A Confutation of Standishs Treatise
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Logan West
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www.puritansearch.org
A confutation of that treatise / which one John Standish made against the protestacion of D. Barns in the year. M. D. XL.
Wherein / the holy scriptures (perverted and wrested in his said treatise) are restored to their own true vnderstonding again by Myles Coverdale.
Iacobi iii.
Nolite gloriari, & mendaces esse aduersus ueritatem.
To the Reader. To all them that either read or hear gods holy word / and give over them selves to live vnfannedly according to the same / do I heartily wysshe the grace / peace and mercy of god the father in and thorough our lord and only Sauioure Jesus Christ.
THe seventh day of Decembre / was delivered unto me a certain treatise / composed by one John Standish Felow of Whittington college in londō (so is the title of it) and prynted by Robert Redeman / Anno M. D. XL. iii. Nonas Octobris. At the reading whereof I mourned sore within myself for certain occasions offered unto me in the sand treatise. First that under the Kynges privilege anything should be set forth / which is either against the word and truth of allmightye god / or against the Kynges honor. Secondly / that good / wholesome / and Christian words should be calumpniated and reuyled. Thirdly / that the said John Standish pronouncyng Doctoure Barns to have taught heresy so longe / is not ashamed all this while to have hold his pen / but now first to write against him / whan he is deed. et ce.
As touching the first / whether I have cause to mourn or no / I report me to all true Christian hearts. for (as I am credibly enfourmed / and as I partly have seen) there is now a wonderful diuersite in writing books and balates in England / one enueyenge against another / one reuylinge and reprouyng another / one reioysinge at another's fall and aduersite. And not only this / but also at the ende of every balate or boke in manner (whether it be the better partye or worse) is set the Kynges privilege. Which as it is against the glory of god that one should reuyle another / Is it not even so against the Kynges honor (Ye the shame is it of all England) that under his privilege any erroneous / contentious / or slanderous boke or papyre should be prynted? Men wonder in other contrees / that there is so great negligence of this matter / in a realm where so wise and prudent a counsel is▪ And they that are moved with godly compassiō / do lament England. sory / that there is so great discencion in it. sory / that blasphemous ieasting / and raylinge balates or books against the manifest word of god / should either be suffered or priuilegied. sory / that gods truth should thus spitefully be entreated of so great a number. Now the reformacion of this and all other defaultes lieth only in the hand of god / To whom I refer it / and to the rightful admynistracion of his holy ordinance and authority in the kings hyghnesse. who / whan he knoweth of the said inconvenience (how tryflinge and raylinge books and rymes are prynted under his privilege) will no doubt set a redress herein.
Concernyng the seconde occasion above rehearced Is it not cause enough form and all other Christian / to be right sory / to mourn and lamente / that the words which are good / wholesome / and acordinge to the holy scripture and Chrisies faith / should be either blasphemed or taken to the worst? If the Kynges grace / should put forth an wholesome proclamacion / injunction or commandment (as he doth many) what true subject loving gods holy ordinance and authority in his prince / would not be grieve to se any man either spytt at those his soueraignes words / or to defye them? If we now which are Christian / have so just occsion (and are bownde) to be thus wise minded in this outward regiment / wherein god hath appointed us to be obedient to the hyer powers / how much more cause have we to water our eyes with sory hearts / whan the proclamacion / injunction / commandment and word of him which is king of all Kynges and lord of all lords / is thus reuyled and evil spoken of? That the words of. D. Barns spoken at the hour of his death / and here under written / are good / wholesome / according to gods holy scripture / and not worthy to be evil taken / It shall be evidently seen / whan we have laid thē to the twych stone / and tried them by gods word. To the open text whereof if ye take good hede / ye shall se the perverse doctrine and wicked opynions of Standish clearly confuted. And (no doubt) god will so have it / because that under the pretence of bearing a zeal toward gods word / he taketh apon him to be judge and giver of sentence against gods word / and to condemn it that gods word alloweth.
And this (as I said) is another cause of the sorynesse of my hert / that he which dare auowe another man to be an opē heretic / is not ashamed thus longe nether to have written / ner openly preached against him by name / but now to starte up whan he is deed. Is it not a great worship for him to wrestle with a shadow / and to •• ll a deed man? Is he not a worthy souldyer that all the battayll time thrusteth his hand in his bosom / and whan mē are deed / then draweth out his sword / and fighteth with them that are slain allreadye? Judge ye (gentle readers) if Standish playeth not such a parte with D. Barns / To whom also he imputeth treason / and yet proveth never a point thereof against him. Yet were it as charitable a deed to confute all treason and to give us warning of it by name / as either to establish false doctrine / or to enueye against good sayenges. Ye a Christian and charitable act were it in reprouyng any traytoure / to tell the Kynges subjects in what thing he committed the treason / that they may beware of the same. But thus doth not Standishe here in this his treatise / which because it is builded on sand and on a false foundaciō / I doubt not / but with gods word (which is the sword of the spirit / and a weapen mighty / to overthrow every ymaginacion that exalteth it self against the knowledge of god) To give it a fall / and with holy scripture to show euydently / that Standishe hath far ouershott himself / in condemnynge the sayenges which gods word doth not disalowe. He that would write against any man / should level his ordinance against his evil words (if he had spoken or written any) and not against his good words. ffor god is the author of all good / which as his holy scripture alloweth / so will he himself defend the same. He that is therefore an enemy to the thing which is good / or resisteth it / is gods adversary / and withstondeth him. Wherefore let Standish frō hensforth and all other beware / that they take no parte against gods word / ner defend any false matter / lest god be the avenger. ffor if the lyon begin to roar / he will make all his enemies afraid.
And if. D. Barns died a true Christian man / be ye sure / his death shall be a greater stroke to ypocrisye / then ever his life could have been. If he was falsely accused to the Kynges highness / and so put to death / woo shall come to those accusers / if they repent not by times. And if D. Barns in his hert / mouth and deed / committed no worse thing toward the Kynges highness / then he committed against god in these his words at his death / he is like at the later day to be a judge over them / that were cause of his death if they do not amende.
Now (indifferent reader) to the intent that thou mayest the more clearly / discern light frō darkness / and know gods true word from false docrine / I shall (whan I have said somewhat to Standish preface) rehearce unto the. D. Barns words. Secondly though I rehearce not unto the all Standish words (lest I should make to great a boke) I shall point the to the beginning of his sentence / requyring the (if thou wilt) to read out the rest thyself in his treatise. Thirdly though he hath desserued to be roughly handled / yet do I purpose (by gods only grace) to deal more gently with him being alive / then he doth with the deed. This interpryse now as I take in hand against Standishe in this behalf / so am I ready to do the same against the great graundsire and captain of false teachers / I mean great Goliath of Rome and his weapen-bearer. That is / against all such as are enemies to Kynge David our lord Jesus Christ / for whose most comfortable spirit (gentle reader) I beseech the to pray with me unto our most dear father in heaven / whose name be praysid / whose kingdom come / whose only will be fulfilled now and ever Amen.
Here Foloweth the Preface of John Standish to the reader.
TO se the most victoryous and noble Prince our sovereign lord the king / labourynge and watchinge continually with all diligent study / to expulse and drive out / I may say / to pourge and cleanse this his catholic regyon / etce.
Though ye abuse youre terms in reporting that the Kyng goeth about to expel and drive out his catholic region / I will impute those youre words to the weakness of youre brain / and to the seacenesse of honest eloquence therein. But if the Kynges labor / watching / and diligent study in pourging and clensyng his realm from all heresies and schisms / be occasion sufficient (as it is in deed) to compel every true subject to help unto the same / why have ye then been so slack therein all this while? Youre own words bring yo in to a shrewd suspicion. For ye know and have seen with your eyes / that the king hath these many years been laboring and busy in abolishing out of his realm the usurped power of the. B. of Rome / his manifold sects of false religions / his worshipping of images / his disceatfull pardons / his ydolatrye and pilgremages / etc. Were not all these / great heresies and schisms? Or can ye excuse yourself of ignorance / that ye have not seen / how the Kyng hath labored in putting down the same? If ye then be a writer against heresies and schisms / why have ye written against none of these all this while? Thus every man which readeth your words / may se / that ye have bewrayed yourself to be a favorer of such things.
Wherefore / maruayll not (gentle reader) etc.
Contrary now to your request / will every man maruail at you / not only because ye declare yourself to have borne (all this while) no right love toward gods word / to the salvation of men's souls / ner to the dewtye that ye owe to your prince / but also because that now thorough the occasion of a poor man's deeth / ye first starte up to write / as though the Kyng had put down no heresies afore. D. Barns died. Is this the zeal that ye bear toward gods word and toward his people? Such a zeal had they / of whom the Apostle speaketh to the Galatians / saying / They have no good zeal unto you / but would thrust you out (namely from the truth) that ye might be fervent to them ward. Whereas ye write the day and year of. D. Barns death / it increaseth your own confusion / and shall be a clear testimony against youre self / for resistinge those good words of his protestacion / if ye forsake not youre heresy in time. Ye even by youre own pen have ye brought it to pas / that it shall not be forgotten till the worlds ende / what a Christian testament and last will. D. Barns made at his death / and how patiently he forsook this life.
FOr in his protestacion / is both contained heresy and treason.
For (say ye) in his protestaciō / et cet. Is that the cause why ye do enterprise and take in hand to write against it? Then verily declare ye youre self not only to be parcial / but also a favorer of heresy and treason / knowing so many to have been attaynted thereof within these seven years.
ALlbeit / do not think / that I write this thorough any malice toward him that is burned etc.
He that compareth youre words to your deed / shall soon perceive / that ye have cast milk in youre own face / and that (for all youre holy pretence) some spice of Cainish stomach hath made you now do more / then all the Kynges noble acts in abolishinge the said abuses / could make you do many years afore / though the same (if ye were a true subject) were by youre own confession / sufficient cause for you so to do. Howbeit it is not I that go about to lay malice to youre charge / youre awne act is not your best friend / I pray god your conscience accuse you not thereof.
But why take ye god to record in a false matter? Do ye not confess yourself / that the Kynges graces labor / watchinge and diligent study is the thing that causeth and compelleth you to write against. D. Barns protestacion / and that thorough the love and fervent zeal ye bear toward gods word and the salvation of men's souls? et cete. And now take ye god to record / that ye do it for fear / lest the people schulde be infecte 〈◊〉 the multitude of copies of the said protestacion. Against the which fear I know none other comfort for you (as longe as ye will not hearken unto gods word) but that wisdom it self giveth you in Solomon's Proverbs. Namely / that the thing which ye fear / shall come upon you / and even it that ye are afraid of / shall fall in suddenly among you. This am I certified of / not only by the same place of scripture / but even by this youre present act in putting forth youre treatise to be printed with and against the said protestaciō. For if ye fear the great infection of the people thorough the multitude of copies thereof / why caused ye it to be printed / or any man else for you? Is the printing of the said protestacion the next way to keep copies thereof from the people? Ye may well have wit / but sure ye lack policy Such a like wise way was takē in England within these few years by certain abbottes / which thinking thereby to uphold their false religions / wrought / moved / or else consented to insurrection within diverse parties of the realm / And yet was the same their wisdom / a cause that haisted their own destructiō. And even so now by youre printinge of the said protestaciō / ye have brought it so to pas / that the thing which ye feared / is come to light. Thus can god pull down his enemies houses with their own hondes. Certainly like as I never heard that there was any copy thereof / till I saw it in youre boke / so am I credibly enfourmed / that it was never in printe afore.
Whereas ye say / that it is an erroneous and traitorous protestaciō / it is sooner said / then proved / nether maketh it greatly for youre honesty / to know many secrete embracers of heresy and treason / and not to utter them. But ye may twice say it / afore ye be ones believed / only they that are of god / will whan thei have tried and examined all things / keep that which is good / and eschuethe contrary.
BVt I trust in almighty god / if it please you to rede this little treatise with a loving zeal toward our mother the holy church / et cetera.
Here do ye manifestly declare / what zeal moved you to write against. D. Barns protestacion / Namely / not any just zeal or love toward gods word / or his people / but even because / ye fear / lest your mother should come to shame / if the truth were known / therefore to show youre mother a pleasure / ye thought to do youre best in defending her. Nether helpeth it your pretence any thing at all / though ye call hir holy / for every such sect as ye be of / hath a sundry holiness / which cometh not of the spirit that sanctifieth. Now like as your own act came of that zeal which ye bear toward the church of the wicked / so would ye have youre treatise red with the same zeal / to the intent that the readers might smell heresy and treason / where none is / and be poisoned with such a corrupt judgment / as ye be of youre self.
Agayne / how are ye (or all men living) able to prove / that this protestacion of. D. Barns doth smell and sauoure nothing but heresy and treason? Is it heresy and treason to teach no erroneous doctrine / to teach only those things that scripture leadeth unto / to manteyne no error / to move no insurrection / to be falsely slaundred / to confute the false opinion of the Anabaptists / to deteste and abhor all such sects / to set forth the glory of god / obedience to the hyer powers / and the true religion of Christ? Doth it smell and sauoure nothing but heresy and treason to believe in the holy and blessed trenite / to believe the incarnacion / passiō / death and resurrection of our lord and savior Jesus Christ? Is it heresy and treason for a sinner to desire god to forgive him / to trust only in the death of Christ / to set forth good works / to believe that there is a holy church / to believe a life after this / to speak reverently of saints / to call our lady a virgin immaculate and undefiled / to knowledge a Christian believe concerning the body and blood of our lord / to ascribe unto saints the honor that scripture willeth them to have / to pray for the Kyng and his counsel / et cete. Do such things smell and sauoure nothing but heresy and treason? Woe unto thē that call good evil / and evil good darkness light / and light darkness / sweet sower / and sower sweet.
Though ye do also esteem them to be heretics and traitors / that take parte with. D. Barns protestacion / yet doth not youre estimation or judgment discorage me in this behalf. Nether is it my mind or will to medle with his offense / (if he committed any against the Kyng) nether to defend this his protestaciō with any hand or weapen of man / but by the scriptures to bear record unto the truth / and to reprove youre perverse and strange doctrine / which ye do teach against the same.
FOr surely such as do improve them et cete.
This youre saienge proveth not the contrary / but that seeing ye resist the truth / I may tell you your faute / and enfourme you better (according to the Apostles doctrine) if god at any time will grant you repentance for to know the truth / and to turn from the snare of the devil / et cete. If I can vnderstonde / that thorough this enfourmacion ye will give place to the open and manifest truth / godschall have the praise / and I shall think my labor well bestowed. If the truth can have no place in you by fair means / but he will still resist it obstinately / and bely it / as ye do here in this youre treatise / then verily ye may be sure to be afterward so handled / as the lymites and bounds of gods holy scripture will suffer. I beseech god (acordinge to his good pleasure) that ye may have eyes to se / ears to hear / and an hert to vnderstonde his holy word / to consent unto the same / and in all pointes to live thereafter. Amen.
Here followeth the protestacion of S. Robert Barns.
I Am come hither to be burned as an heretic / and you shall hear my belief / whereby ye shall perceive what erroneous opynions I hold.
I am sory to se the obstinate blindness and final induracion in this his protestacion / which would clear / justify / and excuse himself by color and disceate.
Christ our savior making mention of his own death / afore he was hanged apon the cross / said these words / Behold / we go up to Jerusalem / and the son of man shall be betrayed / condemned / mocked / scourged / crucified. et cetera. Whan a true man cometh to be hanged on the galowes / Is it obstinate blindness and final induracion for him so to say? Peradventure ye will say unto me / Take ye. D. Barns then for a true man? I answer / Verily these his words prove him no false man / for he said that he came to be brent / And sure I am / that he came not to the fire to be made a bisshoppe.
Morouer. D. Barns told the people / that they should hear his believe / et cet. And ye lay to his charge for his so doing / that he would clear / justify / and excuse himself with color and disceate. As though he justified himself with color and disceate / which (acordinge to. S. Peters doctrine) is ready allwaie to give answer unto every man / that asketh him a reason of the hope which is in him. Was not. D. Barns instantly required to show his faith and to open his mind in sondrie things? Again / though he or any man else would clear himfelse from such things as are wrongfully laid to his charge / did he evil therein? If it be so / then did holy. S. Paul leave us a shrewd ensample in the Acts.
Which ought to have accused / condemned / and utterly forsaken all that he had offended in / si nos ipsos iudicaremus / non utique diiudicaremur a domino.
I answer / By youre own words / then it followeth not / that he was bound to accuse and condemn himself of the things that he had not offended in. But by youre leave / where as ye bring in this text of. S. Paul (Si nos ipsos et cetera.) ye peruerte it / not alledginge it as it standeth / but thus / Si nos ipsos iudicaremus / non vtique diiudicaremur a Domino. That is to say / If we judged our selves / we should not be judged of the lord. But. S / Paul's words are these / Quod si nos ipsos diiudicaremus / non vtique iudicaremur. Dum iudicamur autem / a Domino corripimur / ne cum hoc mundo damnemur. That is to say / If we would judge (or reprove) our selves / we should not be judged. But whan we are judged / we are chastened of the lord / lest we should be damned with this world. Wherefore the perverting of this text now at the first bront / causeth me the more to suspecte you / and to trust you the worse / because the devil himself is scolemaster to such chopping up of the text / As we may se in the gospel of Matthew and Luke. Now go to / If I find any moo such juggling castes with you / ye are like to hear of it / afore I come to the ende of your boke. For weakness and ignorance can I well away withal (so longe as it is not willful) but the perverting or choppinge up of a text of holy scripture / is not to be borne vnrebuked
Mark here / how he useth Ironia / et cetera.
Ye confess / that. D. Barns in his forsaide words doth use ironia / and yet (contrary to the significacion of the word) ye are not ashamed to affirm / that he confessed herewithal both heresy and erroneous opinions. Now is ironia as much to say as a mockage / derision / or meaning of another thing / then is expressed in the words. Which manner of speaking is much used not only thorough out the Prophets in holy scripture but also among the Heithen Poetes. And the same phrase of speech have we in Englische / As / whan a man saith to ashrewde boie / Come hither good sir / ye are a virtuous child in deed / et cete. meaning nothing less. For as much then as ye yourself confess / that. D. Barns doth here use ironia / it is evident / that whan he said these words (You shall perceive what erroneous opynions I hold) his meaning was / how that the people should know / that he held no erroneous opinions / As it appeareth by these his words following.
GOd I take to record / I never (to my knowledge) taught any erroneous doctrine / but only those things which scripture led me unto.
Justly pondre by the Prophet Psal. cxl. how grievous offense is partinax excusatio in peccatis / et cet.
Like as ye cannot justly lay any partinacite to. D. Barns for those his words / so prove ye the greuousnesse thereof full slenderly out of the cxl. Psalm / if the true reading of the text be well and justly pondered. Whereas he taketh god to record in the truth of so waightye a matter / the scripture is full of holy ensamples / that bear him therein. What partinacite is there then in that act?
He durst avowe also / that (to his knowledge) he never taught any erroneous doctrine / and yet are ye not ashamed to ascrybe partinacite unto him / and to call him an obstinate heretic / where as. S. Jerome in his fourth boke the xxiiij. chapter upon Matthew writeth thus. He is an heretic that under Christ's name teacheth the things which are against Christ. If. D. Barns therefore had wittingly and willingy taught any thing against Christ / ye might have laid great partinacite to his charge. Truth it is / that he being in ignorance / and disceaued sometime by a multitude as you be / did both err and teach erroneous doctrine for the preferrement of the. B. of Rome's usurped authority and other abuses / according as many other learned men moo in the realm have done / (which have sense both reap̄ted toward god / and also received the Kynges gracious pardon) many years agoo. Again / if ye will lay partinacite to his charge because he was sometime in such gross ignorance / by the same argument might ye condemn Christ's disciples / of whose ignorance mention is made in many places of the New Testament. I say not this to excuse ignorance / but to reprehende the rashness of youre judgment / which presume to condemn them whō god hath called to repentance.
But peradventure the pertinacite that ye lay to his charge / is because he saith he taught only those things which scripture led him unto. For that is no small corsie to youre sore. Ye would not have scripture taught only without other doctrines. Neuertheles they that love gods commandment / will teach nothing but his word only / for so hath he himself given commission. Of his promises is mention made both in Hieremie and in the gospel of Matthew. As for ensamples / we have sufficient both of the Prophets and Apostles / which / to die for it / would teach nothing but scripture. Read the thirtēth chapter of the seconde Epistle to the Corinthians / the fiftenth to the Romaines / and the most godly protestacion that. S. Peter maketh in his seconde Epistle. Let us give place and cōsent to the holy scripture (saieih. S. Augustine) for it can nether disceaue / ner be disceaued. The bishops also and clergy of England in the Epistle of their boke to the Kynges grace / do affirm / that holy scripture alone showeth men the right path to come to god / to se him / to know him / to love him / to serve him / and so to serve him / as he most desireth. Wherefore they are rather obstinate against god / which in stead of his only word / preach and teach other doctrines. But let us hear what. D. Barns saith more.
And that in my sermons I never maintained any error / nether moved ner gave occasion of any insurrection.
What blindness would he lead us in to? Who hath not heard him preach against all the ordinance of Christ's church? et cete.
As for blindness / ye need no leader to bring you in to it / our lord (whan his will is) bring you out of it. This man toke god to record / that he never maintained any error / Whereby like as he denied not but that he might err (as he did err grossly / whan he lived in the Papistry) even so left he us an ensample / to forsake all errors / and to maintain none. Call ye this a leadinge in to blindness? Then farewell all good ensamples of humility and repentance.
To the other parte of youre cauillacion I answer. It would be to longe a registre for you to rehearce the names of all those / which never heard. D, Barns preach against the ordinance of Christ's church. I also am one of them / which have heard him as oft as ever did ye / and yet (as I hope to have my parte of gods mercy in Christ's blood) I never heard him preach against any such / sense he was converted first from the wicked Papistry. Agaynst some of the ordinances or ceremonies used in youre church / have I heard him preach oft and many times. As for you ye are none of Christ's church / by your own saying. For hereafter in youre treatise ye confess yourself / that the congregation of Christ's church in this region of England / is the Kynges Maiestye with his learned counsel. And truly like as I am sure that ye are not Kyng of England / so do I perceive by youre writing / that ye are none of the Kynges learned counsel / And so (by youre own confession) none of Christ's church. The ordinance of Christ's church is / that everyone (from the prince to the lowest subject) shall be diligent to wait upon his office / and to do the thing that god hath called him unto. To the ordinance of Christ's church pertaineth all that is written concerning the duty of every estate / and also concerning such order as is mete to be kept in the church / acordinge to the doctrine of the Apostle .j. Cor. xiv. j. Cor. xi. Dyd you ever now hear. D. Barns preach against any such holy ordinance of god or of his church? No verily I suppose. For then doutlesse we should have heard of it in this youre thondringe treatise.
Whereas. D. Barns now hath kene erneste against youre wicked church of the Papistry / and preached against the horrible abuses thereof / cal ye that erroneous railinge and traitorous speaking? By that reason were the Prophets erroneous railers / which rebuked the abuses of the Jews church so earnestly. Ye and against the superstitious obseruynge of fasting days / did the Prophets preach / as did also the Apostle. S. Paul. All these and many other moo of gods servants did speak against superstitious obseruynge of vain fasts / and against the abusing of that fast which god had commanded. But against true fasting / whereof mention is made in many places of holy scripture / have not ye yet proved that. D. Barns did ever preach in his sermons / nether against such days as by lauful authority are appointed without superstition for general fastinges.
If ye will blame him for preaching against the abuse of prayer / why do ye not also blame the Prophet Isaiah / our sauyoure Christ himself / the Apostle. S. James / S. Ambrose / Gregory / Barnard / Chrysostom / Jerome. Cirillus / Fulgentius / Origen / et cet. Can ye say now / that ye have justly blamed. D. Barns in this behalf? But thanks be unto god / against the right use of prayer (whereof mention is made by our savior and his Apostles thorough out the New Testament) have ye not yet proved / that. D. Barns at any time did preach / sense he forsook the Papistry / nether against such lawful days as by just authority are appointed for general prayers and thankesgeuynges to god / and for the accōplishinge of other spiritual exercyses grounded upon gods word.
