I Haue in that measure of Gods spirit & grace, which it pleased him of his mercifull good­nes to bestow vpon me, vttered so much out of this text concerning the lamb of God, as I thought cōuenient and requisitiue for the very plaine, true, sincere, effectuall, and christian explication or ex­position of the same. As I pray God, euen God the lambe of God, make me euer more and more able, out of the same scripture, and euery like scripture still and still to preach the lambe of God, the same blessed lamb of God, that taketh away the sinne of the world. In the handling and declaring of which text, both for the Hi­storie [Page 74] and the doctrine with other circumstances there­vnto appertaining, my whole treatise hitherto hath bin demonstratiue or declaratiue by way of plainest confir­mation and commendation. Now more fully to pro­secute this matter, I purpose by Gods help, to enter in­to a more schollerly discourse by way of Confutation or Reprehension, as commonly in cases of doctrine & discourse this inuectiue or elenchticall is to follow that other demonstratiue or declaratiue manner of procee­ding, as one great part of confirmation. I would to God, many yoong youthes, and some other had no more neede of this kinde of confutation then I could wish, but seeing I feare me there is great neede thereof with some, I trust my good purpose will be the better liked of the better sort, vnto whom I wish my self neere both to heare and see them, as Lactantius did because he could not be one of them, c. 1. l. 3. aduersus gentes; and I hope some of the rest, as it may please God to worke, may reape some good therby, as I hartily pray to God, they may. S. Iohn saith, behold the lambe of God, and so I still and still say, and so must al good christians and eue­ry good christian euer and euer say, and not onely say with the mouth, but euer and euer thinke, euen with the very hart, euen in the very bowels of al christian af­fection and zeale, behold the lambe of God, that was be­fore the world was, that was mistically and as it were in a holy reuerend vaile or shadow prefigured in Moses. law, that was in aboundance of diuine spirit liuely and zealously foretold by the Prophets, that was certainely and effectually preached by the Apostles, that is assu­redly and infallibly described by the Euangelists, that in the whole word of God, in the law and the gospell, [Page 75] in the old and new Testament, euer hath, and is, and e­uer shall be preached from generation to generation, as the onely true lambe of God, as the onely true sauiour of the world, as our onely true mediator and redeemer, euen Iesus the righteous true God and true man, by whom, from whom, and in whom only we haue what­soeuer good wee haue, otherwise without him remay­ning in the most wretched, most wofull, and desperate state of vtter damnation both of body and soule. Ther­fore we that beleeue the law of God and the Prophets of God, the gospell of Christ & the Apostles of Christ, the creation of the world and the saluatiō of the world, as God forbid, but we should all beleeue, as it becom­meth the people of God and all good christians to be­leeue, we that beleeue the Canonical scriptures and de­sire to be members of the Catholicke church whereof Christ is the head, must faithfully and vnfainedly ac­knowledge this lambe of God to be very God himself, to be the promised Messias and onely Iesus, to be the onely sonne of God that taketh away the sinne of the world. Wee often repeat our Beliefe, of the creation of the world by God the Father, of the saluation of the world by God the sonne euen the lamb of God, of the sanctification of the world by God the holy-ghost, one true euerlasting and onely wise God, who raigneth in all and aboue all for euer and euer▪ this we often say, and should alwaies think, as we are in al christian zeale, and with all perfect hatred to abhorre those that say or think the contrary.

Alas, a thousand errors, and heresies, and blasphe­mies, and idolatries, and impieties, haue ouerflowen the world, and wickednes hath stretched out a long [Page 76] arme on euery side, from the East to the West, through­out the world and round about the world: yet Christ still hath numbred his elect, the great Shepheard kno­weth his sheepe, there wanteth not a visible or inuisible congregation of the faithful, to make vp Christes mili­tant Church: there are many true Christian souldiers euer ready to fight vnder the Ensigne & ancient of the lambe of God, that neuer bowed the knee to Baal, that neuer committed any heathenish or prophane idola­trie, that neuer were defiled or corrupted with the fil­thines of the whore of Babylon, that neuer either de­uoted themselues to false gods, or denied the true li­uing God, or said in their hearts with the vngodly and godlesse foole, there is no God, that crie dayly and howerly, and euer sincerely and faithfully, Behold the lambe of God, ô Lord Iesus come quickly, thy will be done in earth as it is in heauen, thou art God, and there is none other God but thou, a iust and a sauing God, as the Prophet Esay saith c. 45. v. 21. O let vs all cry thus, let vs all set our selues against all that write, or say, or think otherwise. Students reade many things, euen of God, and of Christ, and otherwhiles against God and his Christ, as for God & his Christ, here they must folow the direction of a godly iudgement, here true christia­nity must ouerrule false paganisme, and desperate athe­isme, here the spirite of God must confute and con­found the spirite of the deuill, the spirite of Antichrist, the spirite of false Prophets, the spirite of deceitfull he­retikes, the spirite of worldly hypocrites, the spirite of blasphemous and impious villaines, that care neither for God nor the deuill, that measure all by present pro­fite, or pleasure without any regard of posteritie, and ei­ther [Page 77] acknowledge no God, or els make thē their gods that feed their owne humor most, or most aduaunce their wicked purposes: Without this directiō of Gods spirite, and without this godly discretion and Christian iudgement, to discerne betweene the trueth of God, & the falshode of the deuill, alas how soone may students most of all other be misled and seduced by many wry­ters of much account among them, who had no sence or feeling of this lamb of God, or any such christian do­ctrine, but in the aboundance of their owne carnall hu­mor, and in their grosse worldly sense tooke vpon them to iudge of all matters, as well spirituall as corporall, by the only direction of their natural reason, or rather fan­tasticall conceite, which otherwhile carried them head­long into all error and blasphemie? I will passe ouer those old Atheists, Diagoras, Protagoras, Democritus, Phi­losophers, Aristippus and Epicurus, Courtiers, the 288, sectes of heathenish schollers, which S. Augustine men­tioneth out of Varro, l. 19, de Ciuitate Dei, many of the heathen Poets, both Greeke and Latin, and such like, whose godlesse and vnchast opinions are too common among the common sort of Students. I would to God Aristotles sensuall naturall philosophie, in his 3. bookes de anima, of the immortalitie of the soule, which that small abstract of Athenagoras doeth sufficiently ouer­throwe, to omitte Aeneas, and other of greater labour herein; and his morall philosophie of mans perfect feli­citie, l. 1. c. 10. Ethec. l. 10. c. 6, 7. were not sometime for vaine disputations sake, or I wot not how, more hotlie mainteined with leaue and liking, then were conueni­ent in our christian scholes and companies, seeing such o­ther matters of lesse importance haue with the same Schoolistes [Page 78] been so earnestly and egerly disalowed, but if Cassianus be iud­ged of his angry children, they wil out vith their penkniues by and by, and haue their peniworths of him that was once ouer them; yoong vnskilfull physicians count bodies sometimes past hope that haue as much life in them as themselues with all their inspectiues; the wild hart would not haue arrested the sheepe of debt if the woolfe his enemie had not bene iudge; hee that maketh an error and the report thereof both one, cannot recite it against another but he shall therein be against him­selfe; one eare and one tale can neuer doe the iudge honesty, and how can he determine, which knoweth not the controuersie? which heareth but one part? which maketh suspition a proofe? he is extreemely partiall that winketh at a filthy life, and will not abide a homely word, as if a rhetoricall rule were more pre­cious then a morall; neyther Irenaeus, nor Epiphanius, nor other old or yoong schollers are blasphemous for repeating the blasphemies of written heresies; he that knew Alipius well, did not once thinke him guilty of theft because he studied in the place, and by chaunce handled the hammer and other tooles that a robber left there, S. Augustine would not accuse him more in his confessions to God, then those hasty fellowes which tooke them out of his hands, and handled those instru­ments more then he had done; he is strangely wise, that feareth shadowes and yet taketh his enemy by the hand; that strayneth at a gnat and swalloweth a camell; that condemneth an here­sie in one schoole and yet commendeth it in another; that thin­keth no mans gowne whole cloth but only his owne, as Aristo­tle iudged all writers erroneous beside himselfe.

He was without doubt in some points an excellent philosopher, but sometimes euen his naturall reason faileth, and our common sense confuteth his common sense▪ but the particulars of his questions and disputa­tions, [Page 79] wherein he transcendently exceedeth other men are not very fit for this place. Come to supernaturall and diuine matters, and alas what are his Metaphisicks, where he maketh any mention of god or gods, but ei­ther absurd Paganisme or intollerable Atheisme. If we doubt hereof, let vs search better, l. 12. metap. c. 7, 6, 8, 9, 10. and not fondly goe about to excuse or salue the matter, by distinction of a Philosophicall truth, and a Theologicall truth, or by any like fruitlesse suttilty and quiddity of the schooles: there is but one perfection & truth of one & the same matter, & that truth must be fet out of the diuinitie and highest schooles euen into the philosophy and lower schooles, wheresoeuer heathe­nish philosophy is cōtrary or contradictory to Christs diuinity, as Viues speaketh more instantly, l. 5. cor. art. Beware, lesse any man spoile you through philosophy and vaine deceipt, after the traditions of men, and after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ, saith S. Paul Colos. c. 2. v. 8. We must not be miscarried with the plausible name of Aristotle, or Philosophy, no more then of Therapontigonus of Pyrgopolynices, or such, but must christianly consider what becommeth Christians to beleeue, & most christianly defend that which may be warranted by good christianity, whereby in our in­fancy we were incorporated into the church, and in our last end hereafter shal be receiued into the triūph of heauen. Aristotle no doubt had a notable & high reach in many controuersies of common reason, notwith­standing his errors of the number of spheres, the order of planets, the saltnes of the sea, the cause of fountains, the time of the rainebow, the Salamanders quality, the proportion of mans body, and other particulars noted [Page 80] by Viues, Greuinus, Albertus, Bessarion, Bodinus, & the rest, but Christ knoweth, how far he was frō the true know­ledge of a regenerate minde & a more perfit reason, di­rected and reformed according to Gods owne philoso­phy in the only fountain of all truth cōcerning matters of beleefe & the very perfit truth it selfe▪ for they which knew not God nor his word, that is the bread of life & vnderstanding and the water of wisdome, without which none can liue saith Iesus, c. 15. v. 3. nor glorified him as God, became vaine in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was full of darkenes, filling their hungrie schollers with swines meate in steade of the childrens bread, Luke c. 15. v. 16. as Gabriel Biel applyeth that text, in his initial oration against philosophical cu­riositie and ignorance, and for christian profession, to his prelections de canone missae; when they professed thē selues wise they became fooles, saith S. Paul that great Doctor, Rom. c. 1. v. 21, 28. But no maruell though be­fore Christes comming, the heathenish Philosophers hauing no conference with the people of God, & pre­ferring Athens before Ierusalem, and the kingdome of Macedonia or Persia, before the kingdome of Israël, no maruell though such Philosophers before Christ had no sense, or but very little feeling of God and Christ, considering how many great Scholers, and famous writers, euen since the incarnation of our Sauiour Christ according to his humanitie, euen since this Christian Philosopher S. Iohn cried out, Behold the lamb of God, haue either blindly of ignorance, or spitefully of malice, or diuelishly of impiety and wickednes, not on­ly not acknowledged this lambe of God, or any such saluation or redemption of the world by this lambe of [Page 81] God, but also denied, and defaced, & blasphemed this most innocent, and most righteous lambe of God. I let passe the rabble of Scribes and Pharisees, and Iewish Rabbines, and other hypocrites, that not regarding Christs vnmatchable starre, or Gods irrefragable voice from heauen, either with hand or with heart did con­spire the bitter most intollerable passion of this most in­nocent lambe of God, and so vniustly and vnmerciful­ly crucified the most mercifull Sauiour of the worlde. We are taught by S. Paul, not to take heede of any Iew­ish fables, or commandementes of men turning from the truth, Tit. c. 1. v. 14. He that readeth of their Thal­mud or doctrine, may soone see their blasphemies a­gainst God, in fayning him euery day to weepe once, to be angry once, & then the creste of the cock is white and pale: in accusing him of sinne, when hee made the Moone lesse then the Sunne: of a lie, when he calleth the Sunne a greater light, and the Moon a lesse: against Christ, in supposing that the temple of Ierusalem was not so rased and destroyed, but that three or foure cu­bites were vntouched, and those stones left one vpon another, where a Rabbine might sitte, and studie the Thalmud: against heauen, by deuising a hole in the North-parts, which is vnfinished, to trie by way of cha­lenge, if any can match Gods worke, and make it vp. Whereupon certaine new Buylders, with new wittes, haue set a Chappel with the high end to the North, that their faces being turned that way in prayers time, God at their humble suit may himselfe make vp that hole after so many yeares triall of other defectiue efficients. Nowe they saide, all euill comes from the North, because that part is open, which being stopped, the euill may perhaps be stopped, and thus they builded. If our Emanuel [Page 82] like well of this dedication, who may or dare call it mis-went, or mis-set? and what new founder wil not follow this patterne, by the counsell of that Quidam in Munster, he that seeketh ri­ches, goeth and looketh toward the North, perhappes hereby to obtaine an increase of yerely reuenues, by praying that way for dayly bread, or to be contrarie vnto Mahomet, whose face is toward the South, as other Christians are contrarie to the Iewes in looking towards the East. O happie times, and happie men, that reuiue Homer and Auerroes, and other renowmed Pagans, to make them builders and Architects in Christes Church? wee are too common and vulgar now, but they are so peerelesse, that we may hope for new artes, new manners, new worldes, to preuent articall hyperboreall harmes, and to winne goods by the sonnes of Arcturus, whom perhaps they can guide by their learning, and answere the question in Iobs booke, cap. 38. v. 32. against the Moone, in sending her to God her creator, to complaine of the Sun, for keeping the light from her at his certaine times: against innocent Adam, by geuing him both natures of male and female in Pa­radise before Eue was made, and telling of his ingen­dring with the beasts of the field: against Noa the Prea­cher of righteousnes, by reporting of the Crowes ielo­sie toward him: to let passe many such impudent ficti­ons, vnreasonable impieties, senselesse things. But the Iewes credit is little worth with Christians, and them­selues are weried and tyred with looking so long for a new Messias, whereas they had the right lambe of God among them, and most horribly slaughtered him with­out all pitie or mercie, euen according to the spirituall visions, and diuine predictions of the Prophets, that e­uery scripture might be fulfilled, and no iote of Gods word passe vnaccomplished, Act. c. 4. v. 28.

[Page 83]The first comming of this lambe in humilitie is as certainly past, as his second comming in maiesty & glo­ry is not farre of. God grant we be found ready at the great comming of the great bridegrome, with the fiue wise virgins that were so well prouided with oyle in their lamps. Math. c. 25. v. 7, 10. As I haue lightly passed ouer the light and vaine Iewes, so I hope I may also do with the Turks, considering that the very name of Iew and Turke are alike odious among good Christians. The Alcoran and Mahomets whole heape of learning is not vnknowne to some students: where Mahomet is made a greater and a mightier prophet then Christ, because he had a greater body and was girded with a sword; where the lambe of the diuell, or rather that woolfe of hell is preferred before the lambe of God, because the beast wrought more wonders then Iesus: where God is said, to be but one onely single God in person, without any wife and therefore without any sonne or daughter, or any such issue, because God is not able in his extraordinary power to beget a body without ordinary means: where diuers notable histo­ries and speciall parts of the bible are fabulously deliue­red & strangly corrupted, because otherwise they serue not his purpose: where the finger of the diuell hath in­countred the finger of God, and the spirit of Belzebub opposed it selfe against the spirit of Christ. This horri­ble & abhominable booke, although it be read of some men, yet I trust, there is not any christian, that maketh any better account thereof then it deserueth, though Leo Nardus gather out of it a certaine Confirmation of our gospell in his tollerable vnnecessary deuise, being in truth the very booke of the diuell, vnder pretense of [Page 84] worshipping the one only true God, whereas no man cōmeth to the father, but he whom the sonne leadeth and guideth, as many texts of scripture might be allea­ged to that purpose. Iohn c. 14. v. 6. Math. c. 11. v. 27. &c. In this booke Sergius a false monke and a Nestorian he­retike had his hand, therein thinking to go beyond all Antichrists in oppugning and defacing the diuinity of Christ. Sabel. l. 6. Enne. 8. but I hope there shal not great­ly neede any long confutation in this place, either of Mahometists, or of Nestorians, or of any like hereticks, that denied the deity of Christ; they haue bene mate­rially and throughly confuted by the best diuines of al ages from time to time, euē since the primitiue church to this day, and these Sergianks and Alcoranks cannot endure long, but they shall be stopped vp as wels with­out water: and they are carried about with a whirle­winde and tempest; and to them the blacke darkenesse is reserued for euer. 2. Pet. c. 2. v. 17.

God be praised, this poison hath not greatly at any time infected this church of Englād or any special mē ­bers therof, but hath alwaies bin reckoned among the most venimous scismes, the most horrible apostasies, & the most abhominable heresies of other erroneous churches: and little better account may iustly be made of Scaliger, that suttle maister of late yeares, suttle as a spinners web full of cunning and simply good for nothing, and therefore hated of right wisdome which the heathen miscalled Pallas, as the morall physitian Petrarke writeth; l. 1. dial. 7. who ey­ther in the pride of his name Iulius Caesar, or of his wit, or militarship, accounteth the ministers of holy things in al coun­tries and places, like those Mahometicall impostors which de­ceiued the king of Moluccae with their Manucodiata a bird [Page 85] of paradise, for dreaming and fayning many matters, thereby to lead the people into vaine hope and maintaine their opini­ons or sects; Exercit. 228.5. And little better account hath bene made of Iosephus the writer of the Iudaicall historie and himselfe a Iewish priest, who reporteth of Iesus but as of another good wise man, or a good pro­phet at the most, because he could say no more then he knew, or would not seeme to be wiser then his coun­trymen, from whom both the turkish and all other vn­gratious violent doctrines had their beginning. l. 18. c. 4. antiq. Some other places of christendome haue bene more touched and plagued with these corrupt inuenti­ons of Iudaisme, Nestorianisme, Mahometisme, & such like execrable apostasies and heresies, robbing Christ of his diuinity, and themselues of their saluation, in de­nying him to be the lambe of God. I pray God, wee may euer continue cleare in the vniuersities and cities, which are to be the nurseries of true doctrine and se­minaries of true religion▪ the tree of apostasie and he­resie must not onely be hewen downe, but plucked vp by the very rootes, and burned in vnquenchable fire. Math. c. 3. v. 10.

Certaine ancient fathers in the primitiue Church were troubled with confuting the wicked ruffianly a­postata Iulian, Carion saith l. 3. who desperately oppo­sed himselfe with might and maine; with haue among yee my maisters the Nazarites, during that short florish of his empire (which vanished like a mist, euen as Atha­nasius had prophesied of him) against the holy one in Israel, the blessed lambe of God, and not onely fought against Christ with the tyrannicall armes of a bloudy Emperour, but also with the sophisticall weapons of a [Page 86] broken rhetorician, euer ready aswel to martyr the zea­lous confessor with the one, as to confute the most zea­lous doctor with the other. But himself in the end was striken with an arrow wonderfully, as Achab was, & cō ­strayned to crie out in a horrible and wofull agonie, Vicisti galilaee, ô galilean, thou hast gotten the victory, ô Christ, I must needes confesse my selfe ouercome, and so he gaue vp the blacke ghost, Theod. l. 3. c. 25. and cer­taine fragments of his glorious and blasphemous stile are yet extant, sufficiently confuted aswell by many learned christians, as by that ancient Greeke bishop Cy­rillus, whose purposely vndertooke that labour▪ tom. 3. the lip of truth shal be stable for euer, Prouer. c. 12. v. 19. great is the truth, mighty is the truth, and it preuaileth. 3. Esdr. c. 4. v. 41. The lyke tragicall successe in effect had those other Emperours his companions, who went a­bout to set vp Apollonius Tyanaeus against Christ, and to prefer his strange wōderments before the diuine mira­cles of Christ, as if greater diuinity had appeared in the magicall impostures of Apollonius the vaine Pythagorist, then in the heauenly miracles of Iesus whose name is wonderful, Esai c. 9. v. 6. according to that saying in the gospel; false Christs and false prophets shall arise, & shal shew signes & wōders, to deceaue, if it were possible, e­uen the elect, Matth. c. 24. v. 24. whereas both thēselues, those Antichristian Emperors, as Bullinger wryteth of Tyrants tragedies, c. 20. and their great iugler or magi­cian, or impostor, or Philosopher, or whatsoeuer the de­uill he was, soone vanished into smoke, and had an end answerable to their beginning, notwithstanding the manifest applauses of sundrie smoothing parasites to­ward the one, and the goodly fine deuises of some glo­sing [Page 87] Rhethoricians for the other: as the booke of Euse­bius Caesariensis against that false Philalethes, sheweth plainly, and as Herodotus and other Gentiles in the light of nature only can say, that no iniustice hath euer bene vnpunished, [...], in Terpsichore, a voice in a vision by night sent to Hip­parehus a tyrant before his death.

I cannot here forget either Hierocles, or Philostratus, or Dion Prusensis, or Libanus the Philosopher, or Lucian, or Eunapius, or the rest of that Greekish conceited crue, who vainly and impiously whetted the edge of their fantastical Rhetorike and Philosophy, against him that raigneth in heauen, while they like desperate helhoūds most wofully gnash their teeth in hell: commending to such natures the sentence of Aulus Gellius, l. 12. c. 11. taken from the mouth of that graue and constant Philosopher Pere­grinus surnamed Proteus, whom they so lustely and brauelie contemne. Not to sinne vpon hope of being hid, because no cor­ner is hid from God and time▪ where is the wise? where is the Scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made the wisdome of this world foolishnes? but we preach Christ crucified, vnto the Iewes a stum­bling block, and vnto the Greekes foolishnes, but vnto them that are called wee preach Christ, the power of God, and the wisdome of God, for the foolishnesse of God is wiser then men, and the weakenesse of God is stronger then men, 1. Cor. c. 1. v. 19, 20, 22, &c. Ah wret­ched Lucian, iustly surnamed Atheos, thou blasphemer and whelpe of Arrius, no iote inferior for impietie to Lucian the Marcionist, that didst in thy Peregrinus re­quite the most grieuous, but most happy passion of the blessed lamb of God, with so blasphemous a scoffe, and [Page 88] so damnable a phrase, as to call him, ô deuil as thou art, the crucified Sophister and hanged impostor, whereas thy damned selfe now doest with the Apologie of My­cillus about thy necke, and all other must hang in hell, that are tickled with any such hellish Rhethoricke, or whet their delicate wittes vpon him, that is able to be­reaue them of all witte, and can vtterly confound them with the least breath of his mouth.

