artificial Rhetorique of a slighting pretermission so stupify the natural logique of every one that is come to the vse of reason as not to see the force of this conclusion He hath killed his father what vvonder is it if he kill his brother They falsify Scripture what marvel if they forge records Hath your custome of vrging light conjectures against the Church of Rome so destroyed the nature of reason in you as not to feele your selfe or to thinke that others doe not feele the weight of an argument à fortiore Records are humane Scripture devine Records are kept in a corner Scripture exposed to the vew of all Records have fevv copies and kept by a few and those of one faction The Christian vvorld is full of Bibles Is it not then lesse against conscience of easier contrivence and further from danger of a shamefull discovery to forge records then to falsify Scripture This is onely to stop you a while from posting with so much speed from this passage In the end of the booke I shal detaine you longer and hould you faster and put a rub to the sliding eloquence you have learned in Holland If you vvil not yet the Reader shall see by vvhat I shal lay clearely before his eyes and shal remit to the judgement of his owne eyes if he be pleased to view and coÌ„fer him selfe what I shal set downe of some and direct him to seeke of other Protestant Ministers in point of grosse wilfull malicious and impudent falsifications of Scripture and Authours whereby he will conclude with himselfe how far he shal thinke fit to give credit hereafter to their sayings or writings and namely and particularly D. Morton called B. of Duresme that Minister of simple truth as he called himselfe in those very bookes which seeme to have bin dictated by the father of lyes and now in his late testimony is not ashamed to speake thus Pag. 15. I could never have made such a speech marke the proofe he adjoyneth seeing I have ever spoken according to my thoughts He may very well have forgot what he once spoke in Parlament seeing he hath forgot what he hath so often writ against his thoughts and cleer knowledge in â—everal bookes But of this mans false writings hereafther Pag. 107. now I returne to your false records being you are resolved to convince all â—hose vvho gainsay them by six doughty arguments which I hope to retortagainst you and by your owne grounds prove the contrary of what you are confident to maintaine 3. Your first argument is that value and respect which the lawes of England do give the Registers The lawes of England were so farre from valuing or respecting these Registers that they did not as much as cite or mention them when Parker and his Colleagues were pressed to â—hew the letters of their Orders being accuâ—ed by our Catholique Doctors that they had â—ever bin ordained And the Parliament 8. Eliz. thought it more for the credit of their protestant Church and Clergy to make them Bishops by a statute then examine the matter which resolution had never bin taken if any witnesses or Records of their consecration at Lambeth could have bin produced in the 8. yeare of Q. Elizabeths reigne But what marvaile is it that the lawes of England should not value your Records when your first superintendents themselves never durst send D. Harding or any of the rest who desired it an authentique Copie of them out of your Registry Or so muchas make mention of the original 4. Your second argument is taken from the credit of the foure publique Notaries who did testify Parkers individual consecration at Lambeth it being observable that these four Notaries were the same who did draw Cardinal Pooles consecration into Acts and attest them This proofe and observation weighs as litle as foure publique Notaries conscience and credit who in Cardinal Pooles time professed one faith and in Parkers an other Men that counterfeit religions will have no difficulty te counterfeit Registers if they be commanded or inclined to do it neither would their testimony be of vndoubted credit in any place of the world if contradicted by so many arguments and circumstances as your pretended consecration at Lambeth But in case these Notaries had bin persons beyond all exception might not their hands be counterfeited as well as the Register What greater difficulty can there be in one more then in the other It s a silly argument that involves in it selfe the same difficulty it ought to cleere Your third and fourth ground of the Queens Commission and of the Act of Parliament 8. Eliz. have bin ansvvered in the former Chapter and are evident proofes that your Records are forged 5. Pag. 115. 116. Your fifth ground is taken from a booke you say vvas printed an 1572. of the lives of 70. succeeding Archbishops of Canterbury vvherin the Author that vvas Archbishop Parker himselfe having described the Confirmations and Consecrations of his fellovves he addeth in the margent These confirmations and consecrations do appeare in the Registers It seemes you learnt from Parker to cite your selfe as a vvitnesse for your felfe Is this the manner of Polemick Writers But why did not Parker or Ievvel remit D. Harding to these Registers wherof M. Parker some seaven yeares after made if vve believe you marginal notes when he so earnestly called for them Confut. Apolog. fol. 57. 