holy Doctor and then approv'd of by all the world and ever since accepted and applauded in God's Church be defective or deceitfull then a translation made since the pretended Reformaâ—ion by men not only engaged in that new doctrin but maintain'd therby and so addicted to the pleasures and profits of this world as the first Reformers and their Successours the Protestant Clergy are known to be not only in England but in all other parts of Christendom Let them be pleased also to consider whether the judgment of the Roman Catholick Clergy in these Kingdoms who in being of that judgment can have no motive but conscience as is manifest by the incapacities and penalties lay'd vpon them for not conforming to Protestancy be not a more impartial and less to be suspected rule for any prudent person to follow then the judgment of the Protestant Clergy rewarded and promoted to the greatest employments both in Church and state for being of that opinion they profess and who would forfeit all their being if they declared them-selves contrary to Protestancy This being as maturely and impartially considered as the importance of the matter doth require non will believe that the vulgar Translations made by Protestants is holy Scripture they being so contrary to our vulgata in latin translated out of the true Greeck and Hebrew copies writen first by a holy Martyr and after revewed by a St. whose sincerity and learning were sufficient to canonize his Translation had it not bin the word of God and most holy of it self and so declared by the testimony and approbation of the Church for the space of 1200. years before the Councel of Trent In vain therfore do Protestant Writers tell us that theiâ— Translations are taken immediatly from the fountains of the Greek and Hebrew so is our vulgata only with this difference that ours was taken from the fountains when they were cleere and by holy and learned men that knew which were the crystal waters and true copies but theirs is taken from fountains of trouble'd waters by lewd and vicious persons and after that the Arians and other Hereticks had poyson'd and corrupted them with their false and filthy doctrin Thus much against the Protestant letter of Scripture now to their sense of Scripture SECT V. The Protestant interpretation is not the true sense of Scripture THE principal part and as it were the soule of Scripture is the sence which was delivered to the Church togeather with the letter For as St. Hierom in ep ad Galat. sayth the Ghospel is not in the word but in the sence not in the bark but in the sapp not in the leaves of the words but in the root of the meaning So that though we should grant the Protestant Translations to be true yet if we prove their interpretation false we demonstrat they have no Scripture nor the least pretext or colour for their Reformations And first that the Church received togeather with the letter the true sense of Scripture is as evident as it is that God would not speak words without sense or leave the interpretation of them to men whose capacities reach not the mysteries of Religion contained in the words Therfore our learned Adversaries are obliged to confess that no man doubteth but that the primitive Church received from the Apostles and Apostolical men not only the text of Scripture but also the right and native sense therof The dispute therfore between Catholicks and Protestants is not whether the Church ever received the true sense of Scriptures but whether that sense continued as well as the letter in the Church and whether the interpretations of Luther Calvin Cranmer Hamond c. or of the Prelaticks of England ought to be preferr'd before that of the Roman Catholick Church because the true sense of Scripture is supposed by all Protestants to have bin lost for many ages and that the whole visible Church of God was either so careless as to forget the ancient sense or so wicked as to forge a new sense of Scripture And first it seems against reason to believe that any Christian Congregation could be less carefull of the sense of Scripture then of the letter because the sense is that which importeth most for preservation of the faith Therfore if the Prelats and Pastors of the Church have bin so watchfull and diligent in all ages as to find out and correct all heretical corruptions of the letter of Scripture how is it possible they would neglect the same industry for preservation of the sense which is the principal part of God's word And if Protestants think the letter was safe in the custody of the Roman Chatholick Church from which they received it how can they suspect the purity of that sense which was kept and delivered to them by the same Church and authority And if God's providence as they confess was engaged in keeping the leaves and letter of Scripture from corruption surely it could not be so vnconcern'd for the integrity of the sence and substance as to permit it to perish Besides it is much easier to keep the sense of Scripture incorrupt and pure then the letter The letter was writ only in paper or parchment the sense in the heads and hearts of the Bishops Doctors and People of the Church a dash of a pen may alter the letter but cannot have access to the sence which lodgeth in the hearts and heads of the faithfull The precept of receiving the sense of Scripture from the Church is not only agreable to reason but prescrib'd in Scripture as the only way of saluation Go not from the doctrin of the elders for they have learned it from their Fathers and of them thou shalt learn vnderstanding and to answer in the time of need Eccles. 8.8 The first Protestant Reformers observed not this they went to no precedent Church nor Fathers for their interpretation of Scripture and therfore the words of Ieremy 18.15 may be literally applyed to them They have stumbled from the ancient ways to walk in ways not troden The Protestant Clergy ought to say and confess ingeniously that of holy Iob 8.8 Jnquire therfore I pray thee of the ancient generation and prepare thy self to search of their Fathers for we are but yesterday and ought not intrude their own Imaginations as the true explanation of God's word They do not imitat St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil who as Eusebius relates Hist. l. 11. cap. 9. did seek the vnderstanding of the Scriptures not from their own presumption but from the writings and authority of their Ancestors They do not follow the rule of Origen saying tract in Math. 29. That in our vnderstanding of the Scripture we must not dâ—part from the first Ecclesiasticall tradition nor believe other-wise but as the Church of God hath by succession delivered to us Nor that of Tertulian l. 1. de prescrip c. 6. What the Apostles preach'd what Christ reveal'd to them ought not be otherwise proved
his religious habit though he had left the Monastery sayd Mass and was much tormented in his Conscience for running so desperat a cours as to appeale from the authority of Popes Fathers Councels and Church upon a punctilio of his mistaken honour How often saith he did my trembling hart beat with in me and reprehending me object against me that must strong argument Art thou only wise do so many worlds err were so many ages ignorant what if thou errest and drawest so many into error to be damned with thee eternally c. And again Dost thou O sole man and of no accounpt take upon thee so great matters What if thou being but one offendest Jf God permitt such so many and all to erre why may he not permit thee to erre Hitherto apartaine those arguments the Church the Church the Fathers the Fathers the Councels the Customs the Multituds and greatness of wise men whom do not these clouds and doutes yea these seas of examples ouerwhelm Being thus tormented and tossed between his passion of pride and a perplexity of mind himself relates at larg tom 7. Wittemb edit an 1558. lib. 1. de Missa angu how vpon a certain tyme he was sudainly awaked about midnight and how sathan began his disputation with him saying Harken right learned Doctor Luther Thou knowest thou hast celebrated priuat Mass by the space of 15. years almost euery day what if such Masses were horrible Idolaty c. The deuill speaking thus to me I burst forth all into a sweat and my heart began to tremble and leap voce forti gravi utitur the deuill had a graue and strong voice c. And then I learned how it came to pass that somtyms early in the morning men were found dead in their beds To the Deuill I answered I am an anoynted Priest receaued consecration from a Bishop and did all things by order of my Superiors In these streights and agony I would fain vanquish the Devill with the armes of Popery and did object the intention and faith of the Church c. But Sathan with greater force and vehemency did pursue Go to shew where it is writen teaching Luther to appeale to Scripture alone that a wicked and incredulous man can assist at the Altar of Christ and consecrate in the Churches faith c. If men have taught it without the express word of God it is altogether vntrue But in this sort are you acustomed to do all things in the dark under the name of the Church and so set to sale your owne abominations for Ecclesiastical doctrin c. After this disputation Luther was so well acquainted with the Devill that him self saith tom 2. Germ. Jen. fol. 77. Believe me J know the Devill very weell for now and then he walketh with me in my Chamber When I am among company he doth not trouble me but when he catcheth me alone then he teacheth me my manners And in Conc. Dom. Reminiscere fol. 19. apud Cochlaeum J am troughly acquainted with the Deuill for I haue eaten a bushell of salt in his company Yea confesseth in Colloq Germ. fol. 275.281 that the Devill was his Bed-fellow and lay with him more frequently and â—loser to him then his beloved Kate the Nun. And in litteris ad Electorem Saxoniae he saith The Devill doth so run to and fro trough my brain that J can neither write nor read And in Colloq Germ. fol. 283. brags thus J have a couple of rare Devills who attend and wait vpon me most diligently they are no petty Fiends but great Devills yea great Doctors of Divinity among the rest of the Devills One of these two great Doctors of Divinity continued his disputation thus against Luther Now I urge this that thou didst not consecrat in thy Mass but didst offer and adore only bread and wine and proposedst the same to be adored by others c. The institution of Christ is that other Christians may communicat in the Sacrament but thou art anointed not to distribute the Sacrament but to sacrifice and against Christs institution thou hast vsed the Mass for a Sacrifice c. And that which Christ did ordain for eating and drinking for the whole Church and to be given by the Priest to other Communicants c. of this thou dost make a propitiatory Sacrifice O! abomination aboue all abomination And after that Zealous and learned Devill had thus exclaimed and argued against the Sacrifice of the Mass the authority of the Church Transubstantiation and adoring of the B. Sacrament he reasons also against the intercession and prayer to Saints his words are set down by Luther in the same place thus We Spirits being rejected do not confide in Christs mercy neither do we look upon him as a Mediator or Savior but feare him as a cruell Judg such was thine and all other Papists faith c. Therfore ye did shun from Christ as a cruell Judg to Mary and the Saints and they were Mediators betvveen you and Christ so is Christ deprived of that glory In this disputation the Devill had so good success that Luther was convinced and resolued to become a Protestant and to preach and print not only against the Mass and the other particulars mentioned in his Disputation but upon these words of the Devill So is Christ deprived of glory did Luther ground his opinions against the necessity of good works in favor of Iustification by only faith against merit satisfaction Purgatory c. and maintained these his Diabolical opinions with so great obstinacy and so litle respect to Scripture Church Councells Fathers Princes and Prelats that such parts of Scripture as did not favor the Devills argument he either rejected them as apocrijphal or altered the words and sence in his Translations and Comments against all exemplars and copies either in Greek Hebrew or Latin And all Princes and Prelats that contradicted his errors he vilified in so virulent and villanous terms that none but a soule directed by the Devil could resolve to print them His Bull against all Bishops is full of most vile stuffe as also against the Duke of Brunzuick the Elector of Mentz c. In so much that his owne Scholler Sleidan acknowledgeth his manner of writing to be unworthy Base Scurilous c. In his Book and answer against K. Henry 8. he calls him an envious mad foole babling with much spittle in his mouth more furious then madness it self more doltish then folly it self indued with an impudent and vvhorish face without any one veine of princely bloud in his body a lying sophist a damnable rotten vvorme a Basilisk and progeny of an Adder a lying scurill couered with the title of a King a clounish wit a doltish head most wicked foolish and impudent Henry All this he says tom 2. Wittenberg fol. 333.334.335 fol. 338.334 he saith The King doth not only lye like a most vaine scurre but passeth a most wicked knave
reasonable subjection Therfore besids many other works in the yeare 1520. Luther writ a book called Praeludium captivitatis Babilonicae wherin he maintayned that Christians are not subject to human Lawes at least in foro Conscintiae Christ hauing made them all equall by the Gospell but that the Pope Prelates and Princes had tyranically usurped a Iurisdiction ouer them and kept them for many years in gross ignorance and wors then in a Babylonian captivity therfore that God had sent him to reforme these abuses and restore vnto all oppressed people the Christian liberty which they had received in Baptisme and by his reformation they might enjoy so fully as to judg and govern all omnia judicemus regamus Then he published his doctrin of justification by only faith so resolutly that he doubted not to preach though mens words be the greatest blasphemies and their works the most damnable villâ—nies If they haue as much confidence to belieue without doubt as impudence to act without scruple they may be sure that God hath receiued them into his fauor and cannot be damned unless they doubt of their saluation This abominable presumption Luther grounded upon the infinitness of Christs merits as if forsooth our Sauiour had suffered to the end we might not only be happy in heauen but by his passion hah waranted our wickedness upon earth grossly mistaking and confounding the sufficiency of Christs merits with the sufficiency of their application none can deny but that the least drop of our Sauiours Bloud is sufficient to redeeme millions of worlds because it is of infinite value but all Catholicks euer held that though his Bloud and merits be infinitly sufficient in themselues yet are they not sufficiently applyed to sinners unless they concurr to their own reconciliation and justification not only by faith but by good works Sacraments and other meanes which God hath appointed for that purpose Yet Luther pretended that faith alone is a sufficient application of Christs merits and that men needed not mortify their bodys nor endeavour to secure their salvation by good works thinking it a diminution of our Redeemers glory and a disrespect to his person that with our free will we should cooperat with his passion and help our selues and vpon this ground do Protestants raise all their batteries against Indulgences Purgatory Pilgrimages praying to Saints Confession of sins Penance Satisfaction Merit austerity of Monastical life Works of supererogation c. A reformation so indulgent to liberty and sensuality could not want Proselits and in a short tyme appeared the effects therof the Peasants of Germany rebelled against their Princes and Lords in defence of that Euangelical liberty which Luther had preached and in the space of one summer were on both sides a hundred thousand men slain Some Princes to make themselues considerable by heading the multituds which ran to Luther professed his Religion and protected his person and he layd for the foundation of his reformation the ensuing principles SVBSECT I. The fundamentall principles of Protestancy THe first principle and foundation of Luthers and of all Protestant reformations is a supposition that the whole visible Church fell from that primitiue pure doctrin and true meaning of Scripture which Christ our Sauior and the Apostles had planted and the first Christians had professed All râ—formed Churches do and must agree in this supposition the very name of a Doctrinal reformation implies a change and decay of doctrin though they disagree in the tyme and other circumstances of the change Untill Luther had conferred with the Devill he durst not vent this principle he appealed indeed from the Pope to a generall Councell and from a generall Councell when he perceiued one was summon'd to the Church diffusiue but after his conference with Satan he ventured to say Lay aside all the armes of orthodox antiquity Schooles of Diuinity authority of Councells and Popes consent of so many ages and all Christian People we receiue nothing but Scripture yet so that we must haue the certain authority to interpret the same Our interpretation is the sence of the holy Ghost that which others bring though they bee great though many proceedeth from the spirit of Sathan and from a distracted mind The reasons why Luther and all Protestants run this desperat course is because hauing examined and found that orthodox antiquity was Roman Catholik and not one Church parish or person ever Protestant before 1517. they are inforced to maintain by mis-interpreting Scripture that the whole visible Church erred and that God sent them to reform it The second principle of Protestancy is to admit of no rule of faith but only Scripture of no other infallible Judg of the letter or sence of Scripture or of any controversies in Religion but every particular Church and person interpreting Scripture according to their best endeavors and discretion This is expressly declared in the last mentioned words of Luther and inculcated by the Devill to him in his Conference and though few are willing to speake the same words yet is there not one Protestant in the world that doth not practise the very same doctrin and defend it when the matter is argued It necessarily followeth from the first principle Because if the whole visible Church fell from the pure faith and from Gods meaning of Scripture the belief tradition and testimony of that visible Church Councell and Fathers can be no true rule of faith nor themselves fit Iudges of Religion or of the sense of Scripture Therfore every privat Protestant must be his own Guide and Iudg in matters of saluation and Scripture For though Luther Calvin or any Protestant Congregation should pretend that their sense and interpretation of Scripture is that of the holy Ghost and the interpretation of others Diabolical yet no privat Protestant doth look even upon their own reformers or Churches as infallible in this or in any other particular but in as much as he Iudges it agreeth with Scripture and therfore every one that supposeth the fall of the Roman Catholik and visible Church and the fallibility of the Reformers and reformations as all Protestants do will deny that him-self hath any obligation to submit his Iudgment in controversies of Religion to any interpretation of Scripture or decision of doctrin besids his owne and so becoms his owne Guide and his owne Iudg of controversies and makes his owne interpretation of Scripture his only rule of faith The third principle of Protestancy is that men are justified by only faith and that he who hath once justifying faith can neither loose it nor be damned This tenet is cleerly professed as the doctrin of all Protestant Churches in the Catholik doctrin of the Church of England art 11. pag. 5â— seqq And pag. 54. The Papists are declared heretiks for holding that men are to remain doubtfull whether they shall be saved or not From these principles flow that infinit variety of Protestant Religions
