet were it an easie matter to lead on the reader to a number of such grosse contrarieties more betwixt the doctrine of your Popes and Bishops for a long time and that which is taught there For it teacheth that God worketh euen in the regenerat both to will to performe euen of his owne good pleasure Phil. 2.13 and you contrariwise teach in your doctrine of free will That teacheth vs flatly that as there is but one God so ther is but one mediatour betwixt God mā the man Christ Iesus 1. Timot. 2. and you set vs vp a number of mediatours aduocates of saints and Angels besides him There we are taught that no man can lay any other foundatiō then that which is already laied Christ Iesus 1. Cor. 3.11 and your church hath laied Peter for the foundation of the church And in this scripture we are taught to worship the lord God him only to serue Deut. 6. and namely the seruice of praier beeing one of the highest and diuinest pointes of seruice that wee are to yeelde vnto him there we are taught by commandement promisse and example only to doe vnto him and you come and teach vs to worship to serue euen with diuine honour and namely with this of praier not onely saints Angels but also their reliques shrines and images What should I say more your owne consciences tell you that you haue nothing in the world
are so ful fast of your side therin as you pretend I wil vouchsafe so much further paines as particulerly to examine al your quotations out of them The first man you name is Tertullian and in him you send vs to two places for your anointing and abrenuntiation to his booke de resurrectione carnis and for thrise dipping to his booke de coronâ militis Wherin it seemeth a little you mistooke your notes for there is no mention of abrenūtiation that I can finde in the former place in the later indeede there is but you quote the former for it not the later at all Whereby any man may see you tooke your quotations vpon trust and neuer tooke the paines to turne to the places in the authours themselues and that so it came to passe that that which you should haue fathered vpon the later place through ignorance you haue attributed to the former Anointing I find mētioned in the former place I grāt but neither the matter nor form of your anointing can I either find ther or in any other place quoted by you for it And in the other I cōfesse he mētioneth thrise dipping but to what purpose is that to iustifie your ceremonies or maner of baptizing seeing as I haue noted before out of your Tridētine cathechism in this point you are so indifferent whither it be ministred by dipping powring or sprinkling neuer once there prescribe this fashiō of thrise dipping as necessary Your second authour is Cyprian who you say in the second volume of his Epistles Epist the twelfth doeth write that the holy Chrisme was giuen vnto children that were baptized Wherein your note gatherer abused you For doubtlesse in that Epistle there is not one worde either of Chrisme or anie other Ceremonies about baptisme Indeed in the 12 Epistle of his first book of Epistles he speakes of anointing the baptized with oile but holy chrisme he calleth it not But to speake the trueth both Tertullian and he haue not onely in their workes sundry times mentioned Chrisme and anointing of the baptized but they went too farre both in vrging the necessity thereof and in attributing vnto it such diuine grace as they did insomuch that it is not without cause of the learned thought that therin they were both the schollers of Mōtanus But certaine it is of whomsoeuer they learned thus to vrge this ceremony to the obscuring preiudicing of the vse and effects of baptisme as too grossely they did in tying rather the gift of the holy Ghost to sanctifie and regenerate to it thē to baptisme they neuer learned it other of Christ nor of any sound Christian nor may any Christian more think himselfe bound to vrge it and vse it as they did because they did so then he is bound to be a Montanist because Tertullian was so or to holde rebaptization of them that before were baptized of heretiques because Cyprian did so Your nexte man is Origen to whose 12. Homilie without any further additiō and to diuerse other places of his workes without naming vnto vs any of these places you send vs for abrenuntiation and the signe of the Crosse to bee made in the baptised his forehead wherin it was your hap to shew as great negligence and ignorance as might bee For Origen wrote many times 12. Homilies as it is to be seene in his works whereas it should seeme by your kind of quoting of him that you thought he had done so but once and yet in none of these 12. Homilies that he wrote finde I these two ceremonies mentioned and as for the diuerse other places in his works that you speake of when you shall vouchsafe to name them your answere will bee as easily made Next is Chrysostome of whom you alleage two places his 12. Homily vpon the first Epistle to the Corinthians cap. 4. and his first Homilie vpon the first Chapter to the Ephesians and both these onely for renuntiation In the first whereof there is mention of the signe of the Crosse made in the forehead but not expressely in Baptisme and in the other there is mention of renuntiation indeede but so there is not at al in the former wherby againe one may see how you