your Covetousness, which you confesse to have crept into the Masse, by the error of time, and wickednesse of men, we have reformed. If you require warrantie from your own Church, your Councell decreed, That the Ordinary should hee very carefull to remove all those things, which either covetousness. or worship of idols, or superstition had brought in. Lastly, your private Masse we have reformed, and restored to the Communion of Priest and people. If you expect warrantie from your own Church, Anacletus, and Calixtus, (both Bishops of Rome) decreed; that after Consecration all present should communicate, or else bee thrust out of the Church †. And your late Councell of Trent, although they reformed not this doctrine, yet Optaret quidem sacrosancta Synodus ; The Councell could wish, that the people might communicate with the Priest; and there they give the reason for it: Because it would be more fruitful and more profitable.

If therefore we have changed your Sacrifice into a Sacrament; your carnal and grosse eating of Christ, into a spirituall receiving by faith; your half Communion into the whole Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ; your private Masse, into the publike communion of Priest and people; your adoration of Images, into the true worship of God in spirit and truth; your prayer and service in an unknown tongue, into the vulgar language to be understood of the common. people; your lascivious and wanton songs, into David's Psalmes; we have done nothing herein, but what the Apostles, what the holy Fathers, what the ancient Bishop of Rome taught in the first and best ages, and

* Ordinarii locorum Episcopi ea omnia probibere atque è medio tollere sedulò carent ac teneantur, quæ vel avaritia, idolorum servitus, vel superstitio indaxit. Idem, Can. 9.

† Dist. 1. Episcopus et 2. Peracta.

+ Sess. 22. c. 6.

what

what your grand Councell of Trent intended, and wished to be reformed in this latter age. Nay more, since your Councel hath made several Decrees for Reformation; since they can neither plead want of Authority, nor want of time, during the lives of eight Popes, and eighteen yeeres continuance, why they did not proceed, and put in execution those Decrees, I hope we shall deserve the greater thanks from your Popes and Cardinalls, for rectifying those abuses which they themselves condemned, and from their own Decrees and faire pretences, may justly arrogate to ourselves that honourable Title of Reformed Churches.

Give me leave therefore, by way of counter-challenge to your Jesuit, to use the words of soberness and truth. Where was your Church and Trent doctrine before Luther? for I call God and his heavenly Angels to witness, that notwithstanding you obtrude the invisibility of our Church as a stumbling-block to the ignorant; notwithstanding your great brags of an outward face of an eminent, and glorious Romane Church; yet your Trent faith and doctrine was far from the knowledge of Christ and his Apostles: nay more, if any Jesuite, or all the Jesuites alive, can prove your Roman Faith had Antiquity, Universalitie, and Succession, in all ages, and that your Trent Articles were plainly, commonly and continually taught, and received de Fide, as Articles of Faith, before Luther, let all the Anathemas in your Trent Councell fall upon my head. And as touching the great noise and rumors of your Catholike Church, if you will consider and weigh it with wisdom and moderation, you shall find, it wholly depends upon two doubtfull and uncertain conclusions, (viz.) The Infallibilitie of the Pope, and the Intention of the Priest.

*The Counce! of Trent began Ann. 1545, and ended Ann. 1563. Bell. Chro, p. 121. 123.