were censured in these four first Councels with the Protestant exceptions and objections against the Councel of Trent especily if they wil pervse but the very first leaves of Cardinal Palavicino his confutation of Fr. Paulo Suarez or Servita his history wherin they wil find above tree hundred lyes and calumnies of that Apostata Friar in matter of fact so notorious and vndeniable that our English Prelatick Clergy wil or ought to be ashamed of the Preface they have set before it and of abusing King Iames and his Subjects with such impostures by their extolling so improbable and infamous a Libel Seing therfore the supposed change and fall from primitive Protestancy to popery hath bin from presumption and pride of a privat and censorious judgment against the publick testimony and sense of the visible Church to submission and humility of an obsequious and prudent belief from notorious rebellion against spiritual and temporal superiours to religious and dutifull obedience from gluttony to abstinence from incontinency to chastity from sincerity to flattery from Cloysters and austerity to Sacrilege and liberty from a pretence of faith alone to the Christianity of faith and good works c. It must be concluded that either Protestancy was not the pure and primitive Religion or if it was that the change therof into popery hath bin for the better and by consequence that the first Papist introduced into the world a more sacred and sincere profession then had bin taught by Christ and his Apostles But this being impious and as impossible as it is that men abandoned by God should exceed God's servants in piety or that they should establish and practice more Godly principles and more zealously promote virtue when they fel from God and the way of salvation then when they were in the same it must be granted that Popery is the pure and primitive Religion taught by Christ and his Apostles and that only weak brains or such tender plants as in their infancy received strong impressions of the possibility and existence of an invisible Christian Church vpon earth can fancy an insensible change of it's doctrin profession and ceremonies into so remarkable and different a worship of God as Popery is compared with Protestancy Congregations of Protestants living in the same Provinces Citties and Parishes with Papists and dissenting from them in the outward and oral profession of faith if they did not profess protestancy which they suppose was Christ's faith with the mouth they were dissemblers and could be no part of the true Church in the Canon and sense of Scripture in the administration and number of Sacraments in Rites and Ceremonies in the substance and language of the Liturgy in adoring the B. Sacrament in worshiping of Images in receiving of the Communion c. such Protestant Congregations I say to be invisible and never heard of in 1500. or 1000. years nor observed nor persecuted by the prevailing Papists among whom they lived is not a thing possible or intelligible much less prudently credible We see by experience in these Kingdoms how impossible it is for a Recusant not to be discerned and discovered Papists are known though not convicted Many of them through the mildn'ss and prudence of the government escape the penalties and rigour of the Law but none the observation of their neighbours and very few the menaces of both ecclesiastical and civil Courts The invisibility therfor of the Protestant Church and the insensibility of it's change to Popery is a fitter subject to ground ther-vpon a ridiculous Romance then a religious reformation Perhaps it wil be sayd that Protestants were vntil the last age among the ten tribes as the Jews of whose appearance ther hath bin of late so much talk but we heare not of Protestants among them neither did Luther Zuinglius Cranmer or Calvin pretend that they came from those Israelits or from Terra australis incognita they were born and bred neerer and they brag'd that them-selves were the first Reformers Now to their Scripture SECT III. Protestants mistaken in the Canon of Scripture maintained by the Church of England and by Doctor Cousins Bishop of Duresme OUr second Argument against the probability or possibility of Protestancy being the word or work of God is taken from the Protestants mistake of Scripture and their altering of the Canon And wheras our learned Adversaries do agree with vs in saying that neither the Scripture it-self nor the privat spirit can determin which parts of Scripture are Canonical or holy but confess that this controversy must be decided by the Testimony and authority of the Church and that above 300. years after the Apostles some of their writings were not held by all orthodox Catholicks to be Canonical which now are comprehended in the Canon and admitted as the word of God by many Protestants it foloweth 1. That the Canon of Scripture was not so sufficiently proposed to the whole Church for the three first ages as to make the denial or doubt therof Heresy 2. That the 6. Article of the Prelatick-Religion of England which admitted only such books of Scripture for Canonical of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church is false and the ground therof fallible For as all men vers'd in the Ecclesiastical History wel know and learned Bilson the Protestant Bishop of Winchester doth acknowledg in his survey of Christ's sufferings c. printed 1604. pag. 664. The Scripturs were not fully received in all places no not in Eusebius his time which was above 300. years after the Apostles he saith the Epistles of Iames Iude the second of Peter the second and third of John are contradicted as not written by the Apostles the Epistle to the Hebrews was for a while contradicted c. The Churches of Siria did not receive the second Epistle of Peter nor the second and third of Iohn nor the Epistle of Iude nor the Apocalips c. The like might be sayd for the Churches of Arabia Wil you hence inferr that these parts of Scripture were not Apostolick or that we need not receive them now because they were formerly doubted of This Argument of Bishop Bilson we apply to the Machabees and to the other books declared by the Church of England to be Apocryphal Doctor Cousins writ a book caled a Scholastical History of the Canon of Scripture for which him-self and his friends think he wel deserved the Bishoprick of Duresme that he now enjoys in defence of the Prelatick Protestant Canon and of the 6. article of the Church of England And because he tels us in his Preface that men of knowledg pressed him to publish it as a piece that would give more ample satisfaction and cleere the passages in antiquity from the objections that some late Authors in the Roman side bring against Protestants then those other writings of home or foreign Divines have don that are extant in this kind I thought fit to give Protestants a proof of the soundness of
mind of that folly in very cleer termes and excuse farther disputes by telling them plainly and without going about the bush that the Machabees was not Canonical Scripture nor fit to be quoted in matters of Religious controversies But the Doctor argues pag. 110. that St. Austin tells Gaudentius the Christian Church receiveth those books not vnprofitably if they be discreetly or soberly read or heard what then All discreet and sober men say the same not only of the books of the Machabees but of all the other books and parts of Scripture and St. Peter sayth the same in substance of St. Paul's epistles Will the Doctor conclude from thense that St. Paul's epistles are not Canonical Scripture because men may read them indiscreetly and deprave them to their own damnation Or that there is no Scripture at all because he himself or some of his Bishoprick of Duresme do not read the Bible with sobriety and discretion these words of St. Austin in the Doctor 's judgment pag. 108. are so cleerly against the Canonical authority of the Machabees that he says Cardinal Belarmin layd his thumb vpon them and durst not relate them I am sure he pointed at them with his Pen and directed all the world to see and examin them by his quoting the book and Chapter where they are as my Lord of Duresme him-self confesseth in the margent neither could Belarmin Peron or any oâ—her Catholick Writer observe any disadvantage to their cause in those following words of S. Austin Which Doctor Cozins pretends to be so notoriously prejudicial Recepta est ab Ecclesia non invtiliter c. The Machabees is received by the Church for holy Scripture not vnprofitably if it be soberly read or heard That is sayth Doctor Cozins pag. 110. As St. Augustin els wher expoundeth him-self but where Doctor Cozins doth not because he cannot tell If those things that we read there be conferred with the sacred and Canonical Scriptures that whatsoever is therevnto agreeable may be approved and what is otherwise may be rejected According to this acute explanation which Doctor Cozins falsly fathers vpon S. Austin the most profane books and Romances Esop's Fables and Don Quixote may be received by the Church for holy Scripture as well as the Machabees if those things that we read therin be conferr'd with the sacred and Canonical Scriptures and whatsoever is thervnto agreable be approved and what is otherwise be rejected It were too tedious to note all Doctor Cozins his mistakes Let these few serve to know by what a pillar the English Canon and Church is supported SECT IV. Protestants so grossly mistaken in their letter and Translations of the Scriptures that they can not have any certainty of faith and are forc't at length by their principles to question the truth of Scriptures and of them who writ the Canonical books therof THe holy Scriptures were writen by the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists either in Hebrew Greeck or Latin the old Testament excepting some few parts writen in Chaldaick and Syriack was writen in Hebrew the new Testament for the greatest part in Greeck S. Mathew's Ghospel in Hebrew S. Marck's in Latin We have not the original writings of these Prophets and Apostles nor of the 70. Interpreters who translated the old Testament into Greek some 300. years before the comming of Christ we have only Copies for the truth and exactness wherof we must rely vpon the testimony and tradition of the Church which in so important a point God would never permit to err at least it must have bin so infallible therin as that the Copy be sufficiently authentick to be a rule of deciding controversies of faith and of directing men to holiness of life though perhaps no copy is so exact but therin may remain some erratas of the press and pen yet easily discoverable by it's coherency or incoherency with other parts of the Text. Notwithstanding the necessity of admitting some true and authentick copy of Scripture for what can it availe a Christian to believe that Scripture is the word of God if he be vncertain which copy or Translation is true and authentick Scripture Protestants pretend there is no authentick copy of Scripture in the world as may be seen in the preface of the Tigurin edition of the Bible and in all their books of Controversy seing therin they condemn the Councel of Trent for declaring that the old Latin Translation is authentick and yet themselves name no other for authentick and therfore though the Lutherans fancy Luther's Translation the Calvinists that of Geneva the Zuinglians that of Zuinglius the English some times one somtimes an other yet because they do not hold any one to be infallibly authentick it followeth from their exceptions against the infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church in declaring or decreeing a true and authentick copy of Scripture and their confession of the vncertainty of their own translations that they have no certainty of Scripture nor even of faith which they ground vpon Scripture alone Most of the old Testament as it is in the vulgar Latin Translation which the Councel of Trent declares to be authentick was â—ranslated out of Hebrew by St. Hierom and the new Testament had bin before his time translated out of Greek but was by him revewed and such faults as had crept in through negligence of the Transcribers were corrected You constraine me sayth he to make a new work of an old that I after so many copies of the Scripture dispersed through the world should sit as a certain Iudg and determin which of them agree with the true Greek and in this Cathalogue he saith Novum Testamentum graecae fidei reddidi vetus juxta haebraicum transtuli The antiquity and sincerity of the first Interpreter and the great Commendations therof to be seene in St. Austin de Civit. Dei lib. 18. c. 43. Non defuit temporibus nostris Presbiter Hieronymus homo doctissimus omnium trium linguarum peritissimus qui non è Graeco sed ex Haebraeo in Latinum eloquium easdem Scripturas converterit Cujus tamen litterarum laborem Judaei fatentur esse veracem And lib. 2. doct Christi cap. 15. togeather with the eminent Sanctity and learning of S. Hierom forceth our Adversarie Bâ—eza to confess Annotationibus in caput 1. Luc. That the old Interpreter seemeth to have interpreted the holy books with marveilous sincerity and Religion and in praefat novi Testam The vulgar edition I do for the most part embrace and preferr before all others Carolus Molinaeus in nov Testam part 30. I can very hardly depart from the vulgar and accustomed reading which in Luc. 17. he professeth to preferr before Erasmus Bucer Bullinger Brentius the Tigurin Translation and even before Iohn Calvins and all others Doctor Humfrey de ratione interpret l. 1. pag. 74. The old Interpreter seemeth to be much addicted to the propriety of the words and truly with too much
Altar elder for Priest To discredit the worship and honour of Saints they corrupt the words of the Psalm 138. Thy friends O God are become exceeding honorable their Princedom is exceedingly strengthned thus How deere are thy Councells or thoughts to me o God How great is the su'me of them To condemn vows of Chastity as impossible to be performed they translate Matthew 19. v. 11. All men do not receive this saying thus All men cannot receive this saying To assert the Supremacy in King Henry 8. and Edward 6. days they translated thus submitt your-selves c. vnto the King as chief head 1. Peter 2. But in Queen Elizabeths reign because she did not think the title of head of the Church so proper for one of her sex they altered their Scripture and translated To the King as having preheminency or as superiour But when King James obtained the Crown and seemed to affect much the supremacy then Scripture spoke according to his humour to the King as supreme To excuse many of their corruptions and falls Translations Doctor Whitaker writ a book wherin he endeavored to shew that some Greek and Hebrew words might be taken in that sense which the English Translators gave them but he never could prove that the profane and Poetical signification wherunto the Translators and he had applyed them could make sense in holy scripture nor be accommodated to ecclesiastical disciplin and Divine doctrin And therfore Doctor Reynolds in his reprehensions of Whitaker's works proves the absurdity of his defence and of the English Translations by this example Suppose saith he that a yong spruce Minister should step into the pulpit and exhort his Parish to prepare them-selves for the holy Communion and the Anabaptists for baptism according to the stile and phrase of the English Protestant scripture wherin Priest is caled elder Church Synagogue holy ghost holy wind Lord Baal Master raine Baptism washing soule carcas Because they had rather bury Christ's soul with his body or deny that he had a soule then confess it went to Limbus Patrum and therfore they also translate Hell grave Sacrament secret Beelzebub lord of afly Angells Messengers The Minister therfore who according to the proper and ecclesiasticall sense of these words might have spoken sense thus I that am your Priest placed in this Church by the holy Ghost for the feeding of your soules do denounce vnto you in the name of Christ our lord and Master that vnless your soules be regenerated by Baptism and prepared for the Sacrament of the Altar you shall be condemned body and soule into hell and your portion shall be with the Devills I say with Beelzebub and his Angels the yong Minister I say in steed of this godly exhortation which might move the Audience to devotion must in his own scriptural language move the parish to laughter thus I that am your elder placed in this synagogue by the holy wind to the feeding of your Carcasses do pronounce vnto you in the name of the anointed our Baal and raine that vnless your Carcasses be regenerated by washing and prepared for the secret of the Table you shall be condemned body and carcass to the grave and your portion shall be with the slanderers I say with the lord of a fly and his Messengers Let none therfore admire if Doctor Gregory Martin so celebrated for his knowledg in the Hebrew and Greek tongues which he taught in Oxford should conclude his Treatie of the English corruptions of scripture with this zealous reprehention of the Protestant Clergy of his Nation Are not your scholars think you much bound vnto you for giving them in steed of God's blessed word and holy scripture such translations Heretical Judaical profane false negligent fantastical new naughty monstrous God open their eyes to see and mollify your hearts to repent of all your falshood and treachery both that which is manifestly convinced against you and can not be denyed as also that which may by some shew of answer be shifted of in the sight of the ignorant but in your consciences is as manifest as the other For my part J will not say much to the Protestant Clergy with any great hopes of their conversion there must by more of Divine inspiration then of human persuasion in bringing men to acknowledg corruptions so abominable in themselves so advantagious to the Contrivers Continuers an Connivers and so much applauded by the poore souls that are seduced My rhetorick is not sufficient to persuade bloud and flesh to recounce the Peerage and profit of their Bishopricks and Benefices and reduce them-selves their wives and Children to their former despicable condition and then either to beg their bread or rely for a lively-hood vpon the charity of those whom they had deceived by their doctrine or disobliged by their censures To attempt so difficult an enterprise would argue as much vanity in me as it doth folly in lay Protestants that thinck them-selves safe in conscience and sufficiently informed of the way of saluation by asking a Protestant Bishop or Minister whether he be a Cheat or which is the same thing whether the doctrine wherby alone he can live and hope to thrive in this world be not sufficient to save the soule Few men will confess their guilt or pronounce an infamous sentence against them-selves though they be guilty neither will it be a tollerable excuse in the day of Judgment for any discreet Protestant to say that he made Judges of his Religion no indifferent but indigent persons that have no other interest credit or lively-hood but to preach and maintain Protestancy whether it be sufficient or not sufficient for saluation the Bishop or Minister lives by saying it is sufficient and the true Religion I can not deny but that some Protestant Bishops and Ministers have recanted and repented their errors but few before they were summon'd out of this world by approaching death or before they had lost their interest and hopes by the violence of warr and the vicissitude of times Wherfore seing the Protestant layty hath so much reason to doubt either of the sincerity oâ— sufficiency of their Clergy in matters of a Religion without which their Ministers can not subsist few of them having either patrimony or a trade let them be pleased at present only to consider whether it be more credible that St. Hierom the greatest Doctor of God's Church and the most skilfull in the three languages wherin Scripture was writen who lived in the primitive times whem perhaps some of the original writings of the Apostles were extant or at least the true and authentick copies in Hebrew and Greeck better known then now they are a man that renouncd ' the pleasures and profits of this world retiring him-self to deserts where he employ'd days and nights in his devotions and study of the Scriptures let them be pleased I say to consider whether it be more credible that a Translation made or received by this most
to the Earl of Arundell that she would marry him and by promising other favours to the Duke of Norfolck had by their solicitations gained most of the nobility and the Lords and Gentlemen who had the managing of elections in their several Counties had retained such men for 〈◊〉 of the House of Commons as they conceived moâ—â— likely to comply with the Queens new design in reviving that Religion which but five years before them-selves and the whole Kingdom had rejected as damnable heresy and groundless novelty devised by some lâ—w'd revolted Friars and Priests and had observed how all sober and conscienâ—ious men weâ—â— troubled to see so shamefull a change introduced only for maintaining the weakness of a title against the cleer right of the Stewards and fearing least this scruple might spread and work vpon the consciences of the illiterat multitude it was thought fit to command Bishop Iewell the fittest man for so impudent an vndertaking to assert the antiquity of the particular Tenets of the New Church of England and so in forme of a Challenge against all Roman Catholicks he published at Paules Cross that the Religion which the Queen and Parliament had then established by Law was no novelty nor new invented sense of Scripture but the same which our Saviour and his Apostles delivered to the Church and all Orthodox Christians held for the first 600. years which thing he vndertook to demonstrat by vndeniable Testimonies of the Holy Fathers that lived in those six first Centuries The words of this Challenge we have set down heretofore as also the confutation therof One Rastal having writ against this challenge Iewell togeather with the rest of the Bishops and learned Protestant Clergy composed that famous Apology for the Church of England both in Latin and English it came out first in the name of their whole Church though I believe Iewell had the wording of it because afterwards his name was set to it and to the defence therof but without doubt all the able men of the English Clergy had their hands and heads in the work Against it divers appeared in print Stapleton Sanders and Harding whervpon saith Dean Walsingham in his search of Religion pag. 166. Mr. Iewel within few years after set forth the reply to D. r Harding which was esteemed to have bin made by joynt labours of the most learned men in England both in London and the Vniversities But in these their labours they were convicted of a thousand and odd falsifications and yet saith Harding of 26. articles only five have passed our examination Imagin then what number is like to rise of the whole work I will mention but one or two of every controversy I hope that is sufficient to prove that no one point wherin Protestants differ from Roman Catholicks can be maintained even by the most learned Protestants without frauds falshoods and impostures And do choose to instance particulars out of this Apology and defence of the Church of England because it is not only the work of their first Bishops and Clergy and the very bulwork of their Church but as D. r Heylin truly says the Magazin from whence all the Protestant Controversies since that time have furnished them-selves with arguments and authorities We will omit most of their corruptions of Scripture in the Apology because we have convicted them elâ—â—where of that crime but that they may not imagin we what matter even in this work of theirs let the curious read 〈…〉 Epistle to M. r Jewell set before his return 〈◊〉 vntruthâ— where he tells him you have falsifyed and mangled the very Text of Holy Scripture namely of Saint Paule in one Chapter nine times as the reader may see in the third article of his Book fol. 107. SVBSECT I. The Protestant Clergy convicted of falshood in their Apology concerning Communion vnder one kind BIshop Iewell and his Associats maintain with most Protestants that to receive the B. Sacrament 〈◊〉 one kind only is against the institution of Christâ— and therfore could not be allowed nor practised by the Church nor ever was during the first six hundred years So that the Controversy between the Church of England and Harding is whether in the first 600. years after Christ any Communion were ministred vnder one kind or no which they vnder the name of M. r Jewell deny against whom Harding giveth an instance out of the Ecclesiastical History of one Serapian that was Communicated in his death vnder one kind only Mr. Iewell seing him-self convicted replieth That it is not our question we vnderstand not of privat Communion but of publick in the Church and yet in the first proposing of the Question there was no mention of the Church or Publick and the whole controversy between Catholicks and Protestants is whether with out breach of Christ's Institution any man might communicat vnder one kind only Then Mr. Iewell is demanded whether if it may be proved that sick persons have received the Communion vnder one kind in the Church it will satisfie him wher to he answereth no saying the only thing that I denied is that yee are not able to bring any one sufficient example or authority that ever the whole people received the Communion in open Church in one kind within that time then he is vrged further whether if it can be proved that in closs chappels and Oratories in wilderness and caves in time of persecution the communion was practised vnder one kind this would satisfie him for so mucâ— as this proveth Christ's Institution not to forbid Communion vnder one kind But M. r Iewel leapeth also from this saying the question is whether the Holy Communion were ever ministred openly in the Church It being manifest that for the first 300. years vntill Constantin's time the Christians in most places particularly at Rome had no open Churches but privat Oratories and caves At length being demanded whether Infants receaving the Communion vnder one kind openly in the Church was a sufficient example Jewel answereth Mr. Harding maketh his whole plea vpon an Jnfant and yet of Infants as he knoweth I spake nothing Mr. Harding presseth him with the example of the two disciples to whom Christ our Saviour did give the Communion vnder one kind only at Emaus as by the Text of Scripture and Jnterpretation of ancient Fathers is plain he alledgeth also the examples of S. t Ambrose and S. t Basil who receaved the Sacrament vnder one kind though they were Priests Wherunto M. r Iewel answereth this is not to the purpose for the question is moved of lay people M. r Harding bringeth examples of Christ and two disciples who were of the number of 72. and therfore it may well be thought they were ministers and not of the lay sort I demanded of the layty M. r Harding answereth of St. Ambrose and St. Basil which were Bishops Which evasion is not only fraudulent but foolish as if forsooth Priests
