nals of Paul the Third doubted not, with joint consent, to affirm, "All the Orders of Convents we think fit to be abolished."

But, for the condition of that single and solitary life, let that be done, which Cassander and Clingius the Franciscan advise in this case: that is, let all false conceit and preposterous confidence be removed from it; that the trust, which should only be put in the merit of Christ, be not placed upon these courses: and, let no man think, that hereby he deserves righteousness, remission, grace: and, lastly, which I add, remove but idleness, superstition, necessity, from this kind of life, and we do not, we will not disallow it.

Neither do we take our colleges for any other, than certain sacred donnríqia, Monastical Academies; wherein, according to the precept of Pelagius the Pope, we may be maturely fitted for these holy services of God and his Church. Such were the Monasteries of the Ancient: insomuch as Possidonius can witness *, that St. Austin, out of one little house, sent forth ten labourers into the Church.

SECT. 4.

Impossibility of Reconciliation, arising from those opinions of the Romanists, which chiefly respect God:

(1.) Concerning Scripture:-[1.] Its Canon: [2.] Its Insuffi ciency: [3.] Its Authority.

(2.) Concerning the Person and Offices of Christ:-[1.] Against his Person, are (a) Transubstantiation: (b) The Multi-presence of his Body. [2] Against his Priestly Office, are (a) The Sacrifice of the Mass: (b) The Number of Mediators, and the Invocation of Saints.

(3.) Concerning the Superstitious, Heathenish, and Ridiculous Worship of the Papists.

Now, lest I be too tedious, it is time for me, from these points, which do directly concern ourselves; to hasten unto those, WHICH DO MORE CLOSELY TOUCH THE MAJESTY OF GOD, and do, as it were, send plain challenges into heaven.

And those do, either respect the Scripture, which is his expressed word; or Christ, which is his natural and substantial Word; or, lastly, the worship due unto his Name.

(1.) And, first, the Scripture complains justly of three main wrongs offered to it. The first, of Addition to the Canon: the second, of Detraction from the Sufficiency of it: the third, of Hanging all the Authority thereof upon the Sleeve of the Church.

For, of that corrupt translation of Scripture, which the Trent Divines have made only and fully authentical, I forbear purposely to speak: although it were easy to shew, (that which Reuchlin, following the steps of Jerome †, hath averred) That the Hebrews + Hier. advers. Helvidium.

* Possid. in Vitâ Aug.

60

drink of the well-head, the Greeks of the stream, and the Latins of the puddle. Neither will I so much as touch the injurious inhibition of those holy books to the laity.

[1] Who can endure a piece of new cloth to be patched unto an old garment? or, what can follow hence, but that the rent should be worse? Who can abide, that, against the faithful information of the Hebrews; against the clear testimonies of Melito, Cyril, Athanasius, Origen, Hilary, Jerome, Ruffinus, Nazianzen; against their own Doctors, both of the middle and latest age*; six whole books should, by their Fatherhoods of Trent, be, under pain of a curse, imperiously obtruded upon God and his Church? whereof yet, some propose to their readers no better than magical jugglings; others, bloody self-murders; others, lying fables; and others, heathenish rites; not without a public applause in the relation.

These indeed, Cajetan, ingenuously, as his fashion is, according to that he had learned of Jerome, would persuade us to have been admitted only by the Ancients, into the Canon of Manners, not of

Faith.

And, surely, there be many precepts in Syracides, the counterfeit Solomon, and Esdras, which savour of excellent wisdom: but I wonder what kind of good manners can be learned from such like histories, even by those novices †, to whom Athanasius bequeaths these books! Well may I say of these, as that Chian servant of his master which sold his wine and drank his lees, While they have good they seek for naught.

But, let these books, how questionable soever to Epiphanius ‡, be all sacred, let them be (according to the meaning of the Council of Carthage, and of Austin, so oft cited to this purpose) after Canouical: yet what man or angel dare presume to undertake to make them divine? We know full well, how great impiety it is, to father upon the God of Heaven the weak conceptions of a human wit: neither can we be any whit moved with the idle crack of the Tridentine curse §, while we hear God thundering in our ears, If any man add unto these words, God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book; Apoc. xxii. 18.

[2.] Neither know I, whether it be more wickedly audacious, to fasten on God those things, which he never wrote; or, to weaken the authority, and deny the sufficiency, of what he hath written. The Papists do both.

