of Alexandria any other singuler ornament of that age inclyned to the opinion of S. Cyprian But then the authority of S. Peter in his successor Pope Steuen did well appeare who with no other armes but with the tradition of his Predecessors sustavned the brunt of so many most famous both Orientall and Occidentall Bishops who excommunicating those that had made a decree against the ancient custome of the Church threatning the rest that taught rebaptization to be lawfull preuailed so much that all the Orientall Churches conspyring togeather mone mind as Dionysius sayd Euseb l. 7. and changing their opinions were reunited againe with the band of peace And Dionysius himselfe changing also his opiniō became so scrupulous that he refused to baptize one that had not beene sufficiently baptized of the Heretiks retourning to the Catholike Church before he had made the Pope acquainted with it And the Bishops of Africa likewise that had followed S. Cypriā made a new decree to the contrary as witnesseth S. Hierome And S. Augustine sayth Hier. cōt Luciferiā August epist 48. that it is very probable that S. Cypriā also corrected himselfe and that his change in opinion was suppressed by the Heretikes And truly who can imagine that such a man as he tendring so much the peace of the Church as he did should remayne obstinate alone in his owne opinion See this more at large in Baronius Vin. cont Lyrin c. 9. in the yeare of our Lord 158. and 159. And Vincentius Lirinensis who notably descrybeth the successe of this victory Lastly Pope Pius the first hauing made a decree that the Feast of Easter should be celebrated only vpon Sunday against those Euseb l. 5. cap. 24. that pretended the example and tradition of S. Iohn to the contrary and 3. of his successors forbearing to cōpell them for quietnes sake Tertul. de praescrip cap. 53. Euseb lib. 5. cap. 14. by Ecclesiasticall censure therunto Pope Victor succeding and perceyuing them to be much confirmed in their opinion called a Councell in Italy and caused others to be assembled in France and also in other Countreys And Theophilus Bishop of Cesarea and Palestina Beda de equinoctiali in verno receiuing his command as Bede our Countreyman recordeth assembled Bishops not only out of his owne Prouince but also out of diuers other countreys and shewed the authority that Pope Victor had sent him and declared quid sibi operis fuit iniunctum and in all the Easterne Councells it being determined that the Feast of Easter should be kept vpon Sunday according to the custome of the Roman Church Euseb l. 5. cap. 24. Niceph. l. 4. c. 38.39 Pope Victor denounced excommunication against all the Churches of Asia that would not conforme themselues thereunto Whereupon though some did thinke it rigourously done not only the greatest part of the Churches of Asia did yield therein but also as Nicephorus testifyeth it was decreed throughout the world that the Feast of Easter should be kept vpon Sunday and they that refused so to do were holden for Heretakes and called Quartadecimani The same Controuersy being growne very great in Britany August haeres 29. Beda lib. 3. hist cap. 2. betwen the English that mantayned the custome of Rome and the Scottish that stood out in schisme and the matter being debated in the presence of King Oswy Colomannus with the Scottish Clergy relyed vpon the authority of Anatolins and Columba his predecessours Wilfrid on the other side answered That Columba albeit a holy man could not be preferred before Peter to whome our Lord sayd thou art Peter and vpon this Rock c. King Oswy that had beene infected with the Scottish schisme asked Colomannus whether he could proue the like authority to haue been giuen to Columba as was giuen to Peter who answering no Nay then quoth the King merily I assure you I will not in any thing contradict that Porter but to my knowledge and power I will obay his comaundements Whereupon all that were present sayth S. Bede allowed therof and yielded to receiue the Catholike custome of keping Easter on the Sunday And now to go forward with the receiued practise and execution of the Popes authority in other Iudiciall matters Leo. Ep. 89. Pope Leo writing vnto the Bishops of France biddeth them remember and acknowledge with him that the Priests of their Prouince had consulted with the Apostolike sea in innumerable matters and according to the diuersity of their causes and appeales their former Iudgments had been retracted or confirmed As touching deposition of Bishops you haue already hard of the deposition of Dioscorus in the fourth generall Councell by the Popes Legates which was done in these formall words Conc. Chal. act 3. Leo the most holy and Blessed Pope and head of the vniuersall Church indued with the dignity of Peter the Apostle who is intituled the foundation of the Church the Rock of Faith and the doore-keper of the Kingdome of Heauen By vs his Legates the holy Synode consenting hath depryued Dioscorus of Episcopall dignity and excluded him from all Priestly function Cypr. lib. 5. epist 13. S. Cyprian wrote to Pope Stephen to excommunicate and depose Marcian the Bishop of Arles in France and to aduertise him who should succeed him that he the Bishops of Affrick might know to whome to direct their letters Peter the Patriarch of Alexandria Soc. lib. 4. hist. cap. 3. as Socrates relateth returning with the letters of Damasus the Roman Bishop the people confiding in them Nicol. ep ad Micha expelled Lucius and receaued Peter into his place Nicolaus the first writing to Michael the Emperour reckoneth vp 8. Patriarches of that Church deposed by the Bishops of Rome before his tyme. Theod. l. 5. hist c. 23. Soc. lib. 5. hist c. 15. Sozom. l. 8. cap. 3. Flauianus Patriarch of Antioch was deposed by Pope Damasus and both S. Chrysostome Bishop of Constantinople and Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria were intercessors for him to the Pope And to conclude Polichronius Patriarch of Hierusalem was deposed by Sixtus the 3. Tom. 2. Concil in actis 60. So that you see the exercise of the Popes authority in the deposition of many of the foure principall Patriarchs of Constantinople Alexandria Antioch and Hierusalem And as for those that appealed to the Sea Apostolike and were restored by the same the examples are infinit Let it suffice that Athanasius the great Patriarch of Alexandria Paulus Bishop of Constantinople Marcellus Bishop of Ancyra Asclepas Bishop of Gaza and Lucianus Bishop of Adrianopolis Sozom. l. 3. hist c. 8. Tripart hist l. 4. cap 15. were all at Rome at one tyme iniustly deposed and expelled by the Orientall Synode And that Pope Iulius as Sozomeus hath recorded vnderstanding whereof they were accused receiued them into his communion that the care of all belonging vnto him in respect of the dignity of his sea he restored
seek after it sheweth to haue so much pride and selfe-conceit as is sufficient to make him vnworthy Besides that it is a thing expresly directly against the institute of the Society wherein this man liued to seeke and hunt for preferment Euery man in the vocation whereunto he is called let him remaine sayth S. Paul 1. Cor. 7.20 And our Sauiour He that putteth his hand to the plough and looketh backe is not fit for the Kingdome of God Luc. 9.61 according whereunto such as are professed in any Religious Order being afterward made Bishops are bound to the obseruation of their vowes so farre forth as the exercise of their digdity and function will permit But this man though forsaking Gods plough wherunto his hand was consecrated though breaking his first vowes for the which according to S. Paul he should feare to be damned doth thereby thinke to haue made himselfe fit to be made a gouernour in Gods kingdome which is the Church of Christ truly suspecting as he did the Catholike doctrine to be false and fraudulent he might better haue suspected that being in this case he was no fit man to be made a Bishop whose office it is to maintayne and defend it And I meruaile knowing himselfe to be a dog Pag. 24. that began to take part with the wolues more then with the sheep not thinking it fit that they should trust their shepheards but rather desiring that they might heare what the wolues could say for themselues and hand to hand debate their reasons with them I maruaile I say with what good conscience such a dog could thinke himselfe fit to be made a sheepheard To that which he sayeth of printed Sermons and his Maisters dictates I answere first that although it were true yet because they be no rules of faith and that the Catholikes are not bound to defend in all thinges either the one or the other as himselfe knoweth well inough therfore such scandalls as these should not haue moued him to depart from the vnity of the Church of God Secondly I say that if it were not altogeather false it should haue beene proued by him one way or other something would had beene alleadged out of those Sermonaries whome he so much reuyleth and some one point or other would haue beene vrged for an instance wherein his Maisters did contradict the Fathers Vnles he thought his Readers to be so many Pots without couers that should receiue any thing by infusion which he pleaseth to powre or let fall into them Or vnlesse you will excuse him by saying that as when he was conuerted to your Religion he disdayned to heare reason so now intending to conuert others he scorneth as much to affoard any reason for that he sayth Wherin he doth wisely in one respect for bringing no proofe in partiduler he saw that albeit no man could in reason beleeue him yet it should be hard for any man to disproue him But notwithstanding all his policy to put something more in the ballance of your iudgment besides his yea and my no for the deciding of this matter betwixt vs I will giue you the testimony of Syr Edwyn Sands Syr Edwin Sands relation of relig Sect. 6. a man as I heare much esteemed in England in his owne words which are these In their Sermons much matter of faith and piety is eloquently deliuered by men surely of wonderfull zeale and spirit And for your better information herein I pray you do but inquyre of others that haue been in those parts and are men of vnderstanding what kind of preachers there are and inquire likewise of your Schollers at home what they thinke of those Schoole-deuines whose bookes are brought from thence and are commonly sould and much read in England For it is very probable that neuer in any age since Christian Religion began to flourish in the world there haue beene so many I say so many the like excellent Preachers and profound Deuines in the Catholike Church as we haue seen and heard in this age of ours And thus much may suffice to haue obserued in the first kind of those his proofes which I called Affirmatiue alleadged by him as vndoubted signes to shew that God was the author of his comming thither Wherein notwithstanding you see how the serpent hauing found him to haue but a weake head of his owne with a giddy spirit and a shallow vnconstant brayne first deluded him with vayne surmyses and false suspitions that the truth was errour and afterward thrust him out of his Order which protected him that thereby he might haue the more force vpon him And lastly set him vp to be seen aloft as it were vpon the pinacle of the Temple where he knew that in respect of his giddynes and Pride he was not able to stand to the end that his owne victory might be the more glorious and the Bishops fall more famous SECTION V. The Bishops Motiues to change his Religion are discussed and the arguments of the ten books he promised are all reduced to one question alone of the Popes Supremacy HITHERTO you haue heard of those things that did somewhat prepare him to change Religion and hitherto as he sayth he resisted in himselfe more or lesse these motions or suggestions that were contrary to his former faith It followeth now to consider what moued him directly to this strange mutation which must needs be very wel worth the consideration For you may easily imagine that being a man of his quality learning experience he will say what may be sayd and lay downe such prudent motiues sound reasons and well grounded proofes if any such may be found as the truth of them shal be so apparant and conuincing that no indifferent or well disposed mynd shal be able to resist them He beginneth therfore and sayth that of a Bishop being made an Archbishop two accidents fell out that compelled him to study these matters more earnestly and more eagerly then before he did and made him to ouerthrow or to ouerturne or turne ouer as you please to expound him more then once or twice the Fathers the Canons the Councells and ancient Records of the Catholike Church The first occasion was that the Court of Rome his Suffragan Bishops that were vnder him began to perturbe his Metropolitan rights The second that a little after the Interdict of Venice there came bookes from Rome taxing the Bishops of the Venetian State who did not obey to be but sheepish rude and ignorant men without courage or conscience in which second passage he discouereth not only his pride and contentious spirit in seeking to supprese his owne Suffragans and in resisting the publique authority of the Court of Rome in the Interdict and in maintayning the sheep against the sheepheard which is far against the vnity which he pretendeth but also he doth manifest so much hatred malice and enuy against the Pope because he opposed himselfe to his vniust pretences and
defended his Suffragans against him as was no lesse then sufficient to make a man in his state and of his opinion become a formall Heretike This therefore I take to be the last disposition that made him a fit instrument for the spirit of Heresy and whereby his enemy intred into him as he entred into Iudas and tooke full possession of him To the which I am rather induced because a man may easily see that his ouerthrow in his Suite against his Suffragans sticks deeply in his mynd moueth him to seek reuenge by the ouerthrow of that authority which stood against him For afterward page 22. he maketh it one of the principall causes of his departure and complaineth with no lesse vntruth then malicious spirit and extreme bitternes of hart that Bishops now a dayes vnder the Pope haue but the name of Bishops that al their Iurisdiction is taken from thē that they are become vile contemptible and miserable subiect not only to the Pope but also to Cardinalls Congregations Legates Inquisitors and innumerable Orders of Religious men who now haue greater facultyes then Bishops and drowne their authority Where also he sayth that the Pope is now a temporall Monarch and that the Church is become a vineyard to make him drunke and a flocke to feed him with her owne bloud All which considered I do thinke verily that they who intend to write against him and to accuse and calumniate as he sayth his departure from them will hardly be able to produce more pregnant and vehement arguments to shew that he was expulsed and driuen forth by the Diuell then he himselfe hath derected in his owne discourse which he maketh to proue that he was sent away by God Almighty For besides his leuity and inconstancy without any cause suspecting the Catholike Church to be erroneous his disobedience and Apostasy in forsaking his Order his ābition in seeking one preferment after another being most vnworthy of any his vniust contention with those that were vnder him he paynteth out his owne malice and euny against the Pope togeather with the occasions therof in such manner as if he desired the whole world should take notice of it Whereunto if we adde his extreme pride which he discouereth in the manner of his conuersion disdayning to read any booke or to speake with any man about it and in all the passages of his former natration also in that which followeth where he sayth that he hath no Superiour aboue him making himselfe equall with the Pope in spirituall matters and in authority to reprehend and amend all other Bishops What can be imagined that his aduersaries will bring against him which himself vnder the pretence of his own prayse hath not heere confessed Tatianus the authour of the Encratite Heresy as Nicephorus reporteth being blowne great with the swelling opiniō of much learning Niceph. l. 4. hist c. 4. as Superiour to others in knowledge began to promulgate a particuler doctrine This man contemning the counsel or help of others protesteth to promulgate that doctrine which he neuer receiued of any Thebutes one of the seauen first Arch-heretikes depraued the virginity of the Church Euseb l. 5. cap 5. as Eusebius reporteth because he had the repulse in his suit for a Bishopricke This man seeketh to defame the Church because he was ouerthrowne in his sute against the Bishops that were vnder him Nouatus Valentine Niceph. l. 5. cap. 4. and Aerius separated themselues from the Church Tertull. Epiphan her 75. because they could not obtaine to be Bishops of Rome as Nicephorus Tertullian and Epiphanius do record And this man deuydeth himselfe from the same Church because he would not be subiect to the Bishop of Rome Now therefore to go forward this zealous man by those two occasions of discontentment cōming to read the Fathers and other records of the Catholike Church with those spectacles of Pryde Ambition Malice and the rest whereof I haue spoken before let vs see what he findeth in them For now he saith that his eyes were opened and that he saw easily plainely and perfectly that the Churches whome Rome had made her enemyes which are very many saith he did differ little or nothing frō the pure doctrine of the ancient Church That in Rome there are coyned euery day innumerable articles of Faith without any foundation with extreme violence That Rome hath puld out the eyes of the Church of Christ by suppressing the sacred Councells That the Catholike Church is now confined to be made the Court of Rome That in it nay in the Pope alone the whole spirit of Christ promised to the Catholike Church is belieued to reside That whatsoeuer hath been spoken heertofore in honour of the vniuersal Church is now most wrongfully inforced vpon the Court of Rome alone whereof it followeth that the soules of men being thereby miserably deceiued and blinded they fall togeather with their blind guydes into the pit of perdition Thus he these are the principall causes which he setteth downe for the chang of his religiō But what proofe what euidence what instance what reason or probability doth he alledge to persuade his reader of the truth of these things or any of them truely none at all but only this that himselfe sayth it A man altogeather a stranger to you no way recommended either for wisedome honesty or learning but rather if not iustly to be suspected of worse yet at the least to be iustly condemned of that extreme Malice Pryde and Vanity of hart which himselfe discouereth If any man be made of such rotten earth as to suffer this Ignoramus to set in him such leekes as these without any other stick but with his finger or to shew himselfe such an vncouered pot as I said before as to receiue what liquor soeuer this strang Bishop should please to infuse into him such a one is worthy to be guld indeed by this Dalmatian But he that is wise should cōsider at least with what false eyes he found these things if it be true that he hath read any part of the Fathers the Canons and the Councells as himselfe reporteth For he that considereth this will no more belieue him though he should speake as he thinketh which I thinke he doth not then he will belieue the Father of lyes that doth delude him If the question had been whether or no he would haue sayd as much as here he doth he had indeed conuinced his reader and confounded all those that should haue writ against him But the question being not what he could say but what he could proue and whether it be true that he sayth and intending as he doth to arme his reader against the accusations that are like to come against him to make it manifest that his spirit is from God and in fine to edify all the world with his narration you must needes graunt that he sheweth extreme weaknes in making no better defence no
him twise to feed his lambs and the third tyme to feed his sheep whereby he made him the Pastour of his flocke And for a conclusion to keep him in Humility he gaue him warning that as he was to follow him in his place so also he should imitate him in his death signifying what death he should dye That is to say the death of the Crosse In the exposition of which place there is no diuersity of opinion amongst the Fathers neither do they make any doubt or questiō but that our Sauiours speach in this place was directed only to S. Peter that by the word Sheep the whole flocke of Christ was recommended vnto him for the rest of the Apostles themselues were not excepted And that by the word Feed he was commaunded not only to teach but also to gouerne the Church of Christ so far forth as should be necessary for the conduction of the members thereof vnto their supernaturall end which is life euerlasting And therefore albeit all the Apostles in respect of their Apostolike power which was extraordinary and dyed with them had equall Iurisdiction ouer the rest of the Church yet were they not equall amongst themselues but S. Peter in respect of his supreme Episcopall and ordinary authority was the chief and head of them all and especially as they were Bishops or capable of Bishoprickes wherein others might succeed them they were all subiect to S. Peter And for this cause albeit the Church is sayd to be built vpon the other Apostles in generall and that they are also called the Pastours therof yet you shall neuer find that any of them in particuler as for example S. Iohn or S. Iames is tearmed the foundation or the Pastour of the Church without any other limitation but that these titles and the like are giuen by the Fathers to S. Peter alone in respect of the excellency of his dignity and plenarity of ordinary power ouer the Church of Christ SECTION VII The former Expositions of the two places aforesayd togeather with S. Peters Supremacy in dignity doctrine and gouernement are proued out of the testimonyes of the ancient Fathers FOR manifestation whereof and for the more euident proofe that the expositiōs which I haue deliuered of those two places of Scripture aforesayd are conformable to the doctrine of the Fathers I will alleadge some of their authorityes as briefly and succinctly as possible I can And first the same is proued by those titles with the Fathers haue giuen to S. Peter alone By the Councell of Chalcedon (a) Act. 1. therefore he is styled the Rocke and Top of the Church By Origen (b) hom 5. in exod the most solide Rocke By Cyrill (c) Lib. 2. c. 2. in Ioā the Rocke and Stone most firme By Euthymius (d) In cap. 16. Matt. the foundation of the beleeuers By Ambrose (e) Lib. 4. de fide c. 3. the firmament of the Church By Hilary (f) In cap. 16. Matt. the happy foundation of the Church and blessed porter of heauen By Augustine (g) Ser. 15. de Sanctis the foundation of the Church which the Church doth worthily worship By Damascen (h) Orat. de Transsig the key-bearer of the kingdome of heauen By Chrysostome (i) Hom. in psal 50.1 part the basis or bearing-stone of fayth By S. Hierome (k) Lib. 1. cont Iouin the Rocke of Christ Out of which titles or appellations giuen to none of the Apostles but only to S. Peter it must needs be gathered that the words of our Sauiour in the 16. of S. Matthew are to be vnderstood of him alone and that as he was the foundation of the whole buylding so which is all one that he was also the head of the whole body which may be further declared and more expresly proued if need be out of the Fathers For therfore S. Cyril (l) Lib. 12. in Ioan. cap. 64. doth call him the Prince and head of the rest S. Hierome (m) Lib. 1. cont Iouin the head of the Apostles S. Augustine (n) Serm. 124. de tempore Verticem the Crowne Optatus (o) Lib. 2. 7. cont Parmen Apicem the top or highest perfection of the Apostles Euthymius (p) Inc. vlt. Ioan. the Maister of the whole world Epiphanius (q) Epiph. haeres 51. Ducem the Captaine or Leader of the disciples Ambrose (r) lib. 10. in Luc. sc 24. the vicar of the loue of Christ towards vs. S. Cyprian (s) Lib. de vnit Eccl. sayth that the Primacy was giuen to Peter S. Leo (t) Serm. 2. de SS Pet. Paul that he Peter who was the first in confession was the first in Apostolicall dignity S. Athanasius (u) Epist au Pelic. That vpon the foundation of Peter the Pillars of the Church that is to say the Bishops are set or confirmed S. Ambrose (w) Ser. 47. that he was the immoueable Rock contayning the whole Pyle and Iuncture of the whole Christian worke or buylding S. Basil (x) Ser. de neditio Dei that he was happy in being preferted before the rest of the Disciples to whome the keyes of the kingdome of heauen were committed S. Augustine (y) Lib 2 de Baptis hath these words Loe where Cyprian relateth that which we also haue learned in the Scriptures that the Apostle Peter in whome the Primacy of the Apostles appeared aloft with such an excellēt grace was corrected by Paul a later Apostle And againe (z) Serm. 29. de SS he alone among the Apostles deserued to heer Thou art Peter c. Truly a man worthy to be a stone for foundation a Pillar for sustentation a key of the kingdom vnto the people which were to be built vp in the house of God To which purpose S. Ambrose (a) In cap. vlt. Luc. sayd therefore because he alone professed of all the rest he alone is preferred before all the rest And why sayth S. Chrysostom (b) Hom. 87. in loā omitting the rest doth he speak of these thinges to Peter alone He was the mouth of the Apostles the prince and top of that company therfore Paul ascended to visit him before the rest Among the most blessed Apostles sayth Leo (c) Ep 85. ad An ast there was a certayne distinction of power and though the election of all was equall yet vnto one it was after giuen to excell aboue the rest S. Cyprian (d) Ep. ad Iubaia sayth that the Church is one founded vpon one who receiued the keyes thereof by the word of our Lord. The prerogatiues also of the three first Chayres that is to say of Rome Alexandria and Antioch the Bishops whereof were anciently the three first Patriarcks and are so acknowledged in the first generall Councell of Nice do euidently proue the Supremacy of S. Peter whereof S. Gregory writeth in this manner Albeit there were many Apostles Greg. l 6. epist 37.