that from Christ to the victory of Constantin against Maxentius there are assigned by Eusebius 318. years and yet did not this persecution cease then neither but continued vnder Licinius and other Tyrants for divers years after see then how just these numbers fall out neither more nor less all which being considered I find no one thing so true or credible in all this revelation saith the Author of the three Conversions who confuted Fox his Acts and Monuments as those words of the spirit vnto him saying Thou fool for that this maketh him a fool indeed by revelation What credit Protestants give to Fox his revelations I do not know but sure Iam they give too much to his relations notwithstanding the absurdity of the whole work in composing a Catholick Church of condemned hereticks without subordination or succession and making wicked Malefactors Câ—â—â—st's Martyrs the Protestant Clergy who could not be ignorant of so abominable a deceit cryed vp the book as a most godly and sincere history and by publick authority endeavored to make it authentick placing one in every Parish Church like a fifth Ghospell recommending the reading therof to all persons both in their houses and Congregations All this was don with design to make the Roman Catholick religion odious and to exasperat the generality of the people against the Priests and professors of the same And though judicious Readers may easily discern in perusing the Book the weaknes of the Author and of the cause he vndertakes to maintain yet the vulgar sort are much taken with both and doubt not but that Protestants have as much reason to put Catholiks to death as Catholiks had to punish those mad fellows whom Iohn Fox calls Martyrs and would needs dy rather then recall those blasphemies against God or submit their fond opinions to that sense of Scripture which our Saviour and his Apostles delivered to the Church and had bin derived by the publick Testimony and vndeniable Tradition both of holy Fathers and general Councells from one age to an other vntill this present To the end silly seduced souls may see their mistake and how litle credit Iohn Fox his Protestant Church and Martyrs deserve compared with the Roman-Catholick I will set down his Calendar SVBSECT I. The Foxian Calendar THe number of all his saints are 456. wherof Bishops Martyrs 5. to wit Cranmer Ridley Hooper Farrar and another whom I remember not What litle credit they deserved we have shewed heretofore every one of them changing his religion with the times and their opinions having bin confuted as heresy in vniversities by publick disputations Bishops Confessors 1. Virgin Martyrs none Mayd Martyrs 3. Kings and Queens Martyrs and Confessors 1. who was Edward 6. other men and women Martyrs 393. other men and women Confessors 5â— These were of divers sects and opinions and contrary in many points one to the other as for example Waldesians and Albigensians 13. Lollards and Wickleffians 36. Hussits and Lutherans 78. Zuinglians and Calvinists 268. Anabaptists Puritans and doubtfull of what sect 59. Again of these were husbandmen Weavers sawyers shoomakers Curriers smiths and other such like occupations 282. poore women and spinsters 64. Apostata Monks and Friars 25. Apostata Priests 38. Ministers 10. publick Malefactors and condemned by the lawes for such 19. of age running away from his Master and finding an old English Bible sincerely translated you may be sure lying in 〈◊〉 the Chappell of Burntwood fell to reading therof and therby presently became a Protestant in divers opinions and would needs burn for the same Rawling White is recounted by Fox to have bin an old poore fisherman in Wales and hearing of certain new fresh doctrin to be had out of the Scriptures in English and grieved that himself was not able to read them he put his litle boy to schoole to learn to read which being somewhat instructed in that art he caused him to read Scriptures vnto him and profitted so much therin with in a litle time that the old fisherman began to be a preacher and so leaving his occupation went vp and down Wales with his boy after him bearing the Bible out of which he took vpon him to preach at every town and Tavern therof seeking therby to pervert such as were no wiser then himself nor could he be restrained from this folly vntill the Bishop of Cardiff apprehended him whom afterwards they were forced to burn for that he stood obstinat in his fantasticall opinions which were extravagant and â—â—â—rce agreed with any sect of Protestancy We have seen heretofore how Laurence Sanders the married Priest seing a litle bastard of his was so tenderly affected therunto as in great vehemency of spirit he sayd to the standers by what maâ—â— of my vocation would not dy to make this litle boy legitimat and prove his mother to be no whore And indeed such of the Protestant Clergy as were executed were brought to the stake for the love they had to their wenches and bastards and because they thought it was against their honor to recant It 's remarkable that of some hundreds of Heresiarchs who have since the preaching of the Apostles risen against the doctrin of the Catholick Church not above two or three wherof Berâ—â—garius was one would recall their opinions no marvaile therfore if Cranmer Latimer Ridley c. should be so obstinat These motives and persons I say well considered rational Protestants will find no parity between Foxian and Catholick Martyrs nor any reason to persecute Priests and Papists by their new Statuts because Protestants and sectaries were persecuted by Q. Mary and other temporal Soveraigns according to the ancient Laws of all Christendom They will find a parity between Fox his Martyrs and Fanaticks for the old Protestants were look't vpon in those days when they first began as themselves look now vpon fanatiks and Quakers only with this difference that these may complain of harder measure now received from their prelatick Brethren then prelatick Protestants from papists because prelatiks have nothing against presbitery 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 that their doctrin and conventicles are prohibited by the temâ—â—â—al lâ—â—es of the Land which can not be a competent rule of faith they can not condemn them by any Pâ—â—â—â—stant general Councells ancient Tradition or by the primitive Protestant principles or by any sense of Scripture ever yet held to be Catholick by the visible Church of Christendom wheras Roman Catholicks did and may censure prelatick Protestants by every one of these rules and do demonstraâ—â— that their prelatick reformation is contrary to all the Testimonies and evidences of Christian and Catholick antiquity SVBSECT II. VVillfull falsifications committed by Iohn Fox in his acts and Monuments FOx having searched and inquired after Protestants and their Church and not finding any one person he durst call by that name for the first 1200. years after Christ and that particularly here in England the Roman Catholick Religion as his
be properly applyed to the Saints but not to Gods thoughts To this demand Protestants answer first that the Saints do not heare us and yet they grant that Devills and evill Spirits heare witches Conjurers or Magitians when they are called vpon and shall we think that the evill Spirits are enabled by nature and permitted by God to heare what they are invited to work mischiefâ— and that the Blessed Spirits are deaf and have their power of doing good â—â—strained when we devoutly pray vnto them They tell us we injure Christ by praying to Saints If it be no injury to Christ's merits and mediation to pray vnto holy men vpon 〈◊〉 or to recommend our selves vnto their prayers why should it be an injury to pray to the Saints who are in heaven Jf the Apostles and Martyrs saith St. Hierom against Vigilâ—ntius dwelling in corruptible flesh could pray for others 〈◊〉 they ought to be carefull for themselves how much more afâ—â—â— their Crowns Victories and Triumphs They tell us that according to Esay 63. Abraham knoweth vs not and Jsrael is ignorant of vs we answer with St. Hierom that those holy Fathers knew not the Iewes with the knowledge of approbation or liking because they had abandoned the law of God so our Saviour saith the foolish Virgins were not known nesâ—io vos Doctor Reynolds giveth a reason why we pray to the living and not to the departed Because saith he the living may vnderstand our griefs either by word or message the Saints can have no notice of them Therfore they cannot make particular intercession for us or we use any supplication to them But these two wayes of knowledge are not proper only to the living in this world The Saints of heaven also vnderstand our afflictions by word and sight when being as St. Ambrose and St. Hierom teacheth they may be by incredible swiftness and celerity of motion every where present and converâ—â—â—â— amongst us being as St. Ambrose addeth beholders of our life and actions they see our distress and heare the complaints we make They know our estate by message also and report of others by the report saith Saint Austin of the soules that depart from hence and by report of the Angels God's trusty messengers and our faithfull Guardians who have dayly intercourse between them and vs. Besides the Saints resident in heaven have certain knowledge of our actions and thoughts as far forth as it may be needfull for us and expedient to them according to that of St. Gregory what can they be there ignorant of where they know him that knoweth all things Every Saint nature not being abolished but perfected by grace has a natural desire to know the state of their friends to vnderstand the 〈◊〉 they make vnto them and therfore to fullfill the 〈◊〉 of 〈…〉 they must have notice of them 〈…〉 in heaven rejoyce at the conversion of a sinner and by 〈◊〉 are not ignorant therof How can we Jmagin 〈…〉 Blessed parents and other relatioâ—â— of sinners can be ignorant of their repentance Therfore St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Austin say that God openeth and revealeth to the Saints 〈◊〉 to his intire friends whatsoever is behoofull for them â—o know And according to this not only the holy Doctors of the Christian Catholick Church but the Iewes did invoke Saints departed Jacob sayd the Angell which hath delivered me from all evills bless these children Gen. 48. Job was councelled to pray to the Saints Call if there be any who will answer thee and turn to some of the Saints Iob. 5. Moyses intreated the patronage of the Patriarchs in these words Remember Abraham Isaac and Israel thy servants The like did Daniel Dan. 3. Take not away thy mercy from us for Abraham thy beloved and Isaac thy Servant and Isâ—â—el thy holy one and King Salomon Remember O Lord David and all his mildness which God himself approved 4. Reg. 19. I will guard this citty for my own sake and for David my Servant's sake St. Gregory Nazianzen implored the helpe of St. Basil St. Ierom of St. Paulâ— St. Gregory Nyssen of St. Theodore St. Austin of St. Cyprian St. Athanasius prayed to our Blessed Lady thus Jncline thy eare to our prayers and forget not thy people O Lady Mistress Queenâ— and Mother of God pray for vs. And St. Austin O Blessed Mary receive our prayers obtain our suits for thou art the special hope of sinners St. Ephrem invocateth her by the name of hope refuge advocate safety and Mediatrix of the world And must we preferr Doctor Abbots and the English Clergyes corruptions before all these evidences of Scriptures and Fathers To conclude this matter J admire how Protestants can Imagin that Cranmer Abbots and their Camerades who conspired to falsifie Scripture or the Ministers that continue to preach their falsifications for true scripture did or do scruple to maintain their pretended Eâ—â—â—â—opal caracter 〈◊〉 the forged Registers which Archbishop 〈◊〉 produced to the Priests in prison of Parker and the 〈◊〉 Protestants Bishops ordination at Lambeth I hope men 〈◊〉 contrive continue and countenance so horrid a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the corrupting of publick Scripture may be presumed 〈…〉 and foist into privat Registers a fictitious consecration therby to enjoy their revenues but as it was never heard of before Archbishop Abbot's time so was it no sooner proâ—â—ced then suspected and contradicted by ancient and consciâ—â—tious persons who lived in London when this Consecration at â—ambeth is pretended to have bin celebrated and yet they never heard a syllable of so rare a novelty notwithstanding their continual inquiry into a matter wherin both Catholicks and Protestants were so much concerned Let this suffice for a tast of those innumerable corruptions and falsifications which yet are continued in the English Bible though reviewed and corrected by King Iames his command and passeth now current in these Kingdomes among Protestants for the word of God wheras it is the word and work of men not only by reason of their false Translations but much more of their vngodly and fond interpretations contrary to the true sense of Scripture delivered by the holy Ghost in the primitive Church and ever since continued by tradition among Catholicks and visible in the writings of the Fathers and General Councells The Prelatick Clergyes design in this new Translation was to keep as J sayd before their authority and the Church Livings which they had vsurped by gaining Credit for their new Episcopacy and ceremonies against puritans or presbiterians and for their Protestant doctrin against the Catholicks but fearing that their corruptions would be observed by both partyes in their epistlâ— dedicatory to King James they desire his Majesties protection for that on the one side we shall be traduced say they by Popish persons at home or abroad who therfore will 〈…〉 Jnstruments to 〈◊〉 God's holy 〈…〉 the people when they desire still to keepe 〈…〉 on the other side we shall be
their Reliques honoured nor their Images worshipped with Vigilantius c. These and other â—rotestant doctrins are recorded as heresies by St. Irenaeus St. Epiphanius St. Hierom St. Austin and other Fathers as you may see in Belarmin and the prelatick writers confess their Testimony but contemn their authority Fâ—lsifications objected against Cardinal Baronius by Mr. Sutcliff THat sincere Protestants may see how litle their Clergy can say against Catholick Authors writings in this point of willfully falsifying Fathers or others J will set down 〈◊〉 some of the principal falsifications objected against 〈◊〉 whose work of the Ecclesiastical History depending alâ—â—â—â—ther vpon the true quotations of the holy Fathers and 〈◊〉 Authors might be the subject of Protestant cavills had 〈◊〉 bin very sincere yet notwithstanding all his ingenuity 〈◊〉 termes him a Cardinal forger and lyar and one of all 〈◊〉 that ever he read that most impudently abuseth and 〈◊〉 scriptures contrary to the intention of the holy Ghost c. 〈◊〉 his preface and then setteth down 52. falsifications and 〈◊〉 of his The first wilfull falsification wherwith Sutcliff chargeth 〈◊〉 is that in the first page of his first Tome he placeth the Image of the Roman Church in form of a woman with a heavy wodden Cross on her shoulders c· This is a notable lye saith Mr. Sutcliff for that the Roman Church that now is possessed of the triple Crown was never subject to the Cross of Christ Jesus for that the Pope claimeth a power above all Emperors liveth in delights c. His second charge of wilfull falsification is that wheras the sayd picture had two great keyes of the Popes cellar as Mr. Sutcliff saith hanging down vnder it he lyeth impudently saith Sutcliff where he signifieth that Christ gave the Keyes to the Pope and his adherents c. His third charge is that wheras the sayd picture had written vnder it on the one side vicit haereses and on the other side subegit Gentes Mr. Sutcliff objecteth this for a wilfull falsification saying that this later Roman Church hath not subdued heresies but is overgrown it self with heresies The fourth charge of wilfull falsification is that Mr. Sutcliff supposing Baronius and the Pope do mean to worship that wodden Cross layd vpon the pictures shoulders he saith that if Baronius mean the true Church he lyeth for that the true Church did never worship any woodden Cross. The fifth charge is about these words subegit Gentes vnder the picture this is a lye saith Mr. Sutcliff for that Saracens Turks and Gentils have prevailed against the Pope and his followers c. regaining the Holy Land The sixth charge is that the holy Ghost hovereth over the triple Crown the B. Virgin sitteth with her Son in her lap St. Peter and St. Paul support the worship of our B. Lady which are all saith Sutcliff notorious lyes for that Christ is no longer an Infant c. And are not these substantial charges of wilfull falsifications to be placed in the first rank Had he found matter to discredit Baronius he would never detain nor divert his Reader with the picture but would have entred presently into the History But now in his seaventh charge he will not trifle Sixtus the Fifth saith Sutcliff in his decretal epistle prefixed before Baronius his books saith that he faithfully and diligently reported the story of the Church c. Now you must know that this Epistle made decretal by Sutcliff is only a licence and privilege for Baronius to print the Book Wheras our beloued Son Antony Cardinal Garaffa saith the Pope Prefect of the Apostolick Library hath related vnto vs that the first volume of our Ecclesiastical History is now ready to be set forth and that it is a work no less learnedly then faithfully written c. we do give you leave to print the same c. With his eight charge of wilfull falsification he is resolved to destroy the whole work of Baronius The year saith Sutcliff and precise time of Christ's Nativity being the ground of all his work it must needs follow that if he faile in that then his whole Book is nothing but a pack of lyes but that he hath erred in that point is very probable for that Epiphanius saith our Saviour was born when Augustus and Silvaâ—â—â— were Consuls but Severus writeth that he was born when Sabinius and Ruffinus were Consuls but Baronius followeth neither of these two but Cassiodorus Is not this a wise charge of falsifying And yet Sutcliff is mistaken in his charge though it be nothing material to the History of the Begining and progress of Christian Religion Conversion of Nations Councells condemnation of heresies c. Epiphanius is of Baronius his opinion as well as Cassiodorus Chrysostom Orosius Beda and most of the ancient writers All his other Charges are very foolish not considering whether Baronius relate things of himself or from others and when Sutcliff denyes the authority he doth not confute it with better authority or reason but by Scoffing and contempt and yet he accuseth Baronius of lyes and forgery because he relates what other men of credit and great authority say in matters of History or doctrin As for example he accuseth Baronius of wilfull lying for that out of Euthymius he relateth that Dives Luke 16. was called Ninensis who also held it was a story and not a parable Then his 50. charge is Baronius would make his Reader believe that our Saviour did celebrate his passeover in S. John Evangelist's house but Symon Metaphrastes denyeth it which is alledged by Baronius as a grave witness His last two charges are 1. Baronius says Missa is derived from the Hebrew or Chaldee word but Belarmin his fellow telleth him he is deceived 2. Baronius doth report out of Gregory of Tours this â—able that divers making thongs did put them about the pillar wherto Christ was tyed when he was scourged and the same did heal divers diseases And with this sound charge he ends his 52. of wilfull falsifications against Baronius What I desire the Protestant Reader should observe in the charges of wilfull falsifications and lyes which they print against our Catholick Authors is the difference between our charges against them and of theirs against us We charge Protestants with heresies and with corrupting Scripture Fathers and Councells to prove heresies and we demonstrat the same so home that either they omit to answer the corruptions and falsifications objected or answer them with adding new falsifications to the old as hath bin manifest hitherto but the Protestant writers objections against us are either frivolous impertinent or forged by themselves And when they can find no matter to carp at in such works as those of Baronius and Belarmin wherin there is such a multitude and variety of quotations and relations it may be well imagined how litle they will find in modern Catholick writers who for the most part borrow from those two Cardinals
