had without paying for it or be lyable to a Suit in the Prerogative Court He knew the Archbishop's power over Bishops was not founded on Divine or Apostolical right but on Ecclesiastical Canons and Practice and that it was only a matter of Order and that therefore the Archbishop had no Authority to come and invade his Pastoral Office and suspend him for a Year These were some of the worst of the abuses that the Canonists had introduced in the later Ages by which they had broken the Episcopal Authority and had made way for vesting the whole power of the Church in the Pope He laid those things often before Archbishop Vsher and prest him earnestly to set himself to the reforming them since they were acted in his name and by vertue of his Authority deputed to his Chancellour and to the other Officers of the Court called the Spiritual Court No Man was more sensible of those abuses than Vsher was no Man knew the beginning and progress of them better nor was more touched with the ill effects of them and together with his great and vast learning no Man had a better Soul and a more Apostolical mind In his conversation he expressed the true simplicity of a Christian For Passion Pride self-Will or the Love of the World seemed not to be so much as in his Nature So that he had all the innocence of the Dove in him He had a way of gaining peoples Hearts and of touching their Consciences that lookt like â—omewhat of the Apostolical Age revived he spent much of his time in those two best Exercises secret Prayer and dealing with other peoples Consciences either in his Sermons or private Discourses and what remained he dedicated to his Studies in which those many Volumes that came from him shewed a most amazing diligence and exactness joyned with great Judgment So that he was certainly one of the greatest and best Men that the Age or perhaps the World has produced But no Man is intirely perfect he was not made for the governing part of his Function He had too gentle a Soul to manage that rough Work of reforming Abuses And therefore he left things as he found them He hoped a time of Reformation would come He saw the necessity of cutting off many abuses and confessed that the tolerating those abominable corruptions that the Canonists had brought in was such a stain upon a Church that in all other respects was the best reformed in the World that he apprehended it would bring a Curse and Ruine upon the whole Constitution But though he prayed for a more favourable conjuncture and would have concurred in a joynt Reformation of these things very heartily yet he did not bestir himself suitably to the Obligations that lay on him for carrying it on And it is very likely that this sat heavy on his thoughts when he came to dye for he prayed often and with great humility That God would forgive him his sins of Omission and his failings in his Duty It was not without great uneasiness to me that I overcome my self so far as to say any thing that may seem to diminish the Character of so extraordinary a Man who in other things was beyond any Man of his time but in this only he fell beneath himself And those that upon all other accounts loved and admired him lamented this defect in him which was the only allay that seemed left and without which he would have been held perhaps in more veneration than was fitting His Physician Dr. Bootius that was a Dutchman said truly of him If our Primate of Armagh were as exact a Disciplinarian as he is eminent in searching Antiquity defending the Truth and preaching the Gospel he might without doubt deserve to be made the chief Churchman of Christendome But this was necessary to be told since History is to be writ impartially and I ought to be forgiven for taxing his Memory a little for I was never so tempted in any thing that I ever writ to disguise the Truth as upon this occasion Yet though Bishop Vsher did not much himself he had a singular esteem for that vigour of Mind which our Bishop expressed in the reforming these matters And now I come to the next instance of his Pastoral care which made more noise and met with more opposition than any of the former He found his Court that sat in his name was an entire abuse It was managed by a Chancellour that had bought his place from his Predecessor and so thought he had a right to all the Profits that he could raise out of it and the whole business of the Court seemed to be nothing but Extortion and Oppression For it is an old observation That men who buy Justice will also sell it Bribes went about almost barefaced and the exchange they made of Penance for Money was the worst sort of Simony being in effect the very same abuse that gave the World such a scandal when it was so indecently practised in the Church of Rome and opened the way to the Reformation For the selling of Indulgences is really but a commutation of Penance He found the Officers of the Court made it their business to draw people into trouble by vexatious Suits and to hold them so long in it that for three Pence worth of the Tithe of Turf they would be put to five Pounds charge And the solemnest and sacredest of all the Church Censures which was Excommunication went about in so sordid and base a manner that all regard to it as it was a Spiritual Censure was lost and the effects it had in Law made it be cryed out on as a most intolerable piece of Tyranny The Officers of the Court thought they had a sort of right to oppress the Natives and that all was well got that was wrung from them And of all this the good Primate was so sensible that he gives this sad account of the Venality of all sacred things in a Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury As for the general state of things here they are so desperate that I am afraid to write any thing thereof Some of the adverse part have asked me the Qâ—estion Where I have heard or read before that Religion and Mens Souls should be set to sale after this manner Vnto whom I could reply nothing but that I had read in Mantuan That there was another place in the World where Coelum est venale Deúsque Both Heaven and God himself are set to sale But our Bishop thought it not enough to lament this he resolved to do what in him lay to correct these abuses and to goe and sit and judge in his own Courts himself He carried a competent number of his Clergy with him who sate about him and there he heard Causes and by their advice he gave Sentence By this means so many Causes were dismist and such a change was wrought in the whole Proceedings of the Court that instead of being any
sever not For it is not by humane but râ—ther divine power that spiritual marriage is dissolved when as by translation or cession by the authority of the Bishop of Rome whom it is plain to be the Vicar of Iesus Christ a Bishop is removed from his Church An admirable interpretation of the Text Quos Deus conjunxit by which the Pope not only challengeth that which is proper to Gods judgment only as he saith viz. to dissolve the Bond of spiritual Wedlock but because that is the stronger of carnal it seems also when it shall please him The anointing of a Prince since Christs coming is translated from the Head to the Shoulder by which Principality is fitly designed according to that which is read Factus est principatus super humerum ejus for signifying also whereof Samuel caused the shoulder to be set before Saul Who should ever have understood these Texts if your infallible Interpreter had not declared them But this is nothing yet to the exposition of those Texts which the Pope interprets in his answer to the Emperour of Constantinople as Subditi estote omni humanae Creaturae propter Deum c. He tells him that S. Peter wrote that to his own Subjects to provoke them to the merit of humility For if he had meant thereby to lay the yoke of subjection upon Priests it would follow that every Servant were to rule over them since it is said Omni humanae creaturae After It is not barely set down Regi praecellenti but there is put between perhaps not without cause tanquam And that which follows ad vindictam malefactorum laudem verò bonorum is not to be understood that the King or Emperor hath received the power of the Sword upon good and evil Men save only those who using the sword are committed to his jurisdiction according to that which the Truth saith They which take the Sword shall perish with the Sword For no Man ought or can judge anothers Servant since the Servant according to the Apostle standeth or falleth to his own Lord. For the love of God consider this Interpretation and compare it with S. Chrysostome upon Rom. 13. Nay do but read the Text attentively and judge of the infallibility of your interpreter Straight after he tells the Emperor That he might have understood the prerogative of Priesthood out of that which was said not of every Man but of God not to the King but to the Priest not to one descending of the Royal Stock but of the Priestly Linage of the Priests to wit which were in Anathot Behold I have set thee over Nations and Kingdoms to pull up and destroy to build and to plant See the Prerogative of the Priesthood out of Ieremies calling to be a Prophet O if he had been high Priest This had been a Text for the nonce But he goes on It is said in Gods Law also Diis non detrahes Principem populi tui non maledices Which setting Priests before Kings calls them Gods and the other Princes Compare this exposition with David's and Paul's Psal. 82. and Acts 23.5 and ye shall see how the Interpreter hath hit the mark Again you ought to have known quod fecit Deus duo magna luminaria c. See the Exposition and the difference between the Pope and Kings both in the Text and Gloss. Now although the Gloss-Writer were no excellent Calculator yet out of Clavius the account may be cleared who tells us the Sun exceeds the Moon 6539. times and a Fifth I let pass the collection out of Pasce oves meas that he belongs not to Christs Fold that doth not acknowledge Peter and his Successors his Masters and Pastors out of Quodcunque ligaveris that nothing is excepted Indeed the Pope excepts nothing but looseth Vows Contracts Oaths the Bond of Allegiance and Fealty between Subjects and their Princes The Commandment of Christ Drink ye all of this c. But our Lord expounds himself Iohn 20. Whose sins ye remit they are remitted c. Ex ore sedentis in Throno procedebat gladius bis acutus This is saith the Pope the Sword of Solomon which cuts on both sides giving every Man his own We then who albeit unworthy hold the place of the true Solomon by the favour of God do wisely exercise this Sword when such causes as in our audience are lawfully canvassed we do with Iustice determine This interpretation first corrupts the Text for it hath not out of the Mouth of him that sate on the Throne but that sate on the Horse next it perverts it for it is not the Sword of Iustice but of Christs Word which is more piercing than any two-Edged Sword that issueth out of his Mouth As for that of Iustice he never assumed it but renounced it rather when he said Man who made me a divider to you Luke 12.14 ¶ To prove that in other Regions besides the patrimony of the Church the Pope doth casually exercise temporal Iurisdiction it is said in Deuteronomy Si difficile sit ambiguum c. And because Deuteronomy is by interpretation the second Law Surely by the force of the Word it is proved that what is there decreed should be observed in the New Testament For the place which the Lord did chuse is known to â—e the Apostolick See For when as Peter fleeing went out of the City the Lord minding to call him back to the place he had chosen being asked of him Lord whither goest thou answered I go to Rome to be crucified again The Priests of the Tribe of Levi are the Popes coadjutors The high Priest or Iudge he to whom the Lord said in Peter Quodcunque ligaveris c. His Vicar who is a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedeck appointed by God the Iudge of quick and dead He that contemns the Popes Sentence is to be excommunicated for that is the meaning of being commanded to be put to death Doth not this well follow out of the word Deuteronomy And Rome is the place that Christ did choose because he went he said to be crucified there Only there is a scruple of the High Priest for as much as he that is High Priest after Melchisedeck's Order 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath a Priesthood that passes not into another Heb. 7. He adds there that Paul that he might declare the fulness of power writing to the Corinthians saith Know ye not that ye shall judge the Angels how much more the things of the World Is this then the Popes plenitude of Power to judge secular things or was Corinth the Apostolick See and so many Popes there even of the meanest of the Church What shall we say to that Exposition of the famous Text Tu es Petrus super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam The Lord he saith taking Peter into the fellowship of the undivided Vnity would have him to be
