body of Christ the bread which is a seal of his body but properly the body of Christ which whosoever receives receives not to death but to life seeing he is life and salvation it self The nineteenth is the blowing and mumbling of the Priests on the bread and wine their turning of their back to the people when they pronounce the words of consecration their so oft signing with the sign of the cross in their Mass 25. times their keeping and inclosing of Christs body as they suppone in a box their burning of candles before it The ordinance of Honorius the 3. confirmed by Pope Innocent the 4. de celebrat Miss Canon Sane de custod Euchar. cap. 1. their carrying of it in procession upon their solemn days which they call the Feast of God in their Temples Villages streets their carrying of it to the sick and diseased with these blasphemous words spoken by the Priest to the patient Behold my friend God your Creator which I have brought unto you Ordinance of Pope Urban anno 1564. What blasphemie is this And what a God is this that cannot come by himself but must be brought by another And what comfort can this God bring to the patient that cannot bring himself to the patient but as he must be born by the Priest What a mockery of God of his Word of themselves and of the poor people is this Do their Priests the thing that Christ did in the Sacrament Did he any of these things or commanded he them to be done Crossed he the bread and wine Did he blow and mumble the words upon it Commanded he the bread to be kept in a box to be carried in processions to be carried to the sick to burn candles before it What spirit hath revealed to you these things seeing the Spirit of Christ hath not revealed them in the Scriptures You must seek therefore for a new Gospel to prove these ceremonies for the Gospel of Christ makes no mention of them yea this keeping of the sacrifice it is forbidden by your own Canon Law de consecrat dist 2. cap. 3. Gradibus So ye both fight against the Scripture and your own Canon Law The twentieth abuse is their manifold stiles and titles that they give to their Mass which cannot be all agreeable to the same some taken from the persons in whose name and honor they are celebrat as the Masses of the Trinity of the Name of Jesus of his cross crown and five wounds of our Lady of the Angels of the Saints some taken from the persons and matters whereof they are said For there are sundry sorts of Masses for sundry sorts of persons and matters as one for the Pope another for the Emperor the third for the King the fourth for a man 5. for a woman 6. for the bridegroom 7. for the bride 8. for prisoners 9. for them that saills 10. for them that goes a voyage 11. for the dead 12. for him of whose soul there is doubt 13. for the pest 14. for the rage 15. for the tempest 16. for the fire 17. for all sorts of diseases both of man and beast And last of all some of their styles are taken from the diversity of times and seasons wherein they are said one sort of Mass for Summur another for Winter one for the time of Lent another for the time of flesh one for Christmas another for Pasch another for Whitsunday and other some for other Feast days Now these Masses are so diverse that the Mass that it said at one of these solemn times cannot serve for another the Mass for Lent cannot serve for the time of flesh the Mass for Pasch cannot serve for Christmas and so forth of the rest In the which there are many horrible abuses First if the Mass be one with the Supper as they say then as there is but one Supper of the Lord which is instituted only for the remembrance of CHRIST which is but one in general for all and whereof all the faithful are partakers of whatsoever rank they be be they great be they smal be they rich by they poor and which serves for all times For as our Savior did institut but one Baptism to serve for all persons and for all times so he did institut but one Supper to serve for all persons and all times If therefore the Mass were one with the Supper it should be but one for all persons and for all seasons But this diversity of Masses doth testifie that it is not the institution of Jesus Christ but the institution of Antichrist and that it is not one with the Lord his Supper as they falsly alledge Yea it doth testifie that they have forsaken the truth of God and are given over of God to believe lies and to be deceived by strong delusions that they might be damned Secondly what needs several Masses of the Trinity of the holy Spirit of the Name of Jesus For seeing the three persons of the Trinity are one and they all concurr in the work of our faith the Father giving his Son by his holy Spirit in the Word and Sacraments therefore this diversity as though the persons of the Trinity were separat is needless Thirdly this would be marked that suppose they have stiled their Masses from sundry persons yet they have not ascribed a singular Mass to Jesus Christ that it might be named simply the Mass of Jesus Christ and this no question is not without the providence of God that seeing the Mass is not the institution of Christ but of Antichrist not the ordinance of God but of Satan he would not that such a blasphemous and idolatrous invention should have the same stile to be called the Mass of Christ simply without any further addition as the Supper is called the Lords Supper Fourthly they have a several Mass to the Name of Jesus unto the which Boniface the sixth hath given pardon of three thousand years to them that say this Mass devoutly Missale Romanum as though his Name were a thing separat from himself and as though there were some special vertue in the syllables letters of that Name after the manner of Magiciens and Sorcerers Fifthly their Masses to his cross and crown is manifest idolatry in ascribing that which was proper to Jesus Christ to the tree whereon he hang and to the crown of thorns which he bure as though either they had redeemed us and not himself who was crucified on the tree or else that they were one with himself which are both blasphemy Sixthly their Masses to the honor of the Virgin Mary to Angels and Saints is manifest idolatry For the Supper was not instituted in the honor of any creature but only to the honor of him who did redeem us Seventhly wherefore serves any Mass for the Pope For if he be such a one as himself and his Church have written of him to wit That his will is heavenly that he may make something of nothing that
day for he used to say He wondered how a Christian could ly in bed all night without rising to spend some of the night in prayer and praise so he was admitted to very intimat nearness with him and to speak with reverence put upon his secrets so that he had very many things revealed to him both concerning the Church and Kingdom of Scotland and concerning particular places and persons several instances thereof are recorded I. In his letter to my Lady Fleeming he fore-telleth the judgement coming on Scotland for he thus speaketh Alace for the Kingdom of Scotland my testimony doth not differ from that of many before this time who said that the judgement of Scotland should be blood This Kingdom shal be drowned in blood A forbished and glistering sword is dight and already drawn out of the sheath which shal not return until it be made drunk with the blood of the men within this Land First the heavy intestin sword and then the fury of a stranger O doleful Scotland well were he that were removed far from thee that his eyes might not see â—â—r his ears hear all the evils that are to come upon thee Neither the strong man by his strength nor the rich man by his riches nor the Noble by his blood shal be delivered from the judgement There is a great sacrifice to be made in Bozra in thee O Scotland of the blood of all sorts in the Land Ephraim shal consume Manasse and Manasse Ephraim Brother against brother and every man in the judgement of the LORD shal be armed to thrust his sword in the side of his neighbor and all for the contempt of the most glorious Gospel and that blood which was offered to thee O Scotland in so plentiful a manner that the like thereof hath not been offered to any Nation therefore thy judgement shal be the greater The fulfilling whereof at least in part hath since been very sensible and is known by many alive who had that letter long before the late troubles did begin II. On a certain night being under an extraordinary pressure of spirit to go and powr forth his heart to GOD he left his wife in bed and going out to a garden spent most of the night in that exercise but his wife weary at last went to seek for him but missing him in his ordinary place went into other gardens by such passages as she knew at last she heard a voyce and drawing near to it could but hear him speak a few words but with great force and fervency mixed and accompanied with floods of tears which were these O GOD wilt thou not give me Scotland O GOD wilt thou not give me Scotland She being weary and afraid to interrupt him went home and heard not the close At last he came home and reentering to his bed his wife began to reprove his unmercifulness to his own body then asked him what was he saying for she told she heard him Well said he ye had better have been in your bed but since ye heard I tell you I have endured a great fight for Scotland this night and hardly could I get a remnant reserved yet he will be gracious III. After this he arose another night but went not out of doors but in a chamber he travelled and groaned so as his wife impatient did rise several times calling him to bed but he waited his time And when he came she began a modest expostulation with him for tarrying Hold thy peace said he it will be well with us but I shal never preach another preaching in Air. And having fallen asleep before he awaked the messenger was come who by command carryed him prisoner to the Castle of Edinburgh IV. When he was prisoner in the Castle of Edinburgh for holding the Assembly of Aberdene The Lord Ochiltrie being at that time Captain of the Castle caused M. Welsch to sup with him one night in the Castle being related to him for M. Welsch mother in law M. Knoxs wife was his sister where were also several other Gentle-men and among them a Popish youth sate toward the lower end of the table M. Welsch being by the Captain set at the upper end entertained the company with grave and edifying discourse which all delighted to hear save the young Papist who with laughter and derision labored to silence him which was little regarded by M. Welsch But after supper while the guests sate a little this youth stood up at the lower end of the table and while M. Welsch proceeded from grave to gracious entertainment of them at table the youth came to that hight of insolency as with the finger to point at him and with the face to make flouting grimaces whereby he grieved the holy man so as on a sudden he was forced to a silence The whole company who heard him with delight were silent with him Within a little M. Welsch as moved by the Spirit of GOD broke forth into these words Gentle-men the Spirit of GOD is provoked against us and I shal intreat you not to be afraid to see what GOD shal do among you before you rise from the table for he will smite some one of you with death before you go home All were silently astonished waiting to see the issue with fear and while every man feared himself except the insolent youth he fell down dead suddenly at the foot of the table to show the power of GODS jealousie against the mockers of his Spirit and the offers of his grace V. One day while M. Welsch looked out at his chamber window in the Castle he hapned to see the Captain and called unto him saying God save you my Lord. The Captain acknowledging his neglect and asking for M. Welsch welfare desired to know how he might serve him In nothing said M. Welsch if you be well except you would carry my petition to his Majesty intreating for liberty to preach the Gospel I willingly will said the Captain therefore send it to me Nay said M. Welsch I am your kinsman I love you so well as to warn you not to take it in charge except you resolve to deal truly in delivering it and getting me an answer I shal bear the blame said the Captain if I do it not I beseech you my Lord said the other under-take it not except you mind to do it for the hazard is great Well Ochiltry takes it but not coming in an opportune season for he came when the King was passionatly moved on another occasion he thought not fit then to give it and as at that time he deferred so thereafter he neglected and at last quite forgot to deliver it at all For which his heart smiting him he durst hardly be seen of M. Welsch for three moneths Yet conscience forgetting as well as he he came to the same place where M. Welsch at first called him and now M. Welsch asked how he did and what was become of his petition The Captain surprised answered
