ALL this I suppose at least was done before Mr. Jewel returned into England for whether he was here at the Coronation is uncertain He was entertained first by Mr. Nicholas Culverwell for almost six months and then falling into a Sickness was invited by Dr. William Thames to lodge at his House but this was after the Parliament THE Liturgy being then reviewed and whatever might give the Popish Party any unnecessary Exasperation or Discontent purged out in order to the facilitating the passing an Act of Parliament for the settling it and the establishment of other things that were necessary a publick Disputation was appointed on the Thirtieth of March following to be holden in the Church of Westminster in the English Tonguo in the presence of as many of the Lords of the Council and of the Members of both Houses as were desirous to inform themselves in the State of the Questions The Disputation was also to be managed for the better avoiding of Confusion by a mutual interchange of Writings upon every Point each Writing to be answered the next day and so from day to day till the whole were ended To all which the Bishops at first consented tho they would not afterwards stand to it The Questions were Three concerning Prayers in the Vulgar Tongue the Power of the Church for the changing Rites and Ceremonies and the Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass for the Living and the Dead THE first use that was made of Mr. Jewel after his return was the nominating him one of the Disputants for the reformed Party and tho he was the last in number and place yet he was not the least either in desert or esteem having made great Additions to his former Learning in his four years Exile and Travel which is a great improvement to ingenious Spirits But this Disputation was broken off by the Popish Party who would not stand to the order appointed so that Mr. Jewel in all probability had no occasion to shew either his Zeal or Learning THE Parliament ended the eighth of May 1559. and by virtue of an Act passed in this Parliament soon after Midsummer the Queen made a Visitation of all the Diocesses in England by Commissioners for rectifying all such things as they found amiss and could not be redressed by any ordinary Episcopal Power without spending of more time than the Exigencies of the Church could then admit of And this was done by a Book of Articles printed for that purpose and the Inquiry was made upon Oath by the Commissioners Here Mr. Jewel was taken in again and made one of these Commissioners for the West When he visited his own Native Country which till then perhaps he had not seen since his return from Exile when also he preached to and disputed with his Country-men and indeavoured more to win them to imbrace the Reformation by good Usage Civility and Reason than to terrifie or awe them by that great Authority the Queen had armed him and his fellow Commissioners with RETURNING back to London and giving the Queen a good and satisfactory account of their Visitation the 21st of January following Mr. Jewel who was then only Batchelor of Divinity was consecrated Bishop of Sarisbury which he at first modestly declined but at last accepted in obedience to the Queens command This See had been void by the death of John Capon his immediate Predecessor who died in the year 1557. now near three years And here the Divine Providence again gave him the advantage in point of Seniority over his Tutor Mr. John Parkhurst who was not consecrated Bishop of Norwich till the Fourteenth of July after but then his Tutor had the advantage of him in point of Revenue for Mr. Jewel's Bishoprick had been miserably impoverished by his Predecessor so that he complained afterwards that there was never a good Living left him that would maintain a Learned Man for said he the Capon had devoured all because he hath either given away or sold all the Ecclesiastical Dignities and Livings So that the good Bishop was forced all his Life-time after to take extraordinary pains in travelling and preaching in all parts of his Diocess which brought him to his Grave the sooner whereas his Tutor had a much richer Bishoprick and consequently more ease and out-lived his Pupil Jewel three years THE Sunday before Easter of this year Bishop Jewel preached at Paul's Cross his famous Sermon upon the 1 Cor. 11. v. 25. