but a Sword 5. WHEREFORE if the Pope does indeed desire we should be reconciled to him he ought first to reconcile himself to God for as St. Cyprian saith Schisms arise from hence that the Head is not sought and a Return is not made to the Fountain of the Holy Scriptures and the Precepts of our Heavenly Master are not kept for else it is not Peace saith he but War neither can any man be united to the Church who is separated from the Gospel But these men with whom we are concern'd do use to make a base gain by the Name of Peace for the Peace they seek is only a Peace of idle Bellies for all these Controversies betwixt us and them might with great facility be ended if Ambition Gluttony and Luxury did not hinder it and from hence proceed all their Tears their Souls are in their Dishes and all their loud Clamors and Noise are only that they may basely and wickedly keep what they have acquired knavishly 6. IN these times the Pardoners Dataries Collectors and Pimps of the Court of Rome make the greatest Complaints against us who with others of their Trade think that great Gain is Godliness and serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own Bellies for in the foregoing Ages this sort of men had a very profitable imployment but now whatever is gain'd to Christ turns as they think to their Loss Yea his Holiness too complains sadly that Piety is grown cold and his Revenue is become much smaller than heretofore it was and therefore the good man does his utmost to make us hated loads us with Reproaches and condemns us for Hereticks without any mercy that they who know not the real cause of all this may thereby be induced to believe us the very worst of men and yet in the interim we are not therefore ashamed nor indeed ought we to be so of the Gospel of Jesus Christ because we esteem the Glory of God more than the good Opinion of Men. We know that all we teach is true and we cannot offer Violence to our own Consciences or give Testimony against God for if we deny any part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ before Men he will in like manner deny us before his Father and if there be any that will be offended and cannot bear the Doctrine of Christ they are blind and the Leaders of the Blind but the Truth is still to be preached and owned and we must patiently expect the Judgment of God 7. AND in the interim our Adversaries should do well to bethink themselves seriously of their own Salvation and to put an end to their Raging Hatred and Persecution of the Gospel of the Son of God that at last they may not find him the Vindicator and Revenger of his own Cause for God will not be had in derision and men too now see what is doing that Flame the more it is repress'd with so much the greater Violence doth it break out again and display it self Their Infidelity and Unbelief shall never be able to frustrate or put a stop to the Faith of God and if they shall still persist in the Hardness of their Hearts and refuce to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ The Publicans and the Harlots shall go into the Kingdom of God before them The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ open all their Eyes that they may see that blessed Hope to which they are called that we may altogether glorifie the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent down to us from Heaven to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be rendred all Honour and Glory to all Eternity Amen Amen AN EPISTLE Written by the Reverend Father in God JOHN JEWEL Lord Bishop of SARUM TO SEIGNIOR SCIPEO A Venetian Gentleman In Answer to a Letter of his in which he complains of the Kingdom of England for their not appearing in the Council of Trent nor excusing their Absence by Letters SIR YOU are pleased to write to me with much freedom according to the great Acquaintance which hath been between us ever since we lived together at Padua where you were imployed in the publick Service of your Common-wealth and I in the Pursute of Learning that both your self and many others with you in those Parts do much admire that seeing there is at this time a General Council call'd by the Pope at Trent for the composing Controversies in Religion and the extinguishing all Contentions that have arisen on that account and that whereas all other Nations are assembled there the Kingdom of England alone has neither sent any Ambassador thither nor excused their Absence by Envoys or Letters but in the mean time without the Consent of the Council hath chang'd almost the whole Order of their Ancient and Paternal Religion that one of these things hath the appearance of a proud Contumacy and the other of a pernicious Schism for it is a great Wickedness for any man say you to decline the most holy Authority of the Pope of Rome or to to withdraw himself when he is call'd to a Council by him And that Controversies in Religion ought not to be determined any where but in such