Alas, what is Rhethoricke or Philosophy, or any good gift, either of tongues or knowledge, of speech or reason, if they be abused and peruerted to a bad vse? O man what hast thou that thou hast not receiued? If thou hast receiued it, why doest thou boast and vaunt thy selfe, as if thou hadst not receiued it? 1. Cor. c. 4. v. 7. One writeth of Lucian, that as trim a felow, and as fine a Rhethorician as hee is, a student were better not reade him at all, then reade him all, meaning that horrible outragious part against Christ, named Alexander Pseu­domantis, like a very plaguesore in a liuing body, a peri­lous part for yong wits to deale withall, that be not ful­ly catechised and christianized aforehand. It is not vn­knowen to some, how this diuelish impe and scoffing rakehell for a time became a Christian, but soon reuol­ted, saith Volaterranus, and after his most execrable apo­stacie was wont to say, that all he gate by his Christen­dome, was the addition of one sillable to his name, be­ing before called Lucius, but then christened Lucianus, like one made onely to iest, a very animal risibile, as Eu­napius reckoneth of him, or rather, which turned the grace of God into wantonnes, ordeyned before to this condemnation, as saith S. Iude v. 4.

He might haue at least sported without harme to [Page 89] himselfe and not haue bene condemned by his owne mouth; and to iest with a iester, if he had said, that his baptisme lifted him from ima, and gaue him life, or the first syllable of anima, it had not bene very greatly a­misse: but like enough the gentleman was in such a kind of laughing melancholy, as a countryman was, a­gainst the great archbishop of Collen, when he turned his rawe dutch iest on the worst hande very proudly & rudely in this sort; If the archbishop goeth with such harnessed men, because he sustaineth the person of a Duke, not only of a Bishop, I pray, when the diuels car­rie the Duke to hell, what shift will the Bishop make? whereas he might haue said with as much reason and more obedience, for ought I see in Fulgosius and Duäre­nus the reporters hereof, when the good angels shall carry the Bishop to the ioyes of heauen, what should the Duke be afraide of his ende? but then he had not bene a right German clowne; no more had Lucian bin antichristian, which name he liked best in spite of all good names, as Lactantius iudgeth of him, l. 1. c. 9. de fal. celi. and in spite of Traians and Plutarchs sober vertues, as Viues cēsureth him, l. 2. de verit. fidei. Lord God, what is mans wit without the grace of God? what is mans reason and learning without the spirit of God? Achito­phel may seeme an oracle for the time, but at the last for all his exceeding great wisedome he hanged himselfe. 2. Kings c. 17. v. 23. Lucian was but an ape to Achitophel, and therefore the lesse maruell though hee came to an apish death, and were rent in peeces of dogs, as Suidas reporteth, like that cursed starched creature Iezabel. I beseech God, rid vniuersities, cities, courts, townes and countries of such apes, which behaue themselues in matters [Page 90] of religion, as if they were in a tennis court or vawting schoole, without any reuerence or regard, and eyther giue them more feare of God, which is the beginning of wisdome, or lesse pride in the florish of their owne wit, which is the end & ouerthrow of all goodnes. As Iannes and Iambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth, men of corrupt mindes, reprobate concerning the faith, but they shall preuaile no longer, for their madnesse shal be manifest vnto all men, as also theirs was. 2. Timo. c. 3. v. 8. Neither am I only to complaine of Lucian, or those other vaine gree­kish wits, as of Iannes and Iambres, and such like, and far aboue any such, but diuers learned Romans of much better note when they liued, and euer since reputed ve­ry sensible, reasonable, wise men, cast themselues head­long into the same damnable gulfe of blasphemy and Atheisme. If any man loue not the Lord Iesus Christ, let him be anathema, and had in execration, yea let him be maranatha, and abhorred vnto the death. 1. Cor. c. 16. v. 22. Lord God, what should I say to the two Plinies, the vncle and the nephew, famous learned men, but a­las most wretched soules to God? whereof the one in his naturall history, l. 7. not subtilly or sophistically, like Aristotle, or his Arabian and corrupt interpretour Auer­roes, but flatly and resolutely denieth the immortalitie of the soule; the other, l. 10. reporteth of Christ and the primitiue christians of his age, as he listeth, in the aboū ­dance and liking of his owne carnall conceit, measu­ring the soule by the body, the line by the timber: these are fleshly, they are makers of sectes, they haue not the spirit, and therefore they mislike the fruits hereof, as S. Iude saith, v. 19. I cannot deny but Cornelius Tacitus is a graue & wise historian in many points, yet how lightly [Page 91] and foolishly, nay how wickedly and impiously doth he report of Christ and his professed followers? l. 15. wherefore these are no more to be esteemed of vs, ey­ther for their oratourship or other learning, then Ter­tullus that oratour, and Elymas that cunning man were esteemed of the Apostles: Acts c. 13. v. 10. c. 24. v. 16.

The like censure I and all good Christians must giue of Suetonius in the life of Nero Claudius, of Symmachus in Prudentius works, of Celsus in the bookes of Origene, & of too many other in that kinde, who either reuiled Christ in abhominable most hellish tearmes of a nota­ble malefactor and seducer of the people, in very trueth no better then hungrie rauenous dogges licking vp the vomit of the Pharisees, Mat. cap. 27. v. 62. or els acknow­ledged his only humanitie without any christian con­fession of his deitie. Such is the fashion of the worlde, and such is the guise of disguised malignant worldlings, to rayle on the person whom they may see, when they cannot disgrace his vertues which they will not see; to respect the men that are of meane estate; without regard of their stately and excellent gifts to vse generall reproofes without particular proofes, and rather be content to call him good then leaue him out of the Libell; to soare aloft and houer in the ayre like a spirite of the aire, and yet at length to licke dust, and seize vpon flies and wormes and meanest things; to carry a great name, euen a title of Legions, and yet to end but in brutish and hoggish conquestes vpon the worst and vilest matters. These disloyalties and misdemeanors are too well knowen among some men, and I would to God they were either lesse notorious, or more abhorred.

I confesse many bookes are otherwise of very great importance and worthy the reading, but Christ know­eth how much better it were quite to banish them the [Page 92] Countrey, then that they should creepe into the least credite with vs in any such matter of faith and religion; we must not iudge of Angels by the deuils will, or learne of our enemies how to vse our frendes, we must haue no felowship with the vnfruitfull works of darke­nesse, of pride, of malice, of blasphemie, but rather re­proue them, as S. Paul teacheth the Ephesians, c. 5, v. 11, &c. Men voide of the feare of Gods holy church, and geuen ouer to a recklesse sense, seeme they otherwhile to the world neuer so sensible, neuer so reasonable, ne­uer so learned, neuer so wise, neuer so hardie, neuer so subtile, both cast away themselues in the end, and doe either little or no good, nay exceeding much harme, without the good direction and reformation of a chri­stian spirite, which buildeth not vpon flesh or bloud, or vpon any goodly shew of humane witte, reason, lear­ning, experience or wisdome, but euen vpon that cor­ner stone, and vpon that most sound and inuincible rocke, whereon Christ buildeth his church, that is, a true confession of Christ with S. Peter, and a faithfull heholding of the lambe of God with S. Iohn.

Other good parts, and other good gifts are good in their kind, at least as the world counteth good, and as good goeth now a dayes, but alas, all other good with­out this good is too bad. What auayleth it to haue all the experience, all the policie, all the learning, all the wisdome, all the wealth and plausibilitie in the worlde? nay, what doeth it profite to winne the whole worlde, and to lose thine owne soule? there runneth an olde prouerbiall rithmicall verse among Schollers, notable for the sense, though otherwise not so excellent:

The greatest knowledge without Christ is no better then blind ignorance: he that well knoweth Christ, it maketh the lesse matter if his knowledge bee the lesse otherwise. O it is Christian beleefe, Christian zeale, Christian humilitie, that leadeth to heauen. Saluation commeth not of thy selfe, or of thy owne witte, thou art damned in the first Adam, and must either remayne damned still, or be regenerate and saued in the seconde Adam Iesus Christ, the propitiation of our sinnes, the immaculate lambe slaine from the beginning, and once offered on the altar of the crosse for all, the very true right only lambe of God, that taketh away the sinne of the earth: we may endeuor to sowe, or to plant, or to water, or to runne, or to doe any action, but it is God that geueth the increase and victorie. God be mercifull vnto vs, and geue vs more and more of his mercie, that through his grace and spirit we may grow and increase in his vineyard, still from better to better, to seeke still the finall destruction of these foxes which destroy the vine, till we inherite that kingdome, and enioy that crowne of glory that is prepared for him and his An­gels, for him and his elect, for him and al good Christi­ans.

Wee see how throughly the diuell hath playd his part, in opposing so many great schollers and od wits in all ages against our sauiour▪ his craft and malice hath left no way vnattempted whereby he may winne the world vnto him, he continually goeth and rangeth a­bout like a roaring lion seeking whom he may deuour. 1. Peter c. 1. v. 8. O he is a wicked and a crafty diuell, and is too well learned, to spie his owne aduauntage, and [Page 94] euer ready, to take the least occasiō of his gaine by our losse, of his strength by our infirmity, of his comfort by our miserable fall and perdition, of setting vp his owne kingdome by striuing to pull downe the kingdome of Christ; he wanteth no diuelish angels, no ministers, no instruments to serue his turne, such as those leopards souldiers, which troubled and garded Ignatius, and the better he vsed them in wordes, the worse and more in­solent they were, as it is recorded in his epistle to the Romans, he hath kings and kaysers, counsellers and no­bles, secretaries and writers, lawiers and diuines, physi­cians and many hirelings at commaundement, the di­uelish world is too full of the diuell, would to Christ, he had lesse stroke among the professors of Christ. O generation of vipers▪ how can yee speake good things, when ye yourselues are euill? for out of the aboun­dance of the hart the mouth speaketh. Matth. c. 12. v. 34. How can you once thinke, that you haue a true spirit, when nei­ther Moses nor Paul can make you, not to rayle vpon the fa­thers and iudges of the land, nor to curse the rulers of the peo­ple. Exod. c. 22. v. 28. Acts c. 23. v. 5. Yet you that be true Christians lift vp your heads, as Stoflerinus saith in the yeare, 1524. after that he foresaw the chaunges which were then like to come creeping or rushing into the world. I had thought, not to haue proceeded any fur­ther in the rehearsall of more examples, but yet behold more wicked enemies of the lambe of God▪ the men are too notorious and their writings are too famous. Italy, in old times the true mirrour of vertue and man­hood, of late yeares hath beene noted, to breed vp infi­nite Atheists, such as Caesar Borgia was, that vsing or ab­using himselfe in his life to contemne religion, despi­sed [Page 95] it on his deathbed, as Sanazarius writeth l. 2. epigr. or as Alexander the sixt, or as Leo the tenth, either of the two as irreligious, as beastly & Neronious as Nero him selfe, as the same excellent poet and knight, surnamed Sincerus for his honesty, & Actius for his industrie, hath written: but of chiefest name those three notable per­nitious fellowes, Pomponatius a great philosopher, Are­tine a great courtier or rather courtisan, the grandsire of all false and martinish courtiership, and Machiauel a great politicke. Pomponatius embracing the poisonous do­ctrine of Aristotle and Plinie, openly disputed before the Pope, and writ a Booke against the immortalitie of the soule, with such force of subtle reasons and philosophi­call persuasions, that he was thought to bring Leo the tenth then raigning, into his profane and diabolicall o­pinion, as Iouius an humanitian bishop saith; a good vicar of Christ, no doubt, and well grounded in the do­ctrine of resurrection, which is able alone to confute & euen annihilate all such bookes and libels whatsoeuer, both for the diuine and most soueraigne authoritie of the makers and authors therof, and for the necessitie of the word it self, to maintaine Gods promisse and mans dominion ouer brute beasts. Aretinus a man, or rather by morall metamorphose a beast of a most viperous & hellish spirit, in all kinde of diuelishe impiety Vnicus, and otherwise not so, in which respecte like enough neither Gesner nor Simler iudged him worthie to come into their libraries amōg other writers, although some Italians his vngracious disciples haue called him, di­uine Peter Aretine, porter of Plutoes diuinitie, or much like Tullies diuine wit of L. Lucullus, or Ouids, God is in vs, and Romish diuinity, which may euer haue a new stampe [Page 96] from his holines, and other such Rhethoricall and poëti­call lauish hyperbolees, he, I say of all other, was the ar­rogantest rakehell, and rankest villen, sauing your reue­rence, that euer set penne to paper, like cursed Sodo­mites, iesting and sporting at that which good men in naturall modestie are ashamed to speake of. Gen. cap. 19. vers. 4, 5.

His horrible most damnable booke of three impo­stors, & his impudent infamous Capricio, or Apologie of Paedarastice prooue him [...], a very incarnat deuill you may call it, and one Martin-marprelate of late hath done such a kinde of worke for very [...], and nothing els. But Aretine spake ill of that heauenly God he knew not, and perished through his owne carnall corruption, as Peter the true Apostle hath deuined, as it were, of this outcast, 1. Epist. c. 2. v. 12. whose delight & venerie was his death, as the tribe of Beniamites, not on­ly the citie of Gomorrheans, gonorreans was destroied for this sin, Iudges c. 19. when God had giuē him vp vn­to vile affections, whereby hee left the naturall vse of women, he burned in lust toward men, and wrought filthines with men, Rom. ca. 1. ver. 24, 27. a shame it is to name those things which are done of such men in se­crete, Ephes. c. 5. v. 12. Now God for his Christes sake keepe all students, and all Christians from any such de­sperate minde, from such monstruous and vnprofitable singularitie: and out vpon al such Satanish bookes, that are printed I thinke in the deuils name, and goe about euen like hungrie beares, seeking whom they may de­uour, as it were in very extreme contempt of the lambe of God, of the grace of God, of euerlasting trueth, of that most blessed vnion and singularity of true faith.

[Page 97] Aegyptians are a vaine generation, and fitter to innouate mat­ters then to gouerne present things, saith Q, Curtius l. 4. the pictures and patterns of our friuolous Atheists and Reformers, both in this point very Gypsies. Yet Machiauel not so ill as Aretine, yet Machiauel too ill, God knoweth▪ this vn­christian master of policie, raysing vp Nicolaites now of his stampe, as Nicholas an Apostata did among the seuen Deacons, is not afraid in a heathenish & tyranni­cal spirit, l. 2. of warly art, in the person of Fabricio, to ac­cuse the gospel of Christ, and the humilitie of the lamb of God, for the decay of the most flourishing and pros­perous estate of the Roman Empire, which fell by the owne idlenes and follie, as himselfe confesseth l. 7. and as other estates are ouerturned by it, the mother, and nurce, and wife of all euil, saith my honourable Lord of Essex to his Souldiers, a mother that beareth none but bondemen, a nurce that feedeth none but dulpates, a wife that marieth none but vnthrifts. His discoursiue accusatiō is in many mens hands, & I would to God the intended effect of the dis­course were not in some mens harts: howbeit, the same is learnedly cōfuted, not only by a religious french pro­testant, whose commentaries are extant, written ex pro­fesso, against Machiauel and his antichristian groundes of gouernment, but also by no vile Papist, much named and read among students, I meane Osorius in his Nobili­tate Christiana, l. 3. where it is notably proued by many worthy, diuine, and humane histories, that christian hu­militie and the profession of the lambe of God, is not any hinderance to the right fortitude beseeming the people of God, but rather a very great and principall furtherance of their valiant and inuincible acts, in figh­ting Gods owne battels, and seeking not their owne [Page 98] glorie, but the kingdome of Dauid, the kingdome of Is­raël, the kingdome of Christ, euen as Dauid himselfe fought most manfully for the establishing of that king­dome in the name of the liuing God, ouercomming valiantly not onely mighty champions and huge Gy­ants in that defence, but also vanquishing and subduing his other foes the enemies of God in infinite numbers, before him, behinde him, and round him, as appeareth notably in the bookes of Kings, in the Chronicles, and in his owne Psalmes.

And to omit the handling of militar vertues, it is most certaine, that no man is more carefull to doe his dutie, then a christian cōscience, no man more harty in doing it, then a christian faith, no mā more trusty, then christian charity, no man more conscionable, more faithfull, more charitable then a true christian man: and that secretary of hell, not only of Florence is forced to confesse in some places l. 1. disp. c. 11. vpon Liuy, and els­where, but most emphatically in his proeme to L. Phi­lip Strozza, by vehement and zealous interrogation; In whom ought there to be more feare of God, then in a warriour, which euery day committing himselfe to infinite perils, hath most neede of his helpe? A right Italian sentence, a nota­ble word, a fit preserue against the other venims which this Spider gathered out of old philosophers and hea­then authors; for that is the wit and disposition of our refor­matiue age, to gather precepts from those things which our forefathers in their learning iudged no better then obiections, and to study those matters for practise, which were first taught them for their safety, by knowing and auoiding them, and to gather common places of mens certaine and supposed errours omitting their vertues and commendations. But I cannot [Page 99] now stand to debate any such particular point or seue­rall branch of Antichristianisme▪ he is already confuted sufficiently by the generall testimony of all good con­sciences, and by the vniuersall harty consent of all god­ly and manly christians, as it may also please God, at his gratious pleasure to worke in many other not yet regenerate, that now account too well of him. Be not deceiued, God is not mocked, for whatsoeuer a man soweth that shall he also reape: for he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reape corruption, but he that soweth to the spirit, shall of the spirit reape life euerla­sting. Gala. c. 6. v. 7, 8.

Gods works are great, and mighty, and wonderful, and exceeding admirable euen aboue the capacitie of the wisest and profoundest minde in the world: yet are his mercies aboue his works, and the depth of his mer­cies far more wonderfull then the height of his works. O mercifull Lord, open the infinite fountaines & flud­gates of thy vnspeakeable mercies, and touch the harts of so many as are not vtterly obdurate and reprobate, with the finger of thy holy spirit, euen to the final refor­mation of the prodigall sonne, and ioyfull recouery of the lost sheepe, so farre as it is possible for strayed sheep to haue any portion in the sheepefold of the lambe of God. Thy holy seruants and prophets assure vs of the most happy condition and blessed estate of the king­dome of Israël, the kingdome of Dauid, the kingdome of Christ; ô let thy kingdome come, and let thy will be done in earth, as it is in heauen. As for such vncircum­cised Philistines, such blasphemous Goliahs, such rebel­lious Achitophels, such vnnaturall Onans, such wicked and desperate Atheists, as I haue named, if any such re­maine [Page 100] vpon the earth, as I feare me there are too many, and haply some among Christians, and haply some a­mōg schollers, sauouring too much of these vngratious schollers; Lord God, either speedily reforme thē in the aboundance of thy mercy, so farre as they haue not cō ­mitted that great vnpardonable sinne against the holy Ghost, or vtterly confound them with the yron rod of thy iustice, and teach other by their example to tremble at the mighty maiesty of their Lord God. Let them feele the force of the liō of the tribe of Iuda, that would not see the goodnes of the lambe of God; let them tast the insufferable torments & horrors of damnation, that refused to enioy the most comfortable & blessed estate of saluation; thy mighty stretched out arme is not wea­kened or shortened; teach them to feare their God, ei­ther like good children, or like cursed creatures, drea­ding the horrible punishmēt due to their horrible sins.

It hath pleased God in all ages, by the mouth of his Prophets vnder the law, and by the mouth of his Apo­stles vnder the gospell, to winne infinite thousands to vnfayned repentance, and to the faithfull worship of the true God, as manifestly appeareth, partly by the an­cient histories and prophesies of the old Bible, & part­ly by the gospell and Acts of the Apostles in the new Testament. In the primitiue Church the number of conuerts, and confessors, and zealous Christians, and martirs was infinite: paganisme, idolatrie, blasphe­mie, infidelitie, and heresie gaue place to christianitie; the mighty power and firie operatiō of the holy-ghost is exceeding wonderfull; innumerable multitudes were dayly and continually gayned to the church, as Augu­stine by the zealous, and eloquent, & deuout, and lear­ned [Page 101] Sermons of S. Ambrose, was reclaymed from his heathenish philosophy, and manichisme, and became a good Christian, a zealous doctor, a godly Bishop, a re­uerend father, as his bookes of confessions doe testifie, from the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the fift booke, vnto the end of that worke.

I might declare the like conuersion of infinite other, but his example is most famous, and the matter it selfe most euident; the kingdome of darkenes stouped to the kingdome of light, Satan yeelded to Christ, the world, the flesh, and the deuill were cōquered by the lambe of God, and great hope appeared of the very vniuersall establishment, and catholick peace of the Israëticall kingdome. But Satan cannot sleepe long, hee and his hellish angels must play their parts, the malice of the deuill lyeth in continuall wayte, to intrap and intangle the soule of man. Satan is a cunning and strong aduer­sarie, and euer striueth to increase his Synagogue and route of infidels, of Atheists, of Gyants, of Heretikes, of Apostataes, of Schismatiks, in euery dangerous and pe­stiferous kinde, that iniquitie might haue the vpper hand. Alas, his malice and craft preuayle too much, ô God, when thou seest thy gracious time, confound all his pestilent craft and malice, good lambe of God, take away the sinne of the world, euen this horrible and ab­hominable sinne of the wicked world: thy goodnesse is aboue all the naughtinesse of the world, we are not to limit or restraine thy omnipotencie, ô good God, be mercifull vnto vs wretched sinners, euen where our sinnes deserue hell fire, and vtter damnation. The world is wicked, the flesh is frayle, the deuill is busie, man is man, and man is subiect to all imperfections and [Page 102] vices, to all infirmities and sinnes, to all lewdnesse and naughtines, euen to that great and most horrible sinne of blasphemie, infidelitie, and atheisme, it is the only di­rection of thy grace and holy Spirite according to thy word, that can keepe vs within the bounds of good or­der, of good conscience, of good faith, of good christia­nitie, of god zeale toward the lambe of God: without which zeale what are we but the children of wrath, the sonnes of iniquitie, the impes of perdition, the mēbers of Satan, the ministers of Antichrist, very wretches and atheists? We are called Christians, ô make vs true chri­stians, ô regenerate a new heart in vs, a right christian heart, wholly and sincerely deuoted to the lambe of God.