neuer turned to these places and read them your selfe and besides it is euident that either through ignorance or negligence or both you father that vpon your former noted place which you should attribute to the later as here that vpon Origen which you should haue left to Chrysostom and so shew your errour in both But what were all this if you had not beene at all thus ouerseene against vs or for you more then for vs seeing both these ceremonies or rites are reteyned and vsed amongst vs in farre better maner then with you Now followeth Augustine out of whom you quote vs in Psalm 31. Aug. lib. 15. contra Iulianum Pelagianum lib. 1. cap. 2. Item de nuptiis concupiscentiâ lib. 1. Cap. 20. In Iohannem tract 33. In Canonicam Iohannis tract 3. tra 6. de Ecclesiast dogmatibus Cap. 31. De Symbolo lib. 1. cap. 7. lib. 2. Cap. 11. libro de his qui initiantur sacris that is eleuen places in all wherein yet you haue more grossely shamed your selfe then in the former For first of all in these eleuen places there are but three wherein I finde any mention of any of your ceremonies and that is in his first booke and second Chapter against Iulian in his first booke and twentieth Chapter de nuptiis concupiscentiâ and in his thirty one Chapter de Ecclesiasticis dogmatibus and lay all these three togither and there are mentioned onely three that is exorcisme exufflation and abrenuntiation whereof we vse one aswell as you namely abrenuntiation and as for the other two thereof you your selues haue but the first and therefore why may not we aswell giue ouer both the other as you haue done the first of them Secondly you send vs indefinitely to his fifteene booke as you did before to Origens twelfth homily not telling vs what 15. booke you meane thinking belike that he had neuer wrote but once 15. books of one title wheras euery one that is acquainted with his works know the contrary If you say you meant his 15 booke against Iulian then therein you shew as much ignorance for against him he wrote but 6. Thirdly you father vpon Aug. two books de symbolo one de his qui initiantur sacris whereas indeed in al Augustines tomes there are no books that simply barely beare those titles to be found He wrote one book de fide symbolo 4 de symbolo ad cathecumenos but in no 7 nor 11 Chapters of any of these is there any thing for your purpose but none at al he hath writen that in title cōmeth any thing neare the other you father vpon him But I imagine that if your eie-sight or memory had not failed you you should
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
of such vayne wordes as these aboue twenty times I am sure without any proofe at al therein repeated Indeed if in al your life you could proue but halfe so much as confidently here you set downe then you were a notable fellow indeede and then truely we would striue no longer with you But in the meane time seeing we know your speeches are such as you can neuer proue and that we are able against you both to proue the falshoode of yours and the trueth of our owne blame vs not if wee esteeme not your words Yet lest you should saie that these likewise are but words in vs as the former haue beene in you though I see no reason to the contrary but that our words containing a iust and true denial of yours were sufficient confutation thereof I say and will proue it that you shew your selfe a man past al shame in writing here as you doe that all the ancient Catholicke Church which hath continued visible since the comming of Christ vnto this day al the doctours of all the vniuersities all the Empires kingdomes priuate states throughout al the world are against vs for they haue al receiued honoured that doctrine that we count papisticall For first such is the newnes thereof as I haue plentifully shewed in diuers places already of this booke that none of all these for sundry 100. yeares were once euer acquainted therwith yea that diuers of your assertions which are the very principallest of your opinions as namely your dotcrine of Transubstantiation of your Popes being in authority aboue generall Councels and of denying the cuppe to the lay people are not yet of 400. yeares age and continuance And it is notoriously knowen that in the daies of Gregory the 9 about the yeare of Christ 1230 by occasion of iniury and oppression offered by the Pope to that Church that the Greeke Easterne Churches departed quite from the Church of Rome and neuer since though it hath beene oft attempted could be brought to hold communion therewith againe insomuch that in your conuenticle at Trent you haue condemned them for schismatical and heretical Churches And these Churches as it is noted in an ancient record in the Church of Herford differ from yours at the least in 29 articles And they holde yours excommunicate and an Apostata Church vnto this day And vnlesse your reading be very small you cannot be ignorant that Math Paris writeth that the Patriarch of Constantinople at the Councell of Lyons shortly after this breach shewed that of 30. bishoprickes in Greece the Pope had not three that then held communion with him and that all Antioch and the Empire of Romania to the gates of Constantinople was gone quite from him There is also extant in print in ancient record an Epistle writen about seuen yeares after this breach began