Neuertheles / I maruayll the less that ye blame him unworthy in this point / for ye are not ashamed also to bely him / and to report of him / that he denied godly ordinance to bind unto deedly sin / contrary to. S. Paul Roman. xiii. which chapter with the contents thereof he defended in his sermons and writings very earnestly / and diligently set forth due obedience to the hyer powers / to the great hynderaunce of ypocrites and their wicked church / whose ordinance he denied utterly to bind unto deedly sin / because it is not grounded on gods word. But godly ordenaunce / that is to say / the ordinance and institution of god / did not he deny / but that the breakers and offenders thereof do committee deedly sin. As for man's ordinance (not institute of god / ner justly grounded upon his word) what Christian man / having wit to discern between chalk and chese / will say or grant (except it be such wavering redes as fear man more then god) that it byndeth unto deedly sin / seeing it is sinful / wicked / and abhominable it self / invented by Satan / and repugnaunt unto gods word? Is not such stuff most vehemently rebuked by gods own mouth / and also by his holy Apostle? Are ye not ashamed then to affirm / that man of his authority may restrain the things which are free by the gospel? Maye a man bind that god lowseth / condemn that god saveth / or hold him in preson whom god delivereth? Is man stronger then god / or man's authority above the authority of god? Or be they both alike?
Whereas ye say / that it is the church which hath this authority / to restrain the things that are free by the gospel / I answer / The church of Cyrist is his spouse / and the fold of those sheep that hearken to his voice / unto his voice (I say) and not unto the voice of strangers. He him self also sendinge out his Apostles / biddeth them teach all that he hath commanded them / and not to bind that he hath made free / nether to make free that he hath bownd. Agayne / the nature and condition of an honest wife / is / to hearken to the wholesome words of hir husband / to prefer his commandment / and to se tyat his household folks keep it. A strompet (in deed) and an harlot / careth not to controlle hir husband / to disobeye him / and to maintain evil rule in his house against his mind. That church therefore which taketh vpō her any such authority as is not given her by Cyrist / is not his lawful spouse / nether can ye prove that he hath given your church any power to restrain the things which he hath made free / except ye do it with the words of. S. James that saith / There is one lawgeuer / which is able to destroy and to save / Or else with the words of. S. Paul that asketh the Collossians this question / If ye be deed with Christ from the ordinances of the world / why are ye holden then with such tradiciōs / as though ye lived after the world? etc.
Who hath not heard him preach a carnal liberty with a damnable justification of only faith to justify? et cete.
Truly it would make youre headeake / to read all the names of them / that never heard. D. Barns preach any such vnlauful liberty as you speak of. But first I pray you / what carnal or fleshly lybertye doth he preach / that exhorteth men with well doing to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men / as free / and not as having the liberty for a cloke of wickedness? How oft hath he taught this doctrine / as they that have heard him can tell / if they be not either malicious or else forgetful? Who can justly deny / but he oft and many times (upon due occasion in his writings and sermons) did exhort his hearers / that they would not live after the flesh / ner accomplish the lusts thereof / but to cast away the works of dacknesse / to put on the armoure of light / to walk honestly in the light that god hath given them / to follow such things as pertain to peace / and things where by one may edifye another / to walk every man in his calling / to give no occasion of fallinge unto eny man / to mortify their erthly members / et cet. according to the wholesome doctrine of the Apostle? Call ye this a preaching of a fleshly and carnal liberty? Is this a doctrine that maketh men renne at ryote / and to do what they list? I wonder verily / that ye shame not thus to bely the truth so oft.
As pertayninge to youre blasphemy which say / that it is a damnable iustificaciō where faith is preached only to iustifye / it is damnably spoken of you / ye though an angel of heaven should speak it / if holy. S. Paul be true which saith / he ought to be holden accursed / that preacheth any other gospel / then that he himself and the other Apostles had preached. If ye of a cancred hatred to the truth / have not willfully and maliciously taken parte against the holy goost / so that ye are but led ignorauntly by a blind multitude / to affirm the said inconvenience / I pray god lend you a clearer fight in the Kyngdone of Christ. But if ye be minded as were the Pharisees / and maliciously ascribe damnation to it / whereby only we receive salvation (as they ascribed unto the devil / it that was the only working of the holy goost) then am I sore afraid for you / and for as many as are of that mind. For if it be damnable to teach or preach wittingly against the express word of god / then verily is this a damnable heresy to affirm / that faith only doth not iustifye / seeing that holy scripture so teacheth. As Gene. xv. Esa. liij. Abac. ii. Mar. xvj. Luc. j.viii.xxiiij. John. v.xvij. Acto. xiii. xvj· Rom. iii.iv.v.x. Gal. ii.iii.iv.v. Philip. iii.j. Pet. j.ii Heb. iv.xi. Of this faith that scripture speaketh of so plentifully / have I made sufficient mention in the prologe of that little boke which I lately put forth in Englische / concerning the true old faith of Christ. Now like as the scriptures afore alleged / do testify for us / that we mean no false ner vain faith / even so is the same article of justification defended and maintained by the doctous in many and sondrye places / specially by. S. Augustine in the ccclij. chapter de vera innocentia. De verbis Domini sermon .xl. De verbis Apostoli ser. xxvij. In the boke of the fiftye sermons / the xvij. sermon / In the first boke of the retractes the xxiij. chapter / In the cv. Epistle unto Sixtus the bisshoppe / In the xxv treatise upon John the sixte chapter / In his manualle the xxij and xxiij chapter / In the exposicion of the lxvij and of the lxx Psalm / In the liij sermon de tempore / In the v boke of his homelis the xvij homelye / In the boke of the lxxxiij questions the lxvj chapter / And in the prologe of the xxxj Psalm / I might allege Cyrillus / Ambrose / Origen / Hilarius / Bernard / Athanasius / with other moo / but what helpeth it? Yet shall all the world know / that youre heresy is not only condemned by the open and manifest scripture / but also by many of the doctors. As for natural reason / it fighteth clearly against you also / if ye pondre well the parable of the marriage in the xxij. of Matthew / and in the xiv. of luke / the parable of the unthrifty son in the xv. of Luke / the parable also of the detter in the xviij. o • Matthew and in the seventh of Luke.
Whereas it was laid to. D. Barns charge / how that he should teach that god is the author of sin / verily he protested openly at. S. Mary spitle the tewesdaye in easter week / that he was never of that mind / howbeit he confessed (as the truth is) that where as in his boke he had written of predestinacion and free will / there was occasion taken of him by his writynge / that he should so mean. But verily if he had in that matter been as circūspecte / as the children of this world are wise in their generation / he might the better have avoided the capciousnesse of men afore hand. Neuertheles it appeareth plainly that he mistrusted no such thing / and therefore did to much simplicite disceaue him in that behalf / as it doth many moo / which are not so wise as serpentes. Nether find ye in all his boke these words (God is the author of sin) but ye may find these words / The gouerner of all things is most wise / most rightous / and most merciful / and so wise / that nothing that he doth / can be amended / so righteous / that there can be no suspicion in him of unrighteousness / et cet▪ Item All thing that he doth / is well done. Wh •• fore if they that laid that heresy to. D. Barns charge / had remembered their own distinction (of malum pene and malum culpe) at the reading of his words / as well as they can note it in other places / they might easily have perceived his meaning / and not have mistaken him.
Ye say also. D. Barns did preach that works do not profit. If ye mean works invented by men's own brains / not grounded on gods word / then verily might he well say / that such works do not profit to salvation. For whatsoever is not of faith / is sin. But if ye mean such good works as are comprehended in the commandments of god / and within the precyncte of his word / then truly ye fail so to report of him / for though salvation be gods work only yet. D. Barns in his boke doth not only condemn the fleshly and damnable reason of them / which say / If faith only justifieth / what need we to do any good works? et cet. But also he affirmeth plainly / that we must needs do them / and that they which will not do thē because they be justified alonely by faith / are not the children of god ner childrne of justification / et ce. For if they were the very true children of god / they would be the gladder to do good works / et cet. Therefore (saith he) should they also be moved freely to work / if it were for none other purpose ner profit / but only to do the will of their merciful god that hath s ••• ely justified them / and also to profit their neghboure / whō they are bound to serve of very true charity. Are these words now as much to say / as works do not profit? Lord god / what mean ye / thus untruly to report of the deed?
Whereas ye make this blind objection and say / of works profit not / so that faith only justifieth / and Christ's death be sufficient / then pen̄aunce is void and superfluous / I answer A goodly consequent / gathered nether of wittye sophistry / wise logyek / ner of good Philosophy / (except it be of Philosophy unnatural) no ner of right diuynite. Works profit not to salvation ergo they profit nothing at all / Is this a praty consequent? Youre consequent is naught / saith. S. Peter / for by good works must ye make your vocation certain and sure. Alike argument might ye make after this manner / and say / Yron is not profitable to chew or to eat / ergo it is nothing worth. were not this a wise consequent? The smyth will tell you a better tail.
Peradventure ye will excuse youre self / and say / This consequent is not mine / but Barns words. I answer. Yes verily / they be your own words / for ye say plainly afterward in your treatise / If Christ had delivered us from all pain satisfactory / et ce.? we should nether mourn ner be penitent for our offense committed against god / nether need we to mortify our flesh. This your fleshly and damnable reason / this your heresy / this foul stinckyng opinion / this pestilent error and spiritual poison / Dyd. Barns utterly abhor / and condemned it by. S. Paul's own words / in the xlix leaf of his boke. So that the more I loke upon youre words / the mote I wonder at your shameless slaundring of the truth. But as touching this / I shall have more occasion to talk with you afterward.
Now to put you to youre probacion. How are ye able justly to prove / that penance is void and superfluous / where faith is preached only to justify? the true faith of Christ / is it that we speak of. Is it not occupied then / and worketh thorough godly love and charity? They then that duly receive this faith / do not receive it to live worse or as evil afterward / as they did afore god gave it them. For though we be saved by grace thorough faith / and that not of our selves / though it be the gift of god (I say) not of works / Yet are we his workmanshippe / created in Christ Jesus unto good works / to the which god ordained us before / that we should walk in thē. Nether hath our savior givē us any liberty to receive it in vain / but teacheth us to forsake all ungodliness and worldly lusts / and to live discretely / justly / and godly in this world. Therefore who so despiseth to live virtuously / and to do good works / despiseth not man / but god. The same faith that only justifieth / setteth forth this doctrine / therefore doth it not destroy good works and penance. Take you hede thē and beware what ye say another i • me. I might pointe you also to. S. Ambrose / who treatinge of the calling of the heithen / and declaringe the true origenal of our saluaciō / alledgeth the place afore rehearced of the ii to the Ephesians / and showeth / that faith goeth as it were with child / being replenished with all good thoughts and deeds / and in due season bringeth them forth. And. S. Augustine saith these words / If faith be the foundaciō of penance / without the which there is nothing that can be good / then is penance earnestly to be required / which (as it is euydent) is grounded in faith. For a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits. Matth. xii. Pennaūce therefore which proceedeth not of faith / is not profitable / et ce. These are. S. Augustine's words. Faith then destroyeth nether penance ner good works / but is the womb that beareth them both / and of whom they both proceade.
Touchinge the article of forgiveness / where ye say / that it is contrary to the order of our Saviors prayer / that we must be forgiven of god afore we can forgive / are ye not ashamed thus to proceade forth in blasphemies against the manifest word of god / ye and clearly against your own words? Do ye not confess youre self / that first god of his mercy only giveth us grace / without which we can do nothing that is good? Is it not a good thing / one man to forgive another? Do ye not grant also / that god first loved us / ye even whan he was not loved of us? Why then shame ye not to write / that it is against the order of our lords prayer / to be forgiven of god / afore we can forgive? Is the love of our savior against the order of his prayer? Or did he not forgive us / whan he loved us first? Can he love / and not forgive? Thynke ye god to be of the nature of those / which forgive and love not / or that show tokens and countenaūce of love in outward appearance / and forgive not in their hearts?
A shame is it for you / to take upon you the office of a teacher / of a reader / of a preacher / and to handle such a weighty matter as this is / so slenderly / so frowardly / so crokedly / so far out of frame / so wyde from the order of Christ's sincere and true doctrine. Red ye never the parable of forgiveness / that our savior telleth in the eightenth of Matthew? Which parable like as it setteth forth our duty / and teacheth us / everyone to forgive our brethren's trespaces from our hert rotes / proveth it not likewise / that the lord first pitieth us / dischargeth us / and forgiveth us our great dette? Is not love and gentleness (that one Christian man oweth to another) a fruit of the holy goost? Is it not a work of faith then and of the holy goost (ye a fruit of that penance which proceedeth of them both) one man to forgive another? Doth not our lord himself say / A new commandment I give you / to love one another / that evē as I have loved you / ye also may love one another? etc. Be ye courteous (saith. S. Paul) one to another / merciful / and forgive one another / even as god hath forgivē you in Christ. Item. Now therefore as the elect of god / holy and beloved / put on tender mercy / kindness / humbleness of mind / mekenesse / long sufferinge / forbearing one another / if any man have a quarrel against another. Even as Christ hath forgiven you / so do ye also.
Be these scriptures now against the order of our lords prayer? The words whereof if we rehearce in order as he taught them / then (afore we ask any petition) we first confess / that almighty god is our father / and we his children / which we cannot be / except he hath granted us forgiveness for Christ's sake. Agayne / there is no prayer good and acceptable without faith / for / how shall they call upon him (saith. S. Paul) in whō they have not believed? They therefore that truly say their Pater noster / are faithful believers / to whom eternal life is promised by Christ's own mouth / and have their sins forgivē them of god.
Do ye not considre / that they to whō our lord taught this prayer / were his Apostles / and true Christian men? which like as they them selves first have forgiveness of god (they should never else be Christian men) so use they to forgive other / according to the doctrine of scripture. For the Apostle saith / Be ye the followers therefore of god / as dear childrē / and walk in love / evē as Christ loved us / et ce. And what Christian man being in his right wit / did ever deny / but that if we (which have forgiveness of god) will not forgive our trespacers / he shall withdraw his forgiveness from us? But you (not regardinge the order that god hath taken in the saluaciō of his people) turn the root of the tree upward / draw the threde thorough afore the nedle / set the cart afore the horse. Ye your doctrine will have us to be the fore goers of god / and not the followers of him / as scripture byddeth us.
A reuocacion of these was red in octauis pasche / et ce.
What reuocacions ye make in men's names (they being absent) I cannot tell. But like as ye come to the sermon to take Christ in his words / so are ye not to learn to turn the cat in the pan. This may all the world spy here in you / that as ye are crafty and sotell to bring men to reuocacions / so are ye malicious in diffaminge of them.
Furthermore / read his detestable books / and you shall se what pestilent seed he hath sowid.
If. D. Barns books be detestable and to be abhorred / why do ye bid us read thē? Will ye have the kings subjects to read abhominable books?
As for the seed which he did sow / I cannot greatly maruail at you / that cal it a pestilent seed / for in his boke he said these words / Whan I am deed / the sonne and the mone / the stars and the element water and fire / Ye and also the stones shall defend this cause against them (meaning the cause of gods word against the spiritualty) sooner then the verity should perish / This is one corn of the seed that. D. Barns did sow. And verily so far as I can perceive / this same little praiy seed (verity) will grow and come up. Ye I may tell you / it will grow in youre own gardens / whan ye are most against it. • or Christ told your predecessors plainly / that if his disciples would not speak / the very stones should cry / according to the prophecy of Abacue. It is no wonder therefore / though he cal this a pestilent seed. For pestilent is as much to say as hurtful or unwholesome / so that if ye suffer this seed of the verite to grow / it will hurt youre false doctrine / and the phisicians that have seen your water / say / that it is unwholesome for your complexion.
And therbye you shall perceive / how shamefully now he doth lie (like as he hath done ever heretofore)
By. D. Barns books may every man perceive / that he confesseth the articles of the Christian believe. And if he lied ever here tofore (as you report of him) then said he never truth. Now is it manifest also / that in his boke to the Kynges highness / he confesseth / that no man in England is except from the subiectiō of the Kynges power / nether bisshoppe ner other. He confesseth also / that the Kynges prerogatyue is allowed by gods word. He saith like wise in the next leaf / that it is not lawful for the spiritualtye to depose a Kynge. Is not this truth? Will ye say then that he hath lied ever here tofore? Let not the Kynge ner his counsel here these your words / I will advyse you. Now like as. D. Barns spake truth in these things / so heard I him say to a sort of malicious enemies of gods word / even the saying of Christ to the willful Jews. Ye are of the father the devil / and after the lusts of youre father will ye do. He was a murthurer from the beginning / and abode not in the truth / for the truth is not in him. Whan he speaketh a lie / he speaketh of his own / for he is a liar / and father of the same / et ce. Ye will grant these words to be true / I think.
Which would have us here to believe contrary to our hearing and seeing / that he never taught ner preached heresy / ner erroneous opynions.
To that doth. D. Barns say himself / in his fore rehearced words / that to his knowledge he never taught any erroneous doctrine. Somwhat also have I said unto you already concerning this matter.
I pray you / what was his own reuocacion / et ce.
Ye make answer to youre own questiō your self. Ye say that he utterly there forsook many of his old damnable heresies. If (as you say) he forsook there his old damnable heresies / then did he there as he did in other his sermons / even shown himself to abhor the heresies of the papistry / for those were the old infections that he was tangled withal sometime.
ALlthough I have been slaundred to preach that our lady was but a saffron bag / which I utterly proteste before god / that I never meant it ner preached it: but all my study and diligence hath been utterly to confound and confute all men of that doctrine / as are the anabaptistes / which deny that our savior Christ did take any flesh of the blessed virgin Mary / which sects I deteste and abhor.
Here he cleareth himself to be no Anabaptist / as though there were no heresy but that alone.
Ye would be loath youre self / that other men should so vnderstōd your words / or gather such a consequent of thē. If ye were accused to be a preuy these / and came before a multitude to clear youre self frō that vice / would ye mē should judge you to be therefore of so fond opiniō as to think / that there were no moo vices but theft alone? I doubt not / but if ye were strately examined / ye would say / that there were also the vice of lienge / the vice of malice / of slaūdring / of bacbyting / of frowardness / of foolishness / of willfulness / et cet.
And yet this opinion / to say Christ did pass through the virgins womb as water through a cundeth / was none of the Anabaptists own opinion. It was one of the Manichees error and also Eutices error / whō some of the Anabaptists herein did follow.
Whose error so ever it was / I refer that to you / for youre treatise declareth / that ye be well acquainted with heretics.
Therefore. M. Barns hereby doth not pourge himself frō the Anabaptists heresy concerning the baptime of infauntes.
His disputaciōs had oft times with thē / his continual preaching against thē / his daily words also and conuersaciō was record sufficient / that he abhorred their error also in that behalf. Why / would ye have him thē to pourge himself thereof? Youre phisike is not good / to give a man a purgacion / which is not infecte with such evil or gross humors / as require a purgacion.
Here he saith / he never gave occasion to insurrecion / But how say you? Dyd he not offer himself to cast his gloue in defense of his errors at Paul's cross?
He said at the cross the third sondaie in lent / Here is my gloue / not in defense of any error / (as ye untruly report) nether with material sword / buckler or spear to defend any such thing / but with the sword of gods word to prove / that god first forgiveth us / afore we can forgive / and that they be no breakers of order which set forth gods word and due obedience to their prince / but they that maintain their own traditions / burn gods word / and regard not the Kynges injunctions / et cet.
Dyd he not openly say / these things (meaning his errors) must be tried by blood?
Ye are to blame to be so malaperte / as to entre so presumptuously in to a man's thought / and so to judge it / For his very death declareth / that he meant not to fight / nor to hurt any man's blood / nether to set men together by the ears for any article of his believe. But that they which are of the truth / must in the cause thereof suffer their blood to be shed / and be content to die for the name of Christ / if they be called there unto.
What call you this / but giving occasion of insurrection?
If this be insurrection / then did the Apostles send out two seditious men / Paul and Barnabas / for in their Epistle they testify of them / that they ioperded their lives for the name of our lord Jesus Christ. And yet their weapons were not carnal / as. S. Paul saith. If it be insurrection therefore whan a man offereth himself to die in the cause of Christ / then did he himself preach insurrection whan he said / he that looseth his life for my sake / shall find it. Whosoever looseth his life for my sake and the gospel / shall save it. I say unto you my friends. Be not afraid of them which kill the body / and afterward have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom ye shall fear / Fear him / which after he hath killed / hath power to cast in to hell. Ye I say unto you Fear him. D. Barns therefore offering himself to die in the cause of Cyrist and his gospel / shameth you / and all youre affinite (as ye call it) which will not ioperde to put youre little fyngre / where he hath suffered his whole body to be brent for the trial of the truth.
He saith he never called our lady a saffron bag / whether the did or no / I wote not / but I herd him at Barkyn two year and more before he was burnt in declaring the canticle Magnificat / slanderously speak of her.
Oure lady hath but a faint friend of you / that hearing one slaundre her in his sermon / could not find in youre heart (by the space of two year and more) to se him openly rebuked for it / but now like a cowarde / to stand up whan he is deed / and to accuse him / that cannot answer for himself. Verily like as he (what so ever he be) that slaundreth our lady / is worthy of open punishment to the ensample of other / even so seeing that (by youre own confession) ye heard him slaundre her so long afore his death / and complained not of it / ye make youre self giltye of the crime / by the same text that ye allege out of the Romans in the later ende of youre preface. Nether can I believe / that any of the Kynges counsel hearing of any such inconvenience / and having sufficient proof thereof / would differ the punishment solonge.
Makynge her no better then another woman▪ et cetera.
In deed it was not. D. Barns ner any other creature that made her better then other women / but even the holy and blessed trenite / whose good pleasure it was / to chose her afore all other / to be the worthy mother of our savior Jesus Christ in whom all faithful should be blessed. But if ye say that he in his sermons reputed her no better then another woman / then declare ye youre self to be a very malicious slanderer of the deed / against whom like as ye prove nothing / so were not only his sermons gathered at his mouth in wrytinge / but also the learned mē that heard him preach and were then present at Barkyng / do testify and report / that in their life they never heard man speak more reverently of the blessed virgyn Mary / then he did in that place.
ANd in deed in this place there hath been burnt some of them / whom I never favored ner maintained.
Here he saith / that he doth deteste and abhor some that hath been burnyd in Smythfelde / whereby we man se / that in all things heretics do not agree among them selves / et cet.
By the same collectiō should ye have inferred also / than an heretic agreeth not with himself / and have proved it whan ye have done / as ye do well favoredly in that youre treatise / where whan ye have said one thing in one place / ye affirm the contrary in another / as I shall show more plainly afterward.
BVt with all diligence evermore did I study to set forth the glory of god / the obedience to our sovereign lord the king / and the true and sincere religion of Christ.
Here (gentle readers) note well and forget not / that to these words of. D. Barns / John. Standish saith nothing / where by it appeareth that he cannot deny / but that. D. Barns was a diligent setter forth of gods glory / of due obedience / and Christ's religion. which three things who so doth / is in my mind no heinous heretic.
ANd now hearken to my faith▪ I believe in the holy and blessed trenyte / that created and made all the world / and that this blessed trenyte sent down the seconde person Jesus Christ in to the womb of the blessed and most puryst virgin Mary. And here bear me record / that I do utterly condemn that abhominable and detestable opinion of the Anabaptists / which say / that Christ toke no flesh of the blessed virgin. For I believe / that without the consent of man's will or power / he was conceived by the holy goost / and toke flesh of her / and that he suffered hunger / thirst / cold and other passions of our body (sin except) acordinge to the saying of. S. Peter / he was made in all things like to his brethren except sin. And I believe that he lived here among us: and after he had preached and taught his fathers will / he suffered the most cruel and bitter death for me and all mankind: And I do believe that this his death and passion was the sufficient price and rawnsome for the sin of all the world: And I believe / that thorough his death / he overcame the devil / sin / death and hell.
This is well said / but mark the deuel and Peter / the one Matth. xvj. the other Mark v. et ce.
What / are ye so forgetful of yourself? Saide ye not in your preface / that the protestacion of. D. Barns doth smell and sauoure nothing but heresy and treason? And now ye confess / that in these fore rehearced words he said well / which could not be / if they smelled either of heresy or treason. Thus are ye become not only contrary to youre self / but also a defendoure of. D. Barns protestacion / and approve the same. And in this do ye prove the sentence true that I spake of afore / namely that he which is given to false doctrine / agreeth not with himself / after the ensample of you / which teach one thing in one place / and deny the same in another.
Whereas ye compare the confession of. D. Barns / to the confession of the devil / we will try youre doctrine by the text of. S. Mark / and there by shall we se / how well these two confessions do agree / and how clarkly ye have joined them together. S. Mark reporteth / that the legiō of deuels which had possessed a certain man / and taken his right mind from him / et cet. cried out and said unto our savior / What have I to do with the / thou son of the most hie god? Here is it manifest / that the devil crieth out of our savior Christ / and would have nothing to do with him. Whan did. D. Barns cry out of him? A great parte of the world can testify / that he hath cried out of Antichrist and his chaplens / ye and that so loud / that he hath awaked a great number with his cryenge.