was a stranger and was to preach in a strange tongue and to strangers yet did preach with such boldness and authority as if he had been before the meanest Congregation whereat Trochrig being astonished could not but on his acquaintance with him question him thereanent whence he had such confidence and was so little moved whilst he preached before strangers so grave and judicious an Auditory and in a strange tongue To whom Ex intimo animi sensu respondit vultu velut ad condolentiam compassionem non ad contemptum vel dedignationem composito Vah Ego ne hominum quorumvis faciem aut curem aut metuam qui memini reputo apud me me coram S. Sancta gloriosà illa majestate consistere cujus verbum in ipsius conspectu servis creaturis ejus annuncio Crede mihi quum ea me subit cogitatio vultus hominum quorumcunque curare aut magni facere non possum etiamsi vellem vel maxime he answered in a humble way as one humbled and not lifted up O do I either care for or fear the face of any man who remembers and considers that I am standing before that holy and glorious Majesty whose word I preach in his sight to his servants and creatures Believe me when the impression of that is upon my spirit I cannot although I most willingly would care for or esteem the countenance of men He was most zealous and tender of all the truths of GOD and studied to the utmost of his power to advance the Kingdom and interest of CHRIST not esteeming his life dear to him for the cause of CHRIST yea accounting it his greatest honor to suffer for him and his truth witness these words of his in the fore-cited letter VVho am I that he should first have called me and then constitut me a Minister of glad tydings of the Gospell of salvation these sixteen years already and now last of all to be a sufferer for his cause and Kingdom c. He shined most brightly as a star of the first magnitude in Kirkubright and Air the space of sixteen years and in France about twelve or thirteen years how long he lived after he came to England I cannot learn but I suppose it was not very long For the sad case of the Churches of France Bohemia and Germany brake his heart His wife was a very eminently godly woman the daughter of John Knox our famous Reformer He had two sons that came to maturity one whereof was a Doctor of Physick the other to wit M. Josias was a very faithful and eminent Minister of the Gospel There are several of his Sermons in manuscripts in the hands of many It is a great loss that these candles should be hid under bushels and not set on candlesticks As concerning this Treatise it is both learned solid clear and easie to be understood by very ordinary capacities and the greatest and weightiest points of Controversie are handled therein as concerning the Church the Mass Antichrist Justification by Faith the merit of works the Judge of Controversies and several other very weighty points of Controversie so learnedly solidly and convincingly that now for the space of seventy years none ever did attempt to make a reply thereto We need not detain you longer in showing reasons that moved us to republish this Treatise at this time for the great increase of Popery and ignorance of the people of this Countrey is reason sufficient for publishing Treatises of this kind especially such an one as this which is preferable to other Treatises of this nature on several accounts First it handles both convincingly clearly and yet briefly the most weighty points of Controversie betwixt us and Papists whereas other Treatises generally either handle only some one or two heads or else they are so voluminous that common people neither can have money to buy or time to read them 2. The Author spent much time in praying for a blessing on this work and therefore we may expect a blessing on it 3. The whole Treatise savors of much piety and zeal especially the Epistle to the Reader where is laid out to our serious consideration GODS goodness to us on the one hand and our unanswerableness to him on the other with the Authors fears lest the Gospel be removed from us if we do not repent and reform The consideration whereof will undoubtedly have great influence on a gracious soul to stir him up to mourn and lament for the sins of the Land and deal seriously for the LORDS abiding with us I know not any thing more useful through GODS blessing for stirring us up and awaking us out of our security in this secure and stupid generation then the serious consideration of the things held out in that Epistle Was our provocations so great seventy years ago that the godly and learned Author expected nothing but the removeal of our candlestick except we did repent And what can be expected now but the powring forth of wrath to the utmost on us except speedy and serious repentance prevent it seeing GOD out of his infinit long-suffering and patience hath continued the Gospel with us to this day and we have multiplied our provocations above the iniquities of our Fathers as if they had been smal things We have exceedingly surmounted them notwithstanding that our light hath been greater and our mercies mo then theirs were O if the consideration of these things would lead us to repentance That the reading of this Treatise might be less tedious and you may more easily take it up I have divided the same in Sections annexing a title to each Section And because the Section concerning the Mass did agree to be placed after the Section concerning Transubstantiation we have transposed it and placed it there I intended to have annexed thereto An answer to H. T. his Manual of Controversies printed anno 1671. and sent into the Countrey for seducing of poor souls but because it would have caused the Book to swel to a Volume I forbare intending if the LORD will to publish it shortly and in the mean time I have annexed A Discovery of the bloody and treasonable principles and practises of Papists that all may see that not only Papists are Hereticks and Idolaters but also bloody Traitors and incendiaries unworthy to live in any Christian Kingdom or Commonwealth As it was the design of the blessed Author in writing and publishing this Treatise at first to confirm the weak establish the wavering convince and stop the mouth of gain-sayers and to discover and lay open the errors idolatries and abominations of that Whoor of Rome that the poor people may be made to flee from Babylon lest being partakers of her sins they be made also partakers of her plagues which are no less then to have their portion in that Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death So it is our design in republishing the same For what man is he
certainty and warrant of all the doctrine in the Scripture and the Scripture it self that they are of God but the testimony of your Popes and Clergy What is it to expone the certainty of the Lords Scripture and of all Religion comprehended in the same to the mocking and derision of the wicked if this be not Yea is not this to prefer the voice and authoritie of your Popes and Clergie to the voice of God himself For what is the testimonie of your Church but the testimonie of men And is not the Scripture the testimonie and voice of God himself Do ye not therefore lift up the authoritie of your Church that is your Popes and Clergie above the authoritie of God in his Word which as you say that there is no other warrant of the Divinitie of the Scripture but only the testimonie of your Church But God be thanked in Christ Jesus who hath delivered us from this blindness for we have other warrants whereupon the certaintie of our salvation and the Divinitie of the Scripture depends then by the testimonie of the true Church much less the testimonie of your Church which is Antichristian and given over of God to believe lies and so worthy of no credit But how prove ye it Ye say there was no other Church immediatly before Luther but that of yours which was worthy of credit Whereunto I answer first that is false for there was a true Church immediatly before him which ye persecuted as I have proved else where Next I say your argument will not follow there was no other Church immediatly before him c. Ergo we have no other warrant that the Scripture is the written Word of God For we have also the testimony of the Church of the Jews concerning the Old Testament and of the primitive Church in all ages concerning both the Old and New Testament which are not only other warrants then the testimonies of your Roman Church but also worthie of more credit Next I say we have many more principal and more effectual warrants that the Scripture is of God then the testimony of the Church either past or present As first the testimonie of the holy Ghost crying testifying and sealing up in all consciences of the godly not only the truth of the doctrine contained in them but also the Divinitie of the Scripture which Stapleton lib. 1. de authorit script cap. 1.6.7 denyes not and therefore the Scripture saith That the Spirit that is the holy Ghost hears witness that the Spirit that it is the doctrine is truth 1. John 5 6. Secondly the testimony of the Scripture it self warranting and testifying of it self the whole Scripture is inspired of God 2. Tim. 3.16 The Old Testament warranted both by the testimony of its self the histories and prophesies testifying of the books of Moses and also by the testimony of the New Testament both in general 2. Pet. 1.19 Luke 24.44 and 16 29 John 5.39 and also in particular as the books of Moses Matth. 1.5 and 19.7 and 22. John 3.14 and the historical books as the history of the Queen of Saba Matth. 12. and of the widow of Sarepta Luke 4. and of the Psalms in sundry places Acts 2. and 13. and of sundrie of the books of the Old Testament Heb. 11. and Ruth also Matth. 1. and out of Isaiah Ezechiel and Jeremy many testimonies are cited and out of the Books of the smal Prophets Acts 7.42 And such like the New Testament hath the confirmation of it out of the Old Testament For whatsoever thing were prophesied in the Old Testament concerning the Messias are fulfilled in the New Testament so if the Old Testament hath authority the New Testament also hath authority And such like Peter by his testimonie confirmes the Epistles of Paul to be the written Word of God Thirdly the majestie of the doctrine which shines in it the simplicitie puritie and heavenliness of the speach therein which is not to be found in any other writings whatsoever the ancientness and antiquitie of them as the Books of Moses far ancienter then any other writing The accomplishment of the Prophesies and Oracles in them as they were fore-told their miracles and wonders whereof they testifie the testimonies of the holy Martyrs that shed their blood in the defense of the truth of them their wonderful preservation notwithstanding of the rage and cruelty of sundry tyrants who sought them out most diligently to have destroyed them all testifying of the Divinity of the holy Scripture So then to conclud this seeing we have the testimony of Gods Spirit sealing up the truth of them in our hearts and the testimony of the Scripture it self testifying of its self so many manner of wayes and sundry other arguments out of the Scripture it self and the testimony of the Church in all ages all warranting to us the Divinity of the holy Scripture I cannot but wonder at the unsearchable judgement of God in blinding you so far that ye have set it down in writ that we have no other warrant of the holy Scripture but the authority of your Church SECTION VI. Concerning the necessity of Baptism to Infants Master Gilbert Brown ANd albeit here it were not necessary to me to prove any heads of our Religion by the Word of God because M. John hath promised to improve the same by the Word which he is no ways able to perform yet to satisfie the Christian Reader and that he may know that the Word of God is only on our side and with us so that their exposition and notes be taken from the same I will set down God willing some heads for examples cause that that same doctrine which we teach and practise is the same that our Savior and his Apostles preached before and is written in the same that he calls the touchstone Master John Welsch his Reply Howsoever ye say this M. Gilbert that that doctrine which ye teach and practise in your Church is that same which our Savior and his Apostles teached before and is written in the Scripture yet in very truth there is nothing less in your conscience For if you and your Roman Church were so perswaded wherefore then should ye have declined to have it tryed by the same And wherefore have some of your own chief pillars and defenders of your Roman Religion who knows the certaintie of the same wherefore I say would they have proclaimed it by writ unto the world that the most part and the principal heads of their Religion are unwritten traditions which have neither their original beginning nor authoritie in the Scripture nor cannot be defended by the same And wherefore would your Roman Church have heapt up so many false accusations and blasphemies against the same And wherefore last of all would ye have set up your Pope and his Bishops to be supream and soveraign Judge over the same as you do But this you do because you know that if ye rejected the Scripture