would keep all the Pastours in the world in peace and vnity c. For in all societyes authority which cannot be where all are equall must procure vnity and obedience Thus Doctor Couell who goeth further and sayth If it concerne all persons and ages in the Church of Christ as surely it doth the gouernement must not cease with the Apostles but so much of that authority must remayne to them who from time to time supply that charge c. Which also is the doctrine of Melancthon who further confesseth Melanthō that as certayn Bishops are presidēt ouer many Churches so the Bishop of Rome is President ouer all Bishops Luther And Luther himselfe is inforced to acknowledge that for the vnity of the Catholike Church consisting of al Nations with infinite diuersity of māners conditions it was necessary that one should be chosen vnto whome and his Successors the whole world being made one fold might belong or pertayne Cart wright M. Cartwright likewise vrgeth the Protestāt Doctors with their owne argument saying that the peace of the whole Church requireth as well a Pope ouer all Archbishops as one Archbishop ouer all Bishops in a Realme Iacob And to conclue M. Iacob another Puritan sayth if a visible Catholike Church be once aknowledged there is no place in all the world so likely as Rome to be the visible and spring head of the gouernement thereof Protestant Apology See the Protestants Apology tract 1. sect 3. subdiu 10. And thus appeareth the force of this truth which God almighty hath caused to be iustifyed euen by the mouthes of our aduersaries themselues And now by the resolution of this first point alone hauing clearly ouer throwne and disproued whatsoeuer the Bishop can say in the fiue first books of his Commonwealth against the Monarchy Primacy and Papacy of the Church of Rome the succession therof the subiection of other Bishops therūto and in fine against all Iurisdictions of the Church of Christ I come to the explication and proofe of the second poynt concerning the succession of the Bishop of Rome to S. Peter wherein the folly and impudency of this man will be more discouered and his whole Volume of Ecclesiasticall Cōmonwealth either extant or not extant will be sufficiently answered SECTION IX The continuance of S. Peters authority is proued by Scripture and by the Fathers and by the confession of many Protestants and therof is inferred the succession of the Pope to S. Peter IN the beginning of the former point concerning S. Peters authority I shewed how the Catholiks considered and distinguished a double power in the Apostles of Christ the one extraordinary Apostolicall whereby they had equall Iurisdiction ouer the Church of Christ which is therfore called Extraordinary because it dyed with them for if others had succeeded them therin their successours also by vertue therof had beene all Apostles The other ordinary and Episcopall wherein others were to succeed them for the gouernement of the Church and which in S. Peter alone was supreme absolute and independant but in the rest it was limitted to particuler places and therefore albeit as Apostles they had all equall authority ouer the rest of the Church yet they were not equall amongst themselues but S. Peter by vertue of his supreme Episcopall authority was the chiefe Pastour and head of the rest And now likewise for your greater light in the handling of this second poynt we must distinguish in S. Peter a double Episcopall power the one in particuler proper to the diocesse of Rome wherof he was the immediate Bishop the other vniuersall ouer the whole Church of Christ whereby albeit he be not the immediate Bishop of the particuler Churches yet is he the vniuersall supreme Pastour ouer them all As the Bishop of Canterbury for example although he be the immediate Bishop of Canterbury alone yet as he is Archbishop he hath the care of those other Churches and Bishopricks of our Nation which are vnder his charge This distinction therefore being granted first there is no question to be made but that the Bishop of Rome doth succeed vnto S. Peter as he was the immediate Bishop of that Diocesse For this is euident not only by the catalogue of the Bishops of Rome and tradition of the Church but also by the testimony of all Historiographers and ancient Fathers and in particuler of S. Irenaeus Tertullian S. Hierome S. Augustine Optatus and others as we shal see anone Which being commonly granted by all the learned Protestants because if the supreme authority of S. Peter did not dye with him as the generall power of the Apostles ouer the whole Church did cease with them but remayned and continued in the Church after his death thereof it would follow that the Pope who succeeded him in the one should succeed him also in the other as he who is made Bishop of Canterbury is thereby also made Archbishop and Primate of all the kingdome For this cause diuers Protestants haue affirmed that albeit the Pope do succeed to S. Peter as he was Bishop of Rome yet they deny that he succeeded him in his vniuersall Pastorall function because they say it dyed with him And therefore on the other side if the Catholikes can shew that the Primacy of S. Peter doth still remayne in the Church that being proued there will be no difficulty but that the Pope doth succeed to S. Peter as wel in his Primacy ouer the whole Church as in his particuler authority ouer the Church of Rome especially no other Bishop hauing euer pretended or made claime to that Succession but only the Bishop of Rome Wherefore that the Primacy of S. Peter was to descend and remayne to his successors is proued by these two places of Scripture Matt. 16. Ioan. 21. alleadged for the proofe of his Supremacy For in the first place our Sauiour promised that he would make him the foundation and build his Church vpon him in such manner as the gates of Hell should not preuayle against it Whereby as he signifieth that the Church was to remayne and indure perpetually so much more he promised that the Foundation therof was likewise to remayne from whence the Church it selfe was to receiue her perpetuall strength and duration origen in 16. Matt. Which Origen considering sayd very well that it was manifest albeit not expressed that the gates of Hell cannot preuaile neither against Peter nor against the Church for if they preuailed against the Rock whereon the Church is founded they should also preuaile against the Church it selfe The like also may be easily inferred out of the second place where S. Peter was made the vniuersall Pastour of the sheep of Christ and by consequence the sheep of all ages were commended vnto him and therfore not only to him in person but also to his seat and to his successours represented and contayned in him as in theyr seed and foundation In which
respect S. Augustine said Aug. l. de pasto c. 13. as you haue heard that S. Peter receiued his authority in the person of the Church that is to say present and to come for himselfe and his successors And in the same sense he teacheth els where that all good Pastors are in one Pastor And S. Cyprian affirmed as I haue alleadged Cyp. ep 4◠55. that in the Church there is one God one Christ one Chayre founded vpon Peter one Priest one Iudge for the tyme in the place of Christ. Which is also confirmed by the words of our Sauiour where he sayth There should be one sheepfold and one Pastour Ioan. 10.16 For as we gather thereof that the fold must alwayes be one so also the Pastour thereof being One who was S. Peter must alwayes remayne One in his successors and our Sauiour would thereby signify that the vnity of the fold depended of the vnity of that one Pastor to whom he meant to giue the charge and to commend the feeding of it Which also the Fathers demonstrate to be most necessary for the auoyding and extinguishing of Schismes and Heresyes in the Church of God as you haue seene before And some of the Protestants themselues as Whitgift Protestant Apology vbi supra Melancthon Luther and others do willingly confesse it and especially Doctour Couell who affirmeth that the Church should be in far worse case then the meanest common Wealth nay almost then a den of theeues without it I cannot omit his reason which is also the common reason of the Catholikes That if this Superiority were necessary amongst the Apostles much more was it necessary among other Bishops after their decease neither will I omit that it belonged vnto the charge and Pastorall Office of S. Peter to prouide that the sheep of Christ after his death might not be scattered and deuided for the want of one common and vniuersall Pastour Wherfore by this it is euident that the Pastorall function of S. Peter was to remayne in the Church of God And therefore it descended to the Bishop of Rome his only successour which is a most strong argument in it selfe may serue vs withall for a good step or degree to the rest of the proofes that follow SECTION X. The Supremacy of the Pope and his succession to S. Peter is proued by the titles of his supreme dignity in the ancient Fathers and by the foure first generall Councells VVHEREIN we will begin with those titles appellations which haue byn giuen by the Councells and ancient Fathers to the Bishops of Rome being the same that were giuen to S. Peter alone with many others equiualēt therunto For as in the Cōmonwealth none can haue the title of Cesar but he that succedeth vnto Cesar so also in the Church if the Pope inherite the same titles that were proper to S. Peter in respect of his supreme dignity it must needs be graunted that he succedeth likewise in the place of the same dignity to S. Peter First therefore he is called the head of the Church Chalcedon act 1 which title the whole Councell of Chalcedon for example being one of the foure first and receiued in England by act of Parliament gaue to S. Leo Bishop of Rome in their Epistle to him where also the Church of Rome is called the head of all Churches Secondly Epist ad Dam. S. Hierome calleth Pope Damasus the foundation and Rock of the Church and said that he knew the Church to be buylt vpon him S. Augustine likewise tearmeth the sea of Rome the Rock of the Church Thirdly S. Ambrose intitleth Pope Siricius the Pastour of the flock of our Lord. Fourthly Epist 81. ad Cyril he is tearmed the Apostolicall man his seat the Apostolicall Seat his Office Apostleship and his dignity Apostolicall sanctity as you may easily obserue in the authorityes that follow which words without any other addition of place or person cannot be giuen to any but to him alone For the like supreame authority and Iurisdiction vnto his ouer the whole Church hauing been granted only to the Apostles and after there decease being deriued from S. Peter the Prince of the Apostles vnto the Pope alone in these two respects the excellency of his vniuersall authority descending from the Prince of the Apostles is properly called Apostolicall which tearme by it selfe alone without limitation cannot therefor be giuen to any other Fiftly in the Councell of Chalcedon he was intitled the vniuersall Archbishop and Patriarch of great Rome which stile albeit S. Gregory refused in the sense as it was vsed by Iohn Bishop of Constantinople and that to abate his pryde S. Gregory began to write himselfe neither Patriarch nor Bishop but Seruus seruorum Dei yet he admitted the Councell of Chalcedon Ioan Diac. in eius vita l. 2. cap. 1. in the particuler vse of this tearme signifying that the Pope was Bishop of the vniuersall Church as also many of S. Gregoryes Predecessours had intitled themselues before him Sixthly Greg. l. 4. epist 32. Bern. l. 2. de consid S. Bernard among others called the Pope the Vicar of Christ Stephen Archbishop of Carthage writing to Pope Damasus in the name of three Affrican Councells directeth his Epistle To the most Blessed Lord aduanced with Apostolicall dignity Apostolico culmine sublimato the holy Father of Fathers Damasus Pope and chiefe Bishop of all Prelates Lastly to be short the word Pope without any addition is giuen only to the Pope In which sense we read in the Chalcedon Councell The most blessed and Apostolicall Man the Pope giueth vs this in charge where also he is called Act. 16. Pope of the vniuersall Church And in the Breuiary of Liberatus we read that none is Pope ouer the Church of the whole world but only the Roman Bishop Thirdly the succession of the Pope to S. Peter and the supreame authority of the Roman Church in regard thereof is proued by the Councells wherof a long treatise might be made but for breuityes sake because the Protestants seeme to respect and reuerence with S Gregory the great the foure first generall Councells as the foure Euangelists and that they are also receiued by act of Parliament anno 10. of Queene Elizabeth I will alleadge no other but those and out of them so much alone as may be sufficient to establish the Popes Supremacy and to let you see That if the Catholikes might be admitted to any kind of iust and equall try all how easily it were for them to claime Toleration to iustify the Religion euen by the statutes at the cōmon Law which are now in force in England The sixt Canon therefore of the first Councell of Nice beginneth in this manner The Roman Church hath alwayes had Primacy and lot the ancient custome contynue in Aegypt or Lybia and Pentapolis that the Bishop of Alexandria haue power ouer them all wherof the reasō followeth quoniam
answering a secret obiection that the Pope might erre because a wicked man might be Pope For sayth he though some traytor or Iudas should haue entred into that rancke or order yet this could nothing preiudice the Church nor the innocent Christians or beleeuers for whom our Lord had prouided by saying of euill gouernours do what they say but do not what they do for they say and do not to the end that the assured hope of the faythfull relying it selfe not vpon mā but vpon God or vpon the word of our Sauiour they might neuer be deuyded by tempest of sacrilegious Schism Where he proueth that no euill Pope can erre because if that could be the innocent Christians following our Sauiours commaundment should be thereby deceiued Cont. ep Fundamēti cap. 4. and deuyded in Schisme And therfore he also professeth that the succession of Priests from the seat of Peter vnto the Bishop liuing in his time held him in the Catholike Church making that an argument of the true doctrine therof And comparing the communion of the Apostolike head with the members to the vnion of the mystical vine with the branches In psal cont part Donat. he exhorteth the Donatists thereunto in these words Come brethren if you please that you may be grafted in the vyne It is a grief vnto vs when we see you to lye thus cut off Number the Priests euen from the very seat of Peter and in that order of Fathers see who and to whome each one succeeded That seat is the Rocke which the proude gates of Hell do not ouercome vnder standing thereby that they who were cut off from the communion of that seat and succession were also cut off from the Church of Christ and that according to the promise of our Sauiour neither they nor their errours should be able to prouayle against it Lib. 2. cōt duas epist Pelag. Lib. 1. cont lūli cap. 4. And affirming against the Pelagians that the antiquity of the Catholike fayth was cleerly knowne by the letters of venerable Innocentius the Pope he inferreth that to departe from his sentence was to straggle from the Roman Church making it by this inferrence a certaine signe of departure from the Church of Christ And rebuking a certaine Pelagian Me thinkes sayth he that part of the world should suffice thee meaning for his beliefe in matters of fayth wherein our Lord would that the chiefe of his Apostles should be crowned with a most glorious Martyrdome vnto the President of which Church being the blessed Innocentius if thou wouldest haue giuen care long since in the dangerous tyme of thy youth thou hadst freed thy selfe from the snares of Pelagians For what could that holy man answeare to the Affrican Countells but that which the Apostolike seat and the Roman Church doth anciently hold with other Wherein he teacheth that the definition of the Pope ought to suffice vs and that he cannot determine otherwise then according to the ancient Fayth Optatus likewise recounteth the lyneall succession of the Popes and beginneth the same in this manner Therefore the Chayre is vnited which is the first of her gists therein Peter sate the first to whome succeeded Linus c. numbring the rest vnto Siricius who liued in his tyme. And a little before he sayth it ought to be seene who sate first in the Chayre where he sate And afterwards tho◠canst not deny but thou knowest that the Episcopall Chayre was giuen first to S. Peter in the Citty of Rome wherin Peter the head of all the Apostles sate in which one Chayre vnity ought to be kept of all men Signifying therby that Peter the head of all the Apostles sate first therin to shew that all those that are members of the Church are bound to vnite themselues vnto it Tertullian is also one of those that describeth the Catalogue of the Roman Bishops which he composeth in verse beginning with S. Peter and ending with Higinius Pius Anicetus And in his booke of Prescriptions he sayth thou hast Rome whose authority vnto vs also is ready at hand so giuing his reader to vnderstand that the authority of Rome was an argument euer ready to confute an heretike And thē followeth A Church happy in her state to whō the Apostles powred forth or gaue abundantly their whole doctrine togeather with their bloud meaning no doubt that they powred forth their whole doctrine into it to be preserued therin for euer in respect wherof he tearmeth it happy per excellentiam which Irenaeus doth more fully expresse when he sayth that we must not go to others to seeke the truth which we may easily haue from the Church Irenaeus l. 3. cap 3. wherein the Apostles as it were in a most rich treasure haue layd togeather all those things which are of truth that from thence euery one who will may receiue the same And thus much of those Fathers that do not only set downe the Popes succession to S. Peter Tom. 1. Cōcil ante Concil Calced but also plainly teach that his fayth cannot fayle because he holdeth the place of Peter wherein none of the other Fathers disagree or dissent from thē Petrus Chrysologus in his epistle to Euthiches the Heretike condemned afterward in the Calcedon Councel exhorteth him in this māner We exhort thēe venerable brother to attend attentiuely vnto those things which are written from the most blessed Pope of the Citty of Rome For blessed Peter liuing and gouerning in that his proper seat gaue the truth of fayth to all those that secke it which may serue for a cleere exposition of the words of Tertullian and Irenaeus afore sayd Prosper S. Augustines Scholler inferreth as most absurd Prosp cōt Collit cap. 20. that according to the cēsure of his aduersary Pope Innocentius should haue erred a man sayth he most worthy of the Seat of Peter And likewise that the holy Seat of Blessed Peter should haue erred which spake vnto the whole world by the mouth of Pope Sozimus Cap. 41. And againe that Pope Innocentius strock the heads of wicked errour with the Apostolicall dagger And that Pope Sozimus with his sentence gaue force to the Affrican Councells and armed the hands of all the Fathers with the sword of Peter to the cutting off of the wicked And that Rome by the principality of Apostolicall Preisthood De vocat gentium lib. 2. was made greater by the Arke of Religion then by the Throne of secular power S. Ambrose sayth Ambros cap. 3 1. ad Tim. that though all the world be of God yet his house is sayd to be the Church wherof at this day Damasus is the Rector And els where He demaunded the Bishop sayth he whether he agreed with the Catholike Bishops that is whether he agreed with the Roman Church Orat. in Satyrum In which words he maketh it all one to agree with the Church of Rome and with the Catholike Church And againe he saith
