then the pen that wrote them 22. And as for Moyses his example of breaking the tables of the law the Bachelour doth wrong that great Prophet by accusing him to haue bene hasty carelesse forgetfull in that fact which he did aduisedly piously not dishonoring the tables but honouring them rather thinking them to be ouer worthy Iewells to be deliuered to drunken people as S. (16) Propheta sanctissimus indignum existimauit vinoleÌ„tuÌ„ populum à Deo legem accipere Ser. 1. de ieiunio ante mediuÌ„ Basile sayth as Catholickes honour the Images of Christ which they put into the fire rather then permit them to fall into heretickes handes that will abuse them But had Moyses pretending zeale fell into a rage against to Tables calling them the law of sinne and the Diuell whose Slaue heretickes in their passions make the Virgin in whose hart God with his owne finger wrote his law had Moyses in a faigned traunce reuiled Abraham or Isaac or any deceased Saynt had he falsly slaundered the meanest woman lyuing as Ministers doe the most blessed of women and the most glorious of all Sayntes I thinke no Christian would haue dared to speake a word in defence of that zeale as I doe not know that any man pretending the name of a ChristiaÌ„ before this Bachelour did euer iustify against Gods mother confessed blasphemy that may blemish her blessed state And verily I doe somewhat wonder in what a slumber Protestant Bishops were when they did permit such a defence of passions passe to the print full not only of blasphemy against the Virgin but also of discredit against their owne writers giuing such a censure of them which if it be true the man that shall beare respect to their writinges may iustly be thought worse then mad For how can any well in his wits belieue such bookes whose authours euen by their best friendes are confessed to haue written forgetting themselues giuing passage to their passions without exact care of truth How can we thinke that doctrine deserueth credit which they did deliuer not knowing what they said thinking of one thing and speaking of another remembring none but God when they rayle on his Mother carelessely casting from their pen sentences that might breake and beat her honour into dust Let M. Crashaw answere me this argument if he can If the men of his religion wrote about the Virgin remembring theÌ„selues without passion why doth he slaunder them that they gaue passage to their passions in such wrytings If they did indeed write in a passion forgetting themselues how can any man of iudgmeÌ„t beleiue theiâ— doctrine in this poynt or in any other when they speak against the supposed blasphemies of our Church seeing of men so zealous we may iustly thinke that their zeale doth still make them forgetfull of truth mouing them to giue passage to their passioÌ„s against the Pope whom they will seeme to belieue that we coÌ„pare with Christ against whome the zeale of their passion is no lesse feruent then against the Bl. Virgin So that you clearly see the suite of Moyses his zeale in breaking the tables of the Law doth not fit nor can hyde the monster of Ministers fury against the Mother of God Neither hath it to couer their impiety any more proportion then the skinne of the least lamb to hyde the mightyest wolfe By which it is apparent that not only excesse of loue but of hatred also doth bereaue men of their iudgment which is the cause that hypocrisie could not keep M. Crashawes huge hatred against the Pope greater then his loue to God or the best thing vnder God so within the compasse of shew of piety but it hath broken out into such open tokens of secret Atheisme that the discreet Reader may iustly wonder to behould them in his writings that doth not know Atheisme to be in truth the very spirit of the new Ghospell mouing men to hate (17) Papatê° reijcitur Christo nomina noÌ„ daÌ„tur iuuentus ferè nil Dei habet Gaspar Hedio Ep. ad MelaÌ„ct Popery but not imbrace christianity leaâ—ing them without loue or feeling of God 23. From this hatred doth proceed the bloudy drift of his SermoÌ„ The scope wherof saith he is to discouer that â—hese would but deceyue vs who speake or write that Popery 〈◊〉 now well reformed in manners and refined in doctrine therfore they we by a reasonable mediation might well be â—econcyled You see this Minister is all for war he will â—ot heare of peace no mediation no reconcilement â—â—ough reasonable shall be thought or spoken of aâ—ongst vs but fight we must one against the other â—ith irreconciliable and mortall hatred In his epist dedicatory to the Prince burning with â—â—â—e and deuouring each others flesh and dashing heads aâ—ainst the stones In all which Metaphors he doth vtter â—â—e intent and finall scope of his Sermon which is so â—â—oudy and so vnchristian that I caÌ„not thinke charity â—â—so dead in any among You that they do not euen abâ—orre the same as proceeding from the canckered maâ—â—e of a venemous spyder These men know well and â—â—ele the weaknes of their cause which they mantayne â—ecause they haue no other way to liue but by keeping â—enefices first appoynted vnto Catholike Priests for â—â—emselues their wiues and children should a reasoâ—able mediation or toleration betwixt them and vs be â—â—ought of such as Hugonots enjoy in France vnder a â—atholike Prince that we might haue any tolerable liâ—erty to speake for our selues discouer their fraudes â—nd slaunders their guilty conscience doth make them â—elieue and excesse of feare somtymes that in such a â—â—se they would be forced to shut vp their Church â—oores and be soone forsaken of all Nay they feare â—â—e discouery of their grosse lying might perchance stir â—â—o the people that were before deluded by them to take some violent reueng vpon them This is their feare which to preuent they buzze slaunders into peoples heades that they may not thinke of any peace mediation or reconcilement but still pursue vs with sword and fire to incite them Whereunto the Bachelour deuised in his chamber preached at the Crosse published in print finally presented to the Princes Highnes this Sermon of the most odious slaunders that wit of man could possibly inuent seeking by hooke crooke to fasten them vpon the Church of Rome 24. Now to vnderstand how farre he doth endanger your eternall saluation by this dealing I doe wish you would seriously ponder what (r) De vtilitate credendi c. 6. 7. S. Augustine teacheth That it is an offence sinne very damnable not only in preachers to vtter but also in the auditors to belieue against the Church that beareth away the name of Catholicke by the consent of the world and hath the fame and opinion of great learning sanctity with humane kind horrible and heynous blasphemyes wicked and senseles doctrines vpon the credit and clamors of her
knowne enemyes And so hard of beliefe in this point ought Christians to be in S. Augustine his iudgment that they should scarse belieue their owne eyes though they should see some wordes that may seeme to yield a blasphemous sound but read againe and againe the place to vnderstand the true meaning thereof And if thou canst not excuse those wordes from blasphemy nor giue them a good sense by thy owne learning (*) Ibid. cap. 7. seeke saith he some learned and godly man that may instruct thee Cannot such a man be found with ease Seeke him with labour Is he wanting in thy owne Country What better reason canst thou haue to trauaile Canst thou meete with no such man in the Continent Sayle beyond the seas beyond the seas if thou canst not find any neare the sea passe further into the country and euen into those parts where the things were done their bookes speake of This diligence doth S. Augustine require to be vsed before we fasten vpon the whole Catholicke Church any imputation of false and blasphemous doctrine Whereupon he accuseth himselfe and his friend Honoratus for hauing belieued such slaunders against the Church vpon the Manichees report not hauing first vsed such diligence to find out the truth What (s) Quid tale fecimê° Honorate tamen religionem fortasse sanctissimaÌ„ adhuc enim quasi dubitanduÌ„ sit loquor cuius opinio totum terrarum orbem occupauit miserrimi pueri pronostro arbitrio iudicioque damnauimus de vtilit credend c. 7. like thing haue we done friend Honoratus And yet wretched yong men haue we presumed vpon our iudgment and fancy to coÌ„demne a religion perchance most holy for yet I speake as though the matter were doubtfull whose fame hath filled the world And more earnestly in another place We (t) De vtil cred c. 6. witty and learned yong men forsooth saith he and deep searchers into truth not hauing so much as once turned ouer their bookes not hauing sought any to declare them vnto vs non aliquantum nostra tarditate accusata non vel mediocri corde ipsis coÌ„cesso neuer fearing or mistrusting the weaknes of our wit nor graunting so much as meane iudgment coÌ„mon sense vnto those men that haue permitted such bookes to be read ouer the world for so many ages laying aside I say all these respects we haue resolued to belieue nothing what those men teach moued thereunto by the clamours of their enemyes who with false promises of cleare truth haue brought vs to belieue many thousands of their owne fables Thus S. Augustine 25. VVho seemeth vnto me liuely to describe the miserable estate of many thousands now in England that rashly condemne so glorious a Church as the Roman whose fame hath filled the world of most horrible blasphemyes belieuing them vpon the word and clamours of her professed enemyes such as Ministers are knowne to be especially M. Crashaw who feareth not to say as you haue heard that he will not spare the Pope though (†) pag. 74. therby he may giue vantage to the Atheist resoluing to pluck down the Sea of Rome though God and all godlines fall with it vpon whose wordes they haue belieued the Roman Church to teach that the Pope is God that he can deliuer soules out of Hell that one may appeale from God to the Virgin Mary that we do pray vnto and call vpon a wodden Crosse that those which receaue the blessed Sacrament must haue a wife or else keep a whore in her place and the like paradoxes senselesse doctrines which euen children know to be hated by vs. Now what diligence haue his credulous Auditors vsed to find out the truth before they yielded their assent vnto these slaunders What seas haue they passed What CouÌ„treys haue they trauailed What long search haue they made after learned teachers to declare some speaches sayings that may seeme more harsh How many that neuer so much as read the senteÌ„ces they cauill at in our Authors And if they haue done none of these things how can they be excusable with God in their confident condemning so famous a Chistianity vpon so sleight examination of matters 26. The secoÌ„d reason of my presenting this Treatise vnto you was a care of your honour which the Bachelour doth much abuse by publishing his grosse folly and ignorance vnder the name of the Preacher of your Temple who doth so farre surpasse any meane or mediocrity therin printing absurdities so voyd of common sense and so intollerable to any learned eare that your long forbearaÌ„ce to take notice therof harbouring him in one of your Courts doth make many wonder and thinke they may iustly apply vnto you the wordes of S. (§) 2. Cor. 11. v. 19. Paul Libenter suffertis insipientes cùm sitis ipsi sapientes you gladly suffer fooles being your selues wise I will not lay that title on M. Crashaw though his ignorance may seeme to deserue it except by his lauish bestowing the same on learned men it do from the diamond wall of their excellent wisdome reflect on himselfe wherof I am content to make you Iudges 27. First as for the learned Catholike Writers of this age Bellarmine Valentia Vasquez many others he doth rate and reuile them at his pleasure tearming them Patrons of (u) pag. 88. damnable Idolatry loud (x) p. 115. lyars the like reproachfull tearmes without any respect He â—osseth and turneth them vp and downe as himselfe thinketh best making now Bellarmine chiefe now Valentia now Vasquez somtymes putting Chrysostomus a Cistercian before them all vsing them as counters which stand somtymes for ten somtymes for twenty somtymes for a thousand somtimes for nothing at all as it pleaseth the caster of the account Secondly all the learned Deuines successiuely since the dayes of Aquinas and namely that Angelicall Doctour he doth charge to haue taught that a stocke or stone representing Christ is to be worshipped as God and a wodden Crosse to be (y) In his 8. wound prayed vnto that they brought wodden arguments for their Idolatry were blind in their vnderstandings and druÌ„ken with the whore of Babylons spirituall abhominations Thirdly Pope Adrian the sixt who before his aduancement to S. Peters Chaire was a learned Doctour and Reader in Louaine Maister vnto Charles the fifth of famous memory and Gouernour of the Kingdomes of Spaine in his absence this Pope I say the Wiseman of your Temple tearmeth (z) pag. 163. foole in plaine tearmes Finally the noble nation of Italians he doth not blush to affirme that they are eyther (a) pag. 111. Atheists or fooles some priuy Protestants excepted which priuy men what they are Atheists or Protestants or fooles or all three who can tell but himself who hath a nose to smell them into England from their Italian priuy Churches But if Italians whose workes of piety shew they are not Athiests whose learned bookes do witnes they are not fooles see
rather beateth the Babell about their heads that will apply it against the Church of Rome For Zuinglius saith the wordes are spoken by hypocritical feygned friends who make a great boast of their little loue which exposition being true in the iudgment of so graue a Ghospeller we may wonder this Bachelour durst take this text into his mouth vttering such brags of his Churches charity as cannot be spoken but in only hypocriticall sense as shall afterward be proued The argumeÌ„t also vpon which he contemneth Zuinglius his iudgment is very weake because saith he this reason her iudgment is come to heauen is too diuine to proceed from a prophane hart as though hypocrites did vse to speake from the heart or did not vse to take into their mouthes the holyest things (p) Vae desideraÌ„tibê° diem Domini vt quid eam vobis Amos 5.18 most of all seeming to desire the day of iudgment whom the Prophet doth for that cause reprehend (q) Migremus hinc Ioseph l. de bell Iud. c. 12. VVoe vnto you that desire the day of our Lord what hath it for you 6. As for his owne exposition that the words are spoken of the true Church shewing her loue to Babel and their longing desire to haue done good to their soules I do not see how he can make it stand with the text For how could the people of Israel threaten Babel to forsake her where they were kept captyue This is as good as if a prisoner should threaten his Keeper to forsake the gaole Besides these words Let vs goe euery one into his owne Countrey doe insinuate that the speakers were of different Countreys and vpon the destruction of Babel they resolued to goe euery one into his owne wheras the people of Israel were all of the same Countrey as is knowne Wherfore the opinion of Carthusianus is more probable then his that the wordes were spoken by Angells who hauing charge of different Countreys yet all had speciall care of Babylon the head of the Assyrian Empyre to which those Countreys were subiect Which blessed spirits vse to forsake Countreys when God is minded to destroy them and you may find the like speach of Angells in (q) Migremus hinc Ioseph l. de bell Iud. c. 12. Iosephus the Iew of forsaking the Temple and Citty of Ierusalem before the destruction therof 7. He noteth also that these words of his text may be vnderstood in a double sense literall mysticall literally of the Isräelites Babylon of the old Testament mystically of the Isräelites and Babylon of the new which he sets out with many words as a great mystery of learning and in truth it is the best deepest poynt of doctrine in all his Sermon though very vulgarly knowne to euery meane scholler In declaration wherof he saith learnedly that it is worthily condemned by the Church as iniurious to Gods word to destroy the litterall and historicall sense of the old Testament which saying hath the cleare face of truth but he draggeth after it the serpentine trayne of a venemous slaunder as some old saith he and many late wryters that be Papists haue done A notable slaunder A slaunder so false that it can be true in no litterall nor mysticall sense there being neither letter in our late Authors that may seeme to sound of this errour nor any mystery or mist in his words that may hyde their shame from the eye of the learned Reader who hauing perused the workes of our late wryters Pererius Serarius Pineda Iansenius Genebrard Villapandus Ribera and others vpon the old testament cannot be ignorant of their exactnes to search and find out the litterall sense therof But the Bachelour is so full of spite against Papists that he could not liue were he kept long from spitting out his venome at them Quod si non aliqua nocuisses mortuus esses 8. But that he doth himselfe vse to destroy the litterall sense of the old Testament to build his new and mysticall Babell is apparent by this one example in this very SermoÌ„ For to build vpon the text in hand this lesson that a CouÌ„trey is forthwith destroyed of God when it is forsaken of the good men of God he meaneth Brownists sayth that the Babylonians cared not for the Isräelites company but assoone as they were gone destruction came vpon Babel which is spoken not only without booke but also against the booke of God which whosoeuer hath read ouer though but once in his life cannot but know that the Babylonians did not desire to be ryd of the Isräelites pag. 35. but kept them rather against their will neyther did Israel forsake Babylon and returne euery one to his owne Countrey till after the destruction therof to wit vnder King (r) 2. Paralip c. 36.20 Cyrus who ouerthrew that Citty so clearly doth he destroy the litterall and historicall sense of Scripture to buyld not a new but an old morality therupon stolne from some old Sermonary Summist Such ignorance in another man were pittifull in a Bachelour of Diuinity it is shamefull in a contemner of Catholike Deuines both of this persent and so many ages past and whole nations as fooles hatefull in this Sermon where he doth sharpely censure our Authors for this very point of ignorance intollerable want of iudgment 9. But to leaue the old and litterall Babells of the first part of his Sermon and to come to the second where he playeth with mysticall Babel which he will needes haue thought the Church of Rome challenging to himself and his fellowes the title of the Church of the new Testament or mysticall Isräel without any proofe though the matter be so doubtfull that a (s) Doct. King vpon Ionas 32. lecture pag. 442. in fine principall man both in Name and authority among them doth say that they are so far from being true Isräelites that they are indeed fully Atheists And yet vpon this ground as though there were no doubt thereof doth this Babell-builder by lyne and leuell draw the proportion of his Sermon which shal be foure square and consist in the declaration of foure points First that they would haue cured the Church of Rome Secondly that she is found incurable Thirdly that Christendome must forsake her Finally that being forsaken of the good men of God she shall be forthwith destroyed The two first saith he are already past the third is a doing and the fourth sure to be fulfilled in Gods good tyme. This is the summe of his Sermon in which he doth censure thinges past prattle of thinges present and prophesy of thinges to come vttering in the one slaunders out of malice in the other the fancyes of his idle head in the third the dreames and wishes of his vncharitable hart Against whom I shall endeauour to shew foure points that his reasons to proue the Church of Rome Babylon are follyes his salues for our woundes ridiculous brags his twenty wounds twenty horrible
Princes was defined in the foresaid Councell I wil not discusse whether it were so or not this I am sure that therin very rashly he goeth against the streame of his owne Doctours and against his Maiesty also who tooke his pen in hand to proue that the Oath of Allegiance against this power of the Pope doth ouerthrow no point of doctrine as yet defined by the Roman Church and namely by this (m) Apol. pro Iuramento fidelitatis pag. 52. Lateran Councell And in truth what man of iudgment defending Princes immunity from this power could say otherwise For though the Pope had not such authority from Christ yet this very act of the Councell wherat were present the chiefe (n) Two Patriarks the Legates of the other two 412. Bishops Pastours both of the Latyn and Greeke Church the Legates of the (o) GreciaÌ„ RomaÌ„ Emperours and of (p) Of France England Hungary HierusaleÌ„ Cyprê° Aragonia Sicilie c. vide Bin. tom 3. CoÌ„cil p. 2. pag 1466. all Christian Princes might haue sufficed to bestow this temporall authority on him seeing temporall authority may be giuen by the consent of the whole Christian world as all graunt Christian Princes yielding their free assent therunto and allowing the Canon and decree of the Councell What an ouerture against the pretended immunity of Princes were such a Canon of the Councell which this Bachelour doth so constantly auouch to haue bene made therin out of want of iudgment giuing them iust cause of offence whom he most desireth to please deseruing the reward that that witlesse beast had that fawned vnmannerly on his maister Iesuits Ghospell p. 78. 79. 15. Another argument in this babling kind to proue the Church of Rome Babylon he hath in his Iesuits Ghospell deduced from the number of the beast or of the name of Antichrist which is 666. which he will proue to be included in the title which the Pope doth most glory in He bringeth two examples or two such titles whereof the first is Dux Cleri which title neither Catholicks vse to giue to the Pope and the Bachelour doth ridiculously or maliciously English it Vayne babling about the number of the beast vniuersall Bishop or Pastor of Pastors as all that vnderstand latyn do see for it only signifyeth the captayne or chiefe of the Clergy which is no Antichristian title neither doe I thinke the Lord of Canterbury would be angry at such a title nor the Bachelour dare deny to be his due though the name of Antichrist and number of the beast must needes goe with it as he saith The second title is Generalis Dei Vicarius in terris Gods generall Vicar on earth which name he will haue include the number of the beast and to be the marke of Antichrist wherein he doth offer more wrong to Kinges and temporall Princes then vnto the Pope For the Pope is not ordinarily stiled by vs Gods Vicar but Christs Vicar as all know neither can the Minister find this title of Gods Generall Vicar giuen the Pope by any Catholicke neither can it be an Antichristian title which doth sound of subiection vnto God which Antichrist shall refuse extolling himself aboue all that is called God But to our answere that the Pope is called Christs Vicar not Gods the Bachelour doth reply Iesuits Ghospell p. 80. vttering another horrible vntruth that the Pope holds himself Christs Vicar euen as Christ is God and full little would he thanke him that holds him to be Christs Vicar only as he is a man Thus doth this fellow bable he knoweth not what for all Catholicks hold the Pope to be Christs Vicar and to haue his office as he was man not as he was God and euen those whom Protestants thinke the Pope hath most reason to be behoulding vnto for the defence of his power doe most clearly teach it Who more famous in this kind then Cardinall (q) Lib. 5. de Rom. Pont. cap. 4. §. Sed. iam Bellarmine let him speake for the rest Dicimus igitur Papam habere illud officium c. VVe say then the Pope hath that office that Christ had as he liued vpon earth as a man For we doe not giue vnto the Pope those offices which Christ hath as he is God or as he is a glorious and immortall man but these only which he had as a mortall man c. Adde also that the Pope hath not all power that Christ had as mortall man for he because he was God and man had a certayne power which they call of excellency How the Pope is Christs Vicar by which he was superiour vnto both Christians and Infidells but to the Pope he committed his sheep only that is his faithfull Moreouer Christ could institute Sacraments and doe myracles by his owne authority which the Pope cannot Also he could absolue from sinne out of the Sacraments that is without giuing any Sacrament by his absolute power which the Pope cannot So that to the Pope he did only impart that power that could agree with a meere mortall man and was necessary for the gouerment of the Church Thus Bellarmine By which you see how notoriously the Bachelour doth bely and slaunder our doctrine that we make the Pope Christs Vicar euen as he was God 16. And that he may the better see the vanity of this babling argumeÌ„t deduced from titles coÌ„tayning the number of the beast let vs beat this bable about his owne eares or which will as much grieue him his Father Luthers prouing him to be Antichrist and the number of the name of the beast inuolued in those names he did most glory in For what title or name more proper vnto Luther then the immortall enemy of popish pardons against which he began to preach and dyed in a deadly hatred of them leauing the same hereditary to his cursed stock whereof this Bachelour doth boast pag. 103. Now to proclayme Luthers shame to all the world the number of the beast is in this name without adding altering or any strayning as he shall find that will reckon Indulgentiae Pontificiae hostis aeternus 1.500.5.50 1. 1.1.100.1 1. 5.  The totall 666.   Moreouer in what did Luther glory more then in the title of the Preacher of iustification by fayth only which point 〈◊〉 doctrine he dareth brag that he did singularly (r) Tom. 4. praefat in Ion. Illud iustificationis remissionis peccatoruÌ„ c. quod est Christianae doctrinae ita tractaui vt gloriari cuÌ„ Paulo c. illustrate which as it is a Seminary of sinfull life preparing in truth the way to Antichrist more then any other so likewise caâ—not he haue the title of Preacher therof but he must alsâ— haue the number of the Beast ingrauen in his forhead so that he that runnes may read it Praeco Iustitiae solius fidei 100. 1. 5. 1. 1. 50.1.5 1.500.1 The totall  666.  And this may suffice