as far in word as ye do in deed the consciences of the poor people would at the last withdraw themselves from under your tyranny and would go out of your fellowship for the safety of their souls so under the cloke and pretence of the Scripture ye keep them in your communion And surelie were not for this cause only you would regard no more of the testimony of the Scripture then of the testimony of the fables of Esop For the chief authority and all the surety and certainty of all Religion with you as Bellarmin de sacr lib. 2. cap. 25. and Stapleton lib. 1. cont Whitaker cap. 10. confesses is not the testimony of the Scripture but the authority of your own Church So I assure thee Reader it is but for a show that they bring forth the Scripture to prove the heads of their Religion Let the matter therefore be tryed betwixt us by these examples which ye set down here M. Gilbert Brown 1. We say with Saint Augustin Epist 28. ad Hier. that the Sacrament of Baptism is so necessary to infants that they cannot come to heaven without the same which is contrary to their negative saith where they call it the Popes cruel judgement against infants departing without the Sacrament First I say that Christ taught the same doctrine in these words Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter in the Kingdom of God John 3.5 We say this is spoken properly of the Sacrament of Baptism because there is no regeneration of water and the Spirit of God but in Baptism The same is the doctrine of the Apostles also When they exspected the patience of God saith S. Peter in the days of Noe when the Ark was building in the which few that is eight souls were saved by water whereunto Baptism being of the like form now saves you also 1. Pet. 3.20.21 And S. Paul saith For as many of you as are baptized in Christ have put on Christ Galat 3.27 And Ananias said to S. Paul And now what tarriest thou rise up and be baptized and wash away thy sins invocating his name Acts 22.17 and 2.38 And S. Paul himself in another place Christ hath saved us by the washing of regeneration and renovation of the holy Ghost Tit. 3.5 Rom. 6.3.4 1. Cor. 6.11 Mark 16.16 I think there is no Christian reader that sees these places but he must say that Baptism is most necessary to infants except he will believe rather the exposition of the Ministers then the Word of God Maister John Welsch his Reply First ye begin at the necessity of the Sacrament of Baptism whereof ye affirm that it is so necessary that infants cannot come to heaven without the same As for Baptism we grant that it is a most effectual seal and pledge of our ingrafting in Christ Jesus and of the remission of our sins through his blood and regeneration through his Spirit so that either the neglect or the contempt of it because it is the neglect and contempt of the covenant it self and of Christ Jesus the foundation of the covenant is damnable But that it is so absolutly necessary to infants that without it they cannot come to heaven to wit these whom he hath predestinat it being neither neglected nor contemned but death preventing the receiving of it that we allutterly deny as impious ungodly and cruel For first I say there is none that is in the covenant of grace and who hath God to be their God and are holy that can perish This you cannot deny But the children of the faithful who are of his secret election are such before they be baptized And this I prove The Lord promised to Abraham I will be thy God and the God of thy seed Gen. 17.17 And this Peter also testifies The promise saith he is made to you and to your children Acts 2.39 And the Apostle saith That the children of the faithful are holy 1. Cor. 7.14 Therefore the children of the faithful who are of Gods secret election suppose they die without Baptism do not perish Secondlie if Baptism were absolutly necessary to salvation then the grace of God were bound to the Sacrament This cannot be denyed But your Master of Sentences saith that the grace of God is not bound to the Sacraments and it is impious so to think that Gods free grace and salvation is bound to the instrument Thirdlie if Circumcision was not absolutly necessary to salvation in the Old Testament then Baptism is not absolutly necessary now because Circumcision was as straitly enjoyned to them as Baptism is enjoyned to us and Baptism is suceeded in the room of the same but Circumcision is not absolutly necessarie For Lombardus is rebuked by the Doctors of Paris because he so thought And David doubts not to say of his child who died the seventh day and so before he was circumcised I shal go to him c. and so he pronounced that he was saved and all the time that they were in the wilderness almost 40 years Circumcision was neglected which plainly shows that it was not so absolutly necessary that salvation could not be obtained without it Therefore Baptism is not so absolutly necessary to salvation as ye suppose for the grace of God is of no less force in the New Testament then it was in the Old Fourthlie we read of sundry that received the holy Ghost before they were baptized and seeing the holy Ghost where he is regenerats to eternal life Therefore life eternal is not bound absolutly to Baptism Fifthlie what a cross and disturbance is this that your doctrine brings to the consciences of all these parents whose children have been prevented by death before they could be offered to be baptized If they believe your doctrine how often will this come in their mind that their children are damned And seeing the infants themselves are not in the cause that they are not baptized but their death preventing by Gods providence or the Parents neglecting or contemning the same or persecution or one impediment or other hindering wherefore are ye so cruel to judge them to be damned for that whereof themselves are causeless And last of all if ye be acquainted in the Histories of the Church of God in the first age ye will find many that delayed to be baptized until their latter age which they would never have done if they had thought it simpliciter necessary to salvation as ye do And Ambrosius doubts not to say That Valentinian wanted not the grace of Baptism suppose he wanted Baptism it self the which he would never have said if he had thought it absolutly necessary to salvation And Bernard saith I cannot altogether despair of the salvation of them who wants Baptism not through contempt but only through impossibility to get it And in that same place he saith So also if our Savior Christ for this cause when he had said he that believeth and is baptized shal be saved did
And what is the cause that ye cannot understand the doctrine of your own Church which acknowledges a spiritual eating of Christ by faith both by the Word and by the Sacrament also de consecr dist 2. cap. Ut quid I had never have thought that ye had been so far blinded of the Lord. But I leave you to the Lord. Let the Christian Reader now judge whether our doctrine or yours be the invention of mans brain and which of them have their warrant out of the written Word of God M. Gilbert Brown And further I say of these words This is my body which shal be delivered for you 1. Cor. 11.24 which is a true proposition and therefore this must follow But there was no body delivered for us but the natural body of Christ therefore it was his natural body that he gave to his Disciples to be eaten Then if it were his natural body it was not natural bread As Saint Ambrose expounds the same Let us prove saith he this not to be that that nature formed but that thing which the blessing hath consecrate and greater strength to be in blessing then in nature for nature it self is changed by blessing He hath the same more amplie in the fourth book in the 4 chap. de Sacramentis Maister John Welsch his Reply First I answer the words of the Apostle is not as ye cite them here which shal be delivered but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is broken and in the present time and so in Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is given so you are not faithful in translating this place of Scripture both contrary to the Greek and Syriak copies Upon the which I reason thus this proposition is true This is my body which is broken for you so the Apostle saith but Christs body was not broken then really for not a bone of him was broken at all as the Scripture testifies Exod 12. and the Scripture saith John 19. and all men confesses that he suffered but once so only his sufferings are signified then by the breaking of the bread in the Sacrament here so as Christs body was not broken then really that is suffered but his suffering only signified by the breaking of the bread so his body was not given really and corporally to be eaten but only signified Secondly I say it is true that Christs natural body was delivered to the death for us but yet it will not follow upon this that it was his natural body which he gave to them to be eaten corporally for his natural body was really delivered to death for us and it was but given to them spiritually to be eaten You must coyn a new Logick M. Gilbert ere you can make these two stick together and the one necessarilie to follow upon the other For by that same reason you may as well conclud that Christ gave his natural body to be eaten corporally in the word for he gives himself to be eaten in his word as well as in his Sacrament 2. John 6.35 Bellarmin grants this also lib. 1. de Eucharist cap. 7. and also he gives that same body to them in the word which was delivered to death for the self same Christ is offered and received as well in the word as in the Sacrament So from his bodilie death to a corporal eating of him it will not follow And further by that same reason you may as well say that the Fathers before Christ under the Law did eat Christs body corporally for they ate that same spiritual food and drank that same spiritual drink in their Sacraments which we do now in ours So the Apostle testifies even that self same Christ his body and blood which was delivered to the death and yet it will not follow that they did eat his natural body c. As for Ambrose it is true he so speaks but he expones himself in that same chapter while as he saith Before the blessing another form or thing is named but after the consecration the body of Christ is signified If the bread then signifie the body of Christ it is not changed in his body And because of this holy use to signifie the body of Christ Ambrose saith That the nature is changed by blessing and that this is his meaning his words following will declare it where he saith Shal not the words of Christ be of force to change the form of the elements In that same sense Ambrose saith the nature of the elements is changed in the which he saith the form of them is changed for he affirmeth both there But ye will not say I suppose unless you will overthrow your transubstantiation that Ambrose means that the form of the elements is changed in substance but only in use and signification for you say the forms remains therefore you must also grant that Ambrose means not by the change of nature the change of the substance of them but only the change in the use of them from a common use to a holy use And because it may be you will delay to subscribe to the truth of our doctrine until you hear the sentence and judgement of the Fathers Therefore I will set them down here Tertullian saith contra Marc. lib. 4. This is my body that is a figure of my body Chrysostome saith in 1. Cor. cap. 10. What is that which the bread signifies the body of Christ Theodoret saith dialog 1. and 2. The bread and wine is signs and figures of the body and blood of Christ And he saith Our Savior in the institution of the Sacrament enterchanged the names and gave to the sign or symbol the name of his body and these mystical signs of these holy things whereof are the signs Unto the which he answers Are they not signs of the body and blood of Christ Hieronymus saith in Mat. 2.6 That Christ by taking of the bread which comforts the heart of man representeth the truth of his bodie Cyrillus saith ad Euop Matth. 11. Bas Liturgia Nazian in orat 2. de Pas funere Gorg. Our Sacrament avoweth not the eating of a man Basilius and Nazianzen calls the bread and wine in the Supper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 figurs or signs of the body of Christ Cyprian saith lib. 1. ep 6. ejus contra Adima cap. 12. Psal 3. The Lord called bread made of many grains his body and wine made of many grapes his blood Augustin saith Our Lord doubted not to say This is my body while as he gave but the sign of his body And he calls it the figure of his body and blood And their Canon Law saith de conseer dist 2. cap. Hoc est The heavenly bread which is the flesh of Christ is called after a manner the body of Christ while as it is but the Sacrament of his body And the Gloss there saith The heavenly bread that is the heavenly Sacrament which represents truly the flesh of Christ is called the body of Christ but improperly I omit
good heed what ground is in the institution for this their sacrifice for if they prove it not here it will never be proved by the Scripture You say therefore that Christ took bread and wine we grant that yet here is no sacrifice What then He gave thanks yet here is no sacrifice What next He blessed it Yet here is no sacrifice And whereas ye say that by this blessing and his heavenly words the bread and wine is changed in the body and blood of Christ that I have sufficiently as I hope overthrown already But to return to the words of the institution after the blessing of the bread which Luke expones by giving of thanks the text saith He gave What gave he but that which he took and had blessed And what took he and blessed he but the bread And therefore the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 10. The bread which we bless c. So then it was bread which he gave and not his own body and blood corporally And unto whom gave he it The text saith unto his disciples both in Matthew Mark and Luke all with one consent Now that which was given to his Disciples was not properly offered up in a sacrifice for a sacrifice is an offering to God And the text saith here He gave it to his Disciples So there is not a syllable in the institution that can make for your pretended sacrifice You here corrupt the word of Jesus Christ wonderfully For first you expone by giving offering up in a sacrifice Next whereas the Scripture in Matthew Mark and Luke have but giving once refers this giving not to God but to the Disciples And he gave it to the Disciples you alledge here two givings the one to God which is your own invention whereof the Scripture makes no mention the other to the Disciples which is the form of a Sacrament and not of a sacrifice for a Sacrament is given to us a sacrifice to God So all the grounds of your sacrifice of the Mass is two the one is your devised transubstantiation so one error leans upon another the other is not the words of Christ And he gave it to his Disciples but your own words and your own exposition only And he gave or offered up himself then for them These are your own words and not the words of the holy Ghost So this sacrifice of your Mass hath not the words of Jesus Christ as Matthew Mark and Luke have set them down to be the ground of it but only your own words and your own interpretation For how dare ye be so impudent as to affirm that Christ gave it twise once in an offering for his