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you that-the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took Bread c. This Sermon gave a fatal blow to the Popish Religion here in England which was become very odious to all men by reason of the barbarous Cruelty used by those of that Perswasion in the Reign of Queen Mary but the Challenge which he then made and afterwards several times and in several places repeated was the most stinging part of this Sermon and therefore tho I am concerned to be as short as I can I will yet insert this Famous Piece at large IF any Learned Man of our Adversaries said he or all the Learned Men that be alive be able to bring any one sufficient Sentence out of any old Catholick Doctor or Father or General Council or Holy Scripture or any one Example in the Primitive Church whereby it may clearly and plainly be proved during the first six hundred years 1. That there was at any time any private Masses in the World 2. Or that there was then any Communion ministred unto the People under one kind 3. Or that the People had their Common-Prayer in a strange Tongue that the People understood not 4. Or that the Bishop of Rome was then called an universal Bishop or the Head of the universal Church 5. Or that the People were then taught to believe that Christ's Body is really substantially corporally carnally or naturally in the Sacrament 6. Or that his Body is or may be in a thousand places or more at one time 7. Or that the Priest did then hold up the Sacrament over his Head 8. Or that the People did then fall down and worship it with Godly Honour 9. Or that the Sacrament was then or now ought to be hanged up under a Canopy 10. Or that in the Sacrament after the words of Consecration there remained only the accidents and shews without the substance of Bread and Wine 11. Or that then the Priests divided the Sacrament into three parts and afterwards received himself alone 12. Or that whosoever had said the Sacrament is a Figure a Pledge a Token or a remembrance of Christ's Body had therefore been adjudged for an Heretick 13. Or that it was lawful then to have thirty twenty fifteen ten or five Masses said in the same Church in one day 14. Or that Images were then set up in the Churches to the intent the People might worship them 15. Or that the Lay-People were then forbidden
to read the word of God in their own Tongue 16. Or that it was then Lawful for the Priest to pronounce the words of Consecration closely or in private to himself 17. Or that the Priest had then Authority to offer up Christ unto his Father 18. Or to communicate and receive the Sacrament for another as they do 19. Or to apply the vertue of Christs Death and Passion to any Man by the means of the Mass 20. Or that it was then thought a sound Doctrine to teach the People that Mass Ex opere operato that is even for that it is said and done is able to remove any part of our sin 21. Or that any Christian man called the Sacrament of the Lord his God 22. Or that the People were then taught to believe that the Body of Christ remaineth in the Sacrament as long as the accidents of Bread and Wine remain there without Corruption 23. Or that a Mouse or any other Worm or Beast may eat the Body of Christ for so some of our Adversaries have said and taught 24. Or that when Christ said Hoc est Corpus meum the word Hoc pointed not to the Bread but to an individuum vagum as some of them say 25. Or that the Accidents or Forms or shews of Bread and Wine be the Sacraments of Christs Body and Blood and not rather the very Bread and Wine it self 26. Or that the Sacrament is a sign or token of the Body of Christ that lieth hidden underneath it 27. Or that ignorance is the Mother and cause of true Devotion The Conclusion is that I shall then be content to yield and subscribe This challenge saith the Learned Dr. Heylyn being thus published in so great an Auditory startled the English Papists both at home and abroad but none more than such of our Fugitives as had retired to Lovain Doway or St. Omers in the Low-Country Provinces belonging to the King of Spain The business was first agitated by the exchange of friendly Letters betwixt the said Reverend Prelate and Dr. Henry Cole the late Dean of St. Pauls more violently followed in a Book of Rastal's who first appeared in the Lists against the Challenger followed herein by Dorman and Marshall who severally took up the Cudgels to as little purpose the first being well beaten by Nowel and the last by Calfhill in their Discourses writ against them but they were only Velitations or preparitory Skirmishes in reference to the main encounter which was reserved for the Reverend Challenger himself and Dr. John Harding one of the Divines of Lovain and the most Learned of the Colledge The Combatants were born in the same County bred up in the same Grammar School and studied in the same University also Both zealous Protestants in the time of King Edward and both relapsed to Popery in the time of Queen Mary Jewel for fear and Harding upon hope of Favour and Preferment by it But Jewel's fall may be compared to that of St. Peter which was short and sudden rising again by his Repentance and fortified more strongly in his Faith than before he was but Harding's like to that of the other Simon premeditated and resolved on never to be restored again so much was there within him of the gaul of bitterness to his former standing But some former Differences had been between them in the Church of Sarisbury whereof the one was Prebendary and the other Bishop occasioned by the Bishops visitation of