vniuersam terram ramos suos copia vbertatis exteÌ„dere hinc enim Graeco vocabulo Catholica nominatur l. 3. coÌ„tra Gaud. Donat. c. 1. If saith he yours be the Catholicke Church shew that the doth extend her boughes ouer the whole earth by copious increase whence she is called Catholike by a greeke word signifiyng Vniuersall And hauing brought the wordes of Christ saying that his Ghospell should be preached to all nations (e) Quaecumque coÌ„gregatio cuiuslibet haeresis in angulis fedet coÌ„cubi na est non matrona l. 4. de Sym bolo c. 10. Heare you heretickes saith he the Church of Christ doth possesse the whole which her spouse left her in dowry VVhat company of hereticks soeuer sitteth in a corner is a Concubyne and not the Matrone that is the strumpet of the Diuell and not the Church of Christ And againe (f) Numquid digito osteÌ„dimê° EcclesiaÌ„ fratres mei nonne aperta est tract 1. in epist Ioan. Doe we not saith he point the Church with our finger and is she not visible VVhat (g) Quid dicam nisi caecos qui tam magnum montem non vident Qui contra lucernam in candelabro sitam oculos claudunt tract 2. in ep Ioan. shall I say more but that they are blynd that see not so great a mountayne VVho against the candle set on the candlestick shut their eyes And (h) lib. contra epist Parmenian c. 5. will not behold the Church declared in Scripture which placed on a mountayne cannot be hidden Thus S. Augustine What thinke you of him M. Crashaw Doth he not seeme vnto you to speake a Babylonian language Did he take his arguments from your Babylonian or rather your Babylonian out of him Could any Papist haue made the Church more palpable or as you say carnall then he doth Doth he not ferrit your lurking Church out of her darke holes where she would fayne lye and sleepe without being seene the long night of so many ages betwixt Christ and Luther Doth he not force her to come out and stand on the top of a mountayne in the eye of the world in all ages since Christ that one might haue pointed vnto her with his finger if she meane to be thought the true Church and not the concubine of Sathan that kept him secret company in corners whilest Christs true Spouse was conuerting the world vnto him 7. And what meaneth this Bachelour thinke you to adorne the Babylonians speach with the flowers of the Fathers doctrine and put their learned sentences which he had read in some Catholike writer into his Idolatrous mouth The reason is that he would imitate backward the prudent fact of that Emperour who hearing a man of infamous life bring forth a graue The Bachelours drift in making his Babylonian speak like the ancieÌ„t Fathers and worthy sentence commanded another of more grauity and honour to pronounce the same after him to giue credit and estimation vnto it Contrariwise M. Crashaw perceiuing by the perusall of our Authors the doctrine of ancient Fathers requiring Vniuersality visibility Succession Antiquity Conuersion of Nations as infallible markes of the true Church by which doctrine his Church is beaten into dust and ashes he bids a Babylonian step into pulpit and pronounce at the Crosse their sentences as his owne in defence of his Idolatry to discredit their doctrine with ignorant people to whome it might seeme to relish and sauour of Idolatry receiuing the same streyned through an impure Babylonian tongue This is the true cause that he played the Babylonian so long in pulpit that he permitted the Babylonian in print to fill vp with his babling so many pages of his Babell Is not this vizard now taken away Be not the skirts of his impious designe discouered Doe not you see his iugling how cunningly without being perceiued of the lesse intelligent he would conueigh true Christianity into Idolatry the Church of Rome into Babylon the vniforme doctrine of ancient Fathers into carnall conceipts Can any play be more prophane impious then this 8. And in truth the Babylonian to speake as Catholike and ancient Fathers doe doth so strayne and constraine hiâ— tongue to speake impertinently that it is cleare he would neuer haue coÌ„ceiued such follyes had not his head byn filled with M. Crashawes braynes nor durst euer haue vttered such falsehoods had not he lent him his face insteed of a vizard that he could not blush ConuersioÌ„ of NatioÌ„s fondly challeÌ„ged by the Babylonian For what Babylonian durst haue said without a maske to an Isräelite Shew one Nation by you conuerted or that came ioyned with you during all that time you had your Kings and Priests seing it was well knowne that in other Nations there were diuers Proselites and worshippers of one God that agreed in Religion with the Iewes And who could better know and witnes then Babylonians the Isräelites power to conuert Kings and Nations by whome their King Nabachodonosor had bene lately conuerted and had commaunded by publike Edict all Nations vnder heauen to adore their God And what would M. Crashaw by this Babylonian circuÌ„locution against the Isräelites of their not conuerting Countreys He would forsooth comfort his good Mother and Church in her so great barrennesse not hauing bene able since the tyme of her Kings and Priests to conuert one Countrey or Citty or Towne of Infidells vnto Christ The Virginity of the Protestant Church He would flatter her and make her belieue she is a Virgin and like to the Virgin-daughter of Israel that was barren and without children in the same manner which were all he wisheth true is God wot but cold comfort For as therby he may happily proue his Church to be a Synagogue of Iewes confined to one corner of the world so doth he clearly remoue from her the title of the Church of Christ whose singular priuiledge aboue the Synagogue is to dilate herselfe ouer the world by conuerting Princes and Nations vnto Christ which care his good Church leaueth vnto †Longinquas istas peregrinationes locustis illis ementientibus nomen Iesu relinquamê° Beza apud Sarau de diuer s grad p. 309. Locusts as they tearme the reuerend Fathers of that Order that in this later age haue principally laboured in the successefull conuersion of many Heathenish Nations vnto Christ 9. What also may we thinke of that speach of the Babylonian to the Isräelites Is not your visible Temple now defaced Haue you any thing left that is not inuisible and in secret corners For was Salomons Temple such a mote in the sunne that the Iew might haue thought it inuisible had not the fond Babylonian â—ioyned the Epithete of visible with it Did not many Israelites in Babylon professe their Religion openly in the streets Were they not knowne ouer all Babylon not to worship their Gods What meaneth the Bachelour to make this Babylon speake of visible The ProtestaÌ„ts inuisible Church
a distinct wound pag. 120. 121. 122. being a slaunder or cauill no lesse different from the former then any of the rest perchance he was resolued not to exceed the number of twenty or els hauing handled the same once before in this sermon this repetition he thought not worth the name of a wound Howsoeuer we will briefely examyne and answer what he saith in eyther place and shew how notoriously he doth corrupt not only the holy Coūcell of Constance but also the story of the Ghospell pag. 47. VVhereas saith he it is known and graunted that Christ at his last supper ordayning the holy Communion did consecrate and giue it both in bread and wyne and commaunded his Ministers after him Doe this and yet for all that comes the Popish Councell of Constance and calls it a peruerse fashion and ill order to giue the people the Sacrament in both kindes and doe further decree that (d) Concil Constant sess 13. Notwithstanding Christ ordayned the Sacrament in both kinds and though the eldest Church did so receyue it yet for all that this custome is lawfully and laudably brought into the Church that the layity shall receyue in one kind only and that whosoeuer shall hould the contrary shal be proceeded against as an heretick c. This is the Canon of the Councell cast in the mould of M. Crashawes head out of which he seeketh to wound the Pope and the Church of Rome with the poysoned bullet of Blasphemy saying the Pope denieth the cup in the Sacrament to the layity though Christ ordayned the cōtrary But read the Canon in the Councell you will meruaile at the impudency of this Minister changing the shape forme sound and sense thereof for thus the Councell defineth (e) Licèt Christus post coenā instituerit suis discipulis administrauerit sub vtraque specie panis vini hoc venerabile Sacramentum tamen hoc non obstante sacrorum Canonum laudabilis approbata consuetudo Ecclesiae seruauit seruat quòd huiusmodi Sacramentum non debeat confici post coenam neque à fidelibus recipi non ieiunis c. Synodus Constant ses 13. Though Christ did institute the Venerable Sacrament after supper and administer the same in both kindes to his Disciples yet the laudable authority of sacred Canons and approued custome of the Church hath practised and doth still practise that the Sacrament ought not to be consecrated after supper nor be receiued of the faithfull but fasting This is the true Canon no more like that of M. Crashawes making then is an aple to an oyster or a figtree to a Fox For by these wordes it is apparent that the non obstante is not referred to Christs ordination or commaundement of both kindes which commaundemēt the Councell doth expresly define in that Canon that Christ neuer gaue but to the celebration after supper not commaunded by Christ but so practised by him vpon a speciall reason which notwithstanding the Councell defineth that the Sacrament is not to be recyued but of such as are fasting Neyther can I see which way the Bachelour hauing perused diligently the Canons and the whole scope thereof could without wilfull malice mangle the text leauing out after supper and fasting except it be that he perused the same after the supper of a Puritan fast kept with good wyne and venison (f) Their gluttony chamber cheere which they call fasting colour with tearmes of godly exercises Sutclif in his answer to a libell supplicatory pag. 89. which might perchance make his pen stagger when he wrot out the Canon And herein he bringeth no new corruption but followeth the lying steps of his Father Luther who long agoe slaundered the Councell of the same blasphemy corrupted the wordes of the Canon in the same manner (g) Luth. in disput contra Conc. Cōst for which Bellarmine (h) Bellar. l. 4. de Euchar c. 26. doth challeng him as euen the Bachelour doth acknowledg (i) pag. 48. who nothing moued therewith doe what we can will needes run headlong into the same pit of falsehood though he see it in Bellarmines bookes gaping before him trampling vpon the text of the Canon with the same impure and shamefull corruption Such is his desire to cleaue to his Father giuing vs iust cause to say of him what Christ said of the Diuell mendax est (k) Ioan. 8.44 pater eius Englishing the wordes as a Minister did he is a lyer and so was his Father before him 15. But not only this Bachelour dareth corrupt the Canon of this Councell pag. 47. but also falsify the wordes of Christ and story of the Ghospell to make the Councell seeme to haue crossed and contradicted the same It is knowne and graūted saith he that Christ at his last supper ordayning the holy Communion did consecrate and giue it both in bread and wine and commaunded his Ministers after him Do this Where you see he would haue his Reader thinke that Christ spake the cōmaūding words Doe this of the Sacrament in both kinds in proofe wherof he saith in the margent See all the Euangelists and S. Paul 1. Cor. 11.23 which at his request we haue done and find great want of conscience in this patterne of truth small respect to Gods sacred word For I find that not all the Euangelists as he saith but S. Luke (l) cap. 22. v. 19. only makes mention of the precept Do this who noteth expressely the same was said of bread only as the Church of Rome doth practise saying that Christ tooke bread gaue thankes brake and gaue to his Disciples saying This is my body Do this But of the Chalice he saith that Christ did blesse and giue to his Disciples but not togeather this precept Doe this so directly doth S. Luke contradict the Bachelours Ghospell that Christ said of both kinds Doe this S. Paul also speaketh of the same precept (m) 1. Cor. 11.23 though not according to M. Crashawes Ghospell but with S. Luke that Christ said of the Sacrament in forme of bread absolutely Doe this in remembrance of me but comming to the Chalice his diuine wisdome foreseeing that heretikes would be more greedy of wine then bread doth change his phrase and manner of speach saying cōditionally Doe this as often as you drinke in remembrance of me not absolutely commaunding the faithfull to drinke of the cup but only requiring when they did drinke to drinke in remembrance of him leauing it either to their priuate deuotion which was the practise of the primitiue Church which did vse indifferently the Sacrament in one or both as Bellarmine (n) lib. 4. de Euchar. c. 24. and other Catholikes do demonstrate or to the Churches determination which vpon iust reasons doth forbeare to giue the cup vnto Lay men Wherin the Church doth not offer them wrong as the Bachelour cauilleth seeing in her doctrine and in truth they receiue
coguÌ„tur etiam mali bona dicere ep 166. ad Donatist in fine Augustine taught long agoe To the end saith he that none might presume to separate themselues from the vnity of the Church vnder pretence to fly the coÌ„pany of the wicked our heauenly Maister doth make his people secure euen of their bad Pastours least to shun them they should forsake the chaire of sauing doctrine in which euen the wicked are forced to speake the truth For the thinges they speake are not their owne but of God who in the Chayre of vnity hath placed the doctrine of verity Thus S. Augustine shewing that the doctrine of truth cannot be heard out of the Sea of Peter which keepeth the whole Church of God in vnity and peace which we are secure cannot erre that euen the wicked Popes and places haue not power to define any errours 6. Now touching the accusation it selfe I will briefly but cleerly shew fiue thinges against Ministers concerning this point which if they consider well may suffice to stop their rayling mouthes against the life of Catholikes to wit that therin they shew themselues vngratefull vayne impudent malicious and wilfully blind First they are vngratefull vnto the bad life of Catholikes on which Luther built his pleasing and sensuall Ghospell of sole-faith which he could neuer haue done but vpon the corrupted life of Christians among whom had the ancient loue of good works pennance florished he had neuer laid three stones one vpon the other in his building This is not my conceipt nor my hard opinion of his doctrine but that great Architect of Churches doth himselfe confesse the same in expresse termes If saith he the face of the ancient Papacy did now stand (k) In cap. 4. ad Galat. fol. 399. 400. tom 5. edit VVittemberg ann 1562. Si staret illa facies veteris Papatus parùm fortè nostra doctrina de fide contra eum efficeremus presertim cùm iam parùm efficiamus perchance we should not preuaile much against it by our doctrine of faith And more clearly in the same place If Popery had the same sanctity and austerity of life which it had in the tyme of the Fathers Hierome Ambrose Augustine and others what should we be able now to do against it Thus Luther Where you see he doth both confesse that the ancient Fathers most famous for sanctity were Papists the Church in their dayes Popish and that had he preached his Ghospell in their dayes or they liued when he began to preach their sanctity would haue detested the same their learning haue crusht the brat of liberty in the cradle Let the Reader iudge what a Ghospell that is which antiquity would haue resisted sanctity detested the Church of God in her best tymes not so much as haue heard of which finally could neuer haue preuayled but in this last age when dissolution and loue of liberty hath preuayled against the ancient discipline and sanctity of the Church so that by this rayling they defile their owne nest they shake the ground of their Ghospell styr that stinking puddle out of which their Progenitours did issue and shew themselues vnthankefull vnto their Parent and Mother which is the rotten and corrupt life of many Catholikes 6. The second to wit their vanity doth appeare by their ayming at a marke quite opposite to the drift of their Ghospell which is to impugne not the dissolution but deuotion not the sinfulnes but the sanctity not the wickednes but the holines of our Church not our transgressing Gods precepts but our following Christs Counsells This to be their quarrell against vs Luther himselfe their Captaine Generall doth witnesse VVe (l) Non pugnamê° contra Papatum hodie palà m impiuÌ„ sceleratuÌ„ sed contra speciosissimos eius Sanctos qui putant se AngelicaÌ„ vitam agere Luther in c. 4. ad Galat tom 5. fol. 400. fight not saith he against the open wickednes and dissolute life of the Papacy which those that are sound amongst them detest but against her most beautifull Saints which thinke they lead an Angelicall life and that they doe not only keep the commaundements of God but also the Councells of Christ and doe workes of supererogation which they are not bound vnto Thus doth Luther write shewing that his intention is to lay wast the Sanctity of our Church giuing her iust cause to complayne as that womaÌ„ of Thecua (m) 2. Reg. 14. v. 7. Extinguere volum scintillam meam they seeke to extinguish and put out that little sparke of ancient sanctity feruour and charity that as yet remayneth in me To which sanctity Luther was such a deadly foe as he doth professe in the same place he will not spare any most ancient Father or Fathers nor the whole army of them did they now lyue as they once did guilty thereof (n) Fingamus igitur illam religionem disciplinaÌ„ veteris Papatus obseruari illo rigore quo Eremitae quo Hieronymus Augustinus Gregorius c. alij multi obseruarunt c. Let vs suppose or imagine saith he that the piety and disciplyne of the ancient Papacy did now florish and were obserued with the same rigour that the ould Hermits that Hierome Augustine Gergory Bernard Francis Dominick did obserue it yet ought we saith he by the example of S. Paul impugne false Apostles and fight against the Iusticiaryes of the Popish Kingdome and say though you lead a most chast life though you punish and weary your body with frequent pennances though you walke in religion and humility like Angells yet you are slaues of the law and sinne and of the Diuell and to be cast out of the house as children of Agar 7. Thus doth this Saracen inueigh against ancient Fathers the disciplyne and sanctity of the Primityue Church whom he doth slaunder to haue sought saluation by their workes and not by Christ shewing the tooth of his Ghospell to be not against ryot and ribaldry of dissolute drunkards but the pennance and piety of greatest Saynts which being the drift of their sole-faith-religion M. Crashawes long rayling against our sinfull life may seeme from the purpose Yet perchance I may herein be deceaued and he goeth more cunningly about the matter then we imagine For as the Falcon that flyeth at the Herne seemeth often to take a contrary course yet working into the wynd comes before one is aware ouer the Herns head to giue her the deadly stroke so M. Crashaw and other Ministers seeming in their Sermons to take a course against the open dissolution and wickednes of some in our Church as though their desire were to reforme the same they doe so wynd and turne the poore people about that from the hatred of them that are wicked amongst vs they bring them to detest and abhorre euen the sanctity and religious practise of piety in our Church which the Genius of their Iouiall Ghospell cannot endure and at the ouerthrow whereof it doth as
THE OVERTHROVV OF THE PROTESTANTS PVLPIT-BABELS CONVINCING their Preachers of LYING RAYLING to make the Church of ROME seeme mysticall Babell PARTICVLARLY confuting VV. Crashawes Sermon at the Crosse printed as the patterne to iustify the rest VVITH a Preface to the Gentlemen of the Innes of Court shewing what vse may be made of this Treatise TOGEATHER with a discouery of M. Crashawes spirit and an Answere to his Iesuites Ghospell By I. R. Student in Diuinity Iob. 13. v. 4. Shewing you to be forgers of lyes mainteyners of false doctrine Ab vno disce omnes Learne all the rest by one Imprinted Anno M.DC.XII TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE AND VVORSHIPFVL THE STVDENTS of the Common Lavv in his Maiesties Innes of Court THE PREFACE IF many seduced soules in our in this respect vnhappy Kingdome had no more need to read refutations of idle Babels then any trayned vp in true learning can take delight to refute friuolous falshoods If as on M. Crashawes Sermon few men of vnderstanding can looke without pittying the Preachers folly so likewise there were not troupes of common and ignorant people who like weake and silly flyes caught in the cobwebs of such slaunders are therin kept prisoners from the bosome of that Church out of which none can be saued If whom nature or education hath left simple heresy did not make prowd to be tampering with tooles that may cut their fingers and to venture into the web of hereticall fraud which they want strengh of wit to breake through If I say such were the felicity of our Country I might to my great comfort haue beene excused from the taske of this tedious labour of directing an Answere to this Bachelours Babell and haue saued some peeces of a rich and irrecouerable Iewell (a) Res omnium pretiofissima teÌ„pus quam ne gratê° quideÌ„ potest reddere Senec. to haue imployed them in a more gaynefull and comfortable purchase But seeing the world is neuer so perfect as not to haue many (b) Quid obest paruulis tardius ingeniuÌ„ dummodo in nido Ecclesiae tuti plumescaÌ„t Aug. l. 4. CoÌ„fess c. 16. simple nor the simple alwayes so happy as to keep themselues securely humble nor the humble in this life so fully secure as not to be subiect to the deceipts of the crafty nor the crafty so carefull of credit or moderate in malice that they will forbeare to vtter euen open falshoods to intangle the ignorant when they want stronger arguments to encounter with the learned the earnest intreaty of diuers friends haue wonne me to preferre publick profit before priuate comfort and neglecting the perfection of my intended studyes and the inclination of my owne nature to encounter with false and open slaunders the very sound wherof cannot but be noysome to any learned eare though an answere be necessary to preuent the dreadfull danger of eternall perdition in the lesse intelligent Readers 2. Yt is now one yeare and more that a Gentleman then lyuing in one of your Courts brought me this Sermon of M. Crashaw togeather with his Iesuits Ghospel desyring I would bestow theron an Answere assuring me that howsoeuer the same might seeme ridiculous or contemptible to men of learning yet many wauing Babes were carryed away with (c) Ephes 4. v. 14. the blast of such slaunders and by the waues of such raging (d) Fluctus feri maris Iudae 1.3 inuectiues beaten and broken against the rocke on which Christ built his (e) Matt. 16. v. 18. Church I beganne then to peruse his Sermon and note some manifest slaunders and places of our Authors corrupted by him yet to confesse the truth I did so loath this warre against wordes and against Babels seeming mountaynes and monsters to the eye but wynd and vanity in very truth that I was glad of any colourable occasion to fly from the combat Wherefore a rumour being spread that by publishing his Iesuits Ghospell the folly and intemperancy therof had offended all Protestants of Iudgment and temperate Disposition that the Gentlemen of the Temple for this respect as also in regard of his marriage which many iudged no conuenient quality for their Preacher did resolue to discharge him of his office forthwith I began to relent and soone after quite gaue ouer the intended Answere to his Sermon hoping that without my help togeather with the body the shaddowes would vanish the beames of cleare truth entring in their place But it seemeth men spake of Maister Crashaw rather what themselues thought he deserued then what others intended since neither any publick dislike was shewed against his intemperate writing nor the sweetnes of his marriage did any way mittigate the bitternes of his tongue but still both in print and pulpit according to the vttermost of his skill and power he imployeth his forces to darken and obscure with a mist of slauÌ„ders the light of the Catholike Church 3. Wherefore hauing notice therof and vrged againe by the renewed request of some friends I resolued to make no further delay to finish and publish my formerly intended discouery of this Minister specially out of griefe that so many of my deare Countreymen should be kept from the cleare water of Catholike doctrine and deluded with empty bug-beares which slaunderers set vpon the banks therof that the smoke of falshood should in the inueighled eye of the simple transforme the very pillars of Christianity into snakes adders of blasphemy causing seely soules that looke not into things to abhorre the faire and goodly chaÌ„ber of Christ his Spouse as a den of SerpeÌ„ts The treatise being finished I did lesse repent my labour hoping the same might serue not only as a priuate discouery of this Preacher abusing his credit and small learning to the perdition of many by faire shewes of sanctity and greatest promises of exact truth when he meaneth most deceipt but also for three other more generall vses which I intend briefly in this Preface to declare by which you will easily perceaue the reason of the title therof and togeather lay open vnto you the motiues vrging me to offer the same vnto you 4. First this Treatise may serue for a compendiary answer to a good part of many Protestant books which euer coÌ„monly are farsed with these very slaunders The vse of this Treatise That we thinke the Pope to be God that he can deliuer soules out of hell and the rest which this Mynister to make them more vendible doth offer as rare Iewells and no triuiall things For though I doe not remember to haue read in any Protestant writers slaunders so thick and threefold as in this Sermon nor lyes placed in such good order and method according to the tables of the law yet looking into their best Authors you shall find that they euer did and still doe make these slaunders their Triarian Legion in which they put their chiefe and last trust and which when the better weapons of Scriptures or