Disciples and another time in a Sacrament to his Disciples seeing we will believe Matthew Mark and Luke the sworn pen-men of the holy Ghost who say only he gave it to his Disciples as a Sacrament and makes no mention at all that he gave it to God as a sacrifice Do you think the Lord will never take an account of you for such a manifest lie of the Son of God of his Scripture of his Apostles and holy Writers who writ it they all saying He gave it to his Disciples and you affirming beside that giving to them that he gave it that is offered it up for them O sinful man Who will venter the salvation of his soul upon so smal a threed yea upon so impudent a lie as ye make of the Son of God O repent or else you shal one day feel the fierceness of the Lords hot wrath and indignation upon your soul and carcass for evermore Leave off therefore to be the cause of the damnation of souls for you deceive them and makes them believe that this monstrous abomination of your Mass hath Jesus Christ to be the Author of it while it hath not so much as a syllable in the whole institution that gives so much as an inkling of it Are you wiser then the wisest of your generation Bellarmin who for all the arguments that he brings never so much as once gives an inkling of this your argument For he thought it was too plain a lie to affirm a double giving here out of the words of the institution and too absurd an exposition to expone He gave that is he offered it up And therefore he hath no such reasoning for his sacrifice of the Mass Yea that which ye think is plain out of the institution that Christ offered up his body and his blood in the Supper he saith That the action of offering cannot be easily distinguished and separated from the other actions which was done joyntly there together by the words of the institution Bellar. lib. 1. de missa cap. 12. fol. 669. And more plainly he saith That the Evangelists have not expresly said that Christ offered up himself unto the Father in the Supper lib. 1. de missa cap. 24. fol. 706. This is a plain speaking Now your sacrifice of the Mass hath no express warrant out of the institution of Christ if you will believe him whose controversies are allowed by the Pope to be printed But it may be ye thought that this your doctrine would have been swallowed up without further tryal therefore you regarded not what you writ You have stoln your self in such credit with the simple among you who are deceived and blinded by your lies that ye are not ashamed to be plain enough in speaking untruths lies of the Word of God But the Lord will recōpence this one day But now to return to the rest of the words of the institution as ye rehearse them And last of all ye say He gave his body and blood to his Disciples to be eaten He gave it spiritually and they did eat it spiritually and he gave them Sacraments of his body and blood the bread and wine corporally to them and they did eat them corporally suppose for a spiritual use and end For that which he gave they did eat he gave the bread and wine therefore it was bread and wine which they did eat and drink And therefore the Apostle saith plainly For whosoever shal eat of this bread c. 1. Cor. 11. He calls it bread that is eaten And our Savior saith Verily verily from henceforth shal I not drink of the fruit of this vine with you Matth. 26.29 That which he gave his Apostles to drink corporally in the latter Supper was the fruit of the vine so the Evangelists saith But Christs blood was not the fruit of the vine therefore it was not his his blood which they corporally drank but wine which was the fruit of the vine-tree I go forward And when he had done this ye say He cōmanded his Disciples that is the lawful Pastors of the Church to do the same for the remembrance of him to the end of the world That is true that which he did here he commanded to be done by his Disciples to the end of the world but never a syllable
own heads as may be seen in our Psalm books Whereunto I answer If ye respect the matter contained in our thanksgiving it hath the warrant of the Scripture and so in that respect it is not our own invention If ye respect the authority we are taught and commanded by our Savior both by his example for he gave thanks and also by his commandment Do this to do the same And so in that respect it is not our own invention If you respect the end it is Gods glory which is the proper end of all thanksgiving If ye will respect the form of this thanksgiving to wit the words and order wherein it is conceived I say it is left indifferent to the Church of God to form their prayers and thanksgiving so being the matter end and authority of the using of them publickly have their warrant out of the Word of God So seeing the authority to give thanks and the matter also of our thanksgiving and end thereof is set down in the Word and seeing the Lord hath left it free to the Church of God concerning the outward form of the same the Scriptures not determining it which your self I hope will not deny For your Canon hath many forms of prayers and thanksgiving in your Mass which after that form and order is not set down in the Word of God Therefore you injury the Lords Spirit and his Church who calls our thanksgiving our own invention As to the third concerning blessing which you distinguish from thanksgiving and saith we have blotted it out of our Scots Bibles and put thanksgiving in the room thereof and so you say we want that part First then I will ask you Did not Luke and the Apostle Paul set down the whole form and the chief points of the institution of that Sacrament I suppose you will not deny it for it were too plain an impiety for you to say that either Luke the sworn pen-man of Gods Spirit or Paul who said I have received of the Lord that which also I have delivered unto you 1. Cor. 11.23 that either of these had omitted the history of the institution of this Sacrament a principal point thereof but either this blessing is one with thanksgiving or else they have omitted a principal point thereof for neither of them makes mention in these places of blessing but only of thanksgiving therefore it is one with thanksgiving Secondly I say either the whole three Evangelists and the Apostle Paul in setting down the institution of the Sacrament of the Supper omits a chief thing to wit the blessing of the cup which I suppose ye will not say or else the blessing of the cup is one with thanksgiving for the Apostles Paul Luke makes no mention at all of blessing but only of thanksgiving and the two Evangelists Matthew and Mark makes no mention of the blessing of the cup but saith that after or also he took the cup and when he had given thanks c. therefore they are one Thirdly if ye will credit one Evangelist exponing another whereas Matthew and Mark have this word and he blessed Luke and Paul have these words And he gave thanks And whereas Matthew and Mark have this word blessing after he took the bread they use the word thanksgiving after he took the cup to signifie that they are both one And therefore if ye will believe Scripture exponing Scripture they are both one Yea what will you say to Bellarmin who saith lib. 1. de sacram Euchar. cap. 10 That some Catholicks contends that both the words to bless and to give thanks in the Scripture signifies one thing and therefore they interpret thanksgiving blessing So if you will credit your own Catholicks they are both one here And whereas you say that both in the Greek and Latin they signifie diverse things I answer Indeed it is true that sometimes they signifie diverse actions as blessing Numb 6. for the petition of a blessing But yet sometimes also blessing is taken in the Scripture for thanksgiving as both I have proved in these places as also if ye will deny there is many places in the Scripture for the contrary as Luke 1.65 Eph. 1.3 1. Pet. 1.3 And whereas you say that in Mark they signifie two distinct actions I have proved before they are both one And last of all I say if by blessing you mean the words of the consecration this is my body which is broken for you c. as Bellarmin affirms lib. 4. de sacram Euch. cap. 13 that the Roman catechist so expones it and the Theologues commonly teaches the same then I say we want not that chief point for we rehearse the words of the institution So howsoever the word blessing be taken either for thanksgiving or for the sanctification of these elements to an holy use by prayer which is comprehended in the thanksgiving or for the words as ye call them of the consecration we have always this blessing in our cōmunion And as for your hovering and blowing of the words of Christ over the bread and calice with your crossing and charming them after the manner of Sorcerers with a set number and order of words and signs your hiding it your rubbing of your fingers for fear of crums your first thortering and then lifting up of your arms your joining and disjoyning of thumb and fore-finger and sundry other vain and superfluous ceremonies and curiosities which you use in blessing of the elements they have neither command nor example of Christs institution and action and the Apostles doctrine and doing in the Scriptures of God Now as to the fourth giving or offering up of the body and blood of Christ to his Father by the faithful We confess a giving to his Disciples which you call afterward a communicating But for another giving that is as you expone it an offering up of his body and blood to his Father we utterly deny it as a thing not so much as once mentioned in the whole institution but contrary to the same and Antichristian and therefore we utterly abhor it and detest it as an invention of your own as Antichristian as idolatry as abomination as that which derogates from that blessed only one sacrifice whereby he offered up himself once upon the cross never to be offered up again as the Scripture testifies Heb. 25. And Bellarmin saith plainly lib. 1. de missa cap. 12. 24. That this offering up is not expresly set down in the words of the institution and that it cannot be easily discerned And as for the fifth a communicating we have it and that not only of the bread and wine as ye here imagine but of Jesus Christ God and Man his very flesh and blood and all his blessings by faith spiritually seeing therefore we have all these points which are requisit in the institution a lawful Minister thanksgiving blessing giving and communicating therefore we have the true institution of Christ in the
the body and blood of Christ From time this was taught the people then what followed but all adoration and worship to be given to the Sacrament where Christ is really present Then how could it be but a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living seeing it was that self-same body and blood under the forms of bread and wine which was offered up upon the cross for the sins of the world The next was that of Purgatory for seeing say they that there is a fire of Purgatory after this life where through men must pass to heaven and seeing in these flames their sins must be purged therefore a remedy must be fore-seen and where is there a remedy to be found but in the sacrifice of the Mass where the Son of God is offered up that will relieve our souls after we are departed These will help the souls of our parents and friends that are there already Upon the which was founded the Masses and sacrifices for the dead and from thence came the most part of the donation of lands to the Churches to have Masses said for their souls So then to conclud the loss of the Communion in the Sacrament of the Supper Next the sanctification of the oblations of the people which at last was turned to that which the Priest consumed himself alone Thirdly the avarice of the Priests which bred their damnable doctrine that the Supper was not only a Sacrament but a sacrifice c. Fourthly the applying of the prayers conceived of the gifts of the people unto the round host and calice which the Priest consumed Fifthly the abusing of the word sacrifice which the Fathers and Church used Sixthly the publick and universal negligence and ignorance of Pastor and people Seventhly the confusion of languages And last of all their damnable doctrine of Transubstātiation and Purgatory These were the degrees by the which their abominable sacrifice hath been created nowrished entertained and perfected in that measure and strength that at the last it took such deep root in the hearts of all men almost that nothing could root it out except only the power of the Lords Spirit by the voice of his Word And yet this abuse was perceived by sundry whom the Lord stirred up as Arnold de Villanova anno 1200. and Albigenses and Waldenses in France who taught That the sacrifice of the Mass was a manifest abuse and that the Masses both for the living and the dead was directly contrary the institution of our Lord. And some of their own Doctors in their writings doth contradict this propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass as the Maister of Sentences distinct 12. lib. 4. de consecrat and Thomas of Aquin in summa part 3. quaest 83. 