some giving him three stripes and some five With the like effeminatnesse that King yeelded up to the Pope the Investures of Benefices which the Kings his predecessors had possessed till that time That King being dead in the yeare 1189. had for Successor Richard his son and after him John a King brutish and furious who made some attempts to recover the Investures which his Father had yeelded up to the Pope But being hated and contemned of his subjects Pope Innocent the third had a faire way to handle him ill He did declare him to have lost the right of his Kingdome dispensed his subjects from their Oath of allegiance a thing never seene nor heard of before in England caused Divine Service to cease throughout all the Kingdom and Churches and Church yards to be shut up Which continued by the space of six yeares and a halfe He also excommunicated the King and gave the Kingdome of England to Philip Augustus King of France upon condition to Conquer the same at his owne perill and fortune and that for the remission of his owne sinnes That constrained King John to yeeld up his Kingdome to the Pope and to binde himselfe to doe homage unto him for his crowne So hee made himselfe the Popes vassall and England became Saint Peters patrimonie And a Patent with a golden seale was made and framed by which the King did oblige himselfe and his successors for ever to pay yearely unto the Pope a thousand marks in gold in signe of subjection besides Saint Peters moneys that were paid by polle Unto which that poore King was forced to adde an Oath whereby hee swore that hee was induced so to doe without constraint and of his owne accord and by the motion of the holy Spirit and that for the remission of his sinnes Vnder this slaverie died this King in the yeare of our Lord 1216. to whom succeeded Henrie the third who did put his Crowne at the Legats feete one knee upon the ground doing homage unto him for his Kingdome Then did the Pope beginne to send his Legats who skimmed England of money by a thousand kindes of devices The Orders of the Franciscans and Jacobins were newly instituted The same Friers preached the Croisado whereby the Pope promised the remission of all sinnes and a degree of glorie in heaven above the common sort to all those which being arm'd would make the vâ—w to goe to the holy I and fâ—r the recovering of Christs Sepulcher possessed by the Sarrasâ—ons At these Predications every one câ—ossed himselfe with a crosse upon the shoulder and a great multitude of Gentry and people sold and moâ—gaged their Lands and estates for the charges of that Journey But as they were armed and furnished for the journey another Legate would come that dispensed the English from their vow and gave them the same graces and Indulgences without bâ—dgeing from their owne houses provided they would give to the Pope as much money as was necessary to have beene spent in their journey By these meanes this Legate gathered huge summes of money And that money was employed by the Pope for to conquer the Cities and Provinces which the Emperour had in Italy Thus did the Pope inlarge his limits Never a yeare came over head but hungry Italians came over into England with new Commissions to raise moneyes with power to excommunicate all such as would refuse and put the Churches into interdict What good horses soever there were or curious houshold stuffe or fine wares in shops were conveyed away without paying for and carried into Italy The Exactors tooke up the tithes of the corne yet unsowen The Italians possessed in England the best Benefices The Pope called England his garden of pleasure and his bottomlesse treasure Whereupon great clamours arose among the People The Nobles said Matth. Paris pag. 267. Marxidiribaldi These are the successors of Constantine and not of Peter O shamefull thing rascally ruffians that know not what armes and honour is will domineere over all the World by their excommunications Matth Paris pag. 423. The Monkes in the Countrey did say The Daughter of Sion is become a brasen faced Whore and without shame at all through the just judgement of him who because of the sins of the People makes an Hypocrite to raigne and a Tyrant to governe and rule But all these clamours were unprofitable and without effect because the holie Scripture was a Booke then altogether unknowne amongst the English people They spake of nothing but of Miracles and of Images and of Pilgrimages and of Reliques Vntill such time as an