to rayle at vs for teaching the Pope to be God the Virgin Marie more then God and such stuffe 8. Against which manner of dealing I will set downe the saying of this learned Father intreating the Reader to marke the same which may serue him for an Antidote against and an Answere vnto all this kind of Sermons p In has huiusmodi nugas grauiter copioséque inuehi soletis c. Against these and such like toyes you make graue and large inuectiues which do no wayes concerne vs you speake only against old wiues tales and childish Babels In confutation of which the more earnest you are the more you shew your selues to want iudgmeÌ„t By which clamors whosoeuer is moued to turne vnto you he condemneth not the doctrine of our Church but sheweth himselfe ignorant therof Wherfore if you haue any thing of men left in you if you haue any care of your selues seeke diligently in what good and pious sense these things may be spoken For such a faith as belieueth of God absurd and inconuenient things we do more vehemently and plentifully accuse then you and when by any of our Church these things are vnderstood as the letter soundeth their ignorance we instruct their pertinacity we deride Thus S. Augustine 9. The third vse that may be made of this Answer is yet more generall and vniuersall and of greater importance and sequele at which I confesse I haue principally aymed to wit to shew that the English Ministry cannot be a true Church nor among them sauing truth be found which doth practise patronize both in pulpit and print most notorious lying and furious rayling For this to be a manifest and sensible signe of a false Church themselues doe graunt (q) Nos inuectio vestra non taÌ„git sed aniles quasdam vel pueriles etiam opiniones eò ineptiore quò vehementiore oratione peruellitis qua quisquis mouetur ad vos traÌ„sit non Ecclesiae nostrae daÌ„nat disciplinam sed eam se ignorare demoÌ„strat Quamobrem siquid humani corde geritis si curae vobis vosmetipsi estis quaerite potiùs diligenter pie quo modo ista dicantur Quaerite miseri nam talem fidem qua de Deo inconueniens a liquid creditur nos vehementiùs vberiùs accusamus Nam in illis quae dicta sunt cùm sic intelliguntur vt littera sonat simplicitatem corrigimus pertinaciam deridemus l. 1. de mor. Eccl. c. 10. (q) See the way to the true Church of M. VVhite in the Preface n. 12. which without shame they cannot deny seeing this sinne Nature doth so detest that no Nation though barbarous durst euer openly allow it a sinne most hatefull and abhominable (r) Prouerb 12. v. 22. vnto God most shamefull in the (Å¿) Seruile vitium nec in seruo quideÌ„ tolerabile Plutarch eye of the world in so much that the WisemaÌ„ saith (t) Eccl. c. 20. v. 27. potior est fur quà m assiduitas viri mendacis Better is familiarity with a theefe then with a lyar which sinne is euer the indiuiduall mate companion of heresy as Iob doth signify speaking to his friends that were the type of hereticks as (v) L. 11. moral c. 15. S. Gregory noteth I will shew you to be (x) Iob. 13. v. 4. coyners of lyes and maynteyners of false doctrine where you see lyars and hereticks shake hands Whom likewise the holy Ghost doth couple togeather in this sentence (y) Prouerb 14. v. 25. Loquitur mendacia versipellis Turne-coates such as change the first faith wherwith they were cloathed in Baptisme do vse to speake lyes and vntruths So that this is a blemish not in face and finger for such woundes M. Crashaw would not sticke to graunt (z) Pag. â—2 in the Church of England but such as doth eat vp the very hart of a Church to vse his owne phrase which cannot be thought Christian nor the Church of truth being treacherous and false seeking to delude the world with lyes 10. But you will say though I might proue that M. Crashaw is guilty of this cryme yet I should be vniust to lay his lying properly on the whole Church of England for his sake vrging the fault of one as the practise of all To this I answere that had M. Crashaw published this Sermon as a priuate iustification of himself his want of sincerity therein could not without some violence haue beene wrested vpon his Church though truly the permitting in print of so many and so palpable falsehoods might giue some cause to suspect that their Church did giue at least a tacite consent to such iniurious dealing But the case now standeth otherwise about this Sermon and in such termes that the Church of England cannot seuer her publick disgrace from his priuate shame For whereas Catholiks haue often complayned of Ministers iniurious dealing with them in pulpit to make them odious vnto the people by declayming slaunders against them but specially of M. Crashaw in this his SermoÌ„ at the Crosse which they thought so exorbitant as they gaue out as he himself (a) In his Epistle dedicatory to the Princes Highnes saith that he was called before authority for his immodest excesse in this kind which you shall see by the examination thereof they had great cause to thinke Whereas I say these complaynts were made and this expectation had that some signe of publick dislike would be giuen against such intemperate preaching M. Crashaw to shew that Authority did not mislike but allow his dealing did not condemne but patronize it after some moneths taken to thinke of the matter to view ouer his Sermon and perchance to leaue out some more notorious and shamefull vntruthes which he durst vtter in pulpit though not in print at last makes the same publick bringing his owne shame to light But to what end Heare it in his owne words in the Epistle dedicatory to the Princes Highnes Not so much to cleare my self sayth he as to honour the truth and to shew that it is no trick nor policy of our State as it is in Popery to set vp men with authority to rayle and licence to lye therby to make our enemyes odious Thus he And in his (b) This dedication was the first but his Lordship discarded the Sermon Epistle to the Lord Treasurer he addeth that he did publish his Sermon to honour truth but much more to iustify the State such desire doth this Minister shew to be rather a Statesman then a true man But if by the State he vnderstand those of his Maiesties most honorable Counsell he needeth not to iustify whom none accuse whom their owne Honour doth sufficiently cleere from any suspition of allowing such dishonourable dealing who cannot be stayned with these Ministeriall crymes seeing they commit the charge to see they bring not such foule thinges into pulpit vnto their Bishops and Prelates on whom this disgrace must lye
and from them redound vnto their Church For this their publishing of the Sermon to be a patterne of their truth and modesty to shew that our complaints against them are vniust and without cause was as much as to say vnto the Church of Rome ab vno disce omnes by this one Minister learne all the rest see how sincere in accusing modest in reprehending solide in reprouing your errours iudicious in producing diligent in perusing faithfull in quoting your Authors we are finally how far from any lying and rayling which you falsely lay to our charge By which also you may see that the credit of the Church of England lyeth vpon M. Crashawes head which must needs be crackt in peeces if in this very Sermō which they made publike to iustify themselues we find rayling and lying in very exorbitant or rather impudent manner 11. As for his recrimination that it is a trick in Popery to set vp men with authority to rayle and lye the proofes he bringeth are so poore that they will rather serue to discouer his fraud and falshood and make his impudency more apparent compared with the sincerity of our proceeding See his Epistle to the Earle of Salisbury For wheras we charge him with many hundred of manifest and vnexcusable slaūders vttered in this one Sermon he that hath spent the whole course of his studies to peruse our Records could bring but three examples and those neither to the purpose nor true Nay therin he doth shew his owne false dealing as will appeare by the examination of them as they are set downe in his Epistle Dedicatory to the Princes Highnesse A Booke saith he was printed in the English Colledge at Rome wherin it is affirmed that we take Catholikes and draw vpon their legs bootes full of hoat boyling liquour and vpon their feet hoat burning shoes do put them into Beares skins and cast them to the dogs to be pulled in peeces All this and many such other set down in pictures But first it is false that any such book was printed in the English Colledge in which since the first erectiō therof neuer any book was printed Some things indeed are painted vpon the walls of their Church which booke perchance the Bachelour meaneth so that insteed of Preachers set vp in pulpit he accuseth Painters hyred to make pictures vpon walls which is great folly seing all graunt vnto them (b) Pictoribus atque Poetis quidlibet audendi sēper fuit aequa potestas Horat. licence to deuise and faigne without charge of falsehood And if a Catholike painter to expresse how Priests in England are traduced as Traytors how disguised with the vgly terms of enemies of the State they are made hateful did paint thē in the forme of a man in a Beares skin no lesse meeke and innocent within then dreadfull and horrible without if to represent the fury and violence of Purseuants in hunting after seeking out and abusing these men he did expresse thē vnder the shape of bloud-hounds or mastiues truely I see no reason why this may not be aswell excused as their ordinary painting the Pope in the shape of vgly Monsters and Iohn Fox his filling his lying Acts Monuments with such Pageants and ridiculous deuises to fright fooles wherof he was Father Secondly I say that these things are not our deuises or inuentions but true storyes that at Louth in Lincolneshire a Catholike was put into a beares skinne torne in peeces by doggs in King Henry the 8. his dayes whether by publick authority or popular fury it is not certayne which answere was made long since to Syr (c) See the warn-word to Syr F.H. watch-word 2. encount c. 2. pag. 6. Frauncis Hastings and not yet refuted As touching bootes of boyling liquour a venerable Byshop of Ireland had bootes annoynted with oyle put on his leggs and set to the fire was put to cruell torture So that they accuse vs of speaking fables when we doe but rehearse their furyes and belying vs to feygne what their cruelty forced vs to feele 12. The second instance or charge is more vayne and false then the first Feuardant a famous fryar sayth he wrote in latyn seauen yeares agoe that we reuile and reiect that prayer to the holy Trinity Sancta Trinitas vnus Deus miserere nobis what will not he say that dare say this Thus he But indeed the Bachelour doth abuse that famous and learned Fryar who doth only say that the errour against the inuocation of the Blessed Trinity was (d) Feuardant in 1. Petri. c. 1. fol. 140. edit Paris 1600. restored by Caluinists in France Flanders and England who cauill at and reiect the former prayer Where you see he doth not charge with that errour all heretikes or Protestants in those Countryes but Caluinists only nor all Caluinists neyther but some to wit such as are of the purer strayne that mislike all words in prayer that are not found in Scripture and follow Caluin exactly in all points who doth wish buried in obliuion the name of Trinity and such like as (e) Feuardant vbi supra pag. 36. Feuardant proueth Wherefore I would demaund of M. Crashaw when he saith Feuardant doth write that we reiect the prayer c. whom doth he meane by that we We State Protestants or We Puritans for I think his conscience is not so stiffe vnto one but it may extend to the other If Protestants Feuardant doth not charge them If Puritans the Bachelour doth vainly seeke to iustify them by the booke of Common Prayer which they are knowne to hate and detest So that this trick of setting vp lyers commeth to fall vpon his owne head 13. In the third charge of falsehood which is against Gretzerus his narration concerning Father Garnet and Ouen his man he doth neither cite the words nor quote the place nor name the booke and at most it is but an Historicall vntruth wherunto men are subiect as Iohn Fox was in his Calendar of Martyrs who reporteth of some that were (f) Iohn Marbecke the singer of windesore and diuers others Acts and mon. 115. burnt into ashes vnder Queene Mary which liued and drunke merrily in tauernes many a faire day after Queene Elizabeth her cōming to the Crowne But our Controuersie is about wilfull and malicious falsehood which the Authour could not but know to be such when he wrote or spake it wherof we accuse M. Crashaw and his Church Neither haue they cause to wonder though strangers doe not giue great credit vnto their publike Acts and Records against Priests and Iesuits against whom the State professeth emnity which may giue cause to feare and suspect partiall (g) Professae inimicitiae suspitionē habent mendacij Hieron dealing specially when the persons condemned are well knowne vnto strangers and their learning and sanctity highly esteemed But this Minister that doth so declayme against the contradictors of their publick Records concerning the Powder-treason
Iesuites Ghospell vnto them should be suppressed who by their Graue and Honourable reiecting his workes gaue you to vnderstand what you in honour ought to do with the Author though the danger of saluation you incurre by his meanes be far greater For as you see by this Treatise that the first part of a sentence of S. (x) Apud prophaÌ„os extra Ecclesiam positos esse aliud noÌ„ potest nisi mens praua fallax lingua odia venenata sacrilega mendacia quibê° qui credit cum ijs reperiatur necesse est cùm dies iudicij venerit Cyp. l. 1. ep 3. Cyprian is true in M. Crashaw to wit that among them that are prophane and out of the Church nothing is to be expected but a depraued mind a deceiptfull tongue cankred malice and sacrilegious lying so likewise you may feare one day will proue the truth of the second part of his speach which is very dreadfull to wit that whosoeuer giueth credit vnto such slaunders shall share with the slaunderers in their sentence of damnation at Christs comming to iudge the world You know that not only the Authors and Actors of sinne â—ut also such as consent therunto deserue punishment and a consent to M. Crashawes slaunders they may be thought to giue who though perchance they doe not belieue them yet they grace the slaunderers Sermons with their presence And to Your charge the â—osse of so many soules for which Christ gaue his life will be layd a strict account exacted for making your Court the place where such seely flyes and fooles are caught by your example as with a stale drawing others into the snare Which thing being of such moment I will referre to your more serious considerations wishing your resolution may be such as you may find comfort therof one * Dies vna in atrijs Domini super millia Psal 85. v. 11. day which shal be worth a thousand 45. Wherefore now without further Preface I will hoise vp sayle with the gale of your fauour and enter vpon his Sermon which may be fitly compared to a stormy sea For what are so many raging inuectiues against the Church of Rome but so many gusts of wind to drowne in disgrace the Ship of Peter What are his deuised wounds but raging waues that batter her What are his peeuish and malicious slaunders but shelfes and shallows wherin men do stick more stiffely because vttered without proofe they cannot be clearely refuted What are the sentences of our Authours corrupted by him yet couered with great protestations of sincere dealing but so many rockes the more dangerous because hidden vpon which whosoeuer runneth a rash credulous course without suspecting falsehood incurreth shipwrack and is drowned in damnable errour What are the vgly blasphemyes which he layeth to our charge buâ— horrible monsters What the brags of his Churches salues but Syrens songes What finally his fond arguments and vnlearned discourses but foame and froath of this sea Such waues against the Romaâ— Church haue neuer wanted in any age who by battering her haue broken themselues yet will not the latter learne of the former nor feare their endes whose courses they follow but with a new rage of fury ruâ— to their ruyne This Church as she is a ship to conuey her passengers vnto heauen flying by the sayleâ— of Sacraments and filled with a gale of the holy Ghost which shee hath a promise neuer to want so is shee 〈◊〉 rock against her enemyes that swell like waues against her whose end though they rage for a tyme wiâ—â— proue foame and froath into which others before them no lesse proud and swelling are vanished 46. To quiet and pacify these waues we haue small hope they are as S. Paul saith Tit. 5.10 condemned by their owne iudgment like Dathan and Abyron they descend into hell aliue that is suam perditionem sentientes as Saint (y) Epist 48. ad Vincent Augustine expoundeth feeling themselues to perish and yet will not reclayme themselues such is the hatred that hell hath inspired into their harts though many tymes they continue in their wicked courses out of shame searing if they should leaue off that men will say to them (z) Vtique hoc timeÌ„t ne dicatur eis Quare nos decepistis Quare tanta mala falsa dixistis Eterubescant humanae infirmitati non erubescuÌ„t inuictissimae veritati August ser 22. de verbis Apostoli Why then did you deceyue vs so long Why did you seduce vs Why did you tell vs so many false things Regarding more the weaknes of men then the inuinciblenes of truth But for these that are but deceaued who not out of pride swell but are tossed in the rage of others whom Saint Paul tearmeth paruulos fluctuantes wauing yong ones for these I say I haue sent out the Pinnace of this Treatise into which if they please to enter and read and peruse the same I make no doubt but they will see the folly and falshood of the slaunders which tosse and dryue them against the Roman faith and the wicked fraud and malice of them that vtter such vntruthes and be moued to enter into the Arke of the CATHOLICKE CHVRCH singing with Saint (†) l. 6. CoÌ„fess c. 11. Nos falsis rumoribus terrebamur intrare quos falsos esse nesciremus nisi intraremus So S. Augustine maketh Catholikes reioice coÌ„ming from Donatists to the Church Epist 48. ad Vincent Augustine hauing discouered the Manichees falsehood Non docet Catholica quod putabamus vani accusabamus The CATHOLIKE CHVRCH doth not teach as we did imagine and were made belieue and full of vanity did accuse her of Into which Ship of saluation if this little Treatise may serue to conuey any out of the raging waues of Heresy I shall thinke my time well spent in the buylding therof this being the onely comfort of my labour that I desire in this life AND so I commend the same to YOVR reading wishing YOV may make that vse therof which God in his infinite goodnesse hath ordayned Yours in all Christian duty I. R. THE OVERTHROVV OF THE PVLPIT-BABELS of English Ministers THE FIRST PART THE FIRST CHAPTER Shewing M. Crashawes and other Ministers extreme folly in their ordinary applying the words of his text VVe would haue cured Babell c. to the progeny of Martin Luther against the Church of Rome MAISTER Crashaw for the ground wheron like Nemrod (a) Gen. 10.10 he seeketh to buyld the Babel-Tower of his blasphemous Sermon against the Heauen of Gods Church chooseth the wordes of Ieremy 51.11 as he citeth VVe would haue cured Babell but she would not be healed Let vs forsake â—er and goe euery one into his owne Countrey for her iudgment is come vp into heauen and lifted vp to the cloudes Where it is worth the marking that notwithstanding the great exactnes promised (b) In his preface to the reader by him in quoting authors at
all which doe constantly professe and mayntayne the contrary that the Church of Rome iâ— the true Church of Christ Finally among the small handfull of Protestants many are found that do reiect coÌ„stantly this foolish paradoxe that the Pope is Antichrist So that I say measuring this lye exactly you shall find the same iâ— bignes not much short of the world Nay take it as it is by him vttered and it wanteth I dare warrant you not one all or inch of the world For howsoeuer some few in the world may eyther condemne or suspect the Church of Rome to be Babylon yet that Iesuits doe know they do it clearely and not in darkenes and ignorance iustly and not out of malice and peruersnes and that they haue this knowledg and conceipt of the whole world is as vastly falfe as the world is wyde neyther can he name any Countrey of whome the Iesuits haue such knowledg nor any Iesuit that doth intertayne such a thought So that you see clearely I had reason to tearme his first kind of argument deduced from our confession impudent lying which howsoeuer it may make some impression in poore ignorant soules to abhorre and detest vs as though we did both know and confesse the Church of Rome to be the Whore of Babylon and still adhere vnto her yet very few I thinke can be eyther so simple as not to perceyue this vnconscionable proceeding or so consciensles as not to detest it Brightman M. Crashaws (c) So he tearmeth Brownists p. 33. brother â—elleth vs a reuelation out of the Reuelations that (d) in Apocalypsi Apocalypseos the man that shall discouer Antichrist is to be an obscure and contemptible fellow which if it be true I see not why M. Crashaw may not be the man For if basenes can make one â—â—t such an office and the basest sinne that is not pardonable in a slaue can make one base I might prefer M. Crashaw â—or that office before any other I know of their Church exâ—ept he can shew some other that can and will tell more â—ase and vile vntruths then these are And thus much for his first kind of arguments 13. Let vs come to the second to wit his ignorant â—abling consider his argument to proue the Church of Rome Babylon deduced from the text of the ReuelatioÌ„s which â—e saith is notable and doth ineuitably conclude For the â—ext saith that mysticall Babylon (e) Reuel 17.9 is the Citty seated on the seauen hills that she is (f) Ibid. v. 18. the Citty that raygneth ouer the Kingdomes of the earth which notes can agree to no other Church or Citty besides the Roman If you say that Rome anciently stood on seauen hills but now is shrunke into the playne of Campo-Martio M. Crashaw hath a reply at his tongues end Though this be true saith he yet diuers Churches and places stand on those hills in which the Pope whom paying vs aforehand he calleth Antichrist doth exercise his authority namely in the Lateran Church and Pallace Thus doth the Minister bable and discourse in good earnest seeking to proue that Constantine the first and most Christian Emperour and other noble and pious Romans in the purest tymes of Christianity had small foresight of things who thinking to make Rome seeme gloriously Christian by setting vp Crosses buylding many Churches vnto Christ raysing diuers monuments stately tombes for the reliques of Martyrs on the top of the seauen hills affoarded an argument vnto M. Crashaw to proue her to be mysticall Babylon and the Strumpet of Antichrist which in truth is the only argument that causeth him to lay these reproaches vpon her Marke this For if Rome should to morrow cast downe the Crosses beat downe the Churches of Christ that stand on her hills flyng the Reliques of Martyrs and other deare pledges of Saints into Tybur I dare say in M. Crashawes iudgment she should be the whore of Babylon no longer but straight be styled a glorious Church of Christ so cleare a thing it is that the glory of Christ and his blessed Saints shyning on the top of her mountaines inrageth the man against her which monuments of Christs glory especially the Lateran Church maketh his eyes water for sorrow and his lips open into complaints that in the Lateran Church haue by held by seuerall Popes some three and thirty Prouinciall or Nationall Councells and fiue Generall all or the most part of them to establish Antichrists throne (*) Vsque adeo enim contra vetustaÌ„ pulchritudinem Sarae non inuenit quid nouitia deformitas mentiatur vt tot Episcoporum gloriosoruÌ„ CatholicoruÌ„ consensum de blasphemia criminetur Aug. l. 3. cont IuliaÌ„ c. 17. that is confirme the Primacy of the Roman Bishop which must needs be the Seat of Antichrist if any man be so mad as to belieue the bare word of a Bachelour before so many Councells some Generall some Nationall which he doth confesse to stand against him of which some were held in the tyme of the confessed purity of the Roman Church some not long after the very tyme of the Apostles Loe how learnedly this Minister discourseth Doth he noâ— ineuitably conclude Yea doubtles his owne folly want of iudgment to alleage against himselfe so many Councels so many Senats of learned Prelates Doctours not of one Kingdome but of the whole Christian world that liued successiuely almost in all ages since Christ and then thinke to blow them away with this weake puffe of pryde they all or most of them did establish the Kingdome of Antichrist 14. Concerning the two Canons of the Lateran CouÌ„cell vnder Innocent the third the first about Transubstantiation the second of the Popes Authority to depose hereticall Princes which he tearmeth the most heynous and horrible that euer were before he doth notably discouer his owne skirts therin his want of learning in the one and want of iudgment in the other For Transubstantiation was no new poynt of doctrine defined by that Councell but belieued vniuersally of the Church many hundred yeares before as (g) Bellar. l. 3. de Euchar c. 20. Bellarmine clearly sheweth and Protestants themselues graunt as you may see proued at large in the learned Treatise of the Protestants (h) Prot. Apol. tra 1. fol. 3. subd 2. Apology for the Roman Church And when other euidences fayled the words of Doctour (i) Iesuitis 2. p. 627. Humphrey might suffice to put the matter out of doubt who doth affirme that Augustine our Apostle who was many hundred (k) In the yeare 599. yeares before that Lateran (l) In the yeare 1215. Councell brought Transubstantiation into England For without question neither did he bring other doctrine then that he had learned in Rome nor Rome then teach different doctrine from the rest of the world As for the second to wit the Bachelours lack of wit in saying and vrging that the Popes authority to depose hereticall