59 edit 1566. shevv vs your Registers in the yeare 1566. Then vvas the time for Parker and the rest to cite them and not in the yeare 1572. Yet D. Champney doubts whether any such booke vvas printed of your Archbishops as you pretend Whether it was or no it matters not for the Registers cited in the margent by Parker mentioneth not any place or forme of their consecrations and is as indifferent for the Nagshead Taverne as for the Chapell of Lamheth as you may see in the booke called Antiquitates Britannia edit 1605. into which this forged Register was foisted being a meere novelty and therfore contrary to the drift and title of the booke without connexion to what goeth before or followeth after 6. But how comes it to passe M. Doctor that in this booke and Register are set dovvne as you say the names of your Bishops their Countries their Armes both of their sees and families Pag. 164. their respective ages their vniversities their degrees in Schooles vvith the times but not the place of their several consecrations How comes it to passe I say there should be roome for all these things and none at all for Lambeth which takes vp no more then Ipsvvich Parkers Countrey or Cambridge his vniverfity Is it more material to put in a Register the place of a Bishops nativity or education then the place where he received his caracter or consecration Did he esteeme more the degree of a Doctor then the dignity of a Bishop I could not exact nor expect from M. Parker
translateth in to English that very text of Azor. which himself citeth in the margen The words in latin are Si venit ex loco aliquo peste minimè infecto qui falsò habetur pro infecto Which Morton turnes thus into English if he com from a place infected But truely translated make the case wholy different and are these if he came from a place not infected which falsely is held to be infected But he is not only content to be convicted of vnexcusable falsehood by men that study moralists but even by schoolboys that read Tullies offices in his 90. page he doth so grossely pervert the sense change the words and distroy the whole drift of Tullies discourse l. 3. offic § Regulus and § sed si that it is a wonder to see what impudensy growes from a custom of lying These are but a few examples of the many detected by the aforesaid Treatise of Mitigation and an other called A quiet and sober reckoning with Thomas Morton by the reading wherof and conferring each particular with the bookes cited every one may in a short time and no great trouble judge by his eyes whether I have reason to except against such a witnes in his owne cause and what reason there is to follow so wilfully and wickedly blind leaders But I cannot but wonder at one circumstance that after Morton had gained reputation by this practise he was promoted to the title and profits of a Bishopricke purchasing by a new kind of fimony not with buying but with lyeing a rich benefice I Bellarmin or Perron could have bin convicted of this false and base proceeding either before or after their Cardinals caps what a noyse would have bin when we heare such a clamour vpon that which is not proved but only pretended to be a credulous mistake Yet when I consider John Foxes Acts and Monuments the very Magazin of no lesse malicious then ridiculous lies to have got so honorable a place in Protestant Churches and that not by vulgar simplicity but by publick authority not by connivence or negligence but vpon designe and by command when I see this abomination hath stood so long in the holy place I wonder no more at Mortons promotion nor at whole Nations deceaved by Mahomets Alcoran If I should insist vpon the number of those that by commaund or concurrence are guilty of the falsehood of Foxes booke I should accuse many more then I am by this present occasion obliged but the Ministers I cannot excuse vpon any title for although they be of meane learning and no extraordinary reading yet the falsities are so numerous and obvious that it is impossible but many should have fallen under the observation of most And by the booke of the three Conversions of England and the Examen of Foxes Calender which have bin printed almost threescore yeares since and have come to the hands of many Protestant Ministers this Foxes fowle worke hath bin so plainly discovered that those who have seen it if they had least zeale or love or care of truth ought to have informed their Brethren and not to have permitted any Christian Religion to be longer prophaned with so publick a slaunder and shame of Christianity Should a renegate Captive tell his maister that the sect amongst Christians which he had bin taught was maintained by such false and shamfull practises he would easily gaine Credit of a true Proselite turned Turke vpon conscience and not convenience I need not set downe Foxes impostures for you shall see them in the forsaid bookes so grosse and thick set one by another that it will be harder to make a way through them then find the way to them I will passe my word the Author does him no wrong and the reader vpon his owne examination will take my word in an other occasion But to returne to Morton now with a white Rochet on his backe but with as little ingenuity and candour of mind as before The imposition of those unhallowed hands hath not imprinted the least marke of grace in his soule or shame in his forehead In the grand imposture writ by him then B. of Cov. and Lichf pag. 85. edit 2. he sets doune a large and lying