following Melchiades For these meaning Bishops our Lord reserued to his owne iudgment and this priuiledge he committed alone to the Blessed key-bearer Peter in his place which prerogatiue doth iustly accrew to his sea to hold and inherit the same in all future tymes because euen among the Apostles there was some distinction of power Bonifacius in his 2. epistle to the Bishops of France Bonifacius speaking of the iudgment of Bishops In Apol. 2. pro Athans in weighty causes concludeth thus It is necessary that they be confirmed by our authority Iulius the first in his epistle ad Orientales in the cause of Athanasius the Patriarch of Alexandria Iulius asketh them whether they were ignorant that it was the custome to write vnto his Church if any Bishop were called in question of suspition that from thence that which was iust might be defined And a little after he sayth therof Those thinges which we receiued from the blessed Peter the Apostle we fignify vnto you which I would not haue written imagining that they were known vnto you vnles the facts themselues had troubled you Gelasius in his epistle to the Bishops of Dardania sayth Gelasius That the Church of Rome hath the knowledge of all things through the world because the sea of the Blessed Peter the Apostle hath authority to dissolue whatsoeuer hath beene bound by the sentence of any other Bishops as vnto whome it belongeth to iudge of all Churches neither is it lawfull for any other to iudge of her iudgment Sixtus 2. Epist. 1. Sixtus 2. pronounceth that it is lawfull for Bishops to appeale vnto the Apostolike sea to whose disposition the ancient authority of the Apostles and their successours and of the Canons hath reserued all the greater Ecclesiasticall causes and the iudgment of Bishops because Bishops are blamed that deale otherwise with their brethren then is pleasing to the Pope of that seat Damasus Theod. lib. 5. hist c. 1 Damasus in his epistle to the Bishops of Numidia admonisheth them that they should not permit to deferre vnto him as their head all things which might be subiect to disputation or question as the custome sayth he hath alwayes beene Lastly concerning the ordination of Bishops Leo. Epist 82. Leo writing to his vicar in the East the Bishop of Thessalonia commaundeth that the Metropolitan should certify his vicar of the person of the Bishop that was to be consecrated of the consent of the clergy and of the people that with his authority the ordination which was duly celebrated might be confirmed And S. Gregory in his epistle to Constantia the Empresse Gregorius aduertising her that the Bishop of Salonae a Predecessour of this our fugitiue Bishop who is now with you was ordayned without his knowledge or the priuity of his vicar or legate Responsalis addeth concerning the same facta res est and such a thing is done as neuer hapned vnder any of our former Princes SECTION XIIII The Popes Supremacy is proued by the auncient and continuall practise thereof in the Catholike Church THVS hauing proued the Supremacy of the Pope as well in matter of fayth as in iurisdiction and gouernement by the sentences of so many Popes which according to the doctrine of the Fathers are aboue all exceptions and permit no answere from any man that would be accompted a Catholike It remayneth for the conclusion and most full and absolute proofe of this matter to confirme the same by the receiued practise therof and approued execution of this authority in the Church of God which I will do very briefly because I consider that I haue dwelt too long in this matter already Wherefore concerning Councells it shall be sufficient to say that such as haue resisted the Pope or his Legates in their definitions haue alwayes erred as the second Councell of Ephesus and the Councell of Constantinople in the tyme of Nicolaus the first and that such Councells as were reiected by the Pope haue had no authority in the Church of Christ Whereof Gelasius the Pope giueth many examples in his booke de Anathemate and in his epistle to the Bishops of Dardania And in particuler Theodoretus speaking of the Councell of Ariminum sayth That it ought not to haue any force the Bishop of Rome whose sentence before all other was to be expected not consenting thereunto And in the Councell of Chalcedon Dioscorus the Patriarch of Alexandria was commaunded not to sit amongst the Bishops because he presumed to call a Councell without the authority of the Apostolike seat Epist ad Solitar Quod numquam licuit numquam factum est which say they was neuer lawfull was neuer done And the famous Athanasius speaking of Constantius the Arian Emperour who tooke vpon him to be president in a Councell which he assembled at Millane Who sayth he seeing him to make himself Prince of Bishops in their decrees and president in their Ecclesiasticall iudgment may not worthily say that he is the same abhomination of desolation which was fortold by the Prophet Daniel And as for the sentence of the Pope allwayes receiued in matter of fayth that may suffice which Bellarmine sayth That if for the extinguishing of 7. Heresyes the first seauen generall Councells were called aboue a 100. heresyes haue been extinguished by the Apostolike sea alone with the help of particuler Councells yet I cannot omit to confirme the same by some few examples A Cōtrouersy being risen about the dignity of the holy Ghost Zozomenus recordeth That the Bishop of Rome Lib. 6. cap. 22. being aduertised therof wrote his letters to the Bishops of the East that they should belieue togeather with the Bishops and Priests of the West the Blessed Trinity to be consubstantiall and equall in glory Which being done sayth he and the matter being iudged by the Roman Church all men were quiet and so that Cōtrouersy seemed to haue an end Prosper cōt Collat. cap. 41. S. Prosper sayth that Innocentius of blessed memory stroke vpon the head of the wicked Pelagian heresy with his Apostolicall dagger and that Celestine deliuered our Countrey from that disease And a little after that by his care Scotland was made Christian In the second age or Century of the Church in the tyme of those horrible persecutions the Controuersy of rebaptizing those that were baptized by heretikes began to grow hoat and the tempest was so great that if it did not cast downe some principall bulwarkes of the Church it made the strongest Towers to shake At which tyme in hatred of Heretikes Firmilianus an excellent man with the other Bishops of the East decreed rebaptization in the case aforesayd and that those were to be punished that doubted thereof In Africa S. Cyprian and very many other Bishops ioyning with him in sundry Councells declared their opinions in fauour thereof though they would not condemne the rest of the world that practised the contrary In Aegipt also Dionisius Patriarch
treason Especially charging the Pope as he doth with false doctrine which he would haue you belieue to be the cause of his schisme For the Pope being the immouable Rock and the foundation of true Fayth which Christ himselfe hath layd the Bishop in this case fitly resembleth one that launching from the shore whereupon he fixeth his eye should sweare and contest that the land departed from the boat and that the boat it selfe stood still or remayned imoueable In which case I cannot tell whether he in the boat should shew himselfe more ridiculous to the beholders then the Bishop doth manifest himselfe by this occasion to his iudicious Readers And thus much may suffice for the Bishops schisme Heresy is defined by S. Augustine August de vera Rel. c. 5. 6. 7. to be a peruerse doctrine contrary to the rule of truth which himselfe doth better expound where he sayth That it is an opinion declyning from the rule and turning men away from the cōmunion of the Catholike Church where he vnderstandeth the rule of truth to be no other then the doctrine of the Catholike Church for without this ground all other rules are insufficient as hath been shewed and the same if it were necessary might easily be confirmed out of the rest of the Fathers Wherefore the doctrine of the Catholike Church being made knowne and manifested vnto vs either by the common beliefe of all the faithfull or by the vniforme consent and common doctrine of all the Fathers or by a generall Councell or by the definition of the Pope as before I noted hauing conuinced the Bishop of schisme though much against his will let vs see how he can cleare and shift himselfe from the imputation of heresy For first it cannot be denied That whatsoeuer the Catholikes at this day do maintaine to be the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles against the Protestants was the generall beliefe of the vniuersall Church when Luther began to broach his new doctrine And therefore the Bishop condemning the Pope of many errours in poynts of Controuersy betweene him and the Protestants Vbi supra condemneth likewise the vniuersall Church of that tyme which as S. Augustine sayth is most insolent madnes extreme impiety and hayre-braynd or furious ignorance Secondly you haue heard how the auncient Fathers of the primitiue Church haue condemned for heresyes aboue twenty seuerall opinions of the Protestants And therefore the Bishop being now a Protestant is likewise aboue twenty tymes condemned by them And to omit that other seuerall sects of Protestants do all condemne him in like manner the generall Councell of Trent hath defined the doctrine of the Pope against the Protestants to be Orthodoxall and the contrary opinions to be likewise hereticall And the Bishop seeming to belieue that a generall Councell lawfully called and confirmed cannot erre in matter of fayth as hauing the speciall assistance of the holy Ghost leading vnto all truth according to the promise of our Sauiour hath no more reason to contemne the Councel of Trent then to reiect the Councell of Nyce or any other generall Councell Lastly hauing proued by the common doctrine of all the Fathers that the Bishop of Rome being successour of S. Peter cannot erre in defyning of Controuersyes that belong to fayth and that the Fathers put no difference betweene the Catholike and the Roman Church but that the same Church which is surmaned Catholike because it is vniuersall is also called the Roman Church because the Roman Church being founded in the Seat of Peter is alwayes conioyned and vnyted with the Catholike Church it followeth thereof that the Bishop being condemned for an Heretike by the Bishop of Rome successour vnto S. Peter and by the Church of Rome founded in the Seat of Peter according to the iudgment of the auncient Fathers standeth likewise condemned in this respect also by the whole Church And therefore hauing so many dreadfull sentences lying heauily vpon him vnlesse he amend and make peace with his aduersary Mat. 5.25 while he is yet vpon the way what can he expect at the day of iudgement but that Christ himselfe withall his Saints and Angells togeather with the whole world should condemne him And with this we will proceed to his second defence which is the authority and example of S. Cyprian wherein he seemeth to set vp his rest SECTION XXXI VVherein is shewed that the authority and example of S. Cyprian alleadged by the Bishop against the Pope ouerthroweth the principall grounds of the Protestant Religion THE words therfore of S. Cyprian in the Councell of Carthage to the Bishops there assembled alleadged by him are these that follow Iudging no man sayth S. Cyprian or depryning no man of our communion though he shal be of a contrary opinion For none of vs doth make himselfe Bishop of Bishops or compelleth his followers with tyrannicall terror to the necessary of yeilding to him whereas euery Bishop is to haue his owne proper iudgement in respect of the liberty and power which is giuen vnto him so that he cannot be iudged of another as he himselfe cannot iudge another But let vs all expect the iudgment of our Lord Iesus Christ who only and alone hath power to place vs in the gouernement of his Church and to iudge of our actions The example of S. Cyprian he propoundeth in such manner as that accusing S. Stephen of indiscretion and that with his excommunications he was falling headlong into the mischiefe of schisme he sayth That S. Cyprian dissenting from the Roman and almost from the vniuersal Church about the Baptisme of Heretikes and being strong in his owne opinion and esteeming Stephen the Pope to erre vehemently and all the rest to be in manifest errour yet notwithstanding he neuer suffered the band of vnion and Christian charity to be broken betweene them but chose to communicate not only with Stephen being of a contrary opinion and indeauour against him but also with those whome he reputed to be altogeather impure being moued thereunto because Stephen had receiued them into communion with him rather then by schisme to make a diuision in the Church of God By which authority and example of S. Cyprian he thinketh to haue clearely discouered where the fault lyeth and to whom the crime of Schisme is to be imputed and so thinke I too And here to curry a little fauour with him or rather to curry him with some fauour because he hath so well deserued it in this allegation of S. Cyprian albeit I cannot learne that euer he read or heard Rhetorike among the Iesuits as he himselfe affirmeth yet I will not deny it but rather I will acknowledge that he hath not been altogeather a Truant in the Schoole of Eloquence For though his booke be very small yet he hath been able to deliuer little or no matter at all in very many words And he seemeth to couer many vntruths vnder the colour of Rhetoricall Hyperboles And in this
at the least no lesse vncertayne then the thing he proueth euen to himself as euery Reader may easily perceiue And therfore to perswade his friends that he himselfe at the least is well perswaded of it he should haue declared what rules of Scripture they were that he obserued which perchance would haue troubled him more then his great booke with the 10. hornes which was no lesse then 10. whole yeares a making But this man hauing lost his credit at home and being new come into a strange Countrey taketh vp all vpon trust without pawne or surety which is another point wherein he also resembleth Monsignor fate voi And in the end withall his borrowing like vnto his predecessour he may chance though in another kind to be well beaten for his labour And now I might here dispute how improbable the story is which he telleth and how grosse the inuention which he seeketh to put vpon you That hauing no knowledge of your doctrine either by Speach or Reading any of your bookes he should fall iust vpon your Parlamentall Religion For first both Geneua and Saxony were in his way and supposing that the English Angells might haue more power with him then the poore Guardian spirits of those other Countryes Secondly I might obiect his vehement suspition wherof he speaketh pag. 8. That Catholike Authours did not faithfully deliuer the opinions of the Protestants against whom they wrote Which if it be true no man can tell how possibly he should know what points they held either in England or in any other Countrey against the Church of Rome Wherof it would follow that at his comming from Venice he could only be perswaded that the Romane Religion was false and that all other were sufficiently true and that therevpon he resolued to carry his sheres with him and to cut out his Religion according to the fashion of the Countrey where he came In the meane time forsaking his former fayth which though neuer so white his owne pride and malice against the Pope made him thinke to be black and bedecking himselfe with the party-coloured feathers of all other moderne Religions to be the better welcome in all places Pag. 15. we shall plucke him anone like Esops crow and shew him to be naked without any religion at all as you will see heereafter But for the present letting his strange conuersion passe for a Protestant Myracle that which I lay hold on at this tyme and whereupon I must insist a little before I go any further is the first part of his Argument wherein he calleth God and his conscience to witnesse That the persuasion of no mortall man of any sort came euer to his eaves which might moue him to this determination That no man at any time did euer inuite him to it That he vsed the counsell of none at all nor euer conferred or spake with any man about it Pag. 4. That he neuer read any Protestant booke And that if any Roman Prelate detested such bookes he detested them aboue measure For if this be true then say I that hereof it wil euidently follow that he was deluded by the Diuell and was not directed by the spirit of God as he pretendeth And so without any more ado as our Sauiour sayd of the wicked seruant Out of his owne mouth you may condemne him For the first part of his argument ouerthroweth not only the second but also the principall conclusion of his whole booke and sheweth that the alteration he hath made could not proceed from God Which now I will proue vnto you by three arguments very plaine and in my opinion most conuincing SECTION I. The Bishop his first Reason turned against himselfe And from thence are deduced three arguments which do plainly proue that he was deluded by the Diuell BVT first you must note that being in Venice if he had listed to conferre he could not haue wanted sufficient meanes and choice of men with whome he might haue treated most securely For besids al Catholike Deuines with whome he might haue dealt in Confession and vnder the seale of secresy there were others inough of his owne hayre both Italians and strangers and some also of our owne Nation Qui se putant aliquid esse by whose acquaintance also he might haue procured bookes of al your Authours out of Germany France and England And perchance in those declining parts vnder the State of Venice there be too many of such bookes already Supposing therfore which cannot be denied that he might easily haue gotten both men and bookes if he would as they say but haue wished for them out of his owne mouth against himselfe and against the spirit that brought him thither I reason thus The spirit of God is the spirit of wisdome in which respect Goodnes in Scripture is tearmed the Wisdome of God as Vice on the contrary is called Folly And therfore such as are gouerned by the spirit of God Prou. 8.12 are gouerned by wisdome and by the rules of wisdome set down in Scripture But Wisdom dwelleth in Counsell according whereunto it was prophesied of our Sauiour who is the wisdom of his Father Esa 9.6 that his name should be called Admirable Counsellour Esa 11.2 and that the Spirit of Counsell should rest vpon him with which agreeth that which he sayd where two or three be gathered togeather in my name I am there in the midst of them Matth. 18.20 And who knoweth not that one of the principall gifts of his Holy Spirit is called Donum Consilij Which is nothing els but a certaine effect of his grace in the harts of al his children wherby they are aptly disposed to receiue spirituall aduice and wholesom counsell Whereof it followeth that the Bishop who so much despised all kind of counsell in this his probation of spirit could not be gouerned by the spirit of God nor by the rules of wisedome set downe in Scripture For further profe wherof you may remember how in the bookes of Wisdom there is nothing more recōmended vnto vs Prou. 2.12 then to order our affayres by counsell Counsell shall keep thee that thou mayst be deliuered from the euill way and from the man that speaketh peruersly That is to say from the way of perdition and from the Diuell from whom the Bishop admitting no counsell had no meanes to be deliuered Againe Eccles 38.27 Confer thy buysines with thy friend My Sonne do nothing without counsell and of thy doing thou shalt neuer repent thee Which the Bishop in this weighty busines of his soule not forseeing may be sure that the scourge of repentance will follow after him Prou. 15.22 Againe Where there is no counsell there is distraction or dissipation of thoughts But where there are many Counsellours cogitations are confirmed Now the thoughts of the Bishop in this case wanting Counsellours to confirme them could therefore tend to no other end but only to that dissipation diuision which