can be more fraudulent more sottish And because I have mentioned Gratian his whole compilation is full of falsification and corruption of Antiquity take an example or two in the matter we have in hand The Milevitane and after the African Councils under pain of excommunication prohibit Appeals beyond the Seas Which Canons were made purposely to meet with the usurpations of the Bishops of Rome of which I have spoken somewhat before Now in the citing this Canon Gratian adds this goodly explication nisi forte Romanam sedem appellaverint thus excepting that abuse which these Councils directly sought to prohibite Again S. Augustine to inform a Christian man what Scriptures he should hold for Canonical bids him follow the Authority of the greater part of the Catholick Church amongst which are those quae Apostolicas sedes habere Epistolas accipere meruerunt which had the honour to have the Apostles sit in them and to receive Epistles from them Gratian fits it thus inter quas Scripturas sanc illae sunt quas Apostoliâ—â— sedes habere ab ea alii meruerunt accipere Epistolas And accordingly the title of that Canon is Inter Canonicas The Decretal Epistles are numbred amongst the Canonical Scriptures True it is that in the end of the next Canon Gratian adds a good limitation and worth the remembring that this must be understood of such Decrees in which there is nothing found contrary to the Decrees of the Fathers foregoing nor the Precepts of the Gospel Belike even in Gratian's time it was not holden impossible That in the Sanctions and Decretals of Popes something might be decreed contrary to the Gospel which may be added to your Judges Infallibility which hath been touched before But these be old tricks of the Champions of the Papacy At this day perhaps it is better Yes and that shall ye ununderstand by the Words of the Children of the Church of Rome themselves the Venetians But first ye are to know that among certain Propositions set forth in defence of that State there was one the fourth in number of eight That the Authority promised by our Saviour Christ to S. Peter under the metaphor of the Keyes is meerly Spiritual For confirmation whereof after other proof was said That the Authority of the highest Bishop is over Sin and over Souls only according to the words of that Prayer of the Church about S. Peter qui B. Petro animas ligandi atque solvendi Pontificium tradidisti Cardinal Bellarmine undertook to answer these Propositions and coming to this place he saith That peradventure Gods providence to take away such deceipts whereby the Author of these Propositions would deceive the simple with the words of the holy Church misunderstood inspired into the Reformers of the Breviary that they should take out of that Prayer the word animas as anciently it was not there nor ought to be because that Prayer was formed out of the words of the Gospel Quodcunque ligaveris quodcunque solveris Now mark the Rejoinder that is made to him by Iohannes Marsilius who numbering up his errors in the defence of every Proposition roundly tells him Erra XIV perche dice c. He errs in the fourteenth place for that he saith That those which have taken out of the Breviary the word animas were inspired by the Holy Ghost I know not whether the Holy Ghost be the Author of Discord This I know well that one of his Gifts and of his Fruits is Peace Those which made that Prayer had this intention to explain the Words Quodcunque ligaveris with the Word animas by that Text which explaineth them quorum remiseritis peccata sins being in the Soul and not in the body left any should believe that the Pope were Dominus in temporalibus spiritualibus of Goods of Bodies and of Souls and that he might loose and bind every thing as it seems the L. Cardinal believeth And they explained them with the Word animas by which explication a remedy is put unto all those discords which may arise between the Pope and Princes de meo tuo Wheras those which have lately taken it away out of the Breviary have anew stirred up occasion of discords and contentions Besides that it is a thing known of all Men that in the Books of the Councils of the Canons of other Doctors in a word even in the very Breviaries and Missals there have been and are taken away those things which are in favour of Princes of the Laity to see if at length there might be established the opinion de illimitata Potestate Pontificis in temporalibus So as he that compares together the Books printed in the year 30. in 50. and those at this day as well of the Councils as others evidently perceives the vintage that marvail it is that we post vindemiam have found some few Clusters for the defence of our gracious Prince This is a means if it go on further to make all writings to lose their credit and to ruine the Church of God Be it spoken by the occasion that the Lord Cardinal hath given me thereof and for charities sake and for the desire that these writings be no more touched which be also said with all humility and reverence He errs in the fifteenth place for that he saith that in the ancient Breviaries there was not the word animas And I have seen Breviaries written with pen above 200 years ago and printed above an hundred in them is the word animas and if it were not yet ought it to be put in to take away the occasions of discords Thus he there As for the Prayer corrected or corrupted rather if you look the old Breviaries yea even that set forth by Pius the Fifth printed by Plantine with the Priviledge of the Pope and his Catholick Majesty Anno 77. upon the nine and twentieth of Iune ye shall find it to run thus Deus qui B. Petro Apostolo tuo collatis clavibus regni Coelestis animas ligandi atque solvendi Pontificium tradidisti concede ut intercessionis ejus auxilio peccatorum nostrorum nexibus liberemur Per Dominum Now in the late correction Animas is left out and we understand the Reason In the end of the same Book there is an Advertisement to the Reader the beginning whereof I will not stick to set down verbatim it is this Because in this Defence I have often said that Authors are made to recant and that out of their Books many things are taken away sincerely said in favour of the power of Temporal Princes to establish by these means the Opinion De suprema authoritate Papae in temporalibus I have thought good to advise the Reader that the quotations by me brought are taken ad verbum out of those Books which are incorrupt and contain the opinion of the Authors sincerely And that the more ancient the Copies be and further from these our times so much the
the true Catholick Church is such as cannot be hid yet considering that it consists of two sorts of people the one which is the greater part who do not indeed properly belong to it the other the fewer truely and properly so called to whom all the glorious things spoken of the Church do agree The face therefore of the mixt Church may be over-run with scandals as in all times almost The greatest number may sometime be Idolaters as in the Kingdom of Israel under Achab. The principallest in authority may be false teachers as the Priests and Prophets in Ieremies time the sons of pestilence may sit in Moses Chair as they did in Christs time Yet still the Church is the ground and pillar of Truth in the Elect Ipsa est praedestinata columna firmamentum veritatis The Sheep hear not Seducers Iohn 10.8 to wit finally and in any damnable point Thus was it before Christ thus since thus in the Church of England before yea and since it was reformed Thus in that of Rome it self at this day There is a distinction of Thomas of those that be in the Church which rightly interpreted agrees fully herewith There are some De Ecclesia numero tantúm Some numero merito The former are such as have only fidem informem the latter formatam Now though the persons of such as be in the Church be visible yet the Faith and Charity of men we see not and to argue from the priviledges of the Church numero merito to the Church numero tantum is a perpetual but a palpable paralogisme of the Romish faction which is grosser yet when they argue to the Church representative and grossest of all when one man is made the Church and he as themselves grant may fall out a Devil incarnate CHAP. IX Of lack of Vniformity in matters of Faith in all Ages and Places ANd this self same Paralogism you were beguiled with in the next Point of Vniformity and Concord in matters of Faith The true Church ye say ever holds such Vniformity It is utterly false in the Visible and mixt Church both before Christ and since It is false in the Church of Rome it self whose new-coined Faith patched to the Creed by Pius the Fourth came in piece-meal out of private Opinions and corrupt usages nor ever was in any Age uniformly holden or taught as matter of Faith even in it as it is at this day So by your own Discourse it should be no true Church And taking matters of Faith so largely as it seems you do in opposition to such things as be Ceremonies or of Government it is untrue also of the Church of the Elect or properly so called For though the Faith in the Principles thereof be ever the same yet many Conclusions of Faith have sometimes lyen unsearched out and like some parts of the World unknown till by the industry of Gods Servants occasioned also by the importunity and opposition of Hereticks they were discovered Sundry common errors also there have been which in succeeding Ages have been cleared and reformed as the Chiliasts That Angels have Bodies That Children after they be baptized are to be communicated That Hereticks are to be rebaptized To the Assumption First The Protestants challenge not to themselves any Church as their own which I must advertise you of here because formerly also you do use this Phrase The Church is Christs both the visible and invisible Next taking matters of Faith for foundations or Articles of Faith necessary to Salvation the Church of Christ hath in all Ages had Uniform concord with the Protestants at this day in such matters as appeareth by the Common Rule of Faith the Creed and so hath also the Church under the Popes tyranny As to the Trent Additions they are foreign to the Faith as neither Principles nor Conclusions thereof Neither can your selves shew uniform consent and concord in them and namely in the 11. of them in any one Age especially as matters of Salvation as now they are canonized How much less can ye shew it in all other conclusions of Faith whereabout there have been among you as are now among us and ever will be differences of Opinions without any prejudice for all that unto the unity of the Faith of the Church and title to the name of it As for Wicliff Hus and the rest if they have any of them born record to the Truth and resisted any innovation of corrupt Teachers in their times even to Blood they are justly to be termed Martyrs yea albeit they saw not all corruptions but in some were themselves carried away with the stream of error Else if because they erred in some things they be no Martyrs or because we dissent from them in some things we are not of the same Church both you and we must quit all claim to S. Cyprian Iustin Martyr and many more whom we count our Antients and Predecessors and bereave them also of the honour of Martyrdom which so long they have enjoyed You see I hope by this time the weakness of your Argument CHAP. X. Of the Original of Reformation in Luther Calvin Scotland England c. IN your next Motive taken from the Original of Reformation before I come to answer your Argument shortly coucht in form I must endeavour to reform your judgment in sundry points of Story wherein partly you are mis-led and abused by Parsons and others of that Spirit partly you have mistaken some particulars and out of a false imagination framed a like discourse First for Luther it was not his rancor against the Dominicans that stirred him up against the Pope but the shameful merchandize of Indulgences set to sale in Germany to the advantage of Magdalen sister to Pope Leo the Tenth Believe herein if not Sleidan yet Guicciardine l. 13. And of all that mention those affairs it is acknowledged that at the first and for a good time he shewed all obedience and reverence to the Pope The new History of the Council of Trent written by an Italian a Subject and part of the Church of Rome as should appear by the Epistle Dedicatory of the Reverend and learned Archbishop of Spalato prefixed to his Majesty speaketh thus of the matter Questo diede occasione c. This gave occasion to Martin to pass from Indulgences to the Authority of the Pope which being by others proclaimed for the highest in the Church by him was made subject to a General Council lawfully celebrated Whereof he said that there was need in that instant and urgent necessity And as the heat of disputation continued by how much the more the Popes power was by others exalted so much the more was it by him abased yet so as Martin contained himself within the terms of speaking modestly of the person of Leo and saving sometimes his judgment Again after his departure from the presence of Cardinal Cajetan at Augusta he saith He wrote a Letter to the Cardinal confessing