English Doctor and Preacher named John Wicklef fell to preaching and writing openly against the Pope and against the Masse about the yeare of our Lord 1370. Hee was listened unto with great applause and was able to have caused a great alteration in England if the King would have given way to it Of this oppression in England Matthew Paris and Westmonasteriensis English Monks that lived in those dayes wrote strange and prodigious things Now as John Wicklef was a teaching Aencae Sylvii Hist Bohem. it fell out that a Bohemian Gentleman who was a student of Oxford did taste and rellish wicklefs Doctrine and coppied out his Bookes which he carryed over into his owne Countrey and imparted them to John Huz a famous Preacher to whom Wenceslans King of Bohemia brother to Sigismond Emperour had committed the government of the Schoole of Prague renowned at that time This John Huz overcome by the evidence of Wickless reasons fell a preaching his doctrine and being a vehement and perswasive man he drew after him a great number of People To whom Hierome of Prague did adjoyne himselfe who surpassed John Huz in eloquence and learning There came also out of Germanie one Petrus Dresdensis and one Jacobellus that spake with vehemencie against Transubstantiation and against the Communion under the onely species of the bread For to appease these stirres and commotions the Arch-Bishop of Prague called Subinco Cepus caused Wicklefs Bookes publickly to bee burned and drove out John Huz from Prague But seeing the number of those that he called hereticks did encrease dayly he himselfe fled into Hongaria towards Sigismond and John Huz returned back to Prague Then Benedict the thirteenth Gregory the twelfth excommunicated one another the one having his seat at Auignon the other at Rome A Councell was kept at Pisa in the yeare 1409. in which they created a third Pope to wit Alexander the fifth who dying shortly after John XXIII succeeded him So there was then three Popes all at once and there was no body in all the Church of Rome but was excommunicated by some one of these Popes This John had warre against Ladislaus King of Naples and for to strengthen and fortifie himselfe against him he sent Preachers abroad over all the Countries of his obedience to preach the Croisadoe whereby hee promised the forgivenesse of all sinnes to all
from Calvin to the Apostles time hardlie one Christian of a thousand could be saved That if the question be touching Histories it is certaine we must begin by the Ancientest and that it belongs to our Adversaries to shew where their Religion was in the time of the Apostles afore they speake of the time before Calvin There they are at a stand and driven to a non-plus and not being able to shew their Religion in the Apostles writings they send us back to an unwritten word which depends on the Popes Authority whom they make judge in his owne cause and make the Church of Rome the Soveraigne Judge of her owne proper duty The principall is that the Christian Church is subject to the Lawes and to the practice of the Church of the Apostles time and not to the example of what was done before Calvin Of whom they speake as of the Inventer of our Religion because he exhorted us to beleeve the holy Scriptures For Calvin gave us not any Lawes We speake not of him in our Sermons we ground not our selves upon his authority we doe not say of him what the Church of Rome saith of the Pope to wit that he could not erre We doe not call our selves Calvinists as our Adversaries acknowledge themselves to be Papists and make glory of that title as * Certe nullo sublimiori gloriae titulo exornare nec certius eos esse Catholicos demonstrare potuissent quà m eos nuncupare Romanos atque Papistas Cardinall Baronius doth in his Martyrologie at the 16 of October where he saith that a man cannot be adorned with a higher degree of glory than to bee called a Papist So that after his account the title of Papist is of as much worth as the name of a Christian This demand is so much the more absurd as it is made unto us For when they aske of us where our Religion was before Calvin they presuppose that the Orthodoxe Church ought to be visible in all ages Which the Scripture saith not but foretels us of great revolts and false Doctors that shall teach men to abstaine from Marriage and from meates which God hath created for to be received with thanksgiving 1. Timoth. 