in the yeare 1237 by one Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople vnto the Pope wherein not only he laboureth to make him see that the occasion therof was that he tooke more vpon him ouer those Churches then he should but amongst other argumēts to persuade him to see his folly he sheweth him that not onely the Greeke Churches themselues but that al so the Aethiopians Syrians Hiberians Alani Gothi Charari with innumerable people of Russia and the mighty kingdome of the Vulgarians held communion with his Church of Constantinople and so by occasion of this schisme had forsakē felowship with the Roman Church And the Cosmographers write that the iurisdiction of the Patriarch of Canstantinople reacheth so farre that all Greece Misia Belgaria Thrasia Walachia Moldauia Russia Muscouia the iles of the Aegaean sea and Asia the lesse bee vnder the same It is also reported by authours of good credit that at this day vnder the other Patriarchs of Antioch Alexandria Hierusalem and vnder the other in the dominions of Presbyter Iohn in Africa there be infinit numbers of Churches and Christians differing from yours and ioining with ours in manie thinges So that Churches also both in the East North and South and that of very great amplitude within the time that you speake of haue professed Christ and yet haue neuer beene acquainted with most or many at the least of the pointes for the which your religion is counted of vs Papisticall in all which there haue beene some doctours vniuersities Empires Princes and priuate men no doubt since Christ before you wrote that neither honoured nor receiued your papistical religiō Yea but that merueilously you ouershot your selfe you might haue remembred that within the time limited by you in these Westerne partes there haue beene euen vnder your Popes nose and in his greatest ruffe many doctours vniuersities and some Emperours kings and priuate estates that haue neither receiued nor so honoured your religiō which we cal papistical as here you would beare your reader in hand For euen in these parts and within the compasse of these times haue bene you know Wickliffe Hus and Luther vniuersities kingdomes good store haue had both your religion Church in defiance long before you wrote He that readeth but the stories of Philip Lodovicke the last French kings of Henry the 4 5. of the 2. Fredericks the 1 2 Emperours and the Cronicles of king Iohn here in England and of 2 or 3 of his successours he shal easily perceiue that much within the compasse of time that you speake of both Empires and Kingdomes with their Emperours and Kings haue beene far from making that reckoning of your popish Church and religion that you here bragge of or else doubtlesse you must needs confesse that your Popes haue beene vnreasonable creatures that haue so cursed and banned these men as they haue and which besides haue caused such infinite Christian bloud to be by warre shed to hamper them These things considered euen children may see not onely the vanity but grosse falshood of these your wordes For howsoeuer either here or else where in this your booke you would cause your reader to beleeue that your Romish Church is the catholicke Church of Christ euery one indeed may see that in trueth it is but a particuler and a petty Diocesse in comparison of the catholicke Church of Christ For the reader must vnderstand that the Church of Christ is called catholicke first because the religion that shee imbraceth is that which hath beene at al times will be to the end the true religiō of God secondly because the same Church in respect of the mēbers therof especially since the calling of the Gentiles is not to be limited or shut vp within the compasse of any particuler countries but may vniuersally be dispersed amongst all nations and in al countreyes where it pleaseth the Lord. In neither of which sences can the Romish Church be truly accounted catholick For neither is her doctrine that which the true Church of Christ embraced was in possessiō of for 4000 years more neither are the
to be christians and of him onely and of his vndoubted spirit speaking vnto vs in the canonicall scriptures haue we learned our religion with which as far as we finde any man to agree we reuerence him as it becommeth vs in the Lord further we take not our selues bound to follow any man whatsoeuer he be That Puritans and Precisians haue brought the ancient Protestants of this land of all sortes to any such point by any such meanes as he speaketh of he speaketh both vntruely and slanderously For such as for their preposterous zeale and factious turbulent spirits amongst vs deserue so to be called and accounted neither are for number so many nor for credit so affected of the common people nor wincked at of the magestrats as he pretendeth But if ther were as many fond sectaries that haue arisen vp amongst vs these late yeares as this man and other of his fellowes sometime would haue men to beleeue as long yet as we for all that continue constant not onely in the very same religion that we were of when we first broke of from them but also in that which hath plentifull and most playne warrant both from the canonicall scriptures and al sound antiquity as we haue a thousand times shewed and yet still are willing and ready alwaies to doe why should they thus odiously be obiected against vs to disgrace either vs or our religion especially seeing wee are sory for it and shew our mislike thereof as wee doe May any man iustly disgrace the Apostles and the Apostolique churches for that euen in their times there arose so many sectaries and heretiques amongst the Churches planted by them as both by their owne writings and other Ecclesiasticall histories it is notoriously knowen there did Hath not Christ euen of purpose to preuent all offence taking hereat compared his kingdome Matth. 