Protestatio Lutheri Brevis, Iulii 13. Anno, 1518.

I Martin Luther, Publickely Protest, that I have published cer­taine Propositions, against Pontificall Indulgences, although hitherto, neither this our Famous, and Re­nowned Schoole of Witenberge, neither any Civill, or Ecclesi­asticall Power, hath as yet con­demned me: yet notwithstanding, Some certaine men there are, as I doe heare, of a rash and bold Inge­nie, who as if they saw alone, as it were into a Milstone, presume to pronounce me an Heretike.

Ego Martinus Lutherus, publice Testa­tum volo, Propositiones aliquot, contra Pontificales, ut vocant, Indulgentias a me esse editas, etsi autem me hactenus, ne­que celeberrima haec, & laudatissima Schola nosti a Vitebergae neque Civilis, aut Ecclesiastica Potestas condemnaverit, sunt tamen, ut audio, quidam praecipitis, atque au facis ingenii homines, quire quasi benè cognitâ, & perspectâ, Haereticum me pronunciare audent.

I therefore, as oftentimes before, so also, now by the Faith of a Chri­stian, beseech others, either to Indi­gitate and point out unto me a bet­ter way, if a better be divinely re­vealed unto them, or else to submit their opinion, both to the judgement [Page] of God, and his Church. For as I am neither ready to preferre mine owne opinion, before the judge­ment of all others, So neither am I so doltish, as to place the Word of God, either below, or behinde the Tables invented by the braines of men.

Ego verò ut antè saepe, ita nunc quoque per fidem Christianam obtestor singu­los, vel ut meliorem mihi monstrent vi­am, si quibus haec divini [...]us esset reve­lata, vel certè suam sententiam De [...], & Ecclesiae iudicio submittunt. Non e­nim adeò temetarius sum, ut meam soli­us opinionem caeteris anteferri, neque cam stupidu [...]etiam ut verbum Dei, fabu­lis human [...] ratione excogitatis postponi [...]l [...]m. [...]om 1. Fol, 195.

In like manner, your Orator, who speakes to you this Day, being encircled with many Adversaries, (as David was with Bees) who have charged him with many false­hoods, upon the preaching of the two former Sermons in this place, touching the Nationall Protestation, am now enforced to be Protestator Lutherizans, cleering my selfe of those as­sperged imputations, in the presence of God, his Angels, and this Congregation, by this short, and serious Protestation.

1. I Protest against all Vaine-glorie. For whereas the Bi­shops Factions, and their adherents say, that in my Sermons, I looked here for applause from men, but I did lose it, Let them

• First know, and tell it to their Fellowes, that I met with that, which the Lord knowes, I neither did gaspe after, nor expect, you your selves in some part being Iudges.
• Secondly, That they measure other mens actions, by the rag­ged staffe of their owne crooked Rule.
• Thirdly, That it is the constant toyle and labour of a sin­cere Minister of Iesus Christ, to stifle the Bubbling and Boy­ling Surges of his swelling heart, and with Paul alone to glo­ry in his infirmities, 2 Cor. 12.9. Lest otherwise, with He­rod, taking the Glory to himself, and not giving it to God, with him, (according to the Syriack) become a Dunghill or a Stable for the Wormes, Acts 12.23.

2. I Protest against Seditition, and Seduction. For where­as the Bishops Faction, and Carnall Gospellers doe say, That I, and others are Seditious, and Seduce the People, Let such

• First know, That the Nature of Sedition, is the drawing of a People, out of a right path, into a wrong, from good to evil, and not from evill to good, and that the Nature of Sedition, is to sow Tares amongst the Wheat, and not sowing of Wheat amongst the Tares.
• Secondly, That the House of Ahab, and Iezabel, that is, [Page] the Bishops faction, the whore of Rome, the Iesuites and Papists are, and have beene the seditious Seducers, and Troublers of our English Israel: for these are they, who have misguided the people, leading them blind fold to the brow of the hill, to tumble them headlong downe to Hell, and to crush both themselves, and them to peeces, to all Eter­nity.
• Thirdly, that it is their Policy to call seditious, and Seducer; first, like a crafty courtizan, who will call whore first, that she might not bee suspected. Whence in the New Testament, the Scribes and Pharisees are observed to stigmatize, and agnominize, Christ and his Disciples, with the reproachfull Tearmes of Deceivers and Seducers, while they themselves seduce, and lead about sylly creatures, creeping into their houses, loving the uppermost roomes, and desiring to bee cal­led Rabbi, Rabbi, which is as much, as to say, Doctor, Doctor.