4.3 It foretels us that all the Earth ravished in admiration shall goe after the Beast Revel 13 3. and that when Christ shall come hardly shall he find faith on the earth Luke 18.8 2. Thes 2. Revel 17. It tells us of the Sonne of perdition that shall bee called God and shall doe wonders and of the great harlot cloathed with scarlet who sitteth in the Citty with seaven hills that raigneth over the Kings of the earth which seduceth Kings and makes them drunke and is made drunke with the blood of the Saints and Faithfull It tells us in the twelfth of the Revelation that wings are given to the Church for to flie into the Wildernesse and live there hidden for a time It warnes us that the broad way where the throng of Peoples passeth leadeth into perdition Which things afford us another consideration That is if a Cut-purse asketh him whom hee hath robbed of his purse Where is thy Purse This theefe addeth scoffing and derision to his theft So the Pope who since so many ages hath persecuted to the uttermost the Church of God and endeavoured to abolish it addeth to this violence this derision and scoffing when he asketh Where was your Religion at that time For it were rather his part to informe us where hee had put her himselfe and to what passe he had reduced her In the meane while though we are not bound to answer to such an absurd and injust a demand and which doth not at all concerne Religion and being propounded by men whose Religion is new and that have swerved from the Ancient Christian Religion and who even say that the Pope may add unto the Creed new Articles of Faith Yet we say that it is foure or five hundred years agoe since the Pope persecuteth with fire and sword the Faithfull ones whereof there was a great number in France in the Low countries England Germany Bohemia and Hungaria to whom our Adversaries gave odious nicknames calling them Valdenses Albigenses Sodomites Picards c. And fathering upon them many impious and abhominable doctrines fâ—rre from their beleife Of whom were Massacred in few months by one Domiâ—ick Author of the Order of the Jacobins above two hundred thousand in Languedoe and Gasconie in Pope Innocent the third his time Of these faithfull people we have the Confession agreeable to ours written in their owne Language a residue of which People remaines still in Bohemia Hungaria Moravia and in the Valleys of Angrogne Luzerne Peruse Saint Martin Pragela Merindoles and Cabrieres which Churches have joyned themselves to ours so soone as it pleased God to display in France and the neighbouring Countries the Banner of his Gospell And the sudden alteration that hapned in Luthers time shewed that Europe was full of People that knew the truth and groaned after a Reformation which the Pope promised alwayes but would never suffer it to come to execution And for to specifie some thing touching the age immediatly before Calvin Aeneas Sylvius who in the yeare 1458. attained to the Popedome was a capital enemie to the faithfull of whom in his time Bohemia and Hungaria and the neighbouring Countries were full and was a firebrand of warre for to provoke the Emperours and Popes to persecute them Wherefore his testimony in this point is the more worthy of credit This man in his 130 Epistle describeth his journey to Tabor a City in Bohemia and the Religion of the Inhabitants and the Conferences he had with them Their sect saith he is pestilentious and abhominable and worthy of the uttermost punishment They will not admit the Church of Rome to have the Primacy nor that the Clergie should have any thing in propriety They pull downe the Images of God and of his Saints They deny Purgatory They hold that the Prayers of Saints which raigne with Christ availe nothing unto men They observe no holy day but the Lords day and Easter Contemne fasting and the Canonicall Prayers They give the Eucharist under the kindes of bread and wine even to little Children and to madde men When they consecrate the Sacrament they say nothing but the Lords Prayer and the words of Consecration They change no habits and take not any ornaments Yea some of them are so madde as to hold that the very body of Christ is not in the Sacrament of the Altar but that it is onely the representation thereof being wandring Sactators of Berengarius unconverted Among the Sacraments of the Church they admit the Baptisme and the Eucharist and Marriage and Orders But as for the Sacrament of Penance they make little account of it But of Confirmation and extreame Vnction they make no reckoning at all They are very opposite to the Religions of Monkes and affirme they be diabolicall