The kings of France affect the stile and title of most Christian, the kings of Spayne haue beene tearmed Ca­tholici, our Kings and Queenes of England haue lately beene called Defenders of the faith: ô good God, make al good kings, and all good Queenes throughout al chri­stendome, and all their Subiectes, most Christian, Ca­tholike, Defenders of the faith, and suffer not any, chri­stian or vnchristian foole to say in his heart, there is no God, there is no such lambe of God that taketh away the sinne of the world. But aboue all other, & beyond all other, woe be vnto thee Antichrist, thou great ene­mie of Christ, thou whore of Babylon, thou abhomi­nation of desolation, thou holy father of infidelitie and reprobation, thou vngodly god of perdition and dam­nation, being the head of all euils, not for time and in­fluence, as Aquinas distinguisheth, but for that perfecti­on of malice which is in thee by deuilish effects. Part. 3. Quaest. 8. Artic. 8. Some thinke thee to be the Turke, as [Page 103] Melancthon in his common place on the fourth com­mandement: some the Pope, as Chemnisius in his Exa­men: some both, Draconites c. 8. Dan and Maior vpon the Epistles to the Thessalonians: some neither, as they which coūted Nero, or one of the tribe of Dan, or Luter to be he. But god knoweth, the prophesies of Ierem. tou­ching the fall of Babilon in the 5. ca. throughout; & the prophesie of Daniel touching the king of lust and self-will, c. 11. v. 36. c. 8. v. 23. and the reuelation of S. Iohn touching the same fall, c. 17, 18, 19. and the description of the great whore, the mother of the abhominations of the earth drunken with the bloud of the saints and the bloud of the martyrs of Iesus; together with that declaration of Antichrists comming before the day of Christ sette downe by Saint Paul. 2. Thessal. cap. 2. vers. 4, 8. and other like Textes are by the censure of the soundest iudgementes, examining all circumstan­ces and appendices of that Text and that Reuelati­on, most sensibly and visibly verified in the See of Rome, and in the Pope the great bishop of that See, whose intolerable pride tyrannising ouer all the kings and princes of christendome, and exalting himselfe a­boue all that is called God, is gone before, and whose ruinous shame foloweth after, when it shal please God, inuincibly to establish the kingdome of Christ, Dan. c. 2. v. 45. and vtterly to ouerthrow & desolate this king­dome of Antichrist, the man of sinne, the sonne of per­dition, the aduersary of Christ, as God sitting in the temple of God and bearing himselfe for God, as S. Paul writeth of him in the same epistle to the Thessalonians, Let any indifferent diuine not ouer partially and vn­reasonably transported with blind affection to that see, [Page 104] vprightly and sincerely discusse the proper effects and accidents of Antichrist, and I assuredly beleeue, he shall not finde the like concurrence of those actions and qualities in any other creature but in the Pope, whose doctrine, discipline, and whole regiment is notoriously knowne, and whose corrupt liues displaid to the world in that high degree of their intollerable abhomination euen in the temple of God, reueale a very incarnat An­tichrist, whose ecclesiasticall supremacie had nigh hand abolished all good ecclesiasticall doctrine and disci­pline.

But this common place of Antichrist, and the whole anatomy of his ecclesiasticall doctrine and discipline, requireth a larger discourse, and may minister plentiful matter, not of one treatise, but of many treatises, and whole volumes, as already hath done to many notable learned men and some diuines in England. I for this time am to leaue Antichrist with those other profane & diuelish Atheists, accounting no better of him then of them, but rather abhorring & detesting him in grea­ter measure then any of them, or then al they together, by how much hee hath beene a greate enemy to the lambe of God, more then any other. I hasten to the rest, yet I beseech you marke what the Prophet Esay saith against the idols of the deuil, and for the lambe of God, c. 46. v. 1. &c. Bell is fallen, Nebo is broken downe, whose images were a burden for the beastes and cat­tle, to ouerlade them, and to make them weary, they are sunke downe and falne together, for they cannot ease them of their burden, therefore must they goe a­way into captiuitie.

So farre against idolatrie; then Christ the lambe of [Page 105] God speaketh prophetically, as it were in his owne per­son, v. 3. Harken vnto me ye house of Iacob, and ye that remaine of the house of Israel, whō I haue borne from your mothers wombe, and brought vp from your na­tiuitie. It is I, euen I, which shall beare you vnto your last age, I haue made you, I wil also nourish you, defend you, and saue you.

And seeing our last mention was of Antichrist, marke also I pray you, how the same Prophet in the ve­ry next Chapter, or rather God by his Prophet, more particularly and specially menaceth Babylon, that is, Rome, v. 1. But as for thee thou daughter, thou damsell Babilō, sit down in the dust, sit vpō the ground, there is no throne, ô thou daughter of Chaldaea, for thou shalt no more be called tender and pleasant, thy filthinesse shall be discouered, and thy priuities shalbe seene, for I will auenge me vpon thee, and will shew no mercie vn­to thee as I doe vnto other. Our Redeemer is called the Lord of hostes, the holy one of Israel, sitte still, holde thy tongue, get thee into some darke corner, ô daugh­ter of Chaldaea, for thou shalt no more be called Lady of kingdomes. I was so wrath with my people, that I punished mine inheritance, and gaue them into thy po­wer, neuerthelesse, thou shewedst them no mercie, but euen the very aged of them didst thou sore oppresse with thy yoake, and thou thoughtest thus, I shalbe lady for euer, and besides all that, thou hast not regarded these things, nor remembred what was the ende of the Citie Ierusalem.

Heare now therefore, thou delicate one, that sittest so carelesse, and speakest thus in thy heart, I am alone, and without me there is none, I shall neuer be widow, [Page 106] nor desolate againe, yet both these things shall come vnto thee vpon one day, namely, widowhood and de­solation, they shall mightily fal vpon thee, and so forth, as consequently followeth in the same chapter, to the same effect, of much trouble, mischiefe, ruine, and a so­daine vtter destructiō and ouerthrow menaced against Babylon, for a time the Lady & Empresse of the world, that is, Rome. A notable caueat for Antichrist, that is, the Pope and his adherents, if they would be so graci­ously wise to foresee and conceiue their owne miserie and destruction: but it is said in the very same chapter, v. 10. Thou hast trusted in thy wickednes, and hast said, no man seeth me: but thine owne wisdome & cunning hath deceiued thee, and so forth.

And no doubt, euen so it goeth with all the mēbers and impes of Antichrist in what degree soeuer, that any way oppose themselues against Christ, or any way blaspheme and deface the lamb of God, they may seem wise and cunning in their owne eyes, in their owne stubburne wilfull conceite, but extreme ruine, and mi­serie, and perdition, is the finall reward of all such wis­dome and cunning, euen in the mightiest Lordes and Princes, and Emperors, and Popes of the worlde. For euery one that heareth my word and doeth it not, saith Christ himselfe Math. c. 7. v. 26. shall bee likened vnto a foolish man that buylt his house vpon the sand, and the rayne descended, and the floods came, and the windes blew and bet vpon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. Euery one, saith Christ, how great so euer he otherwise seemeth to the worlde, euen the great Turke, euen the great Pope, euen the greatest of all, a­mongst the greatest of all. A foolish man, a foolish end; [Page 107] a proud man, a proud end; a wicked man, wicked end; an vngodly and godlesse man, a wretched and horrible end, full of all woe and vtter destruction both of body and soule. Men cannot gather grapes of thornes, nor figs of thistles, saith S, Luke c. 6. v. 44.

Good brethren, let vs actually and particularly ap­ply this generall doctrine vnto our selues, whereof o­therwise we haue no proper vse, but a common wan­dering thought, voyde of that singular fruite and effect which the word of God is to worke personally in eue­ry one that hath his name registred in the lambs booke of life. Let vs geue diligent eare vnto Christes worde, and follow the same accordingly, least we be truely cō ­pared to that foolish buylder. Let vs harken vnto him with the house of Iacob, and the remaynder of the house of Israël, who hath borne vs from our mothers wombe, and brought vs vp from our natiuitie, who hath nourished vs, defended vs, saued vs, taken away our sinnes, and made vs blessed: for blessed is the man vnto whom no sinne is imputed. Let vs vnfaynedly & faithfully imbrace our redeemer the Lord of hosts, the holy one of Israel, who hath reuealed, and shall reueale the filthy fornication of Babylon, as he hath confoun­ded, and shall confound the outragious pride of that citie, and aduaunce his mount Sion aboue the mount of Esau, or the tower of Babell. Vpon mount Sion shall be deliuerance, and it shalbe holy, and the house of Ia­cob shall possesse their possessions, and the house of Ia­cob shall be a fire, and the house of Ioseph a flame, and the house of Esau as stubble, and they shal kindle in thē, and deuour them, there shalbe no remnāt of the house of Esau, for the Lord hath spoken it, saith Abdias, v. 17.

[Page 108]Let vs remember, what S. Iohn writeth in his Reue­lation, c. 17. v. 14. &c. Ten kings shall giue their strength and power vnto the beast, which ten kings shall fight with the lambe, and the lambe shall ouercome them al, for he is the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings, & they that are on his side are called, and chosen, and faithfull. Let vs assure our selues, that he it is and none but he, that can and will mightily deliuer vs from the forena­med mischiefe and perdition threatned by the prophet Esay and all the rest of the holy prophets. Let vs conti­nually call to minde that godly and heauenly counsell of S. Paul, Coloss. c. 3. v. 8. put ye of al wrath, all fiercenes, maliciousnes, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth, lie not one to another, seeing ye haue put of the old man with his workes and haue put on the new man, which is renewed into knowledge after the image of him that made him, where is neither Greeke, nor Iewe, circumcision, nor vncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond, free, but Christ is all in all. O let vs e­uer and euer meditate vpon this and such Christian in­structions, ô let vs euer and euer practise them, and per­forme them to the vttermost of our indeuour & power in Christ, in whom onely we are powerable to doe his gracious pleasure, and to make our selues ready for our inheritance in his most blessed kingdome. Let vs daily and howrely looke to our selues, & pray for our selues, and pray for one another, that we be not led into tem­tation, but deliuered from euill, and namely from the forenamed horrible euill of blasphemie, idolatrie, infi­delitie, Paganisme, Atheisme, and all such like diuelish abhomination, the very worst and most damnable ef­fect of Antichrist himselfe, of Belzebub himselfe. Let vs [Page 109] humbly and zealously pray vnto Christ, to make vs like that wise man in the gospell after S. Matth. c. 7. v. 24. which built his house vpon a rocke, and the raine des­cended, and the flouds came, and the winds blew, and beat vpon that house, and it fell not, because it was grounded vpon a rocke, euen the word of Christ, the voice of the lambe, the gospell of saluation, true faith with true charitie, good beliefe with the effect of good workes, as the good fruit of a good tree, according to Christs owne preaching in his gospel, in the same chap­ter; v. 17, 18. Let vs studie, not to be seruants and schol­lers of infidels, but the sonnes of the prophets, euen such sonnes and disciples of the prophets, as Samuel taught at his schoole or vniuersitie at Naioth in Rama; 1. Kings c. 19. v. 20. and as the two most wonderfull pro­phets Elias and Elisaeus taught in their cities and vni­uersities at Bethel and at Iericho. 4. Kings c. 2. v. 3, 5. and as such other godly prophets taught in their seuerall schooles & townes, and namely the most noble euan­gelicall prophet Esay, who is reported to succeede Eli­saeus in that most worthy propheticall function. Let vs not beleeue euery spirit, but prooue and discerne the spirits, whether they be of God or not, for many false prophets are gone out into the world; hereby shall yee know the spirit of God, euery spirit that confesseth, that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God, and e­uery spirit which confesseth not, that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God, and this is the spirit of Antichrist of whom ye haue heard, how that he should come, and euen now already is he in the world, saith S. Iohn 1. c. 4. v. 1, 2, 3. where he also addeth this ioyfull comparison, v. 4. Little children ye are of God, and [Page 110] haue ouercome them that are not of God; for greater is he that is in you then he that is in the world; they are of the world, and therefore speake they of the world and the world heareth them; we are of God, hee that knoweth God heareth vs; he that is not of God hea­reth vs not; hereby know we the spirit of veritie & the spirit of errour▪ thus much S. Iohn in that place.

O let vs still and still, more and more eschue & aban­don this spirit of error, this spirit of the world, this spirit of Antichrist, and euer imbrace and acknowledge the spirit of truth, the spirit of God, the spirit of Christ. O let vs for the loue of God, for the loue of Christ, for the loue of our owne soules euermore seeke the lambe of God, follow the lambe of God, behold and imbrace the lambe of God, looke for the health of our bodies, the saluation of our soules, the safegard of both, not in, or from, or by any other, but only in, and from, and by the only lambe of God, repose our whole beliefe, trust, and felicity in the lambe of God, that taketh away the sin of the world, that redeemeth & saueth vs wretched and wicked sinners of the world, that with his owne precious bloud hath paid the great ransome for the re­lease of our miserable bondage and captiuity vnder the yoke of sinne, and hath suffered that great insufferable passion due to vs sinners, to bring vs vnto heauen, vn­to God, vnto himselfe sitting on the right hand of the father in all maiestie, power, and glorie for euer and euer.

Thus you haue a short confutation of those vngra­tious worldlings, that either with wilfull, or no better then beastly violence, or with witlesse & desperate blas­phemy, or with fond and obstinate self-loue, haue pro­ued [Page 111] themselues the most indiscreet rulers, the most vn­skilfull writers, the most vile and vngodly sinfull men that euer were called men, or euer liued in the world. I meane first those vngodly antichristian hellish Aristo­telists, Auerroists Plinians, call them in word as they were in deed, men of more subtilty then surety, which denying the immortalitie of the soule, accounting it no better then heat and breath, mouing and remouing the body only, haue ignorantly and preiudicially de­nied the finall cause of Christs sorrowfull humiliation and glorious resurrection, which saued our soules from damnatiō and death in the nethermost noisome dead­ly pit, the lake of torment, the prison of misery and all thraldome world without end: and defending the e­ternity of the world, iudging it without beginning and without ending (which vndoubtedly was fashioned & finished in six daies, as we surely proue by the Genesis of Moses, the wonderfull prophet of God, the wisest law­maker in Israël, the mightiest captaine of armes, by the Hexaëmerons of diuers both Greeke and Latin doc­tors and fathers, by our Apostolicke beleefe most sted­fastly builded on God the father almightie, maker of heauen and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, at whose last comming the earth shall melt away like wax, and the heauens shalbe folded vp like a garment) haue defaced with all their might the maiestie of Christs as­cension, and denied the eternitie of his last dreadfull iudgement, both which wee reuerence and magnifie with all godly loue and Christian zeale, hauing visiblie and faithfully seen the one with the Apostles eyes, and vnfaynedly looking for the other with liuely heartes, with spirituall hunger and thirst, with desire to leaue [Page 112] this mad and drunken world, to liue infinitely & raigne with him in euerlasting life.

Then I meane those hypocriticall Pharisies, those impious Iewes, and Iewish confederats, succeeding the heathenish infidels and pagans in course and time of yeares, but farre before them in all wickednes & sinne, in euery notorious iniquitie and enormitie, that did treacherously and sophistically seeke to vndermine Christ, and to take him in his words, that in the gall of bitternes and bond of impietie, mocked and spitte at him, and most grieuously and vniustly disgraced him, in spite of heauen and earth, of angels and men, euen as God had appointed in his secrete ordinance and won­derfull prouidence before the foundation of the world was layd: that in the pride and rage of Iudaisme, in the height of anger and depth of malice, whipped him like an outcast the sonne of God, crowned him with thorns like a mad bedlem the innocent lambe of God, nay led and perced, and wounded him to death like a hurtfull beast the triumphant king of angels and men, & migh­tie Sauiour of the world.

But they soone felt the heauy intollerable hande of God for these so Iewish and diuelish abhominations, and when their brasen faces would not blush, nor their iron heartes relent, the very stones of the temple were riuen asunder, the faire vaile was rent in twaine frō the top to the bottom, those sensles stones were more soft and pensiue then the Iewes, the dead carcases were more tenderly and mercifully affected toward Christ crucified at his one and last exclamation in one hower, then the elders of Iury were in all their life time, which heard many heauenly admonitions, diuers happy pro­misses, [Page 113] sundry blessings and cursings, yet liued and died in their gainesayings, being at last themselues as stones and carcasses reiected, throwne out, and troden vpon, hauing their children and cities vtterly destroyed, and their land layd wast, and those mockings and spittings, that thorny crowne and vineger and gall, those nayles and that speare, and that crosse, and all the rods and crosses that were laid vpon Christ, haue euer since bene laide vpon them, being esteemed the most odious ab­iects of all men, the very roges and runnegates of the earth, against whom all men haue set themselues, euen as they oppose and set themselues against all men like Ismaëites and Edomites, more vile in Gods eyes then dunge and clay on the ground, and all good and godly Christians are inuincibly confirmed in Christian faith by the shamefull ouerthrow of those Iewish and christi­ans, which is come to passe according to the gospell of Iesus Christ, for his kingdomes sake and our endlesse comfort and instruction, to him therefore be prayse for euer.

Then I meane the Turkes and turkish religion, or rather hereticall superstition, that in steed of noble pro­phets on our side hath but one fugitiue monke, & but the same one false monke on their part to defend it a­gainst our so many learned and constant professours; that hath no history for his defence and in that respect condemneth historians, that could neuer get any sober and learned orator to maintaine his cause, and therfore disaloweth the graces and power of rhetorick; that can­not be defended by disputation, and therefore forbid­deth all disputations; that is forced against his owne will & law, to prefer Christ before Mahomet, our mer­cifull [Page 114] king before his bloudie captaine; for honest and honorable birth, for vertuous and wonderfull acts, for blessed and heauenly translation, himselfe being borne basely, and liuing vitiously, and dying of lewd causes, more like a ruffian of the deuill then a prophet of God, as themselues confesse vnawares in their vaine Alcoran and doltish bible. His more then triple Dodecamecha­ny, to the finall ruine of that tyrannicall kingdome and satanicall iurisdiction in Turky, and to the building vp of Gods house in new Sion, to the benefit of his hous­holders, his children and seruaunts, if they could once be so christianly wise, to forgiue▪ their owne quarrels and forget that is past, and euer hereafter serue God & please him by fighting his battels, with a perfit loue and vnanimity among themselues, with a perpetuall hatred and magnanimity against such enemies, the souldiers of the flesh, the sonnes of transgression, now more then halfe wearied with their religion, and euer remayning in suspition and ielousie one of another.

Now God for his owne sake make them euer like Oreb and Zeb, and like to the princes of Zeba and Sal­mana, the God of our fathers confound their huge ar­mies and militar powers, that they may fall vpon their owne swordes, that their armes of flesh may be broken, that all their beastly cruelties practised against good christians from Mahound to this present day may re­turne vpon themselues, that they goe hence and be no more seene, that their name may perish from among the children of men, that we and all our posteritie may sing with the seuenth Angel mentioned in the Reuela­tion and with those great voices in heauen: the king­domes of this world are our Lords and his Christes, and he shal [Page 115] reigne for euermore. c. 11. v. 15. but the Saracens shall not ouerrule him, the Paganisme of Sergius shal not deuour the Christianisme of the Apostles, seeing the gospell is dispensed in all parts of the earth, as much & more then the Alcoran, howsoeuer Luter in a furious imitation of Micheas, hath rapt out the contrarie, as if hee desired ra­ther the name of a Prophet among the infidels, then of a frend to Christians.

Then I meane the blasphemous high-minded swel­ling Greekes, both Iulianists and Lucianists, both Em­perors and Schollers, both mighty and learned men, whose naughty ende hath prooued their beginning naught: whose owne words of euident treason against God, haue iudged and condemned them: who are in account among godly wise men, as the poysonous flyes, or as dead dogs: who haue vanished like a vapor, and beene consumed like a smoke to nothing: euen as it pleased the Lord, so are these thinges infallibly come to passe, by whom is reserued for their last sentence, for their vngracious schollers, for their frendes and fauou­rites, a lake of brimstone, a gnawing worme, a consu­ming fire mingled with percing cold, for euermore▪ for thus were the Iewes cursed for their malicious blasphe­mie against Christ in the time of his earthly and corpo­rall humiliation, neither can these and other like them be in better estate, which crie out and rayle against him in these dayes of his eternall heauenly exaltation, as S. Augustine reasoneth truely vpon a text of S. Matthew. And what is become of those wicked Romans which I thē named, but shame and discredit, reproach and con­fusion among all vertuous & well disposed christians? they might for their stile and phrase haue purchased [Page 116] our lyking; for their graue and politike gnomes haue beene in good account among good men, whereas now their malcontentship against Christianitie, and their hauty and scornfull attemptes against Gods an­noynted, together with their disdainfull termes against our Christian profession and professors, haue cast their works into great contempt, that might els haue been in greatest price, because no honest man will in confcience ap­proue false famous libels, or any graue man can scarcely euen in reason beleeue a lyer when he speaketh trueth, much lesse when he telles his owne tales: or any man shall not measure but like for like, and vpon compulsion compare themselues with their enemies, these sodaine slidinges with the others wilfull fal­linges, these suborned reproches with the others iudiciall penalties, true conuictions, vnchangeable executions. If they had beene of so vpright a nature, or of so ci­uill nurture, to report all well of them, which did no­thing ill or hurtfull to any, but were innocent lambs of God, they might haue otherwise then now they are, beene reckened with the best sort of best writers, and gotten our subscriptions as well as their owne friends commendations; but seeing their venim was so great and aboundant, to thrust out their stinges and spyt out their ranknes at godly and heauenly minded Christi­ans, they bewray the stocke and broode they came frō, euen the spawne of that old serpent and seede of Satan, and make vs al in good consciences freely to denounce and proclayme them, enuyers, deceyuers, falsifiers, to brand them with the marke of strong theeues for rob­bing Gods church, to set them in the blacke booke of damned soules, for defying and diffaming Gods owne militant teachers and messengers, which preach the [Page 117] trueth, which spend their liues in defence of the word, which offer themselues a dayly sacrifice vnto him that gaue himselfe once a pure and perfect oblation for thē and all, which honour both spirituall and temporall fa­thers without any grudging, because of Gods ordi­nance, and for conscience sake, which studie and pray continually for the perpetuall glory & honour of Gods Church, Gods house, Gods visible throne, which per­swade some, and exhort all men to vertue, to deuotion, to loue of God, and loue of man: which drie vp their harts and braines day and night, euen to the decay of their owne health and strength, to heale the wounded and afflicted conscience, to confirme and stablishe the faith of their countrey, to abandon vncharitable & dis­obedient opinions, to bid men take heede of furious & tedious self-will, to remember they are as Gods small sheepefold in the midst of a Wolues forrest, to bee as doues among themselues without harme; and subtile serpents when the aduersarie commeth, to magnifie God for his manifold benefites, and to holde out the hand when he geueth his blessings, and euer to behold and worship the blessed lamb of God, that washeth a­way the sinnes of the earth.

But alas there are many strange errors abroad in the earth, and there are too many headstrong mainteyners of old paradoxes and newfangled nouelties, which ei­ther renew those antiquated trifles, or giue them a co­lour, a deuise and glosse of the makers, which are their craftes maisters and bondslaues▪ such men are girded and wrapped in with splene and brought vp cheefly in the chapters De contradicentibus, and so wedded and gi­uen to alter all statutes and turkisse all states, that they [Page 118] are become plaine turkish and rebellious, vnnaturall countrimen and vnkind neighbours, they doe not be­hold and follow the harmeles lambe of God that euer most gratiously helpeth offenders, and bringeth them from deadly traines. I haue hitherto tolde of open, knowne, and professed enemies, I haue already confu­ted those notorious and famous antichristians, such as with a wild and wide throate, or infamous tongue and pen, haue without al manner of colourable or shadow­ed pretence, enhaunced themselues and their graceles wits, to deface the sonne of God, to disgrace the holy one of Israël, that is the onely mediator betweene men and God, and the onely peacemaker betweene God & men.