that Cathedral in which as Harding had the worst so was it a Presage of a second foil which he was to have in this encounter Who had the better of the day will easily appear to any that consults the Writings by which it will appear how much the Bishop was too hard for him at all manner of Weapons Whose learned Answers as well in maintenance of his Challenge as in defence of his Apology whereof more hereafter contain in them such a Magazin of all sorts of Learning that all our Controversors since that time have furnished themselves with Arguments and Authority from it THUS far that Learned man has discoursed the event of this famous Challenge with so much brevity and perspicuity that I thought it better to transcribe his words than to do it much worse my self WHEN Queen Mary died Paul the Fourth was Pope to whom Queen Elizabeth sent an account of her coming to the Crown which was delivered by Sir Edward Karn her Sisters Resident at Rome to which the angry Gentleman replied That England was held in Fee of the Apostolick See that she could not succeed being illegitimate nor could he contradict the Declarations made in that matter by his Predecessors Clement the Seventh and Paul the Third he said it was a great boldness in her to assume the Crown without his Consent for which in reason she deserved no favour at his hands yet if she would renounce her Pretensions and refer her self wholly to him he would shew a fatherly affection to her and do every thing for her that could consist with the dignity of the Apostolick See Which answer being hastily and passionately made was as little regarded by the Queen But he dying soon after Pius the Fourth an abler man succeeded and he was for gaining the Queen by Arts and Kindness to which end he sent Vincent Parapalia Abbot of St. Saviours with courteous Letters to her dated May the fifth 1560. with order to make large proffers to her under hand but the Queen had rejected the Popes Authority by Act of Parliament and would have nothing to do with Parapalia nor would she suffer him to come into England In the interim the Pope had resolved to renew the Council at Trent and in the next year sent Abbot Martiningo his Nuncio to the Queen to invite her and her Bishops to the Council and he accordingly came to Bruxells and from thence sent over for leave to come into England but tho France and Spain interceded for his Admission yet the Queen stood firm and at the same time rejected a motion from the Emperor Ferdinando to return to the old Religion as he called it Yet after all these denials given to so many and such potent Princes one Scipio a Gentleman of Venice who formerly had had some acquaintance with Bishop Jewel when he was a Student in Padua and had heard of Martiningo's ill success in this Negotiation would needs spend some Eloquence in labouring to obtain that Point by his private Letters which the Nuncio could not gain as a publick Minister and to that end he writes his Letters of Expostulation to Bishop Jewel his old Friend preferred not long before to the See of Sarisbury Which Letter did not long remain unanswered that Learned Prelate saith my Author was not so unstudied in the nature of Councils as not to know how little of a General Council could be found at Trent And therefore he returned an answer to the proposition so
Blood Or then that of Origen that Bread which is consecrated by the Word of God as to the Matter of it goes into the Belly and is cast out by the Draught Or then that of Christ himself who said not only after the Consecration but after the finishing of the Communion Luke 22. 18. I will drink no more of the Fruit of the Vine for it is certain the Fruit of the Vine is Wine and not Blood And yet when we speak thus we do not so depress the Esteem of the Supper of the Lord as to teach that it is a meer cold Ceremony and that nothing is done in it which many falsly report of us for we assert that Christ in his Sacraments doth exhibit himself truly present In Baptism that we may put him on In his Supper that we may eat him by Faith and in the Spirit and that by his Cross and Blood we may have Life Eternal and this we say is not slightly and coldly but really and truly done for although we do not touch Christ with our Teeth and Lips yet we hold and press him by Faith Mind and Spirit Nor is that Faith vain which imbraceth Christ nor that Participation cold which is perceived by the Mind Understanding and Spirit for so Christ himself is intirely offered and given to us in these Mysteries as much as is possible that we may truly know that we are Flesh of his Flesh and Bone of his Bone and that he dwells in us and we in him 16. AND therefore in the Celebration of these Mysteries before we come to receive the Holy Communion the People are fitly admonished to lift up their Hearts and that they should direct their Minds to Heaven for there he is by whom we are to be fed and live And St. Cyrill saith that in partaking of the Holy Mysteries