but our Ministers have prophesied these 38. years if preaching be prophesying And these two shal be clad in sackcloth but our Ministers chiefly of Borrowstowns is clad in fine black cloth or silk And so forth of many more differences as is contained in the 11. chapter of the Revelation Master John Welsch his Reply It appears to you that I have found some new Revelation other then that of S. John So did it appear to the Jews that the Apostle Paul taught all men every where against the Law of Moses Acts 21.28 and yet it was the truth as he himself testifies he spake nothing beside that which Moses and the Prophets fore-told was to come Acts 26.22 So every appearance is not truth It is but the scales that are upon your eyes that makes this so to appear to you For the Scripture of God and this Revelation of S. John is sufficient to us to make it manifest that your head is the Antichrist and your doctrine is that Apostasie that was prophesied to come so that we need no new revelations as ye do For because the revelations already made by God to his Church and written in his holy Scripture doth not warrant your abominable and false doctrine and your Popes supremacy which is the foundation of all therefore you and your Church flies to unwritten traditions and fained revelations to prove the same As for example because your Church hath not so much as a syllable in the whole Book of God to prove that Peters seat was translated from Antiochia to Rome which is the whole foundation of all Popery Therefore your Pope Marcellinus in his Canon Law causa 24. quaest 1. cap. Rogamus grounds the certainty of this upon a fained revelation that Peter by the commandment of God did translate it But to leave you with your new revelations what have ye for you for this your appearance You say first because I note no place and next because these words of mine are no wayes in S. John therefore ye conclud it to be an invention of my own As to the first Is this a good reason I note not the place therefore I have found out some new revelation You must be sent to the Logick schools again to learn the right manner of reasoning I noted no place Ergo I could not that will not follow As to the second my words are no wayes found in S. John Ergo I have found a new revelation But what if the sense be found What if the self-same doctrine be found in S. John suppose not in the same words Then it will not follow that I have found out a new revelation or that this is the invention of my own brain This place which ye quote here Rev. 11.3 sufficiently confirms all that I said For your self will not deny and Bellarmin lib. 3. cap. 6 the Rhemists annot in Apoc. cap. 11. and Sanderus in his Demonstrations grant that these two Witnesses are they who shal preach in the time of the Antichrist suppose they expound them of Elias and Enoch and that they shal be persecuted and put to death by him What a blindness is this M. Gilbert that hath overfyled your eyes that for the writing of that same doctrine which the Scripture warrants your Divines grant and your self will not deny you have said that it appeared to you that I have found out some new revelation But judge thou Christian Reader what thou may presume upon M. Gilberts appearances But you say this agrees not with my purpose and that because of the differences between these two Witnesses and the Ministers of Scotland First I do not mean by these two Witnesses the Ministers of Scotland only but the Ministers of all the Reformed Churches in Europe who have departed out of your Babel and have shaken off the yoke of the tyrannous bondage of your Head the Man of sin and not only these who now live but these also who now rest from their labors and sleep in the Lord of whom a great many were persecuted and put to death by your tyranny for speaking against your abominations Now as to these differences which ye mark the fountain from the which this springs is your mistaking of the prophesies of God and exponing them literally which according to the use of prophesies and especially these which are set down in this Revelation and all the circumstances of this text ought to be exponed figuratively These same two Witnesses are called two Olives two Candlesticks and it is said of them that fire comes out of their mouthes and destroys their enemies Rev. 11.4.5.6 c. If you will not be so absurd and ridiculous as to expone these things literally but figuratively otherwise ye will make them monsters trees and candlesticks why then do ye expone this place concerning their number work time apparel c. literally and not figuratively as the rest of their works and properties must be exponed the which if you had done then would you have seen no difference between the Ministers of the Gospel that resisted your Pope and these two Witnesses here but the one to be the prophesie of the other and the other to be the accomplishing of the prophesie As for their number then they are said to be but two that is few and yet such a sufficient number as may prove and qualifie any thing by the Law For by the Law Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses shal every word be established So the Ministers of the Gospel in the time of your Antichrist and darkness was but few at the beginning and yet so many as served for to establish the truth of God by their testimony in the consciences of so many whom God had appointed to save As for their work of prophesying the Scripture calls preaching prophesying 1. Cor. 12. and 13. and 14. And the Rhemists annot in 11. Rev. grant that these Witnesses shal preach against the Antichrist And whereas you say that we fore-tell oft-times things that is not true this is your calumnie and lie M. Gilbert and so ought to have no credit And the prophesies of the Ministers of this land against your Antichristian Kingdom ye have found by experience that they have been too true And their prophesies are truer then the prophesies of one of your Popes Hildebrand who openly in the pulpit on the second holy day in Easter week in the presence of diverse Bishops and Cardinals and of the people and Senat of Rome prophesied That the King whose name was Henry should die before the feast of Peter next ensuing or at the least that he should be so dejected from his Kingdom that he should not be able any more to gather above the number of six Knights And this he preached with this confirmation Never accept me for Pope any more if this prophesie be not fulfilled but pluck me from the altar But he was a false Prophet in the same for neither was fulfilled And whereas
Apostles till now never interrupted never spoken against but of late since Martin Luthers dayes But yours say they is newlie forged and invented never heard tell of but since Luther and Calvins dayes Therefore yours cannot be the true Religion and ours must be the only true Religion M. Gilbert Brown This objection consists partly of a truth and partly of an untruth It appears by this that either M. John knows not our proofs or if he doth he alters the same that he may the better oppugn his own invention Our objection or rather one of our proofs whereby we prove that we Catholicks is the only true Church of Christ and have the only truth in all things is this We have aboundantly set down to us by the Prophets and Apostles in the holy writ that the kingdom and Church of Christ shal never fail in this earth and that the gates of hell shal not prevail against it But shal be permanent for ever and shal have alwayes the presence and assistance of the Father Son and holy Ghost who shal teach it all truth and remain with it for ever as may be perceived by these places noted here which were over longsome to be set down at length To the which I adjoyn some of the ancient Fathers exponing the same Out of the Old Testament Psal 60.5 read August upon this Psal 88. v. 1.2.3.4.5.19.30.31.32.33.34.35.36.37.38 read Aug. on these places Psal 104. ver 8. read Aug. Psal 110.9 Esa 9.7 read S. Hier. on Esa 51.7.8 read S. Hier. on Esa 54.8.9 read Hier. on Esa 55.3.13 Esa 59.21 read Hier. on Jer. 31.3.36 read Hier. on Ezec. 37.25.26 Dan. 2.44 Dan. 7.14.27 Mich. 4.7 Out of the New Testament Luc. 1.33 read S. August upon the 109. Psal Matth. 10.18 read here Saint Hierome upon this place Luke 22.32 John 14.16.17 John 17.18.19.20 Matth. 28.20 1. Tim. 3.15 Acts 5.39 Some of the ancient Fathers Hilar. de Trinitat lib. 7. August de utili credent cap. 87. Ambros lib. 9. cap. 20. Chrysost in serm de pente Clem. Alex. lib. 6. strom in the end And because the Scriptures and the ancient Fathers of the primitive Church concurrs and agrees in one unitie I would wish M. John to consider the same that the Church of Christ by all mens judgements shal never fail nor be interrupted nor broken M. John Welsch his Reply I will follow your footsteps and first answer to that part which ye say is true and then unto that which ye say is false And as to the first the ground which ye laid down whereupon ye go about to build the truth of your Religion is the Church of Christ shal never fail nor be interrupted c. It is recorded in Histories Athenaeus dipnosophist lib. 12. of one Thrasilaus a frantick man among the Greeks whensoever he saw any ships arrive at the haven of Athens he thought them all his own and took an inventarie of their wares and met them with great joy Even so it is with you wheresoever you see the name of the Church in the holy Scripture the promises of God made unto the same ye take all to be yours and books the treasures of it and boasts thereof as though they were your own crying The gates of hell shal never prevail against it It shal never fail It hath always the holy Ghost to lead it in all truth To remove you therefore out of the haven and to give every merchant his own ware and his own ship and to set the Church it self in possession of the Church we must distinguish the name of the Church The Church therefore is taken sometimes for the companie of the elect and chosen whereof a part is in heaven triumphing with Christ their Lord a part here in the earth fighting her battels lying in her camp and awaiting for the victorie And these are termed the invisible Church because Gods election cannot be discerned by the judgement of mans senses or eyes and we cannot know who are his chosen And unto this Church that is to the chosen appertains all the promises set down in the Scripture and in them only are they fulfilled And sometimes it is taken for the company of them who professes the true Religion wherein both the chaff and the wheat the popple and the good seed Matth. 3.12 and 13.24.25 the dregs and the wine the good and the evil are mixed together the which suppose they be in the Church yet they are not of the Church no more then the superfluous humors of the bodie are true and livelie members thereof So then if ye mean by the Church The Church of the elect and if ye mean by this That it shal never fail nor be interrupted c. only this that it shal never be utterly abolished but shal have alwayes the presence of the holy Ghost to lead her in all truth yea and in all holiness also in so far as shal serve for her salvation We grant that with you as Bellarmin confesseth of us and therefore he saith Lib. 3. de Eccles milit cap. 13. That many of their number spend but time while as they go about to prove that the Church here beneath absolutelie cannot perish or make absolute defection for Calvin saith he and the rest of the hereticks grant that but they speak and mean saith he of the invisible Church So if ye mean no further but this then Bellarmin telleth you that all the testimonies of Scripture and Fathers that ye have heaped up here to prove the same is but to spend the time so are fetched as needless witnesses in a matter â—â—at is not doubt some or called in question And if ye had understood his language ye needed not to have cumbred your self in fetching of this mortar and stone to build up your Babel For this was not required at your hands But because it is Babel which ye are bigging a tower of confusion therefore the Lord hath sent such a confusion of language among you that few of you understands what another sayes when some cryes for mortar others brings stone Bellarmin the great maister-builder cryes for proofs to prove that the visible Church here beneath cannot err neither in the matters which are needful to salvation neither in the matters which are not needful which she propones to be believed or to be done whither they be doctrine contained in the Scripture or extra scripturam that is not contained in the Scripture He cryes to prove that and ye cumber your self in bringing in a number of Scriptures to prove that the Church shal alwayes remain till the end of the world whereas in the examination of your proofs it will be found that they will go no further with you But if ye mean of the visible Church that it shal never fail c. that is it shal never fail in doctrine nor be interrupted in the same not only in the matters needful to salvation but in all truth as ye affirm of your
POPERY ANATOMIZED OR A LEARNED PIOUS AND ELABORAT Treatise wherein many of the greatest and weightiest points of Controversie between us and Papists are handled and the truth of our Doctrine clearly proved And the falshood of their Religion and Doctrine anatomized and laid open and most evidently convicted and confuted by Scripture Fathers and also by some of their own Popes Doctors Cardinals and of their own Writers In answer to M. Gilbert Brown Priest By that learned singularly pious and eminently faithful servant of Jesus Christ M. John Welsch Minister of the Gospel first at Kirkubright next at Air in Scotland and last at S. John d'Angely in France The second Edition revised corrected and divided into Sections To which is annexed A Discovery of the bloody rebellious and treasonable principles and practises of Papists in dissolving Oaths committing Treasons raising Warrs and Commotions and using imparalleled cruelties toward Protestants By MATTHEW CRAFORD GLASGOW By ROBERT SANDERS Printer to the City and University 1â—72 In hanc pij docti Auctoris Diatriben pij docti viri M. Matth. Crafordij additamentum decastichon Latino-Scoticum ROmulidum qui sacra oupis cognoscere sacra Et fugere haec sancti perlege scripta viri Perspicuè solidè Babylonia scita refedit Queîs miseras animas turba dolosa capit Quae nunc heu passim nullo prohibente vagatur Pro sapidis dapibus toxica tetra ferens Non minimas CRAFORDI etiam vir docte mereris Grates addideris quòd bona multa libro Vulnera quò capiat meretrix Romana nefandi Propinans stupri pocula plena sui The same in English WHo cursed Rome and Romish rites would know And them eschew this Book will clearly show It Babels doctrine truly doth declare Wherewith poor souls false Papists do ensnare Who now alace run freely as they will For wholsome food with poyson them to kill Great thanks also should learned CRAFORD get For these good things he to the Book hath set Which may help much to give Romes Whoor a wound Whose whoordoms so doth in the Land abound J. A. THE PREFACE TO THE LOVERS OF THE REformed Religion in Britain and Ireland DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD The name and memory of that Apostolick and singularly godly and faithful servant of JESUS CHRIST M. John Welsch who now is attending his Masters work in the Upper-House without wearying night and day is so precious in the Church of CHRIST that the revising republishing of any of his works who praise him in the gate will I hope be very acceptable to all the learned and godly especially this subsequent Treatise wherein many of the greatest and weightiest points of Controversie betwixt us and Papists are learnedly and solidly debated and the truth of our Doctrine evidently demonstrated and the error superstition and idolatry of the Church of Rome excellently anatomized and solidly refuted especially in such a time as this when Popery so much every where prevaileth and the Pope and his Agents are most active and diligent using all-means to get their deadly wound cured sending over to these Nations dayly swarms of Priests and Jesuits with books beads medals and the like Romish trash thereby to seduce the poor people who are in great hazard partly through their ignorance of the Controversies betwixt us and Papists partly through the lamentable decay of zeal against Antichrist and love to the truth