73. Lyranus in Epist ad Heb. cap. 10. affirming That Christ once died for our sins and that once oblation is sufficient for all our sins and that it cannot be reiterat and that the Sacrament is an ordinary memorial and representation of that only one sacrifice which was offered up upon the cross the which doctrine of theirs cannot stand with their dayly immolation and real oblations of the Son of God in their Mass And that nothing may be lacking to the manifesting of it we will show also the Authors and times of the entring in of the ceremonies of the same The mixing of water with the wine in the calice is ascribed to Pope Alexander the first de consecrat dist 2. Can. in Sacram. oblat anno 111. he also put to this clause to the Mass Qui pridie quam pateretur Secondly Sanct. sanct sanct Dom. Deus Sabaoth is put to by Pope Syricius the first anno 121. Thirdly Gloria in excelsis is put to by Pope Telesphore the first anno 139 Fourthly the singing of the Creed after the Gospel put to by Pope Mark the first and according to some by Pope Julius the first anno 335. Fifthly Pope Zepherin ordained that the wine should be put in glasses and Urban the first ordained that the vessels should be of gold or silver or at the least of tin anno 213. Sixthly Pope Felix the first ordained to celebrat Masses in the names of the Martyrs above their graves and relicks anno 267. Seventhly the offerture of the Mass is ascribed to Eutychian the first anno 270. Eightly the Kyrieeleison to Sylvester the first anno 314. Ninthly the celebration of Masses in linnen clothes to Eusebius and him also Tenthly the standing up at the reading of the Gospel to Anastasius the first anno 401. Eleventhly the blessing of the Pax. to Innocentius the first anno 405 dist 2. cap. Pacem Twelfthly the Antiphones the Introits and the Graduals to Celestin the first anno 427. Thirteenthly Orate pro me fratres Deo gratias sanctum sacrificium to Leo the first anno 444. Fourteenthly the nine-fold repetition of Kyrieeleyson and the singing of Hallelujah to Gregory the first anno 593. Fifteenthly the singing of Agnus Dei thrise to Sergius the first anno 688. Sixteenthly the incense and offerture restored by Leo the third anno 800. Seventeenthly their Transubstantiation invented by Lanfrancus an Italien anno 1036. decreed in the Council of Lateran in substance anno 1059. And made the 13. Article of Faith by Innocent the third anno 1215. Decret tit 1. de summa Trinit fide cap. Firmiter credimus I omit the rest as their Canon compiled by one named Scholasticus as Gregory witnesses lib. 2. 7. 9 and fundry other ceremonies So that between the first and last inventers and authors of their Mass it is more then a thousand years And thus much touching that abominable sacrifice of the Mass which is not the Lords ordinance but the invention of the Popes and Clergy of Rome Master Gilbert Brown I thought such like to have proved the ceremonies of this blessed sacrifice by the same holy Word but because it were something long some I have continued the same till another place SECTION XII Of the manifold abuses of the Mass Master John Welsch his Reply AS for your Ceremonies you did most wisely in rejecting the probation of them till another place and so to hold the Reader in the halfe as we speak because ye are never able to do it and it is good to delay to enterprise a thing that is impossible But how can you be so impudent as to write that you will prove the ceremonies of your Mass by the Scripture seeing the Mass it self hath not the warrant out of the same but contrary and repugnant to the same as hath been proved And I can scarcely think M. Gilbert that you have spoken this in earnest when you said you would prove the ceremonies of your Mass by the same holy Word which is the Scripture For what then will you say to the Council of Trent Sess 22. cap. 5. who referrs not the institution of them to the Lord Jesus in his written Word but to the Church by the unwritten traditions
And to Bellarmin who saith the Church instituted them lib. 2. de missa cap. 13. and so referrs the institution of them not to CHRIST in his written Word but to the institution of the Church and to your own Doctors and Canon Law and Writers who ascribes the institution of them to your Popes and others of your Church as I have proved before O M. Gilbert What a preposterous love is this that ye bear to your abominable sacrifice that ye are not ashamed to write that the very ceremonies of it hath their warrant in the same holy Word and that contrary your own general Council of Trent and all your learned Doctors and Writers I think ye thought that we had never read your ceremonies or never known them that ye write so boldly of them Shal the Council of Trent say they are instituted by the Church by Apostolical traditions which your Church confesses are not written in the Scripture And yet are not you ashamed to say they have their warrant by the Scripture and so openly to contradict the doctrine of your own Council of Trent I will say no further but surely either they err in this point or else ye and if they err then the general Church may err and hath erred and so one of your main foundations is gone Choose you whither you will take this blot to your self or let it fall on them But because ye account this Mass of yours most heavenly and ye vaunt that ye only have in your Church that heavenly action and because it is the chiefest point of your service and worship which ye give to God in your Church and also because ye so impudently affirm that the ceremonies thereof hath their warrant out of the Scripture Therefore I will discover here as shortly as I can the abominations absurdities blasphemies idolatries vain idle superstitions Jewish and Ethnick ceremonies of the same that poor folks be not deceived any longer therewith For certainly for as heavenly as ye think it is I dare affirm that it is nothing else but a very sink and filthy closet of all abominations idolatries and horrible blasphemies So that as it is said in the Proverbs of the vertuous woman that many women have done vertuously but thou surmounts them all Prov. 31.23 So it may be said of the Mass Many services and worships devised by man have been idolatrous blasphemous and abominable but this sacrifice of the Mass brought in the Church of God by Antichrist in idolatrie abominations and blasphemies surmounteth them all so that the like of it hath never been before it nor never shal be after it For beside the fore said abuses that it is a will-worship instituted by man that it hath corrupted the Sacrament of the Supper which was given us to assure us of the grace of Christ and hath turned it in a sacrifice and that a propitiatory sacrifice and meritorious not to the Priest only but to the beholders also and not to the present only but to the absent and not only for the living but for the dead that it hath abolished the death of Christ and the vertue of that one sacrifice and that it hath spoiled Christ Jesus of his Priesthood and communicated it unto others beside these intolerable abuses it abounds and overflows with other intolerable abominations As first their altars in their Mass whereon they think they sacrifice the Son of God and therefore in the beginning of their Mass the Priest saith And I will go in into the altar of God whereby they renew either Judaism or Paganism for their material altars was a part of the Ceremonial law of the Jewes which was abolished by the death of Christ and Numa Pompilius 700 years before Christ ordained that the Ethnick Priest when he went about to offer sacrifice that he should draw near to the altar This entry of the Mass is said to be the ordinance of Pope Celestin the first about the year of God 426 And because the Priests take the altars for the Table whereon the Supper is celebrat which he confounds with the abominations of the Mass also because M. Gilbert said he was minded to prove the ceremonies of the Mass by the Scripture therefore I will ask him and his fellow Priests these few things concerning their altars First where read they that Christ did ever institut in the New Testament that the Table of our Lord should only be of stone and not of timber or any other mettal as their altars whereon they chant their Mass must be according to their law Dist 1. cons cap. Altaria si non Secondly where read they in the New Testament that the Table of the Lord should be consecrated with oyl and chrism with a sprinkling of water mixed of wine and salt of ciphers of holy water at the four corners of the same at the middle part and that none may do this but a Bishop if a Clark do it that he be degraded and if one of the Laicks do it that he be excommunicat Canon Non alij What folly is this that a Priest hath authority as they think to sacrifice the Son of God yet he may not powr a little oyl upon a stone That the Bishop compass the altar seven times singing the 51. Psalm Thou shalt wash me with hysop c. prophaning the truth of God And there to bury the relicks of some Saints put in a little shrine with three grains of incense that God for their cause may hear the prayers and accept of the sacrifice offered up upon that altar And then anointing the table of the altar with oyl and singing Jacob erected up a stone c. Where I say read you these in the New Testament that Christ commanded these things to be done to the table of his Supper which ye do to the altars whereon ye say your Masses And such like where read you that none should chant their Masses but on such altars as are consecrated And such like that your altars are not lawful where there is not found the bodies or relicks of some Martyrs Canon Placuit ut altaria Such like that ye dedicat your altars whereon ye chant your Mass to others then to Christ as unto the Virgin Mary Peter and other Saints departed And such like that the Priest should kiss the altar often and namely when he approaches unto it carrying the calice Hath Christ commanded this Hath the Apostles used them Hath the Scripture made mention of them What think you will you answer to God when it shal be said to you Who required all these things at your hands And wherefore also transgress ye your own law in having mo altars then is necessary seeing by it ye are commanded by express terms that superfluous altars be destroyed Canon Eccles vel altaria To conclud this then with Ambros in Epist ad Heb. cap. 8. 10. As our sacrifice saith he which is no other thing but our prayers and thanksgiving
their own doctrine they make the people to commit idolatry in worshipping of their breaden God About the year 1536. there was four Augustin Friers hanged in Sevil in Spain who had secretly by night murthered their Provincial The day following to avoid all suspicion of the murther they all four said Mass but they had no intention to consecrat as they themselves afterward confessed and so there was no Transubstantiation there by their own doctrine and therefore all these that heard their Mass that day by their own doctrine committed idolatry because there was no consecration there I will set down another example There was a certain Priest who being deposed for his filthy life wherein he had continued for the space of 30. years with a harlot being demanded by one if he had truly repented him of this his abominable life and if he had put away this his concubine from him with intent never to receive her again He never had said he any such purpose Being asked again how then said he Mass every day and made he no scruple to eat the bread of the Lord and drink of his holy cup his conscience accusing him of such an erroneous sin At the last he confessed that to avoid the unworthy receiving of the body and blood of the Lord he did not pronounce the sacramental words wherewith it is consecrat And being urged again how he durst commit so horrible a wickedness as to give so great an occasion of so horrible idolatry to the people who kneeling on their knees casting themselves on the earth lifting up their hands toward the altar striking their breasts did worship the unconsecrated bread and cup Unto whom he answered that it was not so great a fault as he said of it and that he was not alone but many mo did the same which thought it not so abominable an offence as he made of it These two Histories I find written by a Spanish Author one Cyprian Valera the title whereof is Of the Pope and his authority and of the Mass and the holiness thereof All these then that heard the Masses of these men and adored the Sacrament which they lifted up committed idolatry by their own Canons and Decrees For the last did not pronounce the words of consecration and the other four had not the intent to consecrat and therefore there was no transubstantiation there by their own doctrine and so they worshipped bread and wine as their great Redeemer and Creator But what a miserable Religion is this that depends upon the intention of another And therefore who can be certain by their own doctrine whither it be God they worship or not in their Sacrament And this made a certain Inquisitor an enemy to the truth fearing when he heard Mass whither the Priest had intention to consecrat or not to say O Lord if thou be there I adore thee and so by this subtilty he thought to escape committing of idolatry In the time of the Council of Constance there was three Popes that the Council for their abominations did depose and elected another These three not being Popes could not ordain Priests nor give them authority to consecrat so that by their own Canons all they that heard Masses of such Priests as had their authority from them committed idolatry This same may be said of them that heard the Masses of all these Priests that were ordained by Pope Constantin the first and the whore Pope John the 8. For neither of these had power to ordain Priests by their own Canons And as for Pope John there is no controversie of it because she was a woman not capable of that authority by their own Canons And as for Constantin the first he was a laick man who without receiving any orders was by force named Pope He not being a Priest himself could not give this authority to others And so by their own doctrine all these that heard the Masses of such Priests did commit horrible idolatry And howsoever the Pope and his Clergy affirms it to be God and not bread and wine which they adore yet ye shal see what estimation they have themselves of that breaden God of theirs by some examples Pope Gregory the seventh used it for conjuration and sought a response of it and because it would give him none he cast it in the fire and burnt it and so burnt his Creator They use it to revenge their wrongs hatred and malice by it and therefore Pope Victor the third in the year 1088. was poisoned in the calice by his Sub-deacon Such like the Archbishop of York poisoned in the calice Such like Henry the seventh poisoned by a Dominican Frier in the Sacrament They use it for an Harvenger sending it one or mo days journey before with the basest sort of the people The Dominican Friers of the town Auxerra in France in the year 1536. did burn it being vomit out by a Frier that said Mass And the Franciscans de alia Villa burnt the Cow which had eaten up the Sacrament out of the Priests hand and so in burning her did burn their Creator with her Molon one of the Spanish Inquisition 35 years since being to go into procession upon the day of Corpus Christi and the hoste that was to be put in the box being so great that it could not be placed in the same he being impatient to await while another hoste had been consecrat demanded a pair of shears and clipped his God and Creator and so went on forward to their procession Of the which we gather two things First that their Popes and Ecclesiastical rable is without all God and Religion that makes so light of their God as to clip it and burn it and use it as the instruments of their malice and revenge Secondly that this consecrat bread of theirs which they sell to the people to be worshipped and adored is most abominable Idolatry whereof one day they shal give a reckoning to God And thus much for the tenth abuse of their idolatrous Mass The eleventh abuse is that in your cōmunions First contrary the institution of Christ ye give not the bread to the hands of the people to take but puts it in theirs mouthes as though their mouthes were holier then their hands Next ye spoil the poor people of a sweet pledge of their salvation the Sacrament of the wine giving them only bread contrary first the express command of Jesus Christ Drink ye all of this Matth. 