fore, if we find any doctrine now taught, which was not placed in their way of salvation, we reject it as being no part of the Christian faith, and which ought not to be imposed upon consciences. They were "wise unto salvation," and "fully instructed to every good work;" and, therefore, the faith, which they professed and derived from Scripture, we profess also; and in the same faith, we hope to be saved even as they. But for the new doctors, we understand them not, we know them not: our faith is the same from the beginning, and cannot become new.

But because we shall make it to appear, that they do greatly innovate in all their points of controversy with us, and show nothing but shadows instead of substances, and little images of things instead of solid arguments; we shall take from them their armour in which they trusted, and choose this sword of Goliah to combat their errors; for "non est alter talis ;" it is not easy to find a better than the word of God, expounded by the prime and best antiquity.

The first thing, therefore, we are to advertise is, that the emissaries of the Roman church endeavour to persuade the good people of our dioceses, from a religion that is truly primitive and apostolic, and divert them to propositions of their own, new and unheard of in the first ages of the Christian church.

For the religion of our church is, therefore, certainly primitive and apostolic, because it teaches us to believe the whole Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and nothing else, as matter of faith; and, therefore, unless there can be new Scriptures, we can have no new matters of belief, no new articles of faith. Whatsoever we cannot prove from thence, we disclaim it, as not deriving from the fountains of our Saviour. We also do believe the apostles' creed, the Nicene, with the additions of Constantinople, and that which is commonly called the symbol of St. Athanasius: and the four first general councils are so entirely admitted by us, that they, together with the plain words of Scripture, are made the rule and measure of judging heresies amongst us; and in pursuance of these, it is commanded by our church, that the clergy shall never teach any thing as matter of "faith, religiously to be observed, but that which is agreeable to the Old and New Testament, and collected out of the same

doctrine, by the ancient fathers and catholic bishops of the church." This was, undoubtedly, the faith of the primitive church; they admitted all into their communion that were of this faith; they condemned no man, that did not condemn these; they gave letters communicatory by no other cognizance, and all were brethren who spake this voice. "Hanc legem sequentes, Christianorum catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti; reliquos verò dementes, vesanosque judicantes hæretici dogmatis infamiam sustinere;" said the emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, in their proclamation to the people of Constantinople. All that believed this doctrine, were Christians and catholics, viz. all they who believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one Divinity of equal Majesty in the Holy Trinity; which, indeed, was the sum of what was decreed in explication of the apostles' creed in the four first general councils.

And what faith can be the foundation of a more solid peace, the surer ligaments of catholic communion, or the firmer basis of a holy life, and of the hopes of heaven hereafter, than the measures which the holy primitive church did hold, and we after them? That which we rely upon, is the same that the primitive church did acknowledge to be the adequate foundation of their hopes in the matters of belief: the way which they thought sufficient to go to heaven in, is the way which we walk: what they did not teach, we do not publish and impose; into this faith entirely, and into no other, as they did theirs, so we baptize our catechumens: the discriminations of heresy from catholic doctrine which they used, we use also, and we use no other: and in short, we believe all that doctrine which the church of Rome. believes, except those things, which they have superinduced upon the old religion, and in which we shall prove that they have innovated. So that, by their confession, all the doctrine which we teach the people as matter of faith, must be confessed to be ancient, primitive, and apostolic, or else theirs is not so for ours is the same, and we both have received this faith from the fountains of Scripture and universal tradition; not they from us, or we from them, but both of us from

e Lib. Canon. discip. Eccles. Angl. et injuuct, Regin. Elis. A. D. 1571. Can. de Concionatoribus.

d Dat. S. Calen. Mart. Thessalonica.

Christ and his apostles. And, therefore, there can be no question, whether the faith of the church of England be apostolic or primitive; it is so, confessedly: but the question is concerning many other particulars, which were unknown to the holy doctors of the first ages, which were no part of their faith, which were never put into their creeds, which were not determined in any of the four first general councils, revered in all Christendom, and entertained every where with great religion and veneration, even next to the four Gospels and the apostolical writings.

Of this sort, because the church of Rome hath introduced many, and hath adopted them into their late creed, and imposes them upon the people, not only without, but against the Scriptures and the catholic doctrine of the church of God, laying heavy burdens on men's consciences, and making the narrow way to heaven yet narrower by their own inventions; arrogating to themselves a dominion over our faith, and prescribing a method of salvation, which Christ and his apostles never taught; corrupting the faith of the church of God, and "teaching, for doctrines, the commandments of men;" and lastly, having derogated from the prerogatives of Christ, who alone is the author and finisher of our faith, and hath perfected it in the revelations consigned in the holy Scriptures; therefore it is, that we esteem ourselves obliged to warn the people of their danger, and to depart from it, and call upon them to stand upon the ways, and ask after the "old paths," and "walk in them;" lest they partake of that curse which is threatened by God to them, "who remove the ancient land-marks, which our fathers in Christ have set for us."