partly through the sad divisions and distractions that are among our selves whereby the poor people are sorely brangled and tempted to Scepteiism and is made use of by Priests and Jesuits as a strong motive to perswade them to Popery although there be far greater divisions among Papists then among us as I have elsewhere demonstrated We shal not detain you long in the entry but only speak a little of the Author and of this Treatise and the causes that moved the reviving and republishing thereof at this time The now triumphing and glorified Author needeth none of our commendation he being among the spirits of just men before the throne and his memory being deservedly very precious in the Church of Christ But because the lives of godly men are useful for imitation we shal give a short description of his life He was descended of an ancient and respective family being a son of an ancient house of the name of Welsch in Nithsdale He was born a little after that blessed work of Reformation began in Scotland and being trained up at Schools he profited very much so that he was excellently accomplished in all kind of literature and eminent for piety and zeal for the Kingdom of Christ And being called to the Ministery of the Gospel about the year 1588. at the town of Kirkubright he was most diligent and laborious in preaching catechising visiting the sick and disputing and convincing of Papists which that Countrey abounded with And his labors were singularly blessed of God for many were brought by his Ministery to see the error superstition and idolatry of Popery and to embrace the truth and many were really converted to God and others were edified and built up confirmed comforted and strenthened so that he as a shining and burning light did inlighten that whole Countrey who at that time was in many places destitut of Pastors After he had remained there several years the General Assembly thought fit to transport him to Air as a Town of greater note and more populous where he was most assiduous and diligent in the work of the Ministery for he preached not only twise on the Lords day but also twise on every day of the week from nine to ten in the morning and from four to five at night where the Lord wonderfully blessed his labors for both in Air and in the Countrey about many were converted by him some of whom were as eminent and lively Christians as readily have been known of latter times After he had continued in the work of the Ministery several years at Air he was commissioned by the Presbytery with some other of his brethren to keep the Assembly indicted at Aberdene anno 1605. for which he with M. John Forbes M. Andrew Duncan M. John Sharp M. Robert Dury and M. Alexander Strachan were arraigned imprisoned and at length banished anno 1606. whereupon he went to France and in a very short time learned the French tongue and acquired such a facility therein as was thought strange by these who knew it He was called to the Ministery in S. John d' Angely a Protestant town in France where his Ministery was much blessed with success But the Civil Warrs arising while he was there that City was besieged on the Protestant interest M. Welsch did much encourage the people and told them that their adversaries should not prevail But in process of time the town was sore straitned and ready to be taken the enemy having raised a battery and by a close approach had made a great breach in the wall M. Welsch hearing
Babel and therefore one day she shal be recompensed for all her iniquity Rev. 17.6 and 18.24 Go out of her therefore and save thy soul that thou be not tormented in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone with her for evermore Rev 18.45 Otherwise I call heaven and earth to witness against thee that thou shalt die in her sin and the smoke of thy torment shal ascend for evermore Rev. 14.1 What now will you say to these things that your Church is not the Catholick Church but a part of it only and is only Catholick because of the Catholick doctrine that she professes But if this be true wherefore then did your general Council condemn it in John Hus and burn him for that doctrine which both your self must confess to be true and is agreeable to Scripture Fathers and your own Popes Next I say suppose when ye are brought to this strait ye must say so yet for all this not only call ye your Church Catholick because of the soundness of doctrine which ye suppose she professes but also and speciallie to make the simple believe that there is no salvation out of her As appeareth by the Epistle of Cardinal Cusanus writing to the Bohemians Cochlaeus histor Hussitar lib. 21. Therefore ye call it the only true Church and the Catholick Church for out of the particular Church there is salvation but out of the Catholick Church there is no salvation Thirdlie I say as the Epistles of Peter John James and Jude are intituled Catholick not because of the soundness of their doctrine which is common to the Epistles of Paul also and all the rest of the Scripture which in that respect may also be called Catholick but because they are written generallie to all So the Church is called Catholick properly not because of the soundness of doctrine for that is common to all the particular Churches that have the puritie of Religion but because it comprehends all the particular Churches and all the elect And also to put a difference between the Church of the Jewes which did comprehend but one certain people and the Christian Church since the coming of Christ which is not bound to any certain place or nation or people but indifferently receives all both Jew and Gentil that believes and therefore is it called Catholick and therefore in our Belief we say not I believe the Catholick doctrine but the Catholick Church So by this she is properlie distinguished from particular Churches as the mother from the daughters and the whole body from the particular members So then if you would speak properlie of your Church and not make your styles snares to catch the souls of the simple call her but a particular Church and a member of the Catholick Church but yet dead and rotten as shal be shown afterward by the grace of God Otherwise if you will but call her the Catholick Church you first rob the mother for she is properly Catholick and also injures the rest of the daughters For in respect of the soundness of faith they may also challenge the same to them And thirdly ye deceive the souls of the simple thereby by making them believe there is not one other Church but yours And last of all you are sacrilegious in decking an adulteress with the styles of the spouse of Christ As to the third point wherein ye calumniate the truth of God which we profess in calling it a new Evangel and old renewed and new invented heresies of our own These are indeed heavie words wherewith ye blaspheme the word of the Lord Acts 18.6 and 19.9 and speak evil of it to the people of this Countrey And therefore as the Apostle saith of them that blasphemed his doctrine Your damnation is just Rom. 3.8 For a wo by Gods own mouth is pronounced against them that call good evil and evil good truth falshood and falshood truth and darkness light and light darkness Isai 5.20 But as the Archangel when he strave with Satan about the body of Moses did not blame him with cursed speaking but said The Lord rebuke thee Jude 9. so we will not blame you with cursed speaking but the Lord rebuke you For ye speak here the vision of your own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord And ye are not the first that hath blasphemed the truth of God for so did the Jewes before you call the doctrine of the Gospel a sect a heresie and the Gentiles called it strange Gods and a new doctrine and the preachers thereof a setter forth of strange Gods and of new doctrine and a babler Acts 28. and 14. and 17. The Jews said that Christ had a Devil and yet as our Lord testifies it was they that were the children of the Devil John 8.44 Ye say that we preach a new Evangel and old new heresies but this is the sin the doctrine of your Church For to let that pass of that new everlasting Gospel which your Friers invented devised as testifieth Guliel de sancto Amore in his book de pericul noviss temp anno 1192. wherein was contained such blasphemies as the heaven and earth abhorrs to hear them That God the Father reigned under the law God the Son under grace And the holy Ghost was then that year to begin his kingdom and to continue to the end of the world And that Jesus Christ was not God his Sacrament nothing and his Evangel not a true Evangel O horrible blasphemie the which if God had not raised up some men in those days to have resisted it as the Waldenses and others which ye call hereticks and infamous men the Gospel of Christ had been lost and in stead of it we would have gotten a new Gospel the dreggs whereof yet remains in your Church But I will let this pass because the wise men of Babel I mean your Clergy of Rome saw that that was too plain an iniquitie therefore they caused it quietlie to be removed and buried and yet they not condemned as hereticks that preached it But by the contrary the Waldenses and others that withstood it was condemned as hereticks and their books burnt To let this pass I say which testifieth what the world might have looked for at your hands if the Lord had not provided better for his poor Church Your whole doctrine is Antichristian as shal be proved hereafter your Church Babel Rev. 17. your Kingdom that second beast Rev. 13.11 that hath two horns like the Lamb and yet speaks like the dragon and your head the man of sin 2. Thess 2. and son of perdition And ye are they that have renewed old condemned heresies and have invented new of your own as shal be proved afterward by Gods grace SECTION III. Concerning the Churches infallibility and immunity from error M. John Welsch SAy they our Religion is so ancient that it hath continued ever by a lineal succession of Pastors and Bishops from the dayes of Christ and his
condemned in the Scripture I deny that For Antichrist and his Kingdom are not so old as the Scripture and yet the Scripture condemned it For not only condemns it present heresies but also the heresies that was to come And seeing Papistrie is that Antichristian Religion as shal be made manifest by Gods grace therefore it hath the express condemnation of it in the Word of God The form therefore of it no wayes will make it impossible to be proved As for the next thing that I prove nothing bu offers very fair I answer it was not my purpose then but I hope ye shal have a proof now of that which I offered then As to the third then that I can say nothing to your argument which ye would hâ—ve the Reader to mark When I read this I marked this that ye would earnestly have the Reader perswaded of the invincibleness of your argument and my inability to answer But what bring ye with you to perswade him of the same Your reason is because I have not answered it Will this follow I have not suppose it were so as ye say therefore I cannot It will not follow I have not answered I cannot answer to it But as you have a new Theology so have you a new Logick But said I nothing to your argument What is not answered sufficiently in the same Your argument was the antiquity of your Religion and continuance of it from Christ by a lineal succession never interrupted c. and the novelty of ours My answer was Yours was not institut by Christ nor his Apostles in his Scripture as ours was and yours was gain-said in the chief points by the testimonies of the Fathers the first six hundred years and the principal points of our Religion confirmed by sundry of their testimonies Thirdly yours was that Antichristian apostasie that the Scripture fore told should come and in the hight of your tyranny and Idolatry was gain-said by many before Martin Luther and ours was professed by sundry before him whose names I set down all which I offered to prove and now shal do by Gods grace Now you say this is no answer But is that no answer that cuts the very throat of your Religion if it be verified and invalidities your argument that it do never stand up to under-prop your Religion again For that Religion which is not instituted by Christ in the Scripture whose main foundations is gain-said by the testimonies of sundry of the Fathers of the first 600. year which is Antichristian and which was gain-said by the Saints that they persecuted and slew hath not the continuance from Christ by a lineal succession never interrupted nor spoken against by a true Church till Martin Luthers days This I am sure ye will not deny But your Religion is such as I offered then to prove and now have in some points and shal in other some points by Gods grace The which if it be verified then I hope ye will not deny but that your Religion hath neither antiquity continuance nor succession from Christ till Martin Luthers dayes And that Religion cannot be newly forged and invented since Martin Luthers dayes which hath the warrant and institution of it in the Scripture c. This you cannot deny But our Religion is such as then I offered to prove and now have done in some points and shal do in other some points by Gods grace Therefore our Religion cannot be newly forged and invented c. but is the only true Religion So that this answer if it be proved doth sufficiently vindicat our Religion from novelty Now if this be no answer to your argument then I say no more but ye will answer it the sooner And because ye formed your own argument your self in your answer to me and I have answered to it else therefore I will now insist no further upon it And as for your lineal succession of Bishops it will come in question afterward therefore I omit it now SECTION V. Concerning the Judge of Controversies namely whither GOD speaking in the Scripture be Judge of Controversies Maister Gilbert Brown AS for the written Word it is true that it is a most faithful witness and it be not corrupted to Christ and his Church as our Savior testifies himself John 5.39 of the which opinion there is sundry Protestants chiefly young Merchiston in his discourse upon the Revelation in the 21. proposition and other places 2. Cor. 3.6 John 6.63 But that it ought to be Judge to decide all controversies in Religion M. John hath no Scripture for the same It is the holy Ghost that must be Judge and the holy Writ must bear witness thereto For this cause the holy Ghost was given to the Church by the Father and the Son that he might teach it all truth John 14.25.26 This holy Ghost gives judgement by the Pastors of the true Church as he did by the Apostles and Priests at the Council of Jerusalem It hath pleased the holy Ghost and us saith the Apostle Acts 15.19.28 and so he hath ever done since the beginning of the Church when it was troubled with heresies and false doctrine as the Councils of Nice Constantinople Ephesus and Chalcedon M. John Welsch his Reply You first here decline the Scripture as Judge to decide all controversies in Religion And you are not the first that have done this but all your Roman Clergy with you And suppose there were not another thing to make the consciences of men suspect your Religion that it is not found in the book of God yet this is a great presumption that ye give out of it your selves For what may all men think of the same but that if ye were perswaded in your conscience to justify your Religion to be from Jesus Christ in his written Word ye would never decline the judicatorie of it and the declining of the same is an evident demonstration that ye are privy to your selves in your own consciences that it is not from God in his written Word But wherefore say I that ye are privy to your selves of this Ye have made it known to the world by your confession in your own books that many of the chief points of your Religion controverted between you and us which ye maintain have not their original beginning nor authors in the Scriptures but in your unwritten traditions So Petrus a Soto a Papist of great name confessed He calls all these observations Apostolick traditions whose beginning principium origo author cannot be found in the whole Scriptures in his book against Brentius And then he reckons out a number of the chief and principal heads of their Religion saying Of the which sort are the oblation of the sacrifice of the altar the invocation or prayers to Saints the prayer for the dead the supremacie of the Pope of Rome the consecration of the water in baptism the whole sacraments of orders matrimonie pennance confirmation and extream unction the merits of works