Ye but to my purpose (will ye say) the devil also confesseth / Christ to be the son of god. I answer Their confessions be not alike. For. D. Barns doth not only confess that Christ is the son of god / but saith also / I believe / that he suffered the most cruel and bitter death for me / et cete. Whan did the devil believe / that Christ died for him? Agayne / this confession of. D. Barns condemneth the heresy of the Anabaptists concerning the incarnacion of the lord Jesus. Whan did the devil condemn any such false opinion? Will ye make it not devilish doctrine to be of that sect? Beware what ye say. Are ye not ashamed then to compare these blessed words / to the confession of the devil / and yet to write that they be well said?
This youre confession doth not prove you to be a good Christian man.
By youre judgment / to confess the true believe in the blessed trenyte / to confess the incarnacion of Christ / to abhor the false opinion of the Anabaptists / to believe in Christ's death / resurrection / et cete. is no proof of a Christian man / No though Christ himself say / Who so ever doth knowledge me before men / him will I knowledge also before my father which is in heaven. And. S. Paul / To believe with the hert / justifieth / and to knowledge with the mouth / saveth / for the scripture saith / Who soever believeth on him / shall not be confounded.
Wherefore / if men considre your words / ye bring youre self verily in to a shrewd suspicion / for ye seme to favor the miscreauntes and infidels / even them that believe not the articles of the Christian faith. It seemeth / that ye believe in some other thing then god / else would ye make more of the Christian belief / then ye do.
For the most parte of the heretics condemned by scripture and our mother the church / et cet.
Where find ye in the scripture / that he is condemned / which believeth in the son of god? all though ye call him and write him heretic ten thousand times? But I se well / ye lack help. I will tell you where ye shall find a text of scripture for your purpose. S. John. the baptist saith / He that believeth on the son of god / hath everlasting life. And Christ our savior saith a little afore in the same chapter / God so loved the world / that he gave his only begotten son / that who so believeth in him / should not perish / but have eternal life / et cet. He that believeth on him / is not condemned.
And where as ye say / that then were condemned by the church / I answer. If ye mean the church of Christ (which I doubt not to be in Englang / as well as in other realms) then blaspheme ye it / for saienge / that it condemneth them / whom Christ with his own mouth pronounceth not to be condemned. For Christ's church never condemneth them / whom he saveth. Ye and in youre so reportinge / ye blaspheme the Kynges highness / chief and suppreme head next under god of this said church of England / without whose authority no execucion may laufully be done within his dominion. Howbeit among the busshes and in a corner without the kings knowledge / a true man sometime may chance peradventure to be hanged as soon as a thief.
If ye mean youre own mother the church of the froward and multitude of wicked doers / then verily (like a good child) ye have discloysed and uttered youre mothers secretes / and told us hir very nature / which as she is a very spiritual strompet and common harlot / so is she a mother of murder / a shedder of innocent blood / and (by your own confession) a condemner of them / whom Christ dare advowe to be saved.
What ye mean by the censoure of the powers / a man cannot well perceive by youre words / ye speak so confusedly. But if ye mean the sentence / judgment / or determinacion of the hyer powers / then slaundre ye them (as I said afore) in that ye report / how they should be the condemners of those / whom Christ hath not condemned.
If by the cēsour of the powers ye mean your own usurped authority / or the stolen and untruly gotten authority of youre mother the wicked church / then we believe you. For in her (as the angel saith) is found the blood of the prophets and saints.
If ye mean the fyrepanne that ye cast incense in / then may we se that youre censoure is wheter then other men's fire / and therefore the more persons for any man to medle withal.
If by the censoure of the powers / ye mean the censoure of youre excomunicacion / then declare ye youre selves to be the cursers of them / whom god hath blessed / and so are ye cursed of god / which saith unto Abraham (and in him to every faithful beleuer) I will curse them that curse the. And he that toucheth you (saith the Prophet) toucheth the apple of gods own eye.
ANd that there is none other satisfaction unto the father / but this his death and passion only.
Amonge other this was one of his errors / that he revoked the last Easter at the Spittle.
Here ye take youre pastyme upon the deed / and straye abroad allmoost as far as six leafes of youre treatise will extend. And now and then because the common people that be unlearned / should the better vnderstonde youre words / ye give them a sentence of latyn / and now and then half a sentence. I could tell wherefor / if I would.
Amonge other (ye say) this was one of his errors. Ye judge it an error to affirm / that there is none other satisfaction unto the father / but the death and passion of Christ only / and yet (like a learned man / full sure of youre self) ye confess plainly on the other side of the leaf in youre boke / that no man can satisfy for the offense. Upon this ye must give me leave to demand this question of you. If it be erroneous to say / that Christ is the satisfaction unto the father / and ye youre self confess / that no man else doth satisfy for the offense / To whom then shall we ascribe this honor of satisfienge for our sins? A lasse what a gross error be ye in? O blind gydes / what way will ye lead the people of god? Vnhappie is the flock / that is under your keeping. And happy is the man / whom thou (lord god) instructest / and teachest him out of thy law. It is time lord to lay to thine hand / for they have waisted away thy law.
This article (that Christ's death only is the satisfaction to the father for all the sins of the world) is plain / manifest / and approved thorough out all the holy scripture / the whole sentences whereof are here to longe to rehearce / but the text is open and evident / though sometime it use one vocable / and sometime another. For to this article pertain all those scriptures that report him to be the pacifier and reconciler of his fathers wrath / the clenser / the pourger / the maker of atonement / or agreement / the opteiner of grace / the sacrifice and oblation for our sins / et cet. The father of heaven himself doth testify / that it is his son Jesus Christ / in whō or by whom he is pleased and content. Who taketh away the sin of the world but he? In whom are we complete (and have all heavenly and necessary things pertaininge to salvation) but in him? I pass over the rehearsal of the scriptures written Esa. liij. Ose. xiii. j. Pet. j.ii.j. John. j.ii.iii. Apoc. j. Heb. j.v.vii.ix.x. Tit. ii. Col. j.ii.j. Timot. j.ii.j. Corinth. j.ii. Cor. v. Rom. iii.v.
Whatsoever. D. Barns revoked (as ye report of him) I refer that to you / which seme to know more thereof then I. If ye were compelled by force to write / read / or say any thing against right and conscience / then like as they be to blame that will fear man more then god in that behalf / so will god certainly be the visitoure of such extreme handlinge. I would wisshe with all my hert (if I might laufully so do) that the kings most royal person might se as far / as his hie authority extendeth / for I fear the common proverb be to true / that there runneth by the myll much water / which the miller knoweth not of. Nether be all then gentle and loving intreaters of the Kynges subjects / that speak to his majesty fair words in his face / ye the Kynges grace may have Judas in his realm / as well as Christ had him in his small court. I am sory at my heart rote / whan I remember / how oft the Kynges highness hath proved his conclusion true in his time. I can say no more / but refer all secretes to god / who (I am sure) will do as he was wont / and bring all falsehood to light at the last.
As for. D. Barns preaching at the spittle / so far as I can learn / there is nothing maketh more against you / then that same his days work. For like as he there openly gave a good ensample of charity and fraternal reconciliacion / So is the same a confusion to you and all youre wanton sect / which belyenge the truth / blasphemynge the holy ghost / and slaundrynge them that are the price of Christ's blood as well as you (which points smell of grater heresy / then ye can prove against. D. Barns in this his protestacion) will not repent / ner ask open forgiveness. Which of youre cancred sort hath yet of his own free mind (vncompelled) come in to an open audience / and played such a parte / or desired reconciliaciō? Not one of you all / that I know of / no though the Kyng hath commanded you in his iniunctious / and though some of you hath not been ashamed to burn gods word.
As it was declared at Paul's cross / et cet.
D. Barns last will and testament (where upon he taketh his death) is this / that there is no other satisfaction unto the father / but the deeth and passion of Christ only. Therefore though it had been ten thousand times revoked afore / ye and declared never so oft at Paul's cross / either in the rehearsal sermon or other wise / Yet shall no man's reuokynge / no ner your blastinge and blowing / your stampinge and stayringe / your stormy tempests ner winds / be able to overthrow this truth and testimony of the holy goost thorough out the scriptures / that the death of Jesus Christ only doth satisfy and content the father of heaven / and maketh the attonoment for our sins. Nether do ye ought but bark against the Moon / so longe as ye labor to mynishe the glory of Christ / as though he optayned not grace for all the sin of the world.
Youre opinion and doctrine will not suffer Christ to be a full satisfyer unto his father for all sins. Ye say he delivered us from origenall sin and actual / and yet ye youre selves confess / that there be also venyall sins / Which if ye taught not to be washed awae with some other things of youre own chosynge / No doubt ye would confess / that Christ delivered us from them also / as well as from the other.
In this youre doctrine ye confess / that thorough Christ we may avoid and escape the eternal and seconde death / and yet afterward say ye / that our satisfaction doth please and content allmightye god / as satisfactory for our trespace.
But how fayntly bring ye out these words (We may) O howe loath are ye / that Christ should have his due honor? Agayne / How stand youre words now together? If we escape the eternal and second death by Christ / how can we ascribe the pacifieng and contenting of almighty god to our own satisfaction? Morouer / how doth god accept our satisfaction as satisfactory for our trespace / whan no man (by youre own confession) can satisfy for the offense? Is not trespace and offense all one thing?
Ye affirm in youre latyn words / that a man suffereth not the eternal and second death thorough the sin of Adam / which saienge includeth a very heinous heresy / and is openly confuted by the Apostle to the Romaines / where like as he proveth that the saluaciō of all men came only by Christ / so affirmeth he also / that condemnacion came on all men thorough Adam.
No man can (I grant) satisfy pro culpa / et cetera.
Ye grant now / that no man can satisfy for the offense / and yet ye said afore / that our satisfaction is accepted of god as satisfactory for our trespace. Item / ye say here / that every man must satisfy for the punishment belōginge to sin / and ye granted afore / that thorough Christ we avoid and escape the eternal and second death. loke better on youre boke man for shame. Is not the eternal and seconde death / everlasting damnaciō and punishment due for sin? How can we then satisfy for the punishment belonging unto sin / whan (by youre own confession) we escape it by Christ? Alas that ye are so blind / or that ye should build upon so weak a foundation.
Acordinge to that of. S. Paul. j. Cor. xi. Sinos ipsos iudicaremus / et cet.
Remembre youre self well / and forget not / that ye have brought in this text / to prove / that every man must satisfy for the punishment belonging unto sin. Neuertheles let us se where vpō the Apostle speaketh / and pondre the circumstance of his words / so shall we try / whether Paul and you agree / and whether ye have iugled with the text or no. For I fear me / we shall find / that ye have played another false cast / even with this same poor text. The words of the Apostle are these / If we would judge (or reprove) our selves / we should not be judged. But while we are judged / we are chastened of the lord / lest we should be damned with this world. These are. S. Paul's words.
Afore in another place of youre treatise / ye bring in this text for another purpose / namely / to prove / that. D. Barns ought to have accused and condemned himself. And now forgetful what ye said afore / or else willful blind (as it seemeth) ye allege the same text / to prove / that every man must satisfy for the punishment belonging unto sin. Thus make ye of gods holy scripture / a shipmans hose / wresting and wringing it to what purpose ye will. Verily such perverting of the scripture can ye not use without your awne damnation / except ye amende / if. S. Peter be true.
The Apostle showing the Corinthians the true institution of our lords holy supper / and the right use thereof / concludeth with these words / saying / Let a man examen himself / and so let him eat of this bred / and drink of this cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily / eateth and drinketh his own damnation / because he discerneth not the lords body from other meats. Therefore are many weak and sick among you / and many sleep. For if we judged our selves / we should not be judged. But while we be judged / we are chastened of the lord / lest we should be damned with this world. Wherefore my brethren / whan ye come together to eat / tarry one for another / et cet.
By the circumstance then of this chapter / it is evident / that these words of the Apostle extend to the right use of the holy sacrament / teaching us / that afore we come to the lords boorde / we ought first to judge / to try / to prove / and to examen our selves / in what case we stonde toward god and our neghboure / considering / that it is no childish play / ner a thing lightly to be regarded / but a most weighty and ernest matter concerning our salvation / the glory of god / and edifienge of the world. And whan we have duly and unfeignedly tried our selves (by cōparinge our whole conversation both inward and outward to the just commandments of god) and by occasion thereof have heartily knowleged and confessed our sins / being sory and penitent for them / believing steadfastly in the promises of god / received the absolucion of his word / entered in to true repentance and ernest amendment of our living / being reconciled and at one with all men / purposinge without fail so to continue till our lyfes ende / Then to come / and sup with the lord. This is now the thing that. S. Paul teacheth in this chapter / and proveth here no such article as ye go about. Therefore do ye wrong to the text / in wrestinge it to this sense / that every man must satisfy for the punishment belonging unto sin. By the which youre doctrine / like as ye rob Christ of his worship / deface the merits and fruit of his death / and set every man in Christ's room / Even so doth your said article condemn every man. For like as Christ only satisfied his heavenly father for our sins / and for the punishment due to the same / Even so / if we should not avoid the eternal pain of hell (which is the second death and reward of sin̄e) till we made satisfactiō for it our selves / we should continue still in the wrath of god / and so be damned forever.
And to prove this satisfaction / the words of I baptist Matth. iii. be very strong / et cete.
Be these words (bring forth the worthy fruits of pennaūce) as much to say / as / Ye must satisfy for the punishment due unto sin? Prately well expounded of you. O shameless controllers of the holy goost. Will ye make John the baptist contrary to himself? Doth he not say manifestly in another place / Who so believeth on the son of god / hath everlasting life? And what is it else to have everlasting life / but to escape the eternal and seconde death / even everlasting damnation and punishment due unto sin? Which (as ye confess youre self) we do avoid thorough Christ. Why do ye then wrest the scripture to your awne purpose? But one question will I ask you / who speaketh the words which are written in the Prophet Osee / saienge / From the hand of death will I deliver them / from death will I redeem them? O death / I will be thy death. O hell / I will be thy stinge? Find me now any creature in heaven or in erth / that may of himself verefie and pronounce these words of Christ's person / and I shall grant / that he may make satisfaction for the punishment due unto sin / which (as this text declareth) is eternal death and hell. Els / if there be but one Jesus / one sauyoure / one destroyer of damnation and hell / then shall he verily have my poor voice / to be called also (as he is in deed) the only satisfier for the punishment due unto sin / as well as he is the satisfier for sin it self.
As for the words of John the baptist / they prove euydently / that whan men convert unto god (as those Pharisees pretended to do at the baptime of John) then shall do it unfeignedly / and not to be ypocrites still / ner to lean to their old leavē / but to bring forth the worthy fruits of repentance / whereof he nameth parte in the third of Luke to the people / and speaketh of no such satisfactiō as you fain.
But Remembre / that ye have named fasting prayer and allmes deeds to be the fruits of penance / for I fear me / ye will deny it again anon / whan we come to Cornelius the captain.
Fructus .ii. dignus penitentia / est opus restaurans ea / et cet.
There are some of you / that call us English doctors / for writing so much in English / as though in the vnderstondinge of other tongues we were inferiors to you / but now ye make us youre English interpreters / for putting us to the pain to English the words / which ye wrap up in latyn from the vnderstondinge of the people. For the worthy fruit of penance (say ye) is a work amendinge those things / whereof the penance is / that is / repayringe such things as it repenteth us to have left undone / or to have committed / and this is it that we call satisfaction for sins.
That to bring forth the worthy fruits of penance / is as much as to amende / wherein so ever we have thought or done amiss / I grant / for the scripture alloweth the same. But where as ye call that the satisfaction to god for sins / ye speak it not out of the mouth of the lord.
Again. Ye said afore / that no man can satisfy for the offense / and now ye call the fruit of penance / the satisfactiō for sins. Is not every offense / sin? Lord god / what hold is there in youre words? Fie on such doctrine.
And here let us note / that it is not all one to bring forth good fruits / and to bring forth worthy fruits of penance.
No? where have ye authority of gods word for you? Be not the good fruits of pen̄aunce / worthy fruits? Or be not they good fruits that are worthy? O unworthy teachers. What an unworthy doctrine is this?
For he that doth committee no deedly sins / et cet.
If I should teach any man (whan he hath vnlaufully bahaued him self) to use vnlaufull things still / I am sure / that like as gods word would therein condemn me / so would the prudent rulers of the world (acordinge to their duty) loke sharply vpō me / and judge me little better then a seditious teacher. If the rulers therefore of the world will wink at such a pestilent doctrine / and suffer it to be sown among their people / I beseech god to send them his discipline / to their better enfourmacion / and so to lighten the eyes of their vnderstonding / that they may as well remember what hurt cometh of seditious doctrine / as many of their subjects (ye they them selves also) have proved it by experience. Well / yet remember the ende.
Whereas ye separate the fruits of innocency / of goodness / et ce. frō the fruits of pen̄aunce / where find ye that in holy scripture? For albeit that some man offendeth more then another / who yet I pray you is not bound to confess himself a sinner / to declare himself sory for the vnperfectnesse of his own nature / to mortify his flesh / and to live in repentance all the days of his life? Ye be he never so innocent / just or righteous in the estimaciō of man? Thus by your slendre division ye prove but slenderly / that the works of Mary Magdalene and David were not fruits of goodness / but only fruits of penance / as though pen̄aunce were not good / or as though the fruits of penance were not good fruits.
As for the carnal liberty of man / it must be all way restrained / abuse of all things is utterly forbidden / Yet must the body of man have his worship at his need (at his need I say / not at his lust) If you now thorough any s ••• e of wisdone / or chosen spritualtie will teach the contrary / then is youre doctrine condemned by. S. Paul to the Collossians.
Ye and acordinge to the qualite of the offense must be the satisfaction. Pro mensura peccati erit plagarum modus. Deute. xxv.
This text verily as it is slenderly alleged / so proveth it youre purpose but faintly. Moses words which you bring in / are these / Acordinge to the measure of the offense / shall be also the measure of stripes. But let us se the circumstance of the text / and so shall we try / whether ye have played a iuglers cast / or no. And forget not (I pray you) that ye have alleged this text / to prove / that the satisfaction must be according to the qualite of the offense.
Moses writeth thus / If there be a matter of plee between any men / and they come to the law / then loke whom the judges considre to be just / him shall then declare to be in the right cause / and him whom they perceive to be ungodly shall they condemn for his ungodliness. But if they se him which hath offended / to be worthy of stripes / they shall take him down / and cause him to be beaten in their presence. Acordinge to the measure of the offense / shall be also the measure of the strypes / but so / that they pass not the number of forty / et cete.
This law (as it is evident) was a civil ordinance / made for the commodite of the people / and not without mercy. The text also speaketh of no such satisfaction as ye mean. But here (forgettinge the rules of youre logic) ye would make a qualite of a quantite. For in your article ye speak of a qualite / and the text maketh mention of a quantite number or measure. Agayne / this law will / that the party which is to be beaten / shall not have above forty stripes. And then (by youre doctrine) it must follow / that though we be compelled to be punished / and so to make satisfaction for the pain due unto our sins / yet should ech one of us have but forty stripes / for the text speaketh of no moo. Maie ye not be ashamed then / thus to mock with the scripture?
Not like ner equal in the great offender and the less. Vnde Apo. xviij. Quantum quis se glorificauit et in delicijs fuit / tantum illi inferendum est tormentum.
Whereas the voice from heaven speaketh of the whore of Babylon / and saith / Come away from her my people / that ye be not partakers of her sins / lest ye receive of her plages / et cete. As much as she glorified herself and followed her awne lusts / so much give ye her of punishment and sorrow / et cet. By the last parte of this text would ye prove / that satisfactiō may not be equal in the great offender and the less. Now saith the text / Asmuch as she glorified hir self / et cete / so much give ye her of punishment. Here is rather equalite.
And where as the text speaketh of the whore of Babylon / ye say. Quantum quis / et ce. turninge not only the femynine gendre to the masculyne (which a boie that goeth to the grammar scoole would not do) but also prouinge an universal by a particular.
Agayne. This text speaketh of her that is damned to hell / and the article that ye go about to prove / speaketh of those / whom ye have affirmed already to make satisfaction unto god for their sins by the fruits of penance / which by youre own judgment are not damned unto hell. Lord god / whan will this blindness have an ende?
It is not enough (saith Chrysostom) et cet.
The doctrine of god is / that whan Christ hath made us whole (for without him is no remission) we shall sin no more / he that hath stolen / must steal no more / he that hath not the gift of chastity / must for the avoiding of fornicacion take a lawful wife / for better it is to mary then to burn. On the back side of the boke therefore is that doctrine writ̄ / which teacheth / that whan a man hath long lived in whoredom / he shall than abstain from the lawful use of holy wedloke / for wedloke is the remedy appointed of god against all bodily fornicacion and whoredom.
Whereby we may perceive / et cet.
Yes / there be worthy fruits of repentance to bring forth / there is a new man to put on / the tree hath good fruits to bear / the spouse of Christ (which is every true faithful soul) hath lawful children / that is / lawful thoughts / lawful words / lawful deeds to bring up and to norishe. Good works must needs follow faith / but not that we may set any of them in the room of Christ / ner make them the satifactiō to god for our sins. God hath called us (saith the scripture) unto good words / to walk in them / but not to make our savior or satisfaction to god / of them.
Christ Luke. xi. whan he had rebuked the Pharisees for their vice / said / date elemosinam / et omnia munda sunt vobis.
That text (if it be not ironia) proveth / that we are bound to do good works / to the which though god join his loving promise (as he doth commonly thorough out the scripture) yet calleth he not them the satisfaction to him for sins. But like as in the lviij. of Esa. the holy goost rebuketh the superstition and ypocrisie of the Jews / that had fallen to works of their own inuentynge / and then telleth them the true fast and good works which god requireth / addynge a loving promise to the fulfillers thereof / Even so doth our savior here in this chapter. For whan the Pharisee was so superstitious / that he maruayled why he wasshed not his hands afore dyner / then said he unto him / Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outsyde of the cup and platter / but your inward partes are full of robbery and wickedness / et cet. Neuertheles / give allmes of that ye have / and behold / all things are clean unto you. Lo now / first he rebuketh their superstition / secondly / showeth them what good works he alloweth / commanding thē to do the same / And thirdly addeth a promise thereto.
And the preacher. Eccl. xxj. Fili peccastic et ce.
Those are not the words of the preacher / whō the scripture calleth Ecclesiastes / but they are the words of Jesus Syrack / saienge / My son / hast thou fallen unto sin? Do no more so / but pray instantly for thy former sins / that they may be forgivē the. Fly from sins / evē as thou wouldest fly from a non some serpent / et cet. This text then proveth no more your feigned satisfactiō / then it proveth the Jews circumcision. And like as your fond alleging of it / declareth / that ye are an hider of the scripture from the unlearned / so proveth the holy goost in the text / that if we have broken the profession of our baptime / and be fall̄ unto sin / we shall do no more so / but cōuerte and turn unto god / continuing in the fear of him and in fervent prayer / to be at the staves end with sin̄e / and to abhor it all the days of our life.
He that thinketh this insufficient / et cet.
Suspectinge (as it appeareth) that your wresting of the former scriptures will not be taken for a sufficient proof of youre feigned satisfaction / ye bring in ensamples of David / Moses / Aaron / and the children of Israel / as though their punishment had been their satisfaction. But where find ye that in any of those places of scripture? If ye say / Why doth god thē punish / after that he hath remitted the fault? I answer / Like as he is the father of mercy and god of all comfort / so doth he correct and chasten his own (ye exerciseth and trieth them as the gold in the fire) partly because he loveth thē / and partly for the ensample of other / that they may beware of such falls. The same ensamples therefore that ye bring in / make clearly against you / and prove manifestly / that ye are but blind and ignorant of the scriptures. For the Apostle speaking of the same children of Israel / and of their punishment / saith plainly / that all such happened unto them for ensamples / but are written to warn us / that we should not lust after evil things as they lusted / that we should not be worshippers of images / that we should not committee whoredom / that we should not tēpte Christ / ner murmour against him as they did. Shame ye not then so unreverantly to handle the holy word of the living god?
Forthermore Daniel cap. iv. exhorteth Nebuchadnezzar / et cet.