Conventions for there are the Patriarchs and Bishops and the most Learned of all Orders of Men in the Church at their Mouths the Truth is to be sought there are the great Lights of the Church and there the Holy Ghost is ever present and accordingly pious Princes have in every age referr'd all those Doubts which have happened concerning the Worship of God to such publick Consultations That neither Moses nor Joshua nor David nor Ezechia nor Josias nor any other of the Judges Kings or Priests did ever deliberate of the Affairs of the Church any other way than in a Council of the Bishops That the Apostles of Christ and the Holy Fathers held Councils that so the Truth was discovered so Heresies were suppress'd so Arrius so Eunomius so Eutyches so Macedonius and so Pelagius were overcome and so at this time the Dissentions of the World may be composed and the Ruins of the Church repair'd if Men would be pleas'd to lay by their Animosities and Partiality and come to this Council but without a Council it is utterly unlawful to attempt any Change in Matters of Religion 2. THIS Sir is almost the whole Sum of your Letter and as for me I will not now presume to give you in Answer on the behalf of England an exact Account of the reason of all our publick Transactions nor do I think it is your Will or Expectation that I should the Counsels of Kings are conceal'd and secret and so they ought to be and this you Sir know perfectly well that they are not to be reveal'd at random to every body or any body and yet in compliance with that old and intimate Acquaintance that has been between us because I see you so earnestly desire it I will shortly and friendly tell
Christ alone and do properly and only belong to him nor was there ever any Bishop of Rome who would suffer so insolent and proud a Title to be given him before the Times of Phocas the Emperor who as we very well know aspired to the Empire by a most detestable Villany the Murther of Mauritius the former Emperor his Soveraign that is till the year of Christ 613. That the Council of Carthage expressly decreed that no Bishop should be called the highest Pâ—ntiff or chief Priest But the Bishop of Rome because he now desires to be so call'd and usurps a Power which belongs not to him besides that he acts directly against the ancient Councils and the Fathers if he dares believe St. Gregory one of his own Predecessors he has taken upon him an arrogant prophane sacrilegious antichristian Title and is therefore the King of Pride Lucifer one that sets himself above his Brethren who has denied the Faith and is thereby become the fore-runner of Antichrist 7. WE say that a Minister ought to have a lawful Call and be duly and orderly preferred in the Church of God and that no Man ought at his own Will and Pleasure to intrude into the sacred Ministry So that a very great Injury is done us by them who so frequently affirm that nothing is done decently and in order with us but all things are managed confusedly and disorderly and that with us all that will are Priests Teachers and Interpreters 8. WE say that Christ has given to his Ministers the Power of Binding and Loosing of Opening and Shutting And we say that the Power of Loosing consists in this that the Minister by the preaching of the Gospel offers to dejected Minds and true Penitents through the Merits of Christ Absolution and doth assure them of a certain Remission of their Sins and the hopes of eternal Salvation Or secondly reconciles restores and receives into the Congregation and Unity of the Faithful those Penitents who by any grievous Scandal or known and publick Offence have offended the Minds of their Brethren and in a sort alienated and separated themselves from the common Society of the Church and the Body of Christ And we say the Minister doth exercise the Power of Binding or Shutting when he shuteth the Gate of the Kingdom of Heaven against Unbelievers and obstinate Persons and denounceth to them the Vengeance of God and eternal Punishment or excludeth out of the Bosome of the Church those that are publickly excommunicated and that God himself doth so far approve whatever Sentence his Ministers shall so give that whatsoever is either loosed or bound by their Ministry here on Earth he will in like manner bind or loose and confirm in Heaven The Key with which these Ministers do shut or open the Kingdom of Heaven we say with St. Chrysostom is the Knowledge of the Scripture with Tertullian is the Interpretation of the Law and with Eusebius is the Word of God We say the Disciples of Christ received this Power from him not that they might hear the private Confessions of the People and catch their whispering Murmurs as the Popish Priests every where now do and that in such a manner as if all the force and use of the Keys consisted only in this but that they might go and Preach and Publish the Gospel that so they might be a savour of Life unto Life to them that did