without further tryal because he hath so decreed it What is this but not only to make him equal to the Lord For God only hath that priviledge to be believed because he so speaks mans testimony so far only is to be credited as it may be warranted by the Scripture but also to preferr his authoritie to the voice of God in his Scripture seeing he is Judge of the same and not that onlie but to hang my salvation upon his voice and testimonie And seeing ye will have them Judges what is the cause that their Canons Laws and determinations are not as authentick as the Scripture and insert in the Canon of the Scripture But let us see your reasons First you say That the holy Ghost was given to the Church by the Father and the Son that he might teach it all truth I grant this that the holy Ghost is given to every one of the elect as wel Pastor as people to lead them in all truth in so far as may bring them to salvation And yet ye will not make every one of them Judges next every one of the elect may err notwithstanding of this promise suppose not totally and finally and therefore cannot be Judges of Religion Secondly you alledge the example of the Council of the Apostles and Elders It is true in that controversie that arose among the Christians concerning the observing of the ceremonies of the law of Moses that the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church after reasoning defined the same and writes the same to be observed by the Disciples everie where but first they were Apostles and was infallibly governed by Gods Spirit that they could not err in teaching and writing but your Pastors are not Apostles and may err Next they assemble with the Elders and the whole Church and all with one accord defines Acts 15.12.22.23 You in your Council excludes all except your Bishops to be ordinary Judges to give out judgement and your Popes neither Elder nor brethren having power of voting with you Bellarm. lib. 1. de Concil cap. 1. Thirdly they define according to the Scripture saying As it is written c. Act. 15.15 This controversie to make us to understand if we will not be more then blind that this rule should be followed in all Councils to determine in controversies according to the Scripture Upon the which I reason if the Apostles who had that high measure of Gods Spirit which never man had since so that in writing and teaching they could not err if they I say did determine the controversies of Religion according to the Scripture how much more then are all Pastors since who may err both severally and jointly together in a Council bound to follow the same rule And whereas ye call their Elders Priests you stile them not as the holy Ghost hath stiled them there so there they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Elders and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is sacrificing Priests as ye suppone Your third reason is the practise and custom of the Church in deciding the controversies of Religion in Councils we grant that this is a very commodious mean to search and find out the truth by the Scripture For first the more they are that seek the truth it is the more easily found Next the consent of many in determining a truth will be of greater authority to repress hereticks then if it were agreed upon only by a few But yet they should determine nothing but that which is warranted by the Scripture and their determinations only in so far forth to be received as is agreeable to the same And this we grant hath been done in the Council of the primitive Church And therefore the Emperor Constantine speaking to the Fathers of the Council of Nice saith Sunt libri Prophetici Apostolici qui apertè quid credendum sit docent c. That is there are the Books of the Prophets and Apostles who teacheth plainly what we should believe All contention therefore laid aside let us take the soveraign decision of these things which are called in controversie out of the Scriptures which are inspired by God And this we grant and this we require But that Councils ought to determin any thing of their own authority in matters of Religion which binds the conscience without the warrant of the Word that we deny Master Gilbert Brown It is a wonder that M. John will refer any thing to the written Word seeing that he and his have no warrant that the same is the Word of God but by the authority of the Roman or Papist Church For understand there was no Church worthie of credit immediatly before Luther but that Church Master John Welsch his Reply You wonder that I refer any thing to the Scripture But what a wōder is this that ye are so far blinded of God that you think that a wonder in me which Abraham hath done which the Prophets have done which our Savior and his Apostles have done and which the Fathers have done for all these have referred the infallible testimony and decision of the will of God concerning his worship unto the Scriptures Luke 16 29. John 5 39. Acts 26.22 Rom. 12. and 16.26 2. Tim. 3.16 2. Pet. 1.10 Rev. 1 3. cap. ult yea which your self also hath done for ye make it a witness But what hath moved you to think this a wonder in me which so many and your self also have done before me Because say ye that he and his that is our Church have no warrant that it is the Word of God but by the authoritie of the Roman or Papist Church I grant indeed that you and your Church are plunged in this blindness and miserie that all the warrant that you have not only of the Scriptures themselves that they are inspired of God but also of all your doctrine and Religion is the testimony of your Roman Church that is of your Pope and Clergy for so ye interpret the Church So Bellarmin grants de Sacr. lib. 2. cap. 25. That all the certainty of all doctrine depends upon the authority of the present Church meaning the Pope and his Clergy And Stapleton saith lib. 1 contra Whitak de author script cap. 10. That it is no absurd thing not to believe God but for the testimony of the Church Pigius saith That it is not needful to believe all that Matthew and John writ in their Gospels to be true because that they might fail in memory and lie as all men may do Ecclesiast hierar lib. 1. cap. 2. And Hermannus saith That the Scripture would be of no more authority then the fables of Esop were not the testimony of the Church And so blind and miserable must you be that hangs the certaintie of all Religion and of man his salvation upon so smal a threed as the testimony of your Popes and Clergy What peace in conscience can any man have that professes your Religion which teaches that the
Sacrament And because in this your abominable sacrifice of the Mass as hath been said there is no communion For the Priest takes all And because you affirm the personal and corporal presence of Christs flesh and blood in your sacrifice and the corporal eating and drinking of it which is Capernaitical and more then carnal contrary to the Scripture contrary the nature of a Sacrament contrary the truth of Christ his humanity and contrary the Articles of our Faith of his ascension sitting at his right hand and there remaining till his returning in the last day all which your sacrifice of the Mass and transubstantiation in your communion overthroweth Therefore you have not the true institution of Jesus Christ according to the Scripture I might end here but because ye account the sacrifice of your Mass most heavenly and the principal part of the worship of God and we account it a most abominable idolatry therefore I will set down some arguments against the same whereby if you will you may perceive the abomination of it First I say all lawful sacrifices have the express testimonies of the Scripture to warrant the institution of them to be of God But your sacrifice of the Mass hath no express testimony of the Scripture whereby it may be made manifest that it is instituted of God therefore it is not lawful What now will you say to this The proposition you cannot deny for our Savior saith In vain worship ye me teaching for doctrine mens commandments Matth. 15.9 And Jeremie reproves the Jewes that they would not walk according as the Lord commanded them but according to their own will Jer. 7 24. And the Apostle condemns all voluntary Religion Col. 2.23 Therefore this is most certain that that Religion or sacrifice which hath not express Scripture whereby it may be made plain that it is instituted of God is not lawful For all that is done without faith is sin Rom. 14.23 and faith hath only the Word of God to lean to Rom. 10.17 And dare the creature be so bold as to appoint a mean to worship God without the warrant of his will in his Word Now to the assumption what can you say to it Bring me an express testimony out of the Scripture that God hath instituted your Mass and take it to you Yea if it be instituted in any place of the Scripture it is instituted in the last Supper for this you grant your selves But there is not a syllable in the whole institution that Christ offered up himself in a sacrifice in the same as hath been proved and Bellarmin the learnedest of your Church confesses plainly that the Evangelists have not said expresly that Christ offered up himself in the Supper in a sacrifice Bellarm. lib. 1. de missa cap. 24. And therefore others of your own Religion Petrus a Soto in his book against Brentius Lindanus lib. 4. Panopliae Papists of great name have reckoned the sacrifice of the Mass among the traditions which have not their beginning nor author in the Scriptures So then by your own confession the sacrifice of the Mass hath not express Scripture to warrant it yea it is a tradition which hath neither the beginning nor author of it in the Scriptures of God And I would ask this question of you What can be the cause wherefore the typical sacrifices and all the rites and ceremonies thereof is so expresly set down in the Scripture of the Old Testament which you will not deny and this sacrifice of yours which ye account more excellent then all these not to have been expresly set down in the New Testament neither the sacrifice nor the rites and ceremonies thereof yea not so much as the very name of it Is the New Testament think ye more obscure then the Old Testament which is absurd to say Shal the Old Testament be clear in setting down the sacrifices and all the rites thereof which is but the shadow And should not the New Testament have been at the least as clear in setting down the sacrifice of the New Testament which ye affirm to be the Mass if it were such What an absurd thing is this Christian Reader assure thy self the Lord Jesus would have dealt as lovingly and plainly with thee in setting down the sacrifice of the Mass in the New Testament if ever he had instituted such a sacrifice as he was in setting down the sacrifices of the Old Testament But thou may assure thy self and thy conscience may lean unto it since he hath not so much as once expressed it in all the New Testament therefore he hath never appointed it Secondly I say in all the places of Scripture wheresoever the Apostles speaks of the sacrifices which Christians should offer up they ever speak of spiritual sacrifices and never speak of this external sacrifice of the Mass They never remember of this their sacrifice of the offering up of Christ in the Mass Look throughout the whole New Testament and thou shalt not find this as namely in these places Rom. 12. Heb. 1â— Phil. 4. Rom. 15.1 Pet. 2. Rev. 5. Are you and your Mass Priests more wise then the Apostles are Whither should we then think and speak as they spake and thought or as ye would have us They never spake of your sacrifice of the Mass and bring one instance if ye can therefore neither should we We will believe them rather then you Thirdly that doctrine which is expresly gain-said by the Scripture must be false This you cannot deny But this your doctrine concerning the often and dayly offering up of Jesus Christ his body and blood in sacrifice in your Mass is expresly gain-said by the Scripture For the Scripture saith in sundry places That he hath once offered up himself never to offer up himself again Heb. 10.10 By the which will we are sanctified even by the offering up of Jesus Christ once made 11. And every Priest standeth dayly ministring and oft times offereth one manner of offering which cannot take away sin 12. But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sin sitteth for ever at the right hand of God 10. For with one offering hath he consecrated for ever them that are sanctified Heb. 9.24 Christ hath entred into the very heaven to appear now in the sight of God for us not that he should offer himself often c. 28. So Christ was once offered to take away the sins of many Heb. 7.27 Christ died once when he offered up himself Seeing the Scripture therefore affirms so plainly that Christ once offered up himself and you affirm that in your abominable sacrifice he offers up himself often since the Scripture saith the offering up of Christ is once only ye say it is often in your Mass therefore this doctrine of yours is plain against the express sayings of the Scripture For suppose ye will have an unbloody offering up of Christ yet the Scripture only acknowledges this bloody offering up of himself
exponing of the matter of the Sacrament which they handled most largely the one in six books and the other most largely and frequently and in the fore-said places they used it in a far other sense then it is taken now in the Church of Rome for by this word they neither understood a Sacrament nor a sacrifice as the Churh of Rome doth Ambrose takes it for the whole service which was proper to the faithful lib 5 epist 33. And Augustin in one place for the demission of these who were catechised In serm 237 de tempor in the other two places for the whole service as well of the Catechumeni in serm de temp 251. 91 as of the faithful So rarely was it used by the lights of that age and in a far other sense then the Church of Rome takes it now But what a strange change hath fallen in this word Mass the abuse growing by time more more First from a cōmandment to the people to depart Ite missa est and that in evil Latin For Ite missio or dimissio est it passed to signify the service of God and from thence to signify a sacrifice and from thence to signify that opus operatum that work wrought of that abominable sacrifice of the Mass for the quick and the dead so that now in end it holds that place in the Roman Church that Minervas image which as was supposed fell out of heaven in a temple in the city of Troy did hold among them so that as they thought it was their only protection and forteress and as long as they kept it they were in no danger to have been overcome by the Grecians their enemies So doth the Papistical Church think of this their Mass and this for the second point of the form of the publick worship of God in the primitive Church Thirdly after the dimission of the Catechumeni the faithful who was commanded to remain and communicat they did offer up of their goods and first fruits unto God before they did communicat which for the most part was of bread and wine or of their first fruits of corns and raisins whereof so much was taken as did serve for bread and wine to the communicants And the rest that remained was either eaten in common among the faithful whereof also some was sent unto them who were sick or absent in a testimony of their communion with them from whence sprung that abuse and idolatry in the Church of Rome in carrying of the Sacrament which they call the Lord God to the sick or else was distributed unto the poor And when the Church waxed rich as it did after the time of Constantin the oblations abounded and a part thereof was also imployed unto the maintenance of the Ministery as Jerome witnesses saying Clerici de altari vivunt altari servientes altaris oblatione sustentantur The Clergy lives of the Altar and are sustained by the oblations thereof The which begat avarice in them and their avarice brought in the sacrifice of the Mass as we shal see afterward Now these oblations which were given by the faithful for the sustentation of the Ministery for the relief of the poor and furnishing materials to the Communion was called after the custome of the Old Law sacrifices Phil. 4. Heb. 13. Iren. lib. 4. cap. 32. Cypr. de Eleemosyna So the Apostle Paul Ireneus Cyprian calls them And Paulinus epist de Gazophyla pag. 349. calls the place where these offerings was presented a Table And these was presented unto the Minister who by prayer did consecrat them unto God Justin Mart. apolog 2. as is manifest by the prayers set down in the Liturgies Tua ex tuis tibi offerimus that is Of thy own we offer thy own things unto thee And Has oblationes famulorum famularúmque tuarum benignus assume quas singuli obtulerunt that is Mercifully receive these oblations of thy servants which every one of them have offered up to thee And sundry other prayers of the Mass which can no ways be spoken of the sacrifice of the Son of God without blasphemy as shal be seen afterward And this was the estat of the Church three or four hundred years after Christ But the love of God decaying and the hearts of men and women waxing cold in the worship of God the people did not communicat so oft And therefore we read of the complaints of the Fathers of the rarity of the communicants and of their vehement exhortations to the people to communicat every day or at least every Sabbath Ambros lib. 5. cap. 4. de sacram Chrysost in Epist ad Ephes August Epist 129. But these exhortations did not profit and therefore there was Canons and Laws made to bind the people to communicat at the least every Sabbath otherwise to be thrust out at the Church doors de consecratione distinct 1. cap. Episcopus dist 2. cap. Peracta cap. Hi qui intrant And also Civil Laws for that same effect Carol. Magnus lib. 1. cap. 138. 