description of the Inquisitions cruelty and addes So your Authour And who do you thinke is this Author but Cornellius Agrippa a Magitian as himself confesseth of himselfe And where doth he write what heer is alleaged against vs In a booke condemned by our Church Not a word of these circumstances but only that he is our Author to make the Reader believe he is one we have no reason to except against You had better take him to your selfe for his blacke art is of the same colour with yours and taught by one maister who esteems you the better scholler having done more mischiefe with your false jugling then Agrippa with his conjuring Now pag. 388. the same jugling trick over againe Marke the ensuing words Els why is it that your owne Thuanus speaking of this separation Viz of Luther sayd that some in those days layd the fault vpon the Pope Leo More fully your Cassander an Author selected in those days by the King of the Romans as the chiefest divine of his And pag. 385. He cals Thuanus our noble Historian Who knows nothing of Thuanus but by this mans relation would take him to be not only a sound unsusspected Catholique but of special regard amongst vs wheras both our common opinion and his owne Annals prove him a Hugonot But besides falsely reporting him for a Catholic he is plainly falsified in these very places alleaged In the first he speaks not of Luthers separation but of the election of Prelats in France and in the 2. where he speaks of benefices Morton makes him speake of Indulgences in both places evidently against his cleere words which read as they stand in Thuanus have not the least shadow of ambiguity But the makeing Cassander ours and our chiefest Devine being listed in our Index of forfidden bookes amongst the Heretiques of the first ranke and his owne writings accusing him not only of the general heresies of these times but of others also particular to himself is not only a shamles but senseles imposture It is a labour too loathsom to dig any longer in this filthy dunghil of corruptions And it is a madnes in any man that already knowes Morton by his notoriously impudent lying bookes or before he take knowledge of him vpon this admonition to give the lest credit to any thing he shal say write signe or sweare concerning Religion as being convicted by his owne writings to have lost all remorse of conscience all feare of reproach from men or punishment from God Did he believe there is a God who hath prepared a Hel of torments for those who maintaine a division in the Church by so many wilfull impostures and seriously intended to prevent the scourge of his heavy hand could he stand gazing vpon his grave at
for some exterior shew of a ceremony to amuse the world and raise them in the vulgar opinion to the degree of Bishops Amongst other proofes of this story was produced the credible and publique testemony of a person of honor and ingenuity who declared to many persons of prime quality that he perfectly remembred a speech made by D. Morton called Bishop of Duresme in Parliament wherin hee derived their Episcopal succession from the ordination at the Nagshead This smal scrap D. Bramhall snatcheth vp very greedily as though it were a matter of substance and able to maintaine their decaying Episcopacy He hath obtainedof Morton to disavow the speech and of six others of the same calling to say they doe not remember it and withall a testimony of the lords who also confesse they can not call to memory some antecedēt circumstances of that speech and hereof makes flourishes and triumphs as if forsooth he had got the victory in the maine point or as if vpon à mistake if it were such in so smal and inconsiderable à circumstance depended the matter which is in hand Have patience a while you shall see how much you have got by the bargaine You shall find there was more reason to believe it and publish it then you are aware of and that this stirr you have made and was foreseene you wold make hath raised the dust in your owne eyes VIII But I will first cleerly and briefly refute your exceptions against my chiefe arguments and contrary to your method beginne with and insist vpon that which is most material But I can not omit in a word or two to put you in mind of some of your many impertinent digressions as farre from the truth as from the purpose You frame to your selfe tvvo opponents as if eyther the argument or you the adversary required a concurrence of endeavours You are much mistaken one hand was more then sufficient and no more was imployed Pag. 4. You seeme to be troubled vpon a report of a foile you received vvhich I never knew but by your booke and I wonder your long experience made you not reflect that such things might be maliciously told you therby to sharpen your passion and pen. For my part I never conceived you so forward as to put your selfe into any such danger Pag. 5. Methinks a man of your coate should not blame mingling the interest of religion with matters of state vnlesse it be that some other speakes heere by your pen or that by a secret instinct you vnavvares vtter the hidden mystery of your protestant prelacy vvhich vvas introduced and maintained in England not for religion but reason of state Some late passages you mention I suppose rather vpon instigation of others then your owne inclination however it had bin more for your credit to have donne it vpon better information of the truth and with more connexion to the subject of your booke Pag. 4. in fine for my part while I followed you wandring out of the way both of truth and method about you doe not knowe what imputed to me I was in feare at every step to meete with the ridiculous story Cardin. Bleho of an imaginary Cardinal layd to my charge who hath more affinity with a matter of ordination Pag. 4. then the late Governor of the Lowcountries IX You are much bragging of the learning of your Prelatical English Clergy Pag. 144. 