3. I protest against Phrensie; for as the Corrupt Clergie, and their Lay Adherents belch out, and say, that such as my selfe are of a Phrentick Spirit, and have Laesa principia, because wee dare not Symbolize with them, either in their Doctrines, or their practise; Let them againe.

• 1. Know, that Shemajah, the Nehelamite, which is as much, as Shemajah the lying Dreamer, called Ieremiah a mad man; Ier. 29.26. as being more fit for a prison, and the stocks, than the Pulpit: though good Jeremiah was ap­proved to bee the conscientious Preacher.
• 2. Know, that Festus, though a great, yet a Carnall man with a loud voyce told Paul, that hee was beside himselfe, and mad, whereas indeed, hee spake forth the words of truth, and sobernesse.
• 3. Know, that they and their Adherents, are the mad fellowes, as they are Catachrestically called the good, and Kuriologically the bad fellowes, and not they, who by them are called the Puritan-Preachers, and the Puritans, and pre­ciser people, for if you read, Act [...]. 26.25. That Paul being converted, and out of his Naturall condition, hee doth pro­fesse against the tearme of mad fellow, whereas in the 11. Verse, when hee was in a Carnall state, hee doth avouch, that hee was mad, yea exceedingly mad against the Saints, [Page] persecuting them even unto strange Cities: And therefore, if you beleeve the Scripture, and not, as the Popish Church beleeves, they themselves are mad and phrentick. Mad upon their Idols, Ier, 50.38. The Prophet is a foole, and the Spi­rituall man is mad; Hos. 9.7. Mad after Popish Bishops, yea mad to bee Bishops, though the Bishops themselves were never more mad, than in these times: as in their late Towring-Swelling, [...]ower-Aspiring, Protestation, and therefore, if they doe not saile to Rome, yet they may, as in our Proverb, take shipping and saile unto Anticyras, yea further, so in­sensibly entoxicated, by a strange, and an hideous Meta­morphosis, that as Pope Sergius the second, (as I remember) was called Os porci, Swines-snout, or Hogges-face, because of his uncleanesse; So, the corrupt Clergies may bee called Dens Diaboli, yea Deus Caninus Diaboli, The great Dogge­tooth of the Devill; as Parisiensis tearmes, all dogged and currish Persecuters and Back-biters.

For as a mad dogge rowling himselfe, like the Icneumon, or Mus Indicus, in a sheet of mud, and rising up upon his legs, sets a black, and a dirtie patch on every post in the street, byting every one hee meets: So the corrupt Clergy tum­bling themselves in the mire of rottenesse and superstition, fasten one beastly marke or other; yea many dirty spots where they are seated, snarling, shewing their teeth like so many mad dogges, and byting, yea tearing in peeces, were they able every one, who thwarts them in their way, and contradicts them in their unwarrantable insolencies, and il­legall proceedings whatsoever. And here, Let not any dis­cerning or discreet Reader, adjudge mee to be too immode­rate in my expressions, since the Devill, Pope, Bishops, Cor­rupt Clergie, and their Adherents, have neither beene mode­rate in their blasphemies,Modum au­tem tenere, in co difficile est, quod honum esse credideris; Senec. Epist. 23. nor in their tyrannizing persecu­tions, and since according to the Dialect even of Seneca an heathen man; In that thing, or that cause, which thou beleevest in thy conscience, (yea undoubtedly doest know) to be good, it is a great difficulty, (yea a great sinne) to use a moderation.

4. Lastly, I protest against all Popery, according to our Nationall Protestation: For whereas some have bruited abroad, that I and others have extended our discourses, fur­ther [Page] than the Determinaton of the covenant admits, Let them.