any reason may content you yet the Church of Rome dareth proceed further make you a more reasonable offer You know (o) Iesuit Ghosp 43. It requyreth the oueruiewing eye of the whole Colledg of Phisitians that triacle is not permitted so be made in any Citty without a councell or generall meeting of the learned Phisitians and Apothecaries it being a compound that hath diuers ingredients taken from Vipers and venemous serpents to seuer which healthfull drugs from the middest of poyson requyreth great skill and is dangerous to be done without good aduise The doctrine that now can heale Christendome is a compound of the truth of Christiā doctrine deuided into so many dangerous viperous sects discerning the good from bad the truth frō falshood antiquity frō nouelty Christiāity frō heresy there being no sect so bad that hath not some good nor so false but hath some truth which you see cōfesse cānot be made but in a generall Councell The Church of Rome hath gathered a Councell hath made triacle where truth is declared heresy condemned falsehood reiected You like it not you cry out against it Let not our contentions be endlesse let vs not still rot and rankle in deadly woundes of discord you that are branches of Luthers reuolt An offer made vnto all Protestants that descend of Luther that cry against the Church of Rome meete your selues in a generall Councell ioyne togeather your heades in one truth who haue beene a long while tyed togeather by the tayles in errour let vs haue a forme of faith triacle of truth by your making Can you desire a more reasonable offer Some triacle we must haue to heale the disease of discord for matters of faith by which Christendome is brought into extreme danger Either approue ours or appoint better of your owne by common consent for without common consent it must not be made If you will not do the one nor can the other who are incurable Who haue iust cause to complayne you or we let the world iudge A pleasant story declaring Protestāts vanity that brag of healing our Church and can not agree vpon the phisicke 24. I remember I haue heard a pleasant story which may serue to shew the vanity of these complayners of a certayne towne which did vse to make great complaynts for want of rayne not forbearing sometymes to touch Gods prouidence as wanting in the care of their affayres Wherupon a wise and prudent man to shew them their folly made them a promise to rayne them as much rayne as they would so that meeting in the market place they would agree vpon the tyme and the quantity thereof Glad of the promise the people met and began to consult about the matter but there were almost as many different opinions as men some would haue rayne in more quantity some in lesse some one weeke some another then about the day of the weeke had there beene more dayes then seauen that only difference would haue had more heades then Hydra Concerning the houre the variety was greater some would haue it in the night others in the day some in the morning others in the euening some would haue one good shewer others rayne often though not much at a tyme and euery man stood so stifly in his conceipt that from consulting they fell to quarelling and from quarelling were ready to come to blowes and to water the market place with bloud insteed of getting water from heauen Protestāts will neuer agree about the phisicke that must heale the Church of Rome The man that had made the promise standing by laughed at their folly and cryed vnto them agree and I will rayne Doth not this story shew how impertinent the cryers of Luthers crew are that from all parts of Europe in different tongues cry they would cure the Church of Rome euery one offering her his owne phisick and condemning his fellowes as poyson If the Roman Church should agree to be healed by them would they euer meet togeather and agree in one doctrine to heale her No neuer so long as Babel shall be Babel neuer till Hydra cease to haue many heades and returne againe to the vnity of the Roman Church 25. First they confesse (p) Syr Edwin Sandes in his relatiō c. fol. S. 2. on the B. side they haue no ordinary meanes on their part to assemble a Generall Councell though that be the only meanes remayning euer to asswage their contentions and as for extraordinary and miraculous meanes themselues graunt miracles are now out of date by which you may ghesse in what a wofull and desperate case their Church is who so brag of curing woundes But suppose by some extraordinary great chance their Bishops Presbyters and other Prelates of their reuolted Cōgregations brought from the northerne corners of Europe by the hayre of their head as Abacuc was should meet in a Councell would they agree vpon one phisick to heale themselues and vs would they heale ancient woundes and not rather make new and wider I am content their owne Bishop Doctor Bilson inferiour in learning and experience in matters of their Church vnto few prophesy of the euent of such a Synode rather then my self which he doth saying That (q) Si linguae eorū similiter se habeāt ac calami pluribus certè opus erit pacis custodibus ad pugnas praeueniendas quà m librarijs ad decreta eorum perscribenda Bilson de perpetua Ecclesiae Christi gubernat c. 16. in fine libri in such a case except their hartes do better agree then their pennes there would be more need of officers to part their frayes then of Notaryes to write their actes And would not the Babel and confusion of their Church thinke you be well healed in such a tumult Would the blemishes of their faces and want of fingers which M. Crashaw will not much sticke to graunt in his Church be notably taken away in that skirmish in which those Bishops that should defend their heads from new woundes might be well thought wise serpents What might the Church of Rome expect were she present at such a fray How would they cut of her fingers and toes her armes and legs to make meate of them for which feast the Bachelour saith (r) In his Epistle dedicatory to the Princes Highnes that he and his fellowes haue longed a great while and now at least hope shortly to be glutted therewith to make her desolate and eate her flesh without salt or sugar and euen raw and then burne her with fire Are not these men notable Surgeons thinke you Can any thing be eyther more ridiculous then their braggs or more vniust then theyr complaynts 26. VVherfore seeing they will needs apply this text against the Church of Rome that she is Babylon that they are her healers that she would not be healed that therfore they must forsake her will or nill they they must goe forward in their misapplyed
text (s) Gen. 11. v. 9. euery one into his owne Countrey as the buylders of Babel their toÌ„gues being deuided were dispersed vpon the face of the earth some one way some another into different Sects for number more then the CouÌ„treys of Europe more opposite then the foure corners of the world where euery Babylonian may curse the Pope in his owne language euery Heretike damne him in their owne Sect euery cocke crow at him on his owne dunghill euery Minister rayle at him in his owne pulpit euery good fellow drink to his damnation in the tauerne neere vnto the Church if not rather within it but meet togeather all in one general CouÌ„cell make an end of their disorders agree vpon the same salue or forme of faith in all points this they will neuer do so long as the foure coastes of the world shal be opposit one to the other nor euer so long as (t) Protestants Frigida pugnabunt (u) with Puritans calidis (x) Anabaptists humentia (y) with AriaÌ„s siccis (z) Soft Lutherans Mollia cum (a) with Rigid duris (b) SacrameÌ„taries which deny the Real presence sine pondere (c) with Realists that put it habentia pondus Hoat thinges with cold moisture with drought shall fight Soft thinges with hard and heauy thinges with light Let S. Augustine (d) Aug. de vtilit credend c. 14. Vos auteÌ„ tam pauci tam turbulenti tam noui nemini dubium est quà m nihil dignum authoritate praeferatis August ibid. conclude this Chapter and what he sayd to the boasting Manichees let vs say to M. Crashaw and craking Ministers Redite in latebras vestras returne into your holes in which you lurked like dorme-mice so many ages before Luther Seeke not to impayre the credit of that Church that mayntained the name credit of Christianity before you were knowne The Church of him who bringing a soueraigne medicine to heale the most corrupted manners by miracles wonne authority by authority gayned credit by credit gathered a multitude by multitudes got antiquity by antiquity strenghtned the religion which neither the fond vanity of heretikes by their fraudulent deuises nor the ancient errour of the Heathens by violent fury shall euer be able to ouerthrow but You for number so few for age such vpstarts and for spirit so turbulent and deuided one against the other euery man may see that you carry neyther credit nor authority with you THE SECOND CHAPTER LAYING OPEN The vayne and ridiculous braggs of the Bachelour of foure salues very charitably applied by the Protestant Church to heale the woundes of the Roman THE Bachelour hauing layd no better foundation of his Sermon then you haue heard hauing brought no reasons at all to proue himself and his fellowes to be mysticall Israel and such reason to proue the Church of Rome to be Babylon as he might with more credit haue beene sileÌ„t The Bachelours 4. salues or plaisters yet doth he goe forward in his fancy and beginneth to build the first square of his Babel which is in the prayse of his Churches charity and of the excellent balmes and salues by her applyed to the woundes of Rome to wit these foure pag. 45. Instructions Prayers Examples Lawes by which he saith the heauens haue seene and the world will witnes with them they haue sought to heale Babylon nay such excelleÌ„t salues these are haue beene applyed by them with such admirable dexterity and skill that in his conceipt seing we are not cured he must needs pronounce vs incurable This he preacheth very stoutly and proueth so doughtily that I dare say the iudicious Reader will be moued to laugh at if not rather to pitty the misery beggery of his Church whose Preachers for want of better subiect of her praise are forced to fly to triuiall stuffe which euery hereticall Sect in the world doth brag of and may with as good reason as any this her Procter doth or can alledge in her behalf as will appeare by this short examination of them 2. The first meanes then to heale our woundes which he braggeth of is his Churches Instruction of vs pag. 4â— informing them saith he in the truth and discouering their errours both by holy Scripture and the ancient Fathers of the best and purest tymes Iewell A ValiaÌ„t Vaunt Fuâ—ke Whitaker Reynolds Perkins and many others who now sleep in Christ haue lest behind them such testimonyes of this truth as shall liue while the world lasteth and neuer can be confuted as appeares in that they haue not dared to answere most of their bookes to this day Thus he craketh giuing vs for our salue a plaister of big brags without any proofe For that some of their bookes haue not beene answered to this day the iudicious Reader will easely perceaue the cause to be that by authority they haue wronge the presse out of our handes not permitting vs so much as a corner where such weapons may be cast and keep so carefully the portes that no booke can passe except it be almost inuisible which though they know the world seeth Great vanity of English Ministers yet these ioylly Champions for want of greater proofes of their prowesse blush not to brag of euen in pulpit But might it please his Excellent Maiesty to permit this booke-warre about Religion indifferently on both sides so nothing be written that otherwise may offend the State that we might beare weapons as openly as they you should soone see the learned of our side make M. Crashaw and such Crakers that dare them now they haue nothing in their hands pull their hornes into their shells In other Countryes we doe not heare Protestants brag so much of their vnanswerable bookes in which kind of battayle they haue beene so beaten that now they seeme rather to trust as they thinke vnto stronger weapons 3. But indeed M. Crashaw haue we beene such dastards in England as you seeme to make vs Haue we bene so beaten with your bookes that one may iustly thinke we dare not meet you with such weapons in the field Nay such hath bene the strength of our inuincible cause that not withstanding the great aduantage you haue had to write at your wil yet very few of your books that might seem to need answer but haue returned vnto you with a full answere and many in the height of their pride haue receyued such blowes that their pen beaten out of their hand they were glad to run to take a (a) Iewels vain challeng who hauing dared catholikes to answere him the answere was no sooner come out but he got the same to be forbidden by Proclamation Proclamation for their defence vnto which shamfull shift M. Iewell whom you make leader of your learned army is knowne to haue bene dryuen by Doctour Harding And with far greater reason might we brag of our Hardings Sanders Allens Bristowes
off toes or fingers but also with big bookes beat out ech others braynes â—lamning themselues as Heretikes vnto hell mutually not cursing as we may charitably expound but prophesiyng â—ather what wil be their seuerall ends and I feare though in other thinges they be false yet in this they will proue but too true Prophets Which war betwixt them doth appeare both by the Catalogue of their bookes which they haue written one against another set downe by (f) Histo Sacram. part 2 Hospinian a Protestant and (g) Iodocus Coccius in his Thesaurê° c. Tom. 2. Prot. Apo. in the end others as also by the yearely Marts of Franckford in which store of such bookes wherewith they wound ech other mortally neuer want disagreeing in points most essentiall and not in sleight matters only as about Scriptures whether the Epistles of Iames of Iude the second of Peter the second and third of Iohn the Epistle to the Hebrewes the Apocalyps be authenticall or no which not some few but whole Churches and the chiefest (h) Luther Illyricus Chem nitiê° and others See Chem. enchirid p. 63. exam CoÌ„c Trid. part 1 p. 55. pillers of Protestancy deny about Christs Incarnation about the blessed Trinity and such like (i) See Edkandus his enchiridion of Contro betwene Protestant Churches points in which errours and heresies must needes passe to the hart of any Religion 7. As for their practises read the second part of Hospinians SacrameÌ„tary Story which I haue of late perused with great admiration to see how their Churches doe wound teare ech other in peeces for religion who to poore people that know not these things dare auouch their iarres to be tryfles There you may behould how they banish ech other by publike (k) Hospin p. 2. Sacr. Histor fol. 127. p. 2. fol. 227. fol. 389. Proclamation prohibiting the sale reading of ech others (l) 383. books cast ech other into (m) Hospin 393. prison not permitting common hospitality to those of the aduerse part passing by their (n) Hospin fol. 399. CoÌ„rad Schlusselb in his Catal. Haeret. l. 13. pag. 828. Townes rise in armes fight one against another for (o) Hospin fol. 395. OsiaÌ„d epit centur 16. p. 735. Religion finally mangling the very dead (p) Hospin fol 395. corses of the contrary faction not graunting (q) Hosp ibid. sepulture as vnto Christians in their Churches Now M. Crashaw are these woundes in the heele and not in the hart in the finger and not in the head Are these sister-Churches that do thus not onely byte and scratch which might be pardoned vnto their weake sexe and would perchance hurt but face finger but also cruelly cut ech other in pieces for Religion damning ech other to hell in words and sending themselues thither mutually with their swords Are not these deadly wounds euen those wounds wherof all heresies in former times haue euer bled vnto the death If you know not this point of spirituall surgery your Father Luther can teach you it who saith that (*) Neque nâ—vlli vmquam haeretici vi aut astu victi suÌ„t sed mutua dissentioÌ„e c. Tom. 3. VVitteÌ„berg in ps 106 in fine Heretikes neuer at any tyme haue bene ouercome by force or subtilty but by mutuall dissention neyther doth Christ fight with them otherwise then with a spirit of gyddines and disagreement Thus Luther Now M. Crashaw either heale this deadly desperate wouÌ„d in your Church if you be able or else if you be wise neuer brag of your Surgeons and salues hereafter 8. But let vs see whether there be any vertue in the second salue or meanes to hâ—ale vs which M. Crashaw and his Church as he saith hath layd to our woundes This is their deuout Prayers for our conuersion whereof the Minister braggeth in very good earnest pag. 43 45. though most ridiculously as you shall see saying that they haue the testimony of a good conscience that they pray for vs dayly yea continually publikely and priuately euery where ouer the world all of their Church that vse to pray for themselues Which last parenthesis warily put in by him I feare will depriue vs of a great deale of good prayers that exception reaching far and wyde in their Church not only to the swearers swaggerers and swas-bucklers therof but also vnto their purest Preachers and good men of God For to omit others of Iacobus Andreas a man of great credit in their Church as much honoured and famous in Germany as euer was Caluin or Beza in Geneua Chauncellour of the Vniuersitie of (r) Hospin p. 2. Histor SacraÌ„ fol 198. Tubinga of whose zeale against the Pope they giue this testimony that (s) Osiâ—nd in Epitom Histor ceÌ„t 16. p. 1044. concionibus suis grauiter in Antichristum RomanuÌ„ est inuectus multas Ecclesias piè reformauit In his sermons he did bitterly inueigh against the Roman Antichrist and piously reforme many Churches Of this great Preacher of the Ghospell reformer of Churches a (t) Nicolas Seluecer Protestant that liued very much with him doth affirme that he could neuer see nor heare nor by any probable coniecture gather quòd vel cubitum iturus â—el de lecto surrecturus autorationem Dominicam recitauerit aut vllam Dei mentionem secerit (u) Hospinian p. 2. Histor Sacram. fol. 389. that going to bed or rising from thence he did euer so much as say the Lords prayer or had any remembrance at all of God What may we thinke of the reformed Churches whose Reformer was so deuout How piously did he teach them to pray for the Pope that was so slack and slouthfull to pray for himselfe And yet did he preach against the Roman Antichrist as zealously as M. Crashaw spake of godlynes no lesse hypocritically reformed Churches more successiuely then euer he is like to do which example may giue vs iust cause to doubt whether such earnest declaymers against the Pope and busy searchers into wounds euer pray for themselues or no. So that this continuall praying for vs by Protestants euery where ouer the world seemeth a very incredible paradoxe and I do thinke most Protestants that should practise the same were it true doe somwhat wonder to see it in print 9. The Bachelour goeth forward to set out the pompe of his praying Church with more magnificent words This our diligence saith he so shamed them Catholikes for their negligence in the same pag. 41. that foure yeares agoe they published at Rome a forme of Letany and publike prayer for the peruerting of the Realmes of England and Scotland to Popery Thus he But if you aske me what valiant exployts I euer heard the Protestant Church to haue performed by praying that may iustly make the Church of Rome so much ashamed or vpon what shew or colour of truth the Bachelour speaketh such strange thinges in so confident manner I plainly confesse I
know not but must leaue you to Oedipus for an answere neyther can I imagine vpon what ground he may iustly thinke that we take Ministers to be such men of deuotion who haue setled a contrary conceipt of them in which we are daily more more confirmed that they do more trouble the world with (x) See the ConfereÌ„ce at Hampton court prating then the heauens with praying VVe know the doctrine of their primitiue Church taught by their Protaplaâ—â— Luther (y) Luther Concione in Dom. 4. AdueÌ„tê° per BuceruÌ„ latinè redditam an 1525. Etiamsi interim nihil nisi vinum Creticum biberet ambularet super rosas neque verbo quide oraret is that he that hath the true knowledg of himself shal be saued though he drinke nothing but malmesy and lye continually in a bed of roses and say not so much as one prayer which is excellent diuinity I confesse to make men take many sweet nappes of contemplation in soft beds and to pray feruently in a tauerne till they be depriued of their senses by deuotion to a cup of malmesy 10. And yet I would not doubt but their prayers might be heard to Rome from England were M. Crashaws Church such as he describeth it in his New-yeares-gift to Virginia where to animate and encourage them that were to vndertake that iourney he saith that so many millions of soules would dayly pray and send vp a stronge cry for their prosperous voyage that he nothing doubted of the successe but what old holy Ambrose said of yonge Augustine for whom his mother so weeped A sonne of such teares cannot perish he durst apply vnto Virginia for which the Protestant Church prayed that Populus tantaâ—â— precum perire non potest the people that hath so many a good prayer could not possibly perish For in truth a Church consisting of so many millions that they might not be numbred was like to haue such sighes teares as Poets faygne the God Saturnus to haue Virgi Ser. p. 72. whose sighes are stormes of wynd and teares seas of water So that the Virginian voyagers tossed with a storme of sighes raysed by their owne Church came to be drowned in that sea of teares in which Virginia should haue beene christened VVas not this stoutly prayed thinke you VVas it not an heroicall act of prayer Had not M. Crashaw reason to say with the Poet habeat iam Roma pudorem Iuuenal let Rome be ashamed that she cannot sigh out such stormes But rather let England blush to set out in print such ridiculous braggs 11. But if these thinges do not yet conuince M. Crashaw bringeth a third argument of his Churches charity in praying for vs which he termeth very obseruable to wit that whereas the Pope on Maundy-Thursday curseth ProtestaÌ„ts in Rome pag. 6. 7. they like meeke lambes the next Friday morning pray for him and his sect in all Churches and Chappell 's of this Kingdome by prayer of their publicke liturgy appointed of old and continued by authority which is saith he a testimony against them that we are a Church of blessing a blessed Church and the Father of blessings blesse it more and more and all that seeke the peace of it Amen Thus he But hauing perused the publick Liturgy of his blessed Church I find no such blessed prayers where eyther Pope or Papist is named or may be iustly thought to be meant I find indeed a prayer where Pagans Iewes Turkes Catholicks haue no cause to thinke theÌ„ praied for in the English Liturgy and Hereticks are put togeather but that they comprehend vs vnder any of these foure sects we haue no cause to thinke except they further by publick authority declare For in good sadnes M. Crashaw tell vs if we should thinke that you pray for vs vnder the name of Pagans or Iewes or Turkes charging you to giue vs those vncharitable tearmes in your publick Liturgy would not you thinke we do you wrong You will say we are comprehended vnder the name of Hereticks first that is not the ordinary stile you giue vs and in your writings you charge vs equally with all or rather with Paganisme more then any other Moreouer that publick authority doth not comprehend vs vnder the title of heretickes euen in your owne iudgment I will conuince out of your owne writinges See the CoÌ„clusion of his Iesuits Ghospell For doe you not in your Iesuits Ghospell intreat the Parliament to declare by their publick authority that we are hereticks And to incite them thereunto did not you write that long witlesse inuectiue What needed that labour especially in the heat of midsommer moone had we beene declared heretickes by publick authority in your Church in your publick Liturgy long before and as such prayed for publickly euery yeare in all your Churches and Chappell 's of the Kingdome 12. M. Crashawes loue to the Church of Rome So that it is cleare we are not put in your prayers by publick authority but by your priuate courtesy to which if we will stand to beseated in which of these foure damned sects you please we are like to be well placed whose charity towards vs can find reasons to ranke vs in any sect though neuer so damnable not caring what you write so you may make vs seeme wicked To make vs seem Pagans you do not sticke to say we worship Idols we direct prayers not to Christ but to a wodden (z) pag. 89. Crosse To make vs seeme Iewes you say that Antichrist who shal be admitted as Messias is the Bishop of Rome neither would you blush to say for such a purpose that which some of your Doctours (a) Powel l. 1. de Antichristo c. 1. haue written that Rome was the great Citty which Christ was crucified in though euen children doe know the same to be false To make vs seeme Heretikes you say we haue separated our selues from (b) p. 166. Christ though you can tell neither where nor when nor from what Church of Christ we euer parted wherof we were once members Finally what dare not you say of vs that durst write of Iesuits who are knowne to honour singularly the name of Iesus and to haue carryed the sound therof to the furthest confines of the world that they haue more disgraced his bloud then euer it was by Iew or Heretike Iesuites Ghos pag. 76. Turke or Atheist Diuell or man since the world began Thus you rayle in some rithme without any reason and yet forsooth notwithstanding these great tokens of your little loue you would haue vs remit the matter to your charity to define vnder what title eyther of Pagans Iewes Turkes Heretikes Men or Diuells you do vse to pray for vs in your Church 13. But one thing moueth me much that M. Crashaw saith that this prayer is made in all Churches of this Kingdome insinuating that out of England that prayer is not made in their more reformed Churches