writ so kind a Letter to him that as it made him lay down those thoughts so it drew from him the following Words in the Answer that he writ to him Touching my return I do thankfully accept your Graces exhortation advising me to have Faith in God and not to consult with Flesh and Blood nor have mind of this Countrey Now I would to God that your Grace could look into my Heart and see how little I fear lack of Provision or pass upon any outward thing in this World My chief fear in truth was and is lest I should be unfit and unprofitable in the place in which case if I might have a lawful and honest retreat I think no wise Man could blame me to retain it Especially having understood that your Grace whose authority I chiefly followed at the first did from your own Iudgment and that of other wise Men so truly pronounce of me That I was a weak Man Now that I have received your Letters so full of life and encouragement it puts some more life in me For sure it cannot agree with that goodness and ingenuity of yours praised among all Gods Graces in you by those that know you to write one thing to me and to speak another thing to others of me or to go about to beguile my simplicity with fair Words laying in the mean while a Net for my Feet especially sith my weakness shall in truth redound to the blaming of your own discretion in bringing me thither Thus was he prevailed on to resign his Benefice and carry his Family to Ireland and then he applyed himself with that vigour of Mind that was peculiar to him to the government of the Colledge He corrected such abuses as he found among them he set such rules to them and saw these so well executed that it quickly appeared how happy a choice they had made And as he was a great promoter of learning among them so he thought his particular Province was to instruct the House aright in the Principles of Religion In order to this he catechised the Youth in the Colledge once a Week and preached once a Sunday though he was not obliged to it And that he might acquaint them with a plain and particular body of Divinity he divided the Church Catechism into Two and Fifty Parts one for every Sunday and did explain it in a way so mixed with Speculative and Practical Matters that his Sermons were both learned Lectures of Divinity and excellent exhortations to Vertue and Piety Many took notes of them and Copies of them were much enquired after for as they were fitted to the capacity of his Hearers so they contained much matter in them for entertaining the most learned He had not stayed there above two Years when by his Friend Sir Iermyn's means a Patent was sent him to be Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh two contiguous Sees in the Province of Vlster And in the Letters by which the King signified his pleasure for his Promotion he likewise expressed his acceptance of the service he had done in the Colledge in very honourable terms as follows And as we were pleased by our former gracious Letters to establish the said William Bedell by our Royal Authority in the Provostship of the said Colledge of the Blessed Trinity near Dublin where we are informed that by his care and good Government there hath been wrought great Reformation to our singular contentment so we purpose to continue our care of that Society being the principal Nursery of Religion and Learning in that our Realm and to recommend unto the Colledge some such person from whom we may expect the like worthy effects for their good as we and they have found from Mr. Bedell And now in the 59 th Year of his Age he entered upon a different course of Life and Employment when it might have been thought that the vigour of his Spirits was much broken and spent But by his administration of his Diocess it appeared that their remained yet a vast heat and force of Spirit to carry him through those difficult undertakings to which he found himself obliged by this new Character which if it makes a Man but a little lower than the Angels so that the term Angel is applyed to that Office in Scripture he thought it did oblige him to an angelical course of life and to divide his time as much as could consist with the frailties and necessities of a Body made of Flesh and Blood as those glorious Spirits do between the beholding the Face of their Father which is in Heaven and the ministring to the Heirs of Salvation he considered the Bishops office made him the Shepherd of the inferiour Shepherds if not of the whole Diocess and therefore he resolved to spare himself in nothing by which he might advance the interest of Religion among them and he thought it a disingenuous thing to vouch Antiquity for the Authority and Dignity of that Function and not at the same time to express those Virtues and Practices that made it so Venerable among them Since the Forms of Church Government must appear amiable and valuable to the Word not so much for the reasonings and arguments that learned Men use concerning them as for the real advantages that mankind find from them So that he determined with the great Nazianzen To give Wings to his Soul to rescue it wholly from the World and to dedicate it to God And not to think it enough to perform his duty in such a manner as to pass through the rest of his life without reproach for according to that Father This was to weigh out Vertue by small weights but in the Language of that Father he resolved to live As one that had got above his Senses and all sensible things that was recollected within himself and had attained to a familiarity with divine matters that so his mind might be as an unsullied Mirrour upon which he might receive and represent the impresses of God and divine things unallyed with the Characters of lower objects He saw he would fall under some envy and meet with great oppositions but he considered that as a sort of martyrdome for God and resolved cheerfully to undergo whatsoever uneasie things he might be forced to suffer in the discharge of his Conscience and Duty In laying open his designs and performances in this last and greatest period of his life I have fuller materials than in the former parts For my Author was particularly known to him during a large part of it and spent several Years in his Family so that his opportunities of knowing him were as great as could be desired and the Bishop was of so gentle a temper and of so communicative a nature that he easily opened himself to one that was taken into his alliance as well as into his heart he being indeed a Man of primitive simplicity He found his Diocess under so many disorders that there was scarce a sound part remaining The Revenue
will persist in them And yet further if there be any doubt he must manifest unto me which is the Catholick Church Thirdly to make it full Apostasie he should have convinced me to have swarved and backslidden as you know the Greek Word signifies like Iulian renouncing his Baptism and forsaken totally all Christian Religion a horrible imputation though false nor so easily proved as declaimed But I thank God daily that I am become Catholick as all our Ancestors were till of late years and as the most of Christendome still be at this present day with whom I had rather be miscalled a Papist a Traytor an Apostata or Idolater or what he will than to remain a Protestant with him still For in Protestant Religion I could never find Uniformity of a settled Faith and so no quietness of Conscience especially for three or four years before my coming away although by reading studying praying and conferring I did most carefully and diligently labour to find it among them But your contrariety of Sects and Opinions of Lutherans Zwinglians Calvinists â—rotestants Puritans Cartwrightists and Brownists some of them damning each other many of them avouching their Positions to be matters of Faith for if they made them but School Questions of Opinion only they should not so much have disquieted me and all these being so contrary yet every one pretending Scriptures and arrogating the Holy Ghost in his favour And above all which did most of all trouble me about the deciding of these and all other Controversies which might arise I could not find among all these Sects any certain humane external Iudge so infallibly to interpret Scriptures and by them and by the assistance of the Holy Ghost so undoubtedly to define questions of Faith that I could assure my self and my Soul This Iudge is infallible and to him thou oughtest in Conscience to obey and yield thy understanding in all his determinations of Faith for he cannot erre in those Points And note that I speak now of an external humane infallible Iudge For I know the Holy Ghost is the Divine internal and principal Iudge and the Scriptures be the Law or Rule by which that humane external Judge must proceed But the Holy Scriptures being often the Matter of Controversie and sometime questioned which be Scriptures and which be not they alone of themselves cannot be Judges And for the Holy Ghost likewise every one pretending him to be his Patron how should I certainly know by whom he speaketh or not For to Men we must go to learn and not to Angels nor to God himself immediately The Head of your Church was the Queen an excellent notable Prince but a Woman not to speak much less to be Iudge in the Church and since a learned King like King Henry the Eighth who was the first temporal Prince that ever made himself Ex Regio jure Head of the Church in Spiritual matters a new strange Doctrine and therefore justly condemned by Calvin for monstrous But suppose he were such a Head yet you all confess that he may erre in matters of Faith And so you acknowledge may your Archbishops and Bishops and your whole Clergy in their Convocation-House even making Articles and Decrees yea though a Council of all your Lutherans Calvinists Protestants c. of Germany France England c. were all joyned together and should agree all which they never will do to compound and determine the differences among themselves yet by the ordinary Doctrine of most Protestants they might in such a Council err and it were possible in their Decrees to be deceived But if they may err how should I know and be sure when and wherein they did or did not err for though on the one side Aposse ad esse non valet semper consequentia yet aliquanâ—o valet and on the other side frustra dicitur potentia quae nunquam ducitur in actum So that if neither in general nor in particular in publick nor private in Head nor Members joyntly nor severally you have no visible external humane infallible Iudge who cannot err and to whom I might have recourse for decision of doubts in matters of Faith I pray let Mr. Hall tell me Where should I have fixed my foot for God is my Witness my Soul was like Noah's Dove a long time hovering and desirous to discover Land but seeing nothing but moveable and troublesome deceivable Water I could find no quiet center for my Conscience nor any firm Foundation for my Faith in Protestant Religion Wherefore hearing a sound of Harmony and Consent That the Catholick Church could not err and that only in the Catholick