edifying of Babel itself, and scattered the builders thereof, is accounted a good means to further the edifying of your Babel; and to hold her followers together. Is not this then a good ground to resolve a man's judgment, that things are not now kept in that order, wherein they were set at first by the apostles: although he be not able to point unto the first author of the disorder?

And as we may thus discover innovations, by having recourse unto the first and best times: so may we do the like by comparing the state of things present with the middle times of the Church. Thus I find, by the constant and approved practice of the ancient Church, that all sorts of people, men, women, and children, had free liberty to read the holy Scriptures. I find now the contrary among the papists and shall I say for all this, that they have not removed the bounds which were set by the fathers, because perhaps I cannot name the pope, that ventured to make the first enclosure of these commons of God's people? I hear St. Hierome say, "Judith, et Tobiæ, et Macchabæorum libros legit quidem Ecclesia, sed eos inter canonicas scripturas non recipit: the Church doth read indeed the books of Judith, and Toby, and the Macchabees; but doth not receive them for canonical Scripture." I see that at this day the Church of Rome receiveth them for such. May not I then conclude, that betwixt St. Hierome's time and ours, there hath been a change; and that the Church of Rome now is not of the same judgment with the Church of God then: howsoever I cannot precisely lay down the time, wherein she first thought herself to be wiser herein than her forefathers.

But here our adversary closeth with us, and layeth down a number of points, held by them, and denied by us: which he undertaketh to make good, as well by the express testimonies of the fathers of the primitive Church of Rome, as also by good and certain grounds out of the sacred Scriptures, if the fathers' authority will not suffice.

a Ledesim. de scriptur. quavis lingua non legendis, cap. 17. Bellar. lib. 2. de verbo Dei cap. 15.

b Hieronym. prefat. in libros Salomon. epist. 115.

Where if he would change his order, and give the sacred Scriptures the precedency, he should therein do more right to God the author of them, who well deserveth to have audience in the first place; and withal ease both himself and us of a needless labour, in seeking any further authority to compose our differences. For if he can pro

duce, as he beareth us in hand he can, good and certain grounds out of the sacred Scriptures for the points in controversy, the matter is at an end: he, that will not rest satisfied with such evidences as these, may (if he please) travel further, and speed worse. Therefore, as St. Augustine heretofore provoked the Donatists, so provoke I him : "Auferantur chartæ humanæ : sonent voces Divinæ: ede mihi unam Scripturæ vocem pro parte Donati: let human writings be removed: let God's voice sound: bring me one voice of the Scripture for the part of Donatus." Produce but one clear testimony of the sacred Scripture for the pope's part, and it shall suffice: allege what authority you list without Scripture, and it cannot suffice. We reverence indeed the ancient fathers, as it is fit we should, and hold it our duty to "rised up before the hoary head, and to honour the person of the aged:" but still with reservation of the respect we owe to their Father and ours, that "Ancient of days, the hair of whose head is like the wool." We may not forget the lesson, which our great Master hath taught "Call' no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." Him therefore alone do we acknowledge for the father of our faith: no other father do we know, upon whose bare credit we may ground our consciences in things that are to be believed.

us,

pure

And this we say, not as if we feared that these men were able to produce better proofs out of the writings of the fathers for the part of the pope, than we can do for the catholic cause; when we come to join in the particu

Aug. serm. 46. op. tom. 5. pag. 242. e Dan. chap. 7. ver. 6.

VOL. III.

d Levit. chap. 19. ver. 32. f Matt. chap. 23. ver. 9.

C

lars, they shall find it otherwise: but partly to bring the matter unto a shorter trial, partly to give the word of God his due, and to declare what that rock is, upon which alone we build our faith, even "thes foundation of the apostles and prophets;" from which no slight that they can devise shall ever draw us.

The same course did St. Augustine take with the Pelagians against whom he wanted not the authority of the fathers of the Church. "Which if I would collect (saith he) and use their testimonies, it would be too long a work; and I might peradventure seem to have less confidence than I ought in the canonical authorities, from which we ought not to be withdrawn." Yet was the Pelagian heresy then but newly budded: which is the time wherein the pressing of the fathers' testimonies is thought to be best in season. With how much better warrant may we follow this precedent, having to deal with such as have had time. and leisure enough to falsify the fathers' writings, and to "teach them the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans?" The method of confuting heresies, by the consent of holy fathers, is by none commended more than by Vincentius Lirinensis: who is careful notwithstanding herein to give us this caveat. "But neither always, nor all kinds of heresies are to be impugned after this manner; but such only as are new, and lately sprung: namely, when they do first arise, while by the straitness of the time itself they be hindered from falsifying the rules of the ancient faith; and before the time that, their poison spreading farther, they attempt to corrupt the writings of the ancients. But

Ephes. chap. 2. ver. 20.

h Quos si colligere, et eorum testimoniis uti, velim, et nimis longum erit, et de canonicis authoritatibus, a quibus non debemus averti, minus fortasse videbor præsumpsisse quam debui. Aug. de nupt. et concupiscent. lib. 2. cap. 51.