and were preferred to Ecclesiasticall dignity could be allowed to read any such authours Thirdly he sayth that from the first yeare of his Clergy he had nourished in himselfe an inborne desire of the vnion of al Christian Churches inquyring what might be the cause of their Schisme which did excruciate and torment his mynd and doth still consume and wast him as you may perceiue by looking vpon him with such grief and sorrow as is wonderfull Fourthly telling you vnder hand pag. 11. That leauing the Society of Iesus where he had read Mathematickes Rethoricke Logicke and Philosophy preached often done them other domesticall seruice for the which they were very sory to leaue him he sayth Fiftly page 11. and 12. That being made a Bishop and falling to read bookes of printted Sermons Quadragesimalls and others for the exercise of his Episcopall function in preaching he found great abuse of Scripture in them apocriphall and ridiculous examples inuentions of Auarice and Ambition not without superstition wherewith the people were deluded Sixtly he sayth pag. 13. That in reading the Fathers he obserued that his maisters had taught him many thinges against them and that the Ecclesiasticall discipline of our tyme did differ very much from the auncient practise therof These considerations I haue called dispositions which somewhat prepared his mynd to make mutation of Religion because as he saith they made him to see as it were a farre off that matters went not well and because all this while he did not fully consent but made some kind of resistance vnto them Wherein before we passe any further not to confound you with too much matter togeather let vs consider whether that which he hath brought be of any moment to perswade his Reader that his new beleefe proceded from God And to begin with his vehement suspition which was the first seed from whence his vocation sprung wherein and in the other three assertions which follow I wil be content to do him that courtesy which he refused to shew vnto his Maisters and to suppose he cyteth the booke of his conscience aright though none but himselfe can looke into it it appeareth euidently thereby that this new seed of suspition was nothing els but the worst kind of cockle which our enemy and his the Father of Heresy is wont to sow vpon the good Corne of Christ For suspition is nothing els but an opinion of euill without any iust or sufficient ground as the Rhetoritians S. Thom. 2.2 q. 60. art 3.4 Philosophers and Deuines define it And therefore it alwayes importeth some fault and some iniury done to the party who is thereby wronged because vniustly suspected whereof I maruell how your learned Bishop could be ignorant Wherefore to suspect and concerue an ill opinion of so many as he did in a matter of such importance without any reason or sufficient cause was a sinne and that a great one especially in him who at that tyme thought himselfe bound in conscience to belieue entirely the whole doctrine of the Church of Rome For if to doubt of any article of Faith without inclyning to either side be an act of Heresy as all Deuines do affirme then much more to suspect which is to inclyne and to giue some consent to any motion contrary to the very ground of Faith must needs be Heresy But you will say the Bishop made resistance thereunto and therefore he did not sinne against his conscience To which I answere If when the thought therof came first to his mynd he did repell it that then in that case it neuer grew to be any suspition but if once it came to be suspition as he affirmeth it was then hauing cōceiued an opinion of so great euil vpon sleight occasion or rather no occasion at all it cannot be denyed but that he sinned in admitting the same though he might do well afterward in changing his mynd and in opposing himselfe against it And therefore this suspition being so great a sinne it could not be inspired into him from God Almighty So as it can no way be denyed but that this first motion arising in the Bishops mynd against the Catholike Religion was the bad seed sowne by the Diuell which sprung vp out of his owne Malice Pryde Leuity and Inconstancy from whence neither a good tree nor good fruite can be expected For as you know Paruus error in principio magnus in fine and if the light it selfe wherewith he began to worke be darkenes then the works themselues that proceded from it must needs be the workes of extreme darkenes Let vs now proceed to the increase of this his strong and vehement suspition as he tearmeth it occasioned as he saith by the strict prohibition of such books as are cōtrary to the Roman doctrine Which likewise we shall find that as it begun without reason so was it augmented vpon a very false and friuolous reason and as it sprung out of pryde and leuity so was it fed and nourished with pryde and curiosity And therefore the new strength or force which it receiued could not proceed from the spirit of God For supposing as all Catholikes do and as he then did that such kind of bookes are full fraught with the poyson of Heresy which is the most damnable vice of all other it standeth with great reason that they should in no case admit such dangerous warres amongst them for such bookes being once admitted they easily passe from maisters and learned men to the hands not only of Schollers but also of other simple people who not knowing what they are but feeding of all the bread that comes from the Baker and of all the dishes that are set before them insteed of wholesome meat should fall vpon poyson for whose soules their negligent pastors should answere to God at the day of Iudgment For I pray you if some vnquiet and ambitious spirit in other Countreys should make clayme to the Crowne of England and call in question the Kings title though neuer so cleere with vs do you thinke that the Pleas and Processe of such a man should be remitted to the reading of euery yong student or Counsellour at Law in the Ins of Court especially if this Claymer or Pretender had got some Lawyers to be of his side and had made a party which followed him and sought to set footing in England Much more is it necessary for those that haue the gouerment of soules to be iealous of their safty to be vigilant for the preseruation of peace amongst them But you will say vnto me why then are Catholike Latin writers permitted to be read by our ministers and others here in England to which I answere that the case is farre different For first England was neuer yet fully Protestant the Catholike number remayning still very great and therefore the state of England in this respect might do well to follow the example of the primitiue Church wherein after that the Christian Religion
was publiquely professed because a great part of the Gentills were not then conuerted not only their bookes and writings were tolerated but their religion it selfe although it were most grosse Idolatry was permitted Besides in England the Catholikes being many wise and learned do not cease by alledging most pregnant proofes important reasons and authenticall testimonyes to mayntaine the truth of their cause and to draw others to imbrace their doctrine In which regard it standeth the Protestants vpon and especially the Ministers to read their bookes thereby to defend themselues and others as well as they can from the force of the Catholike arguments brought against them And for the same cause in France and in Germany and in all other Countreyes where many religions are allowed the Catholike Students and other secular men are vsually permitted to read all kind of bookes the better therby to refute their errours Which this good Bishop thought good to conceale for his owne aduantage But in those other Catholike Countreys which were neuer yet infected with Heresy and where there is no occasion to impugne it there it importeth that the Pastours be very vigilant to keep it out For Heresy being once gotten in it crepeth like a canker and at last breaketh out like a raging fire and burneth so dreadfully that whole Cittyes and Kingdomes and Nations haue been consumed with it in a very short space as may appeare in Greece in Asia in Africa other Countreys And therfore in all ages not only the Fathers Doctours and Prelates but also Men Women and Children of the Catholike Church haue euer concurred with all speed and with might and mayne to quench and ex inguish the least sparke therof By which meanes it is wonderfull to consider in how short a tyme the bookes and writings of all the ancient Heretikes in former ages haue been consumed and abolished by the zeale of Catholikes In so much as of so many millions of their Volumes there is not at this day one left remayning But this good man the Bishop is of another mynd who if it were possible would dig those authours out of hell againe to see whether they were truely cited by chose that wrote against them And for the present he would permit without any occasion such mens workes to be familiarly read whom the Apostle forbiddeth to be saluted Our mother Eue out of a vayne curiosity conferring with the serpent whome she might thinke to be an Angell Gen. 3.2 fell into Heresy but this man out of a curiosity more then monstrous Ioan. 10.3.5 would perswade the sheep of Christ to heare the voyce of a stranger and to conferre with that serpent whome they know and confesse to be the Diuell Wherfore this spirit of his being so contrary to the spirit of the Church to the spirit of the Apostle to the spirit of Christ himselfe and in fine contrary to the light of reason in the Gouernement both of Church and Common Wealth you may easily indge from whence it commeth and to what end it tendeth Whereby you will also coniecture what vnion and coniunction may be of the East and of the West of the North and South with the desire whereof this good Bishop is so much tormented For it can be nothing els but a horrible confusion of them all and the vtter ouerthrow of Christian Religion as we shall see hereafter In the meane tyme that you may the better perceiue his naturall and inborne desire of vnity wherewith his poore hart is so much tormented he wil make it knowne himselfe you vnto by the effects thereof For presently after he tells you that he deuided himself from the vnion of that Society wherunto he was vowed and separated himselfe from the body of that order whereof he was a member like a branch from his vyne from the which being once cut of it was likely he could be good for nothing but to be cast into the fire The great comendations he giueth of his owne learned laborious life whiles he was in Religion I can hardly belieue For writing this booke as he doth to no other end but only to blaze his owne prayses you need not doubt but that euery where he speaketh the most of himselfe or more then the most And supposing it to be true it amounteth God he knoweth but to a very small matter especially being done for humane prayse wherewith he payeth himselfe insteed of others that should reward him for it It may be that in respect of his proud and vnquiet spirit his Superiours were inforced to proue him in many things to see what good they might make of him But in the end it should seeme by his going forth which was like to be vpon some discontentment that they found him fit for nothing The Order of the Society of Iesus may fittly be compared to the sea that casteth forth the dead bodyes or to a vessell of new wine which purgeth all the trash and corrupt matter that is mingled with it and therefore they easily permit such as be not fit for them to depart from them least by staying amongst them being stopt vp close like corruption togeather with the pure wine they should breake the vessell it selfe wherein they are inclosed And albeit for this cause it be more easy for such as are ill disposed to quit themselues of the Society then for any other Religious men to be freed frō other Orders yet the dreadfull iudgments of God haue beene so many and so wonderfull vpon those that haue wrought themselues out of their Company that an honest and a pious mind should be more terrified therewith then with the prisons and fetters of other Orders Whereby also God himselfe hath made manifest to the world that the dispensation which is somtime giuen to those that are dismissed the Society doth acquit them of their vowes according to the cause of their departure which if it be good and sufficient it taketh away the whole obligation but if it be not as I feare me this mans was not they are not discharged before God and their conscience but they remayne still in the laps and in the state of Apostasy from their Religion But you will say he wanted not sufficient cause to depart for he that desireth to be made a Bishop desireth a good worke and this man went forth to be made a Bishop To which I answere that the worke of a Bishop is good but not the desire to be made a Bishop Chry. hom 3. in oper imperf hō 3. in Matt. To desire Primacy in the Church according to S. Chrysostome is neither iust nor profitable And Primacy sayth he desireth those that desire it not and abhorreth those that desire it And the reason is because the worke of a Bishop is a calling of such perfection and such dignity also danger ioyned with it that whosoeuer he be that thinketh himselfe so sufficient for it and so worthy of it as to sue and
lesse pouerty of meanes and matter in buylding without a foundation as much want of proofe to persuade in giuing you nothing but wordes insteed of other substance But you will reply whatsoeuer he sayth here he promiseth to proue and pursue hereafter in his Booke of Ecclesiasticall Common Wealth I pray you were it fit that when a souldier cometh into the feild to fight he should come without weapons and should thinke either to ouercome his aduersary or to satisfy the beholders of his prowesse by saying that he hath an excellent sword a making Were it not absurd that a Scholler comming to dispute of any Probleme should thinke to satisfy the arguments of his aduersary or to perswade his auditours that the truth were of his side by affirming that he would or that he had composed a great volume of that matter This booke being made by the Bishop to proue his spirit to disproue his aduersaryes and to approue his change of Religion to all those that should here thereof now was the tyme to vse his Weapons to shew his Wisedome and to bring forth his euidence And therefore if he sayle of his proofes it is an euident signe that he is altogeather destitute and vnprouided of them Neither is it true which he sayth That when his worke cometh forth whatsoeuer he hath heere affirmed shal be there proued For how will he proue that Rome hath coyned not a 100. or a 1000. new articles of Fayth in one day but as he sayth innumerable and that euery day How will he proue that the Church of Rome suppresseth the Councells Doth it not make them a rule of Fayth hath it not alwayes preserued them doth it not mayntayne and defend them from the calumniations and contradictions which the Heretikes of these dayes oppose against them How will he proue that we belieue the whole spirit of Christ to remayne in the Pope alone and that all which hath been sayd heretofore in the honour of the vniuersall Church must be applyed to the Court and Pallace of the Pope alone Do we belieue that to be Catholike one holy visible to haue conuerted Nations and Kingdomes which are some of the supernaturall prayses and excellencyes of the Catholike Church whereby she shyneth like the sunne in the Firmament aboue all other Congregations or assemblyes Do we belieue I say as an article of our Fayth that these things agree to the Pope and his Pallace alone That the Pope or his Court is extended ouer al the world That the Vnity Holynes Visibility and Miracles of the Church and of the Pastors and Saints thereof are only to be found in the Pope and his Pallace and that all other Catholike Nations and Kingdomes are excluded from the participation of these graces can this be proued thinke you And can it stand with the grauity and reuerent authority of a Bishop to affirme these things with promise to confirme them making them also the ground of his conuersion Could any ignorant shamelesse Minister whose learning were nothing els but lying Could any Zani or Counterfait that had been hyred to rayle against the Pope haue spoken more fondly more intemperatly or more absurdly The innumerable new articles whereof he speaketh and the whole doctrine of so many Churches impugned by the Church of Rome which he vndertaketh to defend can surely contayne no lesse then all the points in Controuersy betwene you and vs which are so farre from being decided in his Ecclesiasticall cōmon Wealth that for the greater part of them they cannot be so much as mentioned therin For as it appeareth by his owne description therof the 4. first bookes proue only in effect that all Bishops and their Churches by the Law of God are equall And that neither S. Peter nor the Pope nor the Roman Clergy should haue any Primacy or Papacy or Prehemynence aboue the rest In his 5. and 6. Booke he taketh away all kind of iurisdiction from the whole Church not only in temporall but also in Ecclesiasticall matters In his 7. booke he disputeth of the rule of Fayth In the rest that follow he speaketh of nothing els but only of the temporalityes and immunityes of the Church In the 8. he considereth the external gouernemēt of the Church by Lawes and Canons which if he affirme to be lawfull it is directly contrary to his 5. and 6. booke wherein he reiecteth all kind of Iurisdiction from the Church of Christ So that this great booke wherof he braggeth so much contayneth in effect but one Controuersy alone And he that should proue the Popes Primacy and Supreme Iurisdiction ouer the Church of God should ouerthrow the substance of this whole Volume For thereof it would follow directly that the gouernement of Christs church vpon earth is Monarchicall against his first and second booke that the gouernours of the Church are not equall in authority by the Law of God against his third booke That the Pope and Church of Rome hath preheminence ouer other Churches against his fourth booke That the Church of God hath Iurisdiction both Ecclesiasticall directly and temporall indirectly the latter being necessary for the maintaynance of the former against his 5. and 6. booke That the decree of the Pope as Head of the Church in a generall Councell is a sufficient rule of Fayth against his 7. booke The resolution also of the matters contayned in his 3. other bookes is of no great importance and may easily be deduced from the former conclusion Wherefore if he thinke to discharge himselfe of all other poynts in Controuesy by handling the titles of these bookes alone he shall behaue himselfe like a Banquerupt who insteed of the whole debt should scarce make payment of one in the hundred SECTION VI. Concerning the Popes Supremacy The state of the question is proposed and S. Peters Supremacy is proued by Scripture BVT now as oftentymes it falleth out that vnder the fayre shewes of Banquerupt Merchants vnder their goodly inscriptions of many rich commodityes and dissembling text letters vpon pots packs and boxes there is nothing to be found except perhaps some poore refused brockage that is not salable so to make it manifest that vnder these glorious titles of the ten Bookes which the Bishop promiseth there is nothing contayned but false wares and idle tryfles lapt vp in so many bundles of wast paper And to giue you withall some satisfaction in this one point of Controuersy of the Popes Supremacy the occasion being so fit the labour not great the way so well beaten by others I will briefly set you downe some of those euident proofes wherewith the Catholikes are wont to demonstrate the Popes Supremacy in spiritual matters Whereby also it will appeare how well the Bishop hath spent his 10. yeares in reading of the Fathers whether he haue more attended to his study or to his belly For the greater breuity and more perspicuity in handling this ample and copious matter I will reduce all that I