of St. Bernard let them see how he condemned all their opinions against the Roman Catholick faith as heresys in the Petrobusians Henricians and Apostolici and then I hope they will acknowledge their error in not tolerating Popery St. Bernard doth relate in the life of St. Malachias whose Successor Doctor Taylor is not either in caracter or Doctrin that he cured a lunatick child in confirming him with the sacred vnction A miracle saith Holinshead seen and confessed by many hundreds of people and therupon blown through the world St. Optatus l. 2. contra Donatistas reporteth how the heretick threw out of the window ampullam Chrismatis a viall of Chrisme holy oyl to the intent to break it the which being stayd by an Angels hand God preserved and did light safe among the stones A Miracle of the Sacrament of Extreme vnction OF the Sacrament of Exteeme vnction St. Austin giveth this testimony So often as any infirmity chanceth let him that is sick receive the body and blood of Christ and after that let him annoint his body that that which is written Iac. 5.14 may be accomplished in him Is any sick let him bring in the Priests and let them pray over him annointing him with oyl in the name of our Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sicke And our Lord shall lift him vp and if he be in sins they shall be remitted him I doubt Doctor Taylor and his prelatick Convocation will not allow in this controversy of Extreme Vnction the testimony of St. Malacly to be as pious as they did in the former of Confirmation And if you ask the cause they can give no other but that their Episcopacy is not so much concerned in maintaining extreme Vnction as Confirmation We shall notwithstanding relate St. Bernards words and St. Malachias work and desire Doctor Taylor to let us know why he thinks the testimony of one and the example of the other to be more credibles and imitable in the point of Episcopacy then in other articles of Christian doctrin A noble man saith St. Bernard in vita Malachiae dwelled neere the Monastery of Benchor whose wife being sick Malachias was requested to anoyl her which was deferred till morning afterwards a sudden outcry being made that she was dead Malachias came and when he certainly found that she was dead he was greatly troubled in mind imputing the falt to himselfe that she dyed defrauded of the grace of the Sacrament and lifting vp his hands to heaven sayd I beseech thee o Lord c. what more she that was dead opend her eyes c. and Malachias giving thanks praysed God and anointed her Knowing sins to be remitted in this Sacrament Miracles of the Sacrament of Confession IT is written Act. 19.18 that many of those primitive Christian that belived came confessing and declaring their deeds Therfore St. Austin sayth to some who thaught it not necessary to confess their sins to Priests Do ye penance such as is don in the Church that the Church may pray for you Let no man say within himself I do it in secret J do it before God alone God who pardoneth me knoweth that I do in my heart Was it therfore sayd in vain whatsoever you shall loos in earth shall be loosed in Heaven Were the keys given to the Church of God in vain Do we frustrat the Ghospel of God Do we frustrat the words of Christ Do we promise you that which he denyeth Do we deceive you And in an other place there are saith he that do think it sufficient for their salvation if they confess theire sins to God alone vnto whom nothing is hidden and every mans conscience lieth open For they will not or they are ashamed or they disdain to shew themselves vnto Priests Whom yet our Lord hath by Moyses ordained to discern between leper and leper But J wil not have thee deceived with this opinion and be ashamed therby to confess them vnto the Vice-gerent of our Lord either languishing with â—hamfastnes or stiffnecked with indignation For of reason in like manner must we admit him for our Judge which our Lord doth not disdain to be his Vicar St. Cyprian saith I beseech you my brethren every one to confess his sin whilst yet he that sinneth remaineth in this world whilst his confession may be admitted whilst every mans satisfaction and remission given by the Priests is acceptable vnto our Lord. St. Basil the great saith Jt is judged necessary that sins be confessed vnto those to whom is committed the dispensation of the mysteries of God for so the very penitents of ancient times are found to have confessed their sins vnto holy men Sundry miracles wrought by God to confirm our Catholick doctrin of the Sacrament of Confession every one may read in Joannes Climacus grad 4. in S. Petrus Damian in ep ad Desiderium In Petrus Cluniac lib. 1. de Mirac cap. 3.4.5 6. J will relate one or two out of S. Bede of whom Fox pag. 165. sayes As touching the holines and integrity of his life it is not to be doubted And saith of his learning ibid. so notable and famous was the learning of Bede that the Church of Rome both stood in need of his help and also required the same about the discussing of certain controversies apperaining to learning Moreover the whole Latin Church at that tyme gave him the mastery in Iudgment and knoweldge of the holy Scriptures And yet this holy Man who was such a Master in all learning and Scripture in his history of the Church of England recounts Miracles either seen by himself or so credibly reported that he being of so sound a Judgment as Fox confesseth beleived and writ them for authentik to confirm every point of our doctrin wherin we differ from Protestants Let us hear one of Confession In the time of Conrede saith St. Bede l. 5. c. 14. hist. who reigned after King Edilrede there was a certain Captain in great favor with the King for his valor but careless of his soul. Wherfore the King often admonished him to make humble confession of his sins and amend his life least by deaths sudain prevention he might loos time of repentance but he notwithstanding this gentle admonition of his Souveraign deferred his confession In the mean time being visited with sicknes the King came to his Chamber for he loued him tenderly and exhorted him that at the least now he would confess before he died No quoth he J will not be confessed now but when J am well recovered I will least if I should now do it my fellows would say that I did that for feare of death which I did not in health When the King came the next day to visit him and give him good councel he cryed out incontinent with a pitiful and lamentable voice saying Alas what mean you Sir why come you hither you are not able to do me any good The King
the tendernes of her conscience was satisfied there could be no scruple of Sacriledge in applying with consent of the true owners ecclesiastical livings to pious and publick vses And now I hope I may conclude this Treatise with humbly desiring a Conference or examination of Protestant and Catholick books at least of one for each side let the quotations of Doctor Taylors Dissuasive be viewed and that book or any other writ against the Roman Religion stand for the Protestants sincerity t is like he writ nothing carelesly or rashly his declared drift being to make a whole Nation Protestants and professing himself to be only Amanuensis to a prelatick Convocation of reformed Bishops which in his Preface he compares with that Assembly of the Apostles wherin choyce was made of Iudas his Successor and sayes the lot of St. Mathias fell vpon himself and that some other like himself was Barnabas the just Jf this holy Convocation of Protestant Apostles should set forth a Book that hath more lyes then leaves I hope men may advise their friends to consider whether a Religion that cannot be maintained but by such men and means and a Clergy that practiseth such frauds and falsifications ought to be preferred before a Religion and Clergy that not only professeth as all others do to write truth but presseth to come to a publick trial therof in a â—egall way and rather then fail herein are content that the controversy be decided by them that are known to be most zealously devoted to Protestancy I do not instance Bp. Taylors Dissuasive from Popery for the Trial as if his falsifications to maintain Protestancy were more numerous or more enormous then those of other writers that have defended the same cause No. He is more waâ—y then many and more moderat then most of his predecessors or equalls But I instance his book to give my adversaries all the advantages that the learning of the Author and the Authority of a Convocation can afford Jf they have a better opinion of the sufficiency of Bishop Jevell then of Bp. Taylor they may fix rather vpon his Apology for the Church of England then vpon Doctor Taylors Dissuasive from Popery authorized by the Church of Ireland To Jevells Apology we oppose Harding Stapleton and Rastalls Answers To Taylors Dissuasive Worsley Lengar and Sergeants Annotations But if they refuse this offer as pointing but at two particular Doctors of their Church let them be pleased to have the truth of their Reformation and the sincerity of their whole Clergy examined by answering to the frauds and falsifications wherwith I charge their whole Church and calling in this book FINIS The Summe of this Treatise Containing the Substance of every Section THE FIRST PART Containing the Matter of Fact of the Beginning Progress Principles and effects of Protestancy SECTION I. HOw necessary a rational religion is for a peaceable government and wherin doth the reasonableness of Religion consist How dangerous for a temporal Soveraign to pretend a spiritual supremacy over his subjects Heathen Princes durst not assume it without a persuasion in their subjects that it was due by descent from some Deity or that the Gods signified their approbation therof by prodigies and miracles The great Turk notwithstanding his tyranny thinks it not policy to pretend a spiritual jurisdiction over his subjects though slaves The ground of policy piety and peace consists in establishing by law a Religion confirmed by miracles that such a Religion will make the Prince powerfull and popular the Prelats respected the people willing to obey and pay taxes It takes away all pretexts of rebellion vpon the score of a tenderness of conscience How necessary it is for the Government to have a devout Clergy and that Clergy at the Soveraigns devotion and Some of them emploied in State affairs Therby all disputes between the spirituall and temporall jurisdictions are prevented With how much reason Statesmen dread such disputes For the space of 1500. years the Catholick world believed that the Bishop of Rome had the supreme spiritual jurisdiction over souls as being Christ's Vicar vpon earth and that only such as were of his Communion and vnder his obedience were members of the Catholick Church and therfore the Greeks for exempting the Bishop of Constantinople and themselves from that obedience were declared Schismaticks others were condemned as Hereticks for teaching and professing doctrin contrary to the Roman Both the doctrin and authority of the Roman Bishops and Clergy hath been confirmed by vndeniable true miracles even here in England Jt was held to be the only Catholick doctrin in St. Gregory the great his time That faith which wee Roman Catholicks now profess is the same in every particular with that of St. Gregory and of all Orthodox Christians of his time and for confirmation wherof true miracles have been wrought SECT II. OF the Author and beginning of Protestancy The first Preacher therof was Martin Luther an Augustin Friar who from his youth had bin lianted by the Devil and presumed to have bin possessed He resolved to preach and write against the Mass praying to Saints and other Catholick Tenets after that the Devil had appeared to him and convinced him by Protestant arguments How weakly the Protestant writers endeavour to excuse Luthers disputation instruction and familiarity with the Devil Others acknowledge it and maintain that the Devils doctrin ought to be believed when it agrees with the Protestant interpretation of Scripture that is with every privat interpretation contrary to the sense of the whole visible Church How much it is against piety and policy to make the Protestant or any other privat interpretation of Scripture the Religion of the State or to preferr it before that of the Church and of the holy ancient Fathers quoted subsect 1. passim SECT III. OF the principles ad propagation of Protestancy How Luther begun his reformation by gaining Poets Players Painters and Printers to discredit by their Poems Pamphlets pictures and ballads the Roman Catholick Religion and its Clergy How he drew also many dissolute Friars and Priests to his side and married nine of them to so many Nuns in one day taking also one to himself How he made his reformation plausible to Libertins by teaching that only Faith was necessary for Salvation without troubling themselves with good works and popular by preaching that no Christian ought to be subject to an other and how therupon the Clowns and Tenants of Germany rebelled against their Princes and Landlords The three fundamental principles of Protestancy are 1. That for many ages the whole visible Church had bin in damnable errors and so continued vntill Luthers reformation 2. That there is no rule of faith but Scripture as Protestants are pleased to interpret it 3. That men are justified by only faith How from these principles have issued innumerable Protestant Religions contrary one to the other Luther did see his own reformation divided into 130. disagreing sects of
of England Of his design to reform the principles and liberty of Protestancy intending therby to render it less dangerous to lawfull Soveraigns and Monarchy How K. Charles 1. pursued his Fathers design but his sufferings and death demonstrat the impossibility of confining the Protestant liberty within the rules of Government or reason By the fundamental principles of Protestancy every particular person is a Supreme Iudge in spiritual affairs and may more easely apply and abuse that prerogative to the prejudice of his Soveraign then the Pope can his papal Supremacy Therfore it s a great providence of God when any Protestant King of England escapes to be judged and deposed by his Subjects THE SECOND PART OF the vnreasonableness of Protestancy and of the inconsistency of the principles of Protestancy with Christian piety and peaceable government SECT I. THe vnreasonableness and inconsistency of Protestancy with Christian piety or policy proved by the very fundamental principle of all Protestant reformations which principle is a supposition of the fallibility and fall of the visible Catholick Church from the pure and primitive doctrin of Christ to damnable errors and notorious superstition Such a change is demonstrated both incredible and impossible SECT II. THe Protestants proof of such a change is their pretended cleerness of Scripture It is demonstrated that their Sense of Scripture is not clear in any texts controverted between Catholicks and Protestants That the principles of Protestancy incline to vice the Catholick principles to vertue proved in many particulars The invisibility of the Church a ridiculous comment SECT III. THe Protestant letter and Sense of Scripture is not the word of God Doctor Cossins his Scholastical History of the English Canon of Scripture confuted as also his exceptions against the authority of the Roman Catholick Canon The Lutheran Churches of Germany agree not with the English Canon of Scripture SVBSECT I. DOctor Cossins now Bp. of Duresme his exceptions against the Councel of Trent answered The legality of a Councel as well as of a Parliament may stand with the absence of many members if they were summoned and expected The absurdity of Protestant writers excepting against the want of Bishops in the Councel of Trent wheras themselves made new Religions and reformations by a Single voice of Luther Zuinglius Calvin c. and in England by the vote of the major part of twelve persons named by the Parliament to determin matters of faith and Sacraments seaven men were thought sufficient to do the work and cast the Roman Catholick Religion Protestant Bishops can no more pretend to sit and define in a general Councel then proclaimed rebells can pretend to vote in a lawful Parliament It s as reasonable the Bishop and Church of Rome should condemn hereticks and judge all controversies of faith as it is that a King and Parliament condemn rebells and judge suites in law A new definition of Pope or Councel is no new article of faith it is only a declaration of our obligation to believe that which formerly had bin revealed but not sufficiently proposed Doctor Cossins his egregious falsification of Belarmin his wresting words of St. Austin and St. Hierom. SECT IV. THe Protestant translations of Scripture are fraudulent and fals no certainty of Christian faith can be built vpon them Protestants admit no Coppy or translation to be authentick to the end they may be at liberty to reject what they do not fancy of the letter of Scripture as well as of the sense The vulgar Latin is authentick Scripture How corrupt are all English Bibles How in K. Edward 6. his reign Cranmer and the first Apostles of English Protestancy changed the very text of Christs words This is my body three several times Protestants make the Apostles fallible in doctrin even after receiving the holy Ghost and by consequence must hold their writings or Scripture to be fallible SVBSECT I. MAny particular instances of Protestant corruptions in the English Bibles to asert the Protestant and prelatick doctrin of the Church of England Against images Against Ordination by imposition of hands Against the single life of Priests Against the Sacrifice of Masse Against vowes of chastity To favor the Kings Supremacy How fondly these corruptions are excused by Whitaker and how absurdly Scripture is made speak according to the Protestant translations What small hopes there are that a Clergie which corrupts Scripture or continueth and countenanceth corruptions of Scripture will repent or recant their errors and how little reason the Protestant layty hath to rely vpon their Clergys sincerity or vpon their English Scripture SECT V. THe Protestant interpretation is not the true Sense of Scripture The principal part of Gods word is the sense he delivered to the Church together with the letter It s against reason to believe that the Church would be more carefull of preserving the letter then of preserving the sense of Scripture and therfore Protestants are vnexcusable for taking the letter from the Roman Church and rejecting the sense The holy Fathers bid us receive the Sense of Scripture as well as the letter from the Church An infallible mark of heresy to do the contrary It is at least 16. to one that the Roman Catholick Sense of Scripture is true and the Protestant fals SECT VI. NO Protestant Church hath a true Ministery Miracles Succession of doctrin or Sanctity of life Their extraordinary vocation is ridiculous and incredible it being impossible that God should send Ministers to contradict doctrin confirmed with so many signs of his own authority and approbation as the Roman Catholick is God never sent such vitious men as the Protestant reformers were to reform his Church either in the old or new Testament If the Protestant doctrin had bin true God would have wrought miracles to confirm it for the conversion of the seduced Papists as Protestants confess he doth for the conversion of the Jndians Iaponians and China What wicked men were Luther Zuinglius Calvin Beza Cranmer and the rest of his Camerades that framed the Religion and Liturgy of the Church of England and how little credit in matters of faith deserves the Parliament that confirmed the same Calvins miracle at Geneva foretold by Tertullian SECT VII THe conversion of pagan Kings and Kingdoms to Christianity foretold in Scripture is a more cleer sign of the true Church then any other miracles and not to be found in any other Church but in the Roman Catholick acknowledged by learned protestants Of Barlows three-score invisible Queens converted by protestants No greater an absurdity then their invisible Church The vain endeavors of Calvin and other protestants to convert Heathen nations Bezas despair of Success in that Ministery and his advice to protestants to leave that labor to the Jesuits and rather busy themselves at home Tertullians saying that its a sign of hereticks to pervert Christians not convert pagans may be properly applyed to Protestants Their success in propagating their new Ghospel no
Protestant Church of England Pag. 62. Cranmer a meer Cotemporiser and of no Religion at all Pag. 63. Who fram'd the 39 Articles Pag. 64. Of the 39 Articles of the Church of England Pag. 67. Protestant Bishops well pleas'd to see themselves Religiously Worship'd Pag. 70. Protestants though they have chang'd their Form of Ordination yet cannot have a true Clergy till they change also the Character of the Ordainers Pag. 80. Of the Effects immediatly produc'd by the 39 Articles Pag. 82. Dudely Earl of Warwick's Endeavours to have his Son to Reign after K. Edw. His Marrying him to the Lady Jane Gray Pag. 83. Queen Mary's Troubles Pag. 84. The Roman Catholicks willing Resignation of the Church Livings to the Crown Pag. 86. An Act of Parliament in the first year of Q. Mary concerning the fraud and force of K. Henry the VIII's unlawful Divorce from Q. Catharine Pag. 88. Other Effects of Protestancy after it was reviv'd in England by Q. Elizabeth to exclude the Royal Family of the Stewards from the Crown And of the Nullity of her Clergies Character and Jurisdiction Pag. 95. Decreed in Parliament that any Natural Issue of Q. Elizabeths Body should enjoy the Crown after her Death and so the Line of Stewards to be Excluded Pag. 100. Reasons why Q. Elizabeth in her 44 years Reign could not make her Prelatick Clergy and Religion acceptable Pag. 103 How Injurious Protestancy hath been to the Royal Family of the Stewards and how Zealous they have been in promoting the same Pag. 109. K. James the I. declared that Catholicks and their Religion had no Hand in Gun-powder Treason Pag. 112. Of K. Charles the First Pag. 112. Part. 2. Of the Inconsistency of Protestant Principles with Christian Piety and Peaceable Government THe foundation whereon all Reformations are built Pag. 117. The Protestant evasion of the clearness of Scripture against Roman Catholick Doctrine and also of the Invisibility of their own Church Confuted And the Incredibility of the suppos'd Change and Apostacy prov'd by the difference of the Roman Catholick and Protestant Principles Pag. 121 Protestants mistaken in the Canon of the Scripture maintain'd by the Church of England and by Dr. Cousins Bishop of Duresin Pag. 131. Dr. Couzins Exceptions and Falsifications against the Councel of Trent's Authority answer'd Pag. 137. New Definitions are not New Articles of Faith Pag. 141. Protestants so grosly mistaken in their Letter and Translation of Scriptures that they cannot have any Certainty of Faith And are forc'd at length by their Principles to question the Truth of Scriptures and of them who writ the Canonical Books thereof Pag. 149. Particular Instances of Protestant Corruptions in the English Bible Pag. 157. Protestant Interpretation is not the true Sense of Script Pag. 163. Protestants Mistaken in the Ministry and Mission of their Clergy in the Miracles of their Church in the Sanctity and Honesty of their Reformers Pag. 168. Calvin's Miracle Pag. 180. Beza's Lasciviousness He prefers his Boy Andibertus before his Girle Candida Pag. 181. Protestants mistaken in the application of the Prophesies of Scripture concerning the Conversion of the Kings and Nations of the Gentils from Paganism to Christianity foretold as an Infallible Mark of the True Church and whereof the Protestant is depriv'd Pag. 183. Calvin sends Ministers to Convert Gallia Antartica from Heathenism And what success they had Pag. 190. Protestants mistaken in the consistency of their Justifying Faith with Justice or Civil Government Pag. 193. The Protestant Doctrine of Justifying Faith most dangerous and Damnable Pag. 198. Protestants mistaken in the consistency of Christian Faith Humility Charity Peace either in Church or State with their making Scriptures as interpreted by private Persons or Fallible Synods or fancied General Councils composed of all Dissenting Christian Churches the Rule of Faith and Judge of Controversies in Religion How every Protestant is a Pope and how much also they are overseen in making the 39 Articles or the Oath of Supremacy a distinctive Sign of Loyalty to our Protestant Kings Pag. 207. How the Fundamental Principles of Protestancy maturely examin'd and strictly followed have led the most Learned Protestants of the World to Judaisme Atheism Arianisme and Mahometanisme c. Pag. 222. The Protestant Churches of Poland Hungary and Transilvania deny the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity Pag. 230. How the Indifferency or rather Inclination of Protestancy to all kind of Infidelity is further demonstrated by the Prelatick Doctrine and distinction of Fundamental and Not Fundamental Articles of Faith The design of their fundamental distinction laid open The Roman Catholick the sole Catholick Church And how it has the Authority of Judging all Controversy of Religion Pag. 233. The Roman Catholick Church is a Competent and Impartial Judge of Controversies of Religion Pag. 241. Of the Justice and Legality of our Roman Censures against Protestancy Pag. 242. All Christians were never Judges of Religion one Party always submitted to the Judgment of the Other that was in Obedience to and in Communion with St. Peters Successor the Bishop of Rome Pag. 247. Gods Veracity is deny'd by Protestancy and by the Prelatick Distinction and Doctrine of Fundamental and not Fundamental Articles of Faith Pag. 251. Protestancy is Heresie Pag. 254. Protestancy contradicts Gods Veracity Pag. 255. The Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church in Matters of Faith prov'd against Protestants Pag. 256. The Protestant Doctrine of Fundamentals Confuted Pag. 257. The same further demonstrated and prov'd that neither the Protestant Faith nor the Faith lately Asserted in a Book call'd Sure footing in Christianity is Christian Belief Pag. 260. The Resolution of Protestant Faith Pag. 262. The Infallibility of the Church prov'd by Gods Veracity Pag. 268. Heresie Explain'd by Rebellion Pag. 269. The Unreasonableness of them who pretend a private Spirit and refuse to submit to the Authority of the Church for want of Clearer Evidence than the Roman Catholicks hath of Gods Authority Pag. 269. Reasons for Liberty of Conscience And how much both Piety and Policy is mistaken in making Prelatick Protestancy the Religion of the State by continuing and pressing the Sanguinary and Penal Statutes against the Roman Catholick Faith and the Act of Uniformity against Sectaries Pag. 271. Queen Marys and the Inquisitions Severity against Protestancy can be no President or excuse for the Statutes against Popery Pag. 283. Part 3. Containing a plain Discovery of the Protestant Clergys Frauds and Falsifications whereby alone their Doctrine is supported and made Credible The Conscience and Conveniency of Restoring or Tolerating the Roman Catholick Religion Demonstrated THat either the Learned Protestants or Roman Catholick Clergy are Cheats and how every Illiterate Protestant may easily discern by which of the two Clergies he is Cheated And therefore is oblig'd under pain of Damnation to examine so near a concern And to renounce the Doctrine and Communion of that Church wherein he is Cheated Pag. 287. With what Impudency and Hypocrisy Bishop Jewel