If that text should prove any satisfaction to be done by man to god (as it proveth our duty to our poor neghbours) it should rather maintain a satisfaction for sin / then for the pain belonging to sin / for the text speaketh of sins and iniquities / and maketh mention of no punishment. Have ye no better judgment ner clearer sight in discerning of a text? Ye may be ashamed verily.
The words of Daniel as they include in them a commandment to do allmes deeds / and show mercy to the poor (which thing every man is bound to do) so include they in them a loving promise / to all such as are merciful in distributing to them that lack help. And as it is an eternal worship for them that follow this most wholesome counsel of the Prophet / so is it a shame and perpetual confusion to all churlish hearts and unkind people (specially to covetous princes / rulers / and riche men) that will not do their best in prouidinge for the poor / after the ensample of Daniel / who (no doubt) seeing so many poor presoners and helpless people (driven frō Jewry to Babylon) had a singular respect to their necessity / and therefore spake to the Kyng in their cause. Which thing would god they that are great with princes or of their counsel / were as diligent to do / as they are to make suit in their own private causes. And doutlesse they would be the more inclined so to do / if it were not for you and such other / which allege not the scripture to such purpose as the holy goost hath caused it to be written for / but frowardly wrest it for the maintenance of your own fond opinions.
Loke also Jonah. iii. what satisfaction the Ninevites made / et cet.
The text declareth / that god first sendeth his word / which whan it is preached (as it was by Jonah the Prophet) then the children of salvation believe / after the ensample of the Ninevites / and earnestly turn unto god from their old evil way / and from that time forth give over them selves wholly to all manner of good works. Then god approveth and alloweth their works / accepteth them / hath mercy of them / and poureth not upon them the wrath that he hath threatened to such as will not repent. This is the sum of that whole third chapter of the Prophet Jonah. But in all the text is there no mention made of any such satisfaction as you fain.
Is it not an ungodly thing then / so to wrest and wringe the scripture violently? The euerliuinge and merciful god amende it. It were greatly to be wisshed / that like as the Kynge of the Ninevites receauinge gods word / made a proclamacion for all his subjects to fast and pray / there were even such restraintes made likewise in every countre / that noman should wrest the scripture of god / ner allege anything there of / which may not justly be gathered by the words of the holy goost / that is / that no man should belie the text.
This satisfaction Paul speaketh of Rom. xii. Obsecro vos / et cet.
I beseech you brethren (saith the Apostle) for the mercy of god / that ye will give over your bodies / to be a living / holy / and acceptable sacrifice to god / which is your reasonable seruinge of god. And fashion not yourselves like unto this world / but be changed thorough the renewinge of your mind. These are. S. Paul's words / which as ye partly hide from the unlearned / so cut ye them very short / lest (I fear) if we heard out. S. Paul's mind / we should vnderstond him the better.
S. Paul's doctrine is / that we must mortify our bodies / but to what intent? To make any such satisfaction as ye would prove? Naie / so saith not the text / but to the intent that we may serve god / as we should / serve him / to forsake vanite / and to be altered frō an evil mind to a good.
Even so like wise saith the other text (which I must English for you) in the sixte to the Romaines / Like as ye have in times past given over youre members to serve sin from one wickedness to another / so must ye now give over youre members / to serve righteousness / that ye may be holy. That ye may be holy (saith he) and speaketh of no such satisfaction as ye inuente.
If I do not thus satisfy / then I shall have the reward and pain belonging to sin / et cet.
To the intent that ye may spy the better in what case ye stand by your awne words (I pray god ye may loke to yourself by times as a Christian man should) I will make you an argument or two out of the scripture.
To deliver from eternal death / is to satisfy for the pain due unto sin.
But Christ only delivereth frō eternal death.
Ergo Christ only satisfieth for the pain due unto sin.
The major is manifest by. S. Paul (whom ye youre self allege) saienge / The reward of sin is death / even eternal death / by youre own confession. The minor is proved by the Prophet and by the Apostle. Of these two premisses gather you the conclusion.
Another argument.
By what one so ever we are delivered from the wrath of god (both past and for to come) by the same is made sufficient satisfactiō for the pain due unto our sin.
But Christ only delivereth us from the wrath of god both past and for to come.
Ergo he only satisfieth for the pain due unto our sin.
The Major is manifest / for the pain due unto sin is the wrath and indignation of god.
The Minor is evident by the Apostle / first that we are delivered only by Christ frō the wrath of god past / for he hath made the peace between his heavenly father and us / and by him is the father reconciled. Secondly / that we are delivered by him from the wrath to come / it is clear / Rom. v. and j. Tessa. j. By these two premisses may you gather the conclusion.
To satisfy for the pain due unto sin / is the only office of Christ.
But ye take upon you to satisfy for the pain due unto sin.
Ergo ye take upon you the office of Christ.
The Major is proved by the scriptures alleged afore in the two first arguments.
The minor is gathered of your own plain words.
Of these two followeth the conclusion.
Then thus.
Ye say / that if ye do not thus satisfy / ye shall have eternal death.
But so ye cannot do / for it is the only office of Christ / Ergo ye shall have eternal death.
Behold now / what a dangerous case ye be in by your awne words. Alas man / that ever ye should be so blind / as to sit thus in judgment / and to give sentence against youre own soul / that Christ hath shed his blood for / if ye cōform yourself to be partaker thereof. Who would not note me to be five mile fro my right wit / if I should make such an argument / and say thus /
If I be not Christ the son of god / I shall have eternal death and damnation.
But so it is / that I am not Christ.
Ergo / et cete.
If I should thus believe / and affirm this Major / would not ye abhor me? Turn therefore / turn (for gods sake) in to youre own conscience / and rebuke it earnestly between god and you / for suffering either your hand to write / or youre mouth to speak any such inconvenience.
And now of this satisfaction finally to conclude / if there were need of no satisfaction / after by repentance we be come in to the favor again with god / why then did Christ say / Luke. vii. to them that love much many sins are forgivē / and to them that love little fewer sins are forgiven?
Youre opinion upon that place of the gospel / doth utterly destroy the parable of the lender and two detters / ye and Simons answer / which our savior Christ alloweth. For Simon saith / that to whom most is forgiven / the same loveth most. And again / our savior saith. Unto whom less is forgiven / the same loveth less / By the which two sentences every man may easily perceive / that the text speaketh of no such satisfactiō as ye ymagin.
But I have spied you now at the last. O very cruel enemies to gods holy word / how falsely have ye perverted and turned our saviors words / to maintain youre heresy withal? Can not Christ's words stand in the gospel for you / as he spake them / and as the Evangelist wrote thē / but ye must teach him how he should say? Doth he say in that place / To them that love much / many sins are forgivē / and to them that love little / fewer sins are forgiven? Naie verily / these are his words / Many sins are forgiven her / for she hath loved much. But unto whom less is forgiven / the same loveth less. Will ye still then take upon you to controlle the holy goost? Well / beware / that this your juggling come not to light. Beware (I say) that the breth of god blow not down youre house / for a rotten foundation can not stand long. Take hede by times / and say ye be warned.
This saying cannot be concerning culpam / et cet.
Oure savior speaketh of sins / and of forgeuing the sins / And yet are ye not ashamed to affirm / that his saying cannot be concerning the fault but concerning the punishment. Can not Christ speak a thing / and mean the same? Can he not be true in his words? O blaphemers of the son of god / Ye and of that blessed woman Mary Magdalene / which must needs be yet in hir old faults and a sinner still / if he meant not as he said / if his saienge were not concerning the fault / whan he spake these words / Many sins are forgiven her / et cet.
Whereby we se / that post remissam culpam / et cetera.
Ye have here to fore called this satisfactiō / the works of penance / and now say ye (but in latyn) that there remaineth sometime a duty of punishment to be pourged (or reconciled) with a worthy satisfaction. Which if it be a work of penance / what time can ye assign me / in the which I am not bound to be exercised in some fruit thereof? And now come ye in with sometime.
Agayne / Ye said afore / that the satisfaction must be according to the qualite of the offense / and now ye say / that the punishment due unto sin must be pourged with a worthy satisfactiō. Now is it manifest / that unworthiness is a qualite of every offense (for all faults are unworthy things) wherefor by youre awne confession it followeth / that the pain due unto the same / must be satisfied with an unworthy satisfaction. And verily so I take it / for unworthy is it / what so ever a man of his own brain inuenteth without some sure ground of gods word.
And this is signified by that of the Prophet Joel / et cet.
The words of the Prophet (though ye choppe them very short) are these / Now therefore saith the lord / Be ye turned unto me in your whole hert in fasting / weeping and mourning. And rent your hearts and not your clothes / and be ye turned to the lord your god / for he is gracious and pitefull / long suffringe and of great mercy / and will be entreated as touching sin / et cet. Doth this text now signify / that after the fault is forgivē / there remaineth sometime a duty of punishment to be pourged with a worthy satisfaction? Is this your judgment in scripture? O shameless beliers of the open and manifest text.
Now if you say Isaiah (Cap. liij) saith / our sauyoure bare our sins on him / et cete.
Of a truth (saith the Prophet) he hath taken away our sorrows / and he himself hath borne our pains / et cet. The correction of our atonement was laid upon him / et cet. These are the words of Isaiah / which as they are manifest and plain / so do not you truly rehearce them as they stand / and yet can ye not deny / but that if we conform our selves unto Christ / then hath he satisfied for us most abundauntly. To what point now have ye brought your former doctrine of satisfaction? Verily even to this point / that Christ hath taken away their sorrows and pains (ye and borne the correction of their atonement) which conform them selves unto him.
For all this your confession / yet deny ye the truth again / and say / that he delivered us not from all pain satisfactory. Now saith the Prophet / that he toke away our sorrows and pains. What pain satisfactory then is there / that he hath not delivered us from? If it be our pain / then (saith Isaiah) Christ hath borne it. But peradventure ye do mean some pain of your own. Ye seme to be yet dreaming of your painful purgatory / for if ye conformed youre self to Christ and to his doctrine / ye should be persuaded and certified in your conscience (even by the same chapter of Isaiah) that Christ hath as well satisfied his heavenly father for the pain due unto your sin / as for your sin itself.
For if he had so done / we should nether mourn / et cete.
Ye say / that if Christ had delivered us from all pain satisfactory / we should nether mourn ner be penitent for our offense committed against god / ner we need not to mortify our flesh. O damnable heresy. And are ye one of the authors thereof? Are ye one of the destroiers of penance / of converting to god and of mortifienge the flesh? But as touching such another like ungodly consequent / I have talked somewhat with you afore. All the world therefore shall know / that ye are the teachers of such pestilent doctrine / and not we.
Behold now how unsure ye are of yourself. Ye say / that if Christ had delivered us from all pain satisfactory / we should nether mourn ner be penitent for our sin / ner mortify our flesh. And yet ye confessed afore / that thorough Christ we avoid and escape eternal death / which likewise (by your own confession) is the pain due unto sin. How stond your words now tegether?
Whereas ye condemn your own perverse doctrine by the sixte chapter to the Romans / it were sufficient to deliver you from suspicion / if ye did bide thereby. But that do ye recante / and fall to youre vomit again / saienge /
But we should with their fleshly liberty have a joyful penance full of mirth.
Your doctrine is / that if Christ had taken away the pain due unto your sin / ye should not repent for your sins / but follow / your own fleshly liberty / et ce. Wher by ye declare yourself to be still of that rotten opinion / which ye defended afore.
Now where as ye report of us / that our penance is with a fleshly liberty / I answer / Evē as by your former words ye prove yourself to be one of their number / which say (Let us do evil / that good may come thereof. Let us continue in sin / that there may be abundance of grace. Let us sin / because we are not under the law / but under grace) Even so Isaie / do ye declare yourself to be one of them that speak evil of us / and report us to be the affirmers of youre wicked words. As though we were they that exhorted men to a fleshly liberty / or not to live in virtue and good works. Now god is the true judge / who as he abhorreth all liars / even so refer I all vengeance to him / for it is his office by right. But in the mean season (till all falsehood be discloised) our ernest watching and labourynge for youre salvation / the poor life which we lead in this world / and the fruits of our good will that grow in youre own gardens (for all youre wedes) shall testify somewhat with us also against your evil tongues. And god which is able to restore the blind to their sight / shall lend men eyes to se / and vnderstonding to discern / whether the doctrine and open word of god which we teach / would have men to live after there awne lusts / Or whether your doctrine (which is of men's inventing) be not rather cause of all wickedness / robbing men of their wits / and making them to renne at riot from gods word / from his ordinance / from his commandments / from his promises / and from the most virtuous ensamples of gods children.
Now as touching our penance / Ye would make the world believe / that whan we speak thereof / we mean some moris dance / some such delicate bancketting as is among the ungodly / some vnlaufull chambringe / some such excess of eatinge and drynkynge / as (god amende it) is commonly used in the world. Again / your doctrine is / that repentance should be without joy. And our believe is / that if the holy goost and the true faith of Christ go together / then like as repentance proceedeth of faith / so is the joy of Christian men a fruit of the holy goost / as the Apostle saith. Thus also to be merry and joyful / are we taught by the scripture Hiere. ix.j. Cor. j.ii. Cor. xi. Rom. v.viii. Math. v. Luce. x. Shall we thē be sory / because god hath done so much for us? For our sins and trespaces we will be sory and mourn / though whan we fast / we rent not our garments / ner put on sackcloth / nether disfigure our faces to be seen of men / though whan we pray unto god / we prick not our selves with botkens / ner make to much babbling of words. Such flinges / such morris dauncis / such wanton gestures / such light mirth we make not / for our joy and gladness is inward / cōceaued in our breasts / whan we fele the inestimable mercy and love of god therein / ye evē whan we are put to trouble and aduersite.
Another joy have we also / and the same is likewise a fruit of our repentance / appointed in scripture / as whan we joy with them that joy / whan we are glad of our neghbours welfare / glad and cherfull to do him good / glad to give him lodginge / et cet. Wherefore to call such fruits of repentance / any light or wanton mirth / ye are to blame / and of a wanton judgment.
As these new fellows would have penance to be / et cet.
To be called new fellows of your mouth / we do not greatly force. But first where as ye ieast upon us for casting our sin̄es and care on Christ / and for rejoicing that he hath taken thē on him / ye show yourself not only ignorant in this spiritual cause of Christ's faith / but also blasphemous both against him and his. I pray you / who hath so broad a back or so mete to bear the sins of penitentes / as Christ hath? Hath not his heavenly father laid our sins upon him / as ye yourself have confessed out of Isaiah? And doth he not say unto us himself / Come to me all ye that labor and are laden / and I shall refresh you? Is not he the lamb of god that taketh away the sins of the world? And doth not his blood cleanse us from all sin?
Secondly / where as ye blame us for casting our care upon Christ / we do not greatly pass upon it (though we lament your blindness) for we have gods word on our side / ye not only his commandment and precept / but also his promise / that (so doing) he will norishe us / and not suffer us to lack. Neuertheles in casting our care upon god / we rob not our body of his duty / but set the hands to labor / the fete to go / the mouth to speak / and every member to work in his calling / lest we tempt god / contrary to his commandment.
This penance Peter did not take.
What / will ye belie. S. Peter? Dyd not he caste his sins upon Christ? Saieth he not plainly / that Christ himself bare our sins on his body upon the tree / to the intent that we might be delivered from sin / and live unto righteousness?
Or did not holy. S. Peter cast his care upon Christ? Why biddeth he us then to cast all our care upon him / adding also / that he careth for us?
Agayne / Doth not. S. Peter also bid us rejoice / in asmoch as we are partakers of Christ's passions? et cet. Or think ye that he did not as he taught? Was he not one of those disciples / which were glad whan they saw / that their lord was alive? Why are ye not ashamed thē / to belie him? Fye / fie / take better hede to your words another time.
But his penance was mournful.
Though he mourned and wepte bitterly / whan he had denied our savior (as every true penitent doth) yet proveth not this the contrary / but that in consideracion of the goodness of Christ / he also rejoiced / as appeareth by his own words afore.
Theirs glad and iocunde / et cetera.
So glad are not we in our penance / but we may find cause enough of sorinesse / though we cōsidred nothing else / save the blind vnderstonding that is in you. Ye say / that we think justification to be without works of penance. But like as ye are to malaperte to entre in to men's thoughts / So am I glad that ye cannot report / that we should preach / teach / talk or write / that we would have justification to be without works of penance following. For our books / our papyre / our pens / our hands / our whole conversation (though we have our faults as well as other men) ye and the mouths of them that know us / can testify / that we are of a contrary opinion.
If you say / remission of sin is freely forgiven in baptyme / therefore we need no more penance / et cet.
I wonder in whose name ye make that objection. If ye know any man to affirm / teach or write / that we need no more penance / because sin is freely forgiven in baptyme / he ought to have an open rebuke. Howbeit the same is like unto your own doctrine where ye say / that if Christ had taken away the pain due unto your sin / ye should not repent / but follow your carnal liberty.
Now to your satisfaction / ye say here / that it springeth out of the third kind of penance / and afore in the eight leaf of your treatise / to prove it strongly / ye bring in. S. John. baptistes words / which ye join now to the first kind of penance. Is it not now strongly proved? Are ye not very sure now of the doctrine that ye teach?
Agayne / To prove / that by the second kind of penance godly men are pourged from such sins / without which a man cannot here live / ye allege the first chapter of the first Epistle of John / who in the same place saith these words / If we say that we have felashippe with god / and yet walk in darkness / we lie / and do not the truth. But if we walk in light / even as he is in light / then have we falashippe together / and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin. This scripture now maketh clearly against you / and proveth your opinion to be false / for Christ's blood cleanseth us from all sin (none except) so long as we walk in his light / and not in darkness. Why ascribe ye then the purgacion of men's sins to any kind of penance / seeing Christ's blood hath and must have the honor thereof?
Ye allege here sundry places of scripture / the circūstaunces whereof doth utterly disaproue your doctrine / as plainly appeareth to him that conferreth the same to the open words of the text / which I heartily require all indifferent readers to do.
The place of Ezekiel is manifest / that god will no more think upon their sins / that truly repent and turn from them. The place of Isaiah showeth / that god will have mercy on such penitentes. The place of Hieremy is plain / that if people convert from their wickedness / god will no more plage them therefore. The xi. chapter of wisdom declareth evidently / that the punismentes which happened to the Egipcians / were sent thorough the indignation of god / and that the trouble / nurture / and correction which the Israelites had / came of his fatherly mercy. The cxliiij. Psalm witnesseth / that the lord is gracious and merciful / long suffringe / of great goodness / loving to every man / et cet / lifteth up all them that are cast down / and is nigh to all such as faithfully call upon him. The xviij of Matthew is evident / hat who so ever converteth from his sin / all mighty god will not that he shall perish. Item that like as all true penitent sinners have their det freely forgiven them / so shall they be partakers of the same forgiveness still / if they will heartily do unto other / as they are dealt withal them selves. These places of scripture (though ye tell not forth the words) are of your own alleging / and yet are ye not ashamed to write (ye even of penitentes) that none of their sins shall be unpunished. Now is it manifest in the said chapter of Ezekiel / that like as god will not reward their good deeds that forsake him / and turn away again to their vomit of wickedness / So will he not think upon their sins that truly convert therfrom unto him. Yet call ye them happy that punish them selves / and take upon them to be satisfactours in that behalf. As though it were a blessed thing for men to lay crosses upon their own backs. Thus by your judgment were Baals priests happy / and the ypocrites that the Prophet Isaiah speaketh of. O disceatfull teachers. Full well might the Prophet say unto gods people of England in this behalf / O my people / they that call the happy / do but disceaue the / and mar the way that thou shuldest go in.
Now let us hear more of. D. Barns words.
ANd that no work of man did deserve anything of god / but only his passion / as touching our justification.
This manner of justification plainly appeareth to be false / even by that one place (if we had no mo) of Cornelius Acto. x. et cet.
The words of the text are these / There was at Cesarea a man named Cornelius / a captain of the Italianish company / a devout man / and one that feared god with all his house / and gave much allmes to the people / and prayed god always.
The text saith in order / first / that Cornelius was a devout man and feared god with all his house / and then speaketh it of his good works / as allmes / prayer / et cet. Whereby it is manifest / that he himself was first accepted of god and justified / for (as. S. Peter saith afterward in the same chapter) god hath no respect of persons / but (in all people) he that feareth him / and worketh righteousness / is accepted unto him. And (as the Prophet saith) The strangers / gentiles or Heithen which cleue unto the lord / in worshiping him and loving his name / are accepted unto him / as his own servants. Again / The scripture saith / They that fear the lord / give credence to his word. And without faith it is not possible to please god / Item / what so ever is not of faith / is sin. By this is it manifest / that those good works of Cornelius were fruits of his faith and of the fear of god / and he justified afore he did them. Ye confessed also afore / that fasting / prayer and allmes deeds / are the fruits of penance / then must ye needs grant that the tree was afore them.
This text then proveth not / that our justification (deserved only by the death of Christ) is a false justification / ner that Cornelius works deserved much of almighty god afore he was justified. For (as I shall rehearce afterward) ye confess yourself / not only that we are justified freely / but also that god first giveth us grace / without which we can do nothing that is good.
As did the work of Kyng Ezechie. iv. Re. xx. et cet.
Your purpose is by the ensample of Hezekiah / to prove / that our works deserve much of almighty god / afore we be justified. And that work of Hezekiah which ye allege / was done long after his iustificaciō. For the text saith / that whan he lay sore sick / the Prophet Isaiah came to him / and told him the message of god / And that he thē made his fervent prayer and wepte. After the which god sent him word / that he had heard his prayer and seen his tears / et cet. And afore in the same boke / it is evident / that the same Kyng Hezekiah did the thing that was good in the sight of the lord / according as his father David had done / put his trust in the lord god of Israel / et cet. cleued unto the lord / went not out of his paths / but did according to all the precepts that god had commanded Moses / and therefore (saith the text) was the lord with him in all that he toke in hand.
Wherefore by the circumstance of the text it is manifest / that Hezekiah was justified afore he lay sick / and that his prayer was a worthy fruit of his reap̄taunce long after he was justified / and no work that deserved any thing afore his justification. Nether did his prayer ner the work of the Ninevites change the sentence of god / for god is nether chaungeable ner double in his words. But like as (afore the Ninevites believed in him) he first sent his word / and thretened them / that if they would not convert / their city should be destroyed after fortye days / Even so whan Hezekiah was fallen in to sin / god threatened him / that if he would not repent / he should die. And like as god (whan we receive his word earnestly / believe steadfastly in him / and bring forth good works) doth accept us / as he did the Ninevites. Even so though we have fallen from the professiō of our faith / yet if we now do earnestly repent and convert / he is merciful and true to forgive us our sins / and to grant us our petition after the ensample of. Hezekiah. At whom like as all kings and princes may take instructiō of good governance / Even so in him have all other sinners (that have broken their covenant with god) a very notable ensample of true repentance.
But how rimeth the ensample ether of Hezekiah or of the Ninevites / for the probacion of youre purpose? Dyd either Hezekiah after he was fallen in to sin / or the Ninevites (afore they believed) deserve any thing of god? Or doth any of both these ensamples prove / that our justification (deserved only by the death of Christ) is a false justification?
Afore in the tenth leaf of your treatise / ye allege the ensample of the Ninevites / to prove / that after the sin is forgiven / we must make satisfaction unto god for the pain due there unto. And now bring ye the same in / to prove / that our works may deserve much of almighty god / afore we be justified. If this be not a mockyng with gods word / let them judge that are learned therein.
Scripture is full of such ensamples / et cete.
Scripture is full of ensamples / bot to bring us unto the faith of Christ / and also to make us rise up by true repentance / whan we are fallen from the same. But in all the scripture find ye no ensample / that teacheth you to call our iustificaciō (deserved only by the death of Christ) a false justification / or to affirm / that we may deserve much of almighty god afore we b •••• tified. And yet would ye fain prove the same / ye even by the ensamples of those that were justified afore.
Notwithstanding I am not ignorant of the order of our justification / et cet.
Are ye not ignorant what order god taketh in iustifieng his people / and will yet teach the contrary? The more shame for you. Now may every man (that noteth your former doctrine) perceive evidently / that ye are a willful teacher against the order / of our iustificaciō. For if god first of his mercy only giveth us grace without which we can do no good thing / then teach ye contrary to this order / whan ye say / that men's works deserve much of allmighte god afore then be justified. Thus doth your awne doctrine prove you not only to be contrary to yourself / but also a willful breaker of godly order.
Ille prior dilerit nos. j. John. iv. non dilectus dilerit / et cet.