Church as in Noah's Ark was infallibility and possibility of salvation I was so occasioned and I think had important reason like Noah's Dove to seek out and to enter into this Ark of Noah Hereupon I was occasioned to doubt Whether the Church of England were the true Church or not For by consent of all the true Church cannot err but the Church of England Head and Members King Clergy and People as before is said yea a whole Council of Protestants by their own grant may err ergo no true Church If no true Church no salvation in it therefore come out of it but that I was loth to do Rather I laboured mightily to defend it both against the Puritans and against the Catholicks But the best Arguments I could use against the Puritans from the Authority of the Church and of the ancient Doctors interpreting Scriptures against them when they could not answer them they would reject them for Popish and flye to their own arrogant spirit by which forsooth they must control others This I found on the one side most absurd and to breed an Anarchy of confusion and yet when I came to answer the Catholick Arguments on the other side against Protestants urging the like Authority and Vniformity of the Church I perceived the most Protestants did frame evasions in effect like those of the Puritans inclining to their private Spirit and other uncertainties Next therefore I applyed my self to follow their Opinion who would make the Church of England and the Church of Rome still to be all one in essental Points and the differences to be accidential confessing the Church of Rome to be a true Church though sick or corrupted and the Protestants to be derived from it and reformed and to this end I laboured much to reconcile most of our particular controversies But in truth I found such contrarieties not only between Catholicks and Protestants but even among Protestants themselves that I could never settle my self fully in this Opinion of some reconciliation which I know many great Scholars in England did favour For considering so many opposite great Points for which they did excommunicate and put to death each other and making the Pope to be Antichrist proper or improper it could never sink into my Brain how these two could be descendent or Members sound nor unsound
participant each of other Rather I concluded that seeing many of the best learned Protestants did grant The Church of Rome to be a true Church though peradventure faulty in some things And contrarily not only the Catholicks but also the Puritans Anabaptists Brownists c. did all deny the Church of England to be a true Church therefore it would be more safe and secure to become a Roman Catholick who have a true Church by consent of both parties than to remain a Protestant who do alone plead their own cause having all the other against them For the testimony of our selves and our contraries also is much more sufficient and more certain than to justifie our selves alone Yet I resisted and stood out still and betook my self again to read over and examine the chiefest Controversies especially those about the Church which is cardo negotii and herein because the Bearer stayes now a day or two longer I will inlarge my self more than I purposed and so I would needs peruse the Original quotations and Texts of the Councils Fathers and Doctors in the Authors themselves which were alledged on both parts to see if they were truly cited and according to the meaning of the Authors a labour of much labour and of travel sometime to find the Books wherein I found much fraud committed by the Protestants and that the Catholicks had far greater and better armies of evident Witnesses on their sides much more than the Protestants in so much that the Centurists are fain often to censure and reject the plain testimonies of those Ancients as if their new censure were sufficient to disauthorize the others ancient sentences And so I remember Danaeus in Commentariis super D. Augustin Enchirid. ad Laurentium Where S. Augustin plainly avoucheth Purgatory He rejects S. Augustines Opinion saying hic est naevus Augustini But I had rather follow S. Augustine's Opinion than his Censure for who are they to control the Fathers There are indeed some few places in Authors which prima facie seem to favour Protestants as many Hereticks alledge some Texts of Scriptures whose sound of Words seem to make for their Opinions But being well examined and interpreted according to the Analogy of faith and according to many other places of the same Authors where they do more fully explain their Opinions so they appear to be wrested and from the purpose In fine I found my self evidently convinced both by many Authorities and by many Arguments which now I do not remember all nor can here repeat those which I do remember But only some few Arguments I will relate unto you which prevailed most with me besides those aforementioned First therefore I could never approve the Protestants evasion by Invisibility of their Church For though sometime it may be diminished and obscured yet the Catholick Church must ever be visible set on a Hill and not as Light hid under a Bushel for how should it enlighten and teach her Children if invisible or how should Strangers and Pagans and others be converted unto her or where should any find the Sacraments if invisible Also the true Church in all places and all Ages ever holds one Vniformity and Concord in all matters of Faith though not in all matters of Ceremony or Government But the Protestants Church hath not in all Ages nor in all places such uniform concord no not in one Age as is manifest to all the World and as Father Parsons proved against Fox's Martyrs Wickliffe Husse and the rest Ergo the Protestants Church not the true Church Again by that saying Haereses ad originem revocasse est refutasse and so considering Luther's first rancor against the Dominicans his disobedience and contempt of his former Superiours his vow-breaking and violent courses even causing rebellion against the Emperour whom he reviles and other Princes most shamefully surely such arrogant disobedience Schism and Rebellions had no warrant nor vocation of God to plant his Church but of the Devil to begin a Schism and a Sect. So likewise for Calvin to say nothing of all that D. Bolsecus brings against him I do urge only what Mr. Hooker Dr. Bancroft and Saravia do prove aganst him for his unquietness and ambition revolving the Commonwealth and so unjustly expelling and depriving the Bishop of Geneva and other temporal Lords of their due obedience and ancient inheritance Moreover I refer you to the stirs broils sedition and murthers which Knox and the Geneva-Gospellers caused in Scotland against their lawful Governours against their Queen and against our King even in his Mothers Belly Nor will I insist upon the passions which first moved King Henry violently to divorce himself from his lawful Wife to fall out with the Pope his Friend to marry the Lady Anne Bullen and soon after to behead her to disinherit Queen Mary and inable Queen Elizabeth and presently to disinherit Queen Elizabeth and to restore Queen Mary to hang up Catholicks for Traytors and to burn Protestants for Hereticks to destroy Monasteries and to pill Churches Were these fit beginnings for the Gospel of Christ I pray was this Man a good Head of Gods Church for my part I beseech our Lord bless me from being a Member of such a Head or such a Church I come to France and Holland where you know by the Hugonots and Geuses all Calvinists what Civil Wars they have raised how much Blood they have shed what Rebellion Rapine and Desolations they have occasioned principally for their new Religion founded in Blood like Draco's Laws But I would gladly know whether you can approve such bloody broils for Religion or no I know Protestants de facto do justifie the Civil Wars of France and Holland for good against their Kings but I could never understand of them quo jure If the Hollanders be Rebels as they are why did we support them if they be no Rebels because they fight for the pretended liberty of their ancient Priviledges and for their new Religion we see it is an easie matter to pretend Liberties and also why may not others as well revolt for their old Religion Or I beseech you why is that accounted Treason against the State in Catholicks which is called Reason of State in Protestants I reduce this Argument to few Words That Church which is founded and begun in Malice Disobedience Passion Blood and Rebellion cannot be the true Church but it is evident to the World That the Protestant Churches in Germany France Holland Geneva c. were so founded and in Geneva and Holland are still continued in Rebellion ergo They are not true Churches Furthermore where is not Succession both of true Pastors and of true Doctrine there is no true Church But among Protestants is no succession of true Pastors for I omit here to treat of Doctrine ergo no true Church I prove the minor where is no consecration nor ordination of Bishops and Priests according to the due Form and right intention required necessarily by the
Church and ancient Councils there is no succession of true Pastors But among Protestants the said due Form and right intention are not observed ergo no succession of true Pastors The said due Form and right intention are not observed among Protestants in France Holland nor Germany where they have no Bishops and where Laymen do intermeddle in the making of their Ministers And for England whereas the Councils require the Ordines minores of Subdeacon and the rest to go before Priesthood your Ministers are made per saltum without ever being Subdeacons And whereas the Councils require three Bishops to assist at the consecration of a Bishop it is certain that at the Nags-Head in Cheapside where consecration of your first Bishops was attempted but not effected whereabout I remember the controversie you had with one there was but one Bishop and I am sure there was such a matter And although I know and have seen the Records themselves that afterward there was a consecration of Dr. Parker at Lambeth and three Bishops named viz. Miles Coverdal of Exceter one Hodgeskin Suffragan of Bedford and another whose name I have forgotten yet it is very doubtful that Coverdal being made Bishop of Exceter in King Edward's time when all Councils and Church-Canons were little observed he was never himself Canonically consecrated and so if he were no Canonical Bishop he could not make another Canonical And the third unnamed as I remember but am not sure was only a Bishop elect and not consecrated and so was not sufficient But hereof I am sure that they did consecrate Parker by vertue of a Breve from the Queen as Head of the Church Who indeed being no true Head and a Woman I cannot see how they could make a true Consecration grounded on her Authority Furthermore making your Ministers you keep not the right intention for neither do the Orderer nor the Ordered give nor receive the Orders as a Sacrament nor with any intention of Sacrificing Also they want the Matter and Form with which according to the Councils and Canons of the Church holy Orders should be given namely for the Matter Priesthood is given by the delivery of the Patena with Bread and of the Chalice with Wine Deaconship by the delivery of the Book of the Gospels and Subdeaconship by the delivery of the Patena alone and of the Chalice empty And in the substantial form of Priesthood you do fail most of all which Form consists in these Words Accipe potestatem offerendi Sacrificium in Ecclesia pro Vivis Mortuis which are neither said nor done by you and therefore well may you be called Ministers as also Laymen are but you are no Priests Wherefore I conclude wanting Subdeaconship wanting undoubted Canonical Bishops wanting right intention wanting Matter and due Form and deriving even that you seem to have from a Woman the Head of your Church therefore you have no true Pastors and consequently no true Church And so to conclude and not to weary my self and you too much being resolved in my understanding by these and many other Arguments That the Church of England was not the true Church but that the Church of Rome was and is the only true Church because it alone is Ancient Catholick and Apostolick having Succession Vnity and Visibility in all Ages and Places yet what Agonies I passed with my Will here I will over-pass Only I cannot pretermit to tell you That at last having also mastered and subdued my will to relent unto my understanding by means of Prayer and by God Almighty's Grace principally I came to break through many tentations and impediments and from a troubled unquiet Heart to a fixed and peaceable tranquillity of Mind for which I do most humbly thank our sweet Lord and Saviour Iesus before whom with all reverence I do avouch and swear unto you as I shall answer it in the dreadful Day of Judgment when all Hearts shall be discovered That I forsook Protestant Religion for very fear of Damnation and became a Catholick with good hope of Salvation and that in this hope I do continue and increase daily And that I would not for all the World become a Protestant again And for this which here I have written unto you in great hast I know there be many Replyes and Rejoynders wherewith I could never be satisfied nor do I desire any further Disputation about them but rather to spend the rest of my life in Devotion yet in part to give you my dear good Friend some account of my sel◠having now so good an occasion and fit a Messenger and by you if you please to render a reason of my Faith to Mr. Hall who in his said printed Epistle in one place desires to know the Motives thereof I have thus plainly made relation of some Points among many Whereunto if Mr. Hall will make any Reply I do desire it may be directly and fully to the Points and in friendly Terms upon which condition I do pardon what is past and of you I know I need not require any such circumstances And so most seriously intreating and praying to our gracious Lord to direct and keep us all and ever in his holy Truth I commend you unto his heavenly Grace and my self unto your friendly love Your very affectionate and true loving Friend James Waddesworth Sevil in Spain April 1. 