far as to be able to make God with words and to have Christ in their own power This abuse beginning to creepe in France King Charles the Bald about the yeere 870 made a commandement unto one Bertram a Priest and as learned a man as these times did affoord to compose and write a Book of this matter which Book we have yet whole and â—xtant at this day wherein hee maintaines the true doctrine and withstands stoutly and vigourously that opinion of the reall presence of the body of Christ under the species of the bread For of Transubstantiation there was yet no speech of it For which cause also Bellarmin in his first Book of tee Sacrament of the Eucharist first chap. puts this Bertram amongst the Hereticks Who not withstanding in his time lived with honor and was neither troubled nor received any rebuke or reprehension upon this subject Of the same opinion were Iohn Scotus and Drutmarus and others of the same time And I make no doubt but many others with them have defended the same cause in writing But the following ages in which error prevailed have abolished their writings and it is marvel how this Book of Bertram could escape thus The tenth and eleventh Ages are the Ages wherein this error did strengthen it selfe most in which neverthelesse God left not himselfe without testimony For Bruno Bishop of Angiers and after him but more vigorously Berengarius his Arch-Deacon taught and maintained openly that the bread and wine of the Eucharist were not the body of Christ but the figure and remembrance of it * Sigebert ad annum 1051. This Berangarius began to shew himselfe about the yeare of our Lord 1050. Against whom Pope Victorius 2. caused a Councel to be gathered at Tours about the yeare 1055 and foure yeeres after Nicholas II. cited him to Rome to the Councel assembled for that effect where Berengarius was forced to condemn his own doctrine submit himself to the Popes wil. By the reading of that Councel it appeares that â—here were in it many others of the same opinion of Berengarius And Leo * Leo Hostiensis Chrâ— Cassinensi li. 3. c. 35. E que cum nullus valeret resistere Alberiâ—us â—deÌ„ evoâ—ntur Hostiensis recordeth that none of those that were there present could resist Berengarius The forme of the abjuration prescribed unto him is to be found in the Collections of the Decrees made by Ivo Carnutensis and by Gratian which forme is set down in absurde tearmes and which the Church of Rome her selfe beleeves not For they make him say a Can. Ego Berengar Dist 2. de consecr that the bread is the true body of Christ and that Christs body is truely and sensibly handled and bruised by the teeth of the Faithfull But Berengarius being rid out of the hands of that Councell and returned back into France protested against the violence offered unto him and continued to teach the same doctrine till the yeere 1088. in which he died Upon his tombe Hildebertus * Hild. Epitaphio Berengar apud Malmesburiensem Quem modo miratur semper mirabilâ—ter orbis Ilâ—e Berengarius non obiturus obit Quem sacrae fidei fastigia summa tenentem c. Vide Baron ad ann 1088. § 21. who after was Bishop of Mans made an honorable Epitaphe wherein he tearmes him the Prop and Support of the Church the hope and the glory of the Clergy And France Germany Italy and England were full of people that embraced his doctrine as William Malmesbury testifies in the 3. Book of his English Historie All France saith hee was full of his doctrine And Matthew of Westminstâ—r in the year 1087 * Eodem tempore Berengarius Turonensis in haereticam lapsus pravitatem omnes Gallos Italos Anglos suis jam pene corruperat pravitatibus Berengarius of Tours being fallen into heresie had corrupted by his depravations almost all the French Italians and English Platina in the life of John XV. speaks thus of Berengarius It is certain that Odius Bishop of Clugni and Berengarius of Tours men famous and renowned for doctrine and holinesse were in great esteeme in that time Adde to this that Berengarius distributed all his meanes to the poore and betooke himselfe to get his living with the labour of his hands * Guit alias Berengarius istevir bonus plenes eleemosynis et humilitate magnorum possessioneÌ„ qui omnia â—â—usiâ—spauperum â—dispersit c. Antoninus Arch-Bishop of Florence whom the Pope hath canonized and made a Saint gives him this testimony in the 2 Tome of his