all gross Imaginations are to be excluded And the Nicen Council as it is cited by some in Greek doth expresly forbid us to think only on the Bread and Wine that are set before us And St. Chrysostom Writes well We say that the Body of Christ is the Carcass and we are to be the Eagles that thereby we may learn to mount aloft if we will approach the Body of Christ for this is the Table of Eagles and not of Jayes And St. Cyprian This Bread is the Meat of the Soul and not of the Belly And St. Augustin How shall I lay hold on him who is absent how shall I reach my Hand into the Heavens and touch him who sits there Send thy Faith thither saith he and thou hast him sure 17. BUT then as to the Fairs and Sales of Masses and the carrying about and adoring the Bread and a number of such like Idolatrous and blasphemous Follies which none of them dare affirm to have been delivered to us by Christ of his Apostles our Church will not indure them and we justly blame the Bishops of Rome for presuming without any Command of God without any Authority of the Holy Fathers and without any Example not only to propose the Sacramental Bread to be adored by the People with a divine Worship but also to carry it about before them upon an ambling Nag where-ever they go as the Persian Kings did heretofore their sacred Fire and the Aegyptian their Image of Isis and so have turned the Sacraments of Christ into Pageantry and Pomp that in that very thing in which the Death of Christ was to be celebrated and inculcated and the Mysteries of our Redemption ought to be piously and reverently represented the Eyes of men should only be fed with a foolish shew and a piece of Ludicrous Livity And then whereas they say and sometimes perswade Fools that they can by their Masses distribute and apply to men who very often think of nothing less and never know what is then doing all the Merits of the Death of Christ this Pretencâ— I say is ridiculous heathenish and silly for it is our Faith which applies the Death and Cross of Christ to us and not the Action of a Priest the Faith of the Sacraments saith St. Augustin justifies and not the Sacrament And Origen saith He Christ is the Priest and the Propitiation and the Sacrifice and this Propitiation comes to every one by way of Faith and therefore agreeably hereunto we say that the Sacraments do not profit the Living without Faith and much less the Dead for as to what they pretend concerning their Purgatory tho that is no very late Invention yet it is nothing but a silly old wives Story St. Augustin sometimes saith there is such a place sometimes he doth not deny but there may be such a Place sometimes he doubts if there be and at other times he positively denies there is any such place at all and thinks that men out of humane kindness to the Dead are deceived in that point And yet from this one Error there has sprung such a Crop of small Priests that Masses being publickly and openly sold in every corner they have turn'd the Churches of God into meer Shops and deluded poor Mortals into a Belief that there was no Commodity more useful and certainly as to those small Levites these Masses were very advantagious 18. WE know that St. Augustin grieviously complain'd of the vast number of impertinent Ceremonies in his time and therefore we have cut off a great many of them because we know they were afflictive to the Consciences of Men and burthensome to the Church of God Yet we still retain and reâ—igiously use not only all those which we know were delivered to the Church by the Apostles but some others which we saw might be born without any inconvenience because as St. Paul commands we desire alâ—things in the Religious Assemblies should be done decently and in order but then as to alâ—those that were very superstitious or base or ridiculous or contrary to the Scriptures or did not seem to beâ—it sober men an infinite number of which are still to be found amongst Papists we have rejected all these I say without excepting any one of them because we would not have the Service of God any longer contaminated with such Fooleries 19. WE pray as it is fit we should in that Tongue our People do all understand that the People as St. Paul admonisheth may reap a common Advantage by the common Prayers as all the Holy Fathers and Catholick Bishops not only in the Old but in the New Testament also did ever pray and teach the People to pray least as St. Augustin saith We should like Parrots and other prating Birds seem to sound Words which we did not understand 20. WE have no Mediator and Intercessor by whom we approach to God the Father but Jesus Christ in whose name only all things are obtained But that which we see done in their Churches is base and heathenish not only because they have set up an infinite