1615. ✚ To the Worshipful his respected Friend Mr. William Bedell at his House in S. Edmundsbury or at Horinger be there delivered in Suffolk Kind Mr. Bedel MIne old acquaintance and Friend having heard of your health and worldly well-fare by this Bearer Mr. Austen your Neighbour and by him having opportunity to salute you with these few Lines I could not omit though some few years since I wrote you by one who since told me certainly he delivered my Letters and that you promised answer and so you are in my debt which I do not claim nor urge so much as I do that in truth and before our Lord I speak it you do owe me love in all mutual amity for the hearty affectionate love which I have and ever did bear unto you with all sincerity For though I love not your Religion wherein I could never find solid Truth nor firm hope of Salvation as dow I do being a Catholick and our Lord is my Witness who shall be my Judge yet indeed I do love your person and your ingenuous honest good moral condition which ever I observed in you nor do I desire to have altercations with Mr. Ioseph Hall especially if he should proceed as Satyrically as he hath begun with me nor with any other Man and much less would I have any debate with your self whom I do esteem and affect as before I have written nor would I spend the rest of my life which I take to be short for my Lungs are decaying in any Questions but rather in Devotion wherein I do much more desire to be hot and
first it must be declared whether you mean the Catholick Church or a true part of the Catholick Church For there is not the like reason of these to error Against the Catholick Church Hell Gates shall not prevail against particular when Christ doth remove the Candlestick out of his place they do Witness the Churches of Africk sometimes most Catholick And thus it seems you must take this term since your doubt was Whether the Church of England be of the true Church or no. Besides I must desire to know what manner of Errors you mean whether even the least or only deadly and such as bar from salvation which the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heresies of perdition 2 Pet. 2.1 Take now your own choice for if you speak of every errour the Proposition is false even of the Catholick Church much more of any particular Church Yea I add further not only of the Catholick Church by denomination from the greatest part or by representation as the Pastors or Prelates thereof met in a Council which is still the mixt Church but even that which is Christs true body whereof he is the Saviour and which shall be with him for ever As for deadly and damnable errors this true and properly called Church both in the whole and every part of the mixt Church is yet priviledged from them finally For it is kept by the power of God to salvation it is not possible the Elect should thus be seduced Truth it is That by such errors particular visible Assemblies universally and obstinately defending them become falsly called Churches from which we are to separate our selves Example in the Synagogue and in Churches of the Arians Now let us see your Assumption But the Church of England Head and Members King Clergy and People yea a whole Council of Protestants may err by your own grant I answer The Church of England that is the Elect in the Church of England which only are truly called the Church can never deadly err This no Protestant will grant ye The mixt Church of England Head Members King Clergy and the residue of the people and a whole Council of Protestants may err damnably and therefore much more fall into lesser errors This they grant And if they shall so err obstinately they shall deservedly lose the name of a trâ—e Church But they deny they do thus err yea they deny that they err de facto at all What follows in Conclusion Ergo No true Church This shortness in suppressing the Verb would make a Man think you meant to cover the fault of your Discourse And indeed you might by that means easily beguile another but I cannot be perswaded you would willingly beguile your self Sure you were beguiled if you meant it thus Ergo it is no true Church See your Argument in the like A faithful Witness cannot lye But Socrates or Aristides may lye by his own grant Ergo no faithful Witness He that stands upright cannot fall But you Mr. Waddesworth by your own grant may fall Ergo stand not upright Perhaps your meaning was Ergo it may become no â—rue Church to wit when it shall so err damnably But then it follows not There is now no salvation in it and therefore come out of it now When you shew that I shall account â—ou have done wisely to go out of it Shew â—â—at in any one Point and take me with â—ou In the mean while for my part I shall sooner trust that Chapman that shall say to me Lo here is a perfect Yard I will measure as truly as I can and when I have done take the Yard and measure it your self than him that shall say here is thus much ye shall not need to measure it but take it on my Word Yea though one of his Apprentices should stand by and say he could not deceive me though he would as Benedictus à Benedictis tells the present Pope Volens nolens errare non potâ—s Where you relate your endeavour to defend the Church of England and tell of the Puritans rejecting those Arguments you could use from the Authority of the Church and of the ancient â—octors interpreting Scriptures against them flying to their own arrogant Spirit I cannot excuse them for the former nor subscribe to your accusation in the latter Perhaps you have met with some more fanatical Brownists or Anabaptists whom here you call Puritans But these that are commonly so called which differ from the Church of England about Church Government and Ceremonies only give indeed too little to the Authority of Men how holy learned or ancient soever Which is their fault and their great fault especially in matters of this nature yet they fly not to their own Spirit as you charge them That which you add That you perceived the most Protestants did frame the like evasions when you came to answer the Arguments against them on the other side When you shall shew this in particulars I shall believe it In the mean while I believe you thought so for commonly mediocrities are aggravated with the hatred and slandered with the names of both extreams But in the question between the Popish faction and us you might easily have discerned why the Argument from bare Authority is not of such validity For Ceremonies and matters of order may be ordered by wise Men and are not the worse but the better if they be ancient yea if they be common to us with Rome which Puritans will by no means allow In Doctrine if holy Men yea if an Angel from Heaven shall innovate any thing we are not to admit it Now the Controversies between the Romanists and us are most about Doctrine and they exceed as much in extolling the authority of the Ancients in their private Opinions and incommodious and strained speeches as the Puritans in depressing them We hold the mean and give as much to the Authority and Testimonies of the Fathers as may stand with the truth of Holy Scriptures and as themselves defer to the writing of others or require to be given to their own Next you tell of your following their Opinion who would make the Church of England and the Church of Rome still to be all one in Essential Points and the differences to be accidental Confessing the Church of Rome to be a true Church though sick or corrupted and the Protestants to be derived from it and reformed This Opinion is not only as you write favoured of many great Scholars in England but is the common Opinion of all the best Divines of the reformed Churches that are or have been in the World as I shewed in part of another Work which as I remember you had a sight of Wherein yet I fear you mistake the term accidental which doth not import that our differences are but slight and of small consideration but that all those Opinions and Abuses which we reform and cut off are not of the Faith but superfluous and foreign yea
of the Leaves the number he saith will rise to thirty thousand by which Iohn Fox his Book will as much exceed Iohn Sleidans Story in number of lyes in which were found only eleven thousand as it doth in bulk and bigness This manner of writing of these Men brings to my mind that which Sir Thomas More writes of Tyndals New Testament wherein he saith Were founden and noted wrong and falsely translated above a thousand Texts by tale The Language is like and the cause is the same Men were loth these Books should be read The substance of them was such as could not be controlled The next remedy was to forestal the Readers minds with a prejudice of falsification that so they might not regard them but cast them out of their Hands of their own accord The Vulgar sort would be brought out of conceit at the first hearing with vehement accusation Even wise Men would suppose though there should not be any thing near so many wilful faults yet surely there must needs be a very great number and that could not happen but with a very bad meaning this admitted who would vouchsafe them the reading And in truth among those that favour the reformed part I have met with some that out of this buz of falsification in the Lord of Plessis Book cared not for reading it whereby may be thought in what account it should be with all those who esteem all F. Parsons Libels to be Oracles But shortly Sith neither the Cardinal Perone nor F. Parsons have had the means or will to decypher those hundreds and thousands of falsifications in Sleidan Bishop Iewel Mr. Fox or Plessis in these so many years as have run since they wrote and as for the last he hath set forth the Book again with all the Authorities at large in the Margent in the Authors own Words and hath answered all those that bayed at it till they are silent what remains but that we count this multiplying of F. Parsons may be joyned with Aequivocation to make up the art of Falshood wherein he and his Faction may justly claim to be the worthiest Professors in the World But without any multiplication or other Arithmetick in the fifth page of that Relation of his in the seven first Lines are four notorious I will not say lyes or falsifications but falshoods by tale The First That the tryal being begun upon the first place that was found false The French Discourse printed at Antwerp Cum privilegio and approbation of the Visitor of Books saith And as to the said first Article nothing was judged thereabout by the said Commissioners nor pronounced by my said Lord the Chancellor and the King said that it should