Here in this place of your treatise ye make alōg process in latyn / which as it is fōdly printed / and patched of you with little morsels of scripture / so do the same make clearly against your purpose.
Ye grant / that god first loved us / afore we loved him. And that Christ died for us / whan we were yet sin̄ers / Which if it be true / then is it manifest that god first forgave us for Christ's sake. If he first forgave us / then is your doctrine false / whan ye call it against the order of our saviors prayer / that we must be forgiven of god afore we can forgive / And that our justification (deserved only by the death of Christ) is a false justification / seeing ye confess also / that the mercy of god goeth both before and behind us / and that we are freely justified.
Whereas ye grant also that thorough faith we opteine the grace of god / how agreeth that with your former doctrine against the justification of faith? Ye even the same third chapter to the Romaines (that ye here allege) is against you / for S. Paul's words are these / The righteousness of god cometh by the faith of Jesus Christ / unto all and upon all them that believe / et cet. Item. Frely are they justified even by his grace / thorough the redemption that is in Christ Jesus / whom god hath set forth to be the merciseate thorough faith in his blood / et cet.
FOr I knowledge / the best work that ever I did / is impure and imperfect.
Takyng this saying as it is Job. xxv. et cet.
Take. D. Barns words none otherwise then he spake them / and let them be tried by the same place of scripture that ye allege / where Baldad the Suhite saith thus / Maie a man compared to god / be justified? Or can he that is borne of a woman / appear clean? Behold / the mone is not clear / and the stars are not clean in his sight. How much more man / which is corrupcion / and the son̄e of man / a worm? And in the ix chapter saith Job himself plainly / God is he / whose wrath no man may resist / and under whom are subdued the proud of the world. Who am I then to answer him / or to talk with him in my words? Ye and though I have any righteous thing / I will not answer / but make mine humble supplicaciō to my judge / et cet. If equite of judgment be required / no man dare bear record on my side. If I will justify miselfe / mine own mouth shall condemn me. If I will show myself innocent / he shall declare me to be naught.
Do not these scriptures prove now / that in cōsideracion of gods judgment / all men's works are impure and imperfect?
Vnde Isaiah. lxiiij. omnes nos immundi et qua si pannus menstruate / but thus to his purpose it cannot be taken / et cet.
What mean ye man / so perversely to handle with the deed?. D. Barns confessed (as appeareth by his words) that the best works which were done by him vpō erth / in this corrupt body / were not so purely and perfectly done / as the equite of gods law requireth / and therefore (as appeareth afterward) in cōsideraciō thereof / he made his prayer with the Prophet / saying / Lord entre not with me in to judgment. If thou lord wilt strately mark our iniquities / lord who will abide it? Notwithstonding though his words be manifest / yet ye say / not only that it cannot be taken to his purpose (as Isaiah wrote in that chapter) but also upon the same ye gather an intent (for ye are good at that / ye are well skylled in judging men's intents and thoughts) that he should mean / all good works are naught / and that it is sin to obey the voice of god / which your collectiō is clean contrary to. D. Barns words.
And if we confer them to that place of Isaiah whom you allege / this matter shall be the more manifest. The words of the Prophet are these / All we are become as an unclean man / and all our rigyteousnesses are as a clothe stained with the flowers of a woman. This text as it maketh clearly for. D. Barns purpose against youre self / even so in alleging of it / have ye minished it / and left out of it those words that make most against you. But the abbot of lies and father of falsehood (even the devil) taught you that lesson / as I told you afore out of the fourth of Matthew / because ye play such another parte with a text of. S. Paul. j. Cor. xi.
In your latyn ye read the text thus / All we are unclean / and as a cloth stained with the flowers of a woman. So that ye leave out (All our righteousnesses) Now if the text may stand still for you / as the holy goost left it / that all our righteousnesses and best works are unclean and not without some blemishe / then happlie will you have little thank / not only for holding against it / but also for minishing the text.
As touching the Germans (to whom ye impute error in this behalf) Their doctrine is / that whan the servants of god have done all that is commanded them / they must knowledge themselves to be unprofitable / to have occasion continually to cry unto god and to say / O forgive us our trespaces / to knowledge / that in their flesh dwelleth no good thing / ye and to confess / that though they delight in the law of god after the inward man / yet there is another law in their members / which striveth against the law of their mind / and taketh them presoners in the law of sin / which is in their members / That there is no man but he sinneth / That the whole life upon erth is a very battaill / where the flesh lusteth against the spirit / and the spirit against the flesh / so that Christian men cannot bring every thing to such a perfection / as they fain would.
This is now the doctrine of the Germaynes / and thus taught also. S. Augustine writing de verbis domini secundum Iohannem / sermo xliij. where he saith these words / We cannot do that we would / why so? For we would that there were no concupiscences / but we cannot have our will. For whether we will or no / we have them / whether we will or no / they tickle / they flatre / they prick / they vex / they will up / they are kept down / but not yet utterly extyncte / as long as the flesh lusteth against the spirit / and the spirit against the flesh. The same affirmeth he in the sixtenth sermon de verbis Apostoli. And in the xlix chapter de diffinitionibus orthodox fidei / he saith after this manner / And therefore all holy men do truly in pronouncyng them selves sinners / for of a truth they have whereof to complain / and though not thorough any reproof of conscience / yet thorough the frayltie / et cet.
Such doctrine now (though it be approved both by the holy scripture and by. S Augustine) yet because the Germaynes teach it / it must needs be condemned of you for an error. I wonder ye condemn them not also for holding so little of the popes church / of his pardons / of his purgatory / for putting down his religions / his chauntrees / his soul masses / and diriges / his trentals / pilgrameges / stacions / et cet. For ministering the sacraments in their mother tongue / for setting their priests daily to preach the only word of god / for bringing in no new customs in to the church / for avoiding whoredom and secrete abomination from among their clergy as well as from other / for bringing up their youth so well in the doctrine of god / in the knowledge of tongues / in other good lettres and honest occupacions / for prouidinge so richly for their poor / nedie / fatherless and aged people / et cet.
Now to your ensample of Abraham / which obeyed the voice of god / Doth it prove that his obedience was so perfect / as the equite of gods justice required? Or that his own words were false / whan he said unto god / I am but dust and asshes?
Also it is said. Job primo / In omnibus his non peccauit Job.
The later parte of the text (which declareth the whole meaning thereof) leave ye quite out. The words of the scripture are these / In all these did not Job sin̄e / ner spake any foolish thing against god. Now is it manifest by the same chapter / that whan the scripture hath told of the great aduersite that Job had in the loss of his goods and children / it maketh mention also of his notable patience / and then concludeth the chapter with those words. The on parte whereof like as ye leave out / and tell the other in latyn from the unlearned / so make ye of a particular an universal / asthough Job might not offend in other things / though he grudged not here against god. For manifest is it / that he did afterward curse the day of his birth / as the third chapter declareth. Now because Job was patient in his first aduersite and blasphemed not god / doth that prove it an error to hold with him whan he saith / If equite of judgment be required / no man dare bear record on my side? If I will justify miselfe or show miselfe innocent / mine own mouth shall condemn me?
And. S. Peter. ii. Pet. j. after he hath recyted certain virtues / et cet.
S. Peter afore those words / speaking of the same virtues / saith thus / If these things be present and plentiful in you / they shall not let you be idle ner unfruitful in the knowledge of our lord Jesus Christ. Let one place of scripture now opē and expound another.
Furthermore a strong argument to prove it / may be this. Omnis qui in deo manet / nō peccat. j. John. iii. Sed qui manet in charitate / in deo manet. j. John. iv / ergo qui manet in charitate nō peccat / et cet.
To your argument I answer / Like as it is true whan the scripture saith / they that are borne of god sin not (partly because god hath covered their sin / and imputeth it not unto thē / and part / lie because they are at the staves end with sin / and delight not in it but keep them selves from sin̄e / as. S. John saith in the same fifth chapter) So is it true also / that if we say we have no sin / we disceaue our selves / and the truth is not in us / as holy. S. John saith. In the declaracion of the which words. S. Augustine noteth heresy in the Pelagians and Celestines / for affirminge / that the righteous have utterly no sin in this life. Take you hede therefore / that ye smell not of the Pelagians panne / for it stinketh afar of.
As David speaking in the person of every good man / said he did / seruaui mandata tua domine / Psal. cxviij.
He saith also a little after in the same Psalm unto god / I have gone astraie like a sheep that is lost / O seek thou thy servant. The circūstaunce also declareth / that it is not only a Psalm of consolaciō / of doctrine and of thanksgiving / but also an ernest prayer of one that is very fervent in gods cause and in the defense of his word. So that like as sometime he mourneth and wepeth to se the acts and statutes of god despised / Even so cōplayneth he sore unto god / of them that manteyne any doctrine contrary to his word. Thus in respect of them he dare boldly say / that he keepeth gods commandments / and no men's doctrynes / for he abhorreth all the false learning of ypocrites / But in consideracion of his own infirmite / he saith to god oft times in this Psalm / O teach me thy statutes / give me vnderstonding / that I may learn thy statutes / save me / help me / deliver me / et cete. Like as in another Psalm (where he confesseth to have kept the ways of the lord) he saith a little after in the same Psalm / O my god / give thou light unto my darkness.
Acording to gods saying to Jeroboam. ijj. Reg. xiv.
Though god covered David's sins / and imputed them not unto him / yet made he his confession unto god (while he was in this body) and said / If you lord wilt strately mark iniquities / lord who shall abide it? Lord entre not in to judgment with thy servant / et cet.
And also as it may be proved / by this that god commandeth us nothing impossible for us to do.
One false opinion would ye prove by another / and by this present article (like as by the other afore) ye declare yourself to be a very Pelagian / and partaker of their heresy / confuted by. S. Augustine / in the sixtenth chapter of his boke de libero arbitrio / and in moo other places.
But he saith not only Matth. xix. si vis ad vitam / et cet.
Your argument is this. God that commanded us to keep his law / ergo it is not impossible for us so to do. But whether your consequent will be allowed in the checker or no / we shall se by our Saviors own words. Who whan he had said to the young man (if thou wilt entre in to life / keep the commandments) and told his disciples how hard it is for the covetous to entre in to heaven / They asked him and said / Who can thē be saved? Then answered he them / saying / With men it is impossible / but with god are all things possible. Down then goeth the Pelagians heresy / and little thank are ye like to have / for holdinge with it.
If he ask / Why then doth god command us to decline from evil and to do good / if it be not in our power? To the same obiectiō doth. S. Augustine make a sufficient answer in the secōde chapter de correptione et gracia / and not only refelleth it by. S.P. words (saying / It is god which worketh in you both the will and the deed) but also putteth us in mind / that if we be the children of god / we are led by gods spirit to do good / that whan we have done any good thing / we may give thanks to him of whom we are led / et cet. And in another place / Therefore doth he command certain things that we cannot do / because we might know what thing we ought to ask of him. The same doctrine teacheth he also in the lxiij sermō de tempore. This is confirmed by holy scripture / for by the law cometh the knowledge of sin / So that even they which are renewed in Christ / find by the law / that whan they would fain do good / (for therein is their delight) evil is present with them.
The words of our Sauioure (if ye love me / keep my commandments) prove no more your purpose / then your wresting of them proveth you to be a true scolar of his. For after those words he himself saith thus / I am the way / the truth and life. No man cometh to the father / but by me. Naie (saith your doctrine) we may come to god by our selves / he commandeth us nothing impossible for us to do. Now let me ask you this question / If Christ whan he said these words (If ye love me / keep / my commandments) did mean / that it is not impossible for us so to do / why then immediately after the same words / doth he promise us the spirit of comfort? What need have we of him / if we be not comfortless of our selves / or if nothing that he commanded us / be impossible for us to do? What need have the whole of a phisician? And. S. Augustine writing against them that extolle their own possibilite in the seconde sermon de uerbis Apostoli / saith / Let us be glad to be healed while we are here in this church / Let us not make our boast of health being yet sick / lest by our pride we do nothing else / but make our selves incurable.
Which to the lovers of thē be but light. Math. xi.j. John. v / and Deut. xxx.
Ergo god commanded us nothing impossible for us to do? Is that your consequent? Full faintly are ye able to prove it by those three chapters that ye do allege. First / in the xi of Matth. doth our Sauioure bid all them that are laden / et cet. to come to him. And yet saith he in another place / that no man can come unto him / except his father draw him. Where is now our possibilite?
That fifth chapter of. S. John's first Epistle showeth / that they which are borne of god / do over come the world by the victory of faith. Now like as we begat not our selves in the Kyndome of god / but he himself of his own good will begat us with the word of life / So is it manifest also that true faith is the only working of god / and not ours. Where is then (I say) our possibilite? forsoith even fled into the yle of weakness.
If by the thirtieth chapter of Deuteronomiō ye will prove / that god hath commanded us nothing impossible for us to do / because Moses saith / This precept that I command the this day / is not above the ner far from the / et cete. Then must I require you to take the answer of S. Paul / who saith / that it is the righteousness of faith which speaketh those words / and that the word which Moses there spake of / is the word of faith / that Paul himself preached.
If ye think there to prove your purpose / because Moses layeth before the people / life and death / good and evil / blessing and cursinge / and biddeth them chose life / et ce. Then must I desire you / not only to remember the office of the law / wherefor it was given / and where to it serveth / But also to considre / that in the beginning of the same thirtieth chapter / Moses himself saith these words / The lord thy god shall circumcise thine hert / and the hert of thy posterite / that thou mayest love the lord thy god with all thy hert / and in all thy soul / et cet. Whereby it is evident / that except god circumcise our hearts / we are not able to love him / ner to keep his commandments / So that these words of Moses do prove rather impossibilite in us. For the circumcision of the hert (saith the Apostle) is the true circumcision / which is done in the spirit and not in the letter / whose praise is not of men / but of god.
All these three chapters now prove / that like as to be saved / to keep gods commandments / to have circumcised hearts / and to overcome the world with the lusts thereof / is the only working of god in us / Even so to them that love god are his commandments not grievous (not thorough any possibilite of man) but partly because Christ hath takē away the curse of the law and delivered thē frō the heuy burdens of their souls / and partly because they delight in gods commandments / and esteem his word sweter then honey / as David did. For love maketh all things light.
Therefore I conclude / in all our working we do not cōmitte sin.
Of an evil Major and Minor followeth a weak conclusiō. Ye have wrung and wrested the scriptures violently / to make them serve for your purpose / and now without any scripture make ye youre conclusion / that in all youre working ye do not committee sin. To the probacion whereof (because ye bring no scripture yourself) I will help you with a text / where the scripture saith thus There is no righteous man upon erth / that doth good / and sinneth not. If ye be a man (I will not reason much with you of righteousness / for I am a sinful man miselfe) then must ye needs grant this scripture to be true. If ye be no man / then am I sory that I have disputed with you so long / for angels have no need of my words / and as for deuels / they will not be counseled.
No ner our deeds and acts which be good cannot be called so / et cet.
Of. D. Barns secrete intent and meaning will not I presume to be judge / but what may be gathered by the circumstance of his words / I have reasoned with you already.
Now because ye cannot prove this last parte of youre conclusiō by scripture (namely that your good deeds and acts are not impure ner imperfect in this life) therefore the Prophet Isaiah to recompense you the wrong that ye did him / in minishing his words afore / will yet take the pains for you to prove your purpose (though it be little to your mind) Whan he saith / All we are become as an unclean man / and all our righteousnesses are as a clothe stained with the flowers of a woman. And the wise man saith also? Who may say / My hert is clean / I am pure from sin?
ANd with this he cast abroad his hands / and desired god to forgive him his trespass.
Extra ecclesiam nulla salus / et cetera.
Without the church (ye say) is no salvation / Now is it manifest / that beside the church made of lime and stone / there is also a congregation church and multitude of froward and wicked doers / which not only gather them selves together like roaringe lions / fat bulls / wanton calves and cur dogs against Christ (as the xxj Psalm complaineth) but also make laws / cōstitucions / statutes / ordinances and traditions against gods word / Whereby it cometh to pas / that though they boast never so much of gods service / yet all is to them in vain / as the Prophet and Christ himself doth testify.
Another church is there / which is the holy spouse / congregation and company of them / that are of the felashippe and communion of Christ / and walk not in darkness / but in the truth / having all their sins cleansed by his blood. This church continueth in the Apostles doctrine / renneth not out from the heavenly felashippe of Christ and his members / distributeth the sacraments duly and truly / ceaseth not frō praieng and well doing / et ce. are of one mind and soul / are glad to help one another / as it is manifest in the acts and Epistles of the Apostles. The men of this church pray in all places / lifting up pure hands / et cet. In this church whosoever asketh / hath / he that seeketh / findeth / and to him that knocketh / doth god open. In this church is free pardon and remission of sins for all true penitentes. For god will not the death of sinners / but if they cōuerte unto him / they shall live / and who so is laden with sin and cometh unto Christ / findeth rest and ease in his soul / and shall not be cast out.
Forasmuch then as ye condemn. D. Barns thus doing (and judge him to be none of the church / that desireth god to forgive him his trespace) it is evident / that in your church there is no forgiveness for poor sinners / and so is it not the church of Christ. Wherefore / seeing ye discente frō Christ's church / where the door is ever opened to them that knock / youre own sentence condemneth you / that ye can trust to have no saluaciō by gods promise.
But alas / what blindness is in you? Though a sinner doth err or hath erred from the right faith and from the true use of the holy sacraments that be in the church of Christ / and now cometh to repentance / desiringe god to forgive him his trespace / Is not this a damnable doctrine to teach / that he cannot trust to have saluaciō by gods promise? No? hath god promised / that sin̄ers which reap̄t / shall not be saved? The thief that hanged on the right hand of Christ / hath proved the contrary.
Agayne / If a sin̄er may not trust to have salvation by gods promise / whereby thē may he trust to have it? By himself? by his own works? Or by youre merits? Even by your merits (as it appeareth) would ye have him trust to have salvation / for ye must needs be full of merits / that in all your working committee no sin / as ye say yourself.
Morouer / the tenoure of your words separateth the mercy of god from his promise / as though they cōcurred not together. But I pray you who can trust to have salvation by gods promise / and trusteth not in his mercy? Whan the Apostle saith / God gave the enheritaunce unto Abraham freely by promise / was it not done by his mercy? And whan he saith in the same chapter / Ye are the heirs of Christ according to the promise / what meaneth he else but (as he saith to Titus) that the kindness and love of our savior hath appeared / not for the deeds of righteousness which we have done / but acordinge to his mercy hath he saved us? et cet.
S. James words which ye bring in in latyn / denieth no forgiveness to them that repent / but like as he rebuketh them that are but Christian men in word and not in good works and deeds / so (if parcialite be sin) then doth the circūstaunce of the same text condemn your former conclusion / that say / ye sin not in all your works.
Loke the reward of finalis impenitētia / et cet.
D. Barns words testify what faith and reap̄taunce he had toward god / and what hert he bare toward the common wealth of all Christendom / and yet shame ye not to write / that he died without repentance and in errors / because he would not deny Christ / and revoke his word with you.
Which died by his words / without sign or token of salvation.
Is it no token ner sign of salvation to believe in the holy and blessed trenite / the incarnacion / passion death and resurrectiō of our savior / and to knowledge the same before men? Is all this utterly no token of salvation? Christ and the Apostle Paul are of another judgment.
And so his prayer must needs be void.
D. Barns cast abroad his hands / and desired god forgiveness / and yet dare ye affirm / that his prayer must needs be void. By the which words like as ye deny the article of forgiveness (mentioned in our Crede / and promised in the scripture to everyone that truly repenteth) so declare ye evidently / that there is little mercy in your mother the church of the wicked / for in Christ's church if the son ask the father a piece of bred / he will not give him a stone / but good things.
Mark how he trusteth with in an hour / et ce.
Is it blind arrogauncy / whan a man (refusing all confidence in his own works) trusteth to have eternal life thorough the mercy of god? What blind arrogauncy was in the Apostle / whan he said / we know certainly / that if our earthy house of this dwelling were destroyed / we have a building ordained of god / an house not made with hands / but everlasting in heaven? Oure savior also giveth this comfort to such as believe in him / that they shall not come to damnation / but pass from death unto life? Are ye not a comfortable Physician then to men's consciences / that shame not to teach other wise then Christ doth? But surely these two places of scripture are not for the stablishinge of your soul masses and diriges / and therefore no maruaill that ye teach a contrary doctrine / For though the name of your purgatory be out of some of your books / Yet are not all purse pykers come to the pillary.
FOr although perchance you know nothing by me / yet do I confess / that my thoughts and cogitaciōs be in̄umerable. Wherefore I beseech the entre not in to judgment with me / according to the saying of the Prophet David / non in tres in iudicium cum seruo tuo domine / and in another place / si iniquitates obseruaueris domine / quis sustinebir? Lord if thou strately mark our iniquyte / who is able to abide thy judgment?
Se I pray you / the devil seduced him so far / that he would not knowledge any sin / but only cogitacions / et cet.
D. Barns said not that he had no sin / but all though (said he) perchance you know nothing by me / yet I confess / that my thoughts and cogitacions are in̄umerable. Is this as much to say as / I have no sin but only cogitacions and thoughts? Or be not thoughts and cogitacions sins great enough? Dyd he not confess also with the Prophet / that if god would strately mark his iniquities / he were not able to abide it? Is iniquity no sin? Not in your judgment (as it appeareth) for ye dare boldly affirm / that in all your working ye committee no sin.
Se how he judged other men perchance to know no sin in him / et cet.
If it be an abhominable vice (as it is no doubt) to slaundre the scripture or to bely it / then verily are ye infecte with abhominable vice / that have misreported it and belied it in so many places of this youre treatise. Now if ye be of counsel with so many good men that knew such vices in D. Barns / I maruaill ye tell us not what those vices are. As for your mother the unholy church / he called her an harlot many times. And sure I am / that who so knoweth her thoroughly / and compareth her with her fruits to Oolla and Ooliba / will judge her to be little better.
Judge therefore yourselves what availeth him these his feigned prayers / et cet.
The prayers that. D. Barns useth here / are the holy words of gods scripture / and yet ye call thē feigned prayers. Now if the holy goost which is the author of the scripture / doth abhor faynednesse (as the wise man saith) then verily is it blasphemous to cal those feigned prayers / that he only hath taught.
Again / If they be feigned prayers / why say ye that ye doubt not / but to another man passing in the faith of Christ / they should have been acceptable ye and meritoryous before god? Can feigned prayers be acceptable to god? Can feigned prayers merit or deserve anything of god? Or can he that dieth in the faith of Christ / use feigned prayers at his death? How agreeth faynedesse with the faith of Christ? Full feigned and false is your doctrine / Oure lord root it ones out frō among his people.
WHerfore I trust in no good work that ever I did / but only in the death of Jesus Christ.
To trust in our works (ut in deum credimus) that they of them selves / et cet.
What an unstable doctrine is this / that ye bring in among gods people / and would bear them in hand / that Christ allowed your saying in the xx. of Matthew? Whereas the parable in the same chapter / and the process of the last parte of the xix. chapter hard afore it / do utterly condemn your doctrine. Lord god / what a derogacion unto gods hye glory is this / to teach / that we may trust in our works / that we may calenge our inheritance by our working / that our working may deserve to receive immortalite? In the later ende of the xix. chapter of Matthew doth our lord affirm / that to be saved is a thing impossible through the power of men / And in this xx chapter doth his parable testify / that like as we are first called by him / receive his promise / and are set a work by his comaundemēt / so is not the reward given / for any deserving / or pains taking / but according to his awne promise.
First / where find ye in any article of the Christian faith (contained within the holy bible) ether commandment or promise of god / or example of any good man / that we may put any manner of trust in our works? Again / If our enheritaunce come by the death of Christ and his promise / how cometh it by our working? Is our working the death of Christ or his promise? Now if our working may deserve the inheritance of immortalite / then may we make satisfaction unto god for our offense / and that ye have denied afore. O how well agree ye with youre self?
And this caused Paul boldly to say .ii. Timo. iv. Bonum certamen certaui / et cet.
Whan that holy vessel of god. S. Paul had exhorted Timothy to the fervent executing of his duty in preaching gods word / and had told him afore of this present perlous time / that men will not suffer wholesome doctrine / et cete. He shown him of his own death saȳge / For I am now ready to be offered / and the time of my departing is at hand. I have foughten a good fright / I have fulfilled the course / I have kept the faith. From hence forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness / which the lord the righteous judge shall give me in that day / not only unto me / but to all them that love his coming.