hâ— said he saw many Causes why the Clergâ— should be denied Wives but then he saw morâ— and greater Causes to allow them Wives again 10. WE receive and imbrace all the Canonical Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament and we give our gracious God most hearty Thanks that he hath set up this Light for us which we ever fix our Eyes upon lest by humane Fraud or the Snares of the Devil we should be seduced to Errors or Fables We own them to be the heavenly Voices by which God hath reveal'd and made known his Will to us in them only can the Mind of Man acquiesce in them all that is necessary for our Salvation is aboundantly and plainly contain'd as Origen St. Augustin St. Chrysostom and St. Cyrill have taught us They are the very Might and Power of God unto Salvation they are the Foundations of the Apostles and Prophets upon which the Church of God is built they are the most certain and infallible Rule by which the Church may be reduced if She happen to stagger slip or err by which all Ecclesiastical Doctrines ought to be tried no Law no Tradition no Custom is to be received or continued if it be contrary to Scripture No tho St. Paul himself or an Angel from Heaven should come and teach otherwise 11. WE receive also and allow the Sacraments of the Church that is the sacred Signs and Ceremonies which Christ commanded us to use that he might by them represent to our eyes the Mysteries of our Salvation and most strongly confirm the Faith we have in his Blood and seal in our Hearts his Grace and we call them Figures Signs Types Antitypes Forms Seals Prints or Signets Similitudes Examples Images Remembrances and Memorials with Tertullian Origen St. Ambrose St. Augustin St. Jerom St. Chrysostom St. Basil and Dionysius and many other Catholick Fathers Nor do we doubt with them to call them a kind of visible Words the Signets of Righteousness and the Symbols of Grace and clearly affirm that in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the Body and Blood of our Lord is truly exhibited to Believers that is the enlivening Flesh of the Son of God the Bread that comes from above the Nourishment of Immortality the Grace the Truth and the Life and that it is the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ by the Participation of which we are quickned strengthened and fed to immortality and by which we are conjoyned united and incorporated with Christ that we may remain in him and he in us 12. WE acknowledge that there are two Sacraments properly so call'd Baptism and the Supper of the Lord for so many we see were delivered to us and consecrated by Christ and approved by St. Ambrose St. Augustin and the ancient Fathers 13. AND we say that Baptism is the Sacrament of the Remission of Sins and of that Washing which we have in the Blood of Christ and that none are to be denied that Sacrament who will profess the Faith of Christ no not the Infants of Christians because they are born in sin and belong to the People of God 14. WE say that the Eucharist is the Sacrament or visible Symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ in which the Death and Resurrection of Christ and what he did in his humane Body is in a manner represented to our eyes that we may give him thanks for his Death and our Deliverance by it and that by frequenting the Sacrament we may often renew the Remembrance of it and that by the Body and Blood of Christ we may be nourished into the Hope of the Resurrection and of eternal Life and that we may be assured that the Body and Blood of Christ hath the same effect in the feeding of our Souls which the Bread and Wine have in the repairing the Decays of our Bodies To this great and solemn Feast the People are to be invited that they may all communicate together and may publickly signifie and testifie both their Union and Society amongst themselves and that Hope which they have in Christ Jesus and therefore if there was any one heretofore before the private Mass was introduced who would be only a Spectator and yet would abstain from the Holy Communion the Bishops of Rome in the Primitive Times and the ancient Fathers would have excommunicated him as a wicked man and a Pagan Nor was there any Christian man in those times who communicated alone in the presence of others who were only Spectators So Calixtus long since decreed that when the Consecration was finished all should communicate if they would not be deprived of the Communion of the Church and be shut out of it for so saith he the Apostles ordained and the Holy Church of Rome holds And we say that both the Parts of the Sacrament ought to be given to all that come to the Holy Communion for so Christ commanded and the Apostles instituted throughout the World and all the ancient Fathers and Catholick Bishops so practised and if any one shall do otherwise saith Gelasius he commits Sacriledge and therefore our Adversaries who exploding and rejecting the Communion defend the private Mass and a multitude of Sacraments without the authority of the Word of God without any ancient Council without any Catholick Father without any Example of the Primitive Church and without Reason and