be remitted to another time to deliberate thereabout The Second He that is Plessis would have passed to the second but the Bishop refused so to do except the Ministers and Protestants there present would first subscribe and testifie that this first place was falsified He said in the page before that Plessis appeared at last with some four or five Ministers on his side There were no Ministers appeared with him on his side No Protestants no creature did subscribe or was required so to do The third Which at length they did viz. subscribe this place was falsified An utter untruth Whereof there is not a Word in the said printed Narration The fourth As well in this as in all the rest There was no subscription as I said at all The Commissioners were all of the Roman profession saving Casaubon and he no Minister They never pronounced much less subscribed that any of those places examined were falsified Of the first place of Scotus they pronounced nothing Of the second of Durand That the opposition of Durand was alledged for the resolution And this they would have remitted also as the former to another time save that the Bishop insisted saying it was in vain to dispute if they would not judge Addressing his Speech divers times to the King to the intent he should signifie his pleasure to the Commissioners and then his Majesty drawing near to them they gave their Opinions upon that Article as before This was that which F. Parsons stumbled at when he wrote The Ministers and Protestants there present subscribed and testified that it was falsified and so all the rest For being overjoyed with this News which he did not well understand to think the charitablest of him he thought the Commissioners had been part at least Protestants and Ministers And had subscribed whereas they pronounced their Sentence vivâ voce by the Mouth of the Chancellor never using the term falsification yea in some of the rest they acquitted the Lord of Plessis as in the passage of P. Crinitus though they said Crinitus was deceived In that of Bernard that it had been good to distinguish the two passages of S. Bernard out of the same Book with an caetera Not to stand now upon that that in the rest of the places he hath a reasonable and just defence with indifferent Men for the omissions he was charged with in Chrysostome Hierome Bernard and Theodoret And in that of Cyril the King himself said aloud tha both sides had reason But F. Parsons not having as it appears received perfect information of the particularities of this affair was so hasty to write according to the partial intelligence he received at Rome that he faults himself in the same kind that he imputes to another And if he should meet with some severe Adversary that would multiply his falshoods by his leaves and lines as he dealeth with Mr. Fox and then extend by proportion his Pamphlet to the bigness of Mr. Fox his Book of Martyrs he would find that he provides very ill for himself that is too rigorous and censorious to other Men. But I leave him and come to the fidelity of the Popish Faction whereof I shall desire you to take a taste in one of the questions which you name about the Church even that which is indeed cardo negotii as you say the controversie of the Popes authority For the establishing whereof First the Epistles of the ancient Bishops of Rome for the space of about three hundred years after Christ are counterfeited The Barbarous not Latine but lead of the stile and the likeness of them all one to another the deep silence of Antiquity concerning them the Scriptures alledged after Hierom's translation do convince them of Falshood and by whose practice and procurement we cannot doubt if we ask but as Cassius was wont cui bono For at every bout the Authority of the Pope and priviledges of the Roman See are extolled and magnified Next the Donation of Constantine is a senseless forgery and so blazed by some of the learnedest of the Roman Church Read it advisedly either in Gratian or in the Decrees of Sylvester with the Confession and Legend of Constantines baptism and say out of your own judgment if ever any thing
East in Asia now of the South in Africk And he was in as ill conceit with Cyprian for his breaking good order and communicating with Basilides and Martialis justly deprived in Spain as Saint Cyprian was with him when he stiled him a false Christ and a false Apostle But that holy Martyr was of a more patient and calm spirit than to be moved with such reproaches nay he took occasion as it should seem thereby to write of patience From this mildness it was that he so closely taxed the presumption of him that made himself Bishop of Bishops and by terror which what it was Firmilianus's Epistle shews threatning Excommunication would compel his Colleagues to his own opinion None of us saith he doth thus As the Apostle we preach not our selves we commend not our selves We are not as many that adulterate the Word of God c. Bellarmine takes the first kindly No marvel saith he for this is the Bishop of Rome's due But they go together he must be content to take both or leave both Such another place there is in Saint Augustine Epist. 86. the words are Petrus etiam inquit Apostolorum Caput coeli janitor Ecclesiae fundamentum Where in the Margent the Divines of Lovaine the overseers of Plantines edition set this note Petrus Ecclesiae fundamentum Why might they not The words ye will say of the Text. But these words of the text be not Saint Augustines whose opinion is well enough known That it is Christ confessed by Peter that is the foundation of the Church but they are the words of an undiscreet railer of the City of Rome against whom Saint Augustine in all that Epistle most vehemently inveighs This arrogant Author endeavours so to defend the Roman custome of fasting on the Saturday as he reproaches all other Churches that used otherwise And that we may see with what Spirit he was led he brings the same text that is brought in Pope Siricius and Innocentius's Epistles against the marriage of Clergy-men Qui in carne sunt Deo placere non possunt and many other Scriptures wrested and far from the purpose at last comes the authority of Peter and his tradition very Pope-like alledged Peter he saith the head of the Apostles porter of heaven and foundation of the Church having overcome Simon the Sorcerer who was a figure of the Devil not to be overcome but by fasting thus taught the Romans whose faith is famous in the whole world I remit you to Saint Augustine's answer to this tradition This I note that where your Censors do rase out of the Margents of former editions such notes as do express the very opinions of the Ancients and in their own words here they can allow and authorize such marginal notes as are directly contrary to their meaning Yea which are earnestly oppugned by them when they seem to make for the authority of the Pope Good sir examine well this dealing and judge if this be not wresting the Fathers and applying them clean from their purpose In fine you found your self you say evidently convinced Perswaded I believe rather than convinced Else if the force and evidence of the Arguments and not the pliableness of your mind were the cause of your yielding methinks they should work like effect in others no less seriously seeking for truth and setting all worldly respects aside earnestly minding their own salvation than your self Which I well know they do not neither those which hitherto have been examined nor those which yet remain to be considered in the rereward CHAP. VIII Of the Invisibility of the Church said to be an evasion of Protestants THE first whereof is the dislike of the Protestants evasion as you call it by the invisibility of their Church Give me leave here to tell you plainly ye seem to me not to understand the Protestants doctrine in this point Else ye would have spared all that The Catholick Church must ever be visible as a City set on a hill otherwise how should she teach her children convert Pagans dispense Sacraments All this is yielded with both hands The Congregations of which the Catholick Church doth consist are visible But the promise made to this Church of victory against the gates of Hell the titles of the house of God the base and pillar of Truth an allusion as I take it to the bases and pillars that held up the veil or curtains in the Tabernacle the body of Christ his Dove his undefiled are not verified of this Church in the whole visible bulk of it but in those that are called according to Gods purpose given to Christ and kept by him to be raised up to life at the last day This doctrine is Saint Augustine's in many places which it would be too tedious to set down at large In his third book De doctrina Christiana among the rules of Tychonius there is one which he corrects a little for the terms De Domini corpore bipartito which he saith ought not to have been called so for in truth that is not the Lords body which shall not be with him for ever but he should have said of the Lords true body and mixt or true and feigned or some such thing Because not only for ever but even now hypocrites are not to be said to be with him though they seem to be in his Church Consider those resemblances taken out of the holy Scripture wherein that godly Father is frequent of chaff and wheat in the Lords floor of good and bad fishes in the net of spots and light in the Moon Of the Church carnal and spiritual of the wicked multitudes of the Church yet not to be accounted in the Church Of the Lilly and the Thorns those that are marked which mourn for the sins of Gods people and the rest which perish which yet bear his Sacraments Consider the last Chapter of the book De Vnitate Ecclesiae and that large Treatise which he hath of that matter Epist. 48. The place is long which deserves to be read for the objection of the Universality of Arianisme like to that of Papisme in these last ages which Saint Augustine answers in the fifth book De Baptismo contra Donatistas cap. 27. That number of the just who are called according to Gods purpose of whom it is said The Lord knoweth who are his is the inclosed garden the sealed fountain the well of living waters the orchard with Apples c. The like he hath l. 5. c. 3. 23. he concludes that because such are built upon the Rock as hear the Word of God and do it and the rest upon the sand now the Church is built upon the Rock all therefore that hear the Word of God and do it not are out of question without the Church In the seventh book cap. 51. Quibus omnibus consideratis Read and mark the whole Chapter Out of these and many more like places which I forbear to mention it appears that albeit