What caused Paul now to say these words? Any trust or confidence in his own deseruyng or works? Nay verily. He confesseth not only that the crown of righteousness is laid up for him / but also that god shall give it him / nether saith he here / that it shall be given him for his working sake / for then were he contrary to his own doctrine / which utterly condemneth yours / Roma. iii. Ephe. ii. Philip. iii. ii. Timoth. j. Tit. iii Note well the places yourself.
All be it I fear me these his words / et cete.
If whan he did any good work / he caused no trompettes to be blown before him / ner mombled up longe prayers in the corners of stretes / ner disfigured his face to be seen of men whan he fasted / then was there the less ypocrisie in him. It is a proverb as true as old / A still pater noster is as good as a loud.
I do not doubt / but thorough him to inheret the kingdom of heaven.
I beseech god / this false and erroneous believe contrary almost in every sentence to our mother the holy church / et cet.
Full unholy and ungracious is your mother / (and ye as unwise to take hir parte) that calleth it a false and erroneous believe / whan a man doubteth not but to inheret the Kyngdome of heaven thorough Christ. If that believe be contrary to your mother / then is she contrary to it / and so is she the sinagoge of Antichrist. Ye are afraid / that the innocente lambes of Christ / should hearken to his voice / and not to yours / but set your heart at rest / for they will not hearken to the voice of strangers.
Who doth believe by any other means contrary to Christ / et cet.
Yes forsoyth even you / if ye believe as ye write. For the same preemynence that is due to the death of Christ and his promise / give ye to your working in the viniarde / Ye ye put confidence / that your working shall deserve immortalite / Remembre your awne words well.
But What Christian doth cast of and forsake all duties to our parte belonging / and so temerously / et ce.
One duty that belongeth to your parte / is the sincere / and true teaching of gods holy word / which duty though ye cast of and forsake / I will not say all that I might by your awne words / but god amende it / that is amiss. Again / this protestacion of. D. Barns testifieth / that he doth not cast of and forsake all duties to a Christian man belonging / for he believeth in the holy trinite / he extolleth the merits of Christ / he praiseth our lady / he abhorreth the Anabaptists heresy / he prayeth for the kings highness / he exhorteth men to good works / he besecheth god to forgive him his trespace. Be these no duties of Christ̄ mē? What hath moved you then thus untruly to report of him?
Whereas ye lay presumpcion to his charge for trustinge to inheret the Kyngdome of heaven thorough Christ / I have answered you afore / where ye imputed like arrogauncy unto him for so doing.
Which go about being blind thē selves / et cet.
Those heretics / of whom Christ biddeth us beware / are false prophets / which come in shepes clothinge / but inward are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them (saith he) by their fruits. Now in describing unto us their fruits / he showeth us / that they are such as boast of their works / and say / have not we done this? have not we done that? Other blindness speaketh he not of in that chapter. In the fiftenth chapter calleth he those blind leaders of the blind / which (thorough their own traditions) make the commandment of god to take none effect.
And Paul speaketh of them / prima Timo. iv. et cetera.
The heretics whom. S. Paul prophecieth of j. Timo. iv. are such as thorough their devilish doctrines / forbid men to live in holy wedloke / and command them to abstain from the meats / which god hath created to be received of Christian men / with thanksgiving.
The heretics of whom he speaketh ii. Tim. iii. are such as (among all other vices) are covetous / boasters / proud / cursed speakers / et cet. false accusers / riotous / fierce / despisers of them that are good / traitors / et cet. having a shine of godly living / but denyeng the power thereof / resist the truth / being men of corrupt minds / and lewd in things pertayninge to the faith / et cet.
The heretics that he speaketh of in the xx of the Acts / are such grievous wolves as spare not Christ's flock / and speak perverse doctrine / to draw disciples after them.
The heretics whom. S. Peter speaketh of / are such mockers as regard not gods promise / and are not only unlearned / but also unstable / and peruerte Paul's Epistles / as they do the other scriptures also to their awne damnation.
The heretics whom. S. Jude speaketh of / are such as (among other errors) are craftily crept in to the church / and turn the grace of our god unto wantonness / and deny god the only lord / and our lord Jesus Christ / Even such dreamers as defile the flesh / despise rulers / et cet. speak evil of the things that they know not / and in such things as they know to be natural / do currupte thē selves as beasts / following the way of Cain / the error of Balaam for lucres sake / and the treason of Core / feding them selves / making feasts of other men's kyndnesse / and having men in great reverence because of advantage / et cetera.
Have ye not now well described the papistrye and the unholy pilers of your unholy mother the church of the wicked? If ye had joined the seconde chapter of. S. Peters seconde epistle and the xxiij of Matthew / to these places that ye have here alleged / ye had done us the more pleasure. But we thank you for pointing us to those scriptures / we know you now better then we did afore.
Now to Hieremy the Prophet / Like as in the xix chapter god treateneth destruction to Jerusalem and Tophet / forshedding of innocent blood / and for their ydolatry / So in the xxiij chapter threateneth he sore punishment to those Prophets or preachers / that speak of their own heads and not out of gods word. And in the xxvij chapter he counceleth Kynge Sedechias and his people / to give no credence unto those Prophets / that speak fair words to them and would make them believe / that there should come no such plage as god hath threatened.
As for the thirtenth chapter of Ezekiel which ye allege / I will heartily desire all Christian readers / not only to compare it to the xxiij of Hieremy / but also with due reverence (for so must gods word be entreated) to way and pondre well every sentence thereof. And so doing I doubt not / but the holy goost shall mynistre such bright spectacles to their sight / that they shall clearly discern and se / who be schismatics / who be false Prophets / and who be true. For I can wish no man so good a glass to loke in / as the scripture.
TAke me not here / that I speak against good works. For they are to be done: and surely they that do them not / shall never come to the kingdom of god / We must do them / because they are commanded us of god to show and set forth our professiō / not to deserve or merit / for that is only the death of Christ.
It is commonly said / No venom or poison is worse / et cet.
Doth not he set forth good works / that praiseth them / teacheth men to do thē / and threateneth damnation to them that do them not? Here ye cannot deny (by your awne confession) but that he praiseth good works / and yet ye have reported of him / that he cast of and forsook all duties to our parte belonging. Is it not our duty to praise good works?
But mark / it is naught that he speaketh afterward / et cet.
Is it naught and erroneous to say that we must do good works / because god hath comaunded them? The wise man saith / Take the poor unto the for the commandments sake / et cet. Is it not gods commandment to do good unto the poor?
Morouer / where find you in all holy scripture that god hath commanded us to do good works to the intent that we should merit or deserve / and not to show and set forth our profession? Must we not let our light so shine before men / that they may se our good works / and glorify our father which is in heaven? Hath not our Sauioure chosen and ordained us to go and bring forth fruit / et cet. Were we not made heirs of eternal salvation and baptized / to the intent that we should now malke in a new life? Are we not deed from the curse of the law / and married unto Christ / to the intent that we should now bring forth fruit unto god? Hath not god ordained us to walk in good works? Are we not chosen of god to show now his wonderful works / which hath called us out of darkness in to his marvelous light? Must we not lead an honest conversation in the world / that they which bacbyte us as evil doers / may se our good works and praise god?
Now to do good deeds / to bring forth good fruits / to walk in a new life / to show gods wonderful works / to lead an honest conversation in the world / what is it else / but to show and set forth our profession / the life that we have promised and taken us to at the font stone / even the holy covenant and appointment that we have made with the eternal god? Do ye not considre also / that the scripture appointing married women their estate and dewtye / willeth them to be of so honest conversation / that even they which as yet will not believe gods word / may without the word be won by their godly living? And not only this / but so to array them selves in comely apparel with shamefastness and discrete bahaueour (without excess) as it becometh women that profess godliness thorough good works? What can be more plainly spokē / then this? How ernest is the scripture likewise in mouinge and commanding (us specially that take in hand to instruct and teach other) above all things / to show example of good works in the doctrine of god / et cet. that such as resist his truth / may be ashamed of their parte / having nothing in us to report amiss? And immediately after in the same chapter / how diligent is the Apostle in requiring Titus / to exhort servants to the doing of their duty to their masters / and to show all faithfulness? But for what intent? to merit or deserve immortal ••• ▪ Nay / to the intent that in all things they may do worship to the doctrine of god our Sauioure / that the name of god and his doctrine be not evil spokē of. Thus would he have Timothy also to teach and exhort / and then saith he these words / If any man teach otherwise / and agreeth not unto the wholesome words of our lord Jesus Christ / and to the doctrine of godliness / he is puffed up / and knoweth nothing / et cet.
Read ye the text forth / and remember yourself well / considre in what case ye are / and how wyde your doctrine disagreeth from the wholesome word of god. If I should say ye were puffed up / ignorant / a waist brain / et cete. of a corrupt mind / or robbed of the truth / ye would happlie be angry. Yet be content to let Paul speak to you / for though he rail not / yet shall ye not find him a flatrer.
Which thing being true (as the church confesseth / et cete.
The church of the wicked granteth many moo things then it shall ever be able to prove / except it be with violence and shedding o • • nnocēt blood / which is in very deed a fierce / sore and strong way of probacion. Nether be they heretics that deny this your doctrine / for I have proved unto you by open scriptures / that your doctrine is false.
Be not our own good works meritorious to ourselves?
Yes parde / for the prophet saith / All our righteousnesses are as the cloth of a menstruous woman.
Whether shall we rather believe. S. Jerome / et cete.
If we receive the witness of men / the witness of god is greater / for this is the witness of god / which he hath testified of his son / et cete. Even that god hath given us everlasting life / and this life is in his son. S. Augustine saith also /
All my hope is in the death of my lord / his death is my meryte / my refuge / my salvation / my life / and my resurrection.
Which for their detestable opynions deserved justly to be burnt as heretics.
If they were not burnt heretics in deed / no force. And if they were just deseruers / it is a tokē that they meddled the more with righteousness / for no man can justly err / ner justly cōmitte treason.
What a detestable heresy is it to say / the cause that we be commanded to do good works / is to set forth our profession?
Is not our profession the promise and covenant that we have made with god / to seek his glory and our neghbours profet / even to love him with all our heart / with all our souls / and with all our strength / and our neighbor as our selves / In the which two pointes hangeth all the law and the Prophets? Are not we bound then (by gods commandment) to set forth the glory of god / our neghbours profit / and love to them both? Remembre what places of scripture I have pointed you to afore / concerning this matter.
Before whom should we set it forth? before god? he knowoth our profession before.
What then? Studye allwaye to have a clear conscience toward god and men / after the Apostles ensample.
Before man? So we may have good works as the pharises had / et cet.
Though Pharisees do their works to be seen of men / will you therefore (being a preacher) not give good ensample to other / ner let your light so shine before men / that they seeing your good works / may give the glory unto god? What? are ye so far from the knowledge of this geer / and yet a preacher / a reader / and a post of the church? Who would think / that you (which are so well aquaynted with him that can compare the dear blood of Christ to the stinckynge blood of a swine) should be so far from the vnderstondinge of such things? O wicked hogs / whom Satan hath possessed of that sort. Is the worthy prince of our redemption come to that worship among you? No maruaill that ye are so blinded in your vnderstondinge / for there was never enemy of Christ's blood / that had yet any clear judgment in his word / till he earnestly repented / and gave him self wholly to the study and life that it teacheth.
I Beleue that there is a holy church / and a company of all them that do profess Christ.
Allbe it that every true Christian ought thus to believe / et cet.
Ye say / that every true Christian ought thus to believe / and yet ye call the same belief erroneous and damnable. Is the Christian believe erroneous and damnable? Or is it erroneous and damnable to believe / as every Christian man ought to believe? Thus are ye not only contrary to youre self / but judge Christian men also to be heretics.
D. Barns words are plain enough. He goeth no farther then the article of your creed / if ye be a Christian man. What will ye more? Do these his words judge any good man to be none of Christ's church? Or be they good men / that profess not Christ?
For it cannot be / but either your sect or the other be the malignaūt church.
But so it is that ye which are of another sect / blaspheme Christ's blood / Ergo ye are of the malignaunt church.
Two contraries cannot stand both in one.
It is not reason that they should / and yet can ye bring it so to pas / for ye can prately well grant to a thing in one place / and deny the same in another / as I told you oft afore.
Hinc Iacobi. iii. Nunquid fons de eodem foramine / et cet.
It followeth a little after (even in the same place) if any man be wise and endued with learning among you / let him show the works of his good cōuersaciō / in the mekenesse that is coupled with fear. Which text doth utterly confute your former doctrine / that will not have us do good works / to set forth our profession.
Vnde .ii. Corinth. vi. Que societas luci ad tenebras? et cet.
It followeth immediately in the text / What parte hath the beleuer with the infidel? How accordeth the temple of god with images? Now might I ask this questiō also of you / How do these places of scripture (that ye have now alleged) agree to the confutation of. D. Barns words / which saith / I do believe / that there is a holy church and a company of all them that do profess Christ?
Whereby ye prove yourself both an heretic and a traytoure.
Do ye lay heresy and treason to him / for believing that there is a holy church / and a company of all them / that do profess Christ? Saieth he here any thing else? And do ye not confess yourself / that every Christian man must thus believe / if he will be saved?
Makynge by youre devilish doctrine not only us to be the malignaunt church.
To believe that article of the Crede which. D. Barns here affirmeth / is no doctrine to make you of the malignaunt church / but your blaspheminge of Christ's dear blood / your defacinge of his glory / your wresting / perverting and belieng of his holy word / and disagreyng from the wholesome doctrine thereof / maketh you ye may know what / by. S. Paul's words .j. Timo. vi.
Ye play here with. D. Barns (though he be deed from this body) as the false Prophet Sedechias did with Michee / Who whan he had exhorted the king not to break gods commandment / this Sedechias stepte forth (among four hundred of his sect) and smote Michee upon the cheke / and said / What / hath the spirit of the lord forsaken me / and spoken unto the? Even thus do ye with the deed / whom though ye may not hurt with your fist / yet do ye your worst with your tongue against him. Notwithstondinge ye shall be of the malignaunt church still for all your facyng and bragginge (ye though ye had ten thousand times four hundred false Prophets of youre side) solonge as ye resist the manifest truth of god.
But also our head the Kynges graces majesty and his honorable counsel.
I dare say / that the Kynges highness and his noble counsel doth judge no malignite to be imputed unto them / whan any subject believeth that there is a holy church / for they know / that it is an article necessary to be believed of all Christian men. Wherefore this cauillaciō declareth you plainly to be but a pike thank in this behalf. Well yet remember the ende of Sedechias / the story is written for your warning. And verily like as mine humble expectacion in the Kynges highness doth persuade me / so heard I a very famous and prudent counsailour of his (who yet is alive) say within these few years / that of all princes living his grace is the greatest enemy to flatrers / whan he ones hath thoroughly spied them.
The Kynge also hath received his hie and suppreme office of god / to defend the word / the faith / the congregation and church of god within his dominion / and is no mayntener of any such malignaunt church / If your doctrine come to light / it will doutlesse declare the same.
By whose laws you be now justly condemned to be burnt.
By what law he was condemned / I wote not / no more than I can tell what point of treason was laid unto him. But sure I am / that like as the civil laws of every realm (except the prince grant his pardon) condemn such as are accused by the mouths of many witnesses / so do false witnesses oft times bring to death / even innocent persons / as ye se by the story of Naboth / of Susanna / of holy. S. Stephen in the acts and of our Sauioure Christ / Ye clean contrary to the judges mind. Neuertheles though Cain slay Abel in the busshes / yet will murthur come out at the last.
But now to speak of this parte of your belief / et cete.
What is the holy church and company of thē that profess Christ / but that true and faithful church which is ruled by the holy goost according to gods promise? even the congregation of the elect and chosen children of god? What else can ye justly gather of. D. Barns words / but he confesseth the same / whan he saith / I believe that there is a holy church? et cete.
For this is the company that profess Christ with their mouth / et cet.
So they do also with other good fruits as well as with their mouth. Now if this company of Christ's church do profess Christ with their mouth / then have they some iniunctiō of god so to do / for without his commandment / will they do nothing / ner consent to that / which they know not to be his will. And thus have ye proved yourself at the last / that it is not erroneous to say / how that god hath commanded us to do good works for the setting forth of our profession. Had it not been more worship to you / for to have granted the same at the first / thē now with shame to affirm it that ye denied afore?
ANd that all that have suffered and confessed his name / be saints / and that all they do praise and laude god in heavē / more then I or any man's tongue can express.
As you do take it / this is also erroneous / et ce.
What so ever the cause were that he was put to death for (whereof I am ignorant) it is no evil token of a Christian man / at the very point of his death (among other articles of the creed) to confess / that such a holy church there is / which professeth the name of Christ / and ys content to laude and praise it / and to live and die in his cause. Nether is it erroneous thus to say. Of arrogauncye that ye lay to. D. Barns charge / I have talked with you afore.
Touchinge martyrs / Like as we have cause sufficient to praise god daily for his word ministered unto us by those martyrs that ye here have named / and for all such as be true followers of thē / So have we no little occasion to lamente and be sory / that any man betaking himself to godliness / and making a covenant with god to live unfeignedly after his word / should not profess the same in true fidelite and good works / Our lord be praised yet / which thorough the fall of other men / hath warned us to beware of unthankfulness. For whan they that pretend to be setters up of godliness / are either ypocrites to god / untrue in the effaires of their prince / maynteynours of pride / of ydillnesse / of swearing / of excess / and of aduoutrye in them selves or in their household servants / God's good word must weere the papyre / and be iack out of service from other men. Now god show the right.
ANd that always I have spoken reverently of saints / and praised them / as much as scripture willed me to do.
Here he plainly showeth himself to be an heretic / et cet.
I am sure that Christ's church hath made no such ordinance / nether given any sentence or judgment / that men shall not speak reverently of saints / nether that men shall praise them otherwise / then scripture teacheth. How showeth he himself thē to be an heretic in this behalf / that followeth the example of Christ's church / and not of your unholy synagoge? What maketh youre diffiniciō of heresy / to prove / that he is an heretic / which not only speaketh reverently of saints / but also praiseth them acordinge to the rule of scripture? Verily your diffinicion cometh out at an importunite. Ye might also have diffyned it thus / and have said / 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 deducitur 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 / j. volo. decerno. That is to say / I will so have it / I am at a full point. For truly I se little in youre writing but willfulness / and obstinate resisting of the manifest truth. Well / god is able to brydle you.
Also in this his saienge that he will do nothing but that scripture byddeth him / he plainly goeth against scripture / et cet.
Is he not a worthy Apostle / legate / or messaūger / that having commission of his prince what to say in his message / will speak things of his own head / or more then his master commandeth him? Forsoith he declare manifestly whose Apostle ye be. But now let us se how the scriptute will maintain this spiritual treason (even treason verily / and no better) against the Kyng of all Kynges and lord of all lords.
Christ our Sauyoure saith unto his Apostles these words / As my living father sent me / so send I you. How did his father send him? My doctrine (saith he) is not mine own / but my fathers that hath sent me. Therefore (saith he) go ye youre way / and teach all nations / and baptize them / et cet. and teach thē to keep all things what so ever I have commanded you. Ought not stewards to be faithful mynistres of their masters goods / to pay every man good money as they be commanded / and not to give false coin instead of silver and gold? Must we not continue in the doctrine of Christ / and speak that thing which is agreeable to gods word? Your doctrine would have us to renne at ryote / and not to keep us with in the bounds that god hath appointed us?
So that here he proveth himself to have another propertye of an heretic / which is to go about with the word of god / to destroy the word of god / et cete.
Like as ye prove not here with what text of scripture. D. Barns should go about to destroy the scripture / so declare ye manifestly by this your opyniō and wrestinge of the text / to be one yourself / that with the word of god / goeth about to destroy the word of god. Now to your three places that ye bring out of gods word.
Where find ye in the fiftenth chapter of the acts / that we must obey more then holy scriptuture byddeth us? First. S. Peter confesseth there in that counsel / that it is a tēpting of god to lay any yock of the ceremonies of Moses law upon the necks of Christ's disciples / or to trouble the weak consciences of those which lately we returned and converted to the faith / And afore in the same place he confesseth / that god appointed and ordained him to preach the word of the gospel / and maketh mention of none other doctrine. Again / like as by the comē consent of the Apostles in the same counsel ye se / that they would not be brought in to subjection / ner give place to those false brethren that would have brought in ceremonies of the law / to bind men's consciences withal / So would they not that the brethren which were turned to Christ / should abuse their liberty in him / but abstain from certain meats for offendinge of the weak / which thing also. S. Paul requireth earnestly in his Epistles.
In the xvj chapter of the Acts Paul and Silas preach the word of the lord / and whan Paul saw that to circumcise Timothye was a thing which might be done for the time / and was not required of the Jews as a thing necessary / he was content / Whereby it is manifest / that like as in things indifferent they had allwaye respect to the time in forbearinge weak conscientes for a while / so preached they none other doctrine but gods only word.
In the second chapter of the second Epistle to the Thessalonians. S. Paul (whan he hath told them of the great departing from the faith) doth give thanks to god for calling thē to his truth of the gospel / in the which he requireth thē to stand steadfast / and to keep such ordinances as he and the other Apostles had taught thē either by mouth or by epistle.
Now let me demand of you this question / In the xv. of the Acts whan Peter preacheth the word of the gospel / and forbiddeth the binding of weak consciences with superstitious things / and consenteth (with the other Apostles) to have such a charitable respect to the time / Is that as much as to will / that men shall obeie more then is grounded in scripture?
In the xvj. of the Acts / whan Paul and Silas preach the word of the lord / and deal gently with the consciences of the weak acordinge to the time / will they that men shall obeie more then holy scripture teacheth them?
ii. Tessa. ii. Whan. S. Paul requireth them to stand steadfast in the truth of the gospel / and to keep such ordinances as he and the other Apostles had taught thē either by mouth or in their Epistles / willeth he them to obey more then is contained in holy scripture?
Thus is it euydent where about ye go / namely / even by your false alledginge of such places of gods word / to destroy the word of god. This is verily (as ye say yourself) the propertye of an heretic / and this propertye learn ye of the father of all heresy / even father Satan / Who by (angelis suis mandauit / et cete.) would prove / that a man may tempt his lord god.
But like as Satan / wrestyng that place of scripture which made most against him / was commanded by our Sauioure to avoid / so be ye sure / that your false doctrine cannot stand. Dawlbe your wall and spare not / for Ezekiel telleth you plainly / that god will send such a shower of rain among all lyeng / prophets / as shall overthrow it. Your labor is but lost / so long as ye dawlbe your wall with vntempred mortar.
Also where he saith that he hath ever spoken reverently of saints / et cet.
Ye granted afore / his words to be true whan he said / that all such as for confessyng Christ's name and for his sake do suffer death / are saints in heaven. This reverent talkynge and praysinge of saints did ye alowe afore / And now contrary to your awne words ye say / that ye wote not whether he ever spake reverently of them or no / Yet confess ye that ye have heard him fortye times. Who will now trust you / that are so double in your words?
ANd that our lady (I say) she was a virgyn immaculate and undefiled / and that she is the most purest virgyn that ever god created / and a vessel elect of god / of whom Jesus Christ should be borne.
Here yet ignorauntly / et cete. he goeth forther then the scripture speaketh / et cet.
Be these his words out of the bounds of scripture / or not according to the scripture? Read them over again.
He would never willingly grant any thing but that is in scripture.
Then like as ye prove him to have been a true messaunger of god in grauntinge to the holy scripture (which by your own confession is gods very word) so declare ye / that if he revoked anything that is in it / or granted ought contrary unto it / It was done against his will. Have ye not now a great cause to make such tryumphinge of reuocacions in your sermons?
Albeit here with the church he doth profess / that our lady did continue a virgin still / et cete.
Doth not the scripture affirm this doctrine / that the mother of our Sauyoure is the purest virgin that ever god created? Will not the Prophecies of Christ's birth / the perfourmaūce of the same / and the practices of the holy goost in Christ's blessed mother / alowe this doctrine? Have ye noted the work of god in her no better? If she had any need of you / ye show her but a faynte frendshippe / in reportynge that her most pure virginite hath none other ground but the authority of your church. Verily such your doting doctrine will make both you and your church be less set by.
Deus .n. tantam eam fecit / inquit quidam / et ce.