this against the express Command of Christ and also against all Antiquity in so doing act wickedly and sacrilegiously 15. WE say that the Bread and Wine are the Holy and Heavenly Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ and that in them Christ himself the true Bread of eternal Life is so exhibited to us as present that we do by Faith truly take his Body and Blood and yet at the same time we speak not this so as if we thought the Nature of the Bread and Wine were totally changed and abolished as many in the last Ages have dreamt and as yet could never agree amongst themselves about this Dream For neither did Christ ever design that the Wheaten Bread should change its Nature and assume a new kind of Divinity but rather that it might change us and that as Theophylact saith we might be trans-elemented into his Body For what can be more perspicuous than what St. Ambrose saith on this occasion the Bread and Wine are what they were and yet are changed into another thing Or what Gelasius saith The Substance of the Bread and Nature of the Wine do not cease to be Or then what Theodoret after the Consecration the mystical Symbols do not cast off their own proper Nature for they remain in their former Substance and Figure and Species Or then what St. Augustin saith that which you see is Bread and a Cup as your Eyes inform you but that which your Faith desires to be instructed in is this the Bread is the Body of Christ and the Cup is his
pretend we have recall'd from the bottom of Hell and pronounce the Arrians Eutichians Marcionites Ebionites the Valentinians Carpocratians Tatians and Novatians and in one word all those who have thought impiously either of God the Father or of Christ or of the Holy Ghost or of any other part of the Christian Religion all these I say because they are convicted by the Gospel of Christ we pronounce them wicked and lost men and detest them to the Gates of Hell and not only so but if any of those Heresies happen to break out anew amongst us we severely and seriously correct the Revivers of them with lawful and civil Punishments 3. We confess that upon the beginning of the Reformation there arose some new and unheard of Sects as Anabaptists Libertines Menonians and Zwenkfeldians but we render our unfeigned Thanks to God that the World is now well satisfied that we neither brought forth nor taught nor maintained those Monsters Whoever thou art who thinkest otherwise be pleased to read our Books which are every where to be had What is there in them that can fairly be taken to favour the madness of these People Yea there are at this day no Nations so free from these Pests as those in which the Gospel is freely taught Now if they would rightly and attentively consider this thing it is a strong-Argument that the Doctrine we teach is the very truth of the Gospel for neither Tares nor Chaff use to spring up or be found but in Corn. And who knows not what a number of Heresies arose when the Gospel was first propagated in the World in the Times of the very Apostles Who before these Times ever heard of Simon Magus Menander Saturninus Basilides Corpocrates Cerinthus Ebion Valentinus Secundus Marcosius Colorbasius Heracleo Lucian and Severus But why should I mention this contemptible Number Epiphanius reckons LXXX and St. Augustin more distinct Heresies which grew up with the Gospel What then was not the Gospel the Gospel because together with it so many Heresies were produced or shall we therefore say that Christ was not Christ 4. AND yet as I said this cursed Crop has not sprung up in our Fields where the Gospel is freely preached and publickly received and setled Those Plagues have had their Rise in the darkness and blindness of our Adversaries and with them too they have encreased and spread themselves where the Truth is oppressed with Tyranny and Cruelty nor are these things to be heard of any where but in Corners and Conventicles Let them make a Tryal let them grant the Gospel its free Course let the Truth of Jesus Christ freely shine and extend its Rays to all Parts without hindrance and they shall soon see that as the Darkness of the Night vanisheth at the approach of the Sun so will these Shadows disappear before the Light of the Gospel For as for us we daily make it our business to repel and confute these Heresies which we are falsly reported to nourish and encourage whilst our adversaries sit still and mind nothing less 5. AND whereas they say we are divided into divers Sects and that some of us have taken the Names of Lutherans and others of Zuinglians or Calvinists and we could never yet agree amongst our selves concerning the Articles of our Doctrines What would they have said if they had lived in the Times of the Apostles and Holy Fathers When one said I am of Paul another I am of Cephas and another I am of Apollo when St. Paul reprehended St. Peter when by reason of a Quarrel Paul and Barnabas separated one from the other and went several ways