of your induction though it matters little whether you do or no since Father Parsons will needs aver that he lived and dyed of your Religion Here first you mention his violent divorceing himself from his lawful Wife We will not now debate the Question How his Brothers Wise could be his lawful Wife You must now say so Whatsoever the Scriptures Councils almost all Universities of Christendom determined Yet methinks it should move you that Pope Clement himself had consigned to Cardinal Campegius a Breve formed to sentence for the King in as ample manner as could be howsoever upon the success of the Emperours affairs in Italy and his own occasions he sent a special Messenger to him to burn it But what violence was this that you speak of The matter was orderly and judiciously by the Archbishop of Canterbury with the assistance of the learnedest of the Clergy according to the antient Canons of the Church and Laws of the Realm heard and determined That indeed is more to be marvelled at What moved him to fall out with the Pope his Friend in whose quarrel he had so far engaged himself as to write against Luther of whom also he was so rudely handled as you mention before having received also for some part of recompence the title of The Defender of the Faith having been so chargeably thankful to the Pope for it All these things considered it must be said this unkindness and slippery dealing of Clement with him was from the Lord that he might have an occasion against the Pope and that it might appear that it was not Humane Counsel but Divine Providence that brought about the banishment of the Popes Tyranny from among us His marriage with the Lady Anne Bullen her death and the rest which you mention of the abling or disabling her Issue to inherit the Crown I see not what it makes to our purpose The suppression of the Monasteries was not his sole Act but of the whole State with the consent also of the Clergy and taken out of Cardinal Wolsey his example yea founded upon the Popes Authority granted to him To dissolve the smaller Houses of Religion on pretence to defray the charges of his sumptuous Buildings at Oxford and Ipswich wherein if it pity you as I confess it hath sometimes me that such goodly Buildings are defaced and ruined we must remember what God did to Shiloh yea to Jerusalem it self and his Temple there And that Oracle Every tree that beareth not good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire You demand If this Man King Henry were a good Head of Gods Church What if I should demand the same touching Alexander the Sixth Iulius the Second Leo the Tenth or twenty more of the Catalogue of Popes in respect of whom King Henry might be canonized for a Saint But there is a Story in Tullies Offices of one Lucatius that laid a Wager that he was bonus vir a good Man and would be judged by one Fimbria a Man of Consular Dignity He when he understood the case said He would never judge that matter lest either he should diminish the reputation of a Man well esteemed of or set down that any Man was a good Man which he accounted to consist in an innumerable sort of Excellencies and Praises That which he said of a good Man with much more reason may I say of a good King one of whose highest excellencies is to be a good Head of the Church And therefore it is a Question which I will never take upon me to answer Whether King Henry were such or no unless you will beforehand interpret this Word as favourably as Guicciardine doth tell us Men are wont to do in the censuring your heads of the Church For Popes he saith now a-days are praised for their goodness when they exceed not the wickedness of other men After this description of a good head of the Church or if ye will that of Cominaeus which saith he is to be counted a good King whose vertues exceed his vices I will not doubt to say King Henry may be enrolled among the number of good Kings In special for his executing that highest duty of a good King the imploying his Authority in his Kingdom to command good things and forbid evil not only concerning the civil Estate of Men but the Religion also of God Witness his authorizing the Scriptures to be had and read in Churches in our Vulgar Tongue enjoyning the Lords Prayer the Creed and ten Commandments to be taught the people in English abolishing superfluous Holy-days pulling down those jugling Idols whereby the people were seduced namely the Rood of Grace whose Eyes and Lips were moved with wires openly shewed at Pauls Cross and pulled asunder by the people Above all the abolishing of the Popes Tyranny and Merchandise of Indulgences and such like Chafer out of England Which Acts of his whosoever shall unpartially consider of may well esteem him a better Head to the Church of England than any Pope these thousand years In the last place you come to the Hugenots and Geuses of France and Holland You lay to their Charge the raising of Civil Warrs shedding of Blood occasioning Rebellion Rapine Desolations principally for their new Religion In the latter part you write I confess somewhat reservedly when you say occasioning not causing and principally not only and wholly for Religion But the Words going before and the exigence of your Argument require that your meaning should be they were the causers of these disorders You bring to my mind a Story whether of the same Fimbria that I mentioned before or another which having caused Quintus Scavola to be stabbed as Father Paulo was while I was at Venice after he understood that he escaped with his life brought his Action against him for not having received the Weapon wholly into his Body These poor people having endured such barbarous Cruelties Massacres and Martyrdoms as scarce the like can be shewed in all Stories are now accused by you as the Authors of all they suffered No no Mr. Waddesworth they be the Laws of the Roman Religion that are written in Blood It is the bloody Inquisition and the perfidious violating of the Edicts of Pacification that have set France and Flanders in combustion An evident Argument whereof may be for Flanders that those Genses that you mention were not all Calvinists as you are mis-informed the chief of them were Roman Catholicks as namely Count Egmond and Horne who lost their Heads for standing and yet only by Petition against the new Impositions and the Inquisition which was sought to be brought in upon those Countries The which when the Vice-roy of Naples D. Petro de Toledo would have once brought in there also the people would by no means abide but rose up in Arms to the number of fifty thousand which sedition could not be appeased but by delivering them of that fear The like resistance though more
which if it be put to be a sign of a holy thing these be both so and a many more than seven If a Seal of the New Testament so are there but those two which we properly call Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper In which last as to the intention of Sacrificing surely if ye allow the Doctrine of the Master of the Sentences That it is called a Sacrifice and Oblation which is offered and consecrated by the Priest because it is a Memory and Representation of the true Sacrifice and holy Immolâ—tion made on the Altar of the Cross. And that Christ once dyed on the Cross and there was offered up in himself but is daily offered up in a Sacrament because in the Sacrament there is a remembrance â—f that which was onceâ—done which he there confirms by the Authorities of the Fathers cited by Gratian in the Canon Law If this Doctrine I say may yet pass for good and this be the Churches intention we want not this Intention of sacrificing Add to this the Confession of Melchior Canus who saith the Lutherans do not wholly deny the Sacrifice but grant a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving which they call the Eucharist they will have none for sin which they call propitiatory If he had put hereto unless it be a Mysterie he had rightly expressed the Opinion of the Protestants Thirdly You object We want the matter and Form with which Orders should be given Namely for the matter in Priesthood the delivery of the Patena with Bread and the Chalice with Wine In Deaconship the delivery of the Book of the Gospel c. By which reason the seven first Deacons had no true Ordination for then there was no Gospel written to be delivered them Nor those Priests whom the Pope shall make by his sole Word saying Esto Sacerdos Whom notwithstanding sundry famous Canonists hold to be well and lawfully ordained and Innocentius himself saith That if these Forms of Ordination were not found out any other Ordainer might in like manner make Priests with those Words or the like for as much as these Forms were in process of time appointed by the Church And if we list to seek for these metaphysical Notions of Matter and Form in Ordination which at the most can be but by Analogy how much better might we assign the persons deputed to sacred Functions to be the matter as those that contract are by your selves made the matter in Matrimony and the imposing of Hands with the expressing the Authority and Office given to be the Form In Dionysius though falsely called the Areopagite yet an antient Author you shall find nothing else nor which I may tell you by the way any other Orders save Bishops Priests and Deacons And to come to that wherein you say we fail most of all the substantial Form of Priesthood tell me ingenuously good Master Waddesworth how do you know that our Lord Jesus Christ made his Apostles or they other Priests with this Form which hath no mention or footstep in the Gospels or otherwhere in Holy Scripture Nor so much as in the Council of Carthage that from whence the manner of giving other Orders is fetched nor in Gratian nor in any other antient Author that I can find save in the Pontifical only And is the present Pontifical of such Authority with you as the Form of Priesthood the substantial Form can subsist in no other Words than those that be there expressed To omit the late turkesing whereof consider what Augustinus Patritius writes in his Preface before that which at Pope Innocent the Eighth his commandment he patched together That there were scarce two or three Books found that delivered the same thing Quot libri tot varietates Ille deficit hic superabundat alius nihil omnino de eâ re habet raro aut nunquam conveniunt saepe obscuri implicati Librariorum vitio plerunque mendosi And in truth in this your essential Form of Priesthood the old Pontificals before that which he set forth either had other Words at the giving of the Chalice and Paten as may seem or wanted both that Form and the Matter also together The Master of the Sentences declaring the manner of the Ordination of Priests and the reason why they have the Chalice with Wine and Paten with Hosts given unto them saith it is Vt per hoc sâ—iant se accepisse potestatem placabiles Deo hostias offerendi Hugo in like manner Accipiunt Calicem cum vino Patenam cum Hostia de manu Episcopi quatenus potestatem se accepisse cognoscant placabiles Deo Hostias offerendi Stephanus Eduensis Episcopus in the same Words Datur eis Calix cum Vino Patena cum Hostia in quo traditur iis potestas ad offerendum Deo placabiles Hostias So Iohannes Ianuensis in his Summ entitled Catholicon verbo Presbyter If you ascend to the higher times of Rabanus Alcuinus Isidâ—rus you shall find that they mention no such matter of delivering Chalice or Paten or Words used at the delivery and no marvel â—or in the Canons of the fourth Council of Carthage they found none Dionysiâ—s falsly called Arcopagita whom I mentioned before setting down the manner of Ordaining in his time The Priest upon â—oth his knees before the Altar with the Bishâ—ps right-Hand upon his Head is on this manner sanctified by his Consecrator with holy Invocations Here is all save that he saith after he hath described that also which pertains unto the Deacon that every one of them is signed with the Cross when the Bishop blesseth them and proclaimed and saluted by the Consecrator himself and every one of that sacred Order that is present The Greek Scholiast very lively shews the meaning and manner of this proclaiming He saith The Ordainer pronounceth by name when he signeth him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such a Man is consecrated from being Presbyter to be a Bishop in the name of the Father c. and so in the Presbyter and Deacon Clemens Romanus if F. Turrian and the rest of the Romish Faction deceive us not or be not deceived themselves in attributing to him the eight Books of the Apostolick Constitutions that bear his name cuts the matter yet more short and without either crossing or proclaiming appoints the Bishop to lay his Hands upon him in the presence of the Presbytery and the Deacons using a Prayer which you may see at length in him for the increase of the Church and of the number of them that by Word and Work may edifie it For the party elected unto the Office of Priesthood that being filled with the operations of Healing and Word of Doctrine he may instruct Gods people with meekness and serve him sincerely with a pure mind and willing heart and perform holy Services without spot for his people through his Christ to whom c. These last Words which are in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Carolus Bovius