Now that the church of Rome cannot pretend that all which she imposes, is primitive and apostolic, appears in this; that in the church of Rome there is pretence made to a power, not only of declaring new articles of faith, but of making new symbols or creeds, and imposing them as of necessity to salvation. Which thing is evident in the bull of pope Leo X. against Martin Luther, in which, amongst other things, he is condemned for saying, "It is certam, that it is not in the power of the church or pope to constitute articles of faith." We need not add that this power

is attributed to the bishops of Rome by Turrecremata, Augustinus Triumphus de Ancona, Petrus de Ancorano, and the famous abbot of Panormo, that the pope cannot only make new creeds, but new articles of faith; that he can make that of necessity to be believed, which before never was necessary; that he is the measure and rule, and the very notice of all credibilities; that the canon law is the Divine law; and whatever law the pope promulges, God, whose vicar he is, is understood to be the promulger. That the souls of men are in the hands of the pope; and that in his arbitration religion doth consist; which are the very words of Hostiensis, and Ferdinandus ab Inciso, who were casuists and doctors of law, of great authority and renown amongst them. The thing itself is not of dubious disputation amongst them, but actually practised in the greatest instances, as is to be seen in the bull of Pius IV. at the end of the council of Trent; by which all ecclesiastics are not only bound to swear to all the articles of the council of Trent, for the present and for the future, but they are put into a new symbol or creed, and they are corroborated by the same decretory clauses that are used in the creed of Athanasius: That" this is the true catholic faith;" and that "without this no man can be saved."

Now since it cannot be imagined, that this power, to which they pretend, should never have been reduced to act; and that it is not credible they should publish so invidious and ill-sounding doctrine to no purpose, and to serve no end; it may, without further evidence, be believed by all discerning persons, that they have need of this doctrine, or it would not have been taught; and that consequently without more ado,

• Quod sit metrum et regula, ac scientia credendorum. Summæ de Ecclesia, lib. ii. c. 203.

Novum Symbolum condere solum ad Papam spectat, quia est caput fidei Christianæ, cujus autoritate omnia, quæ ad fidem spectant, firmantnr et roborantur. q. 59. a. 1. et art. 2. sicut potest novum symbolum condere, ita potest novos articulos supra alios multiplicare.

Papa potest facere novos articulos fidei, id est, quod modo credi oporteat, cum sic prins non oporteret. In cap. cum Christus de hæret. n. 2.

h Papa potest inducere novum articulum fidei. In idem.

I Super 2. Decret. de jurejur. e. nimis. n. 1.

Apud Petrum Ciezum, t. 2. institut. per cap. 69.

it may be concluded that some of their articles are parts of this new faith; and that they can, therefore, in no sense be apostolical, unless their being Roman makes them so.

To this may be added another consideration, not much less material, that besides what Eckius told the elector of Bavaria, that the doctrines of Luther might be overthrown by the fathers, though not by Scripture; they have also many gripes of conscience concerning the fathers themselves, that they are not right on their side; and of this, they have given but too much demonstration by their expurgatory indices. The serpent, by being so curious a defender of his head, shows where his danger is, and by what he can most readily be destroyed. But besides their innumerable corruptings of the fathers' writings; their thrusting in that which was spurious, and like Pharaoh, killing the legitimate sons of Israel '; though in this, they have done very much of their work, and made the testimonies of the fathers to be a record infinitely worse, than of themselves uncorrupted, they would have been (of which divers learned persons have made public complaint and demonstration); they have at last fallen to a new trade, which has caused more disreputation to them, than they have gained advantage, and they have virtually confessed, that, in many things, the fathers are against them.

For first, the king of Spain gave a commission to the inquisitors to purge all catholic authors; but with this clause, "Iique ipsi privatim, nullisque consciis, apud se indicem expurgatorium habebunt, quem eundem neque aliis communicabunt, neque ejus exemplum ulli dabunt:" "that they should keep the expurgatory index privately, neither imparting that index, nor giving a copy of it to any."-But it happened, by the Divine providence so ordering it, that about thirteen years after, a copy of it was gotten and published by Johannes Pappus, and Franciscus Junius; and since it came abroad against their wills, they find it necessary now to own it, and they have printed it themselves. Now by

1 Johannes Clemens aliquot folia Theodoreti laceravit, et abjecit in focum, in quibus contra transubstantionem præclare disseruit. Et cum non ita pridem Origenem excuderunt, totum illud caput sextum Johannis et quod commentabatur Origenes omiserunt, et mutilum ediderunt librum propter eandem causam.