"We affirm," saith Bellarmin, "that there is not expressly contained in Scriptures all necessary doctrine, either concerning faith or manners." And the Tridentine Fathers gave charge, that Traditions be received "with no less piety and veneration ¶," than the books of Scripture. "Unwritten truths," saith our witty Chancellor, More, "are equivalent to the word of God."

* I refer the reader, for the citation of these, to my " Dissuasive from Popery." † Epiph. l. i. sect. 5. Ἐν ἀμφιλικίῳ δευτερο-κανονικοί. + Catechumeni. § Si quis 1. Hester, Dan., Baruc., Eccl., Judith, Tob., Macca. pro Canonicis non reciperit, Anathema sit. sect. 4.

Lib. iv. de Verbo non Scripto. c. 30. sect. 1.
¶Pari veneratione, pari pietatis affectu.

What place is there for peace?

There are, we confess, certain things of a middle nature, indifferent rites, wherein much must be yielded to the Church, much to Traditions: but, that those things, which are simply necessary to salvation, whether to be known or to be done, should not be found in the Holy Scriptures, "either in their words or in their sense," as Aquinas distinguishes *, we justly hold absurd; and, with Erasmus, contrary to all true divinity.

Some Constitutions + for public order are from the Church: but all necessary determinations of faith are to be fetched from the voice of God.

This is, as Nissen truly commends it, "the right and even rule of life t." The Law of God is perfect, saith David; yea, and makes perfect, saith Paul. And what can be added to that, which is already perfect? or what perfection can there be, where some necessary points are wanting; yea, if we may believe Hosius, the greatest part?

How much is the Spirit of God mistaken! He wrote these things, that we might believe; and, in believing, be saved. But, now, if Trent may be judge, although we believe what he hath written, yet we cannot be saved, unless we do also receive and believe what he hath not written.

How ill was Constantine taught of old! how ill advised, in that public speech! for which yet we do not find, that any of those worthies of Nice did so much as jog him on the elbow, in a mild reproof, while he said, "The books of the Evangelists and Apostles, as also the Oracles of the Ancient Prophets do plainly instruct us, in the message and meaning of God."

How miserably were every one of the learned Fathers of the Church blinded, that they could never either see or acknowledge any other rule of faith!

And, what shall we say? Did God envy unto mankind the full revelation of his will, in the perpetual monuments of his written word? Or, did he not think it expedient to lay up all necessary doctrines in the common store-house of truths, as Rochester calls it? Or, is that perhaps more uncertain, which is faithfully committed to writing; than that, which is carried about by the flying rumours of men, and by this airy conveyance derived unto posterity?

What a thing is it, as Irenæus wisely said, that we should leave the voice of the Lord and his Apostles, and attend to these idle tatlers, that talk never a true word!

*Per verba, per sensum.

† AlarÚTWσus. In Can. Nic. Græc. cod. Pisan, Binius Conc. Tom. 1. † Κάνων ὀρθος καὶ ἀδιατροφη.

Theod. l. i. c. 7.

Tert. de Præscr. et 1. contr. Her.-Orig. in c. xvi. ad Rom.-Atha. in Syhops.-Ambr. 1. iii.-Hex. c. 3.-Aug. Ego solis Scripturis, &c. De Nat. et Gr. c. 61.-Opt. Milev. 1. v.-Tho. in Mag. 1. iii. d. 3. q. 1. ar. 1. Citat ex Hier. Non mihi credas, si quid tibi dixero, quod ex Novo Testamento vel Veteri ha, heri non possit.

Or, if this be fitting, how vainly have you spent your labours, O all ye Registers of God, Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists! And, as he said of the ointment, to what purpose was all this waste?

These paradoxes are pernicious to the Church; and shamefully derogatory from the glory, both of the wisdom and goodness of God. Hold these, who dare. Surely, we can never abide, that those two marks of heretics, which Irenæus long since set down *, (namely, not to rest in the bare authority of Scripture, and to vaunt of other Traditions) should both of them be justly branded on our sides.

[3.] But, this is yet most shamefully injurious, to deny unto the word of God credit of itself +; and so to hang the Scriptures upon the Church, that they must needs beg all their authority from the voices of men.

Honest Eckius, in his revised and corrected Enchiridion: "The Scripture," saith he, "is not authentical, without the authority of the Church:" to which, as some golden and oracular sentence, there is added in the margin, a glorious and insulting applause, " An Achilles for the Catholics 1.'