Is not your doctrine now well sealed with butter? Whan ye have presumed to cōtroll gods word / and to call the blessed mother of Christ with other names then the holy goost giveth her / Now to ratifye and cōfirm your false matter / ye bring in an heretic to help you. Can not Christ's worthy mother keep still the gracious names that the holy trenite hath given her / but she must now have a sort of heretical Ruffyans / to become new godfathers unto her? Call her (as gods word teacheth you) full of grace / blessed / immaculate virgin / et cete. Praye to god that ye may follow the foot steppes of her constant faith / her fervent charity and godly love / her most meek and humble behaueoure / her unfeigned truth / et ce. And whan ye talk in matters of Christ's religion / bring forth plain and manifest words of his scripture / and no Romish heretic / ner a text out of frame / to prove youre purpose withal.
THen said. M. Sheriff: You have said well of her before. And he being afraid that. M. Sheriff had been or should be agreued with anything that he should say / said: M. Sheriff / If I speak anything that you will me not / do no more but beck̄ me with your hand / and I will straight way hold my peace. For I will not be dishobedient in anything / but will obey.
Now as he feigneth he would give no slander or offense / Sed sero sapiunt Phriges.
At this point ye are with. D. Barns / that (though he be out of this life) yet what so ever he said in this protestacion / or did at the time thereof / ye judge him to the worst / and slander him / But your own proverb that ye bring in / doth admonish you / that it is to laite / for though ye bely him and slander him never so much / it cannot hurt him.
Now he saith he is afraid to displease (irep • dauerunt timore vbi non erat timor) et cete.
Like as ye refer to him the words which are not his own / so report ye of him / that he was afraid where no fear was. But was there no fear at the fire side? The manhood of our savior Christ feared death / and so did that holy Kynge Hezekiah. As for you / ye must needs be of some bold and stowte kind / that can kill a deed man.
But how serveth those words of the Psalm to this youre purpose? The holy goost speaketh of such wicked workers as eat up gods people like bred / call not upon god / are afraid to se god stand on righteous men's side / and mock poor mē for putting their trust in god. How maketh this scripture now to prove / that there is no fear / where a man seyth death present before his eyes? O wicked mockers with gods holy word.
Now se I pray you how obedient he saith he will be / which before time was ever dishobedient / et cete.
Ye say much and prove little touching this man / whose present protestacion (and his boke written afore) declareth plainly his obedience toward his prince / whose wholesome commandment if he have at any time disobeyed (contrary to this his doctrine and example) I am the more sory. But yet have ye not proved it to be so.
Touchinge bishops (which are to be esteemed acordinge to their estate) I wote not what dishobedience ye have to prove against him. Such bishops as labor in the word of god and in the doctrine thereof / are to be counted worthy of double honor / therefore in herkenyng unto such / he did well / and if he dispysed such / he despised Christ. But if he followed. S. John's bydding / and did not receive such false Apostles as bring not the doctrine of Christ / then can ye not justly blame him.
AFter this / there was one that asked him what he said of the sacrament of the altare. Then said he unto. M. Pope which was there present: M. Pope / ye know and. M. Ryche if ye be alive / that there was one accused before my lord chaunceloure for denyeng of the sacrament: and for fault of a better / I was assygned to the examynacion of him in the galery. And after longe reasoning and disputaciō I declared and said / that the sacrament being rightly used and according to scripture / doth after the word spoken by the pressed / change the substance of the bred and wyne in to the body and blood of Christ. Were not these my words? (said he) Ye said. M. pope. Thē bear me witness (said he) that I err not in the sacrament.
Allthoughe you did not deny that sacrament / yet have you / et cet.
Ye call it slanderous raylinge / whan a man with gods word both earnestly rebuke such horrible abuses / as Antichrist and his malignaunt church hath brought in among Christian people / So loath are ye to consent unto gods word / or to use anything according to his holy instituciō. What could it then have helped you / if he had opened his mind farther / seeing that in his so godly and honest request / ye ascribe naughtynesse unto him? He did but show that he would have the sacrament rightly used and according to holy scripture / and ye are not content with him. Yet well worth the Corinthians / for though they were fallen in to abuse about this holy mystery / and about other things / we read not that they spurned against the holy goost (as you do) whan they were called to refourmacion.
Se also I pray you / how he saith / et cetera.
If you should say / that for lack of a better / ye did write against this protestacion of. D. Barns / would ye therefore be judged to think / that there were not many better learned men in England to take such a matter in hand / then you?
THen said he: have ye any thing else to say? There was one then asked him his opinion of prayeng to saints. Then said he: Now of saints you shall hear mine opinion. I have said before somewhat (I think) of them / how that I believe they are in heavē and with god / and that they are worthy of all the honor that scripture willeth them to have. But I say through out all scripture we are not commanded to pray to any saints: therefore I cannot ner will not preach to you / that saints ought to be prayed unto. For then should I preach you a doctrine of mine own head.
Ther is an old heresy that saith / saints be not yet in heaven / et cet.
Is this your next way to confute him that saith / we are not commanded in scripture to pray to any saints? Ye brawll with the deed man / that saith nothing against you / in this article of saints being in heaven.
How can it be in scripture (thou impudent heretic) the prayer unto saints?
Be good to the poor man / and take not the matter so hot. He goeth not about to prove / that your prayeng to saints is grounded in scripture.
As for in the time of the old law / et cet.
The doctrine of god is / that Christ is the lamb which hath been slain sense the beginning of the world / that is / even he / whose power and deliverance hath cleansed and saved all thē / that ever put their trust in him. Christ Jesus yesterday and todaie / and the same contynueth forever.
Therefore concerning praieng to saints / et cet.
Must we believe the testimony of men / without it be grounded on gods word? Are ye become such an Apostle? Because the church and congregation of Christ must discern / judge / try and examen all manner of doctrine (and so to eschew the evil / and keep the good) hath it therefore authority to make any new article or to receive a doctrine contrary to gods word? Because Christ hath promised his holy spirit of truth to be allwaye in his faithful congregation / shall they therefore make / ordain / set up / or believe ought that is contrary to his own teaching?
Doest thou set no more by the authority of it then so / in as much as. S. Augustine said / Non crederem Euangelio nisi crederim Ecclesie? et cet.
Even as ye peruerte the words of holy scripture / so do ye with. S. Augustine / As ye choppe and change with it / so do ye with him. And as ye allege the scripture for another purpose then the plain circumstance of the text meaneth / so do ye here with this holy doctoure. For youre purpose is with. S. Augustine's words to prove / that youre church by her authority / may make new articles / and that we are bound to believe as she believeth / though the same be not grounded in scripture. But if men diligently mark. S. Augustynes saying / the occasion of his writing / and the circumstance thereof / it shall be euydent / that ye are as like him in vnderstondinge / as the moon is like a grene chese.
S. Augustine perceauynge the great hurt that was growing thorough the doctrine of wicked Manicheus / toke in hand to confute him and his sect / his errors were so noisome and devilish. For he had not only feigned a new gospel of his own / and named himself Christ's Apostle / but also maintained the heresy (which the Anabaptists lately held) that the son of god toke not the nature of man of the blessed virgin / and denied rulers to bear office / denied marriage / denied certain kinds of meats to be of god / or to be granted unto Christian men / Taught also that some men's souls die with the bodies / despised the exterior word of god and mynistracion thereof / and sought other visions without it / And many other fond and wicked opynions had he / unknown to the holy church and flock of Christ.
Now for the refelling of such pestilent doctrine. S. Augustine (among other things) wrote one special boke against a certain Epistle of the Manichees / which was called Epistola fundamenti / and whan he had shown the occasions which moved him to abide still within the vnyte of Christ's catholic church / then in the fifth chapter he shown the cause / that moved him / rather to give credence unto Christ's gospel / then to Manicheus / where among other he saith these words / Nostis. n. me statuisse / nihil avobis prolatū temere credere / et cet. For ye know (saith he) that I am determined to give no haistie credence to any thing that ye speak of your awne heads. I demand therefore / Who is that Manicheus? Ye answer / An Apostle of Christ. I believe it not. Now what canst thou say / or do / thou shalt not opteine / for thou dyddest promise knowledge of the truth / and now thou wilt compel me to believe the thing that I know not. Peradventure thou wilt read me the gospel / and thereby wilt thou assaie to affirm the parson̄e of Manicheus. If I should find any man then / which as yet believeth not the gospel / what shuldest thou do to him that saith unto the / I believe not? As for me / I should not believe the gospel / unless the authority of the catholic church did move (teach or warn) me. Seeing that I was obedient unto them whan they said / believe the gospel / why may I not obeie them whan they say unto me / believe not Manicheus? et cet.
By the circumstance now of. S. Augustine's words / it is evident / first / that he would believe no such doctrine as men brought up of their own heads. Secondly / that he would believe no uncertain doctrine / ner that he knew not to be true. Thirdly / that the occasion which moved him to believe the gospel / was the whole consent / and authority of the catholic or universal church. Now like as he reporteth not of them / that they preached any other doctrine unto him save the gospel / so saith he not / that he believed any other lernyng / save only it. And in confutinge of Manicheus error / he bringeth none other doctrine but the scripture / as it is manifest in the same fifth chapter of his boke.
What help have ye now in. S. Augustine's words / either to prove praieng to saints / or that a particular church may by her authority make any article necessary to be believed / except it be grounded in scripture? Ye meant somewhat / whan ye chopped up. S. Augustine's words of that fashion. It is not for naught that ye so have perverted his saying / and read it otherwise then it standeth in his boke. For these are his words / I should not believe the gospel / unless the authority of the catholic church did move me. Now is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as much to say as vniuersalis. Which word like as ye leave out in youre lectiō / so follow ye the mind of Franciscus Maronis (such another holy father as was your inquit quidam) who coming long after. S. Augustine / did gather of these his forsaid words / that the authority of the church is greater then the authority of holy scripture / where as. S. Aug. meant nothing less / but teacheth us / that who so ever bringeth up any opinion / or setteth forth any doctrine / we shall receive none / but that which agreeth with the manifest doctrine of the universal church of Christ / That is / we shall hold us to that doctrine / which was taught by the Prophets / by the Apostles / and by such other as were true followers of them in Christ's holy congregation and church.
Is it not still fundamentum et columna veritatis? et cet.
The universal congregation and multitude of thē that believe in Christ / is still the house of god / the church of the living god / the piler / and stablishment of the truth / For there dwelleth god / with his mercy / grace / truth / forgyuenesse / et cet. Nether did the Apostles contrary to Christ's former institution / whan they / to set up his name (which then was so sore spurned at) did baptize in the same / if ye remember well the prerogatyue of holy baptyme / and the presence of the blessed trenyte therein.
Paul the vessel of election m. v. hundert years and more past / desired the Romans. cap. xv. the Collo. cap. iv. the Tessa. j. Tessa. v. to pray for him / et cet.
I turned not over two leafes of your treatise / sense I red these your words where ye say thus / How can it be in scripture / thou impudent heretic / the prayer unto saints?
Lord Jesus / what mean ye man? Will ye by scripture prove that thing / which (as ye yourself confess) cannot be in scripture? Do ye not grant yourself / that the holy scripture is the very word of god? Wyll ye then by gods holy word prove that thing which cannot be therein? Wyll ye bely the word of god? Saye ye not yourself in another place afore / that it is an abhominable vice to slaundre it? To what point no to have ye brought that worshipful doctrine of your unholy mother the malignaunt church? Which teacheth / that we must now pray unto. S. Paul and other saints / because that he being here in this body did require other men to pray for him and for all saints. Now is his request such / that if we should fulfill it yet for him (as well as whan he was living vpō erth) thē should we desire god to be good to his holy saints that are out of this life. And then god save our lady / help. S. Paul / and comfort sweet. S. Anthony.
A mocker are ye with gods holy word / and a shameful slaūdrer thereof / therefore as unworthy to be answered unto every vain sentence of your unstable doctrine / so leave I your long disputation therein / Desiringe all Christian readers to note well what scriptures ye bring forth / and to compare the same unto the open text / and then try / which of our two doctrynes is most agreeable to gods holy word.
The doctrine of the Prophets / of Christ our Sauioure / of his holy Apostles / and of such as have and do follow them in the catholic or universal church and congregation of god / Is his holy word and scripture / which (as holy. S. Paul dare aduowe) is able to instruct us unto salvation / which is thorough the faith in Christ Jesus / et cet. If youre article therefore of prayenge to saints that be out of this life / were a thing belonging to salvation / no doubt the same holy scripture of god would have taught it.
The awncient / firm / stable / and true doctrine of Christ's catholic or universal church / is this / that like as Christ Jesus toke upon him our flesh and blood (without sin) and delivered us frō eternal death and hell / so is he still our merciful and faithful hie pressed in things concerning god / to make agrement for our sins / and able to socoure such as are tempted / He is the seat of grace / to whom if we resort / we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need / he is able also ever to save them that come unto god by him / and liveth ever to make intercessiō for us / ye and appeareth now for us before the face of god.
This doctrine is confirmed by those same texts of scripture that ye bring in / j. John. secundo John. xiv. j Timoth. secundo / and yet without open scriptures are ye not ashamed to resist it.
We are commanded thorough out all holy scripture (both of the old and new Testament) to pray unto Allmightie god / to call upon him / to make our petitions unto him / and to ask of him whatsoever we lack.
We have his true and faithful promise / that if we so do / we shall be heard / we shall have our request / we shall find that we seek / we shall be delivered / et cet.
We have ensamples innumerable / that all those faithful people whom the scripture maketh mention of / did make their petitions and prayer / to none other but unto god / while they were in this life. Let Cornelius (whom we spake of afore) and the practice of the prymityue church bear record.
Shall we now refuse gods holy commandment / think scorn of his loving promise / despise the ensamples of his catholic and universal church / and defye gods holy ordinance (as ye do) and renne at riot with your doctrine? Awaye from us ye wicked / the commandments of our god will we keep / and not yours.
Which toke our sins on him (penam pro peccatis) j. Pet. ii. et cet.
Ye taught afore (wresting many scriptures for your purpose) that every man must satisfy for the punishment belonging unto sin / and now ye grant / that Christ toke the pain vpō him therefore. As much hold is there at your doctrine / as at an elys tale.
But we have moo means concerning intercession / et cet.
The scripture is manifest / that everyone of us in this life is bound to pray for another / and daily occasions have we of such petitions and exhortacions as appertain to our estate. As for praȳg to saints that be out of this life / Ye have mine answer already.
NOtwithstonding whether they pray for us or no / that I refer to god.
A good Christ̄ man would have gone no further / then the congregation of Christ's church / that is to say / in this region the kings majesty with his learned counsel.
Like as your irreverent handling of the holy scriptures afore rehearced / and your wicked doctrine against the same / declareth you to be none of Christ's church (unless ye repent / and turn) so do ye here exempte youre self from that holy congregation. Maruaill not therefore / though (whan I se you follow your unholy mother and not Christ's dear spouse) I call you now and then her own white son.
In this region of England (ye say) the congregaciō of Christ's church is the Kynges Majesty with his learned counsel. But is this a sufficient diffinicion? what a comfort is this now for so many of the Kynges subjects (both learned and unlearned) to hear / that they are not of Christ's congregation? Is it a great consolacion for the foot / to be none of the body?
Ye repute. D. Barns no good Christian man / because he would not define whether saints pray for us or no / but referred that unto god / and not to the Kynges majesty and his learned counsel. What will ye make of the Kynges grace? A prince that had rather have secrete things referred unto him / then unto god the only knower of all secretes? Or do ye esteem the Kynges learned counsel to be such men / as will give judgment in things that be not evident? Or think ye them to be ignorant of the scripture / which forbiddeth men to search out or to medle with secrete things / that god hath not commanded?
ANd if saints do pray for you / thē I trust within this half hour / to pray for you. M. sheriffe / and for every Christ̄ man living in the faith of Christ / and dyenge in the same as a saint. Wherefore if the deed may pray for the quick / then I will surely pray for you.
O damnable presumpcion / et cetera.
Because this man trusted thorough the only mercy of god in Christ / to pass from this death unto life / ye note damnable presumpcion / arrogaunt presumpcion / and presumptuous arrogaūcy in him. And because ye may seme to have scripture to prove / that. D. Barns would temerously appoint and determine the time himself / for his so saying / ye bring in (quod pater posuit in sua potestate) as right as a rams horn / and as nye to the purpose / as Paul's steple and mount Falcon. At the time of the ascension of our sauyoure / whan the Apostles were come together / they asked him and said / Lord / shalt thou at this time set up the kingdom of Israel again? He said unto them / It belongeth not unto you to know the times and seasons which the father hath kept in his awne power / et cetera. A like answer to such another question / giveth he in another place / and saith / Of that day and hour knoweth no man / no not the angels of heaven / but the father only.
What maketh this now to prove / that he which (acordinge to Christ's promise) trusteth to pas from this death to life / doth temerously appoint and determine the same time / day or season which our Sauyoure there speaketh of? Or that he is either presumptuous or arrogaunt / which (according to the ensample of holy scripture) is certain and sure / that after the destruction of his body he hath an everlasting dwelling in heaven? Have ye not now alleged the scripture well to the purpose? Ye would have men believe (as it appeareth by you doctrine) that whan they depart hence / they shall go from the hall in to the kytchen / or else in to the whole kylle of your purgatory.
Loke what case he is in / that thus ended his life / et cet.
To prove here that saints pray for us in heaven / ye make a long disputation / and with the scriptures ye do as ye were wont. They have love yet (ye say) and therefore they pray for us / and are our advocates. I answer / The same places of scripture that ye bring in yourself / are most against you / for they declare manifestly / that it is the office of Christ to make intercession for us / and that he is (with the father) our advocate / which opteineth grace for our sins. The saints then that be in heaven knowing this eternal will of god / love us not so / that they desire to be (nether can they be) against it.
It is a token / that your doctrine hath but a weak foundation / whan ye go about to prove it by a dream / ye and that out of such a boke as serveth not for the confirmation of the doctrine of Christ's church / for though it be red among the stories of other books / yet did not the church receive it among the Canonical scriptures in. S. Jerome's time.
Nether can ye prove that boke lawful by any saying of Christ / for thorough out all the New Testament he maketh mention of none but of the law / the Prophets and the Psalms / and byddeth not search any other scriptures but such as bear record and testimony of him.
The xv of Jeremiah proveth (as doth also the vii / the xi / the xiv of his boke) that god will not be entreated where his word is trodden under foot / and where men will needs spurn against it. And verily in all the scripture could ye not have brought in a more manifest place to confute your own doctrine / if it be compared to the xiv. of Ezekiel.
The xvj. of Luke / proveth nothing for your purpose / in that Abraham prayed not to god whan he was desired. But like as it proveth that there is no redemption in hell / ner time of acceptable repentance and forgyuenesse after this life / So proveth it evidently / that we ought to hold us to the only word and scripture of god / and not to loke for other doctrynes / visions / dreams / or reuelacions.
The place Apoca. vi. proveth that the voice of Abel's blood and of such as are slain for the word of god / crieth vengeance from the erth (and under the altare / as. S. John saith in his vision) and that all such as are malicious persecutors thereof / are guilty of the righteous blood that is shed upon erth.
S. Peters shadow proveth your doctrine but weakly / except ye can make us believe that there be shadows in heaven. Nomore doth. S. Paul's napkyn / unless ye can prove / that he hath not yet left wiping of his nose.
But where learn ye to bely the word of god? Where find ye in the scripture / that Peters shadow or Paul's napkyng could heal the sick? doth the text say so? Because the people brought their sick in to Peters shadow / did it therefore heal them? Peter confesseth him self / that it was not his own power which made the lame man hole. S. Luke also reporteth / that god wrought no small miracles by the hands of Paul. And as Christ our savior himself witnesseth / that it was not his vesture / but the woman's faith which made her whole (though she touched it) so saith. S. Mark / that the lord wrought with the Apostles / and confirmed the word with tokens following.
Morouer where as. S. Paul desired to be lowsed / and to be present with Christ / what proveth that the praieng to saints? He said in the same place / that it were more needful for them to have him yet living among them / Which thing were not so / if this your article were so necessary as ye make it. But Paul's words shall be true still / for great need have we of many such as he was / if it were for nothing else / but to preach with his mouth (as he hath done in his Epistles / against youre and all other such false doctrines.
Nonne confortatus est principatus eorum? Psal. cxxxviij.
Like as that scripture maketh no mention of any such article as ye ymagen / so doth the content of thē Psalm set forth the wonderful care and provision that god maketh for us / and teacheth us that gods secrete counsails and thoughts are to hie for our capacite.
Hinc Iero. aduersus vigilantium / et cet.
S. Ambrose saith / Christ is our mouth / by the which we speak unto the father / Oure eye / by the which we se the father / our right hand / by the which we offer unto the father. Without whose intercession / nether we ner all saints have anything with god.
If you say / saints do not hear us / et cete.
What knowledge the saints have / it is truly above my capacite / but well I wote / that the scripture of the old testament ascribeth only unto god the knowledge of men's hearts. Wherof the gospells also bear record sufficient / and so doth the first of the Acts. Now is it manifest likewise / that as the prayer which cometh from the heart / is most acceptable / so doth our Sauyoure bid us pray unto our father in secrete.
Whereas ye bring in the ensample of Abraham and the work of god shown unto him in this life for to serve youre present purpose / It proveth / that ye are an irreverent handler of gods word / for the text is plain / that god did there show unto Abraham (being yet in this life) the destruction of the Sodomites / of his only accustomate goodness and mercy / because Abraham was under his covenant and did faithfully cleue to his promise / and because he knew that Abraham would command his childrē and household / to keep the way of the lord / et ce. To affirm your purpose then by this place / is even as much as to go about to prove / that saints in heavē have children yet and households to teach in the way of the lord.
Whereas the leest of them (qui minor est) et cetera.
Like as of a comparative degree ye make a superlative / and wrest the words to Abraham that our Sauioure spake of John the baptist / Even so to the estate that saints be now in / apply ye those words / which. S. John speaketh of the estate that gods elect shall have at the seconde appearinge of Christ / even whan they shall be like him / whan their bodies shall rise incorruptible as his is risen / and whan he shall change their vile body / that it may be like fashioned unto his glorious body.
Agayne / ye said afore / that there were no saints in heaven afore Christ's ascension. And now to prove that the leest of the saints in heavē is more entyerlye beloved of god / then Abraham was in this life / ye allege the words that were spoken long afore the death of Christ. Qui minor est in regno / et cet. Remembre yourself well / what a clarklye parte ye play with that text.
As for sanctorum communionem / it is the declaraciō of the holy catholic or universal church of Christ / that they are a company or felashippe of all such as be sanctified in Christ's blood / and are partakers of his merits / and members one of another / But no probacion is it / that saints in heaven do pray for us / if ye note well the descripcion thereof / by. S. Paul's doctrine.
Now if ye will prove youre purpose by the angels offices / then must ye prove that saints are ministering spirits / sent for their sakes which shall be heirs of salvation. But that will be hard for you to do. Nether doth the twentieth chapter of luke help your matter any thing at all / for (though ye choppe up the text at your pleasure with the shortest) these are our Saviors words / The children of this world do mary and be married / but they that shall be counted worthy of yonder world and the resurrection from the deed / shall nether mary ner be married / for they can die no more / for they are like unto the angels / et cet. This answer now of our Savior to the Sadducees / as it confuteth their heresy / so doth it prove / that the children of god in heaven be like the angels / in life / in immortalite / and in that they are as free from the necessity of marriage / as the angels be / but it proveth not that they are like angels in all things / for thē should they have no bodies to be raised up / at the general resurrection.
But also that their merits do profit us / as by example we do read Gene. xxvj. et cetera.
Whereas almighty god saith unto Isaac (Unto thy seed will I give all this land / et cet.) because Abraham was obedient unto my voice / et cet. Upon this are ye not ashamed to say / that the cause is only thorough the merits of his father Abraham. Now saith not the text so / but thus / Unto the and thy seed will I give all this lande / and will perform mine ooth that I sware to thy father Abraham / et cet. This scripture then like as it proveth (according to. S. Paul's words) that they which are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham / so declareth it manifestly / that this same blessing cometh of gods promise in and thorough the seed of Abraham and Isaac / that is / even thorough Christ.
But why bring ye in this or any other place of the old Testament to prove / that the merits of saints in heaven do profit us / seeing ye say yourself / that afore Christ's ascension there were none in heaven / and seeing also that those virtues of Abraham and David were things practiced here and not in heaven? God is my record / I wonder greatly what ye mean / thus to daly with his word.
Touchinge merits I have answered you allreadie / but. S. Paul answereth you better / and saith / that god (giving us his dear son) hath given us all things with him / and that in him dwelleth all fullness / so that we are cōplete in him. Sure I am also / that no true servant of god will be otherwise minded then was holy John baptist which said / that out of Christ's fullness all we receive grace / et cet. and that grace and truth cometh by Jesus Christ. If the merits then that ye speak of / be any parte of grace and truth / then must ye needs grant that we receive them only of him. But surely ye have some ungracious and false matter in hand.