haue to say into one argument alone which I frame in this manner S. Peter the Apostle had Supremacy ouer the whole Church of Christ but the Pope of Rome is only the true Successour of S. Peter therefore the Pope of Rome in the place of S. Peter hath also Supremacy ouer the whole Church of Christ Out of which argument you may obserue that the state of this Controuersy consisteth in the proofe of two points The first of S. Peters Supremacy and the second of the Popes succession to S. Peter For probation of the first point out of almost twenty places of Scripture alleadged by Bellarmine togeather with the exposition of the holy Fathers thereupon acknowledging therein the Primacy or Principality of S. Peter in the gouernement of the Church of God I will produce but two places alone The first out of the sixten of S. Matth. Matt. 10.17 where the same was promised in these words And Iesus answering sayd vnto him Blessed art thou Symon Bariona because flesh and bioud hath not reuealed it vnto thee but my Father which is in heauen And I say to thee that thou art Peter that is to say a Rock and vpon this rocke will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not preuatle against it And I will giue to thee the keyes of the kingdome of Heauen And whatsoeuer thou shalt bind on earth it shall be bound also in the heauens And whatsoeuer thou shalt loose on earth it shall be loosed also in the Heauens Concerning which words there are three thinges which I find to be questionable The first what our Sauiour promised vnder those tearmes of a Rocke or Foundation of the keyes of the kingdome of Heauen and of binding and loosing in earth and heauen Which because the foundation is the rule and strength of the whole buylding and that the keyes commaund the whole Citty opening and shutting the gates therof and that the sentence of a Supreme iudge doth bind and loose vpon earth It seemeth to be manifest that nothing els can be meant thereby but only the rule the commaund and the gouernement of the Church as it is compared to a building or to a Citty and as it is called the kingdome of God in Scripture In which sense our Sauiour himselfe who of himselfe is the supreme King Head and gouernour of the whole Church is many tymes called a Rocke therein And he is also sayd to beare the key of Dauid and to haue the key of Hell And he himselfe affirmeth Da. 2.34 1. Cor. 10.4 1. Pet. 28 Esa 22.22 Apoc. 1.18.3.7 Matt. 11.30 the yoake which he imposeth to be sweet and the burthen which he byndeth vpon vs to easy And in the same sense all the ancient Fathers haue euer vnderstood this text of Scripture without any difference or variation betweene them The second thing which may be questionable herein is the person to whome these thinges were promised which being described to be S. Peter with so many circumstances of his Name and Syrname and the Name of his Father of the prayse of his former speach and Christs answere thereunto and so many particles applyable only to S. Peter as Iesus answering sayd to Him blessed art Thou flesh and bloud hath not reuealed to Thee and I say to Thee Thou art Peter and vpon this Rocke which according to the originall is this in English Thou art Peter and vpon this Peter or thou art Rocke and vpon this Rocke I will build my Church And againe vnto Thee will I giue the keyes c. Whatsoeuer Thou shalt bind c. whatsoeuer Thou shalt loose c. I say if all these things considered the person of S. Peter being thus particulerly described doubt may be made vnto whom the Gouernemēt was promised then we may well say that nothing is plaine but that all thinges are most ambiguous in holy Scripture Wherefore in this also the Fathers do all agree and all of them do gather out of this place that the gouernement of Gods Church was giuen to S. Peter Only S. Augustine who maketh no question to whome the keyes and the authority of binding and loosing was giuen in this place expoundeth sometymes the word Rocke to be meant of Christ whome S. Peter confessed Because saith he our Sauiour sayd not tu es Petra but tu es Petrus wherein he was deceiued as all men acknowledg not vnderstanding the Syriack tongue which maketh no more difference betweene the Masculine and Feminine then doth our English Aug. lib. 1. Retract cap. 21. And S. Augustine himselfe also hauing oftentymes expounded the word Rocke to be meant of S. Peter leaueth both these expositiōs to the choyce of the Reader without condemning either of them The rest of the Fathers out of this place do all affirme the Church to be built both vpon Peter and vpon the Faith of Peter or vpon Peter in respect of his faith which is al one For which faith our Sauiour promised to reward him by building his Church vpon him and by giuing such solidity and stability thereunto that the gates of Hell should not prenayle against it Lastly because the Fathers do oftentymes affirme that S. Peter receiued this power and authority in the person of the Church for the benefit of the Church the last thing questionable cōcerning these words is this Whether he receiued the same as a Procter or substitute alone or as the head and chief of all the Apostles For in both of these respects one man may represent the persons of many as in it selfe it is manifest But it seemeth also that this is a question of that wherof no question can be made For al the Apostles being present there was no necessity nor apparence neither why nor how they should make S. Peter their atturney And our Sauiour naming S. Peter in particuler Symon Bariona commending him in particuler Blessed art thou and confirming vnto him the name of Rocke in particuler it must needs be vnderstood that to him in particuler these promises were made of the regiment of Gods Church and of founding the same vpon him in such manner as that the gates of Hell should not preuayle against it And in this also the Fathers do generally agree as you will perceiue by those testimonyes which shall be produced thereby The second place of Scripture which I will alleadge for the proofe of S. Peters supreme authority is in the second of S. Iohn Ioan. 21.15 for what was promised in the 16. of S. Matthew was there performed For calling him by the name of Symon by the name of Peter and by the name of Symon the sonne of Iona to signify that he applyed his speach to himselfe alone and asking him first whether he loued our Sauiour more then the rest and twice more whether he loued him whereby our Sauiour would signify that he commended to his loue the thing that was most deare vnto him he commaunded
the most Blessed and most Apostolike man the Pope of Rome who is head of all Churches whereby his Apostleship hath pleased to cōmaund that Dioscorus the Archbishop of the Alexandrians should not sit in the Councell all the Councell obayed And afterwards the letters of Pope Leo being read Act. 2. all the Fathers of the Councell sayd so we belieue Peter hath spoken so by Leo. And in the third action Leo is often called vniuersall Patriarch and vniuersall Archbishop And Iutianus one of the Bishops sayd vnto one of the Popes Legates that they held the Primacy of the most holy Leo and desired them as holding his place to giue sentence against Dioscorus wherunto the Councell consented and sentence was giuen accordingly in the Popes name against him In which Councell also Theodoretus who was deposed by a Synod of Ephesus being restored by the Pope was admitted to enter with these words Let the most reuerend B. Theodoret come in and be made partaker of the Councell because the most holy Archbishop Leo hath restored his Bishoprick vnto him S. Thomas of Aquin recitoth out of the same Councell the confirmation of appeales of all Bishops accused of any great cryme to the Pope of Rome and that other things defined by him should be held or receiued as from the Vicar of the Apostolike Throne and that the whole Councel made this acclamation to Pope Leo Let the most holy Apostolike and vniuersall Patriarch liue many yeares Lastly the same Coūcell in their Epistle to Leo confesse him to be their head and they the members speaking of the wickednes of Eutiches after all this say they ouer and aboue he extended his madnes euen against him to whom the custody of the vineyard was committed by our Sauiour that is against thy Apostolicall Holynes and he thought to excommunicate thee that doest hasten to vnite the body of the Church And in cōclusion with many faire words they desire him to grant vnto them that the Church of Constantinople might haue the second place after the Apostolike Sea which notwithstanding he would not grant them nor was it granted by his successours for a long tyme after And thus much of the foure first generall Coūcells which they that receiue them according to the Statute must needs grant that the Pope hath always had Primacy that he is the successor to S. Peter the head of the whole fayth of all the rest of the Apostles and the vicar of Christ the like That his care and study is the ground and foundation of the Church that he is the vniuersall Archbishop head of the Church that no Councells ought to be celebrated without his sentence that it is necessary the Councells should declare vnto him what passed in them that whatsoeuer he defined should be receiued as from the vicar of Christ That causes of great difficulty must be referred vnto him that all Bishops may appeale vnto him to the Church of Rome as to their Mother that he commaundeth in Councells that he may depose Patriarches restore them that be deposed And lastly that the decrees of Councells take no effect without his confent and confirmation SECTION XI The Popes Supremacy is proued out of the point of the infallibility of his doctrine by the Authorityes of the ancient Fathers FOVRTHLY therefore the Catholikes in defence of this doctrine of the Popes Supremacy produce the authorityes of all the ancient Fathers nubem testium a bright and great cloud of witnesses to inlighten the obscurity of fayth in this vale of darknes Which if I should go about to set downe at large I should be infinite Wherefore to contract this copious matter I will alleadg some of those who teach that the authority of the Pope of Rome and the Church of Rome as vnited with the Pope ought to be receiued in matters of Faith whereof it must needs follow that the Pope succeedeth S. Peter and that as vpon S. Peter in respect of his faith so also in his place vpon the Pope the Church is so built in such manner as that the gates of Hell shall not preuayle against it But before I begin I would haue you obserue that it is all one to affirme the sea of Rome to be the Rocke of the Church or the Pope to succeed S. Peter in his Pastorall Office or to giue vnto the Pope any of those titles which are proper to S. Peter as to say expresly that neither the one nor the other can fayle in teaching the true faith because these former assertions and the like do imply that the promise made vnto S. Peter doth belong also to the Pope his seat and that the fayth or doctrine which the Pope teacheth can suffer no defect because according to the words of our Sauiour the stability and duration of the Church dependeth of it And therefore it is manifest that the Fathers do signify thereby that the Church of Rome was not only the true Church in their dayes or that the Pope did not teach any false doctrine in their times as some Protestants seeme to vnderstand them but also that the truth was alwayes to continue therein and that the Pope could neuer erre in matter of Fayth grounding themselues as I haue sayd vpon the promise of Christ to S. Peter and that you may not doubt of this I thought good to proue the supremacy of the Pope out of the infalibility of doctrine which the Fathers acknowledge to be inseparable from the Pope and sea of Rome The first that I thinke fit to produce in this matter is the great Athanasius who withstood himselfe alone the force and fury of foure Emperours and sustained the persecution of all the Arian heretikes and a man may say of all the Easterne world against him He was Patriarch of Alexandria at that tyme the second seat after Rome was a principall man both in the Councell of Nice and also in that of Sardis In which sacred Schooles in respect of his excellent vertues it might perchance be truly sayd that he deserued the place of a maister But it is prayse sufficient that he shewed himselfe a most renowned scholer of those renowned maisters He therfore that had receiued the spirit of the Nicen Councell and wrote according to the sense and doctrine of the Fathers therof saluted Marke the Bishop of Rome in this manner Athan. ep ad Marc. To our most holy Lord venerable with Apostolicall dignity Marke the Father of the holy Roman and Apostolicall seat and of the vniuersall Church Athanasius the Bishops of East health and afterwards in his letters he acknowledgeth the Roman Church to be the Mother of all Churches and vseth also these words We are yours and vnto you with all those committed to our charge we are obedient and euer will be And in his epistle to Felix the second he with the other Bishops of Aegipt do say In tom 1. Concil that they suggest
to his holy Apostleship that it would please him according to his custome to haue care of them that they and theirancestors had receiued help from his holy Apostolike seat that according to the decrees of the Canons they beseech the sayd Apostolike highest seat to giue them help from whence their Predecessours had receiued ordinations rules of doctrine and other helpes that they haue recourse vnto the Roman Church as to their Mother that he was Peter and vpon his foundation the pillars of the Church that is the Bishops say they are set and confirmed that they presume not without his counsell to define any matter of fayth the Canons commaunding that without the Roman Bishop in the more weighty causes nothing ought to be determyned that the iudgment of all Bishops is committed to his seat And they expound the place of Matthew 16. of the Primacy thereof and confirme all that they say with the authority of the Nicen Councell whereupon you must needs grant that none can write a better cōment then those excellent men that were present at it After Athanasius shall follow those other Fathers who haue recorded the succession of the Popes of Rome to S. Peter thereupon compare the fayth of the one with the faith of other the fayth of the Catholike Church with that of Rome in regard of the Popes person in whome the immediate gouernement of that sea the supremacy of S. Peter are both vnited Ireneaeus lib. 3. cap. 3. Ancient Irenaeus scholler to Policarp the disciple of S. Iohn teacheth that the Church of Rome is the greatest and the most ancient that it is knowne to all men founded and established by the two glorious Apostles Peter and Paul and that the Catholikes shewing the tradition which it receiued from the Apostles and that faith which was deliuered to all comming downe by succession of the Bishops thereof euen vnto their tyme they did thereby confound all those that gathered otherwise then they ought by selfe conceit or vayne glory or blindnes or false knowledge Wherein you see he supposeth the true fayth to be preserued in the Roman seat by meanes of the succession of the Bishop therof to S. Peter and S. Paul and that all those are confounded thereby that do hold any contrary doctrine whereof immediatly after he giueth the reason saying For necessarily euery Church must haue recourse and accord with the Church of Rome in respect of her more powerfull principality So that all those that do not accord therewith hauing their principality from the Apostles are vtterly confounded by it And a little after The blessed Apostles sayth he founding and instructing the Church deliuered the Episcopall care of the gouernment therof to Linus setting downe successiuely the names of all the Popes vntill his tyme. Where I would haue you note that he maketh no difference betweene the Roman Church and the Church in generall which he sayth the Apostles instructed and left to Linus Epiphanius also relating exactly the same succession of the Popes to S. Peter Epiphan har 27. addeth that no man should meruaile why the same is so particulerly recounted For sayth he by those thinges that is to say In ancorat circaprinc by this particuler succession clarity is alwayes shewed meaning that the knowledge of this succession was necessary for the clarity and knowledge of the Catholike doctrine And therefore els where he sayth that his succession is the firme Rocke vpon the which the Church is built and that the gates of hell which are Heretikes and Arch-heretikes shall not preuayle against it For absolutely the fayth is firmed in him that receiued the keyes and looseth in earth and bindeth in Heauen So Epiphanius who teacheth plainly as you see that the true Fayth cannot be separated from the Seat of S. Peter S. Hierome likewise (a) Lib. de praescript Eccles in Clemen briefly declareth this succession and notably (b) Epist. ad Dam. deliuereth his sentencè concerning his doctrine Although sayth he to Pope Damasus thy greatnes doth feare me yet thy humanity doth inuite me being a sheep I craue the help of my Sheepheard I speake with the successour of the Fisher and with the disciple of the Crosse I following no chiefe but Christ do associate my selfe with the communion of thy Beatitude that is of the Chayre of Peter Vpon that Rocke I know the Church to be buylt whosoeuer out of this house shall eate the lamb he is prophane whosoeuer is not found in the Arke of Noë shall perish with the floud And a little after he that gathereth not with thee scattereth that is he that is not of Christ is of Antichrist Where most euidently he calleth the Chayre of the Pope the Chayre of Peter and the Rocke of that Church out of which there is no saluation and that he who gathereth not with the Pope is not of Christ but of Antichrist Yea so much he grounded him selfe vpon the authority of the Pope that he affirmed he would not be affrayd to say that there were three hypostases in the Trinity if the Pope should bid him And againe in the end of his exposition of the Creed to Pope Damasus This is the Catholike fayth sayth he most blessed Pope which we haue learned of the Catholike Church wherein if any thing be lesse skillfully or lesse warily set downe we desire that it may be corrected by thee that dost hold the fayth and the seat of Peter But if this our confession shall be approued by thy Apostleship whosoeuer will accuse me shall shew himselfe either to be ignorant or maleuolous or perchance no Catholike but me to be an heretike he shall not proue Where he fignifyeth that none can be heretikes Lib. 1. appol cont Ruff. who suffer themselues to be corrected by the Popes authority And concerning the Roman Church speaking against Ruffinus he sayth What fayth is that which he calleth his If he answere the Roman fayth ergo Catholici sumus then are we both Catholikes where he teacheth plainly the Catholike and the Roman fayth to be the same Lib. 3. appol cont Ruff. And in the same treatise know sayth he that the Roman fayth praysed by the voyce of the Apostles doth not receiue any such illusions although an Angell should teach otherwise then hath beene once preached With S. Hierome must go accompanyed S. Augustine who in his answere to the letters of a certaine Donatist vrging the perpetuall duration of the Catholike Church built vpon Peter according to the promisse of our Sauiour recounteth aboue fourty Popes deducing them successiuely from S. Peter to Anastasius who was Pope at that tyme and then concludeth that in all that order of succession Epist 165. no Donatist Bishop could be found by which discourse he would proue that the Donatists were not the true Church because no Pope or head of the Church was euer Donatist Which in the same place he further confirmeth by
to euery one of them their Churches and wrote to the Bishops of the East blaming them and gaue commaundement that some in the name of the rest should appeare before him at a day prefixed Many other excellent men and great Saintes of God appealed to the Pope as S. Chrysostome and Flauianus Chryst ep ad Innoc. Theod. ep ad Leon. Bishops of Constantinople So did Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus who was also restored by him as testy fieth the great Councell of Chalcedon saying The most holy Archbishop Leo restoreth to him his Bishoprick And Gregory the great Gregor l. 2. cap. 6. did excommunicate a B. of Greece called Iohn for that he had presumed to iudge another Bishop that had appealed to the sea Apostolike To this might be added their censures and excommunications of Kings and Emperous In a word Philip Euseb lib. 6. cap. 25. the first Christian Emperour was excluded from the Cōmunion of the Sacrament of the Altar vpon Easter day for some publick sinnes of his Niceph l. 3. cap. 34. by Pope Fabianus neither could he be admitted before he had purged himselfe by Confession and Pennance Innoc ep 17. ad Arcad. Imp. Innocentius the first hauing hard of the death of S. Chrysastome excommunicated the Emperour Arcadius and his Wife Eudoxia for not permitting S. Chrysostome to be restored to his seat as Innocentius commaunded which he did in these words I the least a sinner to whom the Throne of the great Apostle Peter is commended in charge do segregate thee and her from receiuing the immaculate Misteryes of Christ our God c. The exercise of the Popes authority is yet more confirmed and euidently proued by the authority of the Common Lawes which for the most part are nothing els but the decrees of Popes and of Councells confirmed by the Pope which hauing byn alwayes receiued and practised among all Catholike Nations professing the name of Christ do make an inuincible argument for the Popes Supremacy and which is most especially to be noted in all ages since Christ there cānot be found one Catholike Doctor or Deuyne that euer opposed himself either against the doctrine or against the practise of this authority as vnlawfull or vsurped by the Popes of Rome In so much that albeit the Popes haue been sometymes admonished and accused to haue proceeded with much rigour Cypr. l. 1. ep 3. 4. Euseb l. 5. hist c. 24. or with too little information in their censures as by S. Cyprian for example and S. Irenaeus and others yet none haue euer doubted of the lawfulnes of their authority And as you haue heard Epist ad Martian Valēt Imp. ep ad Leonē Con. Chal. act 3. in the Calcedon Councell it was accompted no lesse their fury and madnes of presumption in Eutiches that attempted to call a generall Councell and to excommunicate the Pope thereby SECTION XV. The Conclusion of this discourse of the Popes Supremacy I Haue shewed vnto you as orderly as clerely and as breifly as I could some of those euident proofes which the Catholikes are wont to bring for the Popes Supremacy deducing the same from manifest places of Scripture which conuince the continuance and perpetuall duration thereof in the Church of God from the lineall descent therof vpon those that succeded S. Peter in the Church of Rome abundantly testifyed by tradition and by the Fathers from the definitions of the foure first generall Councells from the authorityes of the ancient Fathers in the poynt of the Popes infallable doctrine grounded vpon the words and promises of our Saniour from the sentences of the Popes themselues iustly clayming their Supremacy not only in teaching and admonishing but also in ruling and gouerning the Church of God and lastly from the ancient continuall and vncontrolled practise of their authority which whether you respect the diuine Law or the vtility and necessity of the matter it selfe or the opinions of Lawyers and Sages or the auouchement of most lawfull witnesses or the sentences of most venerable Iudges or the Iudgment of Supreme Iudiciall Courts or the practise experience and custome of the whole world make the euidence so strong the proofe so full and the demonstration so cleare as the like in no sort can euer be brought before any Iudicial Bench for the proofe of any matter whatsoeuer may come in question And therfore no doubt all those shall be inexcusable before God that continuing obstinate in their owne opinions do either reiect or contemne it And truly if it might be permitted vnto vs to plead the statute of the first yeare of Queene Elizabeth whereby the foure first generall Councells were approued and made to be Law and that we might vpon those points of learning contayned in them which I haue before recited confirming them not only by the opinions of the Fathers which are the Doctors and Aduocates but also by so many decrees and sentences of the Popes which are the iudges of the Church concluding and bynding all those proofes aforsayd with the practise custome of the Church tyme out of mynd which is the best interpreter of all Lawes both humane and diuine And if we might be suffered withal to plead the Statute of Magna Charta for the exemption of Priests from temporall iurisdiction which is the most ancient written Law of England and continueth still in force and vnrepealed and to omit that King Henry the 8. is now commonly reputed a Tyrant as is testyfied in your owne historyes which is sufficient to make all his acts and Lawes vnlawfull that concerne not the interest of particuler persons If we might shew that those branches of the statutes made against vs in the first yeare of the Queene are of no force or validity being enacted by the Lords temporall alone against the ancient for me of Parliament and the priuiledges of our Kingdome and therefore that the confirmation of them in the tyme of our gracious King that now raigneth ought to be of no effect And lastly if our complaints might be heard that in the execution of those bloudy Lawes against vs so many wayes vniust in themselues no forme of Iustice is obserued the Iudges condemning vs without any sufficient witnesses produced against vs that can affirme according to the words of the statute wherupon we are indited that we are Priests and that we were made Priests in the Seminaryes beyond the seas whereby so much innocent bloud hath been so vnchristianly shed vnder the cloake of Iustice in our peacefull Countrey I say if we might be permitted to plead all this though it were in West minster Hall before the Iudges themselues that are so cruelly bent against vs and in the audience of those Puritan Lawyers and common Iustices who as being most ignorant of our cause are more our enemyes then the Ministers themselues that we might set before their eyes how vngently dishonourably vnciuilly and vnnaturally they haue persecuted many