216. and vvill cope vvith our greatost Doctors and feare not to make paralells and other such fond bravados vvhich obligeth me to tell you against my vvill vvhat you are not vvilling to heare I vvould gladly knouvv hovv many Prelatiques have made knovvne to others nations that afther Haeresy came into England there remained any marke or footstep of Divinity or Philosophy Withaker I grant vvas not vnskilful in matters of controversy and could speake in a language vnderstood by schollers of forraine countries but he speakes far from the principles of prelatique Protestancy from that vvhich is called the Church of England Was there ever any amongst you that deserved to carry the bookes after Alensis Scotus Bacon Mediavilla or Midleton Ocham Holcot Waldensis and others not to goe out of our owne Ilands It is no wonder yow burnt their bookes publiquely in the Vniverfity to be rid of so publicke reproachers of your ignorance Some of late I grant have contributed much to the advancement of knovvledge each one in their kind as Gilbert Verulam Harvey but these vvere laymen and medled not vvith any matter of Divinity What can you allege in point of learning amongst you but that which meerly belongs to memory and even that patched vp of rotten rags of corrupted history and smal shreds of scattered collections mingled and mangled turned inside out to make the ancient Fathers in a fevv obscure vvords speake contrary to what they have cleerly delivered in vvhole homilies and bookes If but in this part rather of reading then learning rather memory then vvit you had come to any degree of perfection vvhat need had there bin to have made so much of Casaubon for impugning Baronius and in a later ocasion of an other stranger Salmasius And vvhen out of meere shame one of yours vvas forced to reply to him that answered Salmasius you see vvhat a piece of stuffe was vvouen not only thredbare in point of learning but stained with so many foule Barbarismes and Solecismes that it is a pitty to see what a sport vvas made of it by the adversary and yet there is more reason to thinke that many hads concurred to it then to the booke you vndertake to refute I expect you should attribute al those grosse faults to Erratas of the printer Pag. 175. as you doe the mistake of Bedford for Dover and one moneth for an other or of the Transcriber as Richard for Iohn in another place Pag. 89. to reconcile the contradictions of your solemne consecration as Lambeth And yet forsooth these scrapers of rude indigested rubbish of incoherent historical Notes must be set forth in the false disguise of Doctors of Divinity vvhom this Epithete becomes as much as a Bricklayer or Davvber the name of an Architect I am sure S. Gregory Nazianzen amongst the Fathers and Plato amongst the Philosophers purchased the title of Devines at a higher rate vvith expense of their labour in higher matters X. And it is vvithout doubt vpon the diffidence of their learning that you spread so broad your skill in Conge d'eslires Premunires Actuaries Notaries Signet offices Deane of the Arches Court of Faculties c. Whervvith you vvould blind ignorant Readers of your booke to a persuasion of your misterious knovvledge as either you or your brethren are vsed to doe in sermons and marginal notes with scantlings of Greeke and Hebrew words You shall find that your Conge d'eslires and Actuaries vvill helpe little to cleere your Records from plaine forgery and that you spill your skill to
interest and makes it his profession to advance his ovvne and other mens interest by cheating Policy or foolish knavery then you had done a deed of Christian Charity by teaching me this lesson of your Stoical Philosophy CHAP. I. My first and second reason defended against the Doctors objections 1. TO the first argument deduced from the authority of our Catholique Doctors charging in their printed bookes your first superintendents vvith vvant of Episcopal consecration some five or six yeares after you pretend it vvas so solemnly performed at Lambeth you give no other ansvver Pag. 167. but that you regard not their judgment and authority beause they give no cause or reason of their Knovvledge Ipray Mr. Doctor vvhat greater cause of Knovvledge can ther be of the not being of a visible and publicque solemnity then the not being seene or heard of by knovving parsons vvho made it their busines to inquire after it in the very same time and place vvherin its pretended to have bin acted To say that D. Harding Stapleton Bristovv Reynolds and others should object in print against your protestant Bishops vvant of ordination vvithout inquiring and examining vvhether they vvere ordained or no is in equivalent termes to call them fooles and Knaves Pag. 207. hovvever averse you pretend to be from so unmanerly language your attributing the obiections of these great Doctors to credulity and