26.27 Mark 14.23 next contrary the doctrine of the Fathers August in lib. seu prosp your own Canon Law de consecrat dist 2. can Dumfrangitur hostia Cyprian serm 5 de lapsis and Pope Gelasius de consecrat dist 2. can Comperimus The second is that in your Mass suppose ye speak of a communion and communicants yet there is none at all for your Priest eats and drinks out all And therefore have ye added to the words of Christ eat all drink all contrary the express
Sacraments the Lord hath instituted are publick and not privat but this Sacrament of yours is privatly ministred therefore not a true Sacrament Sixthly all the Sacraments of the New Testament should be ministred by them who have the preaching of the Gospel concredited unto them and not by privat Christians But Innocentius the first a Pope saith in his Epist 1. cap. 8 Private men may minister this in their own and others necessities as also Thomas Waldensis a Papist And yet the Council of Trent accurses them that so say Therefore it is not a Sacrament Seventhly Pope Innocent in that same Epistle cited before calls it but genus Sacramenti a kind of Sacrament therefore it is not properly a Sacrament But you are more bold to call it a Sacrament Eightly all the Sacraments of Christ have their warrant from the written word But Petrus a Soto in his book against Brentius calls this a tradition which hath not the warrant in the written word therefore it is not a lawful Sacrament of Christ And as to your argument That it hath an external form of anointing with oyl of an internal grace which is remission of sins I answer this form or ceremony was extraordinary as I proved before annexed to a miraculous gift of healing The which seeing it is now ceased the ceremonie also should cease And this promise is not made to the anointing if ye will believe the Apostle but to the prayer of faith The prayer of faith saith the Apostle shal save the sick And whereas ye say that we make him a Mediciner only for the bodie in this and not for the soul we answer That this ceremonie as sundrie others was only annexed to the extraordinary gift of healing of the bodie and was not seals of grace And yet with the health of the bodie the healing of the soul was oftentimes joyned as our Savior saith to the paralytick man Thy sins are forgiven thee take up thy bed and walk Matth 9 28. Now whither these be our vain subterfuges or clear grounds out of the Scripture let the Reader judge And whereas ye call us new men let them be new and most recent whose doctrine is most new But as hath and shal be proved by Gods grace our doctrine is not new but Jesus Christs in his Old and New Testament and yours devised since Therefore this title of noveltie most justly belongs unto you This for the sixth point of your doctrine SECTION XV. Concerning Imposition of hands and whither it be a Sacrament Master Gilbert Brown SEventhly our doctrine is that when our Priests which are the only lawful Ministers now adayes are called to that function receives the imposition of hands with the grace or gift of the holy Ghost because it is the doctrine of S. Paul in these words Neglect not the gift or grace that is within thee which is given thee by prophesy with the imposition of priesthood And therefore must be a Sacrament because it hath an external form which is the imposition of hands of an external grace which is the gift given by the same And for this cause a John Calvin himself admits it to be a Sacrament albeit in their Confession they call it a bastard Sacrament of the Popes and detests the same although b Melancthon hath the contrary a Institut lib. 4. cap. 14. sect 20. item lib. 4. cap. 19. sect 28. b In locis com edit 1543. de num sacrament M. John Welsch his Reply As for the seventh point of your doctrine concerning the imposition of hands in the ordination of the lawful Ministers of the Church of Christ because it is a ceremony which hath the foundation of it in the word of God and was practised in the primitive Church as in the ordination of Timothie here and others and is profitable both to put the Pastors in mind of his calling that he is separated of God for the discharge of the same and also the people that they embrace him as one sent of God to them therefore we both acknowledge it and practise it But that either the gift of the holy Ghost is inseparably joyned with it or that it is a Sacrament of the New Testament properly as you affirm that we deny As to the first the gift of the holy Ghost is not inseparably joyned with it First because that is injurious to the Lords free grace which is not bound to any instrument let be to a ceremony And also he speaks against experience for how many I pray you do receive imposition of hands who receive not a new grace and gift of the holy Ghost among you Miserable experience these many ages both doth testifie it and also one hath testified the same saying Our Priests do lay the word of blessing upon many but in few followeth the effect of that blessing Ex veteri Testam quaest 109. inter opera Augustini And certainly if any gift of the holy Ghost is joyned with this ceremony it should be an ability to preach the Word For that is the principal part of the office of the Minister of the Gospel But how many thousands are they among you in your Church who have received this imposition of hands and yet as unable to preach the Gospel as asses are And last of all what needed that tryal and examination so straitly commanded in the Scripture which ought to be had of them that are to be ordained if the holy Ghost were ever inseparably given with the ceremony For wherefore is this tryal and examination And wherefore is Timothy so straitly charged to lay his hands suddenly on no man but because it is only the holy Ghost who enables The which also should be well known unto his Church ere they presume to testifie the calling of God to them For if it were true that ye say that the gift of the holy Ghost were joyned with the imposition of hands inseparably then the Apostle should rather have commanded Timothy 2 Tim. 5.22 to lay his hands upon many in respect of the need that the Church stood in of all men rather then to have discharged him And as for the place of Paul which ye cite here Despise not the gift c. this serves nothing for your doctrine For if first the gift given to Timothy which the Apostle speaks of was extraordinary and so ordinarily doth not ever follow the ceremony 2. It is not ascribed here to the ceremony of imposition of hands but unto prophesie which is given thee by prophesie whereby it was revealed to the Church of the ability of this man And so if there be any prophesies that go of you in your Clergy that the holy Ghost is given to you then ye may claim unto the same but I think ye will not say that such like prophesies go of you therefore ye cannot claim to this testimony 3. Timothy is exhorted to keep that worthy thing concredited unto him through the holy Ghost 2 Tim. 1.14 It was the
holy Ghost therefore who was the giver and preserver of it And as for the ceremony it was a sign of the presence of Gods Spirit in them who was lawfully ordained Now as to the second that ye will have it a Sacrament because it hath an external form and also a promise of grace That will not follow For then you should have innumerable Sacraments For prayer alms-deeds and the ordination of Magistrats and many others have external forms and have promises of grace joyned with them and yet you will not say that they are properly Sacraments For in all the Sacraments of the New Testament which properly are Sacraments there must be first not only an external action but an earthly and visible element as water in Baptism and bread and wine in the Supper And therefore Augustin saith in Joan. tract 90. Let the word be joyned with the element and then it is a Sacrament Secondly they must have their express warrant and institution from Jesus Christ in the Scripture as Baptism hath Matth. 28. and the Lords Supper Matth. 26. Thirdly they must not only have a promise of grace but a promise of remission of sins and sanctification For they must be seals of that Covenant which is common to all Christians as Baptism and the Lords Supper is But this ceremony of imposition of hands wants all these three For neither is there any earthly element neither seals it up the Covenant which is common to all but proper to the Ministery only neither hath it the express institution of Christ in all the four Evangelists And whereas in the 20. of John he there ordains his Apostles we read he breathed on them and said Receive the holy Ghost But not a word that he laid his hands on them or commanded them to use it to others The which without all question he would have done if he had ordained it to be a Sacrament And Petrus a Soto a Papist saith That the making of the imposition of hands to be a Sacrament is a tradition Therefore it is not a Sacrament properly of the New Testament Secondly if the ordination of any by imposition of hands were a Sacrament the ordination of a Bishop by the same especially should be a Sacrament For the place which ye quote here is of Timothy who was a Bishop as your Church affirms And Bellarmin saith de Sacramento ordinis lib. 1. cap. 5. If this be not a Sacrament then it cannot be proved by the Scripture that ordination by imposition of hands is a Sacrament And he saith If this be not granted they will lose all the testimonies of the Ancients to prove imposition of hands to be a Sacrament for they speak of the ordination of Bishops But the ancient Schollers and Doctors of your own Church in 4. dist 24. and Dominicus a Soto a learned Papist lib. 10. de justitia jure qu. 1. art 2. affirms That this is not a Sacrament properly and so neither the ordination of the rest of the Ministery can be a Sacrament seeing a Bishop is above the rest in your order Last of all the Council of Trent sess 23. cap. 2. 3. is not against it and sundry of the rest of your Clergy Bellarm. lib. 1. de sacr ord cap. 9. makes all the seven Orders of your Church as Priests which you distinguish in two sorts to wit in Bishops and inferior Priests Deacons Sub-Deacons Exorcists Lectors Door-keepers and your Acoluthyts every one of them by themselves Sacraments And your Master of Sentences lib 4 dist 24. cap. Si autem calls all the Orders in the plural number Sacraments So if ye durst let the people know the secret of this your doctrine ye make not only seven Sacraments but fourteen in very deed But this were dangerous to you to sowe abroad For you fear it would cast your doctrine in some suspicion with them and be an occasion to them to examine it by the Scripture the which if they would once begin to do ye know your hope were lost As for Calvin and Melancthon they call it a Sacrament taking the word in an ample sense for these ceremonies that have the foundation in the Word which have a promise of a blessing joyned with them and not in that sense that Baptism and the Lords Supper are called Sacraments as Calvin in that first place which ye quote plainly acknowledgeth For these are his words Let the Christian Church saith he be content of these meaning of Baptism and the Supper and let them not admit nor acknowledge desire or look for any other third Sacrament till the end of the world And as for imposition of hands which the Church useth in their ordinations he saith I will not be against it that it be called a Sacrament so being I reckon it not among the ordinary Sacraments And Melancthon in that same place reckons up prayer alms marriage the Magistrat in the number of these unto the which he gives this name of a Sacrament whereby he makes it plain that he takes this word Sacrament amply and largely as hath been said before and not in that sense that Baptism and the Supper is called Sacraments So you play your self M. Gilbert in the ambiguity of this word Sacrament and deceives the Reader with the same And whereas ye call your Priests the only lawful Ministers now adays I will answer to this more fully afterward only this now First seeing the fountain and ground upon the which all the lawful callings in your Church depends and is derived as your selves confess is the supremacy of your Pope whom I have proved to be the Antichrist in my other Treatise and seeing the office of your Priesthood in sacrificing the Son of God as ye suppose is most abominable idolatrous and Antichristian as I have proved also there therefore you are not only not lawful Ministers of Christ but the Ministers of Antichrist And as for the style of Priest I answered it before it is not so much as once ascribed to the Ministers of the Gospel to signifie their proper calling in the whole New Testament SECTION XVI Concerning Matrimony and whither it be a Sacrament Master Gilbert Brown EIghtly our doctrine is that Matrimony is a bond undissoluble because our Savior saith That which God hath joyned together let no man separat Matth 19.6 And such like he saith That whosoever demits his wife and marries another commits adultery upon her Mark 10.11.12 And in S. Luke 16.18 we have the same And S. Matthew 5.35 19.9 is of the same opinion albeit one may put away his wife by him for fornication this is the doctrine also of the Apostles of Jesus Christ for it is written in S. Paul That a woman that is under a husband her husband living is bound to the law but if her husband be dead she is loosed from the law of her husband Therefore her husband living she shal be called an adulteress if she be with another man