when as Origen acquaints us the Christians were divided into so many Factions that they had no Name common to them but that of Christian and they agreed in nothing else but that Nane and as Socrates informs us they were derided publickly in the Theaters by the People for their Dissentions and Sects and when as Constantine the Great said there was so many Contentions and Controversies in the Church that this very single Calamity seem'd to exceed the Miseries of the former times of Persecution when Theophilus Epiphanius Chrysostom Augustin Ruffinus and St. Jerome all of them Christians all Fathers and all Catholicks contested each others with most violent and implacable Animosities when as Nazianzen saith the Members of the same Body consumed one another when the Eastern and Western Churches contended about Leavened Bread and the time of keeping Easter things of no mighty consequence when in every Council which were then numerous there was a new Creed and new and contrary Decrees minted What would these men have then said to whom would they have applied themselves from whom would they have fled in what Gospel would they have believed whom would they have esteemed Catholicks and whom Hereticks Now there are only two Names Luther and Zuinglius and what a Noise is made about them But because these two could not agree about some Points shall we therefore think they are both in the wrong that neither of them has the Gospel and that neither has preached well and truly 6. BUT O good God! who are they that so bitterly reflect on us for our Dissentions Do they in the mean time all agree amongst themselves Have there never been any Dissensions and Controversies amongst them Why then do the Scotists and Thomists agree no better concerning the Merit of Congruity and that of Condignity concerning Original Sin in the Virgin Mary and about a solemn and simple Vow Why do the Canonists affirm that Auricular Confession is founded in Humane and Positive Laws and the Schoolmen on the contrary on Divine Institution Why does Albertus Pighius differ from Cajetan Thomas from Lombard Scotus from Thomas Occham from Scotus Alliacensis from Occham and the Nominalls from the Reallists and that I may not mention the Disagreements of the small Brotherhoods and Monks some of which place their admired Sanctity in eating of Fish others in living upon Herbs some in wearing of Shooes others in Sandals some in Linnen Garments and others in Woollen some in black and some in white Cloaths some shave their Heads broad and others narrow some wear Shooes and others go barefoot some are girded and some go loose besides these they should remember that some of their Divines say that the Body of Christ is naturally present in the Sacrament which is again denied by others that then there are some who say that the Body of Christ in the Sacrament is torn and ground with our Teeth and again there are others who deny this there are some who say that the Body in the Sacrament hath quantity others deny it some say Christ did consecrate by a cortain Divine Power others that he did it by his Blessing some that he did it by conceiving the five Words in his Mind others that it was by uttering them there be some that say that of these five Words the
Princes are to be obeyed as Men sent by God and whosoever resists them resists the Ordinance of God These are our Doctrines these Principles shine forth in our Books in our Sermons in our Lives and in the Modesty and dutiful behaviour of our People 18. AND whereas they pretend we have departed from the Uuity of the Catholick Church this is not only odious but tho it is not true yet it hath an appearance and similitude of Truth in it But then not only those things which are true and certain find belief with the ignorant Multitude but those things also which may seem probable and so we shall ever observe that crafty cunning Men who had not the Truth on their sides have ever maintained their Cause with the Resemblances of Truth that those who could not dive into the bottom of things might be taken at least with the shew and probability of their Arguments Because the Primitive Christians our Fore-fathers when they Prayed to God turned their Faces toward the rising Sun there were some that said they worshiped the Sun and that it was their GOD and because they said that as to their eternal and immortal Life they lived on nothing but the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb without spot meaning thereby our Saviour Jesus Christ Envious Men the Enemies of the Cross of Christ whose only business it was to render the Christian Religion by any means hateful did thereupon perswade the People that the Christians were impious Men that they offered Humane Sacrifices and drank Mans Blood and when the Christians said with God there is neither Male nor Female that is that as to the obtaining of Justification there is no distinction of Persons and did salute one another commonly by the Names of