and reformations They began in Luthers owne days and still continue to increase and multiply having no rule of faith but an obscure text of Scripture nor no Church or Court of judging the controversies therof with an obligation to submit there-unto but every ons privat opinion which must needs breed diuision add confusion And so it happened in the very beginning to Luther For his Disciples observing that every one of them-selves might pretend to be sent by God by an extraordinary vocation as well as Luthers seing he proved not his Mission by Miracles or by any supernatural sign to reforme the Church divers of them separated from him and set up for them-selves as Zuinglius who invented the Sacramentarian Religion against Christs real presence in the Sacrament and Bernard Rotman Father of Anabaptists c. It were tedious to relate all their divisions and almost impossible We will only assure the Reader that in the space of 30. years after Luther began his Reformation it was divided and subdivided in Germany alone into 130. Sects For first his Disciples divided them-selves into four principal Reformations of plain Lutherans halfe Lutherans Antilutherans or Sacramentarians and Anabaptists These plain Lutherans into eleuen Sects and these againe into soft rigid and extravagant Lutherans the semilutherans or half Lutherans also into eleven Sects The Sacramentarians or Antilutherans into 56. and one of these into 9. The Anabaptists into 13. Sebastianus Traneus a Protestant numbreth 70. How all these have bin subdivided since we may guess at by the variety we see in England of Protestant Religions not with standing the severity of the Laws in favor of the Prelatik Not one of these Sects have subordination to another and agree only in some generall Notions of Christianity and in impugning the Roman Catholick Religion one of the marks wherby the Holy Fathers discerned Heresies Each of them pretend to be a true Church and condemn the rest as Schismatical and Heretical Congregations perpetualy quoting Scripture one against the other but understood according to every on s conveniency fancying or feigning that the Spirit of God inspires him to reform not only the Roman Doctrin but the Protestant reformations But when we call to them for their comission which must be signed by Miracles and desire to know by what authority they presume to take vpon them so high an employment they tell vs that Miracles are ceased in the Church and all ours either counterfeit or Diabolicall wrought by the Devill to confirm us in the Idolatry of the Mass Invocation of Saints c. But because our Miracles exceed the Devills power and can be wrought only by God rather then Protestants will embrace the truth by Miracles testified they teach a blasphemy saying that God doth give power of working true Miracles unto false teachers not to confirm their false and Popish opinions but to tempt those the Indians Iaponeses and Chineses unto whom they be sent By which Paradox they call in question Christianity it self for why might not God tempt the Iews and primitive Christians by Christs Miracles as well as the Indians and Iaponians by others of the same nature and as prodigious If the Indians be not bound to belieue the doctrin preach't to them though confirmed by our true miracles why should the Jews or any others be obliged in conscience to belieue Christ For if God may work true Miracles to make a falshood so plausibly credible as to oblige prudent men to belieue it no prudent man is bound to belieue the truth when it is euidently confirmed with true Miracles and by consequence none was or is bound to belieue in Christ which doctrin is impious and contrary to our Sauiours own words Ioan. 5.36 and against 2. Cor. 12. Hebr. 2.4 and Marc. 16.20 and Joan 15.24 Where our Sauiour declares that the reason why the incredulous Jews did sin in not believing his Diuinity was because he confirmed his doctrin with Miracles Jf I had not don among them the works which no other man did they had not sinned As for their authority of reforming the Roman Catholick faith they answered that they needed no other warrant but Scripture which did cleerly condemn the Popish Tenets Being desired to shew what parts or words of Scripture were Contrary to the Popish Tenets for that after comparing all places and Texts very godly and learned men could find no such opposition between Gods word and the Roman doctrin they replied that the reason why the Popish Diuins and Prelats did not see their own errors afterall their search and study was because they had not the spirit of God which had reuealed to Protestants the true meaning of holy writ though they could not deny but that their own interpretation was new and contrary to that which the visible Church of the 15. â—n age had receiued from the 14 th and the 14 th from the 13 th and so forth Therfore they all conspired in maintaining that the visible Church had erred in doctrin and that the mystery of iniquity began euen with the Apostles or immediatly after But because some parts of Scripture are so cleere against their new doctrin that they could not be wrested against the Roman Catholicks nor reach the Protestant thy framed a new Canon of Scripture and excluded as Apocryphall many Books and Chapters which spook cleerly against them and in their translations of the ould and new Testament into vulgar languages they added to and substracted from Gods word what they thought fit to make the illiterat people belieue that their new inuentions were agreable to Scripture and that Popery was quite contrary to the same And because none of the first Reformers was a Bishop and they knew Bishops only could consecrat other Bishops and Priests and that no Congregation could be esteemed a Church with out that caracter and calling according to the receiued maxim of S. Hieron Ecclesia non est quae non habet Sacerdotem Luther And the rest who pretended a Reformation judged it necessary to alter this doctrin and declare that all Christians both men and women are Priests by baptism yet that only such as are chosen by the Congregation or Magistrat ought to exercise the function for the auoyding of confusion Luther endeauors to proue it at large thus The first office of a Priest is to preach the word c. But this is common to all next is to baptyze and this also may do euen women c. The third is to consecrat bread and wyn but this also is common to all no less then Priests and this I avouch by the authority of Christ him-self saying Do this in remembrance of me this Christ spook to all there present and to come afterwards whosoever should eat of that bread and drink of that wine c. This also is wittnessed by S. Paul who 1. Cor. 11. repeating this applyeth it to all the Corinthians making them all as
their meaning in this particular for feare of scandalizing their brethren abroad that admit of no such Supremacy in temporal Princes In the 24. Article they make it a point of the Protestant faith that Scripture expresly commands the publick prayers and ministring of the Sacraments not to be in Greek Latin or Hebrew wherin the Scriptures were written because the common people vnderstand not these languages but vnder pain of damnation must be in English Dutch Irish Welsh c. as if forsooth it were not lawful for a Priest or publick Minister to offer Sacrifice or negotiat for a multitude of iliterat people in languages they do not vnderstand or as if it were not sufficient for them to vnderstand that in publick or privat prayers they thank God for his benifits and crave new favours So that according to this Article a Greek Priest cannot offer publick prayers for the Latins or even his own Grecians who vnderstand not the learned Greeck nor a latin Priest for the Grecians or any other nation that vnderstands not Latin neither is it sufficient that God who alone is able to grant what is demanded vnderstand the petition and heare the publick Minister but it is necessarily required that the demand be made in a barbarous language because the common people vnderstand no other In the 25. Article they cut of five of the seaven Sacraments as not being Sacraments of the Ghospel or ordained by Christ this extravagancy of doctrin was thought necessary for the disciplin of the protestant Churches which despairing of a succession of true Bishops excluded the Episcopal Caracter and all Sacraments that had dependency therof In the 26. Article they endeavour to excuse their own lewdness and liberty though by inculcating truth to wit that the effects of the Sacraments are not taken away by the defects of the Ministers In the 27. they condemn against their own principle in the 6. Article their Brethren the Anabaptists for not baptizing their children which error cannot be confuted by Scripture without Tradition In the 28. they tel vs it is plain in Scripture that when Christ sayd This is my Body he meant This is not my Body and therfore that Transsubstantiation cannot be proved by holy Writ if they can prove by Scripture that Christ means the contrary of what he speaks we shal confess that neither transsubstantiation nor any other thing can be proved by holy Writ but only this that Scripture cannot be vnderstood nor be a rule of faith They add that the mean wherby the Body of Christ is spiritualy received and taken in the supper is faith To receive and eat spiritualy the Body of Christ if it signifies any thing must signifie that we ought to believe that the Body of Christ is received and eaten And if this belief be true as it must if it be Divine then Christ's Body is realy received and eaten though in a spiritual manner that is in a manner not perceptible by our senses The 29. Article is but a quotation of some words of S. Augustin The 30. Article seems to have bin altered as also the 37. of the supremacy in Q. Elizabeths reign because as we find it now it contradicts not only the doctrin of the chief Protestant Reformers who acknowledg that the Communion vnder both Kinds was always a thing indifferent but also the statut made in Edwards 6. reign and a little before this article was framed The statut 1. Edward 6. cap. 1. ordains indeed that the B. Sacrament be commonly delivered to the people vnder both kinds but addeth except necessity otherwise require And certainly there can be no necessity or possibility for any human power to dispense with Christ's ordinance and commandment which this 30. Article says was contrary to what the statut supposed that both kinds should be administred to all Christian men alike Besids the statut doth in the end declare that by what it commands it doth not condemn the vsage of any Church out of the King his Majesties Dominions which limitation doth demonstrat that the Parliament and English Protestants then believed the communion of the layty vnder both kinds not to be a precept or determination of Christ but an indifferent thing left to the discretion of the Church neither have our modern Protestants who grant no other substance in the Sacrament but that of bread and wine whervnto they add nothing but a remenbrance of Christ's passion any reason to vpraid vs with robing them of half the communion seing we exhort the layty to that remembrance and offer them wine after receiving the species of bread In their 31. Article we are tould that the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it was commonly sayd that the Priests did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt are blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits And yet S. Cyprian lib. 2. 3. versus finem Et de Coena Domini post med Concil 1. Toletan can 8.5 Origen in numer hom 23. August de Civit. Dei lib. 10. cap. 19. 20. passim S. Clement the Apostles scholler in Apost constit lib. 6. cap. 22. fol. 113. edit Antverp 1564. Concil Nicen. 1. can 14. Augustinus de cura pro mortuis cap. 14. in Enchirid. cap. 110. c. Tertul. ad Scapul cap. 2. Chrisost. hom 27. in act Apost S. Clemens lib. 8. Const. Apost cap. 18. fol. 173. 174. edit Antverp 1564. Augustin de Civit. Dei lib 22. cap. 8. Ciprian de Coena Dom. prope initium S. Ignatius the Apostles Scholler in Epist. ad Smirn. S. Augustin lib. 9. Confes. cap. 12. in Enchirid. cap. 110. de verb. Apost serm 34. Saith that the sacrifice of our price was offered for his Mother Monica being dead and that it is not to be doubted but that the soules of the dead are relieved by the piety of their living friends when for them is offered the sacrifice of the Mediator and that the vniversal Church doth observe as delivered from our Forefathers that for those who are dead in the Communion of Christ's Body and Bloud when in the tyme of sacrifice they be remembred in their place prayer is made for them and besids this prayer it is remembred the sacrifice be offered for them also c. S. Ambrose maks express mention of the Mass lib. 5. epist. 33. Ego mansi in munere Missam facere coepi c. S. Leo epist. 81. ad Dioscor Necesse autem est vt quaedam Populi pars sua devotione privetur si vnius tantum Missae more servato c. S. Augustin serm 91. de Temp. In lectione quae nobis ad Missas legenda est audituri sumas c. Let any Christian be judg whether it be not more safe and more rationaâ—lâ— to rely in matters of faith vpon the Tradition of the whole Catholick Church and it 's ancient Liturgies and vpon the Testimony of all the holy Fathers and Councels
the Canon of the Iews as if the Jews might not doubt and omitt to put some books divinely inspired into the Canon as wel as the primitive Christians or as if the Apostles might not supply that defect and declare some books of the old Testament wherof the generality of the Jews doubted to be Canonical SVBSECT I. Doctor Cozins exceptions and falsifications against the Councel of Trent's authority answered The difference between new definitions and new articles of faith explained THe Protestant obstinacy is not excusable by the exceptions made against the number of Bishops that voted in the Councel of Trent or against the pretended novelty of the Canon which they decreed As to their number the authority of defining matters of faith in a general Councel is no more limited or diminished by the absence of members legaly summoned and long expected then the authority of a lawful Parliament by the absence of many Lords and commons especialy if there be a necessity of applying present remedies to the distempers of Church or Common-weal Doctor Cozins doth confess that the Catholick Church stood in need of a reformation and that the Councel was too much diferr'd and delay'd After they had met at Trent Seing the Bishops were not as many as the Pope and his Legats expected and wished for the greater solemnity of so important a decision as that of the Canon of Scripture whervpon they were to ground their further definitions they put of that session for 8. months and at the end of them hearing that besids those who were at Trent many Bishops were setting forth and others in their Journey they differred the definition of Canonical Scripture for three months more to the end as many as could possibly come might be present If through neglect contempt age infirmity or other accidents wherof the Pope was not in fault many Bishops were absent that could no more prejudice the authority of the Councel at Trent then the like circumstances disanull the authority or make voyd the Acts of our Parliaments But sure the learned Protestant Pastors cannot but smile at the simplicity of their illiterat flocks when they consider the zeale and earnestnes wherwith they except against the smal number of Bishops and their presumption forsooth in the Councel of Trent For the declaring the Canon of Scripture and other Divine truths and yet them-selves accept the Canon of Scripture and doctrin of their own Churches vpon the bare word of one Luther Zuinglius Calvin or vpon the sole authority of the 12. or seven men appointed by Parliament in the reign of Edward 6. Besids our Canon of Scripture was confirmed by the whole Councel of Trent afterwards together with the other points of faith therin defined And though Doctor Cozins pag. 208. tels how the Princes and reformed Churches in Germany England Denmark c. immediatly set forth their Protestations and exceptions against the Councel aleadging that the caling of this Councel by the Pop's authority alone was contrary to the Rights of Kings and the ancient Customs of the Church That he had summond no other persons thither nor intended to admitt any either to debate or give their voice there but such only as had first sworn obedience to him that he took vpon him most injustly to be Judg in his own cause c. Yet it is sufficiently manifested to the world by the very Acts of the Councel that the Pope did nothing but what his Predecessors had don and the Catholick Princes and Church had approved in the like occasions and that though Protestants were not admitted to vote at Trent yet they were not only permitted but invited in a most secure and civil manner by the Councel to reason dispute and debate their controversies and answer for them-selves and their doctrin and this way of proceeding is no more vnreasonable in a general Councel then it is in a Parliament not to permit any to vote therin before he taks an oath of alegiance not to say any thing of the oath of Supremacy and much less to admit of Lords or Commons accused of treason or rebellion to sit in the House vntil they prove their innocency or acknowledg their fault and obtain their pardon by a dutiful submission and profession of repentance And granted that nothing had bin resolved in the Councel of Trent by the Fathers therof but what first was canvass't at Rome by the Pope and Conclave which is false yet we conceive that to be no more against the constitution or freedom of a Councel then it is against the constitution or freedom of a Parliament that no Bill pass vnto an Act vnless it be first signed by the King and approved by his Councel and yet we know that to have bin the constant custom in one of his Majesties Kingdoms since the reign of King Henry 7. As for the Pope or Church of Rome being Judg in their own cause it is a prerogative so absolutly necessary for the authority and govermnent of Magistracy and the quiet and peace of the people governed that no Monarchy or Commonwealth can want it without falling into great inconveniences and confusion A subject t' is true may sue the King but the sentence must be given in the King's Courts and by his authority notwithstanding any objected dependency or parciality of the Judg explaining the laws and customs in favor of his Soveraign And he who would not acquiesce in such a sentence but would needs have the cause decided by a foreign Prince or People is a rebel If this be reasonable and just in temporal Courts and fallible sentences how much more in spiritual controversies and infallible definitions of the Church which definitions of the Church if not acknowledged to be infallible the Church can not have any jurisdiction or authority in matters of faith as not being able to satisfie doubts and setle the inward peace of Christian souls either perplexed in them-selves or in daunger of being perverted by others whether hereticks or pagans neither of which can be indifferent Judges or competent Arbitrators between the Catholick Church and her Children And seing doubts and differences are vnavoidable in both Church and Commonwealth and that there can be no appeale to Infidels or Foreigners without doubt it is more agreable to Scripture to the law of nature and light of reason that Parents and Pastors be Judges in any cause of their Children and inferiors then the contrary or that there be no Judg at all nor jurisdiction either spiritual or temporal But that which Doctor Cozins and all Protestants most press against the judicature of Popes and the councel of Trent is that they do not judg according to Scripture and to the right sense therof wheras Kings and their Judges are regulated by the laws of the land even when the suit is against the King or his pretended prerogative To this we answer that Popes and Councels are as much regulated by Scripture in their definitions