• 1. Know, that the Tearme, All popery, hath a large Peri­phery and circumference, which as it doth reach out to that Popery, which was discovered at the time when the Pro­testation was composed, so also, (yet with submission bee it spoken) may it bee extended to all those severall graines, which lay under the Turffe, and should hereafter bud forth, and appeare to bee superstition, and Idolatrie in after times.
• 2. Know, that I, and my fellow-brethren are of the re­solution of Martin Luther, who although like him, may bee t [...]armed Hereticks, or Schismaticks, because wee speake a­gainst the Pope and Popish Hierarchie, yet by the credi­table faith of Christians, beseech others to indigitate, and point out unto us a better way, if a better bee Divinely re­vealed unto them, or else to submit their opinion, both to the judgement of God, and the reformed Churches, for as wee are neither ready to preferre our owne opinions, before the judgement of all others, so neither are wee so doltish, as to place the word of God, either below, or behind the fables invented by the braines of Brainsick, and cloud-pated Lycophrons, and the conceptions, or rather deceptions of Superstitious Temporizers,
• 3. Know, that whatsoever I have delivered in the two former Sermons in this place, or what is, or shall bee further delivered in this third Sermon, or whatsoever I have delive­red elsewhere, and especially in those Sermons concerning the solemnization of our great deliverance from the Gun­powder Traytours, and the Papists Conspiracy,
  Vpon the words of E­zekiel c. 24. v. 2. in the last Novem­ber.
  in comparing N [...]buchadnezzar the King of Babylon, and the whore of Babylon together, who did set themselves against Jerusalem, (for which I was unsetled from my place of preaching, as Iohn Hus was inhibited, and forbad the Pulpit by the Pope, when he began to preach the Doctrine of Wickliffe against the Pope, and his Attendants;) I shall God willing,
  Martyrolog.
  and God assisting be ready like Iohn Hus, to seale the Doctrine, and e­very branch of that Doctrine which I have published else­where or, in this place, with the losse of my dearest bloud, comforting my selfe with the Cordiall of an Ancient father saying:

[Page] Gaude, O In­nocentia, & exulta, Gaude inquam, quia ubique illaesa es, ubique se­cura: Si tenta­ [...]is, proficis: Si humiliaris, eri­geris: Si pug­nas, vincis: Si occideris, cor [...] ­naris. Con­stantinopoli­tanus.Bee glad O Innocence, and rejoyce: Be glad I say, for no where art thou hurt, and every where thou art secure. If thou art tempted, thou dost profit, if thou art humbled, thou shalt be exalted, if thou fightest, thou dost overcome, and if thou art killed, thou maist lose thy head, but thou shalt not lose thy Crowne.

And thus being necessitated hereunto, have I like Martin Luther vindicated the truth, My selfe, and my Fellow-labou­rers by this Protestation: and have read it to you distinctly, that you might avoid mistakes, and that the corrupt Clergy, and their Lay Adherents, might not say with any just ground against mee, as Erasmus of Hierom when hee writ against Vi­gilantius, Conviciis debacchatur Hieronymus, what I did, I did in hot bloud,In Argumen­to Epistolae adversus Vi­gilantium. and insteed, of a vindicating Protestation, I brought a vicious, and convicious debacchation.

To conclude with an History, suiting with our purpose, it is reported of Emme, the mother of Edward the Confessor, who being falsly accused, was constrained to goe bare-footed for her selfe 4. steps upon 4. sharp plough-shares, burning hot from the scalding fire, and having past them over without any hurt, was adjudged innocent.

In like manner, being maliciously oppugned, have I beene inforced to run over 4. Particulars, as 4. burning plough­shares, w^ch were laid not only to scortch & sindge my repu­tation, but also to burne up like so much stubble, the very cause of God, and his Gospell: & am now confident, that, that God, whose cause I agitate, and his despised people in this congre­gation, [...]. Septuag. [...]. Homer. Od. L. 17. (though the Prelaticall faction, and their Lay-Pro­selites, may, or doe gather into a cloud and thicken into a blustering storme) will acquit mee as guiltlesse of all unjust, black, and opprobrious imputations.

For I know with David, Psalme 140.13. That the Lord will maintaine the cause of the afflicted, and the right of him, that is distressed, and Psalme 18.47.48. That it is God who giveth Avengements for mee, and delivereth mee from all mine Enemies.

The Lord in mercy sanctifie to mee the Calumniation, and those, whom it doth concerne, the Protestation.