I let pass the blasphemies of Hermannus and Hosius; perhaps, as Junius construes it, in the name of Swinkfeldius. I pass over the horrible impiety of that shameless gloss ||, which teaches, that Solomon's text borrows his credit from the Pope's canonization.

Bellarmin alone shall speak for all; who, going about to support the number of Seven Sacraments by the authority of the Tridentine Council (for this ever is their last hold)" The strength," saith he ¶, "of all the ancient Councils, and of all opinions, depends upon the authority of the present Church." And, a little before," If we take away the authority of the present Church, and of the present Council," of Trent, "the decrees of all other Councils and the whole Christian Faith may be called into doubt and question."

O miserable, and miserably staggering souls of the Papists! How many, not persons only, but whole kingdoms, and those, as the Romanists themselves confess and bewail, mighty and flourishing, amongst themselves, do yet still resolutely reject all the authority of that Tridentine Council! "The whole Christian Faith ?" " All doctrines and opinions?" What, even those, which are written by the finger of God? those, that are indicted by the Holy Ghost? What is this else, but to make God a slave to men; and to arraign the Maker of Heaven and Earth at the bar of human judgment? God will be God; the Scripture of God will be itself; in spite of Rome, Trent, Hell. And, unless we hold this, we can have no peace with God: unless we deny it, no peace with the Romanists.

*Iren. l. ii. c. 1.

† Αὐτοπισίαν.

1586. fol. 8. Achilles pro Catholicis. in Decret. l. ii. Tit. 23. 'Irga aynuga. c. 15. p. 300.

Enchir. Eccii, 7. recogn. an.
Animadvers. in Bellar.
|| Glosse
Bell. de Num. Sacr. et Effect. 1. ii.

(2.) These errors concern the Scriptures. Those, which follow, concern either Christ's Person, or his Offices.

[1] I let pass that idle brabble, as Bellarmin himself judges it, which the Popish Censors have unjustly raised about the Son's Godhead of himself*; and insist upon weightier quarrels.

(a.) I would that exploded opinion of Transubstantiation, and, which is the root of it, the multi-presence of Christ's Body, did not utterly overthrow the truth of his Humanity.

Good God! Is it possible, as Averroes jested of old, that Christians should make themselves a God of Bread? that any reasonable man can believe, that Christ carried his own body in one of his hands? that he reached it forth to be eaten by those holy guests of his, which saw him present with them, and heard him speaking to them; both while they were eating him, and when they had eaten the sacred morsel? that the self-same Son of Man should, at once, both devour his whole self, and yet should sit whole and entire at the table with them? that the glorious body of Christ should be carried through the unclean passages of our maws: and either be there turned into the substance of our body; or, contrary to that the Spirit said of old, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption; Ps. xvi. 10. should be subject to putrefaction, or vanish to nothing, or return into that heaven wherein it was, ere it returned, while it returned: or, lastly, should be eaten with mice, (devout and holy vermin!) or, perhaps, mixed with poison, to the receiver?

What monsters of follies are these! How mad, yea, how impious is this obstinacy of foolish men, that they will overturn the very principles of nature, the order of things, the Humanity of their Saviour, the truth of the Sacrament, the constant judgment of Scripture, and, lastly, the very foundations of all Divinity; and confusedly jumble heaven and earth together, rather than they will, where necessity requires, admit but of a tropical kind of speech in our Saviour's consecration; while, in the mean time, the whole reverend senate of the Fathers cries out, and redoubles the names of symbols, types, signs, representation, similitude, figures, and whatever word may import a borrowed sense; notwithstanding all the indignation of heaven, all the scorn of pagans, all the reluctation of the Church!

This letter killeth; as Origen truly speaks. Now, what likelihood is there, here, of agreement?

That the true body of Christ is truly offered and truly received in the Sacrament, which of us hath not ever constantly taught and defended? But, how is this? not by any bodily touch, as Cyril and Ambrose say well; but, by our faith. That it should be corporally, carnally, orally present; and torn in pieces with our teeth, as

* Genebr. 1. i. de Trin. Lindan. 2. dial. Canisius in præf. lib. de Jo. Bapt. AUTOJEóτns. Bell. 1. ii. de Chro. c. 19. Calvinus, sine dubio, in modo loquendi erravit; sed, dum rem ipsam discutio, non facilè audeo pronuntiare illum in errore fuisse.