Apostolicall tymes we can not name so much as one VVe are sure also that many Churches Monasteryes and holy places haue beene ouerthrowne and layd wast by their practise whereas not any Monastery hath beene by them built few places if any made sacred vnto Christ and a rare bird is that Church or Hospitall or Colledge in Christendome that may call a ProtestaÌ„t her founder As for Cathedrall Churches the first ProtestaÌ„t that shall appeare in the world may be thought wil be the most stately and sumptuous that euer was seeing the foundations thereof haue bene aboue these fourescore yeares a laying in half which tyme that famous (*) Six fourty yeares Ioan. 2. v. 20. Temple of Salomon was built 17. And will M. Crashaw be content that we enter into any of their Churches to see them practise their owne religion in our sight euen where their Ghospell is most purely preached euen whither Andreas Musculus a pryme Protestant doth inuite vs (e) Si quis videre volet ingeÌ„teÌ„ turbaÌ„ nebulonum hominum turbulentorum fallaciuÌ„ impostorum foeneratorum ciuitateÌ„ aliquaÌ„ adeat in qua EuangeliuÌ„ purè praedicatur cateruatim tales ibi reperiet c. Conc. 1. AdueÌ„tus If any man saith he be desirous to see a great rabble of knaues of persons turbulent deceiptfull coosoners vsurers let him goe to any citty where the Ghospell is purely preached and he shall find them there by multitudes For it is as manifest as day light that there were neuer among the Ethnicks Turkes and Infidels more vnbridled vnruly persons with whom all vertue and honesty is quite extinct thâ—â— are among the Professours of the Ghospell Thus he Now haue we not seene a goodly spectacle of godly Professors of their own religion in our sight Are not we past cure that are not healed with such good examples Is it not an holy religion which by such examples is made known to the world That the whole world saith (f) Con. 4. ad cap. 21. Lucae Vt totus muÌ„dê° agnoscat eos noÌ„ esse Papistas nec bonis operibê° quicquam fidere illorum operum nullum penitus exercent c. Iacobus Andreas a great man among them may know that they are not Papists nor place any confidence in good workes they doe not any good workes at all Insteed of fasting they spend the day and night in feasting and quaffing In lieu of being bountifull towards the poore they deuoure and flea them with extortions they turne their praying into swearing and blaspheming of Gods name that euen Turkes doe not more impiously blaspheme Christ Is not this holy professing their owne religion in our sight And is not that an holy religion that is knowne and discerned from Popery by such markes 18. You will say we wander far from home Looke into the Church of England you shall there see many professe their owne religion in your sight Well though I could willingly be absent from such a spectacle yet seeing M. Crashaw doth importune vs therunto with sorrow of hart we will cast our eyes vpon his Church in which we may clearly behould how far our deare Countrey hath degenerated from her ancient piety and Religion For who would not weep to behould England in that wofull forme damnable state as M. Richard Ieffery hauing gathered her true Pourtraicture in his trauells to that end made a publike spectacle of her in his sermon at the Crosse some 3. yeares before M. Crashaw came to that honour (g) M. Richard Ieffrey in his Sermon preached at the Crosse the 7. of October anno 1604. p. 31. I may freely speak saith he what I haue plainly seene in the course of some trauailes and obseruation of some courses that in Flanders was neuer more drunkennes in Italy neuer more wantonnes in Iury more hypocrisy in Turke more impiety in Tartary more iniquity then is practised generally in England particulerly in London All this is to be seene c. And were not these thinges worth the â—eeing M. Crashaw were we disposed to iest at your folly â—hat brag of your profession of religion and not rather to weep at the wofull spectacle of our now deformed Countrey that once for her religion and sanctity was so renowâ—ed For doth not this Preacher come neere the place where you so purely preach the Ghospell And that by these good deeds and holy life you professe your owne now English religion in our sight these being the effects of the rifenes of your ghospelling there If you doubt Doctour King now your Bishop of London will put the matter out of question who vpon Ionas writeth in this sort (h) King vpoÌ„ Ionas pag. 442. Lecture 32. So far is it off saith he that we are become by the Protestant reformation true Isräelites with Nathanael or but almost Christians with Agrippa that we are proued fully Atheists And that which Tully reporteth amongst his wonders in nature that in one Countrey drougth causeth dirt and rayne stirreth vp dust may be truly applyed vnto vs that aboundance of grace hath brought â—orth in vs aboundance of sinne and as some tooke occasion by the law to waxe more sinfull so iniquity had neuer bene so ryfe amoÌ„gst vs but through the rifenes of the Ghospell Thus he Is not this a very gracious Ghospell that doth bring forth aboundance of sinne And do you wonder that we hinder as far as we haue forces that the same may not be rife in Catholike Countreys Are you offended that we will not lay these plaisters of your Ghospells examples to our wounds Truly you haue no cause 19. And heere we might make an end of the ProtestaÌ„ts good examples to heale vs but M. Crashaw will needs also apply to our wouÌ„ds the salue of Q. Elizabeths good example professing her owne Religion in our fight VVorthy saith he of eternall memory whose constant zeale to the truth was such About Q. Elizabeth her constant professing her religion in our sight as that all her dayes they could not by their brags and treasons and curses cause her once to feare them Thus doth the Minister fiddle in the praise of this Princesse touching that string loudest which of all other least soundeth of her honour For as I will not deny but that she had many Princely qualityes both of mind and body that made her worthy to haue bene Defendresse of a better Ghospell so likewise he could not possibly haue named any ChristiaÌ„ Queen of our Countrey to whom the note of mutability in matters of Religion might more iustly adhere (i) See the Answere to Syr Edward Cooks Reports c. 15. pag. 363. For to omit other proofes who doth not know that whilest her sister ruled she did not professe herselfe a Protestant but confesse her selfe to a Priest and heard Masse in shew deuoutly coÌ„monly two a f day more then perchance she heard all her lifetime after which doth argue eyther little zeale in so long dissembling
or small constancy in so soone changing 20. But seeing this Queene is now gathered vnto her Father I cannot say Fathers seeing not one of her noble Ancestors besides him were of her faith nor he but in part I will say no more only to her I dare oppose two Catholike Queenes of the same age much more worthy of eternall memory for their constant zeale to the truth two Maryes who chose indeed the best part the one of England the other of Scotland The first was constantly zealous to her religion not only in the dayes of her raigne when Puritans neither by their brags nor treasons nor bloudy bookes froÌ„ Geneua especially those of that Minister whose deeds made him vnworthy of his (k) Goodman name could cause her once to feare theâ— but before also in the dayes of her brother when Protestant ruled and ouerswayed all ventured her Princely life many tymes by the constant practise and profession of her Religion in their sight 21. The second no lesse zealous then the former stood most constantly in the truth euen vnto the death washing her Princely robes in the bloud of the lambe where Protestant Bishops and Ministers fearing to be sent againe as in the dayes of the former Mary into Iury to sing songs of Sion and not be permitted to chaunt Geneua Psalmes on English land had this Catholike Princesse come to the Crowne inciting the Queene in Court the people in pulpit with bloudy slaunders against her made a lamentable proofe what a (l) The executioners name Bull against an annoynted Princesse they can indite when they feare though but a farre off that in tyme they may come to touch their free-hold such a Bull as all their clamours can â—euer proue to haue euer come from Rome Of the bloudines â—f which fact and constancy worthy of eternall memory â—f the Princesse that the Reader may more detest the one â—nd admire the other I will here set downe a few verses of â—hat subiect taken out of an excellent Poeme to requite by â—he way the liberality of M. Crashaw who bestoweth some â—able verses vpon the Lateran Sea Ecce Caledonij commissa piacula Regni Infandumque nefas en Regia colla securis Et (m) Q. Dowager of France and Q. of Scotland geminum diadema ferit quo nulla vetustas Funere maius habet seris nec proseret annis Posteritas magnique necem mirabitur instar Prodigij Regina tuam sed gloria maior Quo tibiculpa minor tantoque celebrius orbe Nomen erit quanto fidei constantia maior Dum iugulum petit intrepidum scelarata securis Quae tibi mens tum lictor erat cum verbere crudo Colla secas quae nec (n) Nolite tangere Christos meos Psal 104.15 manibus contingere fas est Si Marium post Teutonicos morsipsa triumphos Pauit attonito percussor constitit ore Tu Mariam vita priuas nec torpuit ictus Maiestate sacri capitis ferrúmue repressit Dextra nec Augustos acies defecit in artus Heu quantus Regina iacet ter maxima truncus Quae (o) Mother to our dread Soueraigne matres regumque nurus supereminet omnes And this may suffice to lay open to the eye of euery man the â—ntolerable vanity of this bragger of his Churches examples and professing religion in our sight 22. The fourth salue of wholsome lawes Now remayneth that I adde a word or two of the â—ourth sort of meanes or salues that M. Crashaw saith their Church hath applyed to our soares by which were we not â—ncurable we might be healed to wit wholesome lawes which saith he we haue deuised and enacted against their errours superstitions impietyes seditious courses sometymes in iustice executing â—hem sometymes in great mercy suspending them pag. 44. I cannot deny but â—hese haue beene strong salues which flesh and bloud could neuer so long tyme haue endured persisting constantly in the faith without speciall assistance from heauen salues that haue drawne not only goods and lands but also much noble bloud from diuers Catholikes who heires more vnto the vertue of their Ancestors then vnto their liuings haue chosen rather to part with the best bloud from their Noble Progenitors they receiued then from their faith and religion and the hope of eternall saluation and blissefull enioying their desired company euerlastingly in glory Some oâ— them I confesse may perchaunce haue byn executed in iustice that is permitted to hang till they were iust half dead SuspensioÌ„ in mercy no more nor lesse as the law requireth yet other haue bene executed short of iustice cut downe and buâ—cherly vnbowelled being full aliue though I willingly graunt that many also haue bene suspended with great mercy as a fellow cryed out at Oxford at the execution of a Priest Let him hang till he be dead for the Queene is mercifullâ— But how may these lawes be thought salues to heale ouâ— woundes First M. Crashaw graunteth that they were deâ—â—sed and enacted by themselues an euident signe that they Religion also for which these lawes are made was deuised and enacted by themselues otherwise Christian Princes Bishop in former ages would haue made lawes for it had they byâ— of it So that the very salue doth strongly sauour and theiâ— lawes clearly sound the nouelty of the religion that theâ— would force vs to imbrace as Ancient 23. Moreouer that the penall lawes in the late Queen tyme were executed vpon vs any wayes for conscience sake the grauest and greatest of their side doe constantly deny though the euidence of the truth wrung a confession of thâ— contrary from (q) In his Iesuites Ghospell he saith Priestes Iesuites in England dye for the Primary of the Roman Bishop som excepted that died for treasoÌ„ pag. 79. M. Crashaw which may seeme a wondeâ— in so great a Statist who did publish his Sermon to iustifie thâ— State much more then honour truth How can their penall laweâ— heale the wounds of our conscience vnto which they doâ— not apply them as plaisters not punishing vs they say for conscience sake Can the Maister iustly wonder if the Scholler amend not his fault when he will not tell him why he is beaten Catholiks are charged with fines cast into prisons put vnto shamefull deathes for their errours superstitions impieties as M. Crashaw saith yet they must not say nor so much as thinke that Religion is the cause This manner of â—uring vs or proceeding against vs may iustly strengthen â—nd confirme vs in our Religion seeing the maiesty therof â—o be such that euen those that do mortally hate it would â—ot be thought persecutors of it The very instinct of nature â—et downe in the law of Nations doth teach that it is cruelty â—o force any from the faith and beliefe of their ancestors wherin they haue continued time out of mind euen Iewes and Turkes cannot be drawne to be Christians by rigour of â—enall (r) C. Maiores
without rithme and the Israelites to run into inuisible corners without any reason The mystery is this that â—he would haue you vnderstand that there was a Babylonicall captiuity in former ages vnder the Bishop of Rome in which tyme though no Protestants appeared but only Catholikes in the world yet would he insinuate that some Professours of his Ghospell might lye inuisible in secret corners from Constantine in whose dayes the night of superstition was as they say * M. Napier vpon the Reuelations pag. 168. Vniuersally spread ouer the world vnto the morning of Luthers sun-shine the cleare beames of whose day drew these lurkers to light By which you may see the extreme misery and beggary of their Church that would thinke it a great fauour and take it very kindly at our hands if we would graunt her for so many ages since Christ pag. 111. so much as one corner or some more secret though lesse sweet place such as M. Crashawes priuy-Protestants of Italy liue in where she might be thought to haue lurked inuisible whilest the true Church as it had bene foretold long (i) Isay 49. v. 20. c. 54. v. 23. before gathered into her Tents and Tabernacles dilated ouer the world the Nations of the earth she would be glad I say of a little hole vnder ground where she might admit some secret Professours wherwith the eye of her more then omnipotent faith that can make thinges to haue byn that neuer were she might contemplate in a dreame her inuisible Kinges and Queenes as M. Barlow (k) In his defence of the Articles pag. 35. tearmeth them And in very truth so liberall dare we be with M. Crashaw that can he proue clearly and apparently that eyther King or Queene visible or inuisible any man or so much as a woman did belieue all the pointes of the now Protestant faith or did practise Religion as now they doe in England though neuer so secretly though but in a mouse hole though such a woman might seeme to haue litle interest in the visible workes of piety done by Catholicks in the tyme she durst not shew her face An offer to M. Crashaw yet will we be content vpon euident proofe that there was euer such a woman to yield all the Churches we haue in Christendome vnto him as her lawfully begotted issue without further proofe of his legitimation Is not this a fayre offer If M. Crashaw will not or dare not accept of this offer or cannot performe it who doth not see that the Church of Christ if theirs be his Church hath beene more obscure and contemptible for many ages togeather then euer was the Church of the Iewes when she was most oppressed and at her lowest ebb which was in Babylon where she was not so beaten downe but still had some that were knowne and could be proued to worship the true God and not Idols To such impious shiftes must they needes be driuen that will defend the being of a Church that neuer was seene which only doth boast of her exployts Quae sine teste gerit quorum nox conscia sola est 10. Like to the former is the other Babylonian brag of a continuance of so many and so many yeares like vnto that which we challenge For it is knowne that the Babylonians were not constant continuers in the same Religion who did vse to change their Gods with their Kings and some tymes oftener wherin Protestants of all other be most like vnto them For since the beginning of their Ghospell within lesse then an hundred yeares EnglaÌ„d only can affoard three or foure notable examples of their changing their religion with the (l) See the secoÌ„d part of the three ConuersioÌ„s Prince And in other Countryes also the climate of their Ghospell is so subiect to the influence of the nutable planet that as one of their owne brethren an (m) Andraeas Duditius whoÌ„ Beza tearmeth his brother ViruÌ„ ClarissimuÌ„ Ornatissimum Beza in ep Theol ep 1. ad Andr. Duditium where he repeateth Duditius his complaint of ProtestaÌ„t mutability Menstruam fidem habeÌ„t omni doctrinae veÌ„to agitati c. p. 3. emiâ—eÌ„t man coÌ„playneth with great sorrow of hart vnto Beza they â—oyne monethly faiths they are carryed about with euery wynd of doctrine â—ow to this part now to that whose religion saith he what it is to â—ay you may perchance know but what it wil be to morrow neyther you â—or they can certainly tell Now is it a Babylonian argument to proue a religion to be true because it hath continued one â—nd the same in many ages Are not all errours subiect to change What more comfortable motiue to remayne in a Church then the example of such ancestors who though our Aduersaryes out of pride dare affirme they erred yet for shame the grauest of them dare not say they be damned Yet out of the principles of their doctrine the same doth follow whereupon some that are more zealous in their sect then considerate in their speach doe not blush to (n) Gabriel Powel l. 2. de Antichristo c. 36. teach it And what Church can be more hatefull to a Christian then that which can giue him no hope to goe to heauen but by such principles as must needes cast most famous and glorious Saints of Christs Church without number into hell A doctrine so barbarous among Christians that as (o) O rem lachrymis dignam S. Gregory Nazianzen saith it were to be washed away from the face of the earth with a floud of teares hauing among themselues the like dismemberd Vniuersality the like variable continuance the like agrement against one and the same truth and disagrement in their seuerall errours as the Babylonians had And that I may not seeme without proofe to accuse hereticks of being Idolaters I shall confirme the same and conclude with these wordes of (z) Multi Haeretici cum Paganis alios alios Deos finxerunt sibi eos si non in Templis quod peiê° est in suo corde posuerunt Magnum opus est haec idola frangere locum Deo viuenti non recenti mundare Videntur dissentire sed in terrenis cogitationibus consentiunt sibi Opinio diuersa est vanitas vna est August in Psalm 80. S. Augustine Heretickes saith he haue like Pagans faygned and deuised to themselues diuers Gods which they place if not in Temples yet that which is worse in their hartes being themselues temples of fond fancyes and ridiculous Idols It is a great peece of worke to breake those Idols of nouelty in their harts and prepare a place for the true God ancient and not recent euerliuing and neuer changing They all being of different myndes fancy to themselues other and other Gods and as it were dy the Christian faith with diuersity of errours wherein they seeme to dissent but in earthly cogitations they doe conspire Their doctrine is different their vanity the same Thus