182. 167. But these Laws did gain but little for whether it was the obstinacy of the people or that they were not preased unto it by their Pastors they did wax more and more negligent in communicating And therefore Laws were made that if not oftner at the least thrise in the year the people should communicat to wit at Pasch at Christs-time and at Pentecost otherwise not to be reputed as Christians Distinct 2. cap. Seculares cap. Si non cap. Scis homo lib. 2. cap. 45. ad 3.38 But for all this the people did not communicat for the most part So that in end a Law was made that at the least once in the year they should communicat to wit at Pasch Extra de poenit remiss cap. Omnis The which custome is yet kept in the Church of Rome So by these degrees the Communion was lost in the celebration of the Supper among the people First from a dayly Communion in some places to once in the week and from thence to thrise in the year and from thence to once in the year so that ordinarily there did none communicat but the Ministery and Clergy But in process of time this corruption overtook them also and therefore Laws both Civil and Ecclesiastical was made to constrain them to communicat and that at the least two or three should communicat with the Priest De consec dist 1. cap. Hoc quoque cap. Omnes fideles the foot steps whereof yet remains in the Abbacy of Clugny where the Deacon and the Sub-deacon communicats yet with the Priest And of this came the distribution of the bread of the Sacrament in three pieces according to the number of the cōmunicants which is yet used in the Church of Rome suppose they have drawn it now to signify a mystery and these three at the last was brought to one and this one to the Clark that rang the bell And at the last
is not visible but invisible so our altar also is not visible but invisible The second abuse is in the confession of the Priest that he saith in the entring of the Mass I confess to God Almighty and to the blessed Virgin and to all the Saints that I have sinned In the which are sundry absurdities First that this confession is made not only to God but also to the dead who neither sees the secrets of the hearts nor yet are able to give remission The secōd is in the prayer that is set down in the latter end of it saying I pray thee blessed Mary all the hee Saints and shee Saints of God to pray to God that I may have mercy wherein are two horrible abuses one that he makes no mention of Jesus Christ our only Mediator 1. Tim. 2.5 desires him not to make intercession for him Next that he prays unto the Saints departed and makes them Intercessors and Mediators who neither knows our necessities and the secrets of our hearts neither is able to hear or help us which wants all warrant out of the Word of God Rom. 10.14 1. Tim. 2.5 1. John 2. 1. Jer. 17.5 Psal 50.15 Jer. 29.12 Matth. 6.9 James 1.17 Gen. 20.1.2 2. Kings 6.6 2 Chron. 6.30 Isa 63 17. Eccles 9.6 And seeing prayer is a honor only due to God Jesus Christ is our only Mediator and Intercessor therefore this prayer to Saints departed is both idolatrous and injurious to Christ his intercession and mediation This confession was instituted by Pontian and Damasus Popes anno 335. and 368. The third abuse is the absolution pronounced to the beholders of the Mass Amen Brethren and sisters by the mercy of our Lord Jesus by the help and sign of the cross by the intercession of the Virgin Mary by the merits of the Apostles and of all the hee Saints and shee Saints God give you mercy First this agrees not with their privat Masses where the Priest and the Clark only are present For how can the Priest speak truly Amen brethren and sisters since none is present but the Clark only Next that which is only proper to Jesus Christ to his death merits and intercession to make the Father merciful unto us and to make him to forgive us our sins is taken from him here and communicat unto the Virgin Mary and the merits of all the hee Saints and shee Saints and which is most horrible unto the sign of the cross that by her intercession their merits and the help of the sign of the cross God might have mercy What horrible idolatry is this to joyn such helpers to the Son of God who is a perfect Savior To joyn the merits of flesh and blood to his merits as though his were not sufficient to obtain salvation And as though men were not only able to merit eternal life to themselves but also had such aboundance of merits that they served to obtain mercy for others and so not only to make them saviors of themselves but of others also And that which is yet more horrible idolatry and blasphemy if worse can be to joyn with him the help of the sign of the cross Therefore in their Breviary they say Keep us Lord with thy peace c. whom thou hast redeemed by the tree of thy holy cross And in a Hymn O cross hail O cross only hope increase righteousness to the godly and forgive the guilty And in their Breviary they say We adore thy cross O Lord. Now what is it to mock God if this be not To substitut creatures yea a very stock and a tree in the room of the Son of God and to ascribe redemption unto it and to pray for righteousness and remission at the same to adore it and to call it their only esperance What place is left then to the blood and death of Christ The fourth abuse is in this prayer of the Mass We pray thee Lord for the merits of thy Saints whose relicks are here to forgive me all my sins Where first he makes no mention of Christ or his merits Next he prays to God that for the merits of the Saints he may be forgiven so he puts them in the room of Christ Thirdly they have the relicks of the Saints in such account that they have made a law that it shal not be lawful to celebrat any Mass but upon such altars where the relicks of some Saints are De consecrat dist 1. cap. Placuit But to what purpose is this To make their altars commendable and their sacrifices acceptable But hath not the Priest as he thinks in his hands Christ Jesus the Holy of the Holiest And is there relicks of Saints more precious and worthy then his blood is yea and what relicks I pray you for the most part Not of Saints but of harlots and brigands yea they have so multiplied their relicks that they have made some of them to have mo heads then one to have mo legs and arms then they were born with As for example Peter his whole body is buried in Rome in Vatican Annal. Eccles Tom. 1. 3. and yet the half of him is in another part of Rome Via Ostiensi Onu d. 7. urb Eccles cap. de Basilica another part in Constantinople Bellar. lib. 2. de Eccles trium cap. 3. 4. and his head kept in the fourth place Romae Onu ibidem and another part of his head in the fifth place Romae Onu ibidem another part of his head in the sixth place Pictavi◠Calv. admon de reliq and yet sundry of his teeth in other parts Onu ibidem So that if he had as many bodies and bones and teeth and heads and arms and legs as are said to be his and are kept as his relicks his body were monstrous And the head of S. Barbara was shown in so many parts that it behoved her to have seven bodies or at the least seven heads Luther postil in Evang. fest exalt cruce And that which is yet worse they honor them adores them and prays unto them the which is so manifest by the ordinary practise of their Church that it needeth no probation Unto this we may joyn the fifth abuse their images upon the hostes of their Mass and the rest of their Idols and Images which they call the Books of the Laicks wherewith they fill their Temples and Chapels which they honor adore and pray unto saying unto a stock Thou art my father and to a stone thou art my mother not only without commandment or example in the Scripture but contrary the express commandment of God given out of Mount Sinay in horror and fear so that the Mountain shook and Moses himself feared Thou shalt make thee no graven Image to worship it And contrary the whole Scripture Exod. 20. Deut. 4.15 Isa 40 15.16 Jerem 10.3 Acts 17.29 Rom. 1.23 1. Cor. 10.14 1. John 5.21 Rev. 9.20 21.8 And also the doctrine of the Fathers Tertull. lib. de corona
some of you have reckoned in the number of the Canonical Scripture Gratianus dist 19. Alphonsus de genero in thesauro Christ Relig. cap. 3. num 5. And also you have corrupted the Scriptures of God by your corrupt translation especially that of the Colledge of Rhemes The which to be true if time would serve I might soon be able to prove which hath been sufficiently proved by that learned and worthy man of God Doctor Fulk unto the which you nor all your Clergy have not answered as yet for ought I know nor never is able to do And as for the last point wherein ye say that the text is otherways then I set down let the Christian Reader judge whether my words be one in substance with this text or not For suppose this be set down in the preterit-time and I spake it in the future time yet it is a prophesie of a thing to come and your Church grants it is not fulfilled yet therefore they are both one in substance And as for your exposition where you expone this of the punishment of the people that have obeyed her and not of their sin in communicating with her Idolatry that is manifestly against the text For this is set down here as the cause of her punishment which is pronounced before in these words Babylon is fallen c. Now the reason because all Nations have drunken of the wine of the wrath of her fornication whereby in the Scripture is signified Idolatry and it is called the wine of the wrath c. because her fornication provoked God to wrath And Aretas exponeth this fornication a defection from every good And in the 18. chapter it is more evident where after the denunciation of her fall this reason is subjoyned Because all Nations have drunken of the wine of the wrath c. and the Kings of the earth have committed fornication with her and the marchands of the earth are waxed rich through the aboundance of her pleasures The which as they cannot be understood of the punishment but of the defection so this drinking cannot be understood of their punishment but of their communication with her Idolatrie And yet however it be this proves that universal defection of the which I spake Master John Welsch And the Church of God shal be latent and flee to the wilderness and there lurk and be fed of God all that time secretly Master Gilbert Brown It is a wonder to hear the Word of God abused not only with false expositions repugnant to the words self but also alledging the word falsly For the text of S. John hath but this for he notes no place because he knowes it may not abide a tryal And the woman fled unto the wilderness where she had a place prepared of God that there they might feed her a thousand two hundred and threescore dayes Here there is no word that she shal be latent nor lurk nor be secret And if M John will mean that the fleeing to the wilderness is nothing but to be invisible and to ly secret then it must follow that the whore of Babylons self must be invisible and secret For the same S John saith And the Angel took me away in spirit into the desert and I saw a woman sitting upon a skarlet colored beast full of names of blasphemy having seven heads and ten horns This word desert signifies more properly to be secret or invisible then the word wilderness It is true appearantly that if this woman signifie the Church of Christ that in the time of the Antichrist she shal be redacted to a smal number as it were in a wilderness and shal not possess every Nation as she had wont to do but that she may be made invisible and not to be seen there is no true Catholick that expones it so And such like this time shal be but short that is for 1260. dayes as the text saith which is but three years and an half And if M. Johns Church had been but so long invisible we should have dispensed with the same But it hath been invisible these thousand years as it is now professed in Scotland and much more as young Merchiston hath in his book upon the Revelation chap. 12. vers 14. M. John Welsch his Reply All that you can find fault with here is this that I said the Church in the time of the Antichrist should be latent and lurk and be fed secretly the which hath stirred you up in such a choler that you have cryed out with admiration that I have abused the Scripture c. Now tell me M. Gilbert whither is it because these same words are not found in the Scripture or because the doctrine it self cannot be warranted by the same If the former then I say you are but a quarreller about words And all the doctrine which ye have set down in this your answer is not set down in so many termes in the Scripture and yet ye will have it to be the doctrine of Gods Spirit suppose it be not so So it sufficeth that this which I said be warranted by the Scripture suppose the same termes be not found If the other then I say beside other places of Scripture this same place which ye quote here confirmes the same For know ye not that the wilderness is a place of refuge and secrecie from the tyranny of their pursuers And they that flie to the same they flie to lurk there and to be kept close and secret from the rage of their persecuters for the safety of their lives So while it is prophesied That this woman whereby is signified the Church which suppose ye conditionally expone so yet Sanderus 40. demonstrat one of your own number expones it to be the Church without all doubt shal flie in the wilderness from the face of the dragon and that for her safety and there be fed c. Is it not then manifest that she shal be secret and lurk then and not be so open and visible as she was before And if this be an abuse of the Scripture then not only your self hath abused it but also sundry of your own Church as the Rhemists Bellarmin and Sanderus For your self saith That in the time of the Antichrist she shal be redacted in a smal number as it were in a wilderness and shal not possess every Nation as she had wont to do For what is this else but to lurk and be latent and to be fed secretly in comparison of that estat wherein she was before And therefore the only thing that I inferred on this in the end was that no man should think that the Church of God was ever open and visible in such a flowrishing estat as it is now And the Rhemists annot in 2. Thess say That in the time of the Antichrist this great defection or revolt shal be of Kingdoms People and Provinces from the open external obedience and communion with the Church of Rome So