none but himselfe so drunke at this day with heresy in Christendome as to deny the lawfullnes of all Iurisdiction in the Church of God And as this position is most pernicious to all kind of Churches or spirituall Cōgregations whatsoeuer they be in taking away al obligation of obedience from them so also it is most dangerous to kingdomes and commonwealthes for such as in our tyme haue opposed themselues to the Iurisdiction of the Church haue likewise for the most part denyed their band of obedience to all temporall gouernement And their principall ground or reason is the same in both For no man say they that seeth not another mans conscience can bind the conscience of his brother And that all being made free by Baptisme ought to enioy the liberty of the Ghospell Whereof it followeth that neither sonnes nor seruants nor wyues nor subiects are bound to obay their Superiours for conscience sake but only and at the most either for feare or els for the auoyding of some publike scandall which doctrine if it were once receiued would in short space make Christians worse then Heathens And therefore I marueile how your English Bishops could let such doctrine passe being no lesse contrary to their authority then to the Popes Supremacy and no lesse perillous to themselues then to the gouernement of the whole kingdome vnles perhaps finding their case to be desperate they desire more to offend their enemy then to defend themselues would be cōtent their heresy should sinke so the Catholike Religion might be drowned with it But the Bishop being reputed to haue gotten some learning when he was yong and not being yet so old as to dote for age aboue all it is to be marueiled how he could suster himself to be so much deceiued by the Diuell as to ground his 10. yeares studyes the 10. books of his Christian commonwealth and in a word his whole religion and the saluation of his soule vpon an absurdity so grosse so fowle enormous dangerous to Church and Common-wealth as this is and the strangenes of his illusion is so much the greater because he was so blinded therewith that he saw not how manifestly he was inforced to contradict himselfe not only in other places of this his booke where he grāteth that Christian Princes haue power to do many thinges in the Church and challengeth vnto himselfe I know not what authority ouer Bishops in some cases which should make the Bishop of Canterbury to looke about him but also in the very title of his Booke which he calleth his Ecclesiasticall Cōmonwealth because it doth inuolue a manifest contradiction to this his strange position For vnles it be meerly a dreame and much more fantasticall then Platoes Idaea no man can imagine how any Cōmonwealth should be framed or est ablished without some Iurisdiction or power of gouernement giuen thereunto If he had contayned himselfe within any reasonable bounds and relyed his proofes vpon the Scripture alone interpreting the same according to his own sense how strang soeuer he might perhaps haue made some shift therewith for a while as his fellowes haue done before him But to pretend and contend as he doth that according to the Fathers Councells and Canons there is neither superiority of gouernment in the head nor power of Iurisdiction in the body of Christs Church is an euident signe that as he hath forsaken God so also God in his iustice hath not only forsaken him but also in great part hath taken his wits and reason from him For as S. Augustine sayth of the Prophesyes of the Church that they are more cleere in Scripture then the prophesyes of Christ himselfe because the tryall of all other Controuersyes dependeth vpon the knowledge of the Church so also for the same reason God Almighty in his prouidence hath so ordayned that the Iurisdiction of the Church and the authority of the head therof should be more expresly taught and aboundantly proued by the Doctours Pastours and ancient Fathers then any other point in Controuersy So that he might better haue gone about to proue and maintayne out of the Fathers Canons or Councells that the Sonne is not equall with the Father or the holy Ghost not equall to the Sonne or not proceeding from the Father and the Sonne or that our Blessed Lady ought not to be called the Mother of God or some other of those anciently condemned and rotten heresyes then to proue that there is no Iurisdiction in the Church nor any inequality of gouernment amongst the Pastours thereof And therefore as most impudently he denyeth the latter so it is much to be feared that he faltereth also in the former whereof he giueth many shrewd signes and apparant tokens in this little booke and much more is it likely he will bewray himself in the greater whē it cometh forth For being borne vpon the confines of Turky and Greece in which Countrey those ancient heresyes haue tirannized heeretofore and worse succeeded them in latter ages the suspitions wherewith as he professeth he was troubled when he was yong by all reason were more in fauour of the Easterne heresyes which he knew then of these of the West which he knew not And the bookes of the Arian Greciin heresyes being no lesse forbidden in Italy then the hereticall writers of these westerne parts whereby his suspitions were much more increased it is very probable that they swayed his mind more to that side then to this His maisters also do commonly dispute more against them then against these whome they are content to pretermit in these parts there being no vse of the knowledge of them And therefore by al likelihood his suspitions increased most in fauour of those opinions whereunto he was naturally most affected and wherewith he had more to do and which did more belong vnto him to know then the other did And besides all this that which he maketh his chiefe quarrell against the Pope is only the excommunication and condemnation of those opinions for heresyes which he sayth are not sufficiently condemned by the Church although it be manifest and he denyeth it not that they haue byn condemned by generall Councells And that inborne desire of peace Pag. 35. and vnity which he pretendeth of the East and West seemeth to consist in nothing els but only in permitting euery Bishop at the least to abound in his owne sense and to hold what he list as long as he doth not separate himselfe from the rest nor condemne their opinions And lastly to returne to the matter which we haue in hand by taking away all Iurisdiction from the Church of God he maketh voyd and repealeth the Anathema and excommunication of all former heretikes and by condemning the Fathers and Councells for condemning them without iudiciall authority he restoreth them all to their first pretended pleas and old forged titles And the renewing of these ancient censures condemnations of Heretikes by the Churche of Rome at this
day I take to be some part of those innumerable heresyes whereof he accuseth the Sea of Rome to be euery day an authour for otherwise that monstrous Hyperbole of his could haue no proportion and within the number of those other very many Churches which heere he sayth that Rome hath vniustly made her aduersaries must be contayned not only those of the West which are but two or three notoriously knowne but also the other of the East that is to say the Grecians and Arians at the least if the Turkes and Iewes do not also come in to make vp the reckoning of so great a number The fury of Heresy being now ouerblowne wherewith it entred first into our miserable Countrey and the Kingdome hauing been a long tyme setled in a reposed kind of gouernemēt many strangers of good iudgment and well affected to our Nation do wonder to see that it receiueth with tryumph all kind of Fugitiues and Apostata Fryars that come running thither of what life or what religion soeuer they be so long as they professe themselues enemyes to the Church of Rome which many wise men our friends who are lookers on esteeme and affirme to be no lesse dishonorable then dangerous to any well ordered and well gouerned society And in very deed what reputation I pray you can it giue vnto you in the eye of your Neighbour Countreys to see the scumme and vomit of other Nations and their Religious Orders to be so much esteemed and magnifyed among you or what conceit can they make either of your zeale in religion or wisedome in gouernement that open your armes to euery Sectary and your pulpits to euery renegate pretending to preach although his conuersation his intention his priuate opinions or the cause of his comming be neuer so much vnknowne vnto you And at this tyme I pray God it proue not too true that in the shape of a Bishop you haue receiued a most venomous and pestiferous serpent into your bosome For albert as yet he doth not shew his head by discouering his opinions in all the particuler poynts of Christian Religion making demonstration of malice against the Pope alone yet in the windings turnings of this little booke as I haue shewed and especially in destroying all iurisdiction in arrogating to his owne iudgment aboue measure and in challenging liberty to abound in his owne sense he discouereth a most fearefull and deformed body For if this which he pretendeth may be permitted to himselfe and others there is no poynt of Religion which will not presently be called in question euery thing wil be made a quodlibet as the Academikes in Philosophy so you also in Diuinity must hold all things probable and problematicall whereof it will shortly follow that as all the wisedome of the Academy was summed in this one sentence Hoc tantùm scio quòd nihil scio so the Religion of England wil be wholy reduced to this one article hoc tantùm credo quòd nihil credo And the danger hereof is the greater at this tyme because as I vnderstand it is an opinion growing into fashion among you that a man may be saued in any Religion so he belieue in Christ and I haue seene one of your principall Doctours cyted D. Morton in his treatise of the kingdome of Israel pag. 94. who durst to publish in prynt that an Arian might be saued because albeit he deny the Deumity of Christ yet he confesseth Christ to be the true Messies which your Doctour thinketh sufficient for saluation From whence euery man being permitted to abound in his owne sense as the Bishop would haue it your selfe may iudge how easy a matter it is to passe a little further and to thinke that it may suffice to hold that Christ was a great Prophet as the Turkes do or that it is indifferent to belieue whether he be come or no which disposeth to Iudaisme or that a morall life may be sufficient to saue vs in any Religion which is playne Gentility And if this be the vnion of the East and West and of the North and South which the Bishop so much desireth to establish in his Ecclesiasticall Common Wealth I am sure that none but the Diuell can be the head therof and to satisfy the mans ambition if it were to do him good I should be contented for my part that he himselfe should be made the Vicar But thus you see how such as once fall from the Catholike Church which is the body do easily contemne the head thereof who is Christ himselfe and come to loose not only their dewine faith which none can haue but they that belieue the true Church but also to renounce their morall beliefe and former persuasion of that truth of Christianity wherin they were bred which hitherto God be thanked hath been constantly mayntained in our Countrey SECTION XVII The substance of the Bishops 10. bookes being thus confuted the mayne poynt of this other Booke which he maketh the ground of his Conuersion That the doctrine of the Protestants differeth little or nothing from the doctrine of the ancient Fathers is disproued by sundry generall reasons and by the Fathers themselues codemning the Protestants opinions for no lesse then Heresies FOR this important consideration and to meete with the danger of Neutrality in Religion so fast increasing in our Countrey as I fynd it most easy so I thinke it most necessary in these desperate tymes to make some cōfutation of these idle dreams and sottish illusions of the Diuell by shewing plainly out of the rule of Fayth and according to the ground of naturall reason that no man can be saued without the perfect loue of God which requyreth perfect obedience both of the vnderstanding in beleeuing the Catholike Church whome God hath appoynted to teach vs and also of the will in keping Gods Precepts and Commaundements Which indeed were a medicyne most appropriate to the diseases of the tyme and a hatchet layd to that root from whence the Bishops tree is already sprung and which spreadeth a pace in the harts not only of the idle youth which I feare but also of those that take themselues to be the wisest men in our Countrey But because I am loath to be ouer troublesome at this tyme and that this Treatise requyreth some hast which growing in my hand from a letter to a booke should haue been dispatched long since not only to giue iust contentment to your selfe expecting my answere to your letter but also to satisfy others who hauing hard the Bishops tale keep one eare open all this while to heare the reply of the contrary party I will reserue the handling of this matter for a fresher pen and for this tyme I will coment my selfe with those authorityes which I haue a leady produced out of the Fathers pronouncing such as are not vnited with the Pope it be confounded with the succession of his seat built vpon the premise of our Saniour to be
propbane to be out of the Arke Iren. lib. 3. cap. 3. Hier. epist ad Dam. Aug. in psal cont part Don. not to gather but to seatter not to be of Christ but of Antichrist to be branches cut off from the byne and members denided from the body that in the next life the gate of heauen shall be shut against them the like For the which I reserre me to the 14. and 15. Section of this treatise Wherunto shall be added more anone when by occasion of these friuolous motions and illusions which made the Bishop to forsake his religion we come to propound some of those solid and substantiall motiues which are sufficient to induce any man that is not willfully obstinate to become a Gatholike And for the present because he seemeth to set downe the mayne ground of his peruorsion or conuersion as you please to tearme it in those words especially where he saith That reading the Fathers and perusing the Councells and ancient customes of the Church with great labour and busy diligence for so many yeares togeather he plainly saw at the length that the doctrine of those Churches being very many in number which Rome hath made her aduersaryes do little or nothing differ from the ancient doctrine of the pure Church the discussion hereof will also fall out to be very fit for our present purpose wherin you shall heare the Fathers vtterly to condemne the Religion now commonly professed in England and the Protestants themselues not only to reiect the Fathers but also most spitefully to inueigh most grieuously to censure one the other For that man whome neither the Authority of the Fathers nor the testy-monyes of his owne Doctors can moue or persuade neither if one should be sent from the dead toaffright him would be thereby conuerted Wherefore that you may as yet more fully perceiue the vanity and impudency of this man in affirming that all the Fathers are directly for him albeit he proue nothing I will take the paynes to shew you by some generall arguments that the Fathers do manifestly make against him First therfore you must know that the Catholikes prefesse the generall Consent of the Fathers or the doctrine of a few not contradicted by the rest to be a rule of faith and that all men are bound vpon payne of damnation to belieue it whose authority as the Protestants will not receiue so the Catholikes would not admit in such absolute manner if they were not fully perswaded that their religion were all one with the faith of the Pathers In confirmation wherof some industrious and zealous men amongst vs haue made certayne bookes of common places vnder the titles of the poynts in Controuersy betwixt vs and them wherin they hade recorded the sayings of the Fathers in approbation of our doctrine And therfore they call them the Confessions of the auncient Fathers So haue you the confession of S. Augustine in one volume of S. Hierome in another So likewise of S. Basil S. Bernard and others which it is impossible for any Protestant to see but he must needs confesse that the Fathers were all Papists and that they haue said so much in the proofe and defence of our opinions as all that we can bring is but taken from them And if the Bishop had but made the signe of the Crosse to driue away the Diuell that blynded him before he had turned ouer the Fathers workes he must needs haue seen euen by their titles and the argument of there seuerall treatises how much they make against him S. Basil S. Gregory Nazianzen S. Chrysostome haue written most excellent Sermons of the Lent and of other dayes to be fasted vpon payne of great sinne by the custome commaundement of the Catholike Church S. Basil S. Chrysostome S. Hierome and S. Augustine haue written bookes of the institute and rule of Monkes and of their vertues S. Chrysostome in particuler wrote a booke against the disgracers of Monasticall life And S. Augustine againe hath written three bookes of Free-will wherunto Luther opposing himselfe wrote a booke de seruo arbitrio of slauish will S. Augustine wrote also a whole booke of the Care of the dead and a long Chapter besides other sermons of Miracles wrought at the memories monuments of Martyrs Optatus whome S. Augustine compareth with S. Ambrose and S. Cyprian confuted the Donatists out of the Catholike Communion reprehended their wickednes out of the decree of Pope Melchiades refuted their heresy out of the succession of the Roman Bishops made knowne their madnes in contaminating chrisme the holy Eucharist abhorred their sacriledge in breaking down of Altars whereupon sayth he the mēbots of Christ were born and in polluting Chalices which he affirmeth to haue held the bloud of Christ S. Athanasius wrote a curious booke in the prayse of S. Antony the Aegiptian Eremit and in an epistle which he wrote in the name of the whole Synod of Alexandria whereof he was the Patriarch he appealed to the iudgment of the Apostolicall sea and of S. Peter Prudentius euery where in his Hymnes at the ashes bones of Martyrs adoreth the king of Martyrs S. Hierome hath written against Vigilantius in defence of reliques and honour due to Saints He hath written also against Iouinian for the state and vowes of virginity S. Ambrose did honour his Patrons S. Geruasius and S. Protasius with a most famous solemnity whose fact it pleased God to commend with more then one prodigy And therefore to omit the rest if it were not manifest by the Bishops leanesse how much he hath consumed his body with his ten yeares study of the Fathers and Councells by these contrary deuises which he sayth he hath found in them a man might wel imagine that he had neuer seene them Amongst other bookes of Controuersy very learned and profitable set forth in our English tongue by the direction of Gods holy spirit wherewith so many haue been conuerted to the Catholike faith there is no one that I would rather commend to the reading of a iudicious Protestant then the booke intituled the Protestants Apology for the Roman Chruch In which authour I cannot tell whether I should more cōmend the substance of the matter or the labour or the method or the breuity or the perspicuity or the fidelity or in fine the modesty of the manner wherewith it is written wherein you in particuler of the Innes of Court haue a speciall interest For as in the beginning it is in tytled to the King so in the end it is recōmended to the examination and consure of the learned Sages of our Cōmon law wherein you shall find three Chapters amongst the rest which do especially make for our present purpose The first folio 74. sequentibus where he sheweth by the confession of the Protestants themselues that the Catholike Roman Religion which is now professed in very many the most important matters in Controuersy betwene you and vs was