Those mad-men blasphemers come to our gates, and defie our profession, we see them, wee reade and heare their notorious blasphemies, we abhor and curse them in the name of our God, as Eliseus that mighty Prophet in Israël looked backward vpon the malapert and wan­ton children of Bethel, 4. Kings c. 2. v. 23. or as Dauid detested that vncircumcised Giant the rayling Golias, 1, Kings. c, 17. v. 32, 34. and slew him though he were his Cosen german, as Drusius noteth out of Prudentius and Philo, being no better in his eyes then a great wood beare, yet these blasphemers more vnlearned and vnru­ly then all children, and more barbarous then all rude gyants and beares: this is the way of them, this is their foolishnes, and yet their posterities prayse their sayings, Psal. 49. according to the prophesie of Abacuk, ca. 1. v. 5. behold ye despisers, and wonder, and pearish yee, for I worke a worke in your dayes, a worke that ye shall not beleue though a man should declare it vnto you, which [Page 119] word S. Paul confirmeth in his sermon made at Anti­oche, Actes. c. 13. v. 41.

BVt there remayneth yet a monstrous and a craftie antichristian practisser, not alredy touched to the quick, one and his mate compounded of many contra­ries, to breede the more confusion in simple vulgar wits, who like Passauantius, is content to be ridiculous himselfe, so that his enuie in any sort make poore Lyse­tus contemptible, that els perhaps had neuer bin kno­wen, he is a boone companion for the nonce, a secrete fosterer of illegitimate corner conceptions, a graue o­rator for ruffianly purposes, a busie bookeman to helpe the sworde, a rebuker of play, and yet making a play of himselfe and all thinges, a rauening woolfe in sheepes wool, a bloudy massacrer and cutthroate in iesters ap­parrell, a poste vpon hackney sillogismes to haue silly ones geue him the way, yet like the reasons of Lindanus which may most easilie and fitly be returned vpon the replyer & his faction, with much more force of proofe & consequence, a religious pilgrim to gather heapes & rāpires of trash, a wilie fox in a lambs skin, first iesting at mathematicall caps, as if round fashions were not more mensurable and mathematicall then quadrates and ob­longs, or an ace meane as a quater: then flinging at manners, as if he cared for thē which teacheth nothing so much as malignity and detraction; at last fishing with a golden hooke which is all predicables and predica­ments with simonists, imagining his case and Simon Fi­shes supplication to be alike, being directly opposite in causes, in effects, in comparisons, & otherwise; he doth [Page 120] not openly and outragiously in set words and coyned phrases, despise the lambe of God the sauiour and re­deemer of Gods people, but closely and a far of prepa­reth his mines, and traps, and snares, playing secreetly vpon S. Iohns words, counting them about ones loines a receit only for the collicke: see an impe of antichrist and hell, and reckoning all that hee doth vnto Christs flocke, as done to lambs, that will not once quetch, that vse to take all well, as if they were ordinary, common, woolly and fleshy lambs, and called lambs only of suf­fering, not of doing, as though all parts and ends of e­uery similitude should euer meete in one, and nothing were written of a lambe, but it must appeare in Christ, or any man should chalenge that of God, which com­meth of his appointment, not our, of his mercy, not our merite, to vse rightly, not to abuse. But Calumny in hir heat and furie calleth Ioseph an adulterer, Daniel a re­bell, Susanna an whore, and Christ Iesus himselfe a nigro­mancer; yet wisdome is iustified of hir owne children: no greater enemies to vertue then humorists, a man must onely be iudge of that he knoweth certainly, the carnall Mammonist cannot rule and direct celestiall things, they are as farre beyond his reach, as his skill is short of them.

This is the byway of some carelesse & lawlesse qui­dams, which make the holy and most reuerend worde of the only wise God, to serue their bastardly turnes & vnhonest inuentions and intentions, and will not stick to say with the Gentiles, with the Iewes, with the turks, and such as are without God; that christians must take two blowes and not smite againe, that they are bidden, to forgiue their enemies, to blesse them that curse [Page 121] them, to loue them that hate them, to pray for them that persecute them, to be like their Lord and master Ie­sus the lambe of God, not geuen to anger or defence more then he was, and more then a lambe is geuen to defence.

This is the groundworke and postulate of Cart­wrighttisme and Martinisme, without which all their doings are vndone, and with which Christianisme will soone be vanquished or abridged. Thus they teach o­ther men their dueties, but thinke not on their owne dueties, they proue, if we must doe as God biddeth vs, they will not doe as God biddeth them: they force a generall text, Matth. c. 5. and thrust a rule made for all christians, vpon the clergie alone, from our obedience they inferre their owne disobedience, and thus they stamp a conclusion more against their owne Christen­dome, then the reuerence of the church: the Clergie men, those elect men, professe the innocencie of lambs, therefore we neede not feare to handle them at our pleasures, as though they were not Christians alike with vs, by baptisme and vow, by doctrine and poli­cie, or ought not likewise to be harmelesse as lambes a­mong their owne christian brethren. Euen so that pro­phane tyrant Antiochus reasoned with the godly Iewes of his time, and argued with them out of their owne law concerning the Sabboth day, that they must not defile and vnhallow it with murder, with battle, with violent resistance, because they were better bee flapt downe like flies, and not hurt his men, then breake the law of their God, and incurre his displeasure, 1. Macab. c. 2. And thus hath this sophisticall reformer peruerted Gods word, he hath learned the elench which anger [Page 122] moueth against patience in the Soules-fight of Pruden­tius, Die here and weepe not, for wayling is against thy profes­sion, yea and behaued himselfe heathenishly and anger­ly, he vrgeth the surname of Christ, and the nature of a lambe, and then he telleth him and his preachers; That their wealth, their power, and strength shoulde bee no greater, then the power, the wealth and strength of a lamb, thus should he be pitomized, and thus should his flock be pistled.

Now marke I pray you, what end commeth on these and such men, and I beseech you cōsider the seat of the scorner, which cōmonly proueth like the seat, that old courtier Hely sat vpon. 1. Kings c. 4. v. 18. Woe worth the blasphemie of Sennacherib & blackmouthed Rabshakeh, that cost the liues of an hundred foure score and fiue thousand Assyrians, yea and the life of Sennacherib him­selfe in the temple of Nisroch, by the word of Esay, but the sword of Gods angel, and his owne sonnes, by the praier of that good king Ezechias, 4. Kings c. 19. Woe vnto that breach and derision of Gods Sabaoth, that caused Gorgias to flie, Lysias to be driuen out of Iudea, the vanquishing of Ephron, the astonishment, and so­rowfull sicknesse, and suddaine death of Antiochus him­selfe, besides the deaths and deadly woundes of their captaines and souldiers by the arme of the honorable Machabees reuengers of Gods Sabaoth. 1. Macha. c. 4, 5, 6. and what surer plague hath Anger then hirselfe, which killeth hir selfe with hir owne weapons? And woe is likewise to this counterfait reformer, that opposeth his Scriptum est against the clergy, as the tempter his pat­terne opposed his Scriptum est against Christ▪ for how can he escape the vengeance of God, that maketh a iest [Page 123] of descant vpō our Messias the mighty lion of the tribe of Iuda, because he is otherwile analogically called the meeke and louing lambe of God? let him be sure, he shall neuer flie from the presence of this lambe, neither shall he euer hide his head safely from him, whom he thus lambacketh and abuseth in his paltry reformatiue and ironicall discipline, no more then Martin de Pester did in Gaunt, that suddainly died in the heate of his se­cretariship going about to sweare men against the gos­pel, or then Martin Sward did in England, who died like a theefe among traitors, when he would haue deposed king Henrie the seuenth by a set battel, to install a coun­terfet in his place.

But in heauen all honour is giuen to this lambe of God, that sitteth on the throne, saith S. Iohn in his Re­uelation; and if the heauens obey him, the earth can­not withstand him, but all his tempting, despising, and ironising reformers shall laugh, and perish, & be laugh­ed at, and such as know not, or feare not the lambe of God shalbe put to confusion for wishing him euil. Ne­uertheles this glozing theologer and priuy vndermi­ner that would in these daies with his creatures dig vp our Church, as moules and frogs haue in old time vn­dermined faire and strong townes, according to some old and credible historians, is in his earthly labours & fennish coaxations persuaded for want of meekenesse and charitable insight, that he doth God great seruice and honour, to open his wide throate: ô an Aristophanes might best handle him in his kinde, to set vp a newe house in the old roome, to take downe & build vp that is well builded already, as truly appertaining to him and his presumptuous scismaticks, as the reforming of [Page 124] the temple of Ierusalem pertained vnto Herode, or the burning of incense belonged to Vzziah, who were both too bold & lofty in heart, and so perished in their confidence and vsurpatiō. 2. Chron. c. 26. He might haue learned euen of Numa an heathen prince, lege 23. That religion publicke is not subiect to any one; or of king Martius, lege 1. That religion is no priuate inuention; and not exceed them in blind ignorance, who thought in naturall reason: that none is aboue God or mens soules, to make them what he alone listeth, as Plato by the same light of nature sawe, that self-will in religion which he termeth [...], is the roote and origi­nall of all mischiefs and inconueniences; l. 10. de legibus, a booke made purposely in honour of diuine matters according to the naturall light of so learned a philoso­pher.

He thinketh himselfe the preacher of humilitie and christian libertie, as one Wall thought himselfe too in the daies of king Richard the second, when as in plaine euident proofe he hindereth one special cause thereof, I meane the authoritie and reuerence of Gods diuine lawiers and gospellers, as he that readeth the third epi­stle of S. Cyprian will certainely iudge, and would make them of true shepeheards very mercenaries, of right pa­trons right beggers, of mē in greatest account by law of nature, by law of grace, by all true law of reason & con­sciēce, men of small reputatiō & triobolares, mē of smal power, of smaller abilitie, of least soueraignty in vertu­ous exercises, of christian magistracy, of ecclesiasticall hospitalitie, of godly correction. So Iulian their Empe­rour tooke away the reuenues of the church, that it might be the lighter and nimbler to flie into heauen, as [Page 125] he said, blessed are the poore, for theirs is the kingdome of heauen; whereas Christs pouertie is an example of humilitie as well for temporall christians as for spiritu­all, vnles the laity will loose the name & nature of chri­stians, and bequeath it onely to the clergy, which is in the higher sort very poore & needy in respect of those domesticall and politicall acts which are regularly be­longing to them, and in the lower sort, with reuerence be it spoken of so good a company as that is, or may be, when God shall in mercy amend patrons, most wofull and miserable in respect of that prouision which is ne­cessary for him that would not be defectiue in his own profession. If either be insufficient for life or learning & altogither vnworthy of their liuing, there are a great number sufficient enough that in peaceable and mili­tar gouerment could supply their wants.

O sweet country and countrimen, let the inheritance and succession remaine in the linage of teachers, vnlesse you will haue learning leaue the earth and returne to heauen, where aboue all principalities it is adored and is named no lesse thing then God, then the word, then maker and ruler ouer all. For this reformer, which is no better then a blinded and hardharted guide may say, he loueth Christ the word, but you, and I, and all good chri­stians may hardly beleeue him because we must iudge of a tree by the fruite, and neuer call it an apple tree that bringeth forth crabs; wee must neuer imagine he can loue and allow Gods lawes, which hateth and disalow­eth the true preachers thereof, and because I am assu­red, that he cannot shew you, or me, or any Christian another rule and example of better credit, then the law of the Lord, and the gospell of his lambe, both which [Page 126] are euer in building, not in spoyling the church, in hel­ping euer, not in beggering the brethren, in dooing good to all companies and honest societies, not in vn­doing any, in giuing to Caesar & giuing to God, & not giuing that distinct part to Caesar that is due to God, se­ing all that Caesar himselfe hath is due to God. If this truth be vntruth, if this light be darknesse, yet all scisma­ticall Tees, and such Cees, and such Ems in the world can neuer disproue it; shall we once thinke, that this, or that one man who is in some mens and womens sup­poses of a most od dispositiō and rare iudgement, hath more knowledge in gouernment then Moses had, the lawgiuer of Gods owne elect people so peculiarly and wonderfully called and chosen? or will any peeuish vaine and factious tongue on that side once say for his life, that maister Reformer knoweth in his wisedome better then did Salomon, what is best belonging and behouefull to the Church Christs beloued spouse? or may the zealous bounty of Christian Emperours, the deuoute giftes of noble and godly Princes, the li­berall adoptions of magnificent and mightie men, be­stowing worldly goods on heauenly vses, and bequea­thing mortall heritages to immortal seruices, may these lawfull, and iust, and successiue possessions, priuiledges, and charters, and codicilles of ecclesiasticall endowmēt and maintenance be once abrogated? ought all these liberties and prerogatiues to be made voyde, to be dis­anulled, and brought vnder, then which none can be, or should stand in more full strength and vertue? for Bishops, and vnder them Elders, ought no lesse to bee reuerenced of all christened soules in the churches, then fathers are of their children in the familie, as He­resbachius [Page 127] writeth in his Christiana iurisprudentia.

But the liuing Lord of heauen, and God of peace, the God of our forefathers, and king of all kinges, pre­serue and arme his owne christian children from that outrage, from that desolation, from such abhomination standing in the temple of God, where it ought not, frō such heathen, turkish, martinish, and carterly brutish ra­uine, and make vs like his owne Moses, like his owne Sa­lomon, like all his owne godly gouerners and Christian Princes, and other good men of his owne in all ages, not like any other vnlike them, that maintaine semina­ries of schisme and malignitie, that hatch the Cockatri­ces egge, and weaue the spyders webbe, and woulde make men beleeue, they are for their eating and wea­ring, which in finall proofe would eate vp and weare them out, to the poysoning and vndoing of thēselues, of the whole Realme, and of the whole world too, as may easily appeare to them which can compare conse­quents and antecedents together.

Then looke not to them, but looke into Gods owne holy and faultlesse booke, the onely chiefe doctor and reformer of gouernment, that is by Gods gracious pro­uidence more common among vs, then it was with grandfathers in England by print, by translation, by ex­positiō & meditatiō: in which booke we know the euer lasting will and testament of God more then they did, & wherin we learne all that pertaineth to our direction and instruction for all spirituall and temporal iurisdicti­ons and regiments whatsoeuer. Here you haue, and you reade, or may haue and reade, the Oecomenickes and Politicks of the Hebrew common-wealth, which is the most auncient and excellent of all other, as Sigo­nius [Page 128] wryteth in the yeares of his best and ripest iudge­ment, when he had intreated vpon the Athenian and Roman common-wealth in his younger dayes, and by which the most and best Nations of the earth haue bin taught and ruled to this present day, in all good coun­sels, in all great affayres, in euery good intendment, or order in personall, and actionall, and reall causes. In this heauenly and righteous booke, the same hande of Moses which gaue the Hebrews lawes from aboue, and said, Thou shalt not steale from the Clergie or Laitie, thou shalt not couet thy neighbors house, or any thing that he hath in the church, or out of the church; doth also institute and ordeyne, that the measure of the san­ctuarie should be much more then the measure of the congregation, and the weight as much more againe, the sanctuarie seruing God and, his ministers the El­ders of the Leuites and the high Priest set ouer them, the other belonging to the people of Israël, and other tribes only among themselues, who reckoned in their accounts to the tribe of Leuie two for one, and double for single, as the sicle and talent of the Sanctuary was as much more as the sicle and talent of the congregation, the cubite much more, euen a hand breadth, which is named a great cubite, Ezech. c. 41. v. 8. c. 43. v. 13. Exodus c. 30. v. 13. Leuit. c. 27. v. 25. Num. c. 18. v. 16. Cenalis tomo, 5. fol. 87, 88, 89. and tomo 9. fol. 133, 134, &c. Whose zealous example and godly deuotion, all good men and wo­men that loue God and his rulers, ought readily to fol­lowe, yea much more willingly and earnestly in this light of the trueth, that shineth out among vs nowe, then other did in time of ignorance next past, whose reddinesse notwithstanding was more forwarde then [Page 129] our, least we learning more, and doing lesse then they, be beaten with more terrible and wofull stripes, accor­ding to Christs owne sentence in Luke c. 12. v. 47. Ney­ther yet Moses the soueraigne teacher and Lord of the Hebrews staied there, but God bad him command the people of Israël, and in them all true Israelites for euer, to giue the cleanest, the purest, the fattest and lustiest of the sacrifices of lambs, and goates, and other cattell, & the tenths and first-fruites of all fruite vnto Gods vses, Gods seruices, Gods seruitors; and euery thing that be­longed to the church and sanctuary, both liuing and dead, both agent and instrument, to bee appointed in the best and goodliest manner that could be deuised, beside other certaine and determinate prescriptions gi­uen indefinitely by God himselfe, agreing with that e­ternall statute of S. Paul 1. Cor. c. 14. where lastly he char­geth them in the name of the holy spirit, which he ve­rily beleeued to be in him, both to keepe a good order alwaies, and specially to haue a special care of adorning and bewtifying it with all seemely supplements or ad­ditions, euen as the circumstance of the place, or the time, or the person may deserue and require.

In this consideration, when the Hebrews vsed met­tals for the sanctuary, they were cleere and pure in the highest degree; their wood must euer be that durable Sethim, and the best or smoothest; their oyle the swee­test and cleanest; their frankincense the brightest; their odors pleasantest, their sacrifices males & without ble­mish; their flower similage and no meaner; their fruits of the fairest trees; the place of offring without all foul­nesse; the fatte must be the Lords, and if any man eat it, he shal be cut of from his people; their musick choicest [Page 130] of all sorts, harpes, and trumpets, and cymbals, and or­ganes, and psalteries, and other instruments, together with lowde harty voices; their vestures and garments of finest linnen, and finest silke furnished with gold and precious pearle; their workemen the most famous and cunning that could be gotten; the churchmen without deformities of body comely and cleanly, as it euident­ly and notably appeareth in Exodus, from the 25. chap­ter to the 32, and in Leuiticus almost throughout, and much elswhere. For seeing these outward and mo­mentany goods are not our, but the good blessings of our God, lent and giuen vs for his vse and glory, then iudge I pray to whom they may so rightly or truly be­long by way of dispensation, as to Gods owne spiritu­all and temporall ministers, which in all earthly and heauenly businesse and actions serue him and his con­gregation, him & his people, him and his saincts which excell in vertue, in higher and lower places of degree and title both in the church and out of the church, as those goods haue beene euer most plentifull since the world began with the godliest fathers of all ages, and namely most of all with those chiefe men, Noa, Abra­ham, Iacob, Ioseph, Salomon, Iob, Ezechias, and the rest, who neuer thought any goods too good for Gods Church; for his right hand is on them that feare him throughout all generations, as his children are right­handed one to another in all places and in all cases of truth and conscience.

Yet if these men in our white lilly mending dayes more diuine reformers forsooth and purer correctors of abuses then Moses, if these litle ones diuine ones des­cended from the bosome of father Abraham, or some [Page 131] better Saint, if better may be, for so they beare them­selues euer with and aboue the best, that haue all zeale and all knowledge among them, and can spare or af­fourd no morsell or parcell of these their two Spirituall graces for other pore men simple creatures in respect of such new creators, if they had bin in the time & raigne of Moses & Iosua, or rather very Moses and very Iosua were now in their times, for all must be drawne to M. refor­mers cōputatiō, & perhaps we shall heare news shortly, of another cōputation, & then we must say, in the yeare of reformation, 1, 2, 3, 4. & so on apace as long as it la­steth, be you sure of it, that they would in their pure quick fine Sybilline melancholy, the cause of Prophets and Prophetisses in Agrippaes minde, that neuer kept a meane, but was euer extreame, in writing magicall toys or dispraysing all liberall and mechanicall arts, in extol­ling women aboue men, and suppressing almost euerie man with his owne excellencie in his Epistles, no vnfit master for these extreme reformers, haue sayde, and say vnto Moses and Iosua, euen as they said to our Mosees, and Iosuees, to our priests and rulers. For looke how Corah, Dathan, Abyram, and On rose vp before Moses and Aaron, and tolde them in their reformatiue discipline: ye take too much vpon you, why lift yee your selues a­boue the congregation of the Lord? we are all as holie as you, what Moses and Aaron? ye are too high. Num. c, 16. v. 3.

So spreaken our pure and holy ones reformers, so our holy and pure ones speake, euen thereabout as ho­ly as Corah, and as pure as Abyrams conspiracie, and as pure and precise, as all honest conspirators: sober men men in other times, who at the first euer pretended re­formations [Page 132] and corrections of abuses, and then corre­ctions and reformations of vices, and nothing but a­mending of vniust matters, corruptions, reliques: these haue a pleasure to water and dresse, and reuiue that wi­thered oake, that reformatoria quercus Ketti ducis, ador­ning and adoring it as the only chiefe tree of the fielde and forrest, euen in a precise iollitie to abase and ouer-crow the famous planetree of Xerxes, or any other Do­donean shade, but they for all their numbers of voyces, their singular holines, or hollownes of heart, so cun­ningly hid, were deuoured of the earth; and swallowed vp quick, to the example and terror of all conspiring re­formers euen to the worlds end, that now they should hinder the authoritie of Gods messengers no more, like those cursed Dathanites. And what became of furious Ket? and what is like to come vpon these practisers that can neuer see when they are well? Neither yet did Mo­ses put of his zeale, or leaue of from enriching the holy Priesthoode in Israël, or from honouring their posteri­ties successiuely after his and their death, but hee gaue them the goods, and lordships, and dominions of ma­ny cities for themselues, and the lands and suburbes of them for their cattle and substance, Num. c. 35. Ios. c. 21.

No doubt at that time many rough mal-contents and enuious Reubenites spake among the Israëlites, as our hotspurres & Rufi say now among vs, Church-bread is sweete, that is, stolne thinges are pleasant, but heard they neuer of a sweete and pleasant poyson amōg their prouerbs, delightfull at the first, and at the last deadly? It is not Gods will, say they that know not the legacies of Gods will, that they should be troubled with such reuenues, with such lāds & liuings, with so many loaues [Page 133] which might finde an armie to defend Israel, a number of lustie & choise valiant yongmen, a sort of experiēced captains and souldiers of the best stampe.

Notwithstanding such a vulgar and plausible insi­nuation, the most prouident and heauenly law-geuer Moses reproueth their rebellious and stiff-necked harts, he went forward in setling the ground of his godly go­uernment, because he by yeares and wisdome knewe better then they could tell him, that their youth is too rash to wish that which troubleth men: that their expe­rience is vtterly imperfit: that greatest hotspurres are least conquerors: that a man is not deliuered by much strength: that armour and men are counted but a vaine thing to saue a countrey: that nations are not defended & preserued by the puissance & chiualry of the inhabi­tants, but that the wisdom & grauitie of learned mē, the coūsel & vnderstāding of sober discreet mē, that the firy zealous & heauēly minded man, like the priest Phinees, or the king Iehu, that moderation which is neither too high nor too low, halfe vp & halfe downe, euen in the mids, that Gods blessing bestowed on those that blesse him, is cause of al obediēce & peace at home, of all safe­tie and security in respect of forraine daunger abroad; that the head and heart must rule the hand and foote; that the outward partes must bee preserued by the in­ward, and preserue one the other mutually; that if they must needs take away goods from other men, their va­lue should be stretched out against their heathenish e­nemies; and therefore he commaunded them in Gods holy name on the Eastside of Iordan in the land of pro­mise, and in the same holy name the fathers commaun­ded Iosua his successor on the other side of Iordan in [Page 134] the land of promise, they willed & charged their Tribes by the will of their God to whom they were al tributa­ry, that fortie and eight cities with the granges, and vil­lages, and suburbes, and all bounds and limits of them, should be allotted vnto the principall fathers of the Le­uites out of their inheritance, which the Leuites God & their God had bestowed vpon them; among which eight and fortie cities were those six principal places of refuge & noblest sanctuaries of safegard for the vnwil­ling vnluckie slayer, euen those three cities within the riuer, Chades, Sichem, Hebron, and those three cities with­out the riuer, Golan, Ramoth, Bosor, standing in both the ends, and in both the middle parts of the land, that no tribe might be without the lordships of Leuy, that the land and mannors of Leuy might with greatest libertie lie in euery part, and on either side of the land of pro­mise, the holy land, and patterne of all holy land, so far and so long as nothing was done without the lawes of Moses which were the lawes of God.