it no heresie to fast on the Lords day more then other dayes both to stir up our repentance and to make us more meet to holy and spiritual exercises because it is not contrary to the Word of God As for Leo his Epistle it is wrong quoted for it should be Epist 91. and their fasting on the Lords day is not like ours for they fasted on the Lords day because they believed not that Christ was a true man as Leo in that same place testifies which you will not say your self that we do for we acknowledge him to be a true man As for the 13. heresie of the Pepusians and Collyridians their doctrine was that women might be Bishops and Elders and might use these publick functions as these places which ye have quoted testifie which is not our doctrine but rather yours who permit women to baptize in case of necessity That they denyed Orders to be a Sacrament there is no such thing to be found in these places which ye quote here As for the 14. heresie of the Pelagians if they denyed that these who were accused of any scandalous offence and guilty thereof should make their confession of it to God his Ministers and the Congregation for to take away the offence of it then they erred and our doctrine and practise condemn this but if they denyed the absolut necessity of your auricular confession then is it no error because there is no such thing commanded in the whole Scriptures of God Now as for the testimony of Boëtius I have not seen it As for their second heresie concerning Baptism they taught as Augustin reports in that place That Baptism was not needful to children because they were born without original sin as they taught which is an heresie indeed but this is a calumny to ascribe it to us for we teach that children are born in original sin and so should be baptized And surely this heresie rather agrees to you who teach that Mary was not born in original sin and therefore she needed not to be baptized As for the last of the Donatists denying the order of Monks I answer First your Papistical and idolatrous Monks are far different from these which Augustin and Chrysostome defended and these of the primitive Church Bellarmin lib. 1. cap. 2. de indulgentijs For first they were bound to no prescript form of dyet apparel or any thing else by solemn vowes of wilful poverty and perpetual continency as yours are Next the former Monks remained in the order of privat men and laicks and had nothing to do with Ecclesiastical charges which was afterward broken by Pope Boniface the fourth anno 606. But yours are not so they have Ecclesiastical charges and are more then privat men And last of all suppose their kind of life was mixed with some superstition for the envious man soon sowed the popple among the good seed and the mystery of iniquity began soon to work yet their Religion was not defiled with Idolatry worshipping of Images prayers to Saints opinion of merit the sacrifice of the Mass and other abominations wherewith your Papistical Monks are defiled Next I say these Monks and religious Orders of yours have not their foundation within the four corners of the Scripture of God Master Gilbert Brown These and many the like new renewed heresies by the Ministers was old condemned heresies in the primitive Church of the former hereticks as testifie the ancient Fathers and therefore this is a true argument What ever was heresie in old times is heresie yet and the defenders thereof hereticks as they were of old But these former heads that I have set down with many the like was heresies in old times and the defenders thereof hereticks as testifie the ancient Fathers Therefore they are heresies yet and the defenders thereof hereticks Master John Welsch his Reply Now here was all the cause Christian Reader that made M. Gilbert so oft to cry out of us that we renewed old condemned heresies whereof some are such as we our selves condemn and some are such which do better agree unto themselves then unto us And some heresies he forceth upon us which we never taught nor maintained and some are such which are not heresies indeed but agreeable to the Scriptures of God So that if we err in these suffer us to err with Jesus Christ and his Apostles Now to answer to your argument which ye bring What ever was heresie in old times is heresie yet and the defenders thereof hereticks I answer If ye define heresie to be an error obstinatly maintained against the Scriptures of God I grant your proposition But if ye define heresies in general to be whatsoever any one Father or Doctor or some more have rebuked as an heresie then I deny it for sundrie of the Fathers have maintained errors themselves against the Scripture and have accused some doctrine to be heresies which have been agreeable to the truth of God which you will not deny I hope For if you would I could prove it both of the Fathers Councils and your own Popes Now to your assumption But these former heads say ye which ye have set down with many the like was heresies in old times and the defenders thereof hereticks as testifie the ancient Fathers I answer That some of these are heresies indeed and we abhor and condemn them more then ye and some of these as falsly laid to our charge and some of these are not heresies indeed but agreeable to the Scripture And therefore your conclusion falls not upon us who have renewed no old condemned heresies and therefore is not hereticks And where you say many other like I answer It is true they are like for they are both calumnies and horrible untruths and lies as these have been whereof one day ye shal make answer to the great God that judgeth the quick and the dead But the pit which you digged for others you have fallen in it your self For certainly in this you do as thieves do who the better to eschew the crime of theft which is justly laid to their charge and that they may the more easily escape in a fray do cry out and shout out upon others Common thieves common thieves Even so do you for these crimes whereof ye are guilty your selves you falsly charge us with SECTION XXVI That the Church of Rome hath renewed and maintaineth old condemned Heresies THat all men may see that not we but the Church of Rome hath renewed and doth maintain old condemned Heresies I shal not do as you have done to us that is either to lay to your charge such heresies as ye maintain not or such things to be heresies which are not heresies indeed which ye did to us But in this I will deal sincerely with you faining nothing neither of them nor of you 1. Simoniani worshipped the Image of Simon and Selene whose heresie they followed Ederus in Baby pag. 5. so do your religious Orders worship the
is worshipped c. which no manner of way can agree with the Pope For he calls himself the servant of God and prays most humbly to Christ and desires support at his holy Mother and Saints If he deny this I cannot tell what any man can say to him but whether God will or not he will have the Pope to be the Antichrist albeit it be repugnant to the Word of God These are no dark prophesies but manifest sayings of Christ and his Apostles I would wish M. John to read S. Augustin de Antichristo Tom. 9. Master John Welsch his Reply I come to your third raison The Antichrist shal be an adversary and is extolled above all that is called God I grant that But the Pope is not an adversary c. This I deny the which if you prove then shal I grant he is not the Antichrist Let us see your proofs then for they had need to be sure seeing all your Religion and safety of your Church depend upon it and if ye cannot clear him from being an adversary to God and from lifting up himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped then your Head and your Religion is gone You say he is not an adversary to God because he calls himself the servant of God and prays most humbly to Christ We answered to this before It is not his stiles which he sacrilegiously claims to himself nor yet his form of godliness that can free him from this for wolves will be clad in sheep skins Matth. 7.15 And false Apostles and Prophets have pretended the authority and calling of God And the Apostle testifies That there are many which profess God in word Tit. 1.16 and Satan can transform himself in an angel of light 2. Cor. 11.14 And it was fore-told that the Antichrist should sit in the temple of God 2. Thess 2.4 that is in an eminent and high room in the Church of God and that he should have two horns like the Lamb Rev. 13.11 that is as he interprets it in Apoc. homil 11. two testaments as the Church hath but yet speaks like the Dragon that is as he interprets it who under the name of a Christian pretends the Lamb that he may spout in more secretly the poyson of the Dragon and that harlot who makes all Nations drunken with the wine of her fornication should have a golden cup that is a show of godliness that he might the more easily deceive And Origen saith upon Matthew treatise 28. and treatise 24. The Antichrist holds nothing but the Name of Christ neither doth he his works nor teaches his truth Christ is the truth and the Antichrist is a disaguised truth a disaguised justice and mercy He takes the testimonies of his false doctrine out of the Scripture for these that will not be pleased otherwise and he sitteth upon the chair of the Scriptures showing himself as though he were God And Cyprian saith Epist 7. That they teach despair under the pretence of hope and perfidy under the pretence of faith and the night for the day and perdition in stead of salvation the Antichrist under the Name of Christ So then if ye will believe either the Scripture or these testimonies of the Fathers neither the stiles nor yet the show of godliness which your Popes have will clear them from being the Antichrist And as to his humility towards men we have heard somewhat of it before And as to his humility to God we shal hear of it hereafter whether he be so humble as he pretends or not And certainly it had not been possible that his spiritual idolatry and abominations had been so greedily drunken out by all Nations if they had not been put in a golden cup Rev. 17.4 and his delusions had not been so strong to deceive and they had not been a deceiveable unrighteousness 2. Thess 2.10 and 11. that is such an unrighteousness as had the show of righteousness that it might the more easily deceive and the doctrine of the Dragon had not been so easily and universally embraced if he had not had two horns like the Lamb Rev. 13.11 that is the pretence of the Royal and Priestly authority of the Son of God So he hath taken on these masks that he may the more easily deceive It is not then these visards and masks that will be able to hide him from these whose eyes the Lord hath opened And as for the third thing the invocation of Saints departed I say this argument is so far from clearing him from being an adversary to God that if there were no more it is sufficient to convict your Popes and your Church that they are adversaries to God For he is an adversary to God who robs God of any portion of his glory and gives it to his creatures My glory saith the Lord I will not give to another Isai 42.8 But the Pope and his Church do so in giving invocation or prayers which is a part of Gods glory and worship unto the Saints departed For the Lord saith Call upon me in the day of thy trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Psal 50.14.15 Therefore your Popes and your Church are adversaries to God in this point For we ought to call upon them only in whom only we ought to believe Rom. 10.14 But we ought only to believe in God Jer. 17.5 therefore we should only pray to him through Jesus Christ And he only should be called upon who knows our necessities and is able to hear our prayers and to grant them But only God in Christ the searcher of the heart doth these things therefore he only ought to be called upon Here therefore ye give out a sufficient evidence against your Popes and your Church that you are Antichristian and adversaries unto God For that which ye bring here to cleanse him doth fyle him Indeed I will neither deny the hypocrisie nor idolatry of your Popes for they both agree unto them and that which Origen saith of the Antichrist is true of them For they hold nothing of Christ but his Name They neither do his works nor teach his truth And yet for all their hypocrisie and pretence of godliness and humility these notes and marks of the Antichrist as the Word of God hath described him doth every way agree to them So that if the Word of God be true in setting down the marks of the Antichrist your Popes who bear these marks of necessity must be the same You wish me in the end to read S. Augustin de Antichristo tom 9. It would appear that you think that the reading of that work would have altered my mind somewhat concerning your Popes that they are not the Antichrist and it appears to me by that your earnest desire that the doctrine set down in that Treatise is worthy of all credit and authority and that your self is of that self-same judgement concerning the Antichrist with the Author of that Treatise