was 630. Bishops Of Constantinople 6. Canon 36. anno 681. where there was 289. Bishops Of Nicene 2. Canon 1. anno 781. where was present 350. Bishops Of Constantinople 8. Canon 27. anno where was present 383. Bishops anno 870. Of the Council of Constance Sess 4.5 where was a thousand Fathers almost anno 1418. And of Basel Sess 2.18 anno 1431. all General Councils condemning your Popes Supremacy as your Church now affirms of him some more some less And also it is condemned by Provincial Councils as of Antioch Canon 6.12.13.14.15.19.20 and of Carthage 2. Canon 12. anno 404. and 3. confirmed in the General Council of Trullan Canon 26. and 6. and by the Council of Milevis Canon 22. condemned also by the Universities of Paris Appellat Univers Paris olione 10. ad futur Concil infastic rerum expe ca. fugi and Lovane Aeneas Sylvius de gestis Basil Concil lib. 1. and Colen and Vienna Histor de Europa cap. 22. and Cracovia Comer de rebus Polonorum lib. 21. So then by the authority of Councils General and Provincial and of Universities the Monarchie and Superioritie of the Pope over all General Councils is disallowed And suppose the Churches of France and Germany did honor them and gave them some preeminence both of honor and power being blinded at that time with the smoke that came out of the bottomless pit yet it may appear by their supplication ad Ludovicum 11. pro libertate Ecclesiae Gallicanae adversus Rom. aulam defensio Parisiensis curiae Gravamina nationis Germaniae exhibita Maxim 1. that they did not allow that full Monarchie of his but misliked it and hated the same yea France made laws against it in Conventu Bituricensi Now these are such whom your selves do hold for Catholicks and yet they acknowledged not the Monarchie of your Pope The Churches of Graecia and of Asia in the East Chalcon conc de reb Turc lib. 1. 6. and of Muscovia Jovius in Muscovia in the North and of Ethiopia in the South Alvarez in descriptione Aethiopiae cap. 77. 83. and of Boheme Aeneas Sylvius hist Bohem. cap. 32. Provence Sleydan comment lib. 16. Piemont M. Fox in the acts and monuments lib. 7. And the Reformed Churches that are this day in France Flanders England Scotland and so forth throughout Europe all have condemned your Popes Supremacie So that if his Supremacie were to be put to tryal by the judgement and will of men so many thousands of Pastors Doctors Synods Councils Universities and Churches through all ages in all Countreys of all sorts and estats may suffice to put the Pope from his Supremacie So that I think you may blush M. Gilbert that hath so boldly written that he hath been alwayes acknowledged by the visible Church to be the visible Head of the Church seeing his Monarchie was never fully acknowledged until the Lateran Council under Leo the 10. 1516. years after Christ But seeing the Word of God is the only just tryal of it and seeing it is not written in the book of life therefore I conclud that his Supremacie is not a citizen of that new Jerusalem but a child of Babel and therefore they are blessed that shal dash it against the stones M. Gilbert Brown That the Church at any time may be invisible it is repugnant to the Word of God in many places and to M. John also For he gives examples afterward of sundry as he saith that was of his Religion and opponed themselves to the Pope and his Clergy and that saith he when he was come to the hight If the true Church opponed its self to the Antichristian Church then it was visible and known and if it was known when the Popes Kingdom was at the highest much more when it was low and so it was always known by M. Johns self Master John Welsch his Reply Whether oppugn ye your own imagination M. Gilbert here or that which I write If the first then you are foolish who fight against your self as ye do indeed If the second then I say that which I said was this That no man should think that the Church of God was ever open and visible in that flowrishing estat as it is now For this is our doctrine concerning the invisibility of the Church the which because you know not therefore you stumble at it and oppugns only your own invention and not our doctrine and therefore your reasons and Scriptures which ye bring here serve to no purpose for they make nothing against us We say that the Catholick Church which comprehends all the elect is always invisible both because the principal part thereof is in heaven and also because the senses of men cannot discern who are true members of the Catholick Church here their effectual calling their faith love hope and inward graces their union with Christ their Head their spiritual armor weapons and warfare and their Head Christ Jesus and their whole glorie is inward and invisible and they shal never be seen all gathered together until that great day Ephes 5.25.26.27.32 Psal 45.13 John 10.27 2. Tim. 2.19 Luke 11.28 Matth. 7. Ephes 6.12 2. Cor. 12.3.4 So that suppose they may be seen outwardlie as they are men and sometimes in respect of their outward ministerie yet in so far as they are a part of the Catholick Church that is in so far as they are chosen and sanctified c. as hath been said they cannot be discerned by the senses of men and so are invisible Next we say that the particular visible Churches are not always in one outward estat sometimes outwardlie glorious sometimes more obscure sometimes openly known and seen by all sometimes known and seen but by a few sometimes frequent and consisting in many sometimes rare and consisting in few sometimes adorned with outward ornaments of peace largeness outward glory and multitude sometimes again wanting this outward glory under persecution but yet having that inward glory of these inward graces So that when we say these particular Churches are sometimes invisible we do not mean as though they were known to none for that is not our doctrine M. Gilbert as ye imagine but that they are not so openly known that they are patent to all to be the true Church but known unto them with whom they have to do and who profess the truth with them Yea sometimes some of them are known unto the very persecuters and enemies by their constancy and perseverance in their sufferings suppose they allow not their profession And in this state was the Church of Israel in the time of Elias when he complained that he knew none left but himself of the true worshippers of God 1. Kings 19.10 And the Church of Juda in the days of Achaz and Manasseh Kings of Judah 2. Chron. 28.24 2. Kings 16.10 And such like in the time of Christ both in the time of his living among them as also in the time of his death and resurrection the Church
in their own name because they were not truly sent of God And this is that saih he which is said now meaning in this place if any shal come in his own name that he is not truly sent of God neither hath Gods power So then a false Prophet is said both to come in the Name of God and in his own name In the Name of God falsly vaunting so in his own name because God sends him not but he intrudes himself without a lawfull calling Now to answer you then I say the Pope comes in the Name of Christ as his Vicare I grant he and his Clergy so vaunt but falsly For the truth is he hath come and he comes in his own name and that truly because the Lord never sent him but he hath intruded himself without God his calling therefore this cannot free him but he may be the Antichrist But how prove ye that he comes in Christ his Name and not in his own name Because say ye he calls himself the Vicar of Christ and the servant of the servants of God A pretty argument He so calls himself Ergo he is so Who will credit either you or him in your own cause Is this all ye can do for your Pope He is called so Ergo he is so Augustin saith Non attendamus ad linguam sed ad facta Tract 3 in Epist Joan. Let us not take heed to the tongue but to the deeds For if all be asked all with one mouth confess Christ let the tongue cease a little ask the life Interroga vitam and again whosoever denyes Christ factis by his deeds is Antichrist The idolaters of Ephesus might have reasoned so for their great Goddess Diana Acts 19.27 She is called a great Goddess Ergo she is so indeed And what false Prophet yet ever came but they said they came in the Name of God they called themselves and were called by these whom they deceived the servāts Prophets of the Lord Jer. 23.25 Ezec. 13.6.7 and yet will you frame this argument for them as you do for your Pope All the false Prophets said they came in the Name of God were called by these whom they deceived the servants of God therefore they came not in their own name but in the Name of God Did not the false Apostles in Ephesus say they were the Apostles of Christ yet they were found liars Rev. 2.2 And did not the Synagogue of Satan call themselves Jews and yet they blasphemed in so speaking Rev. 2.9 Doth not the Harlot with whom the Nations of the earth have committed fornication say in her heart she is a Queen Rev. 18.7 and yet she is that great Harlot Rev. 17 4. And is not her cup of gold and yet the drink therein is abomination And should not the Antichrist sit in the temple of God and yet he is the son of perdition and an adversary to God and to Jesus Christ 2. Thess 2.4 And said not the Devil of himself that all the Kingdoms of the world were given to him and he would give them to whom he would Matth. 4.8 9 and yet he was a liar So if this argument of yours will follow The Pope is called the Vicar of Christ and the servant of the servants of God therefore he came never in his own name and so he is not the Antichrist you may with as good reason conclud that the false Prophets and false Apostles came not in their own name but in the Name of God because they are called the servants of God both by themselves and also by these who were deceived by them Yea you may with as good reason conclud that the Antichrist is not the son of perdition and adversary to God 2. Thess 2.3.4 that all the Kingdoms of the world are given to the Devil and that he hath the power in his hand of giving them to whom he will because the Scripture fore-told of the one that he should have horns like the Lamb Rev. 17. and the other ascribes this right and power to himself Matth. 4.9 It is good therefore that you cannot defend your Pope from being the Antichrist unless with him also you defend all the false Prophets false Apostles false Churches the Antichrist and the Devil himself from being the thing which they are indeed But who will venter the salvation of their soul upon this so silly and foolish a reason But I pray you M. Gilbert let me ask you this Is your Pope the servant of the servants of God and the Vicar of Christ as he calls himself Dare you avow this in the presence of him who shal judge the quick and the dead that he is so as he calls himself Did ever Christ Jesus either tread upon the necks of Kings and Emperors with his feet Or was he ever lifted up and carried upon the shoulders of noble-men Or did he ever give his feet to Emperors to kiss as your Popes have done as your own Histories do witness And have ye ever read what one of his own Archbishops of Colen one of his own Religion writes to Pope Nicolaus the first five hundred years ago Speaking to him he saith Thou pretends the person of the Pope but thou playes the tyrant we feel under the habit of a Pastor a wolf the stile belyes the parent Thou vaunts thy self to be God by thy deeds while as thou art the servant of servants thou contends to be Lord of Lords according to the discipline of Christ our Savior thou art the least of all ministers of the Temple of God but thou by the ambition of ruling goes to ruine whatsoever likes thee is lawful Aventinus lib. 4. annalium This was evil in those dayes but there are worse since And what now Reader shal we say of the Pope since his own Archbishop hath so written of him You say he is the Vicar of Christ but Christ Jesus in his latter Testament did never leave him to be in his stead For in the 4. Ephes 11. He gave Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors for the work of the ministery and the building of the body of Christ But that he ever left a Pope to be head of the Church in his stead to be a Monarch in this earth to reign in Rome and to be Lord over the servants of God there is not a syllable in the whole Book of God to prove it And because you say he is the servant of servants what service I pray you doth he whereby he makes it manifest that he is a servant indeed For the principal service of the Ministery of the Church stands in preaching the Word which he neither doth neither thinks that it appertains to him to do Yea what is it that appertains to any Lord King or Monarch in the earth that he ascribes not to himself and doth not also practise Yea as though that were too little what either stile or properties or works which are peculiar only to
for I think you would not have wished me to read that thing which ye your self believes not to be true I therefore read it and read it over again And beside many other things I find this in it that the Antichrist should be born of a Virgin by the help of the Devil as Christ was born of the Virgin by the work of the holy Ghost I wondered that you should have wished me to read that Book in the which there was so manifest an error and that contrary the doctrine of your own Church You should beware of this M. Gilbert for if your Head and Church get wit of it they will not only count you a bad defender of the Catholick Faith as you say you are but also it may be they suspect you of heresie who do wish your adversaries to read that Book wherein so manifest an error is and that against the doctrine of your own Church For who will think of you but that ye are of that same opinion your self seeing you are so earnest with others to read the same Bellarmin that great defender of your Catholick Faith was more wise then you in this point For first he saith lib. 3. de Rom. Pont. cap. 12. There is a manifest error in that treatise Next he saith It is certain that that treatise cannot be Augustins but it is probable saith he that it is Rabanus his work So to conclud this I assure you M. Gilbert I am of the same mind that I was concerning your Popes for all the reading of that work But I am not of the same mind towards you that I was before the reading of the same for either I think you have been very foolish in wishing me to read that which you believed not your self to be true or else that ye defend a manifest error not only against the truth but also against the doctrine of your own Church And let your Pope who is the bond of unity among you see to this how to reconcile you and Bellarmin two defenders of his Catholick Faith you saying that that work is Augustins and Bellarmin flatly denying it and affirming that it cannot be his you wishing your adversary to read it and Bellarmin confuting a manifest error in it But betwixt you be it Now this is all that you have said for the defense of your Pope which are but as figg leaves which cannot hide his nakedness Now I will let thee see Christian Reader what we have for us wherefore we affirm and teach and is ready also as thousands have done before us to seal it with our blood that the Popes of Rome are the Antichrist which the Scripture hath fore-told should come time hath made manifest and the Lord his mouth hath in a part consumed And first I will lay this ground which M. Gilbert cannot gain say and the conscience of all men will subscribe to That as the true Christ is sufficiently described in the Old and New Testament so the Antichrist is sufficiently described there also And as he is to be believed under the pain of the endless damnation of their souls to be the true Christ to whom the prophesies of the Old Testament concerning the Savior to come doth agree and of whom the New Testament testifieth that they are accomplished so he must be that Antichrist which the Scripture fore-told was to come to whom every one of the marks and properties of the Antichrist set down in the same do agree and in whom they are found to be accomplished Let us therefore out of the Scripture search the marks of the Antichrist and then let us see whether their Popes of Rome be stamped with these marks or not I speak not now of the many Antichrists whereof John speaks 1. John 2.18 which were fore-runners of that great defection which was fore-told should come in the Church of God but of that chief and great Antichrist who not in one or two things only but almost in all the points of his Religion should be contrary to Jesus Christ whom these places of Scripture 1. John 4.3 2. Thess 2. Rev. 11.13.17.18 do describe And while as I affirm that the Popes of Rome are this great Antichrist