Brother and Sister there were not wanting some who slandered the Christians thereupon and said they made no distinction amongst them of Sex or Age but like Beasts promiscuously lay together And when they met frequently in Vaults and secret places to Pray and hear the Gospel which sort of private Places and Meetings had sometimes been made use of by Conspirators against the Government there was thereupon a Rumor spread abroad that they conspired together and had secret Consultations about murthering the Magistrates and subverting the Government And because in celebrating the Holy Communion they made use of Bread and Wine according to the Institution of Christ they were thought by many not to worship Christ but Bacchus and Ceres because those heathen Deities were worshiped by the Pagans with a like Rite with Bread and Wine These things were then believed by many not because they were true for what could possibly be less so but because they had a kind of resemblance of Truth and by that shew of truth were fitted to deceive them 18. SO they traduce us and say that as Hereticks we have departed from the Unity of the Catholick Church and the Communion of Christ not that they believe this to be true nor are they at all concern'd whether it be true or false but because the thing may in some sort seem true to ignorant Men for we have indeed departed not as Hereticks ever have done from the Church of Christ but as good men ought to do from the Contagion of wicked Men and Hypocrites and yet here they insult wonderfully that theirs is the Church the Spouse of Christ the Pillar of Truth the Ark of Noah out of which no Salvation is to be hoped for and in the interim they assert with the same Confidence that we have revolted that we have rent the Coat of Christ and torn our selves from his Body and made a desection from the Catholick Faith And when they have thus left nothing unsaid which can possibly be tho never so falsly and slanderously objected against us yet at last they cannot pretend that we have forsaken the Word of God or the Apostles of Christ or the Primitive Church 19. NOW we have ever thought that the Primitive Church which was in the times of Christ and the Apostles and holy Fathers was the Catholick Church Nor do we doubt but that that Church is the Ark of Noah the Spouse of Christ the Pillar and Foundation of Truth or to place in it all the Hopes of our Salvation It is indeed an odious thing to break off and depart from that Society a Man has long lived in especially if that Society consist of Men who seem to be and are therefore called Christians tho in truth they are none And in reality we do not so contemn their Church as bad as it now is for the Name sake and 〈◊〉 Gospel of Jesus Christ was once truly and purely taught there as that we have willingly departed from it without necessity But what if an Idol be set up in the Church of God and that Desolation appears there which Christ foretold should stand in the holy Place What if some Pirate or Robber possesseth himself of the Ark of Noah certainly as often as these men thus preach to us of the Church they make themselves only to be that Church and ascribe all those glorious Titles to themselves and triumph like those of Old who cryed The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord or like the Scribes and Pharisees when they boasted they were the Children of Abraham 20. THUS do they impose upon silly men by vain and useless Shews and seeâ— to overwhelm us with the meer Name of thâ— Church just as if a Thief having got poâ—â—session of another mans House and havinâ— by force expell'd or slain the true Owneâ— should afterwards claim it as his own anâ— keep the true Heir out or as if Antichrisâ— after he has seized the Temple of Godâ— should afterwards pretend it were his owâ— and that Christ had no right to it For theâ— our Adversaries have left almost nothing liâ— a Church in the Church of God yet theâ— will needs seem the only Patrons and Defeâ—â—ders of the Church just as Gracchus defendeâ— the Roman Exchequer by making such profuse Largesses and such unreasonable Expenses that he quite ruined the Publick Treasury But then there was never any thing yet so absurd or wicked but it might seem easie to be covered and defended by the Name of the Church for Wasps make Combs and impious Men have their Assemblies not much unlike the Churches But they are not presently the People of God who are call'd so nor are they all Israelites who are of Israel The Arrian Hereticks boasted that they only were Catholicks and they call'd all the rest sometimes Ambrosians and at other Athanasians and Johannites And Theodoret tells us that tho Nestorius was an Heretick yet he covered himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Pretence and Cloak of the Orthodox Faith Ebion tho he was of the same Opinion with the Samaritans yet as Epiphaâ—es assures us he would needs be call'd a â—â—hristian The Mahometans at this day tho â—t