you may know this man to be one of those of whom S. Paul speaketh who taking vpon them to be Doctours of the Law do not vnderstand neither what they speake nor of what they affirme Let vs suppose it were true that his eyes were opened as he saith and that he saw manifestly and clerely in the Fathers Canons and Councells those so many Churches whome Rome hath made her aduersaryes do differ little or nothing from the ancient and pare doctrine of the pure Church What other thing I pray you did he see with his eyes broad open so plainly but only this that he is alienated from the Church of God a deceiuer and a killer of the sheep of Christs a blasphemous defender of many horrible Heresyes a disposer to Arianisme and Turcisme insathanized and 〈…〉 c. according to the purity of the Lutheran Ghospell That he is amalepert wicked furious herecike and a slane of the Diuell in defenthing Luther according to the purity of Caluins doctrine That he putteth no difference betwene truth and falshould Christ and Antichrist God and the Diuell but it one of the Antichristian Swyntsh rabble according to the purity of the Puritants themselues And lastly that he is excommunicated and guilty of a wicked errour according to the purity of the Protestants for defending most impurely that all these Sects togeather do differ little or nothing from the purity of the Ghospell SECTION XX. The conclusion of this Tract cōcerning the Bishops motiues by occasion wherof the nature of a motiue is declared and the first Catholike motiue of the holynes and sanctity of Catholike doctrine is propounded AND this much concerning the Bishops Motiues and the formall Reasons of his conuersion which I haue shewed that being in themselues not only strang but also incredible he neither goeth about to proue in this place nor can possibly proue them in his other bookes hereafter because in them he doth not descend to those particuler points which are in Controuersy betwene vs as is manifest by the titles of his bookes themselues And this one Controuersy alone of the Popes Supremacy according to the doctrine of the ancient Church I which is the substance of all the bookes he promiseth is found as I haue shewed to he most extreme against him and that which he maketh the ground thereof hath been also discouered to be a most absurd and most pernicious position as much contrary to the authority of your Bishops and to the Puritan Eldership and to the title of his owne booke as to the Popes Supremacy and if all were true which he pretendeth to proue in his Common wealth it might shew perhaps the Catholike Religion to be false but yours to be the right it could not proue I haue also made it euident vnto you that the Bishops motiues as they are heere set downe in his little booke are as monstrous vntruths as can be deuised and albeit he may saue them from broad lyes perchance vnder the title of some rhetoricall figure whereof he hath been a Maister yet too much of one thing is good for nothing and he cannot deny but that it is a great disgrace euen to the Art of lying to vse this one figure of manifest vntruth so often By this also that hath beene sayd concerning this matter you will further perceiue the Bishop being a man so deeply learned and after ten yeares study hauing produced such reasons as these for the proofe of your Religion how hard or rather how impossible it is for any man whatsoeuer to giue any sound or good reason for it Wherin also by the way it wil be worthy your knowledge to consider that such reasons as may induce a man to be of any Religion are of two sorts For either they proue euery point of Religion in particuler to be true or els they open and declare the euidence of certaine generall principles which being once receiued draw after them the consent of the mind to all those thinges in speciall which are taught or practised in that Religion Vnto the first kind do belong all those books which treat of particuler Controuersyes as of the Masse of prayer for the dead of prayer to Saints Purgatory and the like which indeed to a man that hath but little will or little leasure to read is a wearisome course and tedious way to tryall Vnto the other doth belong those shorter discourses which some haue tearmed motiues and for the Catholike party may be seen in such as haue handled the notes of the Church in Canipian his ten Reasons in the booke of the Three Conuersions of England in Bristow and others Whereunto besides that they must be generall reasons as I haue shewed two things againe are necessary The one that the truth of them be more euident then the truth of other particulers which depend vpon them The other that they induce almen Heathens or Christiās of what belief soeuer they be to change opinion and to submit their iugdments to the obedience of that Religion for which they are produced This being seene if you please but to examine a little all those Protestants books which haue been published in this kind you shall not find any one argument in them which may be called a generall reason or an vniuersall motiue for the truth of your Religion but either they are no lesse obscure then the Religion it selfe as that the word of God is truly preached and the Sacraments rightly administred amongst you or most improbable as that the Protestants haue beene alwayes the most visible Congregation of all other Christian Churches or that your religion accordeth with the doctrine of the ancient Fathers as here the Bishop pretendeth or el they concerne some particuler point in Controuersy and commonly are not only most improbable as that the Masse is Idolatry that the Pope is Antichrist and the like but also most palbably false as that we hope to be saued without the merits of Christ that we worship stockes and stones that for nication is a veniall sinne such other iniuries of like nature as it pleaseth your vnlearned Ministers for want of knowledge or of better matter to lay vpon vs. Whereas on the other side euery Catholike whether learned or vnlearned wise or simple is able to giue you such a reason of his fayth as may be sufficient to moue any indifferent mind of what belief soeuer to like and imbrace it For Almighty God not inforcing man against his wil but drawing him according to his Nature and demaunding a reasonable obedience of him hath ordayned in the sweetnes of his prouidence that all Christians should make profession of some principall motiues of their fayth wherein many others are vertually conrayned saying in their Creed I beleeue the holy Church Catholike Not only to moue others therby but also more and more to confirme themselues in their beliefe For albeit matter of diuine fayth be infinitly aboue the knowledge of naturall reason which
descend to particulers in this kind I should neuer make an end and many bookes haue beene written of the miracles of the B. Sacrament alone of our B. Lady in fauour of those that in their necessityes haue recommended themselues to her prayers of the soules in Purgatory demaunding reliefe of Masses and other pious workes or giuing thanks for help receiued by those meanes and so forth of other miracles which God hath vouchsafed to worke by the hands of his holy seruāts aliue and dead that were pleasing vnto him not deriued from any Apocriphall or vnapproued writers whom the Protestants are wont to deride but testified either by the ancient Fathers themselues S. Augustine S. Hierome S. Bernard S. Bede and the rest or by the oathes and depositions of many lawfull witnesses taken before Bishops or other secular Magistrats Wherunto not to giue so much as morrall credit were to extinguish one chiefe part of reason and to take away all credulity and so by consequence all beleife both human and diuine out of the world Thirdly many haue relented and rendred thēselues beholding or reading the admirable constancy of Catholike Martyrs For albeit there haue not wanted those that haue dyed for the maintenance of most ridiculous heresyes and their owne absurd opinions yet there is a great difference both in life and death between our Catholike Martyrs and those other mad men or malefactors For as our Martyrs haue for the most part beene men of rare perfection most exemplar life and of excellent talents both of grace and nature so the others haue beene no lesse scandalous and infamous for their former lewd conditions commonly very meanly qualified of no extraordinary parts but rather desperate or sottish or halfe besides themselues And in their deaths as our Martyrs haue all suffred contrary to the inclination of the pride and selfe loue of our corrupted nature in obedience to God and his Church for the same truth and the same poynts of doctrine without any disagreement between them which could not be done without the speciall assistance of Gods grace so the others haue beene iustly punished for the mantaynance of their own peeuish opinions out of pride and selfe loue and euer more haue obstinatly dissented not only from the commō iudgmēt of others but also from the priuate deuices of one another And therfore as the humility modesty meeknes discretion charity and other vertues of our Martyrs haue made their passions or sufferings to be pleasing sacrifices in the eyes both of God and men and their deaths most amyable and admyrable to the beholders so on the other side the pride vaine glory arrogancy presumption fury and folly of the others is sufficient to make their deaths most odious detestable and infamous to all posterity Which if you please to read the examination of Fox his Calendar of Saints you will easily see and ingenuously acknowledge this diuersity and difference which I haue noted betweene the Martyrdomes of those Catholikes whom you may haue seene to suffer in our time and the gracelesse and distempered ends of those which Fox relateth And to omit the innumerable companyes of those that haue giuen their liues for the testimony of the Catholike fayth in former ages which are at least 1000. for one of those that haue suffred for heresy and their owne priuate opinions and likewise to omit those excellent men and women that haue suffered from the beginning of the last Queens raigne vnto this present in our infortunate Countrey whome not only vertue piety and wisdome but also their nobility dignity and highest Maiesty haue made famous to the world what man of iudgment is there that will not be more moued with the death of Bi. Fisher and Sr. Thomas More alone the two great lights of the Clergy Laity of England then with al the rabblement of Foxes new Martyrs though they were ten tymes so many as he doth falsly make them Fourthly many others obseruing the obedience of all Catholiks through the world to one supreme head and the vnity which thereby is preserued amongst them and on the other side being ashamed of the infinite dissentions amongst the Protestants euery man following his owne head and being the founder of his owne religion haue beene induced thereby to forsake the troublesome inconstancy of the one and imbrace the constant peace of the other For this also is so euident on both sides as the principal Protestants themselues are inforced to confesse it M. Whitaker sayth Whita de Eccl. cont 2.9.5 pag. 327. That the contentions amongst the Protestants are for Fayth and Religion the contentions amongst the Papists are vaine and friuolous as much to say not for Religion but about matters of no moment The consent and peace of the Popish Church sayth M. Fulk proueth nothing M. Fulk against Heskins c. p. 295. Sands relation fol. 8. but that the Diuell then had all things at his will and therefore might sleepe More expresly Syr Edwin Sands declareth the same in these words The Papists haue the Pope as a common Father aduiser and conducter to reconcile their iarres to decyde their differences to draw their religion by consent of Councells into vnity c. whereas on the contrary side Protestants are as seuered or rather scattered troupes ech drawing a diuers way without any meanes to pacify their quarrells Who also further obserueth That in all this age they could not find the meanes to assemble a generall Councell on their side for the composing of their differences Beza also Beza ep theol ad Andr. Duditium in an epistle to his great friend Andreas Duditius whom he estemed a most eminent and adorned man and much respected of him for his piety learning and elegant wit repeateth the words of his friend in a letter to him which make this poynt yet more manifest Although say you there are many horrible things defended in the Roman Church vpon a weake and rotten foundation yet it is not deuided with so much dissention and it hath the plausible shew of venerable antiquity ordinary succession and perpetuall consent and if that be the truth which the auncient Fathers did professe with one mutuall consent it stands wholy for the Papists Thus say you of the Papists But ours at length what are they scattered say you whirled about with euery wynd of doctryne and being blowne vp aloft are carried sometymes to this part and sometymes to that what their opinion of Religion is to day perchance you may know but what it will be to morrow you cannot certainely affirme In what poynt of religion do these Churches agree among themselues that haue proclaymed war against the Church of Rome If you run them all ouer from head to foote you shall scarce finde any thing affirmed of one but that another will presently cry It is impiety These things you write my Duditius in the same words as I haue set them downe Thus farre Bexa Where himselfe
God yet receiuing it from their Alcaron which is the ground of their fayth and teacheth them many vntruths their perswasion of the vnity of God is no beliefe but errour Or as the Iewes albeit they receiue the old Testament as you know yet because they rely vpon the interpretation of their Rabbins which is subiect to errour their ground being deceitfull their faith is nothing but deceipt and therefore no faith at all So in like manner the Protestants albeit they follow a rule which according as they vse it doth propound vnto them many things that are true yet propounding likewise very many that are false and being thereby deceitfull as hath been declared they belieue the truth it sheweth no more then they belieue the falshood whereof it is manifest they belieue nothing at all And for this cause the authority of the Church being the only ordinary meanes to make vs know the rule of faith Matt. 18.17 our Sauiour himself sayd that such as would not heare the Church were no better then Infidells because consequently depryuing themselues of the rule of Faith they loose all true Faith and diuine fidelity From whence likewise is inferred that common principle of Christendome that out of the Church there is no saluation because without Faith it is impossible to please God and without obedience to the Church in matter of beliefe there can be no faith at all From hence also the Councell of Nyce as witnesseth the Creed of Athanasius read in your Churches euery Sunday togeather with the auncient Fathers hath concluded that denying one article of the Catholike Faith or not belieuing the same wholy and inuiolably no man can be saued Because he that obstinatly denyeth or doubteth of any one poynt of Faith denieth the authority of the Church without which we cannot certainly know the rule of Faith therby loosing his faith is no better thē an Infidel as our Sauiour hath declared SECTION XXVII VVherein two Motiues that is to say Feare of danger and the Instigation of a certayne spirit which induced the Bishop to change the place of his aboad are propounded and examined THESE therfore are some of the reasons which euery Catholike man though neuer so simple is able to giue of his beliefe and are so euident and iustified in themselues that there is no man hauing sense of God if he put them in the Ballance of his Iudgment but he must needs feele their weight in his mind and in his will the diuine power and vertue of them Whereas on the other side this learned man the Bishop after 10. yeares study writing to edify the world with his Motiues can bring forth nothing but that which appeareth at the first sight to be false as you haue heard hath receiued sentence of Iudgment three tymes already being once of old condemned by the auncient Fathers and twyce more in our age by the Protestāts themselues who first condemned the Fathers as being against them and afterwards also condemned the heretical doctrine of one another And this may suffice to haue spoken of those dispositions and other considerations which the Bishop accuseth to haue been the causes and motiues of his change in religion It followeth now to examine the groundes that induced him to change the place of his aboad Which albeit he setteth downe very confusedly I find they may be reduced to 3. principall heads The first therfore was his danger in staying The second his spirit that compelled him to go And the third his zeale forsooth of truth and peace that drew him on As concerning his danger he confesseth that in Rome notice was taken of his writing against the Roman doctrine and that more then once he had been admonished and reprehended for it by the Popes Nuntio or Agent residing in Venice In which respect he had iust cause to feare that the Venetians not to maintayne a manifest heretike in their State might easily be induced to deliuer him vp to the Nuntio especially at that tyme they hauing need of the Pope in respect of their warrs and that the Nuntio would haue sent him vp to the Holy House in Rome where he should haue byn receiued with such kindnes as was agreable to his deserts Wherby it appeareth vpon the matter that being entred so far into Heresy as he could not go back without great infamy he sound Italy to hoat for his foot fled from thencefor no other good respect but only because he could stay no longer without the horrible feare of extreme danger By the way of this discourse he putteth himselfe into a great chafe against the Pope laying aside his disguise of Monsignor fate voi he sheweth himselfe a plaine Italian Facchine without any truth ciuility or modesty And like your Collyer of Croydon being a myte out of Towne he taketh his pleasure of the Pope rayleth against him most despiciously And who is there that hath but soone the state of Germany Spaine France or Italy and thereby knoweth as he must needs the great reputation and authority of the Catholike Clergy and especially of the Bishops the heads of the Clergy but will admire at his impudency to heare him say That Catholike Bishops now adayes haue nothing but the name of Bishops That they are not permitted by the Pope to haue any gouennement of their Churches That they are vilde and contemptible and which is no lesse vntrue then the former That they are made subiect to Religious Orders for Religious men except they be Bishops or indued with Episcopall authority haue no exteriour iurisdiction at all neither ouer Bishops nor any secular persons To the rest where he sayth That the Church of Rome is wholy become a temporall Monarchy a vineyard only to make Noë drunke a flocke whose bloud the Pastours sucke and the like What shall we say but that he sheweth himself to be far worse then one of Noë his accursed children and to be no better then a wilde Boore that would destroy the vineyard of Christ or a rauenous Wolfe that howleth against the Shepheard Neither all that went before being most false will I grant that to be true where he sayth That Christ hath placed him for a dog in his flocke For the truth is that he thrust himselfe in for a dogge as I haue shewed long ago But now at length it hath pleased God to put him out for a Curre and so he sheweth himselfe to be in barking against his Maister In the end making these vntruthes some colour and occasion of his departure at length he concludeth that to auoyd the Popes malice which was so neer vnto him and the ordinary effects therof which he sayth to be poyson and punyards it was altogeather necessary for him to run away Leuit. 26.36 Iob. 15.21 An ill conscience feareth the sound of a flying leafe and the noyse of feare is allwayes in his eare where peace is he suspecteth treason In which respect although it