Now if it would please God, to open the eyes, and eares, and hearts of our tribes, of our hundreds, of our counties, of our shires, of our fathers, & rulers, that they might see and perceiue, heare and vnderstand, know fully & acknowledge freely, I say no more; yet I might well name our reformers a sort of new Arrians, that in­uent lies against our spirituall lords, as they did against Athanasius deuise one slander of his abusing a woman, another of cutting of Arsenius arme, both which in the triall proued false and ridiculous, as those should doe if the libelling accusers were knowne, yet truth wil raigne though they die in the darke, and in another kinde of Arrianisme abuse Christs church impudently and pro­fanely, [Page 135] as if he were a man & no God, not caring whe­ther it be true or not true that they write, so that the wauering and rude multitude voyde of deliberation and iudgement seeme to like it, for whose onely plea­sures it is published in the rudest fashion, seeing al lear­ned and ciuill men peacemakers abhorre it; but God al­mightie send a true spirite into them, that as new borne babes they may be children concerning maliciousnes, not in knowledge, or a new Iubilee in vs, and for vs, at his good pleasure.

These are Gods goods, Gods cities, Gods suburbs, Gods mannors, which he himselfe hath geuen, before Constantines donation no whit belonging to vs, as lega­cies of his first will and testament, to his owne holy and beloued Priesthood. Or if our rough smoothed bre­thren, which name they vse for a bayte, if our Esaus and Nymrods reformers hunters, if our temporizing tempo­rall correctors mammonistes, these presumed and sup­posed iudges of eternall lawes, if they will in their wild and wily wilfulnes frustrate this constitution of God, if they care not howe short their daies may be vpon the earth which the Lorde hath geuen them, so that they may not honour their ghostly fathers, without whose authoritie they shall neuer rule Subictes, or seruants, or children, but suppresse and ouer-rule them: if they wil clayme and auouch a second wil or testament, and disauow and disclayme the old will and testament, cancell the auncient actes of Gods former registers, make a parlement act of their owne priuate, and in deede no better then apostumated braynes, which in the second consequence, and in the third depending thereon, concluding any way either simply or compa­ratiuely, [Page 136] a causis and a partibus, will certainly cast them­selues and all other into a manifest anarchy, into all di­sturbance and vtter confusion: because the same obie­ctions against one state of spirituall Lords, may as iustly and more sensibly be deriued vpon secular Lordes of like degree. I say, if Moses eternall lawes, the very true lawes of God, be in these new reformations no better then temporarie and transitorie lawes, which were a deepe roote for atheisme, and a ground-worke for blas­phemie, yet I hope these Martins will not make them­selues worse then Pagans, being counted Christians, they cannot possibly, I trust, be so irefull and raging, as to exceede the profane Egyptians, who allowed their priestes no small commodities, in plenty of bread, of flesh, of wine, besides their domesticall immunities and priuiledges, whereby they spent nothing of their own, neque è re domestica aliquid conterunt, neque impendunt, saith Herodotus in Euterpe, and Danaeus in his Aphorismes ga­thereth more from that second booke than I doe: they wil not for shame doe lesse for other christians, thē they did for other idolatrous Egyptians, cap. 47. ver. 22. of Ge­nesis.

But in trueth, these reformers haue without trueth contemned Moses and Iosua, like Iannes and Iambres, and the Gibeonites in former times, God send them more of his grace and mercie, or the rewarde of those men, if it be his will: now will they also count Ioseph that hea­uenly politike guyde, that true patterne of politickes, a partiall and parciall iudge, and account him and his ru­lers al superstitious rulers, for not touching and buying the lands of the Egyptian priests and fathers in the se­uen yeares of intollerable dearth and famine, when all [Page 137] other men of the Temporaltie sold euery man his land, his cattle, himselfe and all to buy bread? Surely those holy men of our so learned dayes and so christiā peace, that put almost all Gods husbandrie in lopping, and proyning, and making euery thing lesse then it shoulde be: much like that holines that the Graecians & Hyp­pocrates name in those words, sacer morbus, sacer piscis, os sacrum, whereby they vnderstand greatnes more thē goodnes, quantitie more then qualitie, a diseased holi­nes, a fishy holines, slicke on the skinne, and sicke with­in, a bonish holines, and fitter to choake men, then to feede them, would in their reforming discipline, make our gouerners and Iosephs, worse affectioned to their naturall and spirituall countreymen or fathers and in­structors, that haue altogether alike one baptisme, one confirmation, one communion, one beleefe, one pray­er, one law, one gospel, one God, and one mediatour & sauiour, then Pharao was to the idolatrous Priestes of his kingdome, hauing more forcible necessitie, then to haue sequestred and impropriated their church-landes and goods, then euer other kinges and princes had or ought to haue, by the rule of Gods word, to empayre their church-lands and goods, which euen in the natu­rall witte of Trebatius are sacred, being once dedicated vnto God, and therefore inuiolable, according to the nature of holy things, Macrob. l. 2. Satur. cap. 3. but recei­uing al their blessings and fruites for the churches sake, whereof they are members, which is the onely spouse and best beloued sister of the lamb of God, not for any meritorious worke of their owne, ought contrariwise rather to increase their annuities and reuenues, as they will for a woorse and meaner loues cause in common [Page 138] vsuall fauour increase the liuings of such as they onelie wish well vnto. But these our reformers say what they list, either like tyrants that cannot be hindered, or like wittals that must be tolerated, and these will haue their words, though the rulers bid peace.

Then leaue them a while to themselues and let them alone, and thinke in your harts, beloued christians, and iudge in your owne consciences vnfainedly like right Nathanaels without guile or gal, iudge I pray soberly & aduisedly in your mindes, and then marke my commu­nication; Is not equitie or law and reason vniuersal and common for all reasonable men? is any man forbidden in equity and reason to keepe his owne goods which are lawfully giuen him? did Naboth offend God, by keeping his inheritance & vineyard, or Ahab in asking, and Iezabel in catching it by false processe and wrong­full execution, when hir cosmeticall physitians had cō ­mended the prospect and recreation of the place, and his greedy lawiers told him of his profit and preroga­tiue? may one man or lord say, let it alone, it is mine not your, seeing he speaketh truly? and may not an o­ther man or lord say, let it stand, it is mine not your, it is Gods, not your, giuen as truly & lawfully to his house and housholders, as euer any right and title was giuen in the world, by Gods word or mans, by Gods written promise and couenant or by mans, or by any other meanes? Learne of Comes Purliliarum in his first booke of the art of war, to abstaine from sacred things, not to touch them your selfe being captaine, and to punish them grieuously that touch them, lesse you come to naught, by making God and godly men your enemies, which being a rule of warre with the best Admirals of [Page 139] the field toward the enemie, must for horror of shame not once be broken in peace toward the neighbour; Learne of Onosander Platonicus first to haue a cheefe eye to holy matters, that by this skill of the generall other matters may prosper, in his booke De optimo Imperatore; Learne of Dions first precept De regno, not to dally with God, as if he were Prauus or Stultus, but principally to adore him, in his visible ministers, the only way in this life to approue our faith; Learne of Xenophon in his Hip­parchicus, to pray to the God of the world aboue all things for helth and glory, and not to esteeme him vn­der all; learne of Pythagoras, God immortall must be first honored; of Phocylides, worship God first: of all teachers, to excell pagans in that Eusebeia which hath the first place in Isocrates and al other gnomographers, increasing dai­ly in piety and vertue; there is Meum in the clergie, not only in the laity, and if either of them plead lawfull in­heritance and possession, they say well and speake no lesse then truth, and yet the clergie should in equity & truth be first and more forward then the other, by how much Gods plea & interest must haue greater audience then the plea of men.

Yea reason and truth crie out vpon these Mosema­stiges and Theomastiges too, who when they heare Moses say in Gods law, all the fat is the Lords, Leuit. c. 3. v. 16. that is, the best is the Lords offring, as may appeare, Num. c. 18. v. 12. & Ps. 81. v. 16. they answer him in their lawlesse mouths and malcontented harts, let all the leane be his, he hath no need, the lambe is fat enough already, his pa­sture is good enough: neither needeth he either of them, the fat or the leane, or any thing els, because he hath all things at commaundement without your leaue, and is [Page 140] the Lord of Lords both ghostly & bodily, yet thus by your incōsiderate wits and spritish mockeries and new-founded minds which you beare, you incur the danger of his heauy wrath, ô ye sonnes of Belial, with your in­credible vanities and credulous followers, that in S. Pauls eye c. 16. v. 17. Rom. fight all for the belly mainte­nance, and bring al their zeale to the merchants shops, their learning to mony matters, their pure meditations to set vp shifters, their discipline to bannish or imprison roialties now stablished, their christianisme to open Iu­lianisme, their wits to Lucianisme, beware in time of Gods displeasure, which being once kindled yea but a little, blessed are al they that trust in him, and cursed are they that make such a turkissing and furbushing of his omnipotent and irreprehensible word, which hath bin euer hetherto the word of ioy and comfort, and wil be hereafter the word of Iubilee it selfe, of victorie her­selfe; which Iubilee is neither against the institutions & grounds of our, or of other soundest lawes, or any way against the analogie of christian religion or regiment, but a true restoratiue for decayed families, and a good preseruatiue against the proud pouertie, and is therfore so highly extolled and magnified by Moses, Leuit, cap. 25. v. 10. as these are professed of vs with heart and voyce, and yet are dayly defaced and weakened among vs, so farre as trueth may be enfeebled, which is inuincible, by priuie and open treacheries, falsly called reformati­ons.

O mercifull God, seeing it is thy soueraigne maie­sties most gratious and apparant worde, not to touch thine annoynted, or doe thy Prophets any harme, Psal. 105. v. 15. either execute thy will, and poure out thy [Page 141] vengeance vpon such wicked ones, as seeke both to touch thine annoynted, and hurt thy Prophets, or els shorten the day of thy second comming, and quicklie sound the last thundering trumpet of thy greatest glo­rie, that all these impostors and intruders may knowe, that thou, ô Lord, art God aboue all men, and emperor of all the world, but specially of thy little flock, to geue it a kingdome according to thy word, which thy sonne and our Sauiour purchased with the inestimable and vnspeakeable price of his most precious life bloud, which to vs is so heartie and full of life, and in which lieth the life of our soules, as the life of our bodies is in our owne bloud.

They went out from vs, ô God of heauen & earth, they went out from among vs, and why are they suffe­red to liue by vs? that would betray vs and thy sheepe­heards vpon no iust causes, but by vaine & vile meanes, out they went from vs and were not of vs, but they were of that malicious arch-rebel Caine, and that pecu­niarie Ringleader Iudas, they were of themselues, and their owne selfewil, that haue rebelled against our reue­rend spirituall fathers, and our honourable spirituall Lords, and but for feare of losing their heads, woulde holde vp their pennes and Printes that come from O­uids Europa, a metamorphosed defloured beast, or ra­ther from Aristotles Euripus a desperate probleme, and throwe their bookes, their libels, their lies at temporal fathers and secular Lords: for both these tenures holde alike by thy seruice, in ruling the soules and bodies of thy people.

O Lord, they haue opened a gappe to all obstinacie, outrage, and miserie, their malicious proceedings haue [Page 142] put shamefull and peruerse paradoxes into Subiectes mindes: how much better were it to hold them down, and as it were to the grinstone, as Moses and Lycurgus did by iust executions, then thus to let go the reynes, and to let them loose till they looze themselues and al? as the Athenians and Rhodians, which therfore at this day are of no account, but slauish and vnknowen, did play the part of childrē, in breaking their lawes so soon as they made them, or the part of spiders, in catching small flies, and letting goe great hurtfull hornettes and dors: by the discipline of their reformatiōs many haue reached beyond the compasse of thy worde, in these common places, of accepting no persons, of vnequall comparisons, in striuing against externall decent cere­monies and customes, as though they were principals of our saluation, cases of life and death, matters of hell and heauen: they haue been disobedient to the Magi­strates of thy Sanctuarie and congregation, they would ouerrule thy rulers in indifferent things, rather then be ruled by them, as if they were aboue them: they speake of peace, and make continuall warre: they thinke them selues Nathans and good finders out of errors, & cor­rectors of abuses, when as in very deede the parable of Nathan, 2. Kings, cap. 12. v. 1, 2, 3, 4. is verified by them in the fifth commaundement, Honour spirituall and corpo­rall fathers, as it was true in Dauid by the tenth, thou shalt not couet thy neighbours wife, and they are in minde as their works proue thē very Mathans of some one Baals groue or other, if all were knowne to vs that is knowne to thee, to bring his vilest indignities to passe, to make a wofull Democraty without order, honour, or seemely estate, and a right cyclopical and giantlike church, and [Page 143] consequently such a commonalty, where euery bold one may be a controller of his betters, and powre out his fancies like water that runneth apace, their arrowes are shot, when shall they be rooted out? where the sti­pendiary man may esteeme of his reuerend Lord, as the vast rudes by Polyphemus coūteth of superior powers, poëtically termed Iupiter and the gods, and saith, that he is but a cyclops with halfe his eyes, yet will do what he list and aske them no leaue, though at last he lost his one eye like enough for his blasphemous treason. Lord God, what a desperate state is this? how shall duties be regarded? how shall offices bee performed? how can thy great name be honored in thy rulers? how can the gouernment of ciuill and godly nations endure, if the chiefe piller and ankerhold of all feare and obedience be once broken and taken away from thy sanctuary & holy church? if their hearts be thus set against thy glo­rie, who shall safely trust them in mens affaires? if their Deleatur begin at thy house, where shall the vngodly and sinners appeare? if one lamb and sheepe thus rend another, what rendings and tearings shall the woolues make? if they behold thy lambe, ô God, with so cruell and enuious eyes, how can they be louing and merci­full toward thy children? O how truely haue the Pro­phets and Apostles compared such men to vnreasona­ble creatures? as Paul hath called the Cretians Euill beasts, and Christ surnamed Herod a Fox; whom other zealous and learned writers haue followed in like cau­ses of pride and mischiefe, but especially Epiphanius a­boue other, who by his manifold naturall similitudes, seemeth to write his bookes of Poisonous beastes, be­ing made purposely against rebellious heretickes; to [Page 144] omit our countriman Gildas surnamed Sapiens, & other, who dealing plainly against notorious enormities, told kings to their faces, that they liued like outlawes, lions, and lions whelps, and leopards, and beares, and dra­gons, and dogs, forsaking the rules & manners of men, and liuing in lust not in order, in will not in skill, at ro­uers and rangeal, not within bounds and compas, mad­ly and drunkenly; to let passe the surpassing stile and vi­olent phrases of Luter in this vaine forced vpon causes. Therefore from all such reforming discipline, that is priuy conspiracie against all rulers, from all such falfe doctrine and heresie, which no magistrate can allow without periury, from such hardnesse and deceitfull contempt of thy word and cōmandement, good God saue vs or deliuer vs, and let thy will be now done still and still in earth, as it hath euer more and more bene in heauen by thy will, and lead not thy princes and peo­ple into these snares and calumnies of the deuill, that in his angelick sophistry goeth & looketh like a reformer, intending wrong and pretending right, that is hony and mealemouthed to looke vnto, but hath his entrals compounded of all vnhealthfull bitternesse, and is in true tast a wild kinde of Coloquintida or death it selfe in the pot of the prophets children, in our schooles and townes, which the gatherer shredded in steed of good hearbes, being too hasty and presumptuous to aske, & too ignorant to know of himselfe what he should haue gathered.

How can I but be mooued hartily, to write against some such graue and some such bragging conspirators in these daies, whose heresie is more dangerous then any old one, being a more winding & crooked mutiny [Page 145] then any of them? And now at last it is proued no bet­ter then a spitefull sect, a very mocking Ismaëliticall kin­dle, Gen. c. 21. v. 9, 10, 11. a counterfet holines, a proude selfe-loue, an old militar obiection and barbarous para­dox, renued a fresh and misalledged▪ tush man, quoth he, temporall and ecclesiastical are synonima, it is popery to count ecclesia and ecclesiastica for coniugata, cedant togae armis▪ it is a stubburne and arrogant quarel, begun vpon priuate aemulation, and continued with a brasen fore­head, vttered first in heate and haste, and then defended in earnest, one great cause of corrupted artes, as Viues iudgeth rightly, l. 1. de disciplinis▪ herein following the iudgement of Salomon, Bion, Seneca, and experience it selfe, a swelling and harmefull scisme sprung from a col­ledge mal-contentship to a common-wealth-braule, a clamarous and wrangling doctrine of another brytish Sphynx, a spotted linx, or such, not innocent & harme­lesse as the doctrine of Gods blessed lambe, an hypocri­ticall imposture, which hath the face of a man, and the tayle of a Scorpion, a shew of peace before it, and fire & powder following it, which propoundeth conscience, and concludeth iniurie, pretendeth purest diuinity, and is farthest from charitable necessary christian humani­tie, a most perfite enmitie to the lambe of God, and God himselfe, in defacing and supplanting the magi­stracies of both.

For seeing in Greece this day not only the doctrine and rites of christian religion, but also the order and de­gree of Bishops, and the whole ecclesiasticall regiment and iurisdiction are both tolerated and defended vnder the Turkish tyrannie, as many faithfull men which li­ued there a long time, haue witnessed in an oration of [Page 146] Dauid Chitreus, written about twenty yeares since, and as he there telleth more plentifully, how can we esteme them so godly as Turkes, that seek in their owne coun­trey to hurt the Church, more than those infidels anti­christians doe, though they can, and these cannot? as God forbid they shoulde euer doe it. Church goods are onely to be reserued to the churches vse, saith Ha­damarius in his institution of a Prince. Or if these words seem any way hard to any good christian, which to the well disposed and skilfull reader are no lesse al­lowable by good example, then apparantly true, and more true than he or I would they were by reason, I desire some good Christian, euen in christian cha­ritie and godly brotherhode, to thinke vpon, to consi­der and examine the proofes and grounds of this asser­tion, and then iudge thereafter accordingly in consci­ence as he ought, specially when he remembreth that the heathen writers themselues neuer set any men but the vaynest and maddest of all the rest against their Priestes, which men either liued in reproach, or came to shame, or for the time were generally reputed re­prochefull and shamefull men, as may appeare in their gigantomachies and theomachies, commonly made e­uen of poets in reuerence of religion, the causes of grea­test mischiefes and sorowes, to which end and purpose all the most auncient tragedies haue beene written, euē euery one of them, as R. Haruey hath proued in his Logical and Enthymematicall Analysis, dedicated to the valiant and vertuous noble Lord, the Earle of Essex. If Menelaus coun­ted a light and idle pratler abuse Calchas, or Agamem­non a great drinker in his hast and anger misuse Chryses, or Pentheus in his frensie disturbe the Bacche, or Creon [Page 147] in his pride disable Tyresias, and so forth, neither shall their passions hinder the spirites of those Prophets, nor make Nestor, or Vlisses, or Cadmus, or the Thebanes, or the wiser sort, or God himselfe, in their phrase termed Apollo and Dyonisius of destroying euill thinges, and working great matters, to despise them one iote the more, but the rather to defend them, which decorum is euer kept in all their bookes, in geuing the best ende of their controuersies to their religious persons, hee that hath eyes to read, let him reade.

Then let him thinke in his heart, whether pacience and humility in one man should prouoke another man to presumption and rigour, and the naked innocencie and innocent nakednesse of Gods holy prophets and teachers may in any heauenly or worldly reason cause busiebodies the rather to annoy them? if he answereth in himselfe, it should not, it may not be, why goeth he against his conscience and woundeth his owne soule, in allowing these idle flies, these troublesome waspes, these stinging gnats, these vnprofitable wormes? if he saith, it should be, it may be, he maketh loue a reason of hatred, and submission a cause of oppression, he taketh away the reward of vertue, and doth euill for good, which is worse then the worst beasts, then diuels & all. Then I beseech him to consider, how disalowable it is in good discipline, which they and he stand vpon so much, to change that order and breake downe those degrees, that are nether diuers from Gods holy and re­uerend word, nor contrary to true and godly gouern­ment, to be firie & vehement in their innouatiōs, wher­as old standards haue more equity and safety in thē by much, or else by such an infinite methode we shall ne­uer [Page 148] make an end of changings, and euer trouble the world with needles questions, besides, that is the most inordinate & vnlawfull thing in the world, to haue pri­uate men speake and write their pleasures in publicke cases, seeking on their owne heads without any good allowance or lawfull warrant of the rulers, factiously and arrogantly to alter the state that is builded and fra­med on Gods and mans law.