I understand it thus That they are the Prince and Head of that defection and apostasie which the Scripture fore-shew and fore-told was to come in the Church For I do not think that all the strength and force of the Antichrist is included in the Pope but the Pope and his Kingdom which is contrary to the Kingdom of Christ is most truly called the Antichrist whereof because the Pope is the Prince and Head therefore by that figure taking the part for the whole I call him the Antichrist And in this we follow the Scripture for the Scripture speaking of the Antichrist sometimes calls it a defection and a mystery of iniquity and the second beast that hath horns like the Lamb and the Harlot and sometimes points out the principal and chief in this Kingdom on whom the whole body of iniquity doth hang as when he writes here the man of sin and son of perdition which is an adversary who extolls himself above all c. which is most properly spoken not of the body but of the Head Having shown now in what sense we take the Antichrist we will go to the matter And first to that 2. Thess 2.3.4 where he is described and that by no dark prophesies as you say but by plain sayings First therefore the Scripture calls him there a man of sin a son of perdition The which to be accomplished in your Popes your own Histories Cardinals Councils Favorers Friers Friends and themselves do sufficiently testifie So that if they speak true of themselves which you cannot deny then of all the monsters that ever the earth hath born some of your Popes have been the greatest monsters For in this point M. Gilbert we deal not with you as ye deal with us for ye cite our enemies as witnesses of us which should have no credit and we cite your own friends and these of your own Religion So that they shal be fetched out as witnesses against you in this point whether your Popes be the men of sin and sons of perdition or not What Commandment is there of the first or second Table which they have not violated in the highest degree 1. Whoremongers 2. Adulterers 3. Sodomits 4. Incestuous 5. Fosterers and maintainers of harlots 6. Tyrants 7. Devilish and Sorcerers 8. In pride passing all creatures under heaven 9. Atheists without God 10. Perjured 11. Burreaus 12. Bawds and merchants of whores 13. Sacrilegious 14. Traitors 15. Seditious 16. Blasphemous 17. Parricides 18. Poysoners of Emperors Senators Cardinals yea of their own parents and sisters 19. Helpers of the Turks 20. Drunkards 21. Simoniacks 22. Monsters 23. Bastards 24. Arrians 25. Idolaters 26. And so contentious that sometimes there was two sometimes three and sometimes four all Popes striving for the Popedom together
Innocentius who were elected Popes and succeeded one after another He excommunicats the Emperor Frederick and Pope Victor He betrays the Emperor to the Souldan sends his picture to him and writes to him to cut him off if he would live in peace He caused him to fall down on the ground and to seek mercy and then tramped upon his neck the Monarch of the world repeating that sentence of the Psalm Super aspidem basiliscum c. Thou shalt walk upon the serpent and the cokatrice and thou shalt tramp down the lyon and the dragon O blasphemous mouth for this is spoken only of Christ And when the Emperor answered Not to thee but to Peter He replyed Both to me and to Peter Boniface the 8. that three-formed beast of whom the common Proverb is that he entered in like a Fox rang like a Lyon and died like a Dog He most craftily deceived his predecessor Celestin by causing one to speak to him for many nights through a whistle as though it had been the voyce of an Angel Celestin Celestin renounce for the burden is greater then thou art able to bear The which the simple man believing renounced the Popedom and so he entered in his room And having imprisoned the simple man his predecessor he was such a cruel Tyrant that he persecuted some of his Cardinals every where spoyling them both of their livings offices and their heritages He wasted and spoyled the places where they were reset so that they were compelled some of them to dwel in the woods flying his cruelty Some did venter upon the cruel hearted Pirats thinking to find greater humanity with them then with their holy Father the Pope He was also without all Religion for when the Archbishop of Genua upon Ashwednesday upon his knees bare headed doing his service in the Temple before the people this holy Father looking on him took a great many of ashes and cast in his eyes saying these words Remember man because thou art a Gibellin and with the Gibellins thou shalt return to ashes He nowrished harlots he begat bastards he affirmed that no man should judge him though he carried a number of souls with him to Hell John the 23. taught that the souls separated from the bodies did not see Gods face while after the resurrection and sent Friers to preach it He was declared by the people of Rome as Marius saith to be an heretick a Tyrant in the Church and a perturber of the publick peace of Christians Benedict the 12. he bought from her other brother Gerardus with great gifts a sister of Franciscus Petrarcha to commit villany with He nowrished many harlots of whom it is written Iste fuit verò laicis mors vipera Clero devius à vero He was a death to the people a viper to the Clergy a wanderer from the truth One part of Christendom to wit the Romans make Urbanus the sixth Pope another sort make Clement the seventh Pope whereby was such a schism that it went to their successors and continued forty years These Popes did mutually by their Bulls excommunicat one another they sent infamous libels one to another wherein they called other mutually Hereticks Schismaticks Antichrists Tyrants Thieves Traytors Sowers of evil seed and the sons of Belial and that worthily Now because the Church of Rome saith that the Popes cannot err and that their judgement is infallible and their decreets most sure therefore if this be true by their own testimonies they are hereticks schismaticks and Antichrists c. Illyricus testifies that Theodoricus Niem the Pope his most inward Scribe faithfully set down the History of the Schism of these Popes in three Books wherein he saith that he found the devilish craft of the Popes and their wickedness whereby they horribly mocked God and Religion vexed and tyrannized over the Church of Christ to be such that suppose he had read heard and seen much of their wickedness before yet having read that Book he saw their wickedness was ten fold more then ever he would have suspected And therefore he saith Truly now I assent unto the Canonists who affirm that the Pope is neither God nor man for saith he they are incarnat Devils and in malice and wickedness is worse then Satan himself Urban the sixth put five Cardinals in sacks and cast them in the sea and drowned them He condemned to death three other Cardinals commanded their heads to be cut off their bodies to be rosted in a furnace and being rosted to put them into sacks and whensoever he went from one people to another he carried them upon horses as spectacles and that they might be known to be Cardinals he placed their red hats upon the sacks Collenutius writeth this in his Neapolitan History Was ever Nero or Heliogabalus so cruel John the 24. after his predecessor was poysoned threatned the Cardinals to choose whom he would for this cause named they many but with none of them was he pleased then they prayed to name whom he would Pope He answered Give me S. Peters mantle and I will put it upon him who shal be Pope And when they had given it him he put it on himself and said I am Pope He is accused before the Council of Constance of forty weighty and grave crimes which were sufficiently proved against him And Bellarmin saith lib. 4. de Rom. Pont. cap. 14. there was 35. articles proved against him that he poysoned his predecessor Alexander that he was an Heretick a Simoniack a Liar an Hypocrit a Murtherer a Dicer and Adulterer a Sodomit and what not This also was laid to his charge that he denyed life everlasting and therefore is deposed and another set in his room In his Epitaph it is written of him Pestis avaritiae me caecum reddidit aurum Plus justo sitiens munera sacra dedi That is The pest of avarice made me blind and thirsting over much for gold I sold holy things too dear Sixtus the fourth that vile and beastly monster Wesselu-Groningensis in his Treatise of the Popes pardons writes of him that he permitted to the whole family of Cardinal Luciae at the request of Petrus Ruerius Cardinal and his brother to use Sodomitry O horrible abomination the three moneths of the year June July and August Agrippa saith That among the Bawds or maintainers of Bordels of these latter times Sixtus the 4. was famous for he built a great Bordel-house in Rome both for whoredom and Sodomitry he fed troups of harlots gaining thereby great sums of money for every harlot of Rome every week payed to the Pope a Julian penny which would amount in the year to twenty thousand Ducats But they say it is now augmented that it comes to forty thousand In his Epitaph it is written Riserat ut vivens coelestia Numina Sixtus c. That is While he was living he mocked God and dying he believed there was no God An adulterer the destruction of the Town who past Nero in
make them Intercessors but Mediators at whom and for whose merits they seek salvation And upon this ground came that Paganism which they have brought in the Church of God whereby every Nation Village Family every Estat and every malady or affliction have their own Saint to be a Patron for them Upon the which also hath proceeded this canonizing of Saints that is to make men Gods For they say that this canonizing of them is to let men understand that they should be adored and called upon as one of their own Archbishops Antonius saith part 5. summa tit 12. For he saith that seven things appertain to the canonizing of Saints 1. To be reputed publickly to be a Saint 2. To be prayed to by the Church 3. To have Temples and Altars 4. To have offerings and sacrifices offered to their honor 5. To have a festival day 6. To have an Image with a candle in sign of their glory 7. To have their relicks And they say That they may be directly prayed unto with the Lords Prayer which our Savior formed only to be said to God the Father Now how shal they be excused from vile idolatry in this Pope Innocent saith That to the worship which is only proper to God appertains Temples Altars sacrifices feasts And Durandus a Papist saith the same lib. 5. cap. 4. If this then be true which this Pope and this Papist say how then can they be cleared from idolatry that give unto Saints that service which by their own confession is only proper to God as Temples Altars Festival dayes c. And what shal we say to Franciscus and Dominicus two of their canonized Saints in whose persons they have done that lay in them to have abolished the merit the Name of Christ Of this Franciscus they say in their Book of Conformities That he is greater then John the Baptist And preferring him in many things to him they say That John received the word of repentance of Christ but Franciscus say they received it of Christ and of the Pope quod plus est which is more Of John it was revealed by an Angel to his father what he should be but of Franciscus it was revealed to his mother and his servants by Jesus Christ John was like the friend of the bridegroom but Franciscus was like the bridegroom himself They say He is better then all the Apostles for they left but their boats but he left all to his very hose They call him Typicus Jesus a typical Savior a singular crucified one who received in vision the same wounds which Christ hath suffered the same dolors who is the way of life who is the image of Christ as Christ is the image of the Father Yea which is more they prefer him to Christ Jesus They say Christ did but pray but Franciscus by prayer obtained They say The Baptism of Christ forgives original sin but Franciscus hood much more It is written also upon the port of the Cordeliers of Bloys of this Franciscus That his sin shal be sought for but it shal not be found which is only proper to Christ Now these are not particular opinions but approved by the Church of Rome For Pope Gregory the 9. Alexander the 4. and Nicolas the 3. ordained all the faithful under the pain of heresie to believe all Franciscus marks And their Books are set forth by their priviledges As for Dominicus Antoninus who was of that Order compares him with Christ and in a manner prefers him to him Hist. 3. pars tit 23. cap. 1. part 1. 3. Christ saith he did raise in all but three from the dead Dominicus raised three in Rome and by his prayer restored forty to life Christ after the resurrection being immortal went twise to his disciples the doors being shut but Dominicus saith he having as yet but a mortal body which saith he is more marvellous went into the Church in the night the doors being shut that he should not waken his brethren c. And such like of the rest of the miracles wherein he not only compares but in a māner prefers him to Christ Christ saith he said after his death all power is given to me in heaven earth This power saith he is not in a little cōmunicat to Dominicus above all heavenly earthly infernal things that in this same life for he had the Angels to serve him the elements obeyed him And in the end he applyes that which is only spoken of Christ in the 45. Psalm He is more beautiful then the sons of men Also he saith That there was two Images the one of Paul the other of Dominicus At the foot of Pauls Image it was written Per istumitur ad Christum By this man is the way to Christ At the foot of the Image of Dominicus it was written By this man the way is made easie to Christ And marvel not saith he at this for the doctrine of Paul and the rest of the Apostles induceth men to believe and to obey the precepts of Christ but the doctrine of Dominicus induceth men to keep the counsels of Christ and therefore the way to Christ by him is easier So he prefers him to Christ in miracles and to the Apostles But what shal we say to that that follows He is called saith he Dominicus because he is like our Lord and he hath possessive and in possession that which Christ hath absolutly and by authority Christ saith I am the light of the world The Church saith he sings of Dominicus Ye are the light of the world The Prophets testified of Christ and so did they also saith he of Dominicus and of his Order as in the 11. chapter of Zachary where it is spoken of Christ I have taken unto me two rods and I called one the staff of beauty and the other the staff of bands The staff of beauty saith he is the Order of Dominicus the staff of bands is the Order of Franciscus So they abuse the Scripture He compares him also with Christ and in a manner prefers him to him Christ saith he was born upon the bare earth but lest he had been over much hurt by cold he was put into the crib by his mother But Dominicus saith he being in the custody of his nurse even then abhorring the pleasures of the flesh was found oft-times lying upon the bare earth When Christ was born a star appeared signifying that he should illuminat the whole world But saith he when Dominicus was born his Godmother saw a star in his fore-head a prognostication of a new light of the world The prayer of the Lord was ever heard when it pleased him but yet did not ever obtain that which he prayed for as when in the garden he prayed that the cup might be transferred from him But saith he Dominicus desired nothing of God but that which he obtained perfectly according to his desire Christ loved us and washed us from our sins in his