preiudice doth rather increase then diminish the jury for you ought to knovv that credulity contradicted by publique and obvious evidence is of the grosser sort of foolery and prejudice that makes men slight such evidence is the most malicious knavery neither of both can be layd to the charge of so learned and honest persons as the foresaid Doctors who would never presse Parker and his fellovves to shevv the register and hovv and by vvhom they received Episcopal Orders if there had bin in those days as publique and authentique registers as now yee pretend 2. To this you say that none of our Doctors did ever vrge any such thing as required that yee should cite the registers in prudence And that the â—…re vvas no pressing to produce Registers What theÌ„ Doe not men in à suite of lavv produce what is for their manifest advantage of their ovvne accord I am sure you bring many things you thinke advantagious which neyther any person nor reason pressed you to doe But that they were pressed immediately after you may learne out of D. Harding We say likvvise to you M. r Ievvel Confut. apol fol. 57. 59. edit an 1566. and to each of your companions shevv vs the register of your Bishops c. Shevv vs the letters of your orders But order you have not for vvho could give that to you of all these nevv Ministers hovv soever else you call them vvhich he hath not himselfe Yet I must confesse it vvas prudence in your first Bishops not to cite the registers though D. Harding called for them because it was better by their silence to acknowledge the want of registers then to prove themselves impostors by producing them in a time wherin their forgery had bin discovered by thousands of witnesses incase they were forged then and not afterwards when ordination was growne into more credit And as I commend the prudent silence of your first Bishops so I must condemne your silly answer in averring that the registers or records vvere cited in print Pag. 112. and alleaged by the Parliament in the publique lavves of the Kingdome of which our Doctors that desired to see some evidence of Parkers consecration could pleade no ignorance wheras it is notorious that the act of Parliament 8. Eliz. which as yow pretend but without any grovvnd as shall be proved here after makes mention of the records of Parkers consecration at Lambeth vvas made at least à yeare after your Register was called for and our Doctors had objected to your Bishops the nullity and illegality of their ordination and the booke of the 70. Archbishops of Canterbury was printed 1572. seven yeares after that D. Harding had called for the same Register and Letters of their Orders Though he was a wise man I hope he might pleade ignorance of what then vvas not as much as thought of vvhen he vvrit nor indeed ever after by any but your selfe vvho confounds the records of Kings and Queens letters patents vvith the registers of the Archbishops of Canterbury 3. Another reason against the pretended consecration of your first protestant superintendents vvas the contradictions of your ovvne Authors vpon this subject disagreeing in the persons of the consecraters and in the time of their consecrations These contradictions you call innocent mistakes and thinke to excuse them by the retractation of the Authors who desired that they might be corrected by Mr. Masons newfound registers Pag. 176.177 178. which you compare to the sun diall wherby all clockes and Clerks must be regulated when the sun shineth out It seemes Mr Doctor that the sun never shined vpon your church vntill Mr Masons tecords were printed for if it had Mr Goduin Mr Sutcliffe and Mr Butler three of the most famous Clerks amongst you infallibly vvould have consulted the sundial and their judgements and bookes concerning your consecrations had not bin so different How comes this sun to be more then fifty yeares vnder a cloud if it vvas not that your new registers might participate in some measure of the ould invisibility of your Church Doe yow imagine that learned and sober men would venture to write and publish to the world a matter of such importance as the consecration of your first Bishops vvithout consulting the registers therof if any such had bin exstant or visible when they vndertooke the worke were they paradventure ignorant of the place where this sun did shine Or were they negligent in setting their clocks to it Nheiter can be presumed of so eminent persons as you make them But your comparison of Masons records to the sun or sundial is very improper for if the suns motion were as irregular as those registers are incoherent the sun would be as unfit for a measure of time as those are for a proofe of truth But if one should mistake for the sun à false Meteor called a Parhelion and set his clock by the light of a cloud he would guide the towne as you do your Church and men of understandingh would be as litle regulated by such a dial or clock as Fitzherbert was perswaded by Masons registers at their first appearance who suspected them of forgery by the latenesse of their discovry as you may see in his booke of D. Andrevvs absurdities falsities lyes c. 4. Pag. 158. But yovv regard not Mr Fitzherherts suspicions at all What are the suspicions of a private stanger to the vvel knovvn credit of a publique register If you Mr Doctor had not bin a stranger to such pious and learned bookes as Policy and Religion and