of the Councel of Nice and most vnconscionably cuts of the words immediatly following where Belarmin says the quite contrary of what Cozins imposed vpon his Readers to make good his English Canon of Scripture The words immediatly following are Excepto libro Iudith quem etiam Hieronimus postea recepit Except the booke of Iudith which also Hierom afterwards received as Canonical So that where Cozins says Belarmin confesseth that S. Hierom sayd the Councel of Nice declared not the book of Iudith Canonical Belarmin in that very place says the quite contrary And in the same page cap. 12. Belarmin proves by S. Hieroms testimony and words that the book of Iudith was declared Canonical in the highest degree by the Nicen Councel It were to be wished that Ecclesiastical promotions had bin better bestowed then upon 139 men whose labour and learning 〈◊〉 altogeather employed in seducing souls concealing the truth of Religion from their flocks and corrupting the writings of the ancient Fathers and modern Doctors of the Church for no other reason but because they speak so cleerly against the Protestant Doctrine of these times wherby our Prelatick Ministers are maintained vsurping vast revenues from the Crown and come to the greatest preferments both of Church and State I have not seen any one Protestant Writer free from this fault 't is strange that after so manifest and manifould discoverys as have bin made of Mortons Andrews Fox Sutclif Jewell Barlow Whitaker Willet Vsher Lauds and others falsifications frauds and labyrinths there should be men yet found to follow their examples and much more to be wondred that they should thrive by a trade so base vnconscionable and distructive notwithstanding so manifest and frequent discoveries of their impostures As to this work of Doctor Cosins it may be properly called a Cosenage independently of an allusion to his name had not his book bin sufficiently confuted by the absurdity of his fundamental principles denying that the Apostles or Christian Church could declare any book of the old Testament Canonical which the Iews omitted or rejected and affirming that no parts of the New Testament were ever questioned by any Church ancient or modern I should set down many more of his willful falsifications and weake evasions but that labour being rendred superfluous by the incoherency of his own doctrin and by the inconsistency of his principles with including in that Canon of Scripture which he vndertakes to defend the epistles above mentioned of Peter Iohn Paul and Iude and the Apocalyps for it is evident by the quoted testimonies both of ancient Fathers and learned Protestants that these epistles of Iohn Iude Peter and Paul as also the Apocalyps were doubted of by many Christian Churches for three or foure ages I do not think fitt to trouble the Reader nor my self with a more particular confutation of this rather fantastical then Scholastical History of the Canon of Scripture fantastical J say because he fancies to him-self that the authority and sayings of men who writ before this controversy had bin decided by a general Councel and at the same time professed a faith which obliged them so submit ther writings and judgments to the decrees of Councels can be of any force against that general Councel by which the contrary was decided and they would have bin guided by if they had bin now living as St. Austin saith of St. Cyprian in a point of doctrine which was determined by a general Councel against the holy Martyrs opinion long after his death Whosoever can take delight in seing the pittifull shifts and sleights wherby interested writers endeavour to blind mens eyes and vnderstandings let him peruse this book of Doctor Cozins and he will find more sport in observing how he tosses and turns the sayings of the Fathers against them-selves then could be wished in so serious a subject When the Fathers call the books of Macabees Tobie Judith c. sacred and Divine Scripture Canonical Scripture prophetical writings of Divine authority c. Holy inspirations revelations c. he tels you pag. 93. alibi passim all this must be understood in a large and popular sence though the contrary may appeare to any vnbyass'd judgment that will read the words by him cited pag. 92. alibi in the Authors themselves as for example let any one observe how Doctor Cozins mingles and mangles S. Austin's words concerning the controverted books of the Machabees and afterwards see what the St. him-self says he will â—â—rce believe the words are the same and may swear the sense is not For S. Austin lib. 2. de doctr Christ. cap. 8. sets down as his own sense the same Canon of Scripture which the Councel of Trent accepts and confirmeth and he subscribed unto in the third Councel of Carthage And because he knew that this Canon had not bin defined by a general Councel and therfore many Churches and Fathers doubted of some books which he and the 3. Councel of Carthage held for Canonical he gives some instructions how they who do not follow his Canon shall proceed vntill they be more fully informed or the matter decided and these instructions which he sets down for others who doubted and differ'd in opinion from him Doctor Cozins wilfully mistakes and misapplies to St. Austin him-self as if he could be ignorant of his own belief of the Canon He is also troubled that St. Austin doth favour so much the doctrine of Purgatory and the authority of the Catholick Church in declaring books of the Old Testament to be Canonical which were rejected by the Iews as to say lib. 18. de Civit. Dei c. 36. That the books of the Machabees are accompted Canonical by the Church although not by the Jews To weaken this testimony he brings an other that strengthens it and quotes St. Austin's words Ep. 61. ad Dulcitium wherin confuting the error of the Circomcellions who to cloake their self-homicides with text and examples of Scripture excused that doctrin with the examples of Eleazarus and Razias related in the Machabees which pretext St. Austin largly confutes not only in his epistle ad Dulcit but in his 2. book against the epistle of Gaudent cap. 23. not by deminishing the Canonical authority of the books of the Machabees as Doctor Cozins falsly imposeth vpon his Readers pag. 108. seq but by declaring how the Scripture doth indeed relate yet not commend the self-homicide of Eleazarus and Râ—zias nor canonize them Martyrs or propose their deaths to be imitated though it cannot be denyed but that they shew'd great worldly courage and contempt of life Did Doctor Cozins imagin that Dulcitius Gaudentius and other learned Circumcellions were such Coxcombs as to prove their Religion by Scripture and then to quote for Scripture a book which their Adversaries admitted not at least for so Canonical as that controversies of Religion could be therby decided or doth he think that St. Austin would not have put them in
anxiety which I attribute more to Religion then ignorance See also Pelicanus a learned Protestant writer his great prayses of the Translation of the Psalmes in the vulgar Latin edition in praef in Psalterium an 1584. See also Doctor Covell acknowledging in his answer to Burges pag. 94. The antiquity of the vulgar translation to be so great that it was used in the Church a thousand three hundred years agone and concluding pag. 91. That the most approved Translation authorised by the Church of England is that which cometh neerest to the vulgar and is commonly called the Bishops Bible And Doctor Whitaker in his answer to Mr. Reynolds pag. 141. was pleased to moderat his former rayling against our vulgar Translation revewed by St. Hierom at the request of St. Damasus Bishop of Rome saying St. Hierom J reverence Damasus I commend and the work I confess to be Godly and profitable to the Church The reason that moved the Protestants not to accept or acquiesce in our vulgar Latin Translation so much commended by them-selves and the ancient Fathers is because they would have as much liberty to reject the true letter as the true sence of Scripture their new doctrins being condemned by both For had they granted that any one ancient Translation is authentik how could Luther have had the impudence to thrust into the Text the word alone to assert his justification by only faith Rom. 3.28 or how could he omitt 2. Petr. 1. where it is sayd wherfore brethren labour the more that by good works you may make sure your vocation this particle by good works How could Zuinglius have translated for this is my body this signifies my Body to maintain his figurative signification of the words and cry down Christ's real presence in the B. Sacrament And so of all other Protestants Translations wherof every one hath words added and omitted in the Text which cannot be justified or excused by any ancient copy of Scripture extant in any language whatsoever No mervaile therfore if the Lutherans reject the Calvinists Translation and the Calvinists that of Lutherans the TransTranslation Translation of the Divines of Basile is reproved by Beza who says respon ad defens Cast. that it is in many places wicked and altogeather differing from the mind of the holy Ghost And Molinaeus in Testam part 20.30 c. saith of Beza that in his Translation he actualy changed the Text and of Calvin in Translation Testam nov fol. 110. That he maketh the Text of the Ghospel to leap up and down and that he vseth violence to the letter of the Ghospel and besids this addeth to the Text. As for the English Translation we have King James his true censure in the sume of the conference before his Majesty pag. 46. that he could never yet see a Bible well translated into English His Royall judgment is confirmed by Mr. Carlile of Christ's dessent into Hell pag. 116. where he says of the English Translators that they have depraved the sence obscured the truth and deceived the ignorant that in many places they do detort the Scripturs from the right sence c. The Ministers of Lincoln Diocess in their abridgment of a book delivered to his Majesty the first of December pag. 11. seq say that the English Translation taketh away from the Text addeth to the text and that somtyms to the changing or obscuring of the meaning of the Holy Ghost Also Mr. Burgâ—s in his Apology sect 6. saiâ—h how shal I approve vnder my hand a translation which hath many omissions many additions being somtyms sensless somtyms contrary Other precise and learned Protestants in a Treatise intituled A petition directed to his most excellent Majesty c. pag. 76. say Our Translation of the Psalmes comprised in our book of common prayer doth in addition subtraction and alteration differ from the truth of the Hebrew in 200. places at least And make this the ground of their scruple to make vse of the common prayer And these corruptions are so vndenyable that Dr. Whitaker hath nothing to answer to Dr. Reynolds pag. 255. who objected them against the Church of England but these words What Mr. Carlile with some others hath writen against some places translated in our Bibles maketh nothing to the purpose I have not sayd otherwise but that some things may be amended These corruptions in the English Protestant Bibles are so many and so notorious that Doctor Gregory Martin composed a whole book of them and therin discovers the frauds wherby the Translators pretend to excuse them somtyms they recurred to the Hebrew Text and when that spoke against their new doctrin and translation then to the Greeck when that favoured them not to some copy acknowledged by them-selves to be corrupted and of no credit and when that no copy at all could be found out to cloke their corruptions the book or Chapter of Scripture that contradicts them is declared Apocryphal and when that cannot be made probable they fall down right upon the Prophets and Apostles that writ them and say they might and did err even after the comming of the holy Ghost This is not only Luther's shift all Protestants follow their first reformer in this point having the same necessity imposed vpon them by their own reformations and translations so contrary to the known letter of Scripture Luther being told by Zuinglius tom 2. ad Luther l. de Sacram. pag. 412. seq Thou dost corrupt the word of God thou art seen to be a manifest and common corrupter and perverter of the holy Scriptures how much are we ashamed of thee who have hitherto esteemed thee beyond all measure and now prove thee to be such a man Luther knowing all this to be true had no way left to defend his impiety but by impudency preferring him-self and his own Spirit before that of them who writ the holy Scriptures therfore tom 5. Wittemberg an 1554. fol. 290. in ep ad Galat. cap. 1. after the English Translation fol. 33. 34 he saith Be it that the Church Austin and other Doctors also Peter Paul yea an Angel from heaven teach otherwise yet is my doctrin such as setteth forth God's only glory c. Peter the chief of the Apostles did live and teach extra verbum Dei besides the word of God and against St. James his mentioning the Sacrament of Extreme Unction de Capti Babyl cap. de extrem vnct in tom 2. Wittemberg fol. 86. But though this were the epistle of James I would answer that it is not lawful for an Apostle by his authority to institute a Sacrament this apertaineth to Christ alone As though thas blessed Apostle would publish a Sacrament without warant from Christ. See also what he says of Moyses his writings tom 3. Wittemberg in Psalm 45. fol. 432. 422. tom 3. Germ. fol. 40.41 in Colloq mensal Germ. fol. 152. 153. The Century Writers of Magdeburg follow this doctrin of Luther
vs as sacred Thus much have I thought good to remember that Volanus may receive answer from himself when he so often inforceth against vs the authority of learned men and the consent of the Church c. And truly Socinus doth defend his error concerning Christ with as many and as cleer texts of Scripture not vnderstood in the sense of the Roman Catholick Church as any point of Protestancy is maintained by other Protestants The Puritans now called Presbiterians vse the same way of arguing against the Prelatiks and with no less success then socinus against Volanus as may be seen in Cartwright in his second reply against episcopacy p. 1. pag. 484. And that it may appear saith he how justly we call this Canon of the Councell the first generall of Nice in the Canon touching the Metropolitan which the Prelatiks vrged in favor of Episcopacy vnto the tuch stone of the word of God let it be considered c. In the same Councell appeareth that to those chosen of the ministery vnmarried it was not lawfull to take any wife afterwards c. Paphnutius sheweth that not only this was before that Councell but was an ancient Tradition of the Church in which both him-felf and the whole Councell rested c. If the ancient Tradition of the Church can not authorise this neither can ancient custome authorise the other The Prelatick Clergy would fain hould Episcopacy by virtue of Tradition and of the authority of the Nicen Councell and yet would have Priests marry contrary to the same tradition and authority In like manner as the same Mr. Cartwright well observeth ibid. pag. 582. the Bishops of the Church of England would needs have the Nicen Councell be of sufficient authority to maintain Arch-Bishops but not the Pope wheras the on is as cleerly expressed as the other and no less necessary for the government of the Church If saith he an Arch-Bishop be necessary for calling a Provincial Councell when the Bishops are divided it is necessary there be also a Pope which may call a generall Councell when division is among the Arch-Bishops for when the Churches of one Province be divided from other as you ask me so I ask you who shall assemble them togeather who shall admonish them of their duties when they are assembled If you can find a way how this may be don without a Pope the way is also found wherby the Church is disburdned of the Archbishop When Prelaticks dispute with Presbiterians about Episcopacy and ceremonies c. they extoll the four first general Councells but when they dispute with Roman Catholicks about the vnmarried life of Priests the Pop's supremacy or any other point of Popery then they extenuate the authority of the same Councells and will admitt of no other rule of faith but Scripture So that a Prelatick Protestant against Presbiterians is a Papist and against Papists is a Presbiterian what he is or would be if both did argue against him at the same time is not well known to me nor as I suppose to him-self but if he admits of the two main pillars wherby protestancy is supported which are the pretended fall and fallibility of the visible Church and the arbitrary interpretation of Scripture he may be any thing he pleases and to speak more modestly of him then Modestinus of Calvinists he is in a faire way to be a baptised Iew Mahometan or Arian and can not miss that way if he will be guided by the Protestant principles and follow the track of the most learned of the reformation Both Luther and Calvin dislik't the word Trinity on sayd it sounded couldly the other barbarously and Luther by omitting in his Translation of the new Testament this Text of Scripture There-be three which give witness in heaven the Father the word and the holy Ghost and these three be one sheweth how little inclined he was to believe that sacred Mystery and by saying that his soule hated Homusion and that the Arians did very well to reject that new and profane word from the rules of faith he declareth how his Protestant rule and reformation doth direct men to heresy and to all kind of infidelity for there is not a more refined heresy then Scripture mis-interpreted and mis-applyed and Scripture may be as easily mis-interpreted and mis applyed against the Trinity or the second Person 's equality and consubstantiality as applied to any on point of Protestancy The Anti-Trinitarians of Poland Transilvania and Hungary think themselves as good Calvinists as any French Hugonots and better Protestants then English Prelaticks or German Lutherans because they not only agree with all reformed Churches in the Fundamentalls of Protestancy that is in supposing the Apostacy of the Catholick Church and in reforming it by privat authority and their own interpretation of Scripture but go a step further in the Reformation by denying the Trinity By the principles of Protestancy and the practise of the first Protestant Reformers it is left to the choyce and discretion of every particular Church and person what articles of Popery are fitt to be rejected by their privat interpretation of Scripture and indeed it is impossible for men not tyed to any rule but to their own fancies of Scripture to agree in the points of Popery what to reject or retain They who confine with the Turk's Dominions venture to deny the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ and laugh at their brethrens arguments against their impiety as deduced only from Tradition Councells and Fathers and call them old Roman raggs long since torn in pieces by the Protestants them-selves in other points of Protestancy c. Hi sunt vetusti panni quos vos laceratis in aliis fidei articulis c. lacerata jamdudum calceamenta Nullus Nemo H. 9. They are say they patcht showes worn out long agon but heer in England France c. where no neighboring Nations deny the Trinity or Incarnation Protestants make those Misteries fundamental articles of faith but in Transilvania and Hungary The principles of Protestancy are not kept in such awe as heer they make bold there to apply Scripture against any mysteries of Christianity Wherfore we must not admire that they as Mr. Hooker tells vs Eccles. Polâ—â— l. 4. pag. 183. Of the reformed Churches of Poland think the very belief of the Trinity to be a part of Anti-Christian corruption and that the Pop's triple Crown is a sensible mark wherby the world might know him to be that misticall Beast spoken of in the Revelation in no respect so much as in his doctrin of the Trinity Nor when they say that St. Athanasius his Symbol is the Symbol of Sathan and brag that Luther did scarce vntile the Babilonian Jower of Rome but that they do vtterly demolish it and dig vp its very foundation By which words they give cleerly to vnderstand that the Protestants of Germany England Denmark c. are but superficial Protestants
1260. years And pag. â—4â— From the time of Constantine vntill these our days even 1260. years the Pope and his Clergy hath possessed the outward visible Church of Christians And their chief Doctors ingeniously acknowledg that their Churches were either so obscure or so opprest that notwithstanding their own serious examinatiâ—â— and diligent search into all histories both sacred and profane they can not find in the space of at least 1300. years as much as a record or Tradition of any on person to beare witness that their faith sense of Scripture or Reformation was preach't by Christ and his Apostles Sebastianus Francus in ep de Abrog Statutis ecclesiast saith Statim post Apostolos c. Presently after the Apostles times all things were turneâ— vpside down c. And that for certain through the work of Anti-christ the externall Church togeather with the faith and the Sacraments vanished away presently after the Apostles departure and that for these 1400. years the Church hath bin no wher externall and visible Peter Martyr so much commended by Calvin and sent for by Cranmer to help to frame the Religion of the Church of England pag. 462. of his work de caelibatu votis saith as for the judgment of the Fathers because our Adversaires the Papists both in this and other controversies are accustomed to appeale to them J do not think it the part of a Christian to appeale from the Scriptures of God to the judgments of men And pag. 476. So long as we go no further then the Councells and Fathers we shall always remain in the same errors This Sophister would faine make Protestants believe that the question is whether the Fathers sense of Scriptures ought to be preferred before the sense of the Protestants them-selves confess that both Councells and Fathers are contrary to their interpretation Whitaker on of the learned'st Protestants that ever writ answering Duraeus and acknowledging the truth of the assertion coms off with this poore evasion l. 7. pag. 478. Jt is sufficient for us to know by conferring the Popish doctrin with Scripture that they do not agree let Histories say what they list So litle do the Ecclesiastical Annals favour Protestancy that never any point therof is mentioned without mentioning also how it began and was comdemned as heresy Now let Protestants examin our Roman Catholick witnesses we do not stop as they must at the last age 1500. we produce in every Century of years the most eminent persons for Sanctity and learning that then lived who not only professed our faith living but also dying as by the Traditions of all Christendom their own writings and the confession of our Adversaries is manifest wherof the Divines of Magdeburg hertofore quoted writ copiously in their Centuries These Fathers and Doctors of the Church in each respective Century delivered the Roman Catholick faith to the next succeeding not as a privat opinion of their own but as the publick pure primitive Apostolick saith which they had received as such from the precedent age confirmed by the vnanimous testimony of their known Catholick immediat Predecessours What exceptions or objections can Protestants pretend against the holy and learned Fathers so impartial Iudges and witnesses They could not be ignorant of what was the publick and vniversal faith or Church in their times and they were men of so great integrity that they would not for any temporal interest conceale the truth in a matter wherof depended eternity They were not angry saith S. Augustin disputing against the Pelagians advers Julian l. 2. prope finem lib. 3. c. 17. lib. 4. c. 12. neither at you or vs what they have found in the Church that they have holden they have taught what they have learn't what they have received from their fore-fathers they have delivered to posterity The most learned Protestants decline the Fathers judgment and testimony for no other reason but because they find them to be Roman Catholicks in their writings so that the question is not whether they by for vs but whether their testimony for vs averring that the Roman Catholick sense of Scripture is the same which Christ and his Apostles deliuered ought to be preferred before the contrary testimony of Luther Calvin Cranmer or of the other Convocations and Parliaments of England of Edward 6. and Queen Elizabeth who prove not their reformed sense of Scripture by ancient tradition but by a new arbitrary interpretation of Scripture And in what Court of Judicature would such an vncertain guess pass for a legal proof Wheras tradition is the only evidence wherby the greatest civil controversies even of regal successions and titles are decided in the Protestants Courts Therfore it ought not to be excluded as superfluous or superstitious from the Church SVBSET III. AS to their exception that the Roman Catholick Church is but a part and ought not to be judge of all other Christians we answer that not by all Christians but by on part were all controversies in the Church decided since the Apostles times and the other part which did not submitt to the judgment of that one in matters of faith and disciplin were censured hereticks That the Judgment and censures in all ages were issued but by on part and this the Roman Catholick party that lived in communion with the Bishop of Rome and the Councells that acknowledged his jurisdiction we prove by the confessed examples of every Century In the first the controversy of the legal ceremonies was determined by S. Peter and the Apostles in a Councell wherin S. Peter presided Act. 15. In the second Century the Christians were divided about celebrating E'aster the controversy was decided by S. Victor Bishop of Rome as S. Peter's successor and because the Churches of Asia would not conform themselves to his sentence he excommunicated them Euseb. l. 5. hist. c. 23. 24. And though S. Irenaeus approved not of S. Victor's severity yet he never questioned his jurisdiction or supremacy or the legality of his censures And because some Christians persisted obstinatly in not conforming to the Pop's Decree of celebrating Easter they were for that obstinacy declared hereticks and as such numbred in Catalogues by S. Epiphanius haeres 50. S. Augustin haeres 26. and by Tertullian de praescript in fine and called Quarto-decimans In the third Century by the Pope Cornelius and his Roman Councell the Novatian heresy was condemned Euseb. ex versione Rufini lib. 6. histor cap. 33. and though there were not as many Bishops in that Roman Councell as at Trent yet the whole Church thought the authority sufficient and legal to declare the Novatians hereticks The same Pope and Stephen his Successour condemned such Christians as thought and taught that they who had bin baptised by hereticks ought to be rebaptised In the forth Century the Arian heresy was condemned by the Councell of Nice wherin were but 318. Bishops whose testimony was thought sufficient and legal against a far greater