Rome left off her Gentilism and yet this prophesie is not accomplished in her Unto these I joyn the testimonies of some of their own Monks Bishops Poets Friers Historiographers Emperors and Popes also whereby it will be verified that this harlot is Rome and the Popes thereof the Antichrist Bernard a Monk of Cluniak who lived about 400 years ago writing unto Peter the Abbot of that Monastery speaking of the tyrannous behavior of the Clergy and Bishop of Rome he accuses them of sacrilegious brybery of buying and selling of the Bishops Pall the Ring and of all Laws and equitie And he saith in another place Roma nocens nocet atque viam docet ipsa nocendi Jura relinquere lucra requirere pallia vendi Non Deus est tibi Jesus perfida Roma peristi That is This hurtful Rome doth hurt and teach to be wicked To leave all â—aw and gape for gain and sell a Popish Tippet A greedy gulf a griping grave a filthy jakes Both bottomless unfatiat and all alike she makes By drinking thou art dry and louder thou dost cry come bring me more I pray thee cry ho but thou saith no. I hunger sore I think thou makes gold thy God not Jesus Christ Rome what shal I say What shal I do or tell thee what is done Wealth weakneth thee wealth threatneth thee not to be Rome Then let me speak it and let me write it Rome once thou wast Then let me speak it and let me write it Rome thou art gone And John a Monk saith Curia vult Marcas bursas exhaurit arcas c. That is The Court of Rome doth aim at marks it souks the purse and soaks the arks If that you mind to spare your arks come not at Popes nor Patriarks But if you frankly give them marks and with good gold stuff up their arks I warrant then you shal be free from any kind of penaltie Who is within Who is there I. Why why what would ye Come in Bring you ought No. Stand still But I do Go ye then in The same Monk also saith Roma manus rodit quod rodere non valet odit Dante 's exaudit non dantibus ostia claudit Curia curarum genetrix nutrixque malorum Ignotos notis inhonestos aequat honestis That is Rome is a raket and spiteful hater of the empty hand She heareth the giver but others never but letteth them stand Her Court a cage of cares of mischiefs eke the mother She useth knaves like honest men and strangers like a brother The Archbishop of Golen and Traverse say to Pope Nicolas the first Thou pretends the person of the Pope but thou plays the tyrant We feel a Wolf under the weed of a Pastor The style belies the parent Thou by thy deeds makes show as if thou wert God While as thou art the servant of servants thou contends to be Lord of Lords According to the discipline of our Savior thou art the least of all the Ministers of the Temple of God Thou through the desire of ruling-goeth to perdition Whatsoever thing pleaseth thee is lawful is thee And Gregory a Pope saith I affirm this boldly upon good assurance that whosoever he be that calleth himself or is desirous to be called Universal Priest in that hautiness of his is a fore-runner of Antichrist in that by swelling pride he preferreth himself before others Arnulphus Arelatensis unto the Council of Rhemes testifigs this of the Pope Whom saith he Reverend Fathers think ye this man to be who fitting in an high throne shines in his purple and golden attyre to wit if he want love and be puffed up by knowledge he is the Antichrist fitting in the Temple of God showing himself as though he were God Bernard 400. years ago writing to Eugenius lib. 2 Pope of Rome in conclusion he breaketh forth in these words Thou hust more need saith he to have a rake in thy hand then a scepter to perform the office of a Prophet And in another place in his fourth Book to Eugenius after he hath described and detested the pride of the Bishops of Rome at last he concludeth the matter in these words saying to the Pope Herein saith he thou shows thy self to have succeeded not to Peter but to Constantin Peter is he who never knew what belonged to such solemn showing himself abroad in braveries of precious stones or silks or gold or ryding upon a white palfray or being garded with a troup of tall fellows or environed with a company of ruffling serving men Also in another place in his Epistle 230. speaking of the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome he maketh an exclamation in this sort At the first indeed saith he ye began to play the Lords but over the Clergy contrary to the counsel of Peter 1. Pet. 5.3 And within a while contrary to the advise of Paul Peters fellow Apostle you will have dominion over the faith of all men 2. Cor. 1.24 But ye stay not there ye have taken upon you more namely to have a peremptory power in Religion it self Now what remaineth whereon ye might further incroach except ye will go about to bring the very Angels under your subjection And in another place upon the Cant. serm 33. speaking of the behavior of the Romish Prelats Hence cometh saith he that whoorish tricking that stage-like attire that prince like pomp which dayly we see in them Hence proceeds the gold that they use in their bridles sadles and spurrs insomuch that their spurrs are more glittering then their altars Hence came their stately tables their variety of dishes and quaffing cups Hence issued their jonketting banketting their drunkenness and sursets Hence followed their viols harps and shalms Hence flowed their sellers and pantries so stuffed with wines and viands of all sorts Hence got they their lee-pots and painting boxes And hence had they their purses so well lined with coyn Fy upon it Such men they will needs be and yet they are our great Masters in Israel as Deans Archdeans Bishops and Archbishops These works of theirs are little inferior unto that filthiness which they committed in darkness And lastly he addeth these words For he is the very Antichrist Frederick the second fore-told the ruine of Rome more then three hundred years since in these words writing to Innocentius the fourth Pope Roma diu titubans longis erroribus acta Corruet mundi desinet esse caput That is Rome rowling long about in errors bound and thral Shal fall at last and cease to be the lofty head of all And in his verse written against the Pope he affirms plainly That he was that son of perdition and that head of the wicked fore spoken by Paul And in his letters to the Prelats of the world he calls the Pope That great Dragon that hath deceived the whole world that Antichrist and that counterfeit Vicar of Christ Eberhardus Bishop of Salsburgh above 380 years ago Aventinus lib. 7. speaking of the Bishops
of Rome he saith They only desire to reign They cannot abide peace They will not cease till they have stamped all under their feet that they may sit in the Temple of God and be lifted up above all that is called God or that is worshipped He who is the servant of servants is the Lord of Lords and desires to be thought of as if he were God And he saith That man whom they use to call Antichrist he speaketh great things as though he were God in whose fore-head that name of blasphemie is written I am God I cannot err Franciscus Petrarcha a light of that age for his manifold learning calls the Court of Rome Babylon and that harlot of Babel that sitteth upon many waters the mother of Idolatry and whoredom the refuge of heresies and errors And Petrus Joannes pronounced the Pope to be the Antichrist and the synagogue of Rome to be that great Babylon And Matthias Parisiensis saith That Antichrist hath seduced all the Universities and Colledges of the learned so that they teach nothing soundly now And the Edict of the Empire under Lodowick the fourth speaking of Pope John the 22. saith Christians cannot keep the peace which is given them of God for this Antichrist meaning the Pope And in another Edict it is written As he is a disaguised Pastor so is he a mystical Antichrist and we declars him being the author of that Antichristian Empire to be damned of heresie and deposed by our right by the Council sentence and common consent of the Princes and Prelats of Germanie the Priests of Italie and people of Rome so desiring And Aventinus in the history of Hildebrand writes That almost all the plain just simple and upright have written that then to wit when he was Pope the Empire of the Antichrist began because they saw that come to pass at that time which our Savior fore-told so many years before And to conclud this Hadrian the 6. Pope in his instructions of his Legats to the Convention at Norimberg he saith Thou shalt say that we grant freely that God hath suffered this persecution to come upon the Church for the sins of men and especially of the Priests and Prelats of the Church And again he saith We know that in this seat speaking of that Pontifical seat in Rome many abominable things have been for some years as abuse in spiritual things excess in commandments and last of all all things changed in worse And the Popes Cardinals speaking to Paul the third say From this fountain holy Father as from the Trojan horse so many abuses have rushed into the Church and so heavy diseases wherewith as we may see she is brought into a disperat estat I omit the rest Ye may see the truth is strong that hath made their own mouthes to fyle themselves To conclud this then He must be the undoubted Antichrist and his Kingdom Antichristian unto whom the whole markes of the Antichrist as he is described in the Scripture by the Apostle Paul and John in the Revelation doth agree But they all agree unto the Popes of Rome and his Kingdom as hath been proved Therefore they must be that undoubted Antichrist who was to come Secondly he must be that undoubted Antichrist whom his own Friers Bishops Cardinals and some of themselves do call Antichrist and ascribe these things unto him that belongs properly to the Antichrist But his own Friers Bishops Cardinals and some of themselves have so testified as hath been proved also Therefore out of their own mouthes they are condemned to be that Antichrist and their Kingdom Antichristian Now to put an end to this my reply That Religion is false which hath neither unity succession nor antiquitie this you cannot deny because you make them the marks of your Church But your Religion hath neither unity for that is broken by your manifold contradictions and dissentions among your selves whereof I have marked some and the diligent Reader of your works may gather many mo Chrachtovius in his book called Bellum Jesuiticum hath gathered of two heads to wit the Mass and Antichrist 205. contradictions let the Christian Reader judge then what may be gathered of the rest no succession neither personal broken by their Popes who was Atheists Schismaticks Hereticks and by a woman Pope neither in doctrine being direct contrary to the doctrine of Christ no antiquitie for the authors and origine of sundry main points of your Religion is set down here and all your Roman Clergy have not satisfied M. Jewels challenge these thirty years ago concerning the novelty of twenty and seven of your opinions Therefore since it hath neither unity succession nor antiquity it is a false Religion by your own doctrine Secondly that Religion which is contrary the Scripture contrary the practise of the primitive Church which opens a door to all licentiousness which can bring no true peace and consolation unto the consciences of men which blusheth to be known and made manifest which maintaineth many great absurdities horrible blasphemies abominable idolatry that is the doctrine of Antichrist and the doctrine of Devils which by their own mouthes is condemned must be erroneous and false But the Religion of the Church of Rome is such as hath been evidently proved before therefore it must be false Wo therefore belongeth to their souls that profess it openly or secretly REVEL 14.8 And there followed another Angel saying Babylon is fallen is fallen that great City because she made all Nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication Vers 9. And the third Angel followed them saying with a loud voyce If any man worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in his fore-head or in his hand Vers 10. The same shal drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is powred out without mixture into the cup of his indignation and he shal be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy Angels and in the presence of the Lamb Vers 11. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever And they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name FINIS A BRIEF DISCOVERY OF THE BLOODY REBELLIOUS AND TREASONABLE Principles and Practises of Papists Wherein is evidently demonstrated That they teach and commit Treasons and Rebellions against the lives of Princes and peace of Nations and dissolve the obligation of all Oaths and Bonds and making Perjury and Rebellion duties and meritorious works they have been the Authors of Warrs Commotions and Combustions both before and ever since the Reformation in Kingdoms and Common-wealths and have used unparalleled cruelty and unheard-of inhumanity towards Protestants where ever they had the upper-hand And the excuses of H.T. the Author of the Manual of Controversies are evidenced to be false and frivolous 2. Tim. 3.1 In the last dayes perillous times shal come For men shal be lovers of their
own selves covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to parents unthankful unholy Without natural affection truce-breakers false accusers incontinent c. Traitors heady high-minded c. From such turn away TO THE LOVERS OF THE Reformed Religion in Britain and Ireland Grace mercy and peace DEarly beloved in the Lord The great increase of Popery every where is so visibly seen and so evidently known that to speak any thing to prove and evidence the same were altogether needless seeing he is a great stranger in our Israel that knoweth it not But alace there is very great decay of zeal and hatred against that Whore that if our glorious Predecessors whose excellent Motto it always was No peace with Rome were alive they would wonder to see us so brutish and sensless indifferent and lukewarm in ae matter of so great moment wherein the honor and glory of God the eternal happiness and felicity of our own and our posterities souls and the safety and preservation of Kings Kingdoms our lives estats and all that is near and dear to us is so much and so nearly concerned Therefore for letting us see our hazard in all and every one of these as we have revised and republished the above written excellent Treatise of that learned godly and eminently zealous and faithful servant of Christ M. John Welsch whose memory is very precious in the Church of Christ who doth learnedly and plainly to any ordinary capacity discover the abominations of that Whore and solidly prove her doctrine both to be most heretical and damnable and her self to be the very Antichrist that all who love the truth of God and the salvation of their immortal souls may be stirred up to a just zeal and indignation against her So we have thought fit to subjoyn this following Treatise for discovering to all and every one who love the Reformed Religion and resolve to adhere thereto what treasonable and bloody principles and inhumane and matchlesly cruel practises are maintained and committed by Papists in reference both to Kings Princes and People who profess the Reformed Religion and consequently what all and every one of us may expect to meet with if Popery prevail that so being convinced of our hazard both in body and soul and in all that is near and dear to us we may be stirred up to a real hatred and indignation against that Whore and may be much in the exercise of prayer repentance and other lawful and commanded duties for the putting a stop to the growth of the spreading abominations of that Whore which is earnestly prayed for by Yours for the truth M. C. A BRIEF DISCOVERY OF THE BLOODY REBELlious and treasonable Principles and Practises of Papists SECTION I. Showing that the principles of Papists are treasonable and rebellious against the person and authority of Princes and peace of Kingdoms c. And the excuses of H. T. the Author of the Manual of Controversies are proved to be frivolous and naught THE Church of Rome was formerly most hateful to the Churches of Christ in Britain and Ireland not only because of her most damnable and heretical doctrine but also because of the rebellious and treasonable principles and practises maintained and committed by her against the persons and authority of Princes and peace of Kingdoms her faith being accounted faction and her Religion rebellion Therefore Papists of late have endeavored by all means to ingratiat themselves in the favor of Princes and Magistrats making ample profession of loyalty and fidelity and charging Protestants with the odious crime of disloyalty And thus we see their late Writers denying and disowning the doctrine of Rebellion and Parricide that our Divines have justly charged them with For H T. the Author of the Manual of Controversies c. printed at Doway 1671 calleth it a loud slander to charge Papists with maintaining that if the Pope excommunicat a Tyrant or