These

These are but two slender threds to uphold the uni versall faith of all Christians; and therefore blame not us, if such things seem harsh and untunable in our eares, that many millions of souls should depend upon the Infallibility of one man; and that man by your own supposal, may draw with him innumerable soules to hell. That man who hath the name and nature of Antichrist in his person; in the one as he is against Christ and his doctrine; in the other as he claimes to be Christ's Vicar, and sit in his stead, (for the very name of Antichrist imports both.) That man upon whose forehead, (by, the testimonies of learned Authors) the word Mysteriet, the very mark of the Beast was sometimes written. That man who is pointed at by the Apostle, to be that Antichrist, by his habitation seated upon seven hills, (Revel. 17.) That man, who hath the character of the man of sin, which advanceth himselfe above all that are called Gods; (2 Thess. ii. 4.) (viz.) the Kings and Princes of the earth §. That man, who hath published the doctrine of Devils, hy forbidding of meats, and Marriage (1 Tim. iv.) unto Priests. Lastly, that man whose Infallibility, whose Succession, whose Orders, whose Baptisme, and Christianitie itselfe, depends upon the Intention of a silly Priest, of whose Intention none can be assured by your own confessions. It is not the great sound of a visible Church that must outface the truth; (for the emptiest vessels make the greatest sound) neither is it the name of Catholike, (which you wholly appropriate to yourselves) suf ficient to prove your Church Catholike: nay more, your pretences of Scriptures, of Traditions, of Fathers,

* Anti-Christ signifies against Christ, and to be in the place of Christ, Dr. James in his Epist, Dedicatory of the Corruption of the Fathers, &c, † ἐπτάλοφος Ρώμη. I have said ye are Gods. Ps. lxxxii. 6.

Cone, Flor. in Decret. Eugenii,

¶ Bell. de Justif. lf. 3. c. 8.

of

of Councells, of an Infallible Church, are but figge-leaves, to cover the nakednesse of your new borne faith: for it shall appeare, (by this small Treatise) that your chiefest scriptures, on which you build your Trent doctrine, are Apocryphal; your Traditions, which you have equalled to the Scriptures, are Apostolicall: your Fathers, which you assume for Interpreters of the Scriptures, are spurious and counterfet: your Councells, which depend upon the Infallibilitie of the Pope's judgment, are erronious and doubtful; and your pretended Catholike Church, which is made the onely rule of Faith, is neither a whole, nor yet a sound member of the Catholike and Universall Body, This way therefore which you take, is a cloke and colour to darken truth, by outward shewes, and specious pretences, and therefore Via Devia, a wandring and By-way.

Neither is it your bitternesse and invectives against a Layman, shall make me silent in God's cause; for I say with Moses, Would God all the Lord's people could prophecie; (Num. xii. 29.) and I hope there will never be wanting a Mildab, and a Medab, to assist Moses and Aaron, that may bee able to vindicate God's Honor and Truth, and ease our painful Pastors and Ministers, which most laboriously performe the worke of an Evangelist, and convert soules by preaching, which yours pervert by Controversies of Disputations; I hope, I say, there will be alwaies some, who will publish, to the shame of your Romish Pastors, the palpable ignorance of the Laitie, who with an implicite faith, and involved obedience, resigne up their sight and senses to blind guides. Let the Trueth of God and his Church flourish, and no rayling accusation of an Adversary shall deterre me from my service to his cause. In the meane time I will appeale to your own consciences, whether it bee Catholike doctrine, or savour of Christian Charitie,

which your Jesuites teach, (viz.) That the Reformed Churches are no more to be heard, then the devill himselfe, although they speake trueth, and agreeable to the Scriptures; nay more, I speak it with shame and griefe, the Pope at this day allowes the Talmud of the Jewes, and yet prohibites the Books of Protestants †.

Give me leave therefore to speak to you, as sometime S. Austen spake to the Donatists: If you will be wise, and understand the trueth, it is well: if otherwise, it shall not grieve mee, that I have taken this paines for you: for though your hearts returne not to the peace of the Church, yet my peace shall returne to mee in the Church. The cause is God's, the labour is mine: if you will reade it impartially, and can shew me any error clearly, faithfully, and moderately, I will make a work of Retractations, and professe openly with righteous Job: 0 that mine adversary would write a Booke against me, I would take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a Crowne unto me. (Job. xxxi. 35, 36.)

H. L.

• Hæreticos non magis audiendos esse etiamsi vera et sacris literis consentanea dicant, aut doceant, quam Diabolum. Mald. in Math. 16. 6.

↑ Discept. Theol. Sect. 2.

Aug. contr. Petil. lib. 3. cap. 59.