be not altogeather improbable that he feared poyson and punyards as he sayth and it may very well be that he had deserued no better of some priuat Citizens in the place wher he liued yet it is more likely that herein he would only shew his Rhetorike thereby to draw the Pope into suspition and enuy And that he feareth no other poyson but the fire nor any other knife but the sword of the hangman which I must needs say setting all other causes apart he well deserueth for these monstrous slaunders and foule imputations alone wherwith he chargeth so worthy a Prince as the Pope and a Seat so reuerend and sacred as the Church of Rome Where he sayth That now adayes the controuersies of the Church are not cōmitted to the deciding of Deuines or Councells but for the defence of Rome from Rome to Parricides villaines and murtherers who knoweth not that all the poynts in Controuersy at this day were for many yeares togeather disputed and discussed in the Councell of Trent and that the learned Deuines of the Church of Rome haue defended thēselues most gloriously as well by their excellent writings as constant sufferings wherof you need not go far to seeke examples Not striking others treacherously as this wolf pretendeth but being strucken vniustly not giuing blowes but receauing blow after blow not murthering others but willingly suffering themselues to be murthered not seeking other mens liues but giuing their owne liues for the testimony of their cause and for the saluation of the soules of others The Bishop being thus couragiously resolued to run away with most extreme feare to be stayed or taken he telleth you of a great conflict betweene himselfe on the one party and his hand-maid Agar with her Sonne Ismaell on the other viz. betweene the flesh and the spirit Of what colour the spirit was I make no question but what flesh he meaneth whether his own or some other bodys that tempted him to stay I cannot so easily resolue For his own flesh stood in feare of torture and torment as you haue heard and was already cloathed with the infamy of heresy that was bruted in him and therefore by al reason should take part with his spirit that did so vehemently perswade him to run away But the flesh that heere he bringeth into combat putteth him in hope of ease of pleasure preferment and in feare of the infamy that might meet him in his iourney Besides it moueth a doubt vnto him whether he were wiser then other innumerable Bishops that stayed behind him which his owne flesh could neuer haue done For he knew that he made no question of the matter and therfore he neuer admitted any of them to counsell as he confessed before nor heere doth he vouchsafe any answere at all to that needlesse obiection On the other side considering how like his flesh is to the flesh of Agar Gen. 16.4 that despised her Mistresse and being therefore corrected by her fed from her vntill at length not only her selfe but also her son Ismaell were both cast forth into the desert as this man despised the Pope his Maister being reprehended for it ran quite away in the end was thrown forth out of the family of Christ into the desert of heresy and infidelity I say all this considered me thinks by Agar he should meane no other flesh but his owne But whose flesh soeuer this Agar was I haue reason to thinke that when he came to you he carryed her sonne Ismaell with him into England As concerning the spirit which pleaded as he sayth against the flesh did so much sollicit his hasty departure vnlesse himselfe had written it I should not haue thought that with any reason I could haue accused the Diuell to haue beene the authour of it For what should any spirit need to pray him go that was already vpon running and nothing els but a chayne could hold him But now I see that his old acquaintance not content with his readynes did push and driue him healong on that as before he had cast him out of his order so at this tyme he was at hand to cast him forth out of the Catholike Church This spirit he calleth Diuine and sayth that with vehement impulsion it did not permit him to make any longer delay And that he followed the same as Abraham followed the voyce of God Gen. 22.10 Alas poore man if he be of any religion whereof I haue great cause to doubt for the causes aforesayd he is not the first that trusting to his owne iudgment and confiding himselfe in the pleasing phansy of a priuate spirit insteed of God hath adored the Diuell by whose meanes also he further saith going from Venice towards England he hopeth that his fame or good name of what forme and beauty soeuer it be shal be preserued from all blemish euen in the hands of the Barbarous Which new Name of Barbarous for any thing that I can see you must be contented to receiue at the hands of your new God father instead of a better blessing And surely albeit some insolent Italians haue not spared to lay this rude imputation vpon other Nations yet this Dalmatian being scarsely an Italian himselfe and going to liue among them and to be mayntained by them both in discretion and ciuility should haue affoarded them some better title As touching the preseruation of his fame whereof he speaketh with great zeale and no little feare as it seemeth both heere and in other places of his booke I cannot so easily coniecture what it is he would haue or what it is he feareth For to be reputed an Heretike in Italy in respect of his departure thence and his going into England is a thing farre off and being of his mynd and where he is a man would thinke he should rather glory therein then be ashamed thereof Wherefore it is very probable that there is some great matter in the straw which is not yet discouered that either he feareth the workes he left behind him will come after him thither and claime him for their Father or els he is troubled with such passions still as will quickly discredit him if prouision be not made that his infirmityes may either be cured or well couered And to this purpose perchance he insinuateth the reward of Abraham whose beautifull wife was preserued from reproach in the hands of Pharao and the saying of S. Ambrose that neither Countrey nor Parents nor wife nor children ought to withdraw vs from the execution of Gods will For God saith he giueth all things to vs which words I would haue you marke and is able to preserue that which he giueth Whereby it may be that his modesty would giue you to vnderstand that either he hath a wife already which I will not say or that he would haue one which is more likely for the preseruation of his same amongst you Which if it be so he need not to haue
been so much ashamed thereof as to conceale it if he had knowne in what playne termes some of his ancestours whose course he followeth domaunded the like sauour And that you may the lesse maruell thereat if such a thing should happen I will set you downe part of an Epistle to the Bishop of Constance written and subscribed vnto by Swinglius Leo Iude Erasmus and 8. other Ministers who all of them cry out for wyues therein and after some intimation made of the heauenly doctrine so long hydden Prot Apol. fol 572. sequent and in their tyme restored confesse and say Hitherto we haue tryed that this gift of Chastity hath been denyed vnto vs we haue burned O for shame so greatly that we haue committed many things vnseemely To speake freely without boasting we are not otherwise of such vnciuill manners that we should be euill spoken of among the people to vs committed this one poynt only excepted Thus they Which if you please to see in the Protestāts Apology when you are at leasure you shall find also another longer petition to the purpose that will either make you laugh or lament at the weaknes of your first Apostles But thus the Bishop recommending his good name vnto you concludeth his 2. first Motiues of change of place and saith That being admonished by these dangers drawne by this vocation and thus animated therein he toke himselfe to flight then most nimbly SECTION XXVIII VVherein the Bishop his zeale and desire to try which is the last Motiue that induced him to forsake his Countrey is discussed HIS third Motiue which he seemeth all this while to haue forgotten he beginneth in this manner pag. 28. Charuas tamen Christi super omnia vrget me but yet the Charity of Christ vrgeth me aboue all things Which when I read I could not chuse but smyle remēbring how one that was troubled with vermyne in Italy went shrugging vp and downe and singing that verse of Petrarch S'amor non è che dunque è quel ch'to sento If loue it be not what is that I feele For it is very probable that pouerty and famine began to pinch him as not hauing sufficient to feed his maw after he had resigned his poore Bishoprike to his Nephew as I haue shewed And the Italian might better compare his life to naughty loue then the Bishop his counterfeit charity to the diuine loue of Iesus Christ so that the one if he had thought his life to be loue should haue been no lesse mistaken then the other This charity sayth he did vrge him to cry And to get him vp to some high place that his cry might be heard the further if you had euer been in Venice you would imagine him to be possest with the spirit of some Montebanck not only in respect of his mounting and crying but also in respect of his discourse For with a great many arrogant tearmes and boasting words cōfusedly vttered you would thinke he meant to sell the wares of his new booke as Montebancks sell boxes But for orders sake I will reduce all that he sayth to three heads For either he sheweth what it is that he intendeth to cry or what authority he hath to cry or answereth certayne obiections that might be made against his crying I expected iudgement Isa 5. 7. and behold iniquity and iustice and behold a cry Me thinkes as S. Augustine said to a Donatist that part of the world should suffice him wherein our Lord would that the chiefe of his Apostles should be crowned with a most glorious Martyrdome For what could the President of that Church answere but that which the Apostolike Seat and the Roman Church doth anciently hold with others or at least that the authority of Christendome which S. Augustine calleth the Confession of mankind might haue suffised to haue kept this man in quietnesse and obedience but insteed of iudgment behold iniquity and insteed of iustice behold a cry For this man is so farre from hearing and obaying the Church which our Sauiour hath appointed to teach him that being worse then an Infidell he cryeth against the Church and with extreme arrogancy would inforce the Church to belieue him and to be obedient vnto him That which he intendeth to cry is the matter of his booke of Christian Common Wealth whereof he vaunteth as if therby the world should know Pag. 28.33 what a champion the Protestants haue gotten for them For by meanes thereof the errours of Rome must be made manifest and the purity of the Protestant doctrine shal be no longer hidden and a number of their Churches reiected by that of Rome shal be declared Catholike and the way of making peace and vnion ouer all the world shal be cleerly manifested And all this he pretendeth with such confidence and presumption as if with him the Catholike verity were turned Protestant or as if he had gotten a Monopoly of the doctrine of Christ and that no part thereof were warrantable without his marke or licence and with his approbation that any Religion might passe for currant Of this booke of his he speaketh euery where with such admiration as a man may easily perceiue it is the Idol that he adoreth and was doubtlesse the principall cause of his fall and for the loue of it more then any thing els he was content to renounce both his Faith and Countrey But as Idolls are nothing so I haue shewed sufficiently that this Idoll of his contayneth nothing And though it were neuer so strong and substantiall yet cōming once forth and falling vpon the stone of Peter which is the Rock of the Church wherat it aymeth it must needs be broken all to peeces And considering with my selfe what the cause might be that all this while it is not published I am perswaded that the Protestants themselues perceiuing the deformity thereof and especially the clouen foot of the Diuell I meane the deniall of all Iurisdiction in the Church of God which is the crutch wheron it standeth were either affrayed or ashamed to prynt it which if it be true we shall shortly heare that either he will take the course that Achitophel did when his Counsell was contemned or els that before it be long forsaking Kent and Christendome he will turne himselfe towards the Turkes and Gentiles And indeed intending as he doth to take away the occasion of Schisme not by establishing one head vpon earth as our Sauiour did but by beating downe the same not by order of Iurisdiction but by the disorder of licentious liberty any man may perceiue it is a Diuellish deuice not to bring forth vnion but to breed confusion nor to gather with Christ but to scatter with Antichrist And therefore the Cryer himselfe considering the matter a little better and being ashamed to discouer in playne tearmes his wicked meaning correcteth himselfe afterward and instead of demonstrating the way of this vnion which he promised before he saith afterward that
forgetteth not to vse tearmes of due reuerence saying in this manner Neither dost thou disdaine that art not proud though thou gouernest in a higher place to be a friend to these of low condition and to returne loue for loue And you haue heard what words of great respect S. Hierom vsed to Pope Damasus Hier. ad Damasum when he sayd Although thy greatnes doth feare me yet thy humanity doth inuite me being a sheep I craue the help of my sheepheard c. And how the great Athanasius Patriarch of Alexandria with the Bishops of the East thought it no disgrace to call the Pope their holy Lord venerable with Apostolicall dignity the Father of the vniuersall Church Athan. ad Marcum tom 1. Con. affirming themselues to be his and that vnto him with all those committed to them they were obedient and euer would be Whereof I thought good briefly to remember you that you might perceiue the difference betweene the Christian humility of the ancient Fathers and the saucy presumption of this new contentious Heretike SECTION XXX Of Schisme which is the last obiection of the Bishop against himselfe wherein hee is proued to be not only a Schismatike but also a manifest Heretike HIS second last obiection which he maketh against himselfe is this That forsaking the Church of Rome which he calleth Babylon he may seeme to haue incurred the cryme of Schisme wherunto he answereth saying I will that this my flight or profectiō be free from all suspition of Schisme If Monsignor fate voy when he fell into the hands of the Merchants that had beene deceiued by him should haue sayd I will be free from beating do you thinke it would haue serued his turne Truly both these Monsignors hauing so well deserued their fees as the blowes fell vpon the one notwithstanding his good desire to the contrary so not only the suspition but also the infamy both of Schisme and Heresy whether he will or will not must light vpon the other But because it is manifest that there is a Schisme or diuision betweene the Pope and him he would insinuate that all things considered not himselfe but the Pope must needs be the Schismatike which he seemeth to proue first by reason and secondly by the authority and example of S. Cyprian His reason is this in effect He that maketh new Articles of fayth either cōtrary or not contayned in the Scriptures and ancient Creeds and admitteth for Articles of Fayth such things as are indifferent in themselues and were neuer sufficiently defyned by the Church and condemneth those for heretiks whom the Church hath not sufficiently condemned he is the Schismaticke But such is the Pope who doth these things not the Bishop who detesteth them Ergo c. Wherein what he meaneth by not being sufficiently defined or condemned by the Church I know not But to giue you some light heerin you must vnderstand that according to the Catholike doctrine any Controuersy in matter of Faith may be sufficiently defyned foure manner of wayes That is to say First by the vniuersall consent and generall beliefe of all the Faithfull for as hath been proued it is impossible the vniuersal Church should erre in matter of Faith Aug. l. de haeres in fine And therfore S. Augustine sayth It is sufficient to know that the Church reputeth any doctrine not to be of Fayth that it be not receiued by any of the Faithfull Lib 1 cont Cresc c. 31. 33 ep 48.99 in ep 118. c 5. l. de v◅lit cred c. 17. And you know how he affirmeth that to dispute against the doctrine of the vniuersall Church is most insolent madnes and that not to giue thereunto the first place of authority is either extreme impiety or precipitate ignorance Secondly any thing may be defined to be matter of fayth by the vniforme consent of the Doctours of the Church who if they should erre the whole Church being bound to beleeue them must fall of necessity into errours with them Thirdly by a generall Councell confirmed by the Pope or lastly by the definition of the Pope himselfe decreing the same for the direction of the faythfull and establishment of the peace of the Church as hath been proued at large in the former Sections of the Popes Supremacy And because the question between the Pope and the Bishop in this place concerneth Schisme Heresy you are further to vnderstand that Schism according to the sense of the word signifieth a scissure or diuision of minds which is opposed to vnity and consequently to Charity which doth vnite the minds of the Faythfull And because the greatest vnity in the Church is that of the whole body which proceedeth from all the members with the head and whereunto the vnity and Charity of the particuler members among themselues is naturally referred as the part to the whole from hence it is that Schisme being taken for such a great dissention S. Thom. 2.2 quaest 39. art c. in corpore Hier. in c. 3. ad Tit. as is most contrary to the vnity of the Church is defined to be a rebellion against the head of the Church refusing to communicate with the members therof as they are subiect vnto him According whereunto S. Hierome giueth vs this doctrine between Heresy and Schisme sayth he we make this difference that Heresy holdeth some peruerse opinion Schisme also separateth from the Church by Episcopall dissention Epiph. sect 68. Aug. l de Haer. haer 69. l 2. cont Crese c. 4. 7. or dissention from the Bishop So Miletius making a proper congregation against Peter Bishop of Alexandria his Superiour was accompted a Schismaticke and no Heretike For as Epiphanius sayth his faith was neuer changed from the Catholike Church So likewise Cecilian being made Bishop of Carthage against the will of Donatus who obiected many crimes vnto him and with his followers departed from him the Donatists in the beginning were accōpted Schismatiks And in the same manner Optatus to proue Parmenian not Cecilian to be the Schismatike argueth in this manner For Cecilian sayth he went not out from Maiorinus thy predecessour but Maiorinus from Cecilian Neither did Cecilian depart from the Chayre of Peter or of Cyprian but Maiorinus in whose chayre thou succeedest and which before him had no beginning Wherfore in our case it wil be an easy matter to find out of these two the Pope or this Bishop which is the Scismatike For the Bishop rebelling against the Pope his Superiour if not by diuine yet at least by humaine law as himselfe will confesse dissenting from the chiefe Bishop of the Church of Christ going out and departing from the Chayre of Peter and ioyning himselfe vnto another Congregation most oposite thereunto it is more absurd for him to accuse the Pope of schisme then for a subiect taking armes against his Prince or ioyning with his enemyes to acuse the Prince himselfe of rebellion and