heretical Prince his own subjects may lawfully kill him Therefore to unmask a little the bloody rebellious and treasonable principles of Papists we shal prove First that it is no slander but a real truth that the Church of Rome holdeth that if the Pope excōmunicateth a King his own subjects may lawfully kill him 2. That the Pope can dispense with the alleageance of subjects to their Princes and if he so dispense then they are loosed from subjection and alleageance to them 3. That no faith nor oath is to be kept with Hereticks 4 That the Pope and Synagogue of Rome have been the Authors of warrs combustions and confusions in Christian Churches and Kingdoms all Europe over 5. That their continual practise ever since the Reformation hath been to plot and practise treasons and rebellions assassinations and murders both of Princes and people who professed the Reformed Religion 6. That whereever they got the upper-hand and dominion in any Kingdom or Common-wealth they have practised most unheard-of cruelties and barbarous inhumanities against the professors of the Protestant Reformed Religion For the first and second of these points to wit that Papists hold that if the Pope excommunicat a King his own subjects may lawfully kill him And that the Pope can dispense with the alleageance of subjects to their Princes and if he so dispense then they are loosed from subjection and alleageance to them I shal evidence it to be their commonly received doctrine both by the writings of their approved Doctors and Bulls of their Popes and their dayly practises And lest they say we wrong them we shal for the most part set down the words of the Authors themselves 1. I shal begin with Doctor Ranchin a Papist and a famous Lawyer in France in his Book intituled A review of the Council of Trent lib. 2. cap. 10. who setteth down these following positions as commonly received in the Church of Rome to wit That it is necessare to salvation to believe that every creature is subject to the Pope of Rome That he it set over Emperors and Kingdoms That he carryeth both the temporal and spiritual sword That he may depose Emperors c. and transfer their Empires and Dominions from one line to another That he may absolve subjects from their oath of alleageance That upon just cause be may set up a King in every Kingdom for he is the overseer of all Kingdoms in Gods stead That it belongeth to the Pope to correct Kings when they offend Much more hath this Author to this purpose 2. But let us hear their own Doctors themselves Augustinus Triumphus de potest Eccles quaest 46. art 2. as Doctor Usher citeth him saith There is no doubt but that the Pope may depose all Kings when there is a reasonable cause so to do Thomas Aquinas their Angelical Doctor holdeth 22. quast 12 art 2. That so soon as a Prince is denounced excommunicat for Apostasie ipso facto his subjects are free from his soverainity and absolved from the oath of alleageance which they are bound to him Bannes and
persons by the Council who by its authority strengtheneth them against their King But although it were true that is alledged to wit that the Council of Constance had decreed against King-killing yet who knows not that Papists make nothing of its authority for none of the Popes ever liked it much less confirmed it 3. His next excuse is That Mariana maintained the doctrine of King-killing only problematically and his book was condemned burnt by a Provincial Council of his own Order Answer 1. Peter du Moulin tells another of your stamp using the same excuse that the Court of Parliament of Paris composed of grave heads did not understand it so when they condemned his Book to the fire neither doth he speak of the murder of King Henry the third problematically when he exalteth the murderer in these words Making a show of delivering letters to the King he gave him a deep wound above the bladder with a poysoned knife which he hid in his hand O admirable confidence of mind O memorable action by killing the King he got to himself a great name And in the same place he taxeth the Kings servants who presently killed that murderer of cruelty and barbarousness Mariana de rege c lib. 1. cap. 6. 2. Whereas he saith that a Provincial Council of the Jesuits condemned Marianas book the same Du Moulin answereth But why then did the same General of the Jesuits who disavowed it when destruction was hanging over the head of his Order approve and licence it before For the book was approved by Aquaviva General of the Jesuits and Stephanus Hoyeda Visitor of their Society in the Province of Toledo and the approbation mentioneth that other Jesuits had approved it before But saith he see what that condemnation comes to The Jesuits seeing their sect made odious by the writings of Mariana Suarez Vasquez and others and more by the murdering of Kings and for that cause expelled France made an order among themselves whereby they forbade to write or teach that doctrine any more The words of the ratification are these That none teach by writing or speaking that it is lawful f r any person or upon any pretence of tyranny to kill Kings and Princes But how gross is their fraud in that Order Do they forbid their Society to believe so by no means but to teach so neither will they have the execution done upon any pretence of tyranny but only upon the definitive sentence of the Pope or the States and how are the lives of Kings and Princes more secure then before by their declaring that it is not lawful to kill Kings and Princes seeing that in their account they are no more Kings and Princes when they are once excommunicated and deposed by the Pope Peter die Moulin ubi supra cap. 5. Truly any that considers the Jesuits temper needs not to think it strange that their General both approved and condemned Marianas book for Doctor Rivet tells us that when the Parliament of Paris asked the Jesuits in Paris whither they were of the mind of their General who had approved Santarellas book for King killing and judged the things that are there to be certain They answered That living at Rome he could not but approve what was there approved of But say the Parliament What think you They answer We think the clean contrary But say the examiners What would ye do if ye were at Rome The Jesuits answered That which they do which are at Rome So Jesuits have one conscience at Rome another at Paris Thirdly nor was it Mariana his alone that was guilty of writing for King killing For beside these before cited D. Rivet tells us that Gingâ—ardus a Jesuit did write in praise of the murder of King Henry the third And Albineus another Jesuit did hear the murderer of King Henry the fourth confess before he did the fact and when he was examined upon it he answered That God had given him that special gift to forget when once he had absolved a sinner whatsoever was confessed by him Yea there was so much wryting for and acting of assassinations and parricids upon the persons of Princes that the Parliament of Paris did not only condemn Bellarmin and Santarellas books to be burnt as engins of treason and rebellion but also did expel the Jesuits the Kingdom and set up a pillar of remembrance of their villanies From all which I hope it is more then evident that it is no slander but a real truth that the Church of Rome holdeth 1. That if the Pope excommunicat a King or Prince his subjects may lawfully kill him 2. That the Pope can dispense with the allegiance of subjects to their Princes and if he do dispense therewith they are loosed from subjection to them SECTION II. Showing that no oath nor bond can oblige a Papist and that they hold it as a principle that no faith is to be kept to Hereticks THe third thing we proposed was to prove that no oath bond or obligation whatsoever can ty or oblige Papists whither to their allegiance to their Prince or duty to their neighbors if Protestants which is very palpable if ye consider First that it is beyond all controversie with them that all Protestants are hereticks Princes not excepted all being condemned as such by the Pope and Council of Trent 2. That they all hold that Protestant Princes being declared hereticks by the Pope have no right to their Kingdoms nor are their subjects bound to any allegiance to them which is evident both from what is said formerly and also from the Bull and Decrees of Pope Pius the fifth who did depose and excommunicat Queen Elizabeth and loosed her subjects from their allegiance and gave the Kingdom to Philip the second of Spain which Bull was confirmed by Gregory the thirteenth and Sixtus the fifth his successors and was mantained and defended by Sanders Parsons Cresuel and sundry other English Papists even unto death 3. They not only loose subjects from their allegiance to Protestant Princes but also they hold and maintain that no faith is to be kept with Protestants because condemned by the Pope and Council of Trent as hereticks and so are fallen from the faith and so forfeit all priviledges wherein keeping of faith with them might oblige others or stead them and therefore let a Papist swear never so solemnly and ingage himself never so strictly by oath compact or covenant to a Protestant he may break his oath compact and covenant to him without sin according to their principles But because that brazen headed impostor H. T. Author of the Manual of Controversies c denyeth this affirming that Papists esteem themselves obliged to keep faith even with infidels therefore I shal prove the truth thereof First who knoweth not that John Hus and Jerome of Prague upon the Emperors promise of safe-conduct appeared before the Council of Constance But the Council declared that the Emperor was not obliged to keep his
preach and say Mass to Papists Others comes over under the notion of gallants and offers their service to Noblemen that so they may engyre themselves into their favor and know affairs Others give out themselves to be Seekers Quakers c. and rail against the Ministery and ordinances and diffuse Popish doctrine and in these imployments they use undefatigable diligence They do not weary in their work They are as active now as any time heretofore walking and acting most politically and under ground For their great work now a dayes is to destroy the Reformed Churches by under-hand dealing and leger de main as they call it so that we shal not know nor see who hurts us while we be utterly ruined Adam Coutzens a Jesuit of Mentz a great Politician wrote a great Book of Politicks and in his 2. Book chap. 18. he gives several rules to his fellow Jesuits for cheating a people of the Reformed Religion by slight of hand and leger de main 1. The first is To proceed as Musicians do in tuning their instruments who proceed gradually straining their strings with a gentle hand and setting them up by little and little Or as Physicians do in curing diseases who abate noxious humors by degrees and pauses So Jesuits will not discover all their doctrine at first but bring in corruptions by degrees 2. The second is To press the examples and practises of some eminent men as a good mean to draw on the rest Thus they cry out such a Noble-man or great man hath embraced the Roman Religion why may you not do the like 3. The third rule is That Arch-hereticks and such as are Teachers of heresie meaning the zealous Ministers and others that propagat and defend the Reformed Religion must be banished the Commonwealth at once if it may safely be done but if not by degrees This way they followed in Bohemia banishing the Ministers by degrees and their great hatred is still against the Ministery 4. His fourth rule is That these that are adversaries to true Religion to wit Popery be put from their dignities places and offices and not trusted with power or publick employment Hence Jesuits insinuat themselves much ordinarly on States-men and these who have the disposal of places of trust and use all means to keep zealous Protestants from trust and power 5. The fifth rule is To make the Protestant Religion odious by laying load upon such tenets as are most subject to harshest construction and rendering the persons of these that maintain them contemptible Hence it is the great work of Papists to raise calumnies on our Religion and the professors thereof for example That we make God the Author of sin revive old condemned heresies c. and they have raised a great heap of lies reproches and calumnies upon our first Reformers Luther Calvin c. 6. His sixth rule is To foment the quarrels that are among Protestants and strengthen the party that is nearest a complyance with Rome So any difference that is among us they cast oyl to the fire and play their own game thereby 7. The seventh rule is That all privat Conventicles and publick meetings must be forbidden This they did in Bohemia for the Pope and his Cardinals had a consultation what they should do with the Bohemians and Germans It was resolved that seeing their former strong purges which they had used to expell heretical humors had not proved effectual they therefore resolved to take a milder course and in prosecution thereof they used several stratagems one whereof was to prohibit all meetings of the Protestants 8. His eight rule is Severity of laws and punishments to compel the obstinat unto duty and yet the rigor of the law must be slowly drawn out and not against all but only such as be most dangerous For saith he although compulsory reformation will do no good to old standers yet it will render the younger sort Catholicks 9. The ninth and last rule is That such as are in authority and have the publick management of Ecclesiastical affairs do religiously practise and maintain integrity and purity of manners From all which we may see that we may be in great hazard of being ruined by the policies of Priests and Jesuits II. But alace although they be nothing abated in their activity and diligence to undo and ruine us yet we are wonderfully abated of our zeal and hatred of them and their doctrine Our predecessors had their zeal raised very high against them and were very active and diligent in resisting and opposing them but how indifferent and luke-warm are we in this generation some of a Cassandro-Grotian temper that are for complying and uniting with them others of Gallios temper that is not much concerned in any Religion if they can secure their own civil concernments others are ignorant light unstable and unfixed in the principles of Religion so there are but very few that have any sense of the evil or danger of Popery upon their spirits III. But that which may most of all alarm us is our hainous provocations and transgressions whereby the Lord is dreadfully provoked to give up with us and remove our candlestick out of its place and to give us up to the delusions of Antichrist may we not tremble for fear of this if we consider what God hath done for us and what requital we have given him God hath done many wonderful things for us in these lands both of old and of late for according to the promises made of old to his Son That he would give the heathen for his inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for his possession that the isles should wait for his law was graciously pleased many hundred years ago early after the rising of the Sun of righteousness to give light unto the Gentils to pity our fore-fathers then mancipated to the service of Idols which were not God and visite them with the light of the glorious and blessed Gospel which he so blessed that in a short time both King Nobility and people embraced it and the whole Nation became Christians and for sundry generations the land was blessed and honored of God with many Professors and Pastors famous for learning holiness and piety and for their pains and success in the work of the Gospel both at home abroad until at last with the rest of most of the Christian Churches in Europe it was involved in the darkness of Popish superstition and idolatry to which the greatest part were in bondage for many years but there was a remnant who kept their garments pure and did not receive the mark of the Beast Likewise when the Lord with a high hand and a mighty stretched-out arm did discover by his servant Luther and other worthy instruments whom he raised up the abominations of that Whoor he was graciously pleased in the dayes of our fathers to redeem us from that Antichristian tyranny and superstition and idolatry and again to cause