Then I desire him to examine this question, whe­ther vertue and wealth, godlines and riches may not be in one and go together? if they may not, why were the most soueraigne princes and godly puissant captaines of Gods church, euer as welthy and rich as any other? will they reforme God too, for doing this, and teach the Almightie to do better? or if they may be in one, being both good, what meane these immoderate clen­sers of no faults, to pull downe or spoile, to beggar or abase with all their forces the countenance and main­tenance of spirituall magistrates and fathers, of ecclesi­asticall teachers and rulers? whose reuenues and iuris­dictions are more necessary and lesse hurtful, more cha­ritable and natural then any other, and whose children shall not be behind any in true vertue and true proofe. How truly hath S. Augustine defined him to be an here­tick, which for profits sake or fame beginneth or fol­loweth new opinions? God in his goodnes and mer­cie forgiue all ignorant and weake offences, as he will in his powerfull iustice ouerthrow all presumptuous and strong offenders, to his owne immortall glory, and the euerlasting comfort of his true church, his peculiar people, his faithfull children, his obedient seruaunts, which beleeue in him aboue al, which feare him vnder [Page 149] all, which loue him with all the powers of their soules and bodies, in all thankfulnes and dutie, in all visible & inuisible offerings of their goods and goodwils. For when the reasonable and honest soule remembreth in it selfe, that the weight of Gods sanctuary was euer as much more as the weight of the congregation, and the measure much more; that the best & fairest of all things were alwaies bestowed vpon Gods diuine vses and ser­uices, who giueth vs the best & all for his vses; that the lands of the Leuites in that only little land of Canaan cō ­tained at the least in compasse one hundred and nine­ty miles, Num. c. 35. v. 5. or if later times be better, that of the whole land of Iurie diuided into foure seuerall parts, two parts of them were giuen to the priests, to the temple and the Leuites for their inheritance. Ezech. cap. 45. vers. 3, 4, 5. or if an interpretor be required here­in, in, that S. Ierome in his notorious and notable epistle to Euagrius, concludeth, and calleth this an apostolical tra­dition, that the Bishops and Priests and Deacons may aske and chalenge so much in the church, as Aron and his sonnes and the Leuites did in the temple; that the li­uings of the Aegyptian priests, euen idolatrous priests were not once touched or diminished in common dearth and famine and need, and knoweth withall that these benefits and liberties were ordained by two of the most godly and politick lawmakers that euer liued, except Christ, euen by Moses and Ioseph, men euery way most singular & vnmatchable, men taught of God him­selfe, from heauen it selfe, by visions, and reuelations, and familiar conferences; how can he iudge otherwise then honorably and graciously for the heads and parts of the church, as he will iudge both graciously and ho­norably [Page 150] for the heads and parts of the congregation? & there is not I am sure any one of vs, that reading S. Paul 2. Cor. c. 3. v. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. of the glorious and continuall ministery of righteousnes more excellent then the mi­nistery of condemnation, or c. 4. Galat. humbling the law with the names of rudiments and bondage, and those which liued vnder the law of children and ser­uants, but exalting the gospell with the titles of fulnesse of time and redemption, and the gospellers, of sonnes and heires and such other concordances of like Scrip­ture, can once thinke, that the law of Moses is greater then the gospell of Iesus, but that the gospel is, both for the godhead of the autor, Hebr. c. 3. v. 3. and for the do­ctrine it selfe, and for the first teachers of both, greater and woorthier then the law; which proposition of the gospels excellency and preferment beyng truly graun­ted and rightly grounded, these consequents must ne­cessarily be conioyned; that they which teach the gos­pell ought euery way to liue in more honour and cre­dite thereby among the Christians, then they which taught the law liued in honour and reuerence thereby among the Israëlites: as the perfitest state of the church must haue perfitest honour; that he is the surest freend to God and Gods people, which ioyneth the power of the world vnto the mightines of the word, the arme of Moses to the tongue of Aron, the blessings of God to Gods blessed church; that by vniting of both powers either may be stronger. Eccle. c. 4. v. 12. that in this grea­test light of diuinitie, diuines should be in greatest light and reputation, yea if it were but to anger the deuill in hell, who like a crafty theefe as he is, euer seeketh by mi­serable pouerty to cast them into wofull & contempti­ble [Page 151] estate. That vnhappie pouertie may make the men ridiculous, as Iuuenall wryteth Satyra 3. or as Synesius bi­shoppe of Ptolomais singeth in his seconde and thirde Hymne, sad pouertie may pull them from heauenly studies to earthly cares, as he had learned of Agur the sonne of Iaketh, or rather of experience the daughter of trueth; that our preachers nowe may pronounce a se­uenfold Vae, and a mighty malediction ouer thē which empayre Gods tenthes, or any other dues, as the olde Prophets aforetime did in Iudaea, Mala. c. 3. v. 8, 10. Amos cap. 4. vers. 4. that there is no iust cause why the papistes should be readier to magnifie their Cleargie in a false superstition, then the Protestants to vphold & rewarde their cleargie in a true religion, why the heathen chur­ches should be in greater reuerence with the paganes, then the christian churches with the christians: as the loue of good men should exceed the loue of the wic­ked, why secular men may get their wealth by testamēt or desert, & spirituall men hauing the same plea both of testament and desarte, may misse of their own goods, and lose them by force, by tyrāny & hypocrisie, vnder a mercifull Prince, in a peaceable state, in their owne na­tiue countrey, of their own neighbors, by the waiward and sophisticall wrangling of their own professors, and such other deceitfull and vngodly meanes and essayes of the maker, the shifter, the hooker, against the golden rules of vniuersalitie, of antiquitie, of vnanimitie, which Vincentius in his commentarie standeth so well vpon.

Then to whom may I best liken this race of Refor­mers, and with what may we iustly and truely compare them? If I should continua similitudine resemble them to the Vipers broode, that kill their owne damme which [Page 152] bred and brought them vp to life, I am sure you that know the vse of this kind of simile, and the manners of this people against their mother the Church that first bred them, will say I speake trueth.

If in like sort I compare them to the noysome Cuc­koo, reckoned among other vnclean birdes in Leuiticus which must not be eaten or tasted of, c. 11. v. 16, whose propertie is to starue his nest-felowes, and destroy his nurce that fed him, our dayly experience doth approue it, and if Orus or Pïerius were aliue, euen they woulde make these two naturall examples the Hierogliphickes of Reformers. God graunt they be not like the vnad­uised Physitian, that would needes cut a veine where no danger was, and thinking to ease and lighten the head, where the signe was, which poynt hee either for­gat or neglected, let the life bloud out, and killed both head and heart together. I pray God they prooue not like the hasty and curious husbandman, that to make his trees growe in more sightly order, as he thought, so cropped, and disarmed, & disarayed them, that in short time they withered vp.

I hope in Christ they shall neuer be like that concei­ted harebrainde Captaine, who when by grosse ouer­sight and blindenes he had lost the Citie in neglectigg one gate which had most neede of defence, beyonde his expectation cast himselfe and his neighboures into bondage and death, and as it were out of Gods blessed Paradise, into the wilde fielde, and hote Sunne.

But alas I see well, they are to day like themselues yesterday, and to morow like themselues to day, seking this day and all other like themselues, to make desperate exchanges, to bring in fruitlesse amendments, stūbling [Page 153] at strawes that hinder not the way, and leaping ouer great blockes that halfe stoppe vp the way, crying out vpon the godly orders and decent customes of the church, as il birds that file their owne neast, exclaiming against conuocation robes, and graue apparrel, because sometimes, forsooth, there hangs a straw, or feather, or threads end, or some such great thing, which a cranke, a cursitour, a Martin, a carter, threw or blewe vpon them in his terrible mocking vaine, and letting passe the mō ­strous vnnaturall, vnlawfull, vngodly, vnciuil, and more then Iewish vsurers, whom the most learned M. doctor Wilson, once her Maiesties Secretarie, hath condemned in his Dialogues, to the endlesse shame of gromelgay­ners, ill occupiers, by heathens, by Christians, by the old fathers, by the auncient counsels, by emperors, by bishops, by decrees, by canons, by all sectes of regions, and of all religions, by the gospell of Christ, by the mouth of God: omitting the outlandish and English corruptions or witcrafts, by which and those kinde of people together, if we marke well, this seminarie of re­formers is cheefly vpholden and boulstred out, and by such companions as make the bookish vnwary Mini­ster a cloake for their conueyances, and a shadowe for their skarres.

It is but too true which Ptolomy wryteth in his 12. a­phorisme, that loue and hatred corrupt mens iudge­ments, either in themselues by extenuating the greatest faults, and by extending the least commendations, or by enlarging the least faults, and abridging the greatest prayses of their aduersaries which like not their procee­dings. Wherefore I would to Christ they would once leaue off from their vncharitable and vnwarie contra­dictions, [Page 154] and be so gratiously and godly wise, to take the lambe of God out of the Lions and Beares mouth, as valiant young Dauid did saue his lamb with his cun­ning and hardy sling, and taught some old shepheardes as he learned of other, to keep their sheepe and lambes from hungrie, and emptie, and rauenous beastes of the field and of the wood: Saue the lambe of God, not be­cause he hath need of your helpe, but that yee may bee blessed and saued by him. Hurt not the seruants of the Lambe, if ye haue any foresight in you, least while you goe about to drowne the poore mouse, as the enuyous frog did, you make your selues a pray to your enemies, by the same deuise and thread which drowned him, as Aesope said to Delphi for himselfe, in a sillie tale contey­ning a subtile and solemne precept to beware of re­uenge.

Let vs looke vpon the Princes and heads of Israël, let our noblemen allow and follow their actes, which shalbe renowmed and praysed for euer, their offeringes shalbe famous throughout all posterities, no reformers or misinformers shall euer deforme and defame their good workes and good names, and the sixe sonnes of Arcturus in heauen shall not continue longer then the giftes of Naason, Nathaniel, Eliab, Elizur, and the other rulers vnto Pagiel and Ahyra, which giftes they gaue at the setting vp of the tabernacle, and the dedication of the altar, Nom. c. 7. v. 11. vnto the 88. they offred siluer in very great measure, they offred gold a mightie quātity, they presented the finest flower, mingled with pleasant oyle in most bountifull manner, they gaue of the best of their cattle a goodly number, and because they came so willingly vnto God, behold the reward of godlines, [Page 155] God came the more readily vnto them, and God tal­ked presently with Moses their chiefe ruler and captaine from his mercy seate, v. 89. both to incourage them in the worke of their free will offeringes, and to stirre vp their children and successors after thē vnto the worldes end, to such religious deuotion and restitution. Their, and all the peoples voluntarie contribution toward the tabernacle was so great and plentifull, euen in that time of their wandering and pouerty in the wildernes, that the workmen complayned of too much trouble in receiuing their dayly gifts, that Moses at their requestes proclaymed in their armies, to haue them cease from offering any longer. A christall glasse for this age to looke in, and see to wipe out their cankred spots, which make them most vnlike those primitiue Israëlites, and as diuelish in purloyning the beneuolences and lega­cies geuen to Gods holy places, as good Christians were liberall in prouiding for their spirituall fathers, Exodus c. 35. and 36. They all gaue their offeringes for loue, for example, for thanksgeuing, they restored to God that which God gaue them, they knew that their goods without Gods seruice, shoulde be vnto them as those delicate quayles, and that white pure Manna, the quayles choaking those that did eate them against Gods will, and the Manna smelling with wormes, that was kept against Gods commaundement, Num. cap. 11. v. 19, 29. Exod. c. 16. v. 20.

But why stand I vpon those vertuous examples? was not that infamous Balaam more iust then these new fan­gled censuring reformers? yea and was not his very rude asse more respectiue & regardant in humble sub­mission to his better, then these busi-motespiers smoo­thing [Page 156] hipocrites? O let those precise lips and pure san­guine liuers pardon me, that loue to feede finely and sleepe softly, not on thistles, not asselike, not hardly. No faire allurement of king Balac, no suttle suggestion of his lords of Moab, could make him go beyond the word of the Lord God, but he tooke vp his parable and blessed Iacob, he spake once and twise, and exalted the florishing and happy estate of Israël, he could not curse them whom God had blessed, and he would not go a­gainst the worde of their God▪ neither was he himselfe only obedient, though he were in the number of false prophets, but his asse likewise did bowe to the Angell in the way; the beast bowed and fell downe before Gods messenger again and againe, and God made the dumb brute to seeme somewhat reasonable with a mās voice, Num. c. 22. v. 22. whereas these strange new foun­ders of discipline, will looke on the magistrate, which is Gods angel, and neither bowe heart, nor bend body to him, but in a blind courage will bite the lip at him, and looke vnder the browe, and walke on proudly apace, will tell Gods angel that he must put vp his sword, that they are not borne to obey him, but to gouerne and reforme them, though neither Sultan nor Saphra, ney­ther princes nor iudges, neither valiant nor wise men be on their sides, otherwise then Ioab was next to Ab­ner, and Hamon to Guinder, euen to execute their owne purposes, though Abner and Guinder paid their liues for them in the ende. 2. Kings c. 3. v. 27. or if perhaps any hold with them, it is the horsleach and his daughter, that crie giue and giue, and nothing but giue, Prou. c. 30. v. 15. if themselues haue any zeale, it is the zeale of Iu­das Iscariot, who enuied the precious annointing of [Page 157] Christs body, that now is the Church. Iohn c. 12. v. 5, 6. if they haue any spirit for them, it is that false spirit, that flew into the mouthes of Ahabs prophets, and blew all their proofes to a goodly and new gay nothing, like our new reformations. 3. Kings c. 22. v. 23. or rather it is that foule vggly spirit, their owne very type and example, who in calumny and lying hath no priour nor peere, & being a traueller to and fro, and maligning the prospe­ritie of rich and righteous Iob, came among the childrē of God on a day, as these pure ones do often, & temp­ted God openly, as these tempters doe their adherents and hearers in corners and conuents, to plague good Iob, to punish him, to torment and vexe him, and if the holy plaintifs might haue the diuels lucke, and by some sinister meanes obtaine their request, they would euen for perfit zeale doe as the diuell did, and leaue their fa­ther Iob nothing but nakednes and woe; or at their best, be but like the pure penitent, that stoale away a swan & picked downe a feather: desiring in their too singular and too extraordinary discipline, that God might be magnified, in restoring him againe to his children, in reedifying his houses, in renewing his lands and goods and all that he had, much like him that would breake his fellowes head, to giue him a plaister, or that put his finger in the fire, to haue it healed againe, that contrary to S. Pauls counsell would doe euill that good might come of it; Rom. c. 3. v. 8. Iob c. 1. v. 6. c. 2. v. 1. neuer re­garding that prohibition in Gods prouerbs, of not re­moouing the bounds of their ancestors, c. 22. but deui­sing and filling their lusts.

Hereafter I for my part must account Aristotle & his schollers more religious then these newes bringers, [Page 158] that vse holy magistracies that are publicke offices like priuate charges, that are necessary duties like decent or­ders: for he iudgeth them both publick and necessary, which must be regarded publickly of al men, and with­out which the commonwelth cannot begin or indure. and though at first he reckoneth religious degrees after politick, yet in his methodicall transition or recapitula­tion of necessary offices, he setteth diuine before war­ly or any other, perhaps criptically and histerological­ly, perhaps in his lukewarme zeale not caring which were placed first, as may appeare by Laërtius l. 5. and els­where in his owne works. Polit. l. 6. c. 8. Yea these men may well be set euen to Phalaris the tyrants schoole, to learne deuotion & zeale of him, after thus many yeares puritie and purgation, who in his 84. epistle to the Mes­sanenses, accuseth thē of theft, of impietie, of sacriledge, for doing that which our reformers seeke with tooth & naile continually, and diuiding those golden giftes a­mong themselues, which hee had sent to Delphos as a thanksgiuing after the recouerie of his health, & threat­neth them with reuenge from heauen, & geueth them at last a [...], a farewell with a mis­chiefe. Yea and Iulius Caesar that great spoyler may read a diuinitie lecture to these reformers, though those ger­mane currages Agrippa and Luter make account of him as of a theefe, hee may well teach them a way of regi­ment, which after his victories and instigations of ma­ny freends would not in any wise take his sword from a temple of the people called Aruerni in Gallia Aquita­nica, where he that got it from him in battell or some other, had dedicated it to the honor of God In sempi­ternam rei memoriam.

[Page 159]In which kinde of regard toward reuerend orders Plutarch reprooueth the couetous Graecians, which in steede of golden spoyles constituted brazen remem­brances and counterfaits in their publicke places and temples. Yea and the othe of Hippocrates that heathen doctor, shall be in more honour with good men, wher­in he bound himselfe, not to be persuaded either by counsel or by hand to minister any poison to any man, then these reformatorie pastorall inuentions, by which they poison and bewitch the people with a tast of holi­nesse, bringing them by little & little to liue wholy vp­on poysons, or to make them madly affected thereby, that they may abhor all men beside their own broode, as drunken men delight in none but drunkards com­panie. O what pittie or shame is it, that the statute of prisoning such maleparts and obstinates, or depriuing their hedstrong teachers of their vsurped liuings, is not like the lawes of the Medes and Persians, that must not be broken? Now fie vpon Lucian, he was not woorth a beane, and out vpon the wittes of Italians & Greekes, that are not any way comparable with these men, they are fayne to rayle grosly, or taunt vainly after their own carnall maner, but these vpstarted wits wil choake God with his own scripture, these can construe his owne wil and testament otherwise then hee euer did, with their placets, and interlacings, and grand protestations, these will by their physicall informations and magicals, think and tell God himselfe, that if one pasture and close will not serue one lambe of his, the lambe must starue for them, and learne of the wolfe to eate earth, and make shifte as foxes doe, the best they can: they will tell him that his lambe is too hote and wants a shearer, that he [Page 160] is cloyed with too much, and must be dieted, that the vertues and patience of lambs appeareth most in mise­rie, and therefore it were good to keepe them still in it, lest they forget all; that hauing high mindes and proude lookes, vnlike Dauid the propheticall Prince, tell him in his triumph ouer Goliah, of his shepheards bag and sling, and it be but to pull Dauids grace an ace lower: presuming that all goodly proceedings are disgraced, because all their first beginninges in comparison were simple and but vile, which wiser men iudge è diametro contrarily; and while the virgins of Ierusalem sing of Sauls thousande, these blunder about the meannesse of his tribe and house & of his seeking his fathers asses; & by equall reason aba­sing the miracles and blessings of the almightie, where­by he putteth downe the mighty from their seate, and exalteth the humble and meeke; yea and abasing our sauiours Osanna, because of the maunger where they layed him; dispraising that good wine of Cana, because it was once water: humbling the excellency of one contrary, because it is compared with the lowlinesse of another; and so forth, in a straunge new Martinish hasty logick, the very reuersion and scrapings of Sophistrie hirselfe, they in this and such manner haue sold them­selues to hatch nothing but iniurious themes and in­uectiues all their life long; or if it were as they say being extreemely and abominably false, yet how great was the pride of Diogenes which cōtemned the decencie of Plato? and what lords would these lordings be, thinke you, that would ouerthrow lordships? how loftie was Carolus Martellus that hammer of christiās, which scor­ned the thrones of princes, & yet liued in meaner state, belike affecting the insolent nature of Caesar, that in [Page 161] winged selfeloue refused all names of magistracie, and would rather be remembred by his owne name then any other, as in their seuerall histories it is recorded? or if these men be in their owne confession inferiors and no Lords, why doe they so wrongfully and shamefullie rebell against their heads? much like those heretikes in Epiphanius, by name called of him Cathari, which are in English Puritans, and by naturall qualities right refor­mers and crooked patrons for our queint ones, that did put shoes on their heads, and garlands on their feete, & rings on their toes, only to crosse them in this cōtemp­tuous guyse, that vsed them as all sober and wise men doe now in their proper places.

So iudged the reuerend Bishop Epiphanius of all he­retikes, and inclusiuely of those Cathari or Puritanes, which liued in the time of the Emperors Decius & Au­relianus, and so he prophecied of these pure men, and purer women which are in some places, and preuaile a­mong their owne ignorant and headlong fauourers, which will neuer leaue to breake downe the hedge, till a serpent bite them, Eccles. c. 10. v. 8. of both hee geueth forth that true & Apostolike sentence, 1. tom. 2. l. 59. Her. Hi verò qui seipsos Catharos, id est, puros appellant, ab ipso do­ctrinae suae argumento impuros seipsos efficiūt. And his proof is all one with the proposition of the Apostle S. Iohn, Omnis enim quiscipsum purum pronunciat, impurum seipsum perfectè condemnauit, if we say we are pure and haue no sinne, we deceiue our selues, and there is no trueth or puritie in vs, 1. ep. c. 1. v. 10.

But if they will needes downe with iurisdictions, & vp with deformations, if they will not honor priestes as Iesus biddeth them, cap. 7. v. 31. if they will yet go for­ward [Page 162] in their froward doings and sayings, if they will forsake the Leuite contrary to Moses, Deut. c. 12. v. 19. c. 33. v. 11. if Satan that calumniator be so great and hotte within them, that they cannot stay themselues, if they will needes be rich, though they fall into many temp­tations and snares, and into many noysom and foolish lustes, which drown men in perdition and destruction, for the desire of money is the roote of all euill, which while some lusted after, they erred from the faith, and perced themselues thorough with many sorowes, but thou which art a man of God, flie these things, 1. Timo. c. 6. v. 9, 10, 11. if their note be still, there, there, so would we haue it; then let all mal-contents, vsurers and Iewes, all iuglers, owlegasses, and poggians, all decayed and bankrout spendthrifts, all lightheaded and vngracious mates, all turkissing and newfangled turkish poncet pra­ctisioners, all these and such like martinish fellowes go, for none but these and such iolly fellowes will goe vn­to them at any time, to loose an houre among them, though TeeCees stand neuer so stately at the dore, to entertaine all that come and goe, with protections and licenses, and tollerations, let these goe vnto them and encourage them in their extreme vengible reforma­tiues, these new metrapolitanes, that haue pasports and inuestitures of the deuils good holines, to Nymrodize and Iudaize their filles, these that care not if heauen fall downe and earth rise vp, so they haue their willes, and get themselues a day, and a name, being now wearie of their right surnames and christian, and wishing to bee their owne godfathers or nicknamers, for here is their great theme and maxime of pure and purpure misrule, I warrant you largely and illuminately handled, here is [Page 163] the goale and price they runne at and long for, here is that crucifige which they cried so long, here is a corre­ctiue Leiger and Factor for their new-shapen worships, their humors of all sortes; here is their vpright patri­co or Abraham man, as they tearme him, at a beck, at an inch with his dieu garde, that can and will at a dead lift proue it good by his lawes and canons, by his reasons and senses, by his fathers, and brothers, and sisters, by his angels and perhaps paredrall diuels, that bare such a sway in their booke Nemith vel legum Orci & Inferorum: That Hazael and Ioas princes, were base kings and as it were flattering dogs, to call the ecclesi­asticall prophet Elisaeus their lord and father: 4. Kings c. 8 v. 12. c. 13. v. 14. that the third Semicenturion or captain of king Ochoziah with al his fifty men was but a swaine, to fall on his knee, and do the ecclesiasticall prophet E­lias reuerence, and cal him his good lord; 4. Kings c. 1. v. 13, 14. that king Benhadad, Naaman the captaine, and the rest in holy Chronicle did amisse, to call prophets their fathers and lords, themselues being noble and mightie men. 4. Kings c. 5. v. 17. c. 8. v. 9. that God did not well to make Moses that was but a lawgiuer and counseller the God of Pharao, a king & drad soueraigne. Exod. c. 7. v. 1. that al men in the earth which haue called the heads & rulers of the church their lords, in bookes, in sermons, in other meetings, shall for that idle word giue account at the last day, but not for calling other mē their lords: that our Church is maymed, vnlesse we turne 7. into 4, and yet so we mayme it more; that our bishops are blas­phemers and traitors, vnlesse they set downe 4. sortes of churchmen by those texts, where S. Paul setteth downe 7. seuerall things, Prophecie, Office, Teachers, Exhor­ters, [Page 164] Distributers, Rulers, Mercymen. Rom. c. 12. v. 6, 7, 8, &c. where he setteth downe nine gifts of the spirite, wisedome, knowledge, faith, healing, great workes, pro­phecie, discerning of spirits, diuersities of tongues, in­terpretation of tongues, 1. Cor. c. 12. v. 8, 9, 10. where he setteth downe fiue orders with the fruits of them, apo­stles, prophets, euangelists, pastors, teachers, &c. Ephes. c. 4 v. 11, 12. that deacons must not teach wisdome, but pastors; that elders must not teach knowledge, but do­ctors; that pastors must not meddle with goods, but de­acons; that doctors must not deale with manners, but elders; that wisedome, knowledge, manners, accounts, these foure things belong not to euery pastor, to euery doctor, to euery elder, to euery deacon, because euery one in himself belike and in other men, must not looke to the soule and bodie, to the mind and māners, to the inward and outward man; that our confessors and mar­tyrs of late time, men as carefull of euery worde they spake, as men might be, and specially that most inno­cent and righteous preacher M. Bradford was ouerseen in being so dutifull and curteous, to call the Bishops lords; that these our Eliae, Elisaei, Moses, our spirituall cap­taines and fathers, should not be called lords, nor char­ret & strength of England any more, though they euer were and wil be so; that teachers must be poorer then their inferiours and schollers; that the magistracies for none or least causes must bee contemned and ouer­throwne; that the sheepherd must not be richer then a sheepe; and Christ put from his See in the church, be­cause he is not corporally resident▪ that laughing and reioycing vpon supposed faults betokeneth Gods spi­rit; that the watchman in the tower must be kept of the [Page 165] meanest that saueth me best and al; that he may in con­science be fostered that standeth stifly in a lewde cause: that Philemon did not owe himselfe to Paul his spirituall father, v. 19. that physicians of the bodies shall be in great account, for healing an outward maladie that would cast into the graue, and looking to the mortall part of man, and our ghostly and heauenly physicians of the soule must be out of account, for preseruing the immortall part of a man, and curing the inward diseases that otherwise would cast downe to hell; that the mi­noritie of Saul and the Iudaisme of Paul must preiudice the ones title and roialtie, and the others doctrine and diuinitie; that Edgars and Iustinians, and the first Wil­liams, or third Edwards & Henries lawes, or Magna char­ta, should set their lawiers aflote in wealth, in magnifi­cencie, in all ability, and Gods lawe descending from heauen vpon the holy mountaine Sinai in all maiestie and honorable reuerēce, & the prophets words writtē by the wisest spirit of the whole world, euē Gods own holy Ghost, & the gospell of Christ, that hath by Gods prouidence conquered heauen and earth, as I coulde easily shewe vnto you, if puritanisme were not, and the spirituall & true decretals of the Apostles, which keepe all men from follies, and lawmen from iniuries, & these 4. chartae maximae of God himself, that hold vp euen the foure corners or quarters of heauen ouer our heads, that else for our sin would contrarie to all philosophi­call quintessences fall vpon vs, shall set their students, their barresters, their counsellers and iudges at an eb, or in a drought, in more penury, in greater want and con­temptible estate.