13. to a field wherein the good seeds-man hauing sowen good wheat the enuious man so soweth his tares that they come vp togither with the wheat and so will doe vnto the haruest To let vaine words and brags go let thē proue but once any of them or all of them togither either that their religion is the plaine way of saluation beaten by our forefathers for these 1500. yeares past or that ours is not that very trueth that Christ and his Apostles taught as a perpetual trueth for the true church constantly to hold to the worlds end and we will striue with them no lōger But as this is a matter too hard heauy for them so they are content to let it alone and with fallacies vaine words to trie if they can beguile the simple people and bring them to a misliking of that which to mislike indeede they are not able to giue them one sound reason And therefore to conclude that both beginning ending and alwaies this mā may be like himselfe he taketh it for graunted that their religion is the sound catholique faith that the martyr Sebastian meant by his loafe which broken and broken againe after it was once well made and baked by sectaries heretiques as he told Genserichus the tyrant would neuer become better and that ours is but a breaking of it to make it better againe which will neuer be Whereas we constantly hold affirme that we may iustly say to all papists euen as Sebastian saied to that tyrant For the loafe that we feed on and would haue all others to feed on with vs we are able to proue is that the graine whereof Christ himselfe by his faithfull seruants hath sowen in the sound field of the canonical scriptures which he himselfe hath ground kneaden baked for vs and for all his children And likewise we are able to proue that this fine white loafe of the Lords own preparing alwaies lying ready in the storehouse of his writen word the Romish church hath a long time doth stil as much loath as euer the children of Israel did Manna And therefore as they preferred in their conceits garlicke leekes onions the flesh-pots of Egypt before that heauēly food so hath she and doeth she a massiue loafe the corne whereof must not come onely out of the foresaied field of the Lord for then it would haue no fauour with them but in great part out of the rotten field of mens traditions inuentions before the pure white loafe of the lords own making Wherefore to conclude all his speech or exhortation groūded vpon this story out of Victor de persecutione Vandalorum any man may see we might farre more iustly vse against thēselues of the Romish Church to persuade them as they regard their owne saluation c. to content themselues with vs with this Sebastians loafe of the first and best making I haue thus thou seest good reader but briefly past ouer these things and the rather I haue so done first because I found no matter in them but grounded vpon shameles begging of that which is most in question and secondly because in my answere to Albine I had vpon occasion giuen me by him already answered al or most of his assumptions against vs in the applying of these signes vnto vs. But lastly by view of an answere made at large by master Crowley both to the 22. demaunds and these six signes also that came to my hands since my finishing of this answere of mine I see if it had beene vndone I might well haue spared al my labour herein If therefore thou desirest any further answer concerning any of these I refer thee to him And thus I take my leaue of thee beseeching the Lord now and euer to blesse both thee and me and heartily praying thee to remember me alwaies in thy godly prayers to God to whom be all glory praise and dominion now and euer Thine in the Lord Thomas Sparke A Table whereby readily to finde out the principal matters contained in the former answere to Albine or any of his fauourers wherein because vntill thou commest to the answere to Albine himselfe the pages are not figured in the top as in the rest for any thing before handled the page of the letter in the bottome of those leaues whereof there are 16 for euery letter is noted for thy direction A. Abbeyes why and how suppressed pa. 287. Albine conuicted of blasphemy p. 95. 96. 186. 375. 378. Albine sheweth himselfe to haue beene of a profane spirit 269. Albines publishers methode in his epistle to the reader discouered b. p. 11. 12. 13. Albines owne methode and the folly thereof laied open E. 4 5. 6 Albines cunning in running from the question 6 7 9. 10. 11. c. Albine notorious in abusing scriptures 2. 3. 36. 37. Albine worthy to be famous for abusing of fathers 47. 51. 85. 86. 119. c. 126. c. 131 134 156. ca p. 37. through out Antiquity protestants rather haue then papists and true antiquity protestants stand vnto 102. 158. c. Auricular confession dangerous E. p.