of more authority then the originall Cannot water from the fountaine be cleare vnlesse it be more cleare and of more vertue then the fountaine Who is so voyd of iudgment that doth not see the vanity of this sottish slaunder Secondly many learned Papists saith he are ashamed of this if they durst vtter it A fond slaunder and Bellarmine and Coccius do bewray it by their sleight handling of the matter But first how commeth he to know the shame of our secret thoughts which we neither do nor dare vtter Haue Ministers more insight into our harts to see our secret blushing then they will graunt to Saints and Angells to know our inward praying Barl. Sermon 1602. in the Preface If we haue made him acquainted with our shame in secret confession why doth he proclaime it at the Crosse and sound it out with a peale of Canon as M. Barlow did the confession of the infortunate Earle And how may Bellarmine Coccius be said to haÌ„dle this matter sleightly Doth not Bellarmine spend many long (g) Chapter 14. of his 2. book de verbo Dei Chapters in it Doth not he proue the authority of the vulgar translation by many (h) c. 10. reasons by the authority of the Church that vsed the same for so many ages by the authority of Fathers that highly coÌ„mend the translation of S. Hierome (i) Coccius also l. 6. tom 1. art 3. whose the greatest part of the vulgar is which was so exact according to the Hebrew fountaine that S. Augustine (k) Cuius literatum laborem Haebraei fatentur esse veracem l. 18. de Ciu. dei c. 43. saith the very Hebrews were forced to confesse that translation to be true Doth not Bellarmine particulerly answere the obiections which (l) c. 13. Caluin and (m) c. 12. Kemnitius and others (n) c. 11. 14. bring to proue the vulgar translation corrupt May this be termed sleight handling of a question Doth this Babler know or care what he saith 16. Thirdly Bellarmine and Coccius saith he are wiser then to venture their credits vpon so false a matter and therefore doe wholy leaue it vpon the credit of that Conuenticle Are not these things newes to men that haue read Bellarmine and Coccius Dare they not defend what the Councell taught in that Canon Durst not Bellarmine venture his credit vpon it Is he not most earnest in defence of that Canon He doth not magnify the translation aboue the originall neither doth the Councell as hath beene said but that our translation (o) Negari non potest quin sint foÌ„tes anteponeÌ„di riuulis versionuÌ„ quando coÌ„stat fontes non esse turbatos nunc autem fontes multis in locis turbidos fluere ostendimê° c. 21. is more incorrupt then the originalls which now we haue and by which our new Maisters would correct the ancient text Bellarmine doth constantly auouch (p) cap. 2. which he doth conuince euen out of the confession of Caluin himself Neither haue we cause to be ashamed of this Translation which euen the Aduersaryes and enemies of the Councell writing one against anothers Translation do highly commend as most sincere and authenticall so potent is truth and true that Prouerb when theeues fall out true men come by their right For of this edition Beza saith that the Interpreter seemeâ—â— to haue translated with meruailous sincerity and religion (q) Vetus Interpres videtur summa fide Libros Sacros interpretatê° Annot. in c. 1. Lucae v. 1. which for the most part saith he I doe follow and prefer before all (r) in praefat nouâ— TestameÌ„ti ann 1556. other With whom Molinaeus consenteth preferring our TranslatioÌ„ before all others namely before the Translation of Erasmuâ— Bucer Bullinger Brentius the Tigurine and euen that of Iohn Caluin in so much that Pellicanus a learned Protestant is forced to confesse that the vulgar Interpreter was a most pious and learned Father truly indued with a propheticall (t) Conradus Pellicanus Praefat. in Psalter ann 1534. spirit and euen our English Aduersaryes in the end are content to yield that for the antiquity thereof the vulgar be preferred before al other latin (u) D. Doue in his persuasion to English Recusants pag. 16. bookes Who doth not see the vanity of M. Crashaw that bringeth our vniforme receyuing of the same authenticall text as a shame and wound of our Church which in the iudgment of best and most iudicious Authors is a glory and ornament therof But let vs heare the Bachelour goe forward in his falshood 17. Fourthly these two bills about the Canon of Scriptures and authenticall translation were carryed saith he in the beginning of the Councell (s) In cap. 17. Luc. in nou Testam part 30. when there were scarse sixty in the house for the Pope durst not for one of his crownes haue put these two bills concerning the Canon of Scriptures and authority of the vulgar translation especially the latter to the full house Thus the bell ringeth what the foole thinketh without any proofe For first the Pope did vse his best endeauour all possible diligence that all Bishops might be present at the beginning of the Councell as doth appeare by the Bull of Indiction and Conuocation thereof (x) vide Bullam indictionis where â—hey are charged (y) In vi iurisiurandi virtute sanctae obedieÌ„tiae c. vnder Censures (z) sub paenis iure consuetudine c. See the last session of the CouÌ„cell to be present at â—he beginning Secondly the Canons and Decrees of the Councell were not absolutely made before the end thereof when subscribed by the handes of all the Bishops they were presented to the Roman to be confirmed by him so â—hat all and euery Decree and Canon of the Councell was â—ssented vnto and subscribed by all that had voices in the Councell which were aboue three hundred as the Bacheâ—our confesseth Neither were these matters handled first out â—f feare that they would not passe in a full Councell which are is to be committed to the holy Ghost but because the â—ourse order of doctrine did require those thinges should â—e first decided For as in euery science first agreement is to â—e made of the principles from which conclusions are deriâ—ed so likewise in Councells the first treaty ought to be conâ—erning the word of God and the authenticall text thereof when controuersy is about the same the word of God conâ—eyning the principles from which generall Councells are â—o deduce their definitions and Canons so that the Bacheâ—our chargeth this Canon with the black powder of the â—alse and folish imaginations of his owne brayne 18. Finally not to weary you with the tedious rehearâ—all of all his intollerable falsehoods he concludeth with this notorious vntruth that since the Councell of Trent pag. 52. some Catholicke Authors haue dared euen to resist this Decree who though they
were tolerated sayth he whilest they liued yet being dead their bookes are eyther purged that is altered or els reproued And in his marâ—gent he nameth Arias Montanus Sixtus Senensis and Oleaster to be the men This is so strang an vntruth that to any learned man that hath perused these Authors he may seeme to speake in a dreame For who doth not know that is learned that these Authors both in their life and since they death are highly esteemed in our Church as may appeare by (a) in bibliotheca sancta Posseuinus his censure of them which the Bachelour saith ought to be accoumpted the censure of our (b) p. 67. Church And did these Authors stand out against this Canon of the Councell euen vnto death Nay did they not highly esteem prayse and commend this decree Let Sixtus Senensis who stands in the midst speake for the other two which he doth in the eight booke of his Bibliotheca sancta in the refutation of the thirteenth heresy which reiecteth the authority of the vulgar Translation where he doth coÌ„fute the Protestant Paradoxe of still reforming the translations vnto the originalls which were saith he to raise an eternall tumult and discord in the Church and neuer make an end of translating a new the Scriptures nor of correcting altering and censuring former translations (c) Vide SixtuÌ„ Senens l. 8. Biblioth sanct haeres 13. pag. 1051. Edit Venet. Proinde saith he hâ—â— animaduertens Sacrosancta Tridentina Synodus rectè c. VVherfoâ—â— the holy Councell of Trent perceyuing this to wit the necessity of oneâ— translation in Gods Church hath vpon good reason ordayned that of all Latin Editions which are extant only the old and vulgar be authenticall c. which Decree was made with great cause not only because thâ—â— Edition hath bene approued in the Church by the continuance of so many yeares but also for that not any of the more recent translations is eyther more certaine or more secure or more exact or more faithfull them this 19. Thus writeth this Author and in that place proueth largely not hauing any sillable that may sound of the least dislike of this Canon but doth learnedly grauely anâ— sharply condemne Protestants for resisting the same Noâ— what shall we say of M. Crashaw that brings him in following a contrary course and standing out euen vnto death against thâ— doctrine of this Canon and curses of the Councell What trick or policy is it in this Minister to vtter such grosse falshoods and in his fellowes to allow them to be printed to iustifie the State Verily I know not what their policy may be heerin except they meane to amaze vs with their impudency and put vs out of hart euer to conquer their malice by shewing them the truth or that euer their mouths will close vp from rayling at vs for want of matter seeing they can create the same of nothing and find whatsoeuer they fancy against vs euen in those Authors where the contrary is both plainly earnestly taught their policy I say may be to thinke to discourage vs from answering their slauÌ„ders discouering their false tricks seeing that therin we do but wash bricks or Black-Moores that will not be white But let them know that they deceaue themselues we being resolued to follow S. (d) Vtamur igitur haereticis non vt eoruÌ„ approbemê° errores sed CatholicaÌ„ fidem aduersus eorum insidias asserentes vigilaÌ„tiores simus etiaÌ„ si eos ad saluteÌ„ reuocare noÌ„ possumus Aug. de vera relig c. 8. Augustines counsell to make vse of Heretikes Not saith he to approue their errours but that by defending the Catholike doctrine against their deceipts we may be more vigilant and wary our selues though we shall not be able to reclayme them from their damnable â—ourse And yet we cannot but expect that this dung of M. Crashawes falshood that he hath layd vpon the soyle of our Countrey consumed by the force of truth will make many the more apt and disposed to bring forth the corne of Catholike faith which we seeke by these labours to sow in their soules For as S. (e) Haec est verè dementia noÌ„ cogitare nec seÌ„tire quòd mendacia noÌ„ diu fallant nocteÌ„ taÌ„ diu esse donec illucescat dies clarificato auteÌ„ die soâ—e oborto luci tenebras caliginem cedere l. 1. ep 3. ad Cornel. Cyprian saith it is meere madnesse in Heretikes not to thinke or consider that lyes do not long â—yme deceyue that night doth continue no longer then till â—he breake of day and that the day being cleare and the â—unne rysen the darknes doth yield vnto the light 20. And thus much of the Protestant salues which the Bachelour hath with no more vehemency then vanity praysed and of his cauills and slaunders against Councells the salues to heale the wounds of errour and discord which the Church of God in all ages hath vsed which not onely â—aith but euen naturall reason not only the word of God â—ut also common sense must needs moue any discreet man that seriously and really desireth to be saued to prefer before the new conceipts of any humourizing Paracelsian that doth brag of his knowledg in spirituall phisick and â—nderstanding of Scripture aboue Fathers and Councells of former ages The end of the first Part. THE SECOND PART of this TREATISE THE FIRST CHAPTER CONCERNING the Errours and Blasphemies tearmed by him Woundes which the Bachelour doth falsly and slaunderously impute vnto the Roman Church NOvv we enter into the confession of M. Crashawes Babells we come to cleanse the Augaean stable of his Sermon M. Crashawes drift in his 20. wouÌ„ds deuided into twenty different roomes of slaunders the drift of which discourse is to make some principall points of Catholike doctrine which heretickes euer haue most hated as are the Primacy of the Roman Bishop the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin the Authority of Gods Church to decide doubtes about Scriptures the vse of holy Images directing prayers before them vnto Christ and such like Pillars of Christian piety seeme horrible blasphemyes accusing vs to teach what in truth we detest and to hould what we abhorre to wit that the Pope is God the Virgin Mary aboue God the Popes Decretalls of more credit then Scriptures that Images are to be prayed vnto worshipped as God And not to seeme to rayle altogeather without reason to make some little shew of proofe he citeth the most harsh and inconuenient sayings that haue escaped the pen of any Catholike writer in search wherof he hath spent as he doth confesse the (a) In his Epistle to the Lord Treasurer course of his studyes which he vrgeth not as the inconuenient or inconsiderate speaches of priâ—â— Authors but as generally receaued doctrines of our Church These are the woundes he chargeth the Roman Church withall these the graue and substantiall proofes of so grieuous and horrible slaunders this
to which S. Anselme saith that the purity of Gods Mother was requisitely such as greater vnder God cannot be (o) Ansel de concept virg c. 18. imagined And to me it seemes a wonder that this Bachelour should mislike those titles in the Virgin only which the Scripture alloweth euery Saint to be (p) 2. Petr. 1. v. 4. diuinae consortes naturae partakers consorts of the diuine nature consequently of power maiesty which is inseparable froÌ„ that nature to be (q) Rom. 8. v. 17. heredes Dei coheredes Christi the heyres of God fellow-heires with Christ And in what are Saints fellowes with Christ but in his Fathers Kingdome Or in what doth that consist but in honour glory power and maiesty In the diuision of which blisfull inheritance the greatest portion by all titles and rights is due to the Mother howsoeuer the Bachelour wonder at it saying that God hath deuided his Kingdome with a Creature euen with a woman and rage against it o ye heauens be astonished at this Where he calleth her woman by contempt not finding any thing in so glorious a creature that might seeme contemptible but her sexe he casteth that in her teeth which God by being her sonne made sacred and venerable to the very Angells The same loue to the Virgin makes him vtter this notorious vntruth pag. 64. that in our Ladyes Psalter we turne the Psalmes from Dominus to Domina from God to our Lady For that Psalter compiled by S. Bonauenture doth not turne the Psalmes of Dauid vnto the B. Virgin but maketh a new Psalter of Psalmes and Hymnes in her praise following therein the phrase and imitating the stile taking often the very wordes which he doth so temper with his owne that they may suite with all and not exceed the dignity of the Virgin But the Bachelour is so distempered with malice and want of affectioÌ„ towards Gods mother that to him euery thing seemeth to sound of blasphemy that tasteth of her honour a manifest signe of a reprobate as you heard Oecolampadius auouch to which reprobate sense we must leaue him beseeching the mother of Mercy and Wisdome that by her powerfull intercession he may be reclaymed wherof I should haue greater hope would he appeale from the Diuell the Father of falshood to her the Mother of God and truth THE SECOND CHAPTER OF His slaunders concerning Scriptures THE Bachelour hauing discharged his duty to the Pope done his deuotions to the B. Virgin by rayling on the one blaspheming the other lying against both passeth vnto holy Scriptures making great shew of respect and reuerence towards them with as much truth as former Heretickes haue done who by counterfayte deuotion to Scripture raysed lamentable tumults in the Church Nothing was more rife in the Arians mouths theÌ„ this brag that they were Scripturarum discipuli (a) Maximinus Arian oro opto scripturarum esse discipulê° August l. 1. contra Maxim initio Schollers in the booke of God By this preteÌ„ce of Scripture saith Tertullian hereticks seduce the weake they make the meaner stagger they weary and tyre the learned (b) in praescript c. 15. knowing that by this kind of weapons only aut nulla aut parùm certa victoria (c) ibid. c. 19. they cannot be conuinced or not so euidently but they may by some phantasticall shift (d) ibid. c. 16. euade This is the cause that nothing commeth out of their mouth which they doe not adorne with some wordes of Scripture (e) VinceÌ„t Lyrin aduersus haeres c. 35. priuately publickly in their speaches in their bookes abroad at home at table in the streetes the wordes of Scripture doe so flow from their mouth to make men belieue that they haue the spring therof in their harts as Vincentius Lyrinensis coÌ„plaineth cloathing their woluish senses with the soft woll of Gods sacred (f) Act. 36. word And because Catholikes refuse to stand to Scripturâ— only as (g) NoÌ„ ad Scripturas prouocaÌ„dum Tertull praescrip c. 16. Heretikes declare the same appealing from theâ— to the Churches (h) Vt diuinum canonem secunduÌ„ vniuersalis Ecclesiae traditioÌ„es interpreteÌ„tur Vincent vbi supra c. 38. iudgment from Scripture interpreted by the fancy of priuate men to the same declared by the spirit of truth which shall neuer forsake the true (i) Ioan. 25. v. 26. Church which practise though in truth it be an honour and not a contempt of Scripture yet it is a wonder to see what an vproare in all ages Heretikes haue made herupon accusing Catholikes as denyers of Gods word followers of the traditioÌ„ of (k) AriaÌ„s apud Aug. cont Maxim l. 1. initio men in which veyne M. Crashaw bestoweth fouâ—â— his twenty wounds treading the steps of his damned predecessours (l) NestoriaÌ„s apud Vincent aduers haeres c. 42. which though they be very triuiall cauills old Babells wherwith euery Minister commonly when he commeth to the Crosse playeth the foole in pulpit answered by vs many hundred tymes yet out of ambitious vanity to be thought the first discouerer of the whores skirtes he dareth say that they are rare thinges which haue not bene often touched by many wherat the learned will laugh wheÌ„ they shall heare them though I confesse he hath added some few falshoods more impious new follyes more ridiculous then euer any perchaunce did before him specially in the two latter of these foure that euen Turkes will abhorre his prophanesse in the one and children laugh at his ignorance in the other which I dare promise the Reader this Answer shall make apparant to be spoken in rigide truth without any exaggeration at all An answere to the fourth wound or slaunder That the Popes Decretalls are made equall to holy Scriptures 2. THE first of these foure his fourth wound he sets downe in these words In the Decree the Pope shameth not to affirme that his Decretall Epistles are numbred among the Canonicall (m) Decretum d. 19. c. 6. Scriptures This all know to be an old worme eaten carp which hath bene so often brought to the table and discouered to be a meere cauill that I wonder men do not loath the very sight therof yet the Bachelour to make the same more pleasant addeth the sauce of a new lye that this is the saying of a Pope The Pope saith he shameth not to affirme But first I demaund of him the Popes name was it Pope Ioane or Pope Gyn or Pope Geffrey Gratian (n) Vide Posseuin in Apparatu sacro the Author of the Decretum a booke so called was neuer Pope except he were created in the CoÌ„claue of the Bachelours idle braine Hath he not cause to be ashamed at his folly or fraud not to distinguish betwixt sentences of priuate (o) GratiaÌ„ and his Decretum is accused often of ignorance errours by Catholiks namly by Bellarmine l. 4. de Rom. Pont. c.
hatred to the Pope then of loue to him from which proceed three fraudulent tricks heere vsed by him to raise this Babel that giueth aduantage vnto Atheists First he doth wittingly misconster the playne meaning of the Glosse giuing it this impious sense that the wordes of God are not of as good authority as the Popes and that they are to be belieued not because they are Gods but because the Pope hath pleased to put them in the Canon law which doctrine the Glosser neuer dreamed of who by canonizing the senteÌ„ce of Salomon The Glosser by canonizing the words of SalomoÌ„ doth not vnderstaÌ„d the making them Canonicall Scripture but only a part of the Canon law or a rule in the Ecclesiasticall Court doth not vnderstand the making it diuine and Canonicall Scripture but the making it a Canon law with authority to bynd or a rule to decide doubts in the Ecclesiasticall Court which authority a Prince that can make lawes may giue to a place of Scripture if he doe vtter his law in wordes thereof For all sentences of Scripture though truths which must be belieued haue not the necessity to bynd as lawes but some only as directions and counsells which may be made lawes of a Common-wealth eyther ciuill or Ecclesiasticall by the Princes Gouernours therof This sentence of Christ for example he that striketh with the sword shall dye by the sword is a truth that such as strike with the sword though perchance they do not kill yet deserue the punishment of death which is a law in some Countreys Now suppose that the Parlament intending to make a law that those that go into the field or fight with eminent danger of their liues be punished with death should set downe that law in these words of Christ Qui gladio percutit gladio peribit he that striketh with the sword shall dye by the sword should not the Parlament giue to that sentence of Christ the power of a ciuill and politike law which it had not before Should not they bestow impart their authority vpon it Should not they authorize that part of Scripture to be a part of our CoÌ„moÌ„ law Is there any blasphemy or absurdity in this speach Doth it giue any aduantage vnto Atheisme Were he not an absurd fellow or an Atheist that would therupon infer that the ParlameÌ„t gaue diuine authority vnto that sentence That the word of the Parlament is of more authority then the word of God All which Babels and many moe pag. 74. this Babel-Bachelour doth infer out of the saying of the Glosse that a sentence of Salomon was inserted by the Pope into the Canon law as a rule or law how to proceed in the Ecclesiasticall Court Now hath he not religiously discharged his duty to truth and giuen Atheists vantage where they had none Is not this proceeding to be detested by all that haue eyther religion or conscience in them 7. Secondly he doth conceale from his Reader that these wordes of the Glosse both in regard of their harsh sound as also because they are grounded vpon a grosse ouersight in the Glosser in all the latter Editions of the Canon law reformed by Gregory the 13. are left out so that now they should not be seene so much as in a secret Pamphlet did not such children of darknes as our Bachelour is bring them to light to giue aduantage vnto Atheists to obscure the light of all truths that God is And here M. Crashaw I caÌ„not but charge you vpon your Allegiance vnto God to discharge your duty to the truth and shame the Diuell by taking away the vantage you may haue giuen Atheists are not these words indeed left out in the latter impressions of the Canon law I named Heare his answer then iudge of the religion of the Minister If saith he they haue left it out in any latter impression so it be with open confession and detestation of the fault it is well but sure I am it is in the impression I haue and in all other which I could borrow further I do not know any Pope or Popish writer that hath with authority and allowance condemned and reproued this Atheisme If they know any they may do well to produce them Do you perceaue how he that before was so hoat to discharge his duty to the truth now is become so cold in the same duty that he flyeth from confessing the truth like a Beare from the stake feeding vs with iffs ands loath to bereaue Atheists of the aduantage he hath giuen them And not onely doth he conceale the truth but also against his conscience vttereth a mayne and malicious vntruth that he could not borrow any impression where these words were left out which to be notoriously false this very Sermon doth conuince in which he doth cite very often (k) pag. 5◠〈◊〉 70. pag. 72 pag. 42. the new impression of the Canon law corrected by the appointment of Gregory the 13. that of Lyons and that of Paris in both which impressions all other the aforesaid recited words are left out and his iffs and ands and humming about the matter doth make it more then suspicious that he did find them left out in that impression but would not confesse it nor discharge his duety to the truth which by the former flaunder he might haue obscured And I desire the Christian Reader specially the Gentlemen of the Temple to charge M. Crashaw to shew according to his promise the reformed Edition of Gregory the 13. which he did borrow and cyte in this Sermon wherby they may make tryall of his honesty and bring this lurking Atheist to light who vnder pretence of the Ghospell seeketh wickedly to conuey Atheisme into his Auditors harts which yet shal be made more plaine 8. Thirdly concerning the errour ouersight in the Glosse for which the former words were discharged wheras M. Crashaw requireth open detestation therof he cannot but know that we do curse detest it who seeing he could with no colour of truth charge that errour vpon the RomaÌ„ Church vnto which his owne Church doth come much nearer concealing the same from his Auditours in lieu therof fathereth his owne Atheisticall brat vpon vs. For what was that errour ouersight in the Glosse To think that the Sapientiall bookes of Salomon among which are the Prouerbs were not Canonicall mistaking a place of S. Hierome and of another Glosse where some bookes ascribed to Salomon as that of VVisdome and Ecclesiasticus were accounted Apocriphall reading the place sat citò sed non sat bene with more hast then good speed as M. Morton excuseth his (l) In his AnimaduersioÌ„s in the very end 2. p. Apol. Cathol Vide Deâ—ret l. 2. tit 23. ouersights For a little after the former wordes in that very place the Glosser moueth the question in termes whether the Prouerbs and other bookes of Salomon be Canonicall of authority or no and answereth that by