best learned men I could get at that time Martyn Hearken good people what this man saith he made a protestation on day to keep never a whit of that which he would swear the next day was this the part of a christian man But will you have the truth of the matter King Henry 8. even then meant the lamentable change which after you see came to pass and to further his pittifull proceedings from the divorcement of his most lawfull wife to the detestable departing from the vnity of Christ's Church this man made the foresaid protestation and on the other side he letted not to make two solemne oathes quite contrary and why for otherwise by the lawes and Canons of this Realm he could not aspire to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury Cranmer I protest before you all there was never man came more vnwilling to a Bishoprick then I did to that In so much that when King Henry 8. did send for me in post that J should come over I prolong'd my Iourney by seaven weeks at the least thinking that he would be forgetfull of me in the mean time Martyn You declare well by the way that the King took you to be a man of a good conscience who could not find within all his Realm any man that would set forth his strange attempts but was inforced to send for you in post to come out of Germany what may we conjecture therby but that there was a compact between you being then Queen An's Chaplyn and the King give me the Archbishoprick of Canterbury and J will give you licence to live in adultery Cranmer You say not true Martyn Let your protestation joyned with the rest of your Talks give Judgment 〈…〉 Of that your execrable perjury and his coloured and too shamfully suffered adultery 〈◊〉 heresy and all mis-chief to this Realm And now to answer 〈…〉 of your Oration wherin you bring 〈◊〉 God's 〈…〉 you have it on your side and no man ells and 〈◊〉 the Pope hath devised a new Scripture contrary to the Scriptures of God you play here in as the Pharisees did which cryed alwais Verbum Domini Verbum Domini when they mean nothing so This bettereth not your case because you say you have God's word for you for so Basilides and Photinus the Hereticks sayd that they had God's word to maintain there Heresy So Nestorius so Macedonius so Pelagius and briefly all the Hereticks that ever were yea and so the Devill being Father of Heresies alleadged God's word for him saying Scriptum est it is writen so sayd he to Christ mittâ— to deorsum cast thy self downward saith he and so taught you to cast all things downward down with the Sacrament down with Muss down with the Armes of Christ and vp with a Lion and a Dog down with Abbyes down with Chauntrers down with Hospitalls and Colledges down with fasting and prayer yea down with all that is good and Godly c. And therfore tell us not you have God's word for God had given us by his word a mark to know that your teaching proceeded not of God but of the Devill c. For Christ sayd there shal come against his Church râ—vening wolves and false Apostles And by their fruits ye shall know them What be their fruits St. Paul declareth After the flesh they walk in concupiscence and vncleaness they contemn Potentates c. Whether these be not the fruits of your Ghospel I referr me to this worshipfull Audience whether the sayd Ghospel began not with perjury proceeded with adultery was maintained with heresy and ended in Conspiracy Now Sir two points more I marked in your raging discourse that you made here the one against the holy Sacrament the other against the Pope's Iurisdiction and the Authority of the Sea Apostolick Touching the first you say you have God's word with you yea and all Doctors I would here ask but one Question of you whether God's word be contrary to it self and whether the Doctors teach doctrin contrary to them-selves or no For you Mr. Cranmer have taught in this High Sacrament of the Altar three contrary doctrins and you pretend in every one Verbum Domini the word of God Cranmer Nay I taught but two contrary doctrins in the same Martyn What doctrin taught you when you condemned Lambert the Sacramentary in the King's presence in Whitehall Cranmer I maintained then the Popish doctrin Martyn That is to say the Catholick and Universal doctrin of Christ's Church and how when King Henry dyed did you not translate Justus Jonas Book Cranmer J did so Martyn Then there you defended an other doctrin touching the Sacrament by the same token that you sent to Lynne your printer that wheras in the first print there was an affirmative that is to say Christ's body realy in the Sacrament you sent then to your printer to put in a Not wherby it came miraculously to pass that Christ's body was clean conveyed out of the Sacrament Cranmer I remember there were two prints of my said Book but where the same Not was put in I can not tell Martyn Then from a Lutheran you became a Zwinglian which is the vilest heresy of all in the high mystery of the Sacrament and for the same heresy you did help to burn Lambert the Sacramentary which you now call the Catholick faith and God's word Cranmer I grant that then J believed otherwise then J do now and so J did vntill my Lord of London Doctor Ridley did conferr with me and by sundry persuasions and authorities of Doctors â—â—â—ew me quite from my opinion Martyn Now Sir as â—ouching the last part of your Oracion you denyed that the Pope's Holiness was supreme head of the Church of Christ. Cranmer J did so Martyn Who say you 〈…〉 head Cranmer Christ. Martyn But whom hath Christ 〈◊〉 here in earth his Vicâ—â— and head of his Church Cranmer No body Martyn Ah why â—ould you not King Henry this when you made him supreme head and now no body is This is treason against his own person as you then made him Cranmer I mean not but every King in his own Realm and Dominion is supreme head and so was he supreme head of the Church of Christ in England Martyn Is this always true and was it ever so Cranmer Jt was so Martyn Then what say you by Nero he was the mightiest Prince vpon the earth after Christ was ascended Was he the head of Christ's Church Cranmer Nero was Peter's head Martyn I ask whether Nero was head of the Church or no If he were not it is falls that you said before that all Princes be and ever were heads of the Church within their Realms Cranmer Nay it is 〈◊〉 for Nero was head of the Church that is in worldly respect of the temporal bodies of men of whom the Church consisteth for so he beheaded Peter and the Apostles And the Turck too is head of the Church of Turky Martyn Then he that beheaded the heads of
all Papists in these words what shall J say here O ye principall posts of Religion and ye Arch-Governors of Christ's Church Is this your reverence which you giue to God's word to bid them avant away c. no mervaile if these men dispise us and all our doings which set so litle by God him-self and his infallible saying Thus they write and inveigh against Hosius and all the Roman Church even after they knew and had bin twice admonished that the whole ground was fals and forged by them-selves Hosius his own words are there is sprung vp a certain new kind of Prophets who have not bin afraid by the authority of Scripture to take away all authority from the Scripture Behould whither Satan at length hath brought this matter c. And after Nihil Scripturâ sanctius c. Nothing is more holy then Scripture nothing more noble or excellent there is nothing next to God himself more worthy of all veneration and reverence but what thing can there be so holy which the enemy of man-kind may not abuse to man's destruction c. Thus Hosius how hardly his words could be wrested or mistaken by Iewel and his Confederats all the world may see and ought to detest a Reformation that can not be otherwise maintain'd then by such palpable impostuâ—es SVBSECT IV. Falsificatïons and Frauds against the Bishop of Rome his supremacy JEwel and his Associats cyting a Constitution of the Emperour Iustinian against the Pope's supremacy say The Emperours words stand thus Sancimus c. Senioris Romae Papam primum esse omnium Sacerdotum Beatissimum autem Archi-Episcopum Constantinopolios novae Romae secundum habere locum which words Mr. Iewel Englisheth thus We ordain that the Pope of the elder Rome shall be the first of all Priests and that the most holy Arch-bishop of Constantinople which is named new Rome have the second place Of which Mr. Iewell and the English Church inferr that the Pope's Authority and preeminency in those days consisted only in sitting in the first place and that this dignity also was given him by the secular power of the Emperour First Iewell and his Camerades by â—n c. did hope to make the Emperour spiritual head of the Church and by consequence derive the same prerogative to all secular Princes in their own Dominions for they fraudulently omitted the words wherby the whole matter is cleered the words as they stand in the Constitution of Iustinian are these Sancimus secundum Canonum definitiones sanctissimum senioris Romae Papam primum esse omnium Sacerdotum c. we do ordain according to the determination of the Canons c. But had they not concealed these words they had discovered the weackness of their doctrin of the Queen's supremacy because those few words according to the definition of the Canons import that this ordination or declaration of the Emperour was grounded vpon the authority of the Canons of the Church which he did but confirm and command the execution of the Decrees and Declarations of Councells by his Imperial power The second fraud is that they translate primum esse omnium Sacerdotum thus that he shall be the first of all Priests wheras the Emperour vseth the present tense declaring that the Pope is the Chief of all Priests not shall be By Iewel 's falls Translation they intended to impose vpon such as vnderstand not Latin or at least are so careless as not to compare this Text with the English that Popes had not bin the first or chief of all Priests before that Decree of Iustinian and that spirituall supremacy came to them by vertue therof Not content with this fraud they add an other in the very next words of this Constitution which are these We ordain also that the most Holy Arch-Bishop of Justiniana the first which is our Country shall have for ever vnder his Iurisdiction the Bishops of the Provinces of Dacia Dania Dardania Mysia and Panonia and that they shall be invested by him and he only by his own Councell and that he in the Provinces subject vnto him shal have the place of the Apostolick sea of Rome c. Out of which words Mr. Iewel and his English Prelatick Clergy inferr thus Heere we see the Bishop of Iustiniana set in as high authority and power with in his own Iurisdiction as the Bishop of Rome with in his But had they bin as honest as the Protestant Layty take them to be all the world might have seen the Roman truth and their falshood for they deceitfully cut of the ensuing words that expound and declare the whole matter the words cut of are secundum ea quae sanctus Papa Vigilius constituit we ordain that these things shall be don and observed according to that which the Holy Pope Vigilius had constituted so that as in the former decree the Emperour professeth him-self to have ordained according to the definitions of the Canons so here in particular he professeth to have confirmed the Constitutions of the holy Pope Vigilius who had made the Arch-Bishop of Iustiniana to be his legat and to hould the place of the Apostolicâ— Sea of Rome in those Provinces not vnlike to that of St. Gregory who according to venerable Bede in his history gave the like Authority to St. Augustin our first Arch-Bishop of Canterbury by which Concession they have always bin called Legati nati sedis Apostolicae Not content to conceale the words and the truth of Imperial Decrees and Ecclesiastical Histories Iewel and the English Clergy were neither ashamed nor afraid to corrupt Scripture to the same purpose against the Pope's supremacy For pretending that the words of Christ to St. Peter Thou art a Rock and upon this Rock will I build my Church and again feed my Lambs feed my sheep were spoken as well to all the Apostles as to St. Peter in the Apology of the Church of England is quoted for profe hereof an other saying of our Saviour Quod vni dico omnibus dico that which I say to one I say to all which sentence is not found in Scripture but an otherlike it though to an other purpose to wit about the watchfulness which our Saviour would have all men vse for the day of Iudgment Quod vobis dico omnibus dico vigilate That which I say to you here present I speak to all both absent and to come be watchfull of this day wherof Mr. Iewel and his Collegues could not be ignorant and yet thus he insulted Mr. Harding affirmeth That to the rest of the Apostles it was not sayd at all feed ye c. to Peter and to non els was it sayd feed my Lambs feed my sheep yet Christ him-self saith quod vni dico omnibus dico that y say to one I say to all And quoted for it Marck the 13. SVBSECT V. Frauds and fond devices of the protestant Clergy of England to deny and discredit the Sacrifice of the Mass.
of their Religion which was to recurr to the letter of Scripture conâ—â—â—ning the true sense therof delivered by 〈…〉 and practise of the Catholick Church doctrin 〈…〉 primiâ—â—ve Fathers and General Coâ—â—cells but these vpstarts knowing their new fancies 〈…〉 agreable therunto Insteed of the ancient faith of Christendom they resolved to maiâ—â—ain 〈◊〉 condemned heresies following in this manner of proceeding their first Apostles Luther Calvin c. who would admit of nothing but the 〈◊〉 of Scripture interpreted by themselves after an 〈…〉 manner We will instance 〈◊〉 three Doctor Wiâ—aker Arch-bishop VVhitgift and Doctor Fulk omitting many others Doctor VVhitaker in his answer to Doctor Sanders demonstrations pag. 21. saith we repose no such confidence in the Fathers writings that we take any certain proof of Religion from them because we place all our faith and Religion not in human but in divine authority if therfore you bring vs what some Father hath taught or what the Fathers vniversaly all together have delivered the same except it be approved by Testimony of Scriptures it availeth nothing it convinceth nothing For the Fathers are such witnesses as they have also need of the Scriptures to be their witnesses if deceived by error c. And Yet this same Whitaker vndertook to maintain Bishop Jewell's Challenge by Fathers and Councells Archbishop Whitgift was no less but rather more injurious for in his defence of the Prelatick Church against the Puritan Cartwright pag. 402. 473. he is not ashamed to say that all the learned Bishops and learned writers of the Greek and latin Church for the most part where spotted with the doctrin of free will Invocation of Saints c. And thence inferrs that in no age since the Apostles time any company of Bishops held so perfect and sound doctrin in all points as himself and his fellow Bishops of England To what impiety and impudency are men driven by defending heretical novelties Doctor Bristow alleadgeth the Testimonies of S. Epiphanius S. Hierom and S. Austin condemning the heresies of Aerius Iovinian and Vigilantius against fasting days commanded by the Church prayer for the dead prayer to Saints against the honoring of their Reliques against preferring Virginity before Matrimony c. Doctor Fulk answereth that Epiphanius and Augustin were deceived in recording those for Heresies which are not and that Hierom rather raild then reasoned and that Vigilantius was a good man and his opinions sound 〈◊〉 Chrysostom is alledged for the Mass saying the Apostles â—â—creed that in the Sacrifice of the Altar there should be made prayers for the departed Fulk answereth where he saith it was decreed by the Apostles he must pardon us for crediting him because he cannot shew it us out of the Acts and writings of the Apostles And divers other Fathers being quoted to confirm St. Chrysoâ—â—â—m's testimony Fulk says who is witness that this is the Tradition of the Apostles you will say Tertullian Cyprian Austin Hierom and a great many more But I would learn why the Lord would not have this set forth by Mathew Mark Luke or Paul why they were not chosen scribes hereof rather then Tertullian Cyprian Hierom Austin and others such as you name This desperat shift of slighting the ancient Fathers Testimony was the ordinary way of answering Catholick Books for many years but some of the Protestant Writers observing how the wise and well meaning persons of their own Religion were not satisfied therewith and that there could no reason be given why any Christian should rather believe a Luther Zuinglius Calvin Beza Peter Martyr Thomas Cranmer Chark Fulk Whitaker or VVhitgift then a Cyprian a Tertullian Basil Hierom Chrysostom an Ambrose or an Austin especially in a matter of fact such as our controversies are to wit whether the Apostles and the true Church taught this or that sense of Scripture and doctrin seeing these holy and leaâ—â—ed Fathers lived in the primitive times and more then 12. or 13. hundred years neerer to the Apostles then the aforesayd Protestant Doctors and by consequence might be more easily and exactly informed Some of the Protestant Writers I say observing how much their cause was prejudiced by this conteâ—â—â—â— of antiquity and Fathers resolved 〈◊〉 more to try Iewell 's Method and see whether their impudency in falsifying might have better success then his either for want of courage and means in Catholicks to manifest their corruptions or for the hopes they had to discredit our Testimony and suppress such 〈◊〉 as we should venture to print and publish against themselves and the states Religion which they maintained But no sooner came any Protestant Book to sight but by God's assistance it was answered with all possible speed and it's falsifications discovered and some of our Catholick writers made it their business to manifest the frauds and four beries of Protestant Controversorâ— one of ours say's To declare that this spirit of fals dealing ioyned with necessity and misery of their bad cause is common not only vnto him Morton but vnto many of his brethren and must needs be vnto all them whensoever they take pen in hand to defend the same for that one ly cannot be defended without an other therfore I do produce ten several witnesses two of them called Bishops M. r Iewell and M. r Horn five inferior Ministers M. r Iohn Fox M. r Calfeild M. r Hanmer M. r Chark and M. r Perkins and might have named five times more three lay men also and Knights that have written against us Sir Francis Hastings S. r Philip Mornay and S. r Edward Cook alledging not one but sundry examples out of each of their works and might inlarge myself to a volume in that argument if I would say what I have found in their and their Brethrens works in this kind c. Any man who desires to be rightly informed in this important matter of the Protestant Clergys true or fals dealing in religion may peruse and conferr the Books on both sides I will not detain my Reader longer with Q. Elizabeths Writers being to treat of the same again when we answer the like objections of Protestants against Catholick Writers yet J can not omit to let him see in one person the hypocrisy of many in one I say that professeth as commonly they all do so much sincerity in treating of Controversies as might seem to excuse the necessity of any further inquiry if his fourberies had not bin manifested to the world not only by his accusers but by his own answers so weake and impertinent they are that they conclude nothing but his obstinacy in â—â—thering to his former errors though he be evidently convicted of being an Impostor The writer I speak of is VVillet who as you have seen heretofore makes this protestation I take God to witness before whom I must render account c. that the same faith and religion which I defend is taught in the more substantial points by those Histories