Such reasons and conclusions which either must be [Page 166] vpholden with many other like inconueniences and mischiefes, or else these nouelties and quarrels must be cast downe, are more fit for the oration of Catiline, with the coniuration of Lentulus & Cethegus once in Rome, then for reformation of our English church, which is not of the same manner of spirit that Elias was, for so our Sauiour teacheth his Apostles in the gospell of S. Luke c. 9. v. 55. euen as this commonwelth is not in such distresse by Gods fauourable goodnesse wherein it li­ueth, for according to the times God raiseth vp diuerse graces in the world, as those regions were at that day vnder persecution, when notwithstanding the prophet was thus highly honoured and reuerenced of princes; which if it were otherwise in deede then it was, yet in right what argument call you this by your reformatiō? what consequence is this in your witcraft your new lo­gicke, which desire to seeme so logical and sensible wit­tie men? To set worldly magistrates vp on height, for good seruice done to their prince and countrie duly and iustly, & to thrust downe these magistrates of ma­gistrates, as Ignatius, Ambrosius and other haue truly iud­ged, the one almost in euery epistle, the other in his pa­storals, for the diuine court of cōscience ruleth al courts whatsoeuer and wheresoeuer, into the lowest places & offices with the lowest prouision of externall goods, for their diuine and politicke seruice done to God and their prince, to God & their countrie, to God and the whole earth: & herein I cōmend all christians to truth, to charitie, & to faith, which bid al true charitable faith­full christians, to obey their guydes & submit thēselues to those which haue charge of their soules, Heb. c. 13. v. 17. must the greatest seruice be least regarded and recō ­pensed? [Page 167] God be mercifull to vs, what a wilfull world liue we in? shall the seruice of all seruices, euen Gods owne diuine seruice be least considered and rewarded, whereby al other seruices and masteries are holden vp? Then farewell all vertue which shoulde bee Lady and Queen ouer all, then God help godlines, that ordereth all vertues, and is of highest orders, then let Porphyrius saying of Britanie reuiue againe, That it is a fertile Pro­uince of Tyrants: nay but must the greatest seruice amōg the greatest be smally respected, and simply honoured? which helpeth men of all diseases and hurts, more then all Lawyers and Physitians, the precepts thereof being better remedies against diseases and pouertie, either in preuenting them best by temperance, or ouercomming them by patience, as it may appeare to them that reade the Scripture ouer but halfe so often as Alphonsus Arra­gonius did.

Then let in all dissolution and neglect of iustice, then Britannia shalbe Romania, not as Gildas meant of Rome which conquered vs in Caesars time, and after that kept vs long vnder yoke. Ecce quàm malum & iniucundum non habitare in vnum, but as Romania is taken this day for a part of Turkie, which, if wee that professe the Gospell had the grace to agree in our selues, might goe hang it selfe for any hurt it could doe vs; then your & our Eire­narchy will be anarchy, thē shal those paddock lordings rule al with their line & reuel, that haue in their charity & christianity so vnruly and irregularly, in their policie, & their humanitie so trayterously & peruersly opposed and set themselues against the power and honor of the lambe in heauen, of the almighty lambe, which is Lord ouer all, and within all, ruling for euer, in that they are [Page 168] aduersaries to the reuerence and fatherhoode of his kingly prophets, and messengers, and lawyers, his visi­ble angels, and priestes, and saints, created and ruled by his most happy and blessed worde. Which name of priestes or elders by their reformatiue sullen misorder, and their terrible graue Lord of misrule, is nowe halfe reckoned with some harebraines a name in reproach, & so the best names of fathers, and brothers, and other, will shortly likewise be in contempt, if this correcting, corrupting Mart. indure long, as he that hath but halfe an eye may plainly see how it is alredy crept in with these markers and marrers, & by disobedient thoughts hath bred more equalitie in mens mindes, then was wont to be in my short remembrance, or ought now to be in our experience, vnlesse you would haue in your time, and in your successors, a monarchie turned into a democratie, a king into a subiect, a better into a worse, contrarie to Christes owne rule in his Gospell, The ser­uant is not aboue his master, Matth. c. 10. v. 24. for all the fire burneth not at the first or second blast, but riseth and spreddeth by little and little, and so clymeth vp to the top, and can hereafter turne equalities vpon their tem­porall Lordes and tenants, as it appeareth already by some they cal Brownists, or Downists, and Downings, or such men of plucking downe both great and little hils, by the same texts which they wrest vpon spirituall lords and their curates, which texts belong vniuersallie to all christians, as the Lordes prayer and other textes doe, being spoken likewise at first to the Apostles, and that people only.

But perhaps I am in a wrong confutation, seeing these reformers are of so sober and maydenly discreete [Page 169] aduised behauiour? what? say you aduised & discreete? when you might say as truely, the most wise that euer liued vnder the sunne, and the puritie it selfe of mortall sapientials? for Salomon himselfe euer counted hetherto the wisest of men, was not, it seemeth by them, of halfe so wise a spirite, as these frugall dainty mote-spyers be in these points, wherein both of them shew forth their loue and zeale toward Gods church. I beseech you weigh them both together, and so you shall finde the trueth by triall. Salomons loue is loued of all good men, in buylding and bewtifying Gods temple most glori­ously, because it is louely in it selfe, and louing vnto all. 3. Kings. cap. 6. v. 2.2.3. cap. 7. vers. 15. Reformers loue is the cleauing of yuie to the tree, to rotte it, or to the wall for snayles and vermin to creepe vp aloft by it, their loue is of the ape, the fonde olde ape, that with imbra­cing too closely killed his young one, when he did all for apish loue: their loue is of the kisse of that hellish ape, that antichristian Iudas, it is falshoode in felowship, we finde it so: it is no kinde of good loue or zeale to­ward God or man, which breaketh down his holy pla­ces with axes and hammers, which cryeth downe with them, downe with them euen to the grounde, and are hereupon called enemies and blasphemers of God and his honour, Psal. 74. and maketh the Turke and the de­uill to laugh at Christians: God graunt this diuision cause not the increase of Mahomets kingdome, as the faction of Ieroboam was cause of Nabucodonosers victo­ries ouer Israel. Salomon hath so entirely and feruently loued the church, that in reading him any man woulde thinke he could scarcely imagine or tel how to expresse his affection sufficiently and significantly inough to his [Page 170] contentation, that he euer thought, he neuer did good inough, or said good inough to Christes spouse and Church. Reformers Solymans, or halfe Turkes haue so sheerely and purely loued the Church Christes sister and spouse, which that king so magnifieth and extol­leth in his diuine caution or heauenly hymne, by most harty exclamations, and most sweete comparisons, that they cannot tell which way to abase her prelates too much, or inough to impouerish her estate, and make it like themselues rather then Christ, who is Lord ouer all things, and hath all power in heauen and earth, taking Luke for no body, c. 22. v. 30. and naked trueth in a scog­ginly and ruffianly sense, not as it is meant of plainnesse and perspicuitie, they cannot affoorde her any honour and grace, by whose doctrine all other powers are ho­norable and gracious, otherwise remaining in their old heathenish slipperie estate, with catch that catch may, as Brennius once said, they crie out for spritish zeale, and without spirituall skill, they call enuious detraction re­ligious purgation, and violent robbery valiant ielousie, and false dealing godly insinuation. Lord God amend them if it bee thy will, for they know not what they say.

Salomon writeth in his sure promise and exhortation, that if his spouse be a wall, he will build a siluer bulwark vpon it, to make it the more venerable and glorious a­mong men; Reformers in their discipline and exhorta­tion are as ready to steale his siluer worke away by a false plea, as he was to set it vp by a good conscience, they are ready to rob the Church for loue, they now with all blasphemous impudencie professe it openly & set a price on it, as the malecious men in in old time did [Page 171] on Ioseph, and Iudas in later time on Iesus himselfe, and souldiers cast lots on his owne garment, Gen. c. 37. v. 27. Math. c. 27. v. 5. and some care not in their madnesse, if he were stripped from top to toe, such is their lunacie, and so are they puffed vp with pecuniary logick, which Verres a worthy teacher hath taught thē, making more account of monie then of men, & teaching other men, how to buy the best princes aliue of their owne men, but shal this Iugurth say of you relatiuely, ô angliam ve­nalem si inuenerit venditorem? shall he thus vilely disho­nor the iudges of this age with such proffers as if they were for his tooth: maligning secretly our gracious & blessed prince, and deuising how to blot hir Royall im­maculate glory in this hir mercifull and right Christian raigne, by some such villanous desperate act, whereby shee might be stained in all posterities and records, by pleasuring Martinish malcontents once, and displeasu­ring all learned men for euer▪ euen for loue they would worse then that excessiue tyrant Richard the third, play an enemies part to the Church, for the loue they haue to God, they wish the decay of Gods tēple, these An­tidauids and Antichrists haue not loued the habitation of his house, nor the place where his honour dwelleth; as their S. Dionysius, to whom the hotter & wittier they are, the liker they are, robbed the church of his god whome he worshipped because hee would tast of the goodnesse of his God, but we see what sorow came on him, euen by deriding that religion which was bad, or as mad men and fooles, and drunkerds cōdemne their own soules for mony, and loose the blessings and ioyes of Gods kingdome, to win the transitory goods of the earth by mischieuous waies, being misled of an igno­rant [Page 172] wil, and vnaduised resolution, blinded with a fond desire of innouation onely, and presuming to rule the wheele which themselues neuer made or knew.

Salomon saith in the aboundance of that wisedome which God gaue him, that if his sister and spouse be a dore, as Christ metaphorically calleth himselfe a dore, by which we enter into heauen, as by his Church wee enter vnto him, he will keepe hir in with the best wood he can come by, euen with the boordes of Cedar wood, which is a wood euer good, of greatest continuance, of fai­rest bewtie, of noblest worthinesse, insomuch that yong grāmarians can say prouerbially, Cedro digna, of a thing that deserueth immortality and the renowne of all po­sterity, that preserueth it selfe, and other things, that are in it, from corruption: but these supposed gentlemen as far from gentlenesse as the goates be from sweetnes, these courtiers as farre from curtesie, as diuels are from goodnesse, these shrewde reformers of Moses and Ioseph, & Salomon, I pray God, if it be possible, they may once proue reformers of themselues, and learne to be ruled by their rulers, had rather that preseruation, that future renowne, that immortalitie of name, those cedar bords should only or chiefly be giuen to the temporall schol­ler then the spirituall teacher, to the easie hearer then the painefull speaker, to the externall ruler the image of God, then the internall ruler the other image of God, then to the kings of all kings euen God himselfe, or to his house for his owne sake, that giueth all goods only for his houses sake (as he blessed Pharao for Iofephs sake, and the poore widdow of Sarepta for Elias sake, and La­ban for Iacobs sake) where his blessed name is called vp­on, where his eares are open out of heauen to our prai­ers, [Page 173] where the bottomlesse graces and immeasurable benefites and all happines begin, where his owne word is once and for euer sent from aboue, where in a better imitation of heauenly harmonie then Macrobius mentioneth, l. 2. c. 3 Satur. the nightingale, and the larke, and al sweet birds, for so I may well name them, sing Iesus, & Gloria all the yeare, where Gods owne worde is in mans phrase, that men may vnderstand it: a thousand times more worthy of golden couer and golden deske, then the furious Ili­ads and fraudulent Iliads, then the lion and fox of Ho­mer were in the iudgement of Great Alexander, accor­ding to the like cōparitiue argument of the kingly pro­phet Dauid, who thinketh it no reason, that himselfe should dwel within cedar walles, and the Arke of God should abide in tentes and be carried vpon cart wheels in a more penurious and simple manner, then was ey­ther lawful or expedient. 2. Kings c. 6. v. 3. c. 7. v. 2. For Dauid did not make such a conclusiō as our deformers doe, he was not so headstrong a gentleman, or so pre­sumptuous a man of worship, as this great mender thus counselling all before he be called, and cancelling that he neuer had, with a metrapolitanisme of his owne ma­king and fashion: he said not, that the arke of Gods co­uenant should stay on a cart still in other ages after him because in the primitiue necessitie it was first caried vp­on cart wheeles, as these seniors in rayling and iuniors, in obeying say, that the church must stand for euer, as she stoode in her apodemicall mobilitie at the first, in trauaile, in trouble, in sorow, in persecution, like the first churchmen, and if that were granted, yet euen at those dayes the true christians of the laytie layd downe their goods at the churchmens feete, and they did not the [Page 174] like only that were infidels and very pagans, Acts c. 4. v. 32. which bounty shewed in the dreadful time of perse­cution, when themselues might haue neede, shoulde teach our men to doe the like in time of peace, and li­berally supply the wants of the clergie, which by vn­godly Martinish vnreasonable absurdest meanes are be­yond a meane very grieuous and many, and if christian patience were not most intollerable: ô yee diuelish cor­morāts, reade the 83. Psa. v. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. & re­pent, & make restitutiō of those church lands & goods so lewdly and vngratiously gotten, and kept, and spent in pride and lecherie, vnlesse with your other hellish paradoxes yee will make the time of peace in a setled state, more niggardly and rauenous, then that time of affliction in a moueable wandring common-wealth, so that they may as readily protest and maintain this with Wall and Strawe, with Leyden and his mate, that the No­bilitie must returne back to auncient pouertie, and de­uide their summes and goods among their needy secu­lar brethren, and be reformed for company into a wo­full and distressed case, till euery one hath inough to liue thereby in some trade without beggery and woe, because the first Nobles in this realme, and all other li­ued so at the first in the primitiue Nobilitie, following the sunne and moone and all lightes, which the higher they are, the lesse shadowes they make, without such costly traynes, and deepe expences, and so many good morrowes, whilest hūdreds starue for want of that they cast away. But they neuer consider that none shoulde want, if either those numbers would labour in their vo­cations soberly and painfully, or many other beside Noblemen could doe their dueties neighbourly and [Page 175] willingly toward the impotent creatures the obiects of mercie: they remēber not that idlenes destroyeth more then pouerty, and that infinite men die, or come to nought by their folly, not by misorder of superiors, by not obeying them, not by any fault of them, of their owne stonie obdurate wilfulnesse, not otherwise.

O vnthankefull wretchednesse and wretched vn­thankfulnes, ô disobedient tongues against the law & impenitent soules against the gospell, ô forgetfull and vngratefull iniquitie, ô creatures marprelates most vn­kind and barraine of iustice distributiue, as Sir Thomas Elyot proueth solemnly, l. 3. c. 2. in his gouernour, where he thus exclaimeth against thē which dislike the names and ceremonies that appertaine to reuerence and obe­dience, together with the costly rewards & ornaments of vertuous and godly men. Ought they not to fal pro­strate on the ground with fasting and prayer? to glori­fie God, for his most louing and fatherly care, for his princely prouidence, for his bountifull goodnes euer more and more bestowed vpon vs, and them? ought they to refuse Gods gracious liberalitie, to looke back­ward whē he looketh forward, to thinke they can haue too much of Gods blessings, to restraine that which is giuen only to a godly & honest end, for the sustenance of learned and religious men in schooles & churches, for the reuerence and safegard of the chiefest sober stai­ed men and fathers, approued and constant in learning and manners of life, not for martinish whelpes that can neither speake well nor do well, thrust in by them that now are offended with their dignities? as Palamedes, and Iosephs bretheren, and Aesope were accused for ha­uing that which was thrust vppon them, iniuriously.

[Page 176] O vos nefarij gnauiter (que) impudentes libelli, nulla est Ecclesiae Anglicanae macula, cuius autores & fautores non sint vestri laici martinistae, as the deuil cast sores vpon Iob, and then made his lightheaded wife to vpbrayde him and tell him of that he had against his will. It must needs be, that offences should come, but woe bee to them by whom they come, and woe be to you, that curse those things, which your selues haue caused, Math. cap. 18. vers. 7.

But happie are they, that auoid the curse, by keeping the right way, by not coueting that which belongs on­ly to churchmen, contenting themselues with their owne, not cōtending for sacred goods and possessions, without which interserted among other, the whole bo­dy of the kingdome would soone prooue a huge mon­ster of ataxy and anarchy, with a mouing earth, and an immoueable heauen, in Copernicus guise, neither true astronomer herein nor theonomer, howsoeuer he see­meth a reformer to some, that are open at all times to receiue all that falleth or commeth next to hand, yea if it were in their heat, when they haue not their wils, to curse God and die, to lift fooles on horsebacke and set kings on foote, to conuert with our deriuatiue cōuerts the belles into guns, the leads into pellets, the mother cathedrall churches into close chambers, the fonts into basons, the organes in water pipes, and then them­selues into diuels, the realme into hell, though God hath aboundantly besides their desert indewed them with all kinde of principall and necessary prouision for peace and warre, that they might not haue euill eyes because he is good vnto other. Math. c. 20. v. 15. How can they be the members of Christ, that are the lims of Satan, and [Page 177] make a sport of mocking those chiefe men of learning and sober life, men casting aside all rayling and vnlearned innouations, and as sufficient for their places of gouernment as euer any haue beene in England, and notwithstanding the superlatiue of Erasmus concerning the fathers in his dayes? How can they be true subiects, that tell the Parlement, they are starued with their Seruice booke, wherein is the most perfit order and mat­ter of diuine prayer and thankesgiuing set downe for all men, that rend and cut in peeces hir Maisties irreprehensible Sta­tutes inacted in the first yeare of hir gracious raigne, c. 2. spur­ning them and abusing them rebelliously? O good God, we beseech thee, if they be of thy flocke which haue er­red and strayed thus desperatly from thy way of peace and righteousnesse lyke lost or diseased sheepe, to open their eares, and eyes, and harts, that they may at length by thy prouident fauourable goodnesse heare, see, and know, what they are doing and vndoing, for they are as deafe, and blinde, and dead in sinne without thee, as the Iewes were that stoned thy protomartyr Steuen, as the Libertines and Cyrenians were that persecuted thy disciples, not otherwise able then with raging wordes & hundreds of headlong sectaries to resist their power, but onely thought they did well for want of thy spirit, and through ignorance of thy holy worde. Acts c. 6. v. 10. c. 7. v. 60.

Thy primitiue Apostles count it in thy euangelicall histories a glory to thy name & increase of thy gospell, thy faith, thy loue, thy church, when any maintenance and reuenew was bestowed on them and thy faithfull disciples, and laid downe at their hands and feet. 1. Cor. v. 16. v. 17. when any zealous patrone or other deuout person by thy fatherly loue and oeconomie, was sent to [Page 178] help their christian brotherhoode and felowshippe in thy battels and heauenly embassages, the more they receiued the more they reioyced, they prayed daily for them which ministred to their wants, Philip. cap. 4. v. 18. they were then enrolled among the godly Christians that intertayned and maintained thy Saints, the laitie then striued among themselues who should be greatest in christian deuotion, in liberality, in patronage, in loue and such like vertues which vphold mankind, 1. Thessal. 6.5. v. 12, 13. they were such as should be saued, saith the Euangelist S. Luke, that were added, and that added to the church, Acts c. 2. v. 47. they were called brethren, because they fed, of the same table, of the same milke, of of the same store, Acts. c. 21. v. 7. Rom. c. 1. v. 13. and shall their deriuatiue successors, ô mercifull God, ô bounti­full Iesu, count it for a dishonor to thy name, and a de­crease of thy Gospell, a decay of thy loue, thy faith, and thy church, vnlesse their apostasie, heresie and Marti­nisme preuaile, and those goods, which as thy Apostle S. Iames teacheth vs, came from aboue by former good instruments, be rauened, and bribed, and pulled away by these wicked instruments, these mad dogs, these in­famous libellors, from our feet and heads, from our ta­bles and studies, from our mouthes and hearts, to feede hounds, to dresse whores, to multiplie helhound and whore-hound ruffians, swearers, harebraines? vnlesse we be desolate and forsaken, without our owne pa­trones, without tutors of our own, without our owne Iudges, as other men haue all of their owne, without the possession and fruition of our own, or rather of thy goods, to the derision of thy omnipotent power, to the contēpt of thy reuerend word, to the ouerthrow of thy [Page 179] catholicke and apostolick church, of thy faithfull and true bishops and priests, which haue authority euen frō the great commission of thy holy spirite, to be chargea­ble to the hearers and professors of the faith, 2. Thessal. c. 3. v. 8, 9. in the dayes of this life, and haue a more sin­gular praeeminence then any other in the life of the re­surrection? Dan. c. 12. v. 3. which are the chiefest pillars in thy common-wealth, that being in honor and repu­tation, and enuironed with many godly Centurions & defenders, with many louing Dauids, meeke Mosees, and liberall Salomons, the whole glorie, and euery part there­of, shall redound to thee, ô father of heauen, now in the last times and yeares of the world, and continue euer­more by thy mightie will, as it did in the beginning of the law, and the dayspring of the gospel, when true zeal was earnest in enriching thy flock, and tyrannie onelie occupied in empouerishing it; when it was true religiō to confirme the estate of thy preachers, and execrable atheisme to enfeeble them; when it was esteemed for right diuinitie to obey God more then man, & for pro­phane Iudaisme to serue God and Mammon, much more to serue Mammon and God after the Iewish cō ­struction and antichristian manner; that triumpheth in the name of bloud which is but aërie; of seede which is but fierie, of elementarie and minerall accidents which are but earthie and watrie, of those bodilie blunt and sharpe properties and casual endowments, which make the life tedious vnto men of this world, and odious to thy maiestie in the world to come, vnlesse they be con­secrated to thy blessed lambe, and dedicated to the vse of thy holy Church, whose internall prosperitie first, then externall is regarded of all good men, howsoeuer [Page 180] these new putfoorths, dronken textuals, brainsick tem­plaries, monstrous protesters, play the verball sophi­sters throughout their whole generations. Now deere Christians, let vs labour continually to bee deere to God; let vs not vndoe the whole bodie for the faults of some parts; let vs not for a worldly hope lose a heauēly certainty; for accidentall shadowes essential substāces; for indifferent ceremonies necessary lawes, the good wheate for the cockle in the fields; the fruitful trees for the fruitles & hawty brāble in the woods, for the fraile loue of a man, the endles loue of our God & his lambe that teacheth vs only to flie from the sin, not the goods of the world, but vse them godly and canonically.