Chronicles Tit. 16 § 20. This Berengarius was otherwise a good man full of Almes deeds and humility and having great possessions and riches which hee distributed to the poore and would have no woman to come before his eyes About the latter end of Berengarius his life lived Gregory the seventh who entred into the Papacy in the yeare of our Lord 1073. called Hildebrand before he was Pope This Gregory was suspected to incline to Berengarius his opinion Sigonius in his 9 Book of the reigne of Italy in the yeare 1080 recordeth that the Bishops of Germany assembled at Brixina in Bavaria did call this Gregory Vâ—terem haeretici Berengariâ— discipulum an old disciple of Berengarius the heretick accusing him of calling into question the Apostolicall Faith touching the body and blood of the Lord. And this agrees with Cardinall Benno Arch-Priest of the Cardinals who was very inward and familiar with the said Gregory and who wrote his life wherein hee saith that Gregory appointed a fast to three Cardinals to the end God might shew whither of the two to wit Berengarius of the Church of Rome had the rightest opinion And there he relates that John Bishop of Port in a Sermon at S. Peters Church did declare in presence both of Clergy and People that Gregory for to obtaine some divine answer had in the presence of the Cardinals cast the holy Sacrament into the fire Berengarius being dead he had many successors that maintained the same doctrine even to the time of Petruâ— de Valdo of the City of Lions whose disciples were named by their enemies Valdenses and Albigenses Of whose Religion and Confession of Faith conformable to ours Fasciculus rerum expetâ—ndaruÌ„ fol. 95. Indocus Câ—â—cius Tom. H. lib. 6. de Euchar fol. 602. hath been spoken before in the 21 chapter of the first Book and shewed that their Churches remaine even unto our times Furthermore John Wicklâ—f in England in the yeere 1390. taught the same Of whose doctrine contained in eighteen Articles here is the first That the substance of the bread remaines after the Consecration and ceases not to bee bread Against the Faithfull that professed this doctrine the Pope stirred up Kings and Princes and caused an incredible butchery to bee made of them preaching the Croisadoe against them whereby hee gave the same spirituall graces unto those that should
heu Domâ—ne Deus quomodo obscuratum est aurum mutatus est color opt mus O tempus pessimum in quo defecit sanctus et diminutae sunt veritates à siliis hominum Alas Alas Alas Lord God how is the gold obscured and its good colour changed O most wicked time in which the holy one is fallen away and truth diminished among the sonnes of men And Cardinall Baronius after a long recitall of the vilanios of the Papall Sea in those times he poures out these complaints g Baron An. 912. §. 8. Que tunc facies Ecclesiae Romonae quam soedissima cùm Romae domi iarentur potentiâ— ma 〈◊〉 sordidissime meretrâ—ces quaruÌ„ arbitrio inutaretur sedes c. et â—â—truderentur in sedem Petrâ—câ—rum amasii Pseudopontifices What was then the face of the Romane Church and how foule when most powerfull and most filthie whores ruled and governed in Rome by whose will the Seas were changed and Bishopricks given away And that which is horrible and not to be related their Lovers false Popes were thrust in violently in Peters Chaire And Genebrard a great worshipper of Popes speakes of the same time in the yeare 901. of his Chronicle in these tearmes In that alone this age was unfortunate that for the space almost of one hundred and fifty yeares about fifty Popes have wholly fallen away from the vertue of their predecessors being rather Apotacticall or Apostaticall than Apostolicall Sigonius puts two hundred yeares in In the yeare of our Lord 931. John the eleventh came to the Popedome He was Bastard to Pope Sergius begotten on the body of the whore Marozia Whereupon Baronius saith The Roman Church suffered her selfe to be so vilanously oppressed by such a monster After him there was many Popes that were creatures of the fornamed whores even to John the XII who in the yeare of our Lord 955. attained to the Papacie at eighteene yeares old whom Baronius abhorres as an execrable monster Luirprandus and Fascicu us Temporum say Luirprand lib. 6. cap. 11. Sigeber ad annum 963. Antoninus Chroni Temo 11. Tract 16. § 16. that this John being in bed with some bodies wife was so beaten by the Devill that he died of it This Pope made Children Bishops