Bishop of Ostuna interpretâ— Sacrificia pro populo tâ—o immaculata perficiat Marvel that he added not tam pro vivis quam pro defâ—nctis Sure if S. Paul Rom. 15.16 had not added the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he had sacrificed also This was the antient and Apostolick manner of Ordination if the Author be worthy of credit But that ye may perceive what tampering there hath been to bring Ordinations to the Form which the present Pontifical prescribes consider with me the Words of Amalarius Bishop of Triers in his second Book de Ecclesiast Officiis where in the Office of the Subdeacon he thus writes Miror quâ de re sumptus usus in Ecclesia c. I marvel whence the use was taken in our Church that very often the Subdeacon should read the Lesson at Mass since this is not found committed unto him by the Ministry given him in Consecration nor by the Canonical Writings nor by his name And streight after Nam primaevo tempore For in antient time the Deacon read not the Gospel which was not yet written but after it was enacted by our Fathers That the Deacons should read the Gospel they appointed also that the Subdeacon should read the Epistle or Lesson It appears then that in Amalarius time who lived with Charles the Great and Lewis his Son that ridiculous Form was not in the Pontifical where the Book of the Epistles is given to the Subdeacons and power to read them in the holy Church of God as well for the Quick as the Dead The same Author coming to speak of Deacons telleth of their consecration by Prayer and imposition of Hands and confuteth that in the present Pontifical which he saith he found in a little Book of Holy Orders made he knows not by what Author That the Bishop alone should lay Hands on the Deacon At last he adds There is one Ministry added to the Deacon viz. to read the Gospel which he saith doth well befit him quia Minister est But of the delivery of the Book of the Gospels with authority to read the Gospel for the Quick and Dead not one Word In the next Chapter of Presbyters he expounds their name and saith further hunc morem tenent Episcopi nostri Our Bishops have this Fashion they anoint the Hands of Presbyters with Oyl which Ceremony he declares touching imposition of Hands upon them he remits us to that he said before in the Deacon Then he shews out of Ambrose and Hierom That these are all one Order with Bishops and ought to govern the Church in common like Moses with the seventy Elders As for delivery of Chalice and Wine or Paten and Host with power to sacrifice so well for the Quick as the Dead he makes no mention Judge you whether these were thought to be the matter and essential Form of Priesthood in his time Yet one Author more will I name in this matter not only because he is a famous Schoolman and one of Luthers first Adversaries and therefore ought to be of more account with that side but because he professeth the end of his writing to be circa Sacramentum ordinis cautos reddere ne pertinax quisquam aut levis sit circa modum tradendi aut recipiendi ordines It is Cardinal Cajetane in the second Tome of his Opuscula Tit. De modo tradendi seu recipiendi Ordines Read the whole where these things I observe for our present purpose 1. If all be gathered together which the Pontificals or which Reason or Authority hath delivered the nature of all the rest of the Orders except Priesthood only will appear very uncertain 2. The lesser Orders and Subdeaconship according to the Master of the Sentences were instituted by the Church 3. The Deacons instituted by the Apostles Acts 6. were not Deacons of the Altar but of the Tables and Widows 4. In Deaconship there seems to be no certain Form for according to the old Pontificals the laying of Hands upon the Deacon hath no certain Form of Words but that Prayer Emitte quaesumus in eos S. Sanctum Which according to the new Pontificals is to be said after the imposition of Hands For the giving of the Book of the Gospels hath indeed a form of Words but that impresseth not the Character for before any Gospel was written the Apostles ordained Deacons by imposition of Hands 5. In the Subdeaconship also there is no Pontifical which hath not the matter without Form viz. the delivery of the empty Chalice c. These things with more which he there sets down he would have to serve to the instruction of the learned touching the uncertainty of this whole matter to teach Men to be wise to sobriety that is every Man to be content with the accustomed Pontifical of the Church wherein he is ordained And if ought be omitted of those things which be added out of the new Pontificals as for example that the Book of the Epistles was not given with those Words Take Authority to read the Epistles as well for the Quick as the Dead there is no need of supplying this omission by a new Ordination for such new additions make no new Law Learn then of your own Cajetane that the new additions of delivery of the Chalice with Wine and Paten with Hosts and authority to offer sacrifice for the Quick and the Dead make no new Law Learn to be content with the Pontifical of the Church wherein you were ordained Wherein first is verbatim all that which your Pontificals had well taken out of the holy Words of our Saviour Accipe Spiritum Sanctum quorum remiseris peâ—cata remittuntur eis quorum retinueris retentâ— sunt Which methinks you should rather account to contain the essential Form of Priesthood than the former both because they are Christs own Word and joyned with that Ceremony of laying on Hands which antiently denominated this whole action and do express the worthiest and principallest part of your Commission which the Apostle calls the Ministry of Reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.18 19. Then because this Office is not only deputed to consecrate the Lords Body but also to preach and baptize which in your Pontifical is wholly omitted in a larger and more convenient Form is added out of S. Paul 1 Cor. 4.1 and be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God and of his holy Sacraments In the name of the Father c. As to that you add That we offer no Sacrifice for the Quick and Dead and therefore well may be called Ministers as all Lay-men are but are no Priests I have met with sundry that pull this Rope as strongly the other way and affirm that because by the very Form of your Ordination you are appointed Sacrificers for the Quick and the Dead well may ye be Mass-Priests as ye are called but Ministers of the New Testament after S. Paul 's Phrase ye are none For that Office stands principally in preaching the Word whereof in
your Ordination there is no Word said And as little there is in Scripture of your Sacrifice which makes Christ not to be a Priest after the order of Melchisedeck c. with much more to this purpose Where my Defence for your Ministry hath been this That the Form Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins ye remit they are remitted c. doth sufficiently comprehend the Authority of preaching the Gospel Use you the same equity towards us and tell those hot Spirits among you that stand so much upon formalities of Words That to be a Dispenser of the Word of God and his holy Sacraments is all the duty of Priesthood And to you I add further that if you consider well the Words of the Master of the Sentences which I vouched before how that which is consecrated of the Priest is called a Sacrifice and Oblation because it is a Memorial and Representation of the true Sacrifice and holy Offering made on the Altar of the Cross and joyn thereto that of the Apostle that by that one Offering Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified and as he saith in another place through that Blood of his Cross reconciled unto God all things whether in Earth or in Heaven you shall perceive that we do offer Sacrifice for the Quick and Dead remembring representing and mystically offering that sole Sacrifice for the Quick and Dead by the which all their sins are meritoriously expiated and desiring that by the same we and all the Church may obtain remission of sins and all other Benefits of Christs Passion To the Epilogue therefore of this your last Motive I say in short Sith we have no need of Subdeaconship more than the Churches in the Apostles times and in truth those whom we call Clerks and Sextons perform what is necessary in this behalf Sith we have Canonical Bishops and lawful Succession Sith we neither want due intention to depute Men to Ecclesiastical Functions nor matter or Form in giving Priesthood deriving from no Man or Woman the Authority of Ordination but from Christ the Head of the Church you have alledged no sufficient Cause why we should not have true Pastors and consequently a true Church in England CHAP. XII Of the Conclusion Mr. Waddesworth's Agonies and Protestation c. YEt by these you say and many other Arguments you were resolved in your understanding to the contrary It may well be that your Understanding out of its own heedless hast as that of our first Parents while it was at the perfectest was induced into error by resolving too soon out of seeming Arguments and granting too forward assent For surely these which you have mentioned could not convince it if it would have taken the pains to examine them throughly or had the patience to give unpartial hearing to the Motives on the other side But as if you triumphed in your own conquest and captivity you add that which passeth yet all that hitherto you have set down viz. That the Church of Rome was and is the only true Church because it alone is Antient Catholick and Apostolick having Succession Vnity and Visibility in all Ages and Places Is it only antient To omit Ierusalem are not that of Antioch where the Disciples were first called Christians and Alexandria Ephesus Corinth and the rest mentioned in the Scriptures antient also and of Antioch antienter than Rome Is it Catholick and Apostolick only Do not these and many more hold the Catholick Faith received from the Apostles as well as the Church of Rome For that it should be the Vniversal Church is all one as ye would say the part is the whole one City the World Hath it only succession where to set aside the enquiry of Doctrine so many Simoniacks and Intruders have ruled as about fifty of your Popes together were by your own Mens Confession Apostatical rather than Apostolical Or Unity where there have been thirty Schisms and one of them which endured fifty years long and at last grew into three Heads as if they would share among them the triple Crown And as for dissentions in Doctrine I remit you to Master Doctor Halls peace of Rome wherein he scores above three hundred mentioned in Bellarmine alone above three-score in one only head of Penance out of Navarrus As to that addition in all Ages and places I know not what to make of it nor where to refer it Consider I beseech you with your wonted moderation what you say for sure unless you were beguiled I had almost said bewitched you could never have resolved to believe and profess that which all the World knows to be as false I had well nigh said as God is true touching the extent of the Romish Church to all Ages and places Concerning the agonies you passed I will say only thus much if being resolved though erroneously that was truth you were withholden from professing it with worldly respects you did well to break through them all But if besides these there were doubt of the contrary as methinks needs must be unless you could satisfie your self touching those many and known Exceptions against the Court of Rome which you could not be ignorant of take heed lest the rest insuing these agonies were not like Sampsons sleeping on Dalilahs knees while the Locks of his Strength were shaven whereupon the Lord departing from him he was taken by the Philistins had his Eyes put out and was made to grind in the Prison But I do not despair but your former resolutions shall grow again And as I do believe your religious asseveration that for very fear of damnation you forsook us which makes me to have the better hope and opinion of you for that I see you do so seriously mind that which is the end of our whole life so I desire from my Heart the good hope of salvation you have in your present way may be as happy as your fear I am perswaded was causeless For my part I call God to record against mine own Soul that both before my going into Italy and since I have still endeavoured to find and follow the truth in the Points controverted between us without any earthly respect in the World Neither wanted I fair opportunity had I seen it on that side easily and with hope of good entertainment to have adjoyned my self to the Church of Rome after your example But to use your words as I shall answer at the dreadful day of judgement I never saw heard or read any thing which did convince me nay which did not finally confirm me daily more and more in the perswasion that in these differences it rests on our part Wherein I have not followlowed humane conjectures from foreign and outward things as by your leave methinks you do in these your motives whereby I protest to you in the sight of God I am also much comforted and assured in the possession of the truth but the undoubted Voice of God in his Word which is more