believe and that they might be also a savour of Death unto Death to those that did not believe that the Minds of the Pious who were affrighted with the sense of their former ill Lives and Errors after they beheld the Light of the Gospel and believed in Christ might be opened by the Word of God as doors are with a Key And that the wicked and stubborn who would not believe and return into the Way might be left shut up and locked and as St. Paul expresseth it might wax worse and worse this we take to be the meaning of the Keys and that in this manner the Consciences of Men are either bound or loosed We say that the Priest is a Judge but then we say with St. Ambrose that he hath not the Right of any Dominion and therefore Christ reprehended the Scribes and Pharisees with these words that he might reprove their Negligence in teaching Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees for you have taken away the Key of Knowledge and shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men. Seeing then the Key by which a Passage is opened for us into the Kingdom of Heaven is the Word of the Gospel and the Interpretation of the Law and the Scriptures where there is no such Word there is no Key And seeing the same word was given to all and the Key which pertains to all is but one we say that the Power of all Ministers as to binding and loosing is one and the same and we say that even the Pope himself notwithstanding his Flatterers do so sweetly sooth him up with these words I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven as if they belonged to him and to no other Mortal under Heaven except he makes it his Business to bend and subdue the Consciences of Men to the Word of God we deny that even he as I said can either open or shut or hath at all the Keys and altho he â—oth teach and instruct the People which I wish he would sometimes do truly and at last be perswaded to believe it is at least some part of his Duty and Office but yet if he did so his Key would be neither better nor greater than that of others for who made that difference Who taught him to open more learnedly or absolve more powerfully than his Brethren 9. WE say that Marriage is Honorable and Holy in all degrees of Men in Patriarchs in Prophets in Apostles in Holy Martyrs in the Ministers of the Churches and in the Bishops and that as St. Chrysostom saith it is both lawful and just that he should ascend the Episcopal Throne with it and we say as Sozomen did of Spiridion and Nazianzen did oâ— his own Father that a pious and industriouâ— Bishop is nothing the worse for being married buâ— rather much the better and more useful in his Ministery And we say that the Law which by force taketh away this Liberty from Men anâ—ties them to a single Life against their Wills is as St. Paul stiles it the Doctrine of Devils and that from hence as is confessed by thâ— Bishop of Augusta Faber the Abbot of Paleâ—mo Latomus the tripartite Work which 〈◊〉 joyned to the second Tome of the Councilâ— and other defenders of the Papal Party and which is apparent from the thing it self and confessed by all Histories an incredible imâ—purity of Life and Manners and horriblâ— Debaucheries in the Ministers of God havâ— sprung and arisen so that Pius the secondâ— Bishop of Rome was not out when
future by which it might be proved he was of another Nation So these men pretending that all their Innovations were consigned to them by Christ and his Apostles and desiring they should be accordingly esteemed lest there should be any thing any where extant which might contradict these Dreams and Shams either burn or suppress the Scriptures and keep them from the People St. Chrysostom has written very well and appositely against such men as these Hereticks saith he shut the Gates of Truth for they know if they be kept open the Church will never be thought theris And Theophylact stiles the Word of God a Candle by the Light of which a Thief may be discovered And Tertullian saith the Scriptures convict the Frauds and Thefts of Hereticks For why else do they hide and suppress the Gospel which Christ commanded his Disciples to publish from the House top Why else do they indeavour to put that Candle under a Bushel which ought to be set in a Candlestick Why do they trust more to the Ignorance Blindness and Folly of the Multitude than to the Goodness of their Cause Do they think their Arts are not disclosed or that as if they had Gyges his Ring they can go undiscovered The World sees now with both Eyes what is so carefully locked up in the Cabinet of the Popes Breast this one Argument is sufficient to prove they do not act well and sincerely that Cause deserves to be suspected which declines a Scrutiny and hates the Light for as Christ saith he that doth Evil seeks Darkness and hates the Light but a mind conscious of what is good willingly comes forth that the Works which come from God may be seen but these Gentlemen are not so