Sed neque semper, neque omnes hæreses hoc modo impugnandæ sunt, sed novitiæ recentesque tantummodo, cum primum scilicet exoriuntur; antequam infalsare vetustæ fidei regulas ipsius temporis vetantur angustiis; ac priusquam, manante latius veneno, majorum volumina vitiare conentur. Cæterum dilatatæ et inveteratæ hæreses nequaquam hac via aggrediendæ sunt, eo quod prolixo temporum tractu longa his furandæ veritatis patuerit occasio. Vincent. de hæres. cap. 39.

far spread and inveterate heresies are not to be dealt withal this way, forasmuch as, by long continuance of time, a long occasion hath lain open unto them to steal away the truth." The heresies with which we have to deal have spread so far, and continued so long, that the defenders of them are bold to make universality and duration the special marks of their Church: they had opportunity enough of time and place, to put in use all deceivableness of unrighteousness; neither will they have it to say that, in coining and clipping and washing the monuments of antiquity, they have been wanting to themselves.

Before the council of Nice, as hath been observed by one, who sometime was pope himself, little respect, to speak of, was had to the Church of Rome. If this may be thought to prejudice the dignity of that Church, which would be held to have sat as queen among the nations, from the very beginning of Christianity: you shall have a crafty merchant, Isidorus Mercator, I trow, they call him, that will help the matter, by counterfeiting decretal epistles in the name of the primitive bishops of Rome; and bringing in thirty of them in a row, as so many knights of the post, to bear witness of that great authority, which the Church of Rome enjoyed before the Nicene fathers were assembled. If the Nicene fathers have not amplified the bounds of her jurisdiction, in so large a manner as she desired, she hath had her well-willers, that have supplied the council's negligence in that behalf, and made canons for the purpose in the name of the good fathers, that never dreamed of such a business. If the power of judging all others will not content the pope, unless he himself may be exempted from being judged by any other: another council', as ancient at least as that of Nice, shall be suborned; wherein it shall be concluded, by the consent of two hundred and eightyfour imaginary bishops, that no man may judge the first seat and for failing, in an elder councilm than that, consisting of three hundred buckram bishops of the very self

Eneas Sylvius, epist. 288.

Concil. Rom. sub Sylvest. cap. 20. Nemo enim judicabit primam sedem.

Concil. Sinuessan. circa fin.

same making, the like note shall be sung: "Quoniam prima sedes non judicabitur a quoquam; the first seat must not be judged by any man." Lastly, if the pope does not think that the fulness of spiritual power is sufficient for his greatness, unless he may be also lord paramount in temporalibus; he hath his followers ready at hand, to frame a fair donation, in the name of Constantine the emperor, whereby his holiness shall be estated, not only in the city of Rome, but also in the seigniory of the whole west. would require a volume to rehearse the names of those several tractates, which have been basely bred in the former days of darkness, and fathered upon the ancient doctors of the church, who, if they were now alive, would be deposed that they were never privy to their begetting.

Neither hath this corrupting humour stayed itself in forging of whole councils, and entire treatises of the ancient writers; but hath, like a canker, fretted away divers of their sound parts, and so altered their complexions, that they appear not to be the same men they were. To instance, in the great question of Transubstantiation: we were wont to read in the books attributed unto S. Ambrose," "Si ergo tanta vis est in sermone Domini Jesu, ut inciperent esse quæ non erant: quanto magis operatorius est, ut sint quæ erant, et in aliud commutentur? if therefore there be so great force in the speech of our Lord Jesus, that the things which were not begun to be, (namely, at the first creation): how much more is the same powerful to make, that things may still be that which they were, and yet be changed into another thing?" It is not unknown how much those words, ut sint quæ erant, have troubled their brains who maintain that, after the words of consecration, the elements of bread and wine be not that thing which they were: and what devices they have found to make the bread and wine in the sacrament to be like unto the beast in the Revelation, "that" was, and is not, and yet is." But that Gordian knot, which they with their skill could not so readily untie, their masters at Rome, Alexander

n De sacramentis, lib. 4. cap. 4.

Apoc. chap. 17. ver. 8.