Innocentius who were elected Popes and succeeded one after another He excommunicats the Emperor Frederick and Pope Victor He betrays the Emperor to the Souldan sends his picture to him and writes to him to cut him off if he would live in peace He caused him to fall down on the ground and to seek mercy and then tramped upon his neck the Monarch of the world repeating that sentence of the Psalm Super aspidem basiliscum c. Thou shalt walk upon the serpent and the cokatrice and thou shalt tramp down the lyon and the dragon O blasphemous mouth for this is spoken only of Christ And when the Emperor answered Not to thee but to Peter He replyed Both to me and to Peter Boniface the 8. that three-formed beast of whom the common Proverb is that he entered in like a Fox rang like a Lyon and died like a Dog He most craftily deceived his predecessor Celestin by causing one to speak to him for many nights through a whistle as though it had been the voyce of an Angel Celestin Celestin renounce for the burden is greater then thou art able to bear The which the simple man believing renounced the Popedom and so he entered in his room And having imprisoned the simple man his predecessor he was such a cruel Tyrant that he persecuted some of his Cardinals every where spoyling them both of their livings offices and their heritages He wasted and spoyled the places where they were reset so that they were compelled some of them to dwel in the woods flying his cruelty Some did venter upon the cruel hearted Pirats thinking to find greater humanity with them then with their holy Father the Pope He was also without all Religion for when the Archbishop of Genua upon Ashwednesday upon his knees bare headed doing his service in the Temple before the people this holy Father looking on him took a great many of ashes and cast in his eyes saying these words Remember man because thou art a Gibellin and with the Gibellins thou shalt return to ashes He nowrished harlots he begat bastards he affirmed that no man should judge him though he carried a number of souls with him to Hell John the 23. taught that the souls separated from the bodies did not see Gods face while after the resurrection and sent Friers to preach it He was declared by the people of Rome as Marius saith to be an heretick a Tyrant in the Church and a perturber of the publick peace of Christians Benedict the 12. he bought from her other brother Gerardus with great gifts a sister of Franciscus Petrarcha to commit villany with He nowrished many harlots of whom it is written Iste fuit verò laicis mors vipera Clero devius à vero He was a death to the people a viper to the Clergy a wanderer from the truth One part of Christendom to wit the Romans make Urbanus the sixth Pope another sort make Clement the seventh Pope whereby was such a schism that it went to their successors and continued forty years These Popes did mutually by their Bulls excommunicat one another they sent infamous libels one to another wherein they called other mutually Hereticks Schismaticks Antichrists Tyrants Thieves Traytors Sowers of evil seed and the sons of Belial and that worthily Now because the Church of Rome saith that the Popes cannot err and that their judgement is infallible and their decreets most sure therefore if this be true by their own testimonies they are hereticks schismaticks and Antichrists c. Illyricus testifies that Theodoricus Niem the Pope his most inward Scribe faithfully set down the History of the Schism of these Popes in three Books wherein he saith that he found the devilish craft of the Popes and their wickedness whereby they horribly mocked God and Religion vexed and tyrannized over the Church of Christ to be such that suppose he had read heard and seen much of their wickedness before yet having read that Book he saw their wickedness was ten fold more then ever he would have suspected And therefore he saith Truly now I assent unto the Canonists who affirm that the Pope is neither God nor man for saith he they are incarnat Devils and in malice and wickedness is worse then Satan himself Urban the sixth put five Cardinals in sacks and cast them in the sea and drowned them He condemned to death three other Cardinals commanded their heads to be cut off their bodies to be rosted in a furnace and being rosted to put them into sacks and whensoever he went from one people to another he carried them upon horses as spectacles and that they might be known to be Cardinals he placed their red hats upon the sacks Collenutius writeth this in his Neapolitan History Was ever Nero or Heliogabalus so cruel John the 24. after his predecessor was poysoned threatned the Cardinals to choose whom he would for this cause named they many but with none of them was he pleased then they prayed to name whom he would Pope He answered Give me S. Peters mantle and I will put it upon him who shal be Pope And when they had given it him he put it on himself and said I am Pope He is accused before the Council of Constance of forty weighty and grave crimes which were sufficiently proved against him And Bellarmin saith lib. 4. de Rom. Pont. cap. 14. there was 35. articles proved against him that he poysoned his predecessor Alexander that he was an Heretick a Simoniack a Liar an Hypocrit a Murtherer a Dicer and Adulterer a Sodomit and what not This also was laid to his charge that he denyed life everlasting and therefore is deposed and another set in his room In his Epitaph it is written of him Pestis avaritiae me caecum reddidit aurum Plus justo sitiens munera sacra dedi That is The pest of avarice made me blind and thirsting over much for gold I sold holy things too dear Sixtus the fourth that vile and beastly monster Wesselu-Groningensis in his Treatise of the Popes pardons writes of him that he permitted to the whole family of Cardinal Luciae at the request of Petrus Ruerius Cardinal and his brother to use Sodomitry O horrible abomination the three moneths of the year June July and August Agrippa saith That among the Bawds or maintainers of Bordels of these latter times Sixtus the 4. was famous for he built a great Bordel-house in Rome both for whoredom and Sodomitry he fed troups of harlots gaining thereby great sums of money for every harlot of Rome every week payed to the Pope a Julian penny which would amount in the year to twenty thousand Ducats But they say it is now augmented that it comes to forty thousand In his Epitaph it is written Riserat ut vivens coelestia Numina Sixtus c. That is While he was living he mocked God and dying he believed there was no God An adulterer the destruction of the Town who past Nero in
Gregory de Valentia his scholers hold That not only total apostosie but partial also such as heresie is here meant Now to profess the Protestant Religion is damnable heresie with them and therefore consequently any Protestant Prince is here concluded by their interpretation Suarez holdeth That Church-men may use a coactive power against Princes even to dethrone them his words are Pontificem summum potestate coactivâ in Reges uti posse usque ad depositionent etiam à Regno si causa subsit Suarez opusc lib. 3. de primatu sum Pontif. cap. 23. Azorius their great Casuist asserteth That the jurisdiction and power of the Emperor hath its being existence and dependance from the Pope And upon this occasion telleth us how many Emperors the Pope hath deposed and that the Emperor is but the Popes minister elected by him for the defence of the Church Azorius inst Mor. part 2. lib. 10. Emmanuel Sa after he had studied the point forty years affirmeth That the rebellion of a Clergy-man is no treason because he is no subject That all Clergy-men are exeemed from the lawes of Magistrats by a divine positive law is mantained by Bellarmin de Cler. lib. 1. cap. 28. de Pont. Rom. lib. 2. cap. 26. Soto de just jure lib. 5. cap. 44. art 1. Cajetan Tom. 1. opusc tract 1. de potest Pap. cap. 27. Turrecremata lib. 2. c. 93. Gregory de Valentia tom 3. disp 5. quaest 11. punct 1. Suarez in opusc lib. 4. de immunit Eccles cap. 4. num 3. cap. 8. num 9. and the Rhemists in Rom. 8. Cardinal Baronius informeth us by the example of Dacius Bishop of Milan his dealing against the Arriant that these Bishops deserve no blame ought to suffer no envy who use all means that they may not live under an heretical Prince His words are Quo exemplo satis intelligas non mereri calumniam neque invidiam Episcopos illos pati debere Qui ne sub haeretico Principe degant omnem lapidem volvunt Annal. anno 538. § 89. So that Papists may raise treasons rebellions commit parricide on the persons of Kings rather then live under a Protestant Prince This is evil doctrine but worse followeth for they directly maintain that they may any manner of way kill Kings Princes or people if in the least suspect to them of heresie that is of the Protestant Religion which these following instances prove M. Allen Principal of the Jesuits Colledge at Rhemes in a solemn Oration said It is permitted to us to kill Kings Franciscus de Verone in his Apologie for John Chastel grants allowance to every privat man to murder the heretick as he meets him if publick means be wanting of making him away by the Magistrat Dominicus Bannes in 2. quaest 12. art 2. resolves that they need not in this case expect any sentencing of the matter by Pope or any other but when the knowledge of the fault is evident subjects may lawfully if so be they have sufficient strength exempt themselves from subjection to their Princes before any declaratory sentence of a Judge His words are Quando adest evidens notitia criminis licitè possunt subditi si modo ijs vires suppetant eximere se à potestate suorum Principum ante Judicis sententiam declaratoriam Suarez maintaineth that an heretical King after sentence of excommunication given against him is absolutly deprived of his Kingdom so that he cannot possess it by any just title therefore from thenceforth may be handled altogether as a Tyrant and consequently he may be killed by any privat person and a little after he addeth that in this a Christian Kingdom dependeth upon the Pope that he may not only advise and consent that the Kingdom depose a King that is hurtful to it but also command and compel them to do it Hear his own words Post sententiam latam omninò privatur Regno ita ut non possit justo titulo illud possidere ergo ex tunc poterit omninò tanquam Tyrannus tractari consequenter à quocunque privato poterit interfici Suarez defens fid Cathol lib 6. cap. 4. § 14. Pendet Christianum Regnum à Pontifice in hoc ut possit non solum consulere aut consentire ut regnum Regem sibi perniciosum deponat sed etiam praecipere cogere utad â—aciat § 17. Joannes Mariana telleth us That if the Pope excommunicat a King and declare him a Tyrant that he may be made away either by open force and arms whether by violent breaking into the Court or by joyning of battel is a matter confessed yea by deceit and ambushes too as Ehud did in killing Eglon the King of Moab Indeed it would argue a braver mind to profess open enmity and publickly to rush in upon the enemy of the Commonwealth But it is no less prudence to take advantage by fraud and ambushes because it is done without stir and â—ess danger surely both publick and privat And in end he concludeth That it is lawful to take away his life by any art whatsoever with this proviso only that he be not constrained either wittingly or unwittingly to be the cause of his own death yet poyson him you may if so that the venom be externally applyed by some other he that is to be killed helping nothing thereto namely when the force of the poyson is so great that a seat or garment being infected therewith it may have strength to kill Joan. Mariana de Regis Instit lib 1. cap. 7. Franciscus de Verone in his Apology for John Chastel part 1. cap. 7. determineth That Kings and Princes which are not Roman Catholicks may be lawfully killed by any privat person and that the killing of them is a generous vertuous heroick exploit to be compared with the greatest and most praise-worthy actions a most holy worthy commendable praiseful work These that conspire against the life of such Kings and Princes are magnanimous persons their courage more then humane heroick divine their punishments are true martyrdoms they shal receive reward in heaven Lest Papists think we wrong him I shal set down his own words Reges Principes non Romani Catholici possunt de jure occidi etiam à privat â personâ illud factum est generosum cum virtute conjunctum heroicum comparandum cum maximis summa laude dignis factis esse sanctissimum humanissimum dignissimum laudatissimum commendatissimum c. Eos qui in vitam talium Regum Principum conjurant esse animosos machinatores fortitudinem eorum esse plusquam humanam supplicia eorum non nisi vera martyria appellanda Qui sunt aliquando praemium accepturi in vitâ aeternâ And again part 2. cap. 12. 15. Necessarium quocunque casu religionem confirmari etiam morte Regum It is necessary in any case that Religion be maintained even with the death of Kings Antonius Arnold in an Oration against the Jesuits affirmeth