dranke to the Devill when he played at dice hee invocated Jupiter and Venus and conferred the sacred Orders in a stable Then many Popes did play at thrust out and cruelly persecuted one another the Papacy was exposed to sale and vices were there up to the roofe France though in an age full of darknesse was mooved with it and called a Councell at Rheims under the raigne of Hugh Capet whose Acts we have extant In that Councell Arnulphus Bishop of Orleans who presided there speakes thus h O lugenda Roma quae nostris majorâ—bus clara patrum luminap rotulisti nostris temporibus monstrosas tenebras futuris saeculis famosas effudisti Quid hunc Reverendi Patres in sublimi solio residentem veste purpurea aurea radiâ—â—em quid hunc esse censetâ—s Nimâ—rum si charitate destitu tuâ— solaque scientia inslatur extollitur Antichrissus est in solio Dei residens c. O lamentable Rome which in the time of our Ancestors hast brought forth bright shining lights but now hâ—st powred out such monstrous darknesses that shall be infamous to future ages And a little after What thinke yee Reverend Fathers that the Pape is sitting upon a high throne glistering in a robe of searlet and gold If hee hath no charity if he doe exalt himselfe being puffed up with science alone hee is the Autichrist sitting on Gods throne Then hee addes that the Citle of Rome is exposed to sale and that Antichrist is neare and that the mysterie of iniquitie goes forward In the yeare 984. * In Baronius it is the yeare 985. as Sigonius relates in the beginning of his seventh Booke of the Reigne of Italy Bonifacius who made himselfe to bee called John the fifteenth having put to death two Popes usurped the Papacie by violence and by money Baronius calls him a Theefe and a Robber and that had not one haire of a true Bishop Genebrard in the yeare 1007 speakes thus of all the Popes of that time The Popes saith hee of this time being intruded by the Emperours rather than elected were monsters Thus the lawfull succession hath beene troubled as of old under the Synagogue in the time of the Kings Antiochi In the yeare 1033. Benedict the ninth being but tenne yeares old was created Pope by the faction of his Father the Counte of Tuscula Petrus Damianus in his Epistle to Nicolas the second and Platina and Fasciculus Temporum and Baronius describe this Pope like a monster Then three Popes held the Papacy of whoÌ„ Platina speaks thus Platina in Gregor 6. Henricus II. in Italiam cum magno exercitu veniens hâ—hita Synodo cuÌ„ Beredictum IX Syâ—vestrum III. Gregor um VI. tâ—nquaÌ„ tria teterrima monstra se abdicare magistratu coegisset Henry the second being entred into Italie with a mightie Armie and having called a Councell constrained Benedict the ninth Sylvester the third and Gregory the sixth as three horrible monsters to forsake the magistrature That was done in the yeare of our Lord 1044. when the contention touching the conversion of the bread into the body of the Lord was in its strength and Bereâ—garius in great credit in France and in the neighbouring countries for his learning and good life The discreet Reader and lover of the truth shal weigh ponder these things in his minde and say in himselfe Is it credible that God would have used such wicked instruments for to defend his heavenly truth Could any good thing spring from such wicked Popes Are not those such Ages as Sathan desireth for to bring forth monsters in in the mids of so thicke a darknes to bring in Idolatry CHAP. XI Of the oppression of England How Religion passed out of England into Bohemia Of Wicklef John Huz and Hierome of Prague Of the Councell of Constance Of Zisca and Procopius and of their Victories I Hope the Reader shall not dislike to take here a short view of the History of the troubles which hapned in Bohemia about Religion a little before God made the light of his Gospell to shine againe in France England Germanie Switserland and the Low-Countries For in it may be seene a lively Image of Satan and of the power of God Of all Countries subject to the Papall Empire Math. Paâ—is in Henrico I. An. 1171. England suffered the hardest and most shamefull servitude That slavery increased especially under the reigne of Henry the second and of John and Henry the third In the yeare 1171. King Henry the second for to expiate the crime whereof hee was accused namely to have caused the murther of Thomas Arch-Bishop of Canterburie was whipt upon his naked flesh by a multitude of Monkes