Let vs I beseech you dulie consider the word of the Lord of hostes vnto Zachary his prophet, which bid­deth vs, Execute true iudgement, and shew mercy and com­passion, and that none imagine euill against his brother in his heart. cap. 7. vers. 9. Let vs daily and instantly pray vnto God, to illuminate our knowledge with his heauenly empireall light, to establish our faith, to multiplie his gifts and graces vpon vs, that wee sing with the spirit and with the vnderstanding, as S. Paul our great doctor hath said, If God be on our side, who can be against vs? who spared not his owne sonne, but gaue him for vs all as a lambe to death, how shall he not with him giue vs all, euen all things also? Rom. c. 8. v. 31, 32. Let not vs make our selues worse then the heathen, or reuerence our religious fathers & bishops lesse then they did their holy men, accounting their priests and pastors for nobles & princes, and their princes & nobles for priests & pastors of the people, as Homer nameth metaphorically Agamēnon the prince of Graecians the pastor of the people, & Hector the prince [Page 181] of Troians the bishop of men; as Sophocles and the o­ther graue and sententious Tragedians call their pro­phetes princes, and namely blinde Tyresias for being a prophet is called a king euen of a king; as Virgil fami­liarly knowne to yoong schollers, calleth Anius a king and a priest; or as Moses rather telleth vs in his diuine iudgement, that Melchisedech was the prince of Salem and the priest of God, Genes. cap. 14. v. 18. and S. Paul to preuent glossary cauils nameth him king plainely by the worde [...], which is the ground or founda­tion of the people, whereon they build their cōfidence and strength, Iesus being the corner stone. Heb. c. 7. v. 1. and who hath not heard of the kingly prophete Da­uid? of Hermes that was a philosopher, a priest, a king, and therof was among other Aegyptian princes named Trismegistus or thrise excellent. Let not vs English men make our selues worse affected towarde Gods Church, then our forefathers haue beene before vs, whereof some leauing their crownes, some their roy­alties, some their riches, deuoted themselues wholy to the orders of the Church, and bestowed their liues and liuelihoods vpon Gods ministrations and serui­ces, as some readers know very well, besides diuers ex­amples of other forraine chronicles, iudging the name of a diuine, better then of a man, and the title of Gods priest, as ioyfull and honorable with men and Angels, as that which is the very best of all titles. Let him that is taught in the word minister vnto him that teacheth in all good thinges: who goeth a warfare at his owne cost? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruite thereof? who feedeth a flocke and suffereth an­other to deuour the milke? saith S. Paul the mightie [Page 182] Apostle and Bishop of the Gentiles. Galat. cap. 6. vers. 6. what true Christian man will once doe otherwise vnto an other, then he would in that others place á paribus causis should be done to him? saith Christ the almigh­tie Sauiour. Math. c. 7. v. 12. Let vs not follow Aërius the hereticke, whose opinion concerning the equali­tie of Bishops and Priests Epiphanius confuteth l. 3. haer. 75. but rather satisfie our selues with the confutation thereof in that place, then seeke new shifts for him and starting holes▪ for that sentence of S. Ierome pronoun­ceth a bishop to be a priest, because they are diuers or­ders, as a man might say in that phrase without con­founding the degrees, the same man which is a doctor is a maister, but it doth not by conuersion iudge a priest to be a bishop, a maister to bee a doctor. Or if the wordes following in him will not suffer you to be cōtent with this answer, euen from that which follow­eth there I reason thus: That which taketh away the seed of scismes is necessarie in our church, wherein the people is so ready to say, I am of one, I am of another, I am of neither, as they were in former times: but to choose one among the priests to be ouerseer or bishop aboue the rest, by Ieroms confession taketh away the seede of scisme in the church now as it did aforetime, or els euery parish priest will be a bishop, a iudge, with­out check of any there, and marre all obedience for want of bishop-like gouernment in himselfe, and due reuerence in the neighbors. Ergo it is necessarie in our church, to choose one among the priests to be ouerseer and bishoppe aboue the rest, and to rule them with dis­cretion and knowledge.

If any man argue against this argument, of the effect, [Page 183] and vrge the word of S. Paul Philip. c. 1. v. 1. we may de­ny the consequence of the reason, either because it is a synecdoche of a generall for a speciall, or such a speech as this, To the prince & people, taking away lords here­in, & reckoning them with the people, as S. Paul contri­ueth priests in the word deacōs, which in respect of bi­shops are deacōs, as lords in respect of their princes are of the people, according to that parcel of a praier in our cōmon seruice booke, Vpō our bishops and curates, which iudgeth the dioces the bishops parish, and priestes vn­der them in seuerall parishes their curates, which take their cure and charge of them by institution, as the spi­rituall sonnes of spirituall fathers. If any shall yet reason from S. Peter 1. Epist. c. 5. v. 1. wee may answere, that ei­ther hee might call himselfe a priest in his humilitie in respect of Christ the cheefe bishop of soules, as Empe­rors haue in modestie named themselues their souldi­ers felowes, yet none will, I trowe, be so wise to con­clude hereupon, that captaines and souldiers aforetime were all one, or that he being in the order of a bishop, now was withall a priest, and writte to them which had beene his felow priests, & were not yet elected bishops, as a doctor may call a master his felow pupill, in remē ­brance of old frendshippe, though he neuer minde to make both dignities one.

If the text of the Acts c. 20. v. 28. be vrged vpon vs, where S. Paul calleth them bishoppes whom before in the seuenteenth verse he named priests, which seemeth more forcible at the first sight, then any other text a­mong their obiections, yet I pray, S. Paul had sent for the fathers and masters of families, and in his exhorta­tion called them kings and captaines ouer their owne [Page 184] houses, you could not deny them to be subiects still, or say they are kings. It is written that they to whome the law was geuen were called gods, [...], but not the gods, [...], for that were simplie to make them gods, and cōmit idolatrie, Iohn. c. 10. v. 34. so in this text it is writ­ten, that the holy Ghost appointed them bishoppes, [...], but not the bishoppes, [...]; as it were bishops comparatiuely, not the very bishoppes themselues, looking carefully and vigilantly to their Churches by the example of the bishops, which were as S. Paul testifieth, carefull for all churches, as the bi­shops are in their owne and other dioces and prouin­ces. 2. Cor. c. 11. v. 28.

As for the obiections of Chemnisius taken frō Ierom, from the counsell of Toletum, and from Gregories 95. distinction, 2. part, 70. page, they moue mee no more then if he had said, They that vse viceroyes and vicege­rents, haue no necessary places and offices. Such magi­strates vse substitutes, ergo they are not needfull: for so I may best answere him with a parallele euen as our hun­dred thousand Martins with their protestations may be answered, to make as speedy a dispatch in tempo­rals as in spirituals, vpon as probable accusations, cau­ses, articles. And looke what this examiner writeth vp­on the fourth chapter in the same part, it prooueth no­thing but a superioritie, a regiment, a place ouer other, a bishoprick, which some sons & vassals of enuie prick against, tollerable by the confession of Chēnisius, among true bishops, so partiall is he in his tolleration, when as S. Pauls Examen. 1. Tim. c. 5. v. 17. appointeth double ho­nour to worthie men, which are with vertuous men as S. Augustine and S. Ierome in their Epistles call one an­other, [Page 185] Domini verè sancti, and beatissimi papae, and in chri­sti visceribus honorandi, and venerandi, not Popes, not An­tichrists, not Beelzebubs, as these new Iacobines lately fa­mous count all men Esaus which please not them, Iacobines that haue begun in Fraunce and would goe in England with mischiefes and spoyles▪ they goe to their lords Esaus, as they call them, and send three rayling Rabshakees messengers, as Iacob sent humble seruants; they stande at defiance with all the hundreds of Esau, as Iacob was greatly afrayde and sore troubled; they curse and rage, as Iacob prayed and blessed; they present as many lies and foule wordes, as Iacob did scores and hundreds of cattle: they striue and are disallowed of all discrete men and worse reputed then the vainest rimers and players that euer liued, as Iacob wrastled and was blessed of the Angel; they desire to pull and catch from their lords Esaus, as Iacob would needes bestow a gift vpon his brother; so that we cannot esteeme them Esaus till these prooue them­selues Iacobites, seeing there can be no Esau where no Iacob is, no Antichrist without Christ, no Popes without Papists, no diuell vnlesse he that is against him be a God▪ but alas poore Iacob, thy prudent Rebecca is tky enemy, thine owne speach bewrayeth thee, surely thou art Esau; ô thou french and popish and antichristian and diuelish counterfaite, thou art no­thing but Esau in euery part, and so will prooue in soule as thou art already in body, vnlesse thou become a newborne babe in innocencie and concerning malice.

Let vs good Christians, not striue to be like lions and eagles, like beares and other beastes, in crueltie, in rauine, in such other qualities, which are by Gods own will made our owne seruants and put in subiection vn­der our feete, Gen. c. 9. v. 2. but follow the nature of Sa­lomons doue that is washed with milke and of a cleane [Page 186] faire behauiour, which hath a sweete voice or louing conferences for peacemakers, which hath a comely face, and threatneth no mischiefe, Cant. cap. 2. ver. 15. c. 5. v. 12. but follow the nature of the innocent lambe, and specially of this principall and righteous Lambe of God, that cleanseth and taketh out our spottes, blots, sinnes, filthinesse, and all our corruptions, to giue vs a contented and peaceable minde, a quiet and thanke­ful tongue, a brotherlie and neighbourly helping hand toward one another, to giue vs soft tender handes and soft tender hearts euery one to other, that wee perish not in our owne folly by discord, that wee open no gates or dores to confusion and misrule, that we proue not a by worde or laughing stocke to our enemies, but that God may blesse vs and bee blessed in vs for euer and euer.

Let vs alwaies remember that memorable sentence and comparatiue suppose of our highest teacher and archbishop Iesus Christ, and applie it vnto our naked hearts, and be fully persuaded of it without wayning & minishing in this faith, that if any one despiseth his prea­chers and messengers, he despiseth him, and that he which de­spiseth him despiseth the father which sent him. Luke cap. 10. vers. 16. whereby he is necessarily brought to a naugh­tie and shamefull ende, hauing God and his Christ with the same Christ and his faithfull ones his accu­sers and iudges▪ which precept of personall regard is in all reason so necessarie to maintaine discipline, that the Romans hauing onely a politick regard of religion in their blindenesse, grounded their deuotion vppon Numaes fourth lawe, Feroces animos non posse in officio contineri nisi deorum metu, ideo (que) religionibus & ceremo­niis [Page 187] esse alligandos, so honoured their chiefe bishops, or Archbishops, and namely among other, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus their chiefe Bishoppe, that they set a great punishment and fine vpon Cneus Cornelius the pretors head, for abusing him, and in him religi­on, with reprochfull words, whose name they tende­red cheefly next the greatest name of all other, as A­lexander ab Alexandro recordeth, l. 2. c. 8. genia. & how much more shoulde true honour bee geuen to the cheefe priest in a true religion, then in a false? then in the profane religion of Orestes yet being sober, and of his sister Iphigenia among the Commani? where the priest is next the king in honor, seeing he that is a king, and he that is a priest, are commonly of one familie and progeny, in so much that their priests on the feast dayes twise in the yeare did weare a crowne or diademe, and Pompeius that conquered their coū ­trey Cappadocia, made the inhabitāts subiect to Ar­chelaus their high priest, who had by his decree 6000 seruants at commandement for holy things, and for his vse two skoenes, or 60. furlongs, or 7. miles and a halfe of ground about the citie Comana, as Budaeus reporteth in his third booke de asse out of Straboes 12. booke of Cosmography; then in that vaine religion of the Druides among the primitiue Galli? where the priestes were in chiefest account and honour, they had a high priest, they enioyed priuiledges mi­uerualia and [...], in being free from warres, in paying no tribute, in other immunities, they were iudges in priuate and publike controuersies, so that they were excommunicated from all companies, [Page 188] which yelded not to their decrees, and to the shame of these newfangled brablers it is written, that artes were much esteemed, that iudges were in great authoritie, that the propitiation and diuination of sacrifices was no lesse then augustae maiestatis, and euen imperiall. To let passe the cleane, beautifull, and reuerend order of the Tanagraei, and the Cabiri, commended by Paufanias lib. 9. for the regard they had to religious buildings, and many other, whose policie was greater, and lear­ning profounder then the skill of all church-rob­bers in this Iland.

Let vs not lay vp for our selues treasure in earth, & specially not ill gotten goods, against Gods will, but make vs frends of vnrighteous Mammon, that the mountaines or greatest men may bring forth peace, and the little hilles or inferiours righteousnesse vnto the people, that they may receiue vs into euerlasting habitations, where Seraphin, and Cherubin, and Angels, and Prophets, and Apostles, and Martyrs, prayse the God of this Church for euer and euer. Let vs follow the widdow of Sarepta, and euer bee like her whose prayse is in the Gospel, Luke chapter 4. verse 26. that hauing but a little oyle, and a little meale, was so obedient and faithfull toward God, when she had but once heard Gods word, that she woulde rather, euen in a great famine, put her selfe and her sonne in danger, then not doe for Elias the man of God; and what lost shee by it? or what loose any other by the like? 3. Kings chapter seuenteene, verse nine.

Let vs liue and dwell among our selues in vnitie [Page 189] and concorde, like Lambes and Doues, like fathers and sonnes, and be Lyons in Gods name to our forrayne enemies, that are Gods enemies, not to our neighbours, whom we must loue as our selues, seeing God is not the authour of confusion, but of peace, 1. Cor. c. 14. v. 33.

Let vs liue, let vs, the prince and people of Eng­land, liue in the bande of impregnable loue and cha­ritie, like fellow-labourers, and sworne men, and sworne bretheren, and because the Cleargie so­weth vnto vs spirituall thinges, is it any matter if they reape our temporall thinges? which with­out their diuine regiment the strong commonaltie would by force pul from vs idle politicks, & too idle in suppressing the foes of holy Church. 1. Cor. cap. 9. v. 11.

Let vs hold fast togither in vniformitie lyke the partes of one and the same bodie, not defying and enfeebling one another without all wisedome and compassion that become true Christians, seeing the body shall be too much defied by the enemies, God knoweth, though it hurt not it selfe▪ for who euer in a good minde hated his owne bodie? Ephes. c. 5. v. 29. Let vs leaue the motespying of wordly men and hypocrites, that Iuda and Israël, Roboam and Ieroboam, Ierusalem and Samaria, may be no more among vs in England, according to that historicall prayer of Tertullianus against the Arrians; Let Mar­tin and his Martinets not thinke the realme so rude as to be delighted in his vndecent and vnciuill lan­guage, or the rulers so vnlearned as to be persuaded [Page 190] by his grosse and ignorant opinions, but leaue to strike at them whom hee cannot reach, though hee hath three more sheaues to stand vpon.

What if the old cockes of Danubius and Rhenus haue putrified humors in them, and thereby lay vn­healthful egges, must the merchants of Tamesis and Seuerne bring them hither for nouelties, where the swelling corner birdes and toades of the hellish ca­lumniator are so ready to broode them, and breede such Serpents and Cockatrices as are lately flowne abroad? or if wee shall haue 100000. Iudasses and as many Caines, to betrray Christes holy Church for 100000. pounds, and crucifie his disciples, and giue him and them gall and vinegar to drinke by reedes of pitomees and pistles, let vs bee sure, that Christ shall rise againe from death, for it is impossible that he should be holden of death, neither can his mini­stery see corruption, be sure that Abels bloud will cry from the earth, and then woe be to them by whom the Sonne of man was betrayed, it had bene good for them, if they had neuer bene borne, and then shall their scornefull generation be cursed from the earth and prooue but runnegates and vagabonds in the earth, and not be able to keepe themselues that disdained to bee their brethrens keepers and defen­ders. Math. c. 26. v. 24. Gen. c. 4. v. 9, 10, 11, 12.

Let no man speake ill of them that be in authoritie or reuile the High priest, so, as Martinists doe, not in calling him mildly painted wall, but ragingly very Cayphas him selfe, who doubted of Christ whom he hath professed migh­tily in worde and deede, who rent his clothes in horror of [Page 191] Christs diuinitie which he hath in daylie Prayers and eue­rie way acknowlodged and maintained honourably and hartily, but they can be content, that as Cayphas was the diuels high priest, so the electors and fauourers of our gra­tious archbishop should be reputed diuels and rakehels, and none but these most rebellious and hereticall Iacobites re­formers good liuers.

Let no man thinke to make a doctrine of one mans head, but follow the diuine and sweete coun­sell of S. Paul, and learne to goe the right way to the truth of the gospell, not in dissimulation and flatte­ring our selues with the fashions of worldlings, but in plaine and sincere dealing without bitternesse or disdaine against the Christian fellowship of the church, euer taking heed thorough the holy ghost, that we doe not with the ignorant and vnstable per­uert the scriptures of S. Paul & other, as S. Peter war­neth, 1. Epist. c. 3. v. 16.17. Galath. c. 2. v. 14.

Let vs consider, that which Iulian the apostata writeth to Arsatius bishop of Cappadocia, how chri­stian religion groweth and spreadeth abroad be­cause of the liberalitie that christians vse towards all men of all sortes, and follow those primitiue Chri­stians in all good nature, vnlesse we be come to that apostasie, iulianisme, and martinisme, which would neither see it grow or spread abroade, but bannish it into the nouus orbis, whether the ten tribes of Israëll went long before Portugals, and deliuer it selfe ano­ther while into the outlandish deuises, now loa­thing the Angels foode and Manna after these thir­tie yeares.

[Page 192]O where are our renowned olde noblemen and yeomen of Britannie? where be the cities, and ca­stles, and victories, which they were vsually accusto­med to winne from their enemies? are our hearts out of our bodies, that we cannot vnderstand what belongeth to men of so manly a nation? are british wits become now so brutish, to iudge it manhood and counsell, to robbe poore schollers of their re­wardes prouided for their labours in minde, as o­ther haue rewards appointed for labours of bodie? cannot the beast that hath a mans face bee content, to be a Fox at fiftie and beguile many, but it must be a woolfe and old dogge at seuentie and eightie, and rauin all?

O let vs all looke about vs, and see how the pro­fessed enemies of Christ the Saracens are at hande and insult vpon vs; how they haue gotten Asia mi­nor, and great parts of Africke, and in them possesse the foure chiefe patriarke cities of old christendom, Ierusalem, Antioche, Alexandry, Carthage; how they are entred into the bowels of christian landes, inha­biting the imperiall citie Constantinople, thorough the idle armes and miserable discordes of Christian people, which by self-will is growne more proude then valiant; how the turkish Mahound like another Pharao or Nabuchodonoser threatneth the bondage of old Aegypt, and the captiuitie of old Babilon; how he hath conceiued Rome and trauaileth with Pope, as Peter Ramus the most blessed martyr of Paris wri­teth in his diuine commentaries of Religion. lib. 4. cap. vlt.

[Page 193]Let not the diuell beguile vs with his shadowes and faces, with his gallant broode and hospital knights, and temporall church men, to beleeue him more against the title of our ecclesiasticall Lords, when he quoteth Luke c. 22. v. 26. then wee beleeue him when he citeth Math. c. 23. v. 8, 9. against the title of our corporall Fa­thers and vertuous doctors, but resist him faithfully and bid him hartily auoid Satan, and tell him we must honour our fathers and masters, our doctors and lords and all our betters: who confesse, they learne by these comparatiue texts, not to bee impatient as the Gen­tils, not to be vayne-glorious as the Pharisees, not to be Lords ouer the faith, or tyrannicall commaunders of the faithfull, but to followe the example and life of Christ their Lord and Doctor, to holde vp all with loue and peace, to be meeke and lowly, to helpe euen the meanest, and regard the poorest Christian, as hee washed and wyped the basest partes of his Apostles, e­uen the very feete of them, which the Lords and Do­ctors of the Gentils would neuer haue done for any cause to their seruaunts and schollers. Iohn c. 3. v. 5, 14. for bathing the feete may saue the life, or preserue the health, or refresh the body, or doe some good: and these effects, to saue life, to saue health, to helpe the bo­die, to doe good, are no abasements, no disgraces, no shame, but manly regard, neighbourly concord, chri­stian communitie and common-wealth. Let not the proud and pompous challenges of the enuious men feare any yoong scholler in Christs schoole more then it disquieteth the elder sort, which know assuredly, that put forths mettall is in nature lightest & in proofe wea­kest, that audacious crakers are commonly fugitiues, [Page 194] that vnablest workers are busiest worders, that the cha­lenger is for the most part euer vanquished, to day in the full who but he? and to morrow in the wanes who would haue thought it? the very stones crie out vp­on them. Let vs buy the truth and sell it not, likewise wisedome, instruction, or vnderstanding. Prouerb. c. 23. v. 23. and speake euery one the truth vnto his neigh­bour. Eph. c. 4. v. 25. Let vs euery one amend our owne liues in all dutie and thankefulnesse, and still and euer behold, marke, know, remember, imitate, worship, ho­nour, serue, adore and prayse the only true right Lamb of God, that was made the sonne of man as we are, to make vs the sonnes of God as he is, that made, and saueth, & crowneth men with his greatnesse and goodnesse for euer and euer. Amen-

Autoris verbum ex Augustini epistola 163. ad Generosum.

Si ergo aliquid asperè diximus, non ad amaritudinem dissensionis, sed ad correctionem dilectionis valere cognosce.