blind but they see what will become of their Kingdom if the Scriptures come once to be generally known and as it is said of old all the Idols of the Demons which before gave Oracles suddenly became dumb upon the appearance of Christ upon Earth so now will all their Arts at the approach of the Gospel sink down into Ruins and Rubbish for Antichrist is not to be deposed by any other thing than the Brightness of the coming of Christ 29. WE do not like them presently betake our selves to Fire and Sword but to the Scriptures nor do we assault them with force and Arms but with the Word of God By them as Tertullian saith we nourish our Faith by them we erect our Hope by them we establish our Confidence for we know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Power of God unto Salvation and that in it there is eternal life and as St. Paul admonisheth us we would refuse to hear an Angel of God that came from Heaven if he endeavoured to turn us away from any part of this Doctrine Yea as that most holy man Juastin Martyr said of himself we would not believe God himself if he should teach us another Gospel for whereas they make the Holy Scriptures like silent Masses dumb and useless and appeal rather to God himself speaking in the Church and in Councilâ— that is to their own better Senses and Opiâ—nions that is a very uncertain and dangerouâ— way of finding out Truth and in a sort Phaâ—natical and which was never approved bâ— the Holy Fathers St. Chrysostom saith indeedâ— that many boast of the Holy Spirit but if theâ— they speak what is their own they glory falsly 〈◊〉 what they have not for saith he as Christ denied that he spake from himself when he spake out of the Law and the Prophets so now if anâ—â—thing besides the Gospel is obtruded upon us undeâ— the Name of the Holy Ghost it is not to be believâ—ed for as Christ is the Completion of the Laâ— and the Prophets so the Spirit is the Completion 〈◊〉 the Gospel CHAP. V. Concerning the Answers and Objections out of the Fathers and Councils BUT though they have not the Scriptures on their side perhaps they will pretend they have the ancient Doctors and the Holy Fathers for that they have ever boasted that all Antiquity and the perpetual Consent of all times is for them and that all our Pretences are Novel and were never heard of till within the course of a very few years last past 2. NOW certainly there can nothing of more weight be said against Religion then that it is new We know not how this has come to pass but from the beginning of the World thus it hath ever been for whensoever God hath discovered and restored to Mankind the light of his Truth tho it is not only of the utmost Antiquity but older than time it self and eternal yet it ever seems to wicked men who hate it to be new and of no Antiquity That impious and bloody man Haman that he might bring the Jews into disfavour thus accused them to Assâ—erus Thou O King hast here in thy Dominions a certain People scattered abroad which observeth new Laws but is stubborn and rebellious against thy Laws St. Paul also when he began first to preach the Gospel to the Athenians was said to be a Setter forth of strange Gods that is of a new Religion and accordingly thus they bespeak him May we know what this new Doctrine whereof thou speakest is And Celsus when he wrote expresly against Christ and his Gospel that he might expose it to the scorn of men under the pretence of its Novelty writes thus What saith he has God after so many Ages now at last bethought himself Eusebius also is our Author that from the beginning the Christian Religion was in derision stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the new and strange Religion and so our Adversaries condemn all our Doctrines as new and strange but then they desire that all their own without exception should be reputed most ancient just as the Magicians and Conjurers whose business is with the infernal Spirits that their abominable Art may be thought the more sublime and divine as being derived from great Patrons and Inventors and of a very ancient Original do commonly say that they have their Books and all their Rites and secret Mysteries from Athanasius Cyprian Moses Abel and Adam and from the Arch-Angel Raphael So our Enemies that their Religion too which they have not long since patch'd up for themselves may with the more â—ase be recommended to ignorant men and those that rarely consider what themselves or others do pretend that it came down to them just such as now it is from St. Augustin St. Hierom St. Chrysostom and St. Ambrose from the Apostles and Christ for they very well know that there is nothing more popular and of greater esteem with men than those venerable Names But now what if those things they pretend are so new do indeed prove to be most ancient and what if on the other side almost all those things which they extol so very much upon the pretence of Antiquity when they are well and