as the histores of their liues doe credibly report of being so sottishly blynd that they taught wrote and sought to proue by many arguments that a stock or stone is to be worshipped prayed vnto as God himself is Which errour is so voyd of sense that I doubt whom I should think more blockish the man that indeed doth teach it or him that can perswade himself that any learned man doth teach it 3. But no buckler of defence can saue the Church of Rome from the deadly wound of his tongue neyther respect vnto the learning of all Christian Deuines so many in nuÌ„ber so renowned for knowledge and famous for sanctity in all ages since the dayes of S. Thomas nor loue to the brethren and professours of his Ghospell whom nothing but euidence of the truth could moue to take our parts can stay his fury who like Ismael whom Scripture termeth serum homineâ— (i) Gen. 16. v. 12. that is as the English Bible translateth fierce cruell or as a wild asse (k) See the English translatioÌ„ that of â—eneua printed anno 1595. in the margent whose hand was against euery man and euery man hand against him he layeth about him wounding whosoeuer come in his way friend or foe ancient or recent Catholike or Protestant breaking through armies of opposits to lay this slaunder vpon the Church of Rome And first the ancient Catholike Deuines namely S. Thomas he driueth away with a valiant shot of reproaches saying they bring woddâ—â—â— pittifull arguments to fortifie damnable Idolatry that they do 〈◊〉 dally with holy things that they were blind in their vnderstanding and drunke with Babylons spirituall abhominations With no lesse fiercenes doth he assault his owne brethren that durst speake a word in the defence of the Church of Rome M. Crashawes charity towards his owne brethren saying they are eyther ignorant or malicious or hollow-harted whom deuided in these three ranks he deuideth his charity amongst pittying the ignorant scorning the malicious hating hollow-harted Thus all the friends of the Church of Rome are put to flight by the valiant rayling of one Bachelour she remayning alone without friend at the mercy of his mercilesse tongue 4. Now M. Crashaw before you lay this grosse slaunder vpon her you may remember what glorious markes of the true Church the Roman hath how many Nations she hath coÌ„uerted vnto Christ how she was the first that taught England to call vpoÌ„ the sweetsauing name of Iesus how many Doctours renowned for learning famous for sanctity glorious for miracles haue bene her children how when your Church eyther was not or durst not shew her face she maintayned so many ages togeather alone the name of Christianity in the world which otherwise might haue perished from mankind Let so many reasons moue you not to lay the wouÌ„d of this senslesse doctrine to her charge of worshipping adoring praying vnto a stock or stone as vnto God from which you know her childreÌ„ do generally disclayme Nothing will stay our Bachelour What is said of a beggar on horseback proueth true of him in pulpit he will gallop thinking it a glorious thing to haue liberty to lye and rayle as he list without being controlled For heare how crank he is and how he craketh and croweth on his owne dunghill Let others come saith he and conceale her shame pag. 83. 84. and â—ide the whore of Babylons filthines as they will I say for my selfe let the tongue cleaue to the roofe of my mouth if I spare to discouer her skirts A fond foule defiance and lay open her filthines to the world that all men seeing her as she is may detest and forsake her VVherfore in the wordes of truth sobernes I doe heere offer to this Honourable Audience that I will willingly come to this place and recant it with shame if I proue not apparently to the iudgment of euery reasonable man that this is the common and generall doctrine of the greatest number of their best approued Authors that haue written in these latter dayes namely That an Image of God or a Crucifixe especially one made of wood wheron Christ dyed or that Crosse it selfe are to be worshipped with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is with the worship due vnto God 5. Thus he Where for my part I confesse that though M. Crashaw doe earnestly say that he made this defiance being sober yet cannot I belieue but before he came to the Crosse to preach against the worshippers of the Crosse he had offered a morning sacrifice in Malmesey vnto the God of the enemies of the Crosse (k) Enemies of the Crosse of Christ whose God is their belly ad Philip. 3. v. 18. frequent sacrificing to which God make Ministers feruent discouerers of the whores skirts and greater deuotes to the pictures of Cupid and Venus then vnto the Images of Christ and the Virgin specially the holy Crosse whose tender harts do professe to hate this signe of the Sauiour and the saluation of (l) Beza mankind And that M. Crashaw had not digested that morning deuotion when he brake forth into this foule and fond defiance he may iustly doubt that shall consider what he vndertaketh to proue by what meanes in what manner vnder what penalty he doth promise to proue that it is the generall and common doctrine in our Church that the Image of Christ and Crosse it selfe not Christ in or before it is to be honoured with the worship due vnto God This he will proue by producing the greatest number of our latter Authors which mount to thousands He will bring not ordinary ones but the very best and all this he will performe not probably but apparantly to the iudgment not of the learned alone but also of euery reasonable man that if one reasonable man be found in the world that doth not see apparantly that the greatest number of our best Authors worship the Crosse as God he will come to the Crosse and recant this slaunder with shame which promise I much feare the euent will shew was not spokeÌ„ in the wordes of truth though happily it were spoken soberly and wittingly inough seeking by this shew of confidence to driue deeper into ignorant peoples heades this odious conceyt that the Catholicke is an Idolatrous religion Yet that he may haue no excuse to slip hiâ— neck out of the coller of this promise which must draw hiâ— againe to the Crosse to recant pag. 82. except he will be thoughts deceiuer and a breaker of his word giuen before so Honorable an Audience M. Crashaws dealing in this Wound I will shew I make no doubt apparantly to the iudgment of all men that vnderstand Theologicall matters that he doth not vnderstand the Authors whom he citeth that he most grossely and slaunderously peruerteth their playne and pious sayings that most commonly also eyther he leaueth out or mistranslateth their wordes which contayne the substance of their doctrine
that tyme of her confessed purity to release and pardon pennances and satisfactions non solùm grauioribus sed etiam leuioribus (a) epist ad Decen c. 7. commissis not only for greater but also lesser offences And (b) Burch l. 19. l. 8. can 18. Burchardus an ancient writer (c) Ann. 1020. doth likewise shew that in the Church pennances were appointed euen for many common and ordinary sinnes as idle or rash oathes were punished some with 15. some with 40. dayes mayming with the pennance of a whole yeare wounding with the fasting of fourty dayes fornication with pennance of ten dayes and so other vulgar and ordinary sinnes 13. By which you may see that if this doctrine and practise of the ancient Church be true and sound how many thousand yeares of pardon M. Crashaw doth need for so many thousand slaunders vntruthes and blasphemyes against God and his Church he hath vttered in his sermons since he began to preach How many thousands would one sermon set him on the skore This only slaunder which here he vttereth without proofe or shame that a litle peece of white waxe or crucifixe of a litle mettall it may be brasse or copper such as the Iesuits of late sent into England by thousands at once as good inough to serue the English Catholicks a litle medall or a litle bead or buckle or other matter of no more value these toyes and trinkets I say saith he they can sell by this meanes and eueryday doe vtter at a higher rate then the Ieweller can his pearle or dyamond And I somwhat meruaile that among these toyes trinkets medals and mettals beades and buckles brasse and copper he doth not also reckon lead of which mettall the Gentlemen of the Temple know that he can make good gayne whome for shoo-buckles of brasse or latchets of leather one may trust for the matter is not great but for a pearle and diamond so precious as is the soule and in the affayre that concernes the eternall woe or weale thereof to belieue him were extreme rashnes and folly seing by this vntruth they may easely see he hath care neyther of conscience or credit For any may easely know that all Catholicke Casuists and Doctors teach it to be Symony and a damnable sinne to sell any holy thing at a dearer rate because it is holy (d) Si cariùs vendantur ratione consecrationis aut benedictionis quaÌ„ antea valebant ratione suae materiae vel artis Simonia committitur haec est coÌ„munis Theologorum SuÌ„mistarum assertio Suarez de Relig l. 4. c. 14. n. 3. so that if the account of his lyes vtterd in the former wordes were exactly cast I make no doubt but the totall summe would amount to millions How many thousand yeares of fasting and other pennance would the primitiue Church haue thought due to expiate so vast an vntruth which did appoint so long space of pennance for lesser sinnes And yet doth he meruaile that men may need the Church graunt Indulgences of a thousand yeares which thousand yeares are vnderstood of Canonicall pennance anciently vsed in the Church (e) Indulgentia tot dieruÌ„ vel annorum c. significat remissioneÌ„ paeniteÌ„tiae quae perageÌ„da fuisset tot diebus vel annis secunduÌ„ veterem Ecclesiae rituÌ„ Bellarm. l. 1. de Indulg c. 9. which still men are bound to practise though the Church doe not vrge the publicke vse thereof But the sharpnes of the punishment as sometimes in Purgatory or the feruour of pennance which some vse in this life may satisfy the length of tyme so that many thousand yeares sometymes may be satisfyed with the feruent pennance or sharp Purgatory paynes of one yeare or day (f) In hac vita paenitentia multorum annoruÌ„ potest vna hora persolui si paeniteÌ„tes teÌ„poris diuturnitatem vehemeÌ„tia charitatis coÌ„peÌ„sent In Purgatorio quoque acerbitatis vehementia faciat vt debituÌ„ viginti millium annorum annis 300. vel 400. expiari queat Bel. larm l. 1. de Indul. c. 9. which truth supposed it is easy to answer the ignorant cauills which the Bachelour maketh at the graunting of so many yeares pardon because saith he Purgatory shall end with the world and the world not last so many thousand yeares which we confesse to be true and further add that many thousand yeares of Canonicall pennance may be purged by the sharp payne of Purgatory in one day or houre 14. It is cleare therfore that the ancient Church did practise both imposing of pennances for sinnes and releasing of these pennances by pardon which Protestants cannot deny but their answere is that those pennances which by Indulgence the Church did remit were only appoynted for orders sake as signes of harty repentance to terrify by that seuerity the faithfull to satisfy the Church her discipline not God his wrath But will this deuise serue their turnes to obscure the cleare truth No. The testimonies of Fathers are playne that those pennances were necessary to satisfy the iustice of God (g) Per paenueÌ„tiaÌ„ Deo satisfacere Tertullian l. de paenitent that by these satisfactions sinnes were redeemed (h) Satisfactionibê° lamentationibus iustis peccata redimuntur Cyprian lib. 1. epist 3. God pacifyed (i) Dominus nostra satisfactione placandus Idem serm de laâ—sis his iustice satisfied (k) Tum debet Sacerdos peccata dimittere cùm viderit congruam satisfactionem Innocent 1. epist 1. c. 7. and his mercy obtayned so that Kemnitius a pryme Protestant chosen among thousands to enter in the field against the whole Councell of Trent doth make this publick confession of this truth I know well saith he that the Fathers do too largely extend the Canonicall disciplyne of pennance that Tertullian saith that sinnes are expiated by satisfactions Cyprian that by them sinnes are redeemed washed healed and the iudge appeased Augustine that God is pacifyed by satisfactions for our former sinnes (l) KeÌ„nit in Exam. sess 25. CoÌ„cil Trid. c. Thus Kemnitius writeth And the like confession doth naked truth force Caluin vnto another chosen Champion of the new Ghospell to encounter the Tridentine Councell I do see indeed saith he many of the ancient Fathers I will speake plainly in a manner all whose books remaine haue erred in this point or spoken too crabbedly or (m) See Caluins Institutions translated into English l 3 c. 4. n. 38. harshly Thus you see the Protestants are compelled to graunt two points of Popery to haue bene the vniforme doctrine of the ancient Fathers and Church First that pennances fastings almes-giuing and the like were necessary and required by the primitiue Christianity to satisfy God not the Church only Secondly that Bishops of the primitiue Church did vse to pardon these very pennances and satisfactions euen which were necessary to appease Gods wrath which is the doctrine of Pardons and Indulgences which we maintaine 13. Who will not laugh at
euery drop of Christs precious bloud vnder forme of bread Neither do we deny wine to our Communicants which though it be not consecrated yet doth as truly and really conteyne within it the precious bloud of Christ as doth the wine of Caluins supper (o) Corpê° Christi à nobis in coena tanto locoruÌ„ interuallo distat quaÌ„to caelum abest à terra Calu. in coÌ„sensione de re Sacramentaria in fine by which no lesse then by his they may mount to remember and to drink by faith the bloud of Christ in heauen Heretickes in deed haue offered the wrong not only to Lay men but to the whole Church taking away the Reall presence of Christs body and bloud the very essence forme glory and splendor of the Sacrament who exclayme against vs for bereauing the people of a cup in their doctrine no more in substance then ordinary wyne or not giuing them the sole accidents of wyne as we teach who giue as hath beene said the bloud also with the body in the forme of bread wherein they may seeme to deale with the Church of God like a Cauiller that hauing deuoured the oyster meat should deliuer vnto the owner two empty shells only bitterly exclayming against another who restoreth the oyster whole and entyre though but vpon one shell But to returne to M. Crashaw you see he is no lesse bould with the Lord then with the seruant corrupting the story of his Ghospell no lesse then the text of the Councell charging him to haue giuen a precept which he neuer gaue to take occasion thereby to slaunder the Church his spouse of neglecting a duty to which she was neuer bound 16. And that Christ did giue no such precept of communion in both kindes I dare appeale from Luther to Luther in the same sort as Plutarch doth report a woman did from Philip to Philip from him distempered with wyne to him sober For though loue of wyne and women the cause of Luthers Apostacy in which he did dayly increase as did in him the loue of his Ghospell may seeme in the end to haue in a manner bereaued him of his wits in which fit he wrote that to multiply and increase was a precept and more then a precept (p) Luther serm de Matrim tom 5. VVitteÌ„b 119. and to drinke wine in the Lords supper a commaundemeÌ„t of the eternall King (q) Lib. de captiuit Babyl c. 1. though also afterward growing worse and worse drunken more with heresy then with materiall wyne though well tipled with both he sets vp the non plus vltra of obstinate malice saying (r) Si quod ConciliuÌ„ statueret aut permitteret vtraÌ„que speciem nos nequaquaÌ„ vtraque vti vellemus sed in despectum Concilij vna aut neutra aut minimè vtraque vti vellemus c. Luther in formula Missae cited by Hospin Histor Sacram p. 2. fol. 13. a. If the Councell should in any case decree communion vnder both kindes least of all then would we saith he vse both kindes yea rather in despite of the Councell and that decree we would eyther vse one kind only or neyther and in no case both where guyded by the spirit of giddines he doth expresly contradict the commaundement and institution of Christ falling into that blasphemy in playn tearmes wherof he doth falsly accuse the Councell Which spirit of heresy and contradiction seemeth also to haue conquered in Luther the strongest of all his loues (s) Nothing is more sweet theÌ„ the loue of a woman c. Luth. in a marginal note vpon the prouerbs c. 31.10 and the most essentiall poynt of manhood in him to marry a wife (t) Quà m non est in meis viribus vt vir non sim tam non est mei iuris vt sinc muliere sim Luth. ser de matrim vbi supra which though a precept and more then a precept yet if the (u) Idem tom 2. oper Germ. fol. 214. Councell should graunt Church-men liberty to doe it he would thinke that man more in Gods grace who during his life tyme kept three whores then he that marryed according to the Councells decree and that he would commaund whose commaundement must conquer the precept and more then precept of God vnder payne of damnation that no man should marry vpon that grant but lyue chast or else not despaire though he keepe a whore though I say Luther did thus both write and preach in his drunken fit yet when he was more sober though an enemy to the Roman Church the force of truth made him pronounce this moderate sentence that Christ in this matter in receauing in one or both kindes commaunded nothing as necessary and that it were better to imbrace peace then to striue about the kindes (x) Quamuis pulchrum quidem esset vtraque specie in Eucharistia vti Christus hac in re nihil necessarium praecepit praestaret tamen pacem sectari quà m de speciebus contendere Luth. ep ad Bohemos pag. 121. which sober sentence doth shew that M. Crashaw was scarce sober when he wrot that we are playne States-men and Polititians who haue nothing in our heades but to mayntayne the height of our Hierarchy and Maiesty of our Monarchy seeing we will not amend that which we see and know to be contrary to Christs institution and whereof many of the better sort of our selues are vtterly ashamed 17. Thus he rageth but as for Polititians Statesmen that tearme may best agree to himselfe who is a man of so great policy and a Minister of so simple truth that he doth confesse that he made publick this sermon to iustify the state much more then honour the truth which promise he doth accordingly performe as may appeare by the last wordes of this inuectiue that we know and see our practise to be against the institution of Christ and that many of the better sort of our selues are vtterly ashamed of communion in one kind not citying eyther in text or margine any Catholicke author many or few better or worse that were eyther outwardly or inwardly ashamed of this practise which is a signe The Kingdome of Christ coÌ„sisteth not in materiall wine that he doth here vtter a lye without shame which can be small honour to the truth howsoeuer it may iustify the state That we haue nothing in our heads but to maintayne the height of our Hierarchy and maiesty of our Monarchy is a speach that hath a litle rythme in sound but no reason in sense a wanton playing on the letter without truth in the matter For eyther he doth place glory and maiesty in a cup of only wyne or in the precious bloud of Chist conteyned in the cup if in a cup of wyne only therein indeed doth consist the Kingdome of Bacchus not of Iesus the power of Cupid (y) VinuÌ„ in quo est luxuria ad Ephes 5. v. 18. not of Christ whose wyne breedeth
light wherof will shew I make no doubt more Catholike Priests that liued continent without any woman then Ministers that were content with one An Answere to the nyneteenth wound 30. THE nineteenth wouÌ„d deserueth no Answer being only an heape of slaunders without any proofe where putting his head out of the stewes loath to leaue them he saith in a loud voice that our Liturgy is full of blasphemy our Legend full of lyes our Cerimony full of superstition which Liturgy being lately corrected yet I dare say saith he that for one euill taken out there is another put in and some stand vnremoued and that both in pictures and points of doctrine they are as ill as the former at least This is all the proofe he brings or you may expect of him to wit that he dares say it whom you cannot but belieue M. Crashawes Dare-say being as by this Sermon appeareth a man so modest that no wordes are more rife in his mouth then whores and harlots not blushing to spend many houres in pulpit vpon that subiect so sincere that no Author is by him cited without some fraudulent trick to wrest their sayings from a true and playne to some false and slaunderous sense so louing towards the Church of Rome that he doth beat and busy his braynes to deuise the most horrible blasphemyes and barbarous practises hart can imagine to charge vpon her finally so religious towards God that out of scruple of conscience to spare the Pope he doth tell manifest slaunders that may giue vantage vnto prophane men to deny him Wherefore this wound being made only vpon the bare word of so graue a witnes we must leaue it as incurable not being in our power to stay his tongue from wounding the soules and consciences of credulous people that will belieue all he dare say without any proofe on whom he loadeth many damnable woundes that must needes cause in them if they be not healed eternall death THE SEAVENTH CHAPTER AN Answer to his last wound concerning the bad life of Catholicks IN the last wound he turneth to his stewes and their demaynes againe therein ending his Sermon à pag. 156 ad 166. and bidding his Auditory good night and giuing vs our last farewell with a charge of Adultery Drunkennes Ambition Idlenes Dissimulation Deceipts Cosenages Murders VVhoredomes in all estates particulerly in the Clergy with Ignorance Negligence Sodomy Symony and other corruptions to attayne places and honours in the Church bringing Bernardus Marlanensis a Poet S. Brigit S. Vincent Ferrere and Pope Adrian the sixt complayning that such sinnes and abuses were in the Church desiring the same might be reformed fearing otherwise that God would lay heauy scourges vpon Christendome With this and such like stuffe doth he fill vp ten or eleauen pages mingling lyes slaunders rayling and follyes with some truths This accusation as it is the vaynest emptiest of all other (a) August de vnit Eccl. c. 18. so is it most rife in the mouth of Protestants therewith they doe deceyue and delude ignorant people more then with any other as Donatists (b) Quod propterea DoÌ„atistae faciunt quia firma robusta veritate subnixa in uenire noÌ„ possuÌ„t documenta quibê° causam suam tueantur volunt videri aliquid dicere dum tacere erubescunt loqui inania noÌ„ erubescuÌ„t Aug. de vnit Eccl. c. 18. and Manichees (c) Aug. de moribus Eccles Cathol c. 15. other Hereticks did in former tymes Concerning which we will briefly consider two things First the quality of the witnesses which he bringeth and how they make against him Secondly the accusation it selfe how vaine empty and of no substance it is 2. To begin with the witnesses that complaine of the lewd life of some Catholiks I demaund of M. Crashaw whether they were Protestants or Catholikes themselues not Protestants for then he should produce contrary to his promise his owne men against vs. They were Catholikes then as he doth confesse Then I demaund againe whether they had conscience or no if they were without conscience then doth he produce faithlesse witnesses ready to speake vntruth without any scruple wherfore the Bachelour doth grauÌ„t also that these Catholikes or Papists as is his phrase had conscience and out of remorse of conscience and feare of God did confesse freely and deplore bitterly the misery that the sinfulnes of the Romish Church would bring vpon the world Thirdly I demaund where they came to that conscience or feare of God By the preaching of what Ministery By the Sacraments of what Church By the doctrine of what faith Doubtlesse of the Roman faith Ministry and Church wherin they both liued and dyed obedient children This being certaine let M. Crashaw call to mind what he teacheth against the Brownists that a good conscience cannot be seuered from effectuall calling And how can that be saith he but a true Church wherin men are ordinarily begotten to God How can that be but an holy and lawfull Ministry that brings men to saluation pag. 30. Thus he Now let M. Crashaw speake whether it were not a good conscience the remorse wherof moued these men to detest the sinfulnes of many in the RomaÌ„ Church Whether that was not true feare of God that did make them so bitterly deplore it Then againe eyther these men came to conscieÌ„ce without effectuall calling or were effectually called by the meanes of a false Church or else the Roman is the true Church detesting bad life whose doctrine breedeth in her louing children such an hatred therof And these Saintes and holy men as they are witnesses against the bad life of Catholiks which we much more then Protestants abhorre so likewise their example of not forsaking the Church notwithstanding the knowne bad life of some will be a testimony at the day of iudgment against the damnable pride of the Protestant reuolt out of a pretended horrour against sinne wherin they are neyther like these holy men of our Church nor the ancieÌ„t Prophets who as S. Augustine (d) Lib. 3. coÌ„t Cresc Grammat c. 38. Sanctos Prophetas Dei inter conteÌ„ptores legis Dei mandata sernare licuit atque in ipsos transgressores multa digna vera verba iaculari saith did keep the commaundements of God among the transgressours of his law liuing togeather with them in the same Church and darting many worthy and true sayings against their bad life But though they did detest abhorre and reprehend such heynous sinnes yet durst they not sibi alterum populum quasi purgatum liquatum separatione sacrilega constituere make a sacrilegious reuolt and gather togeather a new company as it were purged and purified from these sinnes So likewise saith S. Augustine we may neyther follow the wicked deeds of our Bishops and Prelates and other Profestours which you do rather obiect then proue nor yet therupon forsake the holy Church which as the Apostle