that neither expose their persons nor open their purses for the defence of their King and Countrey notwithstanding that his Majesty the Nobility and people are so deeply engaged for the safety honor and trade of this Empire in a defensive war against the vnited powers of most powerfull Enemies and that the Parliament was forcit for want of other means to feed the King and be his faithfull souldiers with smoak of Chymnys whilst a mean Ministery raised by Q. Elizabeth in opposition to the Royal family of the Stewards doth swallow vp the substance of these Kingdoms How ridiculous it is to hear these Protestant Ministers cry out Sacrilege at this our proposal as if they had any spiritual caracter or any right to what they possess or though they had as if the Church ought not to contribute in cases of extreme necessity to the defence of the Commonwealth The vndoubted Catholick Clergy will rid the layty of any scruple of Sacrilege for applying the goods of the Church to the necessary defence of the Countrey We know the ancient Pastors and Bishops of Gods Church did not scruple in such cases to sell the very Chalices and vestments of the Altars much less to spend their revenues for the safety of their Flock But indeed they had no wives nor Children and therfore needed not be solicitous to buy estates for their sons or to setle jointures on their wives or to rayse portions for their daughters out of the patrimony of the Church which of right belongs to the poor and who is more poore then our soldiers and seamen or then Husbandmen and Tradesmen that hitherto contributed nay then our King that sacrificeth his revenue to the maintenance of the land forces and navy But if the Protestant Clergy be confident of the Iustice of their cause why do they not come to a tryal why do they oppose liberty of Conscience why do they with so many artifices decline reasoning and delude the people 〈◊〉 their Religion be true we Roman Catholicks will not â—â—pine at their riches nor at the rigor of the laws made by Queen Elizabeth against our Religion and against the interest of the Stewards or at least we will not be such fools as not to be hastily and heartily converted to protestancy seing therby we may not only be saved but share with the Protestant Clergy enjoy very many conveniences and free our selves from the penalties and incapacities wherunto we are subject for being Papists Herein they may believe us there being no likelyhood we shall be obstinat against a truth if protestancy appear in our desired Conference to be a truth every way so advantagious to our selves But an ill cause dreads nothing so much as a free and publick hearing since protestancy was intruded into England by Q. Elizabeth the Catholicks have continually petitioned and pressed for a publick trial but never could obtain that favor Arch-bishop Laud pag. 445. against Fisher gives this reason that the King and the Church of England had no reason to admit of a publick dispute with the English Romish Clergy till they shall be able to shew it vnder the seal or powers of Rome That that Church will submit to a third who may be an indifferent Judge between them and us or a General Councell which Councell though general he sayes pag. 194. is not infallible And as for any other indifferent and infallible Judge the Bishop thinkes there is none as yet in the world and yet its certain that a Iudge or Councell that is not believed infallible is not for the purpose because neither party can be obliged to submit their judgments to its sentence in matters of faith So that though the controversy could be decided by a fallible Judge or Councell we should remain still divided and that the Bishop well knew but some thing he must have sayd to divert the well meaning Protestant layty from questioning the sufficiency or sincerity of their own Clergy observing their backwardnes in giving satisfaction to our so just demand And yet we granted to them in Q. Maries reign as free a disputation as they desired we gave them their choice of books and notaries and time not only to put in their arguments and answers in writing but to review and correct what they dislik't vpon more mature deliberation To Arch-bishop Lauds reason for not allowing a Conference is answered that we desire so much the salvation of souls and service of the state that we will give vnder our own hands and seals the powers of Rome we cannot Command that if Protestants will admit of such a Trial as was granted to them in England and to their party in France which we have related in this Treatise we are content to submit to my Lord keeper of England and other noble persons judgments therin And let our Adversaries choos either to argue or answer let them object falsifications of Scripture and Fathers against us or answer to such as we shall charge them withall And if they cannot maintain their Reformation without such fraudulent dealing as we object against them let them loose the Church revenues if we can not defend our Religion without the lik fraud let us not only be debarred from liberty of Conscience but loose our lives Notwithstanding my Lord keepers known inclination to favor Protestancy we will not except against his and the Committees sentence so confident are we of the justice of our cause If they refuse so fair an offer though they keep their revenues without doubt they will forfeit their credit and be as much lost in the opinion of their own Prelaticks as of Fanaticks And as the Protestant Clergys diffidence must breed doubts and diminish the esteem of the Pastors in the mynds of their flocks so may it give the Protestant layty full assurance there can be no danger in embracing our Religion which so learned persons as are in the Protestant Clergy dare not encounter Besides the late change of their prelatick formes of Ordination hath so discredited their caracter of priesthood and Episcopacy that no sober lay-man will fight for a priestly function confessed by the Priests themselves to be invalid and what confession of invalidity can be more plain then to add vnto their old forms the words Priest and Bishop forc't therunto by the arguments of their Adversaries demonstrating that neither of those functions had bin hitherto sufficiently expressed in their Rituals and by consequence that the caracter could not be given by forms so vnsignificant and so imperfect I have often considered what could move the Clergy of the Church of England to condemn in this particular of their form of Ordination their first Protestant Ancestors and to condescend to their Catholick adversaries in a matter so important as that of the validity of their priestly and Episcopal caracter and to acknowledge by this change judged hitherto by themselves to be at least superfluous that they
answered say not so see ye play the wise mans part Nay saith he J do not rave but J have here before mine eyes a wicked conscience all wounded and mangled And what is the matter sayd the King A litle before you came quoth he two beautifull yong men came in and sate down by me one at my head the other at my feet and one of them took a fine book out of his bosom but litle in quantity and gave it me to read Jn the which when I looked a litle while I found all the good deeds that ever I had don fair written and God knoweth they were few in number and little in effect when I had don they took the book of me again and sayd nothing Then sudenly came there about me a whole legion of wicked spirits and besieged the hous round about and sitting down replenished every corner within Then he that for his foul face and highest seat appeared to be greatest among them taking out a book terrible to all mens sight vnmeasurable for greatnes and for weight importable commanded one of his black guard to bring it to me to read When I read a litle I found all the enormous detestable sins that ever I had committed not only in word and deed but also in thought written there in great black letters and he said to the two faire yong men that sate by me why sit you here knowing most certainly that this fellow is ours They answered True it is take him and lead him away to the bottomless pit of damnation and with that they vanished away Immediatly two wicked spirits having fier-pronges in their hands rose vp and struck me one in the head and the other in the sole of my feet the which now with great torment and anguish creep vp into the bowels and other internal parts of my body and when they meet together J shal dy and be drawn hence by the Devils into Hell without redemption Thus spake that miserable man lying in extreme desperation and so dyed out of hand Jt is evident saith St. Bede hee had not these visions for his own sake whom they availed nothing at all but for other men who knowing his lamentable end might be afraid to differr and prolong the time of Repentance while they have opportunity and leasure In the next Chapter cap. 15. l. 5. St. Bede tells of an other damned for differring his confession thus I my self saith Bede Knew a Religious man whom would to God I had never known placed in a good and famous Monastery notwithstanding he himself was infamous for his lewd behavior and loos life I could tell his name also if it were worth the telling This man was earnestly rebuked of his brethren and Superiors of the Monastery for his enormities and exhorted to a better trade of life but all in vain c. But as men are wont to say He that will not come of his own accord within the Church-door shall run against his will to hell gates this man being now struck with a very faint diseas and brought to extremity called all the Convent about him and with much lamentation and deep sighs like a man already damned began to declare vnto them that he saw hell gates open and the devil drouned in a deep dungeon therof and Caiphas and the whole rablement that put Christ to death cast in flaming fier hard by him and next to them O miserable and wretched man that I am said he I see a place of eternall perdition prepared for me The brethren hearing these wofull words exhorted him earnestly to repent and be sorry for his sins while he was yet alive Then he brought to extreme despair answered no no There is no time for me to amend my former life especially seing I perceive my judgment is past and fully compleated already With these words he dyed without receiving the Sacrament His body was interred in the farmost part of all the Abby not one of all the whole Convent durst Say Mass for his soul nor sing Psalms nor once say one Pater noster for him This chanced of late in the Country of the Bernicianâ— Northumberland and was blazed all the Country over So that it stired vp many to make quick Confession of their sinfull acts and not to take days with God Which God grant it may work also in such as shall read this present story Hitherto St. Bede who lived above nine hundred yeares ago Thus much of ancient miracles in confirmation of Popery some whereof were seen others so vndoubtedly beleived by the greatest Saints and Doctors of Gods Church that they judged them worthy of being recorded in their writings to the end posterity might by giving them credit take for divin the doctrin which they confirmed We do not recurr to the primitiye Fathers and times for miracles out of any want of the like in our dayes every where now some are so visible that only foolish Atheism or obstinacy can deny their supernaturality we mention the ancient miracles and Fathers for two reasons 1. To prove that our doctrin is the same with theirs and confirmed by the like miracles 2. To convict our Adversaries of obstinacy by their denial or contempt of the testimony of the holy Doctors and Catholick Church in such things as their spirit doth not fancy and yet they do admit the same testimony as sufficient and Obligatory in such points of Christianity as themselves think necessary or convenient for their own reformations and interpretations of Scripture It is ridiculous to see how Calvin ex gr presseth and wresteth the authority of St. Austin for some parts of his doctrin and how he sleighteth the same when that holy Doctor speaks against it To draw St. Austin to countenance the error against freewill I will relate St. Austin saith Calvin in his own words and then quoteth his words thus Primam fuisse libertatem posse non peccare nostram multo majorem non posse peccare Wheras the St. Speakes in that plâ—ce of our happines in heaven where we shall not be able to sin and preferres it before the liberty Adam had in Paradise of being able not to sin his words are Prima libertus voluntatis erat posse peccare novissima erit multo major non posse peccare Prima immortalitas c. Here Calvin corrupts the words insteed of St. Austins Novissima he puts in nostra then leaves out erit with many other words which made clear St. Austins speech and meaning of the liberty we shall have in heaven but Calvin makes him speak of our liberty here vpon earth and is so inconsiderat as to reprehend grievously the Master of the Sentences for following St. Austins sence according to the text But when St. Austins authority is vrged against him in favor of the Mass praier for the dead and Purgatory and particularly how carefull he was to have Mass sayd for the soul of his Mother St. Monica that
Pagan that he and his fellow-preachers were come from Rome and brought to him very good tydings to wit that such as would follow and obey their doctrin should enjoy an everlasting Kingdom in heaven with the true and living God The King moved with curiosity came into the Island of Tanet and notwithstanding his suspition that the Monks were Magitians returned this civil and prudent answer you give us very fair words and promises but yet for that they are strange and vnknown vnto me I can not rashly assent vnto them forsaking that antient Religion which thus long both I and my people have observed But for so much as you are come so far to the intent you might impart vnto us such knowledge as you take to be right true and good wâ—e will not seek your trouble but rather with all Courtesy we will receive you and minister vnto you all such things as are behovefull for your living Accordingly he allowed them lodging and other necessaries in the City of Canterbury and after hearing and examining their doctrin became a Christian. The very same tydings and Doctrin that St. Austin and his Companions delivered to King Ethelbert do I most humbly offer vnto your Honors in this book as your own Bishops and writers confess and is plain in St. Bedes History testifying that as they approched neer the Citty of Canterbury having the Cross and Image of our King and Saviour IESUS Christ carried as their manner was before them they sung Letanies they served God in continual prayer watching and fasting They resorted to an antient Church built in the honor of St. Martyn made while the Romans were yet dwelling in England and there did say Mass c. This their doctrin they proved to be true by working of many miracles and to be the very same which Joseph of Arimathea and the Apostles had preacht to the antient Britons whose Bishops St. Austin courted to Ioyn with him in converting of the Saxons a Curtesy he never would have desired or demanded had their Doctrin differed from his of certain ceremonies vsed by them in Baptism and of their Iewish way of celebrating Easter he did not approve and all Protestants grant he had good reason neither could the Britons themselves gainsay it when by common accord they prayed that God would vouchsafe by some heavenly sign to declare whether their particular traditions or rather St. Austins with whom saith Bede all the other Churches throughout the whole world agreed in Christ were most acceptable to his Divin Majesty and the Briton Priests having prayed in vain for the restitution of fight to a known blind man St. Austin compelled by just necessity fell on his knees prayed and forthwith the blind man saw Then the Britons confessed indeed that they vnderstood that to be the true way of righteousnes which Austin had preached and shewed vnto them This miracle God wrought by his servant to reduce the antient Britons to an vniformity in ceremonies Many other greater miracles did he work by the same St. Austin wherby our Modern Ministers are convinced of heresy for being obstinat in their errors against Transubstantiation worship of Images Purgatory Prayers to Saints Jndulgences the Sacrifice of the Mass c. for that with these Popish Doctrins both St. Austin and his Master St. Gregory are charged by your own Protestant writers and censured as converting the Saxons from Paganism to this Superstition I hope your Honors will not give vnto vs who desire only liberty of conscience wherof the worst consequence can be this that the ancient Religion of Christ may therby be restored a wors answer then King Ethelbert returned to S. Austin Though what wee affirm of the Catholick belief will seem strange to you that have hitherto supposed the same to be idolatry or superstition and perhaps suspect us to be as great Sorcerers as King Ethelbert did S. Austin and his Companions But without question so pious and prudent Persons as Your Honors will not be less charitable then a Pagan to men that besides an everlasting Kingdom in heaven come to offer you a million sterl per an vpon earth especialy seing we do not desire you should condemn your own Protestant Religion nor credit ours before you see what your Clergy can answer to our reasons and to corruptions and falsifications of Scripture and Fathers which we desire to object against them in a publick conference if it be your Honors pleasure to grant vs that favor for obtaining wherof they will be as earnest Suitors as wee if they believe their own doctrin But in case they decline or deferr so reasonable and seasonable a request as we humbly concieve ours to be I hope Your Honors will not think that men who dare not defend their Religion against provoking adversaries that offer to shew the falshood therof and the frauds wherby it is and only can be maintained deserve so great reverence and revenues or can be fit to direct others in the way of salvation As for their railing against St. Austin our Apostle notwithstanding that God approved of his Doctrin with many miracles it is no satisfactory way of reasoning neither as I persuade my self will they be able to rally so grave and sober a Comittee as your Lordships out of a million per an by quoting their own Translations and sense of Scripture or by wresting texts to their own advantage and to the great prejudice both spiritual and Temporal of these Nations againâ—â— the Commonâ—sense and consent of the visible Church for 16. ages They have had indeed hitherto better Success in this particular then they could expect from so wary and wise a people as the English but the improbability that a Clergy would be so impudent and impious as to falsify Scripture forge Registers and build faith vpon fancy hath gained them more credit then they deserved and made the Layty more credulous and carless then Christians ought to have bin in a matter of so great importance as the everlasting happines of their souls and in a subject so tempting and suspicious as the revenues of the Church Now that it hath bin the fate or fortune of this Monarchy to be involued in wars which have discovered the insufficiency of the Kings revenue to maintain the same and that we have no other security of a peace when concluded but the words of Dutch and Frenchâ— drawn vp into a formality of Articles which will be no longer observed then it will be their conveniency so to do and that the honor and safety of these three Nations can not be secured without greater and more Constant supplies and subsidies then perhaps after a little time will be safe to exact of the impoverished multitude seing I say this is the present condition of our State and will be also for the future whensoever it pleaseth our neighbors to be our enemies not only all lawfull ways of raising moneys must be sought after
was through extreme necessity brought to appeale from the Bishop of Rome See also Osiander in Epitom cent 16. c. 25. p. 63. [h] Belarm praefat de Consiliis [i] Luther tom 2. Wittemberg fol. 374. 375. The Governors and Pastors of Christs sheep have power to teach but the sheep must give judgment whether they propose the voice of Christ or of strangers c. Let the Pope Bishops Councells c ordain what they please we will not hinder it but the judgment shal remain with us who are Christs sheep and heare his voice whether they propose the truth and things agreable to our Pastor and they must yeeld subscribe and obey our censure and sentence [k] Luther in Colloq Mensal fol. 158. [l] Luther in praefat in tom Germ. [m] Luther tom Germ. fol. 9. And t. 2. WitteÌ„berg of an 1562. lib. de abroganda Missa privata fol. 244. [n] Luther tom 5. Wittenb in Galat. c. 1. fol. 290. in colloq Mensal fol. 273. [o] Luther tom 7. Wittenberg anno 1558. in l. de Missa privata fol. 443. 228. tom 6. Ger. fol. 28. in lib. de Missa angulari [p] Luther in lib. de servo arbitrio contra Erasm in the first edition faith Lay aside all the armes of Orthodox antiquity schooles of Diuinity authority of Councels and Popes the consent of so many ages and of all the Christian people we receiue nothing but Scripturs yet so that we alone haue the authority of interpreting them That which we interpret is the sence of the holy Ghost that which others bring though they be great though many proceeds from the spirit of Sathan and madness [q] Mr. Chark in his answer to Censure c. as also Mr. Fulk in his Treatise against the defence of the Censure pag. 234. [r] Sutcliff in his book de vera Cathol Christi Ecclesia pag. 299. when he saith Lutherus autem nihil aliud peccavit quam quod ut homo Germanus non ita pridem Monachus c. [s] Hospinian in Hist. Sacramentar part altera after that in his prolegomen had sayd that Luther was a man adorned vvith excellent gifts vvith the light of heavenly knowledg zeale of Gods glory and raised up to restore the Ghospells light c. affirmeth fol. 131. That Luther being instructed by the Devill that the Mass vvas vvicked and being overcom with Sathans arguments did therupon abandon the Mass. [t] Luther tom 7. Wittenberg an 1558. fol. 229. setteth down the Devills words saying to Luther as being then one vvith the Papists Behold your bouldness you do these things in darknes and abuse the name of the Church c. And fol. 230. why therfore in the privat Mass dost thou blasphemously goe against the cleer words and institution of Christ c. And fol 229. going about to prove that Luther may not in the Mass communicat alone he aleadgeth the example of the other Sacraments which a man can not vse for himself saying If a man absolues himself it is no Absolution If he anoints himself it is no Unction If one marries to himself it is no mariage c. Fo these are your seaven Sacraments so plainly yet was Luther a Roman Catholik If therfore a man can not Minister to himself any of your Sacraments how comâ— that thou canst Minister to thyself alone this greatest Sacrament c. Dost thou think that Christ did institute the Sacrament for thee alone and that in thy privat Mass thou dost consecrat the body and bloud of the Lord [v] Joannes Regius in his book intituled Liber Apologeticus c. under the Title Consideratio Censurae pa. 123. saith of Luthers instruction from the Devill What doth this availe to confute Luthers doctrin of the word of God And how doe you know that it vvas an evell spirit vvho told this to Luther We know it by Luthers own Confession or if he vvere an evell spirit it doth not follow that he told lyes because the Devills speak truth som tyms vvhen they speak that vvhich the Scripture vvittnesseth [w] D. r Morton in Apolog. Catholica part 1. l. 2. c. 21. pag. 351. saith Apud Surium liquet Diabolum in specie Angelica apparuisse statimque Abbatem ut Missam celebraret hortabatur alledging there in his margent Delrium Iâ—s lib. 4. de Magia cap. 1. quaest ◠§. 5. [x] Luther in lib. de captiv Babylon saith Whosoeuer is a Christian let him be most certain that wee are all equaly Priests that is we have the same power in ministring the word and Sacrament See more of this alledged out of the edition of Jeneua by Cnoglerus in his Symbula tria pag. 157. And in loc con clas 2. pag. 136. 138. See also Luther in assert damnatis per Leonem X. art 3. where he maintains that women can absolue from sins [y] S. Augustin contra Faustum Manichaeum lib. 20. cap. 21. saith of the Mass celebrated on Saints days Although in memory of Martyrs yet not to Martyrs do we erect Altars Et lib. 22. de Civitate Dei cap 10. Vpon which Altars we offer Sacrifice not to Martyrs but to the God of Martyrs lib. cap. 27. de Civitate Dei contra Faustum Manichaeum libro 20. cap. 2â— For which of the faithfull hath at any tyme heard the Priests standing at the Altar which in the honor of God is erected upon the body of a Martyr to say in seruice tyme O Peter Paul or Cyprian I offer to thee Sacrifice The protestant writers Eusebius Altkircher us doe confess that the Arians seeing the whole Catholik Church by unanimous consent offer Sacrifice in the Mass to God the Father mistaking as Fulgentius says lib. 2. ad Monimum cap. 3. that the same was not also offered to the son argued against Catholicks that the Father was greater then the Son lib. de mystico incruento Sacrificio adversus abominandam Missae superstitionem pag. 241. And pag. 236. the same Protestant Author doth acknowledg and set down S. Irenaeus his Argument against Marcion the heretick deduced from the Churches receiued doctrin concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass and this was in the next age to the Apostles S. Augustin lib. 9. Confes. cap. 12. sayth that the Sacrifice of our price was offered for his Mother Monica being dead And de verb. Apost serm 34. That the vniuersal Church doth obserue as deliuered from their Forefathers to pray for the faithfull deceased in the Sacrifice and also to offer the Sacrifice for them Conc. 1. Nicen. Can. 14. saith the holy Councel hath bin informed that in some places and Cities the Deacons distribute the Sacrament to Priests neither rule nor custom hath deliuered that they who haue not power to offer Sacrifice should distribut the body of Christ to them who offer Concil Bracarense 3. Can. 3. Concil 12. Tolet can 5. [1.] S. Augustinus de Civitate Dei lib. 10. cap. 19. [2.] S. Cyprian lib. 2. epist. 3.