two euery day in the weeke prayers and a Sermon at six a clocke in the morning a blessed and rare example scarce matchable in the world Thus doth he rarify his one Church in the world which howsoeuer coÌ„pared with other Protestant Churches may seeme a great Lady of Isräel yet parallelled with the piety deuotion and continuall prayers practised throughout the Catholike world in many Churches the most fauourable eye can iudge her no more then a little petty Babell For to omit so many thousand of Catholicke Churches in the world where the name of God is daily called vpon publikely before six in the morning what can the Bachelour say to so many hundred Monasteries so many thousands liuing in them that rise euery day in the yeare at midnight to sing Psalmes and praises vnto God to read the diuine Scripture and commonly heare an Homily or Sermon of some ancient Father therupon And not only men but also women true Daughters of Isräel indeed many of Noble families which might haue had great fortunes in the world forsaking the greene woods of fading pleasure haue voluntarily shut themselues vp in the cage of a religious Cloyster to be as it were Nightingals to sing day and night prayses vnto God not fayling in this deuotion euen in the hart of winter when his best and holyest Ministers and euen relapsed Fryers who whilest they were with vs kept this custome snort and sleep soundly in their soft bed with some petty or pretty daughter of Babylon by their side 14. I know Ministers when they heare but the name of Monastery knowing that in so bright a glasse of godlines their wicked or at least worldly and ordinary manner of life would seeme more vgly haue euer at their tongues end a tale to staine and defile the same eyther foolish or fabulous or false or perchance true yet the fault of some few can no more in iustice and equity disgrace the Religious of that family then the treasoÌ„ of Iudas the sanctity of the other Apostles And would Protestants with an vnpartiall eye with the eye aswell of charity as of seuerity looke on such Religious Orders on the close and retyred life of CarthusiaÌ„s the rigour and pennance of Capuchins the Obedience and charity of Iesuits ready to goe to the most sauage people to conuert them wherin so many hundred of them do fruitfully labour and on other holy and pious practises which diuers Relgious Companyes do professe considering these things vnpartially they would not deny the face of Christs Church which (q) Quis nescit sumae contineÌ„tiae hominum ChristianoruÌ„ multitudinem per totum orbem in dies magis magisque diffuÌ„di Multi vsque adeo Dei amore flagrantes vt eos in suÌ„ma contineÌ„tia atque muÌ„di huiê° incredibili conteÌ„ptu etiam solitudo delectet Quis non illos miretur praedicet qui contemptis atque desertis mundi huius illecebris in communem vitam castissimam sanctissimamque congregati simul aetatem agunt viuentes in orationibus lectionibus disputationibus Haec est etiam vita feminarum Deo sollicitè castèque seruientium quae habitaculis segregatae ac remotae à viris quà m longissimé decet pia tantùm illis charitate iunguÌ„tur imitatione virtutis lib. 1. de mor. Eccles Cathol c. 31. S. Augustine described in his tyme is now among vs and that we may truly say vnto Ministers what that Father said vnto the Manichees with whose words I will heale vp this wound seale vp my answere to M. Crashaws wouÌ„ds Look on these men oppose your selfe vnto them name them with disgrace if you can without vntruth compare your fasting with their fasting your chastity with their chastity your attyre with their attyre your dyet with their dyet your modesty with their modesty your charity with their charity and that which doth most import your Orders with theirs you will soone see what a mayne difference there is betwixt vanity and sincerity walking the right way and wandring betwixt truth and hypocrisy solide strength and proud swelling betwixt blessednes and misery superstition and religion (r) De morâ— Eccles cap. 34. the Syrene songs of deceiptfull heresie and the secure hauen of Christian piety THE EIGHT CHAPTER Conteyning a Conclusion of this Treatise SHEVVING The impiety of the Protestant reuolt from the Church of Rome by the same foure arguments wherwith M. Crashaw vrgeth the Brownists for their Shcismaticall separation from the Church of England WE haue seene how M. Crashaw hath builded the two first quarters of his Babel the first of the charity and falues of his Church the second of the obstinacy and wounds of the Roman and haue layd open the ridiculous vanity of his brags about the one and the intollerable falsity of his slaunders touching the other Other two points of his Sermon or quarters of his Babel remayne pag. 16â— pag. 168. to wit the obligation of ChristeÌ„dome to forsake the Church of Rome and his Prophecy that the Church of Rome shall forth with be destroyed and be fearefully confounded by the mouth of God when their separation is ended in Gods good tyme about which I will add a word or two for Conclusion of this Treatise wherein I will not be long neither shall I need the Bachelour is so short saying thereof litle or nothing at all 2. First if the reuolt and forsaking which beganne in Luther by the kindling of that fire that must burne the whore of Babylon two thinges seeme vnto me very wonderfull and strang therein The first is that Luther who was raysed by (g) Fox Act. MonumeÌ„t pag. 400. God as these men say to blow against Antichrist neuer thought thereof till passion and pride against Dominican Fryers made him to puffe and blow to see them preferred before his Order by this accident and chaunce not dreaming of any thing els he fell to blow and belch out the fire of his passions against our doctrine of Pardons Shall the blast of enuy pride passion and hatred be accounted the breath of Christ Had Christ no other instrument to inspire then an vnruly and passionate (h) Hospian p. 2. histor sacram fol. 5. Fryer 3. Another thing is yet more wonderfull and no lesse euident confessed euen by Luther himselfe (k) de Missa angulari tom 7. operum VVittemberg fol. 443. to wit that the Diuell in person came from hell ioyning his mouth with Luthers to blow both togeather against the Pope nay the Diuell was the first that did breath inspire into Luther the doctrine of Christ if the doctrine which Luther preached against the holy Sacrifice of the Masse were Christs (l) Lutherus à Diabolo edoctus quòd Missa priuata res mala sit eius rationibus conuictus eam aboleuit Hospin p. 2. Histor fol. 131. Had Christ no Angell in heauen that might be spared for that office that the Black-smith of hell so the Scripture tearmeth
by no accuser but malice conuicted by no witnes but falshood condemned by no Iudge but folly ioyned in commission with fury How miserable are those that haue forsaken the only Christianity that was for so many ages in the world scared with shaddowes and frighted with falshoods 15. Pliny writeth of a certaine kind of Eagle which maketh prey on water-foule whom when they perceyue houering in the ayre they dyue into the water where they are secure But the Rauener what he cannot get by force obtayneth by craft He placeth himselfe on the side of the ryuer in such sort that his shaddow or shape appeareth on the other which the foolish foule perceauing make towards the contrary side and flying the shaddow ryse vp where the true Eagle doth indeed expect them (g) Spectāda dimicatio aquila vmbram suā nanti sub aqua à littore ostendente rursus aue in diuersa tendente vbi se minimè credat expectari emer gēte Plin. l. 10. nat Hist c. 3. The Diuell seeketh to make prey specially on such as liue in the cleere and deep water of the Catholike faith taught successiuely in all ages within which whilst they keep themselues they need not feare the violence of their inuader who therefore to seaze on by craft whom he cannot surprize by force by the help of his false and lying Preachers casteth into these cleare waters his owne shape that is vgly shewes and shaddowes of blasphemy wherwith some seely people frighted make towardes the side of herefie and taking their flight from the confessed Christianity of many ages fall into the clawes of the true Eagle into most horrible blasphemyes indeed being forced to say that contrary to Christs promise his Church and Christianity fayled or insteed of being visible and glorious the ioy of Kings and Nations as was foretould for many hundred yeares at least was neuer seene vpon earth 16. Seeing then Protestants cannot haue the testimony of a good conscience that they heere sufficiently indeauoured the healing of the Church of Rome nor can forsake her without also forsaking all Christianity in the world flying into corners and Conuenticles they are their owne caruers their owne Iudges their owne approuers without any Church of Christendome to approue them seeing the causes of this their alienation and reuolt from vs are fables falshoods slaunders places of Authors corrupted shaddowes and shewes of blasphemy voyd of truth vpon which no priuate man were to be forsaken much lesse a Church and so glorious a Church as the Roman let them seriously ponder M. Crashaws other question to the Brownists wherin they may see the many benefits receaued of the Church of Rome and be moued to looke backe to the rock from which they are cut and vnto Sara that begot them Let them consider I say apply to themselues what M. Crashaw asketh the Brownists pag. 27. 29. where they came to know God if they euer knew him VVhere they were healed called regenerated and begotten vnto Christ VVas it not saith he in the wombe of this our Curch pag. 30. and by meanes of the immortall seed of Gods word that is daily sowne in our Church And by the Ministery of those men that were called in our Church And he concludeth that that Church and Ministry that bringes a man to grace and to faith is able to bring him to glory and saluation and that which is alle effectually to begin is able effectually to finish the good worke of God in any man therfore not to be forsaken This doctrine and these groundes supposed I demaund what Church conuerted our English Nation first vnto Christ By whose meanes came Englishmen to know God and Christ if euer they knew him By the ministery of what men Catholicke or Protestant By seed of which word and doctrine the Lutheran or Roman Was not the English Nation and the like may be sayd of most Nations in Europe first conuerted vnto Christ by preachers sent from Rome aboue a thousand yeares agoe By the immortall seed of Gods word that is dayly sowne in our Church 17. What will M. Crashaw answere Will he say with Syr Edward Hobby that the English Nation was not conuerted vnto Christ by S. Augustine whom he tearmeth proud (h) In his better to T. H. pag. 92. and insolent Augustine Gregoryes delegate affirming that he taught vs no more then we knew before setting some friuolous ceremonyes aside Which notorious falshood I know M. Crashaw or some other trencher Minister cast on Syr Edwards trencher to put into his booke Nay further they make the credulous Kinght say that when we speake of the conuersion of England by S. Gregoryes meanes we weary the world and bob our credulous Ladies with a circular discusse as though we had neuer heard of Gildas his testimony that the Britons receiued the Christian faith from the beginning nor what Baronius hath tould that S. Peter was heere Theodoret that S. Paul Nicephorus that Symon Zelotes and some that Ioseph of Arimathia did plant the faith amongst vs. Thus the Knight writeth by their suggestion by which it is cleare that he neuer read the (i) Three Cōuersions of Englād booke he seemeth to speake against nay he doth not know so much as the subiect and argument thereof to wit of the three Conuersions of England which booke the Ladyes if they haue it at hand as he seemeth to complayne that it is still on their (k) Quid quòd libelli Stoici inter sericos iacere puluillos amant sayth Syr Edward as it may seem of this booke to the Romish Ladyes c. pag. 4. Cushions cannot looke into without seeing the falshood of this saying and how the trencher Scholemasters of the Knight would bob them also with a playne vntruth as they haue done him For that booke taketh notice of and handleth largely (l) De extidio Britan c. 6. see this testimony hādled in the Three Cōuersiōs p. 13. Gildas his testimony declaring the meaning thereof to be that in the tyme of Tiberius Christ appeared to the world not that Christian faith then entred into Brittayne which is altogeather improbable seeing Tiberius liued but fiue yeares after Christs Resurrection in which tyme the Apostles eyther went not out of Iury or did not preach but to the Iews only nemini loquentes verbum nisi solùm Iudaeis (m) Act. 11. v. 19. as S. Luke saith in the Actes That S. Peter was heere that Treatise doth take notice of bringeth diuers arguments to confirme the same vrging his preaching as the the first conuersion of England though other Apostles (n) S. Paul S. Symon Disciples (o) Ioseph Aristobulus Of these that Treatise doth take notice bringing diuers authorities to cōfirme their preaching in our Iland p. 21. 22. 23. 24. might help thereunto Neyther doe I think any English Christian is so auerted from the Roman Sea that he will scorne this Kingdome
iustly punishable by Christian laws you may gather by the notable doctrine of S. Augustine worthy to be knowne of all and written in letters of gold Tâ—â— (*) Obscuriê° dixeruÌ„t Prophetae de Christo quà m de Ecclesia puto propterea quòd videbant in spiritu coÌ„tra EcclesiaÌ„ homines facturos esse particulas de Christo noÌ„ tantam litem habituros ideò illud vnde maiores lites futurae eraÌ„â— planiê° praedictuÌ„ est apertiê° prophetatum est in Psal â—0 conc 2. Prophets saith he spake more obscurely of Christ then of the Church the reason was because they foresaw in spirit that men would take partâ— and sactions against the Church making more strife about the Church then about Christ therfore of that concerning which the contentiâ—â— were to be greatest also the predictions are clearest to the iudgmeâ—â— and greater condemnation of them who saw her and fled from her Thâ—â— S. Augustine 27. Neither were these Christian Laws lately deuised enacted by vs against Protestants but by Christian Kings against reuolters from the Church of Rome long before Protestants were either borne or named or thought of as 〈◊〉 knowne yea some lawes which these Ministers and Maâ—tyrs transgressed and for which they were punished did dâ—serue death by the most ancient Imperiall lawes made neâ— vnto Constantine his tyme and yet extant in the Code to the eternall shame as that of entysing marrying Nunnes oâ— of Cloysters wherwith Luther made the Prologue vnto thâ— Comedy of his new Ghospell in which after him many 〈◊〉 lapsed Monkes and Fryers did not shame to appeare on thâ— stage in the eye of the world 28. In execution of which lawes we haue not soughâ— by the false imputation of Treasons conspiracyes against our Countrey to make them odious vnto the people 〈◊〉 which slanderous cup they haue forced vs to drinke in deeâ— measure to hide the more popular and plausible cause 〈◊〉 suffering for conscience and Religion from mens sight bâ—â— haue made them and the world vnderstand that the cauâ—â— of their punishment was their forsaking the faith of theâ—â— Ancestours their proud opposing of their priuate fancies iâ— the interpretation of Scripture against the iudgment of thâ— whole Church authority of Councells consent of Fathers â—ying before their eyes the vglinesse of such pride with forâ—ble reasons as might haue healed them had they not byn â—curably arrogant Whereupon we may iustly conclude â—at the Church of Rome hath reason to complaine against â—â—e Protestant VVe haue cured Babel but she is not healed that â—e may seeme to haue made a bargaine with death and a plot with â—ll THE THIRD CHAPTER VVHERIN is discouered M. Crashaws impious stage-playing in Pulpit bringing in a Babylonian to speake like a Catholike seeking to disgrace therby ancient Christianity and the glorious markes of the true Church taught by the ancient Fathers MAISTER Crashaw hauing spent all the best salues in his boxe or Church vpon the soares and woundes of the Roman being past faith and hope euer to cure her he wasteth also his charity vpon her in rating and reuiling her as incurable laying horrible errors blasphemyes to her charge wherin he bestoweth the rest of his Sermon The great labours of Protestant Ministers to heale vs. which he beginnes with a great groane Now alas saith he see the effect of our labour all is lost And is it not thinke you great pitty that these good men of God should loose so many labours to conuert vs so many weekes fasted in bread water so many dayes and nights spent in continuall prayer so many rough hayr-clothes worne next vnto their tender skin so many disciplynes done euen vnto bloud Might it not make a tough hart breake for sorrow to see such Bachelours take so many good and godly paynes going long iourneys from Shire to Shire from Towne to Towne from house to house to get to Virginia that is a fayre and rich Virgin to wife and all in vayne That their learned Ministers should goe in great companyes with manifest danger to be burnt vnto Rome to discouer the skirtes of the VVhore in a dreame of the night lying in their soft beds with their wiues vnder their armes insteed of Bibles and all to no purpose Now alas saith he see the effect of our labours all is lost for she is Babylon and therfore cannot be healed Some will say this is harsh and bitter but I say it is true and therefore not to be concealed Thus M. Crashaw 2. Now to make vs seeme incurable A peeuish practise of the Bachelour to deceaue ignorant people and like in religion to the ancient Babylonians he bringeth in his first part a Babylonian speaking like a Catholicke and reiecting the counsell of the Israëlits which though it will seeme fond to the learned yet it is malicious and peeuishly penned to deceaue the ignorant making him alleadge the same arguments for his Idolatry which we and the Fathers make notes and markes of the true Church seeking this occasion to open a vent to his secret malice against the ancieÌ„t Church of Christ couertly his face being hidden vnder a Babylonian maske deriding the Maiesty and glory thereof thinking his impiety would not be perceaued like vnto that sottish bird that hauing put her head into an hole thinkes her whole body vnseene which wee will set downe and briefly refute 3. The Isräelites saith he did what they could to cure Babel pag. 17 18. 19. but the Babylonians had their answer as ready as now haue the Papists Thinke you you silly Isräelites that you are able to teach Babylon a better religion then it hath Is not hers of so many and so many yeares continuance VVas it not the religion our forefathers lyued and dyed in And is it not generall and vniuersall ouer the world and yours but in a corner And is not ours visible and doth is not prosper and florish Is not your visible Temple now defaced your publicke dayly sacrifice ceased and your succession cut of And if you haue anything left is it not inuisible and in secret corners And what can you alleadg for your religion That you haue many learned men A fond discourse of a Babylonian penned by the Bachelour to disgrace the auncient Church of Christ Alas poore men for one learned Rabbin that you haue haue not we twenty Are not the Chaldeans the famoust learned men of the world renowned for their high wisdome their skill in Astrology interpretation of dreames and other the most secret and supernaturall sciences of the world And doe you thinke it possible that so many learned Doctours can be deceaued Nay all the world be in an errour and only you that hould a particuler faction and a singuler new found Religion by your selues haue the truth amongst you You will say you haue a succession from Noah haue not we so to c. Looke into the world at this day and see if any
Nation of all that came from all the Sonnes of Noah be 〈◊〉 your religion All that came from Cham are of ours all that came 〈◊〉 Iaphet are of ours and all that came from Shem but only your selâ—â— c. And during the tyme that you haue had your Kings and Priests shew one Nation by you conuerted or one that came and ioyned with you all thâ—â— tyme c. VVherfore neuer tell vs of healing vs beale your selues seeâ—â— fooles for you haue need as for vs we are well we are far better thâ—â— Isräel can make vs. 4. Thus M. Crashaw who speaking so bitterly againâ—â— Players in the end of his Sermon pag. 170. turneth the Pulpit into a stage and bringeth in a Babylonian to play the Vize which part ended pag. 20. he steppeth in himself to play the Epilogue with all his Ministeriall grauity in these wordes Thus did Babeled away the good counsell the Isräelites gaue them and pleased themselues in the like carnall arguments and fleshly conceipts as Papists in their Popery The prophanesse impieâ—y of the former discourse Which Epilogue if you consider the same well hath dare say more prophanesse impiety and blasphemy conched togeather in few words then those Players whom he doth pursue euer scattered abroad in the longest Playes For wheras other Protestants vse commonly to deny with what probability I will not discusse at this tyme the Church of Rome to be that Christianity that conuerted and ouerran the world that Church which hath lineall succession of Bishops from Christ and his Apostles confirmed by the vniforme consent of ancient Fathers the same that ouâ— Christian Ancestours famous for sanctity did professe which are the true markes of the Church we alleadge thâ— Bachelour seeming to make no bones to graunt vs all faith they are but carnall arguments fleshly and Babylonian conceipts The Bachelour putteth no difference betwixt Christianity and Idolatry not sticking to compare Christianity by the conuersion of Nations vnto Christ gloriously spread ouer the world which we challenge with the Babylonian deluge of Idolatry ouerwhelming the face of the earth the neuer interrupted succession of Bishops from the most Bl. Prince of the Apostles wherin we glory with the Babylonians carnall Pedigree from cursed Cham the authority of ancient Fathers and Doctours of the Church defining Controuersies in generall Councells which we alleage with the soothsaying and diuining of Chaldean Astrologers and their learned interpretation of dreames finally the piety and religion of our most Christian Ancestours which moueth vs to imbrace or rather to continue in their faith with the cruell and bloudy tyranny of Nemrod and other idolatrous Babylonian Monarches Can there be more prophane impiety or greater blasphemy then this to cast as he doth the glorious Iewells of Christian Religion to be troden vnder and defiled by Pagans feet If he were so moued against the Players for bringing two hypocrites on the stage vnder the names of Nicolas S. Anntlings pag. 71. and Symon S. Mary Oueryes two Churches in London which he and his fellow Puritans much haunt such open hypocrisy the meane tyme haunting them as it commeth to be perceaued euen of Players if this child of Babylon as he tearmes it did so offend him that like Phinees full of zeale he passeth the sword of his censure through it exclayming Oh what tymes are we cast into that such a wickednes should passe vnpunished what cause of iust anger haue all Christians against him that in the person of Babylonian Idolaters durst represent in the Pulpit as on a stage our famous Christian Ancestors that liued before Luthers tyme Haue they not iust reason to complaine and exclaime Oh what tymes are we cast into that such a wickednes should passe vnpunished Nay such a prophane play be put in print as the patterne of a modest Sermon 5. No lesse blasphemously in this discourse doth this Pulpit Stage player abuse the ancient Fathers making this Babylonian dispute against Isräelites in the same maÌ„ner which he calls carnall as they did against old heretikes and we against these of our age The very first sentence wherewith he beginneth Can you silly Isräelites teach Babylon a better religion then it hath Is not hers of so many yeares and so many yeares continuance VVas it not the religion our forefathers liued and dyed in This sentence I say is taken almost word by word out of S. Hierome who by this argument carnall in Crassus his conceit casteth of the bringers in of new doctrine against the Church of Rome (a) Quisquis assertor es nouoruÌ„ dogmatum quaeso te vt parcas Romanis auribê° c. Our post 400. aÌ„nos docere nos niteris quod ante nesciuimê° c epist ad PaÌ„machium Oceanum VVhosoeuer thou be saith he that doest bring new doctrine we beseech thee pardon our Romish eares and the faith praysed by the Apostles mouth After foure hundred yeares wilt thou teach vs that which we knew not before Vntill this day the world hath bene Christian without this your doctrine c. S. Hilary discourseth also against hereticks in the same Babylonian manner (b) Tardè mihi hos pijssimos Doctores aetas nunc huius saeculi protulit serò hos habuit fides mea quà m tu eruduisti Magistros l. 6. de Trinit ante medium Lord saith he speaking with Christ this last age hath brought forth ouer late these godly men to be my teachers they came not soone inough to be maisters of my faith which thou hadst before instructed I did belieue in thee when they had not yet preached That great Father of Gods Church surnamed the Diuine famous for sanctity and learning Gregory Nazianzen doth likwise rely his conscience vpon the religion his ancestours liued and dyed in (c) Si triginta his annis fides originem habuit cùm quadringenti anni ferè ab eo tempore fluxerint quo Christus palà m conspectus est inane tanto tempore fuit Euangelium c. Epist 2. ad Cheliâ—on If within thirty yeares saith he true faith began four hundred yeares being almost expired since Christ first appeared in vayne hath the Ghospell beene so long time preached in vayne hath the world belieued in vayne haue Martyrs shed their bloud in vayne haue so many and so great Prelates gouerned Churches Had not this Babylonian thinke you read these sayings of the Fathers at least cited in some Catholicke booke who could apply to his Idolatry their arguments for Christianity almost in their wordes only changing Rome into Babylon 6. The wordes also which follow in the same speach Is not our Religion generall and vniuersall ouer the world and yours only in a corner And is not ours visible doe shew that this Babylonian by some chaunce or other hath had a smack at S. Augustine who shaketh of hereticks with the same maÌ„ner of argument (d) Sivestra est Ecclesia Catholica osteÌ„dite illam per