He speaketh nothing of our works after our justification / but only of works before faith / which in deed are not meritorius / et cetera.
Afore (to prove by Cornelius works that our justification deserved only by the death of Christ / is a false justification) Ye say / that his good works before he was justified / something deserved that he should be called in to the congregation of our savior / and so through gods mercy his works did deserve much of almighty god. These are your awne words. And now clean contrary to the same / ye grant / that works before faith are not meritorious. Thus by youre awne words condemn ye youre awne doctrine.
But though every good work done in true faith after gods commandment / shall be rewarded / and hath his promise annexed unto it (as if I be merciful unto my neghboure / god hath promised to have mercy on me again) shall that reward be given for my works sake / and not rather because of his own promise and blessing in Jesus Christ? Is not all our sufficiency of god? Can we think a good thought of our selves? Is it not god / which worketh in us both the will and the deed? Whan god rewardeth any good work / doth he not crown his own gifts in us? Stoppe your mouth then / and knowledge yourself to be in gods danger and in his dett. Why boast ye of your merits / against the doctrine of gods word? Why grant ye not with. S. Luke (whom ye allege yourself) that whan ye have done all such things as are commanded you / ye are an unprofitable servant? And with. S. Paul / that the pains taken in this life / are not worthy of the glory for to come? Do ye not say yourself also these words / We must think and surely believe / that all cometh of Christ's liberalite / which freely did cal us / and love us before we loved him? What practice then of any worldly prince / can prove this truth to be false? Your own words and sentences / destroy your doctrine of merits. Folowe. S. Augustine's counsel thē / and boast not of men's merits / but let the grace of god which reigneth thorough Jesus Christ / have all the preemynence. And if ye have any works following the free and liberal vocation of god / thē grant with Chrysostom / that they are his reward and youre duty / and that the gifts of god are his own benignite / grace / and greatness of his own liberalite.
WEl / have ye yet anything more to say? then called he. M. Shyreffe / and said / have you any articles against me / for the which I am condemned? And the sheriffe answered / no. Then said he / Is there here any man else that knoweth wherefor I die / or that by my preaching hath taken any error? let them now speak and I will make them answer. And no man answered. Then said he / well I am condemned by the law to die / and as I vnderstōd by an act of perliamēt / but wherefor I cā not tell / but belike for heresy / for we are like to be burnt
Articles against the? What articles dyddest thou revoke at the spyttle? et cet.
A very spittle fashion is it (no doubt) to ask questions of the deed. And I suppose verily / that (except it be a cōiurer / a iugler / or a worker with spirits) there is none that useth it.
Touchinge articles at the spittle / I am certain / D. Barns did not affirm there that faith doth not justify / or that Christ's death was not the sufficient satisfaction for our sins. Now where as he was enjoined to affirm / that though Christ be our only mediator / savior / justifier and only satisfaction unto god for the sins of them that believe in him / Yet if we loose this grace thorough sin / then must we rise again by true penance / et cet. If for this article (I say) ye will gather that he should revoke / then do ye interpret his words contrary to his own declaracion that he made of them in the same sermon. In so much that the sondaye after at Paul's cross (as I vnderstond). D. Wilson could lay no greater thing to his charge / then that he had expounded penance after his wont manner by the office of the law and the gospel.
Now like as afore in your words ye compare this his confession to the confession of the deuel / so by this and such other your tawntes / ye would make the world believe / that he revoked all truth at the spittle field / and that he had all his life time taught an ungodly and carnal liberty / the contrary whereof is evident not only by this present protestaciō / but also by his writing and preaching afore / Namely / that to the true believe and consent of the hert are necessarily required good Christian fruits in every man and woman's conversation according to the same. Wherefore this his confessiō so long as he maintained no damnable error contrary unto it (which in all your babbling boke ye have not proved / nether shall be able to do) was a sufficient evidence at his latter ende / that he died a true Christian man. Nether can ye justly condemn him / that maketh no worse confession on his death bed. Agayne. S. John saith / Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh / is of god. Wherefore ye are to rash in judgment / to affirm that he was justly condemned for heresy / seeing that he nether held any doctrine ner manteined by evil conversation / eny thing / out of which ye can truly / deduce / that ever he denied the true faith of god / or any one of the benefits or offices of Jesus Christ.
As for the articles that were laid against him in Cambrige above xii years agoo / verily like as in repetinge of thē ye accuse your church to pretend an outward forgyuenesse / and yet to keep hatred still many years / So appear ye to favor them that accused him of the said articles / in some whereof he maintained the prerogatyue of princes against the tiran̄ie and usurped power ye wote of whom. I say no more / but if ye be at that point / and may so freely write what ye will / I cōmitte my part of the play to god. Who (as I doubt not) will defend the king in his right / so am I sure / that though ye be now in your ruffe / he is not yet hard aslepe. Whereas ye say / that at. D. Barns death there were three sortes of men / and that the first sort which (by your report) wer most contrary to him / would give him no answer at his honest request / Ye declare plainly that / either they had nothing to say against him / or else little charity / seeing that (according to. S. P. words which ye allege) they found not thē selves grieved to se the weak offended / if it were as you say. Nether proveth it thē to lean steadfastly unto the piler of truth / to love gods law / to have true quyetnesse in their conscience / or to be endued with fervent charity / that follow not the same law of love in the time of need. How do those places of scripture then that ye bring in / alowe their act? Let all indifferent readers judge / how the cxviij Psalm / the third of the first to Timothy / or the eight to the Romans agreeth with their purpose.
In describing the secōde sort of people that were at. D. Barns death / ye fail also. First / in reporting of thē / that they ever be and shall be as apt to receive the evil preaching as the good. Secondly / that they are content in these matters to go whither they be led. Thirdly / that they are content to believe what they be taught. Fourthly / that they know not whan they be in the right way / ner whan they be forth of it. Now saith our sauyoure (in the same text which ye yourself do allege) that they believe in him. Then like as they hark̄ to his voice / and not to the voice of straunges / so follow they him / and are led of his holy spirit / And not only prove all doctrines (whether they be of god) but also keep that which is good / for they know Christ's voice / and not the voice of strangers.
Morouer / if that third sort of people / did favor no worse opinions / and were no fuller of fleshly and carnal sensualite / then this present protestacion of. D. Barns teacheth them / that text (dilexerunt magis tenebras / et cet.) may rather be verified of you and your sort / then of thē.
BVt they that have been the occasion of it / I pray god forgive them / as I would be forgiven myself. And. D. Stephin. Byschopp of wynchester that now is / if he have sought or wrought this my death ether by word or deed / I pray god forgive him / as heartily / as freely / as charitably / and without feigning / as ever Christ forgave thē that put him to death.
Se now whether this be feigned charity / or nor / et cetera.
It is no point of feigned charity / a man to forgive them that offend against him / and to pray for them that persecute him / As it is manifest by our saviors doctrine / and example also at his death.
Ye take upon you here the office of a judge afore ye be called there to / ye even gods only office (in judging men's hearts) take ye upon you. As who say / he goeth about to overthrow and cast down a man / that agreeth not with him in his doctrine. As touching any contencious manner between my lord of winchester and. D. Barns / though you and I both (as I suppose) be ignorant / what direction the Kynges highness did take therein / Yet seeing the one was reconciled to the other openly at the Spittle / ye should now not take the matter so hot.
But a pyke thank will ye be still. What mind hath he to be revenged / that first asketh a man forgiveness / and than prayeth god to forgive him (as Christ forgave his death) if he be guilty? Agayne / Will the. B. of winchestre judge him self to be either sediciously or disdainfully named / or without reverence / whan he is called a bisshoppe? I dare say / he will not. Why play ye Philippe flatrers part thē / as though the name of a bisshoppe were not a reverent name?
ANd if any of the counsel or any other have sought or wrought it thorough malice or ignorance / I pray god forgive them their ignorance and illumynate their eyes / that they may se / and ask mercy for it.
O what ignorance? et cetera.
This prayer is nether malicious against gods word / ner preiudicial to any man / and if they that suffered. D. Barns to live so long / were to blame for their so doing / then make ye yourself giltye of the same fault / that have played the coward all that while / and not helped him to his death.
I Besech you all to pray for the kings grace / as I have done ever sense I was in preson and do now / that god may give him prosperite / and that he may long reign among you / and after him that goodly prince Edward may so reign / that he may fynishe those things that his father hath begun. I have been reported a preacher of sedition and disobedience to the kings majesty / but here I say to you / that you all are bound by the commandment of god to obey youre prince with all humility and with all your hert / ye not so much as in a look to show yourselves disobedient unto him / and that not only for fear of the swerd / but also for conscience sake before god.
Thou hast been truly reported a seditious preacher / et cetera.
Will ye then wink at sediciō so long / and not be an accuser thereof / where as (by your awne confession) ye have heard him preach so oft? Ye and knowing his boke to have been so long prynted? But how untruly ye bely him / it shall be euydent to all the world / that will read his boke. Ye report of him / that he should say in his boke (prynted ten years agoo) that if the Kyng would by tyranny take the New Testament from his subjects / they should not suffer him. Now is it manifest that like as he saith here in this parte of his protestacion / so saith he also in his boke / and bringeth in the same xiii chapter to the Romans that ye allege / and addeth morouer these words / In no wise (be it right or wrong) mayest thou make any resistance with sword or with hand / et cet. Itē / If the Kyng forbid the New Testament / et cete. men shall first make faithful prayers to god / and humble supplication to the Kyng / that his grace would release that commandment. If he will not do it / they shall keep their testament with all other ordinance of Christ / and let the Kyng exercise his tyranny (if they cannot fly) and in no wise under pain of damnation shall they resist him by violence / but suffer patiently / et ce. Nor they shall not go about to depose their prince / as my lords the bishops were wont / et cet. But if the king will do it by violence / they must suffer it / but not obeie to it by agrement. Item / Now is it clear / that we may not resist this temporal power (in no wise) by violence / et cet. but if any thing be commanded us that is against the word of god whereby our faith is hurt / that should we not do in any wise / but rather suffer persecucion and also death.
Be these words now as much to say / as if the Kyng command anything by tyranny mē shall not suffer him? What mean ye / so untruly to report of the deed? But no maruail / whan ye shame not to belie so many texts of gods holy word.
Touching men's laws / it is manifest / that such as are not grounded in gods word / do not bind the conscience of man to deadly sin. For if they be not grounded in gods word / and agreeable to the faith thereof / then are they sinful and naught. Who is bound now to obeie sin? But a man may smell you a far of / whose successors ye be. You will not stick to call it a lawful act for a prince / to condemn gods word / and to forbid that thing which is institute and ordained of god / Ye if our prince would take such a thing in hand (which god forbid) he should lack no instigacion of your malignaunt church. Nether can I yet conjecture the contrary / but that ye are about such a tragedy. Now go to / set your watch men to keep the sepulcher / suffer not Christ to rise up in any wise / let not the soldiers lack money (the church is riche enough) cast your great heads together / and let Caiaphas give you his most so tell counsel / For whan ye have done your best / and lied all that ever ye can / yet shall god make your policye to serve for the glory of his truth / Amen.
YEe and I say further / if the king should command you anything against gods law / if it be in your power to resist him / yet may you not do it.
Se here the steadfastness / et cetera.
This man nether wrote ner said / that we must obey an erthly prince / more then almighty god / and yet are ye not ashamed so to report of him. He saith / that though the Kyng command us any thing against gods law / yet may we not resist him / Which saying ye call an abhominable heresy. Thus declare ye yourself manifestly / to be of the number of them that teach / how that it is lauful for a man to resist his prince. Which thing whether it be not both heresy and treason / let them judge that have authority.
Because Amos the Prophet preached against ydolatry at Bethel / that false pressed Amasias (whom ye speak of) told that Kyng / that he was a seditious fellow / and so found the means to get him out of the court. Yet played Amasias a more honest parte with Amos / then you do / for he laid rebellion to his charge that was alive / and your accusacion is against the deed. Agayne / Amasias (being yet a false pressed) saith not / that it is lawful for a man to resist his prince / and you call it abhominable heresy to teach the contrary.
Though Peter and John do teach / that we must obey and hearken unto god more then unto men / do they therefore teach / that we must resist our prince? Where find ye that example in them Peter smote of Malcus ear in deed / but little thank had he for his labor. Doth he not teach us to endure grefe / to suffer wrong / and to take it patiently? Saieth he not / that we are called there unto? Setteth he not Christ unto us for an example of suffering?
Because our Sauioure willeth us not to fear them that kill the body / must we therefore resist them? Whan a prince doth persecute us for gods words sake in one city / must we resist him / and not rather fly in to another? Doth he call them blessed that resist / and not them rather that suffer for persecucion sake? Dyd Christ entre in to his Kyngdome by resisting / or by suffering?
As for that saying (qui timet hominem / et cet. I cannot find it in the xix of the proverbs / but I find there written / that a false witness shall not remain unpunished / and that he which speaketh lies / shall not escape.
Ye call it an abhominable heresy to teach / that we ought not to resist our prince / though he command us any vnlaufull thing. And to prove your purpose / ye point us to the fifth of Isaiah / where there is no such words as ye speak of. But these words find I there / Woe unto them that call good evil / et cet.
As for the ensample of the seven brethren and their mother / it utterly condemneth you / for they say these words / We are ready rather to suffer / then to offend the laws of god / et cete. And as they said / so they did / without making resistance / though the Kynges commandment was vnlaufull. What other thing now did. D. Barns teach in his fore rehearced words / but (as he had said in his boke afore) that if the Kyng would command us any vnlaufull thing / we must suffer him / though we obeie not to it by agreement? What danger you be in then for teaching the contrary / I will not define. I pray god (according to his good pleasure) have mercy upon you.
THen spake he to the shereffe and said / M. shereffe / I require you of gods behalf / to have me commended unto the kings grace / and to show him / that I require of his grace these requests / first / that where his grace hath now received in to his hands all the goods and substance of the abbayes. Then the shereffe desired him to stop there. He answered / M. shereffe I warrant you / that I will speak no harm / for I know it is well done / that all such superstition be taken clean away / and the kings grace hath well done in taking it away. But seeing his grace is made a hole king / and obeyed in his realm as a king (which nether his father ner graundfather ner his ancestors that reigned before him / ever had) and that thorough the preaching of us and such other wretches as we are / which always have applied our hole studies / and gave our selves for the setting forth of the same / and this is now our reward. Well / it maketh no matter. Now he reigneth / I pray god long may he reign among you. Wold god it might please his grace / to bestow the said goods or some of them to the comfort of his poor subjects / which surely have great need of them.
The second that I desire his grace / is / that he will se that matrymony be had in more reverence then it is / and that men (for every light cause invented) cast not of their wifes / and live in aduoutry and fornicacion / and that these that be not married / should not abominably live in whoredom / following the filthy lusts of the flesh.
The third / that the abhominable swearers may be punished and strately looked upon. For surely the vengeance of god will come on thē for their mischievous oaths. Thē desired he. M. Pope which was present / to have him commended to. M. Edgar / and to desire him for the dear blood of Jesus Christ / that he would leave that abhominable swearing that he useth. For surely except he forsake it / he will come to some mischievous ende. The fourth / that his grace will set forth Christ's true religiō. And that seeing he hath begun̄e / he go forward / and make an end / for many things have been done / but yet much more is to do. And that it would please his grace to loke on gods word himself. For it hath been obscured with many traditions invented of our own brains. Now (said he) how many petitions have I spoken of? And the people said: four. Well / (said he) even these four be sufficient / which I desire you / that the kings grace may be certified of them. And say / that I most humbly desire him / to loke earnestly upon them.
It was high time to loke / et cet.
The prophet Daniel (I trust) was no arrogaunt wretch / though he desired his prince to make some provision for the poor / Nomore thē was holy. S. Paul / which taught Timothy to change the riche mē of this world with the same lesson. All they also that were true messaungers of god / labored to have aduoutry / fornicacion / whoredom / and abhominable swearing expelled from among Christian men / as all the whole scripture testifieth. Nether did. D. Barns in these his words require any other thing. His words are plain enough / and yet (as your manner is in your treatise) ye ymagen an intent and mind clean contrary to the same. Ye grant that he spake earnestly for the poor and for the comons / and yet call ye him an arrogaunt wretch / and (for his good will) report of him / that he desired to have a great stroke in every matter of weight / et cetera.
D. Barns said not that he and his fellows did refourme those things that were amiss (for he knew that / to be gods office and the Kynges) and yet surmyse ye the same untruly upon him. But he saith that thorough the preaching of gods word in the mynistracion of him and such other / the Kynges grace is now more obeyed then / ever he was before. And I pray you / is it not so? Or was it not gods holy word / that gat the Kyng his own again? Maye he thank any papistical doctrine therefore? No verily.
Concerning. M. Edgar / if. D. Barns had not had a right good opinion in him / no doubt he would not have sent him that commendacion with such an honest request. But because he toke him (as he might right well / I trust) for a gentle man that would suffer a Christian exhortation / as they will that pertain unto Christ / therefore was he the bolder of him. As for that swearing / I think verily it cometh rather of a custom (which yet might well be left) then of any set purpose. Nether was. D. Barns act here against the process required in the xviij of Matthew / though he had not spoken with him afore / seeing he might not now come at him.
ANd that his grace take good hede / that he be not disceaued with false preachers and teachers and evil counsel. For Christ saith / that such false Prophets shall come in lammes skynnes.
O how great thank be you worthy / et cetera.
Ye should have proved these words to smell nothing but heresy and treason (as ye say in your preface) because they have the sweet odoure of the gospel / where our savior byddeth us beware of false Prophets / and of the leaven of pharises / and telleth us / that many such shall arise / and disceaue many (ye even thorough sweet preachings and flatring words / saith the Apostle) and because the scripture byddeth us beware of such merchants / as going in long garments / et cete. devour wedows houses under the pretence of long prayers.
This man called not the Kynges most honoble council evil / and yet (even like a pyke thank still) ye surmyse it upon him. If a friend of the Kynges should say unto him / I beseech your grace / take good hede whom ye receive in to your preuy chambre / Doth he therefore call his chamberlaynes evil? Or doth he therefore prefer his own wit above the discrete wisdom of the Kynges noble counsel?
Holy. S. Peter (as long as he was in this body) thought it mete / to put Christian men in remembrance of their duty / ye though they were of ripe knowledge them selves / and stablished in the truth. And yet you call it obstinate pride / treason / blindness / and rash foolishness so to do. Such is your judgment. Ye even whan the partye doth most humbly desire his prince / to whō he speaketh.
THen desired he all men to forgive him / and that if he had said any evil at any time vnaduysed / whereby he had offended any man / or given any occasiō of evil / that they would forgive it him / and amend that evil they toke of him.
Mark how he doth continue one manner of man / et cetera.
Stedfastnesse in the way of gods truth is to be commended. And an evident token is it / that he is of the same doctrine / which wittingly teacheth no evil / reconcyleth himself unto all men / is sory if he have offended any man (or given any evil occasion) and giveth other men at their death / an ensample of true repentance.
ANd that they would bear him witness / that he detested and abhorred all evil opynions and doctrines against the word of god / and that he died in the faith of Jesus Christ and the sacraments of the church / by whō he doubted not to saved.
I know that no good man / et cetera.
Then it appeareth / that if he had not detested and abhorred all evil and erroneous opynions / but had loved your strange doctrines (which are against gods word) and so died out of Christ's faith / ye would have been a record and witness to him / rather then fail.
ANd with this he desired them all to pray for him / and then he turned him about / and put of his clothes / making him ready to the fire / and most patiently toke his death / yeldinge his soul into the hands of almighty god.
By this it doth appear / that the first writer of these his words was very charitable / et cete.
What so ever he was that first wrote these his words / verily I cannot tell / nether did I ever read them or hear them / till I saw them in your treatise. And though it may be suspected that this is not the trewest copy / because it cometh out of your hands / Yet truly a right charitable deed was it to write his words / and to certifye us of them / for else (by your present practice) we may conjecture / that ye would have discanted of his deeth / as of one whom ye had overcome with your doctrine. Now also that ye can stop the truth no farther / ye would bear us in hand / that it is the writers judgment only / which ascrybeth unto him / that he patiently toke his death / as though there were none else that herd him and saw him die / but the writer alone.
Allbe it I will judge only of the outward behaueour.
Judge not after the outward appearaūce (saith our savior) but give a righteous judgment.
Yet do ye not as ye say / for in many places of your treatise ye judge the man's mind and intent ye contrary to his words.
Takyng occasion by his erroneous words / to judge he died an obstinate heretic.
Ye cannot deny / but that after the open confession of his faith / and his humble requests unto the Kynges grace / he than reconciled himself to all men / and at the last whan he had desired thē to pray for him / toke his death patiently / and yielded up his soul in to the hands of allmightye god. For all this ye do not only call his words erroneous / but also give sentence / that he died an obstinate heretic.
And as for the inward secretes / whether he be condemned or saved / whether he yielded up his soul in to the hands of almighty god / or no / et cet. I remit that to the secrete counsel of the blessed trenite.
A wonderful thing is it / that ye are so unstable in your words. Do ye not take upon you afore / to judge / that he died an obstinate heretic? And now ye cannot tell whether he be saved or condemned / whether he yielded up his soul in to the hands of almighty god / or no. But can an obstinate heretic yield up his soul / whan he is deed all ready? Can an obstinate heretic be saved? Behold now / to what worship ye bring your doctrine at the last.
Unto whom be laude / honor / and glory for evermore. Amen.
Amen. Even to that same blessed trenyte (father / son / and holy goost) be honor and glory now and evermore. Amen.
The Apostle describing the office and duty of a ministre or preacher of gods word / willeth him (among all other qualities) to show himself such a laudable workman / as need not be ashamed / handling the word of truth justly. Wherefore / seeing ye have so unreverantly handled gods holy word / perverted it / wrested it and belied it so oft and many times in your treatise / Maruaill not at this mine invective against your false doctrine. As for simple ignorance / and such frayll weakness as accompanyeth the nature of man (whether he will or no) it may be suffered and borne. But willful spurnyng at gods holy word / froward and false belieng thereof / must needs be rebuked / and improved. Your zeal (for all your holy pretence) is to suppress gods truth to maintain that doctrine which the catholic or universal church of christ never received / and to defend the church malignaūt in hir wickedness. This is manifest by your present practice. But god almighty which soweth the seed of his holy word / and daily increaceth it in the hearts of his faithful / shall (though no man else will) maintain and defend it himself. We also (whom god will not to be idle) shall do our best / and be carieng stones to the making up of the wall which ye have broken down / To the intent that Christ our savior may have his own glory (which ye have robbed him of) our prince his honor / and our neghboure his duty.
To all true Christian readers.
Faynt not thou in faith (dear reader) nether wax cold in love and charity / though the enemies of gods word be gathered together and grown in to such swarms. Be thou strong in the lord / and in the power of his might. And let it not discorage the / that the said word is so little in the estimation of the world / so greatly despised / so sore persecuted / so wickedly perverted / wrested and belied / so unthankfully received / so shamefully denied / and so slouthfully followed.
Arm thyself therefore with the comfortable ensamples of the scripture / And as touching those ioly Nimrottes that persecute gods word / hunting it out of every corner / whetting there swerdes and bendyng their bows against it / Be thou sure / that the god of our fathers Abraham / Isaac and Jacob shall do with thē as he ever was wont to do with tirauntes in times past. Thou seist thorough out the stories of the holy byble / how that like as he turneth some of their hearts from cruelty to mekenesse / Evē so with death / with fire / with water / and with such other his plages destroyeth he them that will needs despise his warninge / Ye breaketh their bows in pieces / and killeth thē with there own swerdes. As for Iamnes and Jambres those wicked sorcerers and covetous chaplens that teach contrary to gods word / and dissuade the great mē of the world frō it / Their own wrestinge and belyeng of it must needs confound thē / For though there be many that resist the truth / yet whan it is uttered and cometh to light / their madness (as. S. Paul saith) shall be manifest unto all men. And as Moses rodd devoured their rods in the Kynges presence / So likewise the same places of scripture that they allege for their wicked purpose / shall destroy their false doctrine in the face of the world. Ye even as little honesty as the papistry hath gotten by wresting of (Tu es Petrus et cet.) so small profit are they like to have for belyeng of other texts. Nether is it to be feared / but god will do for one parte of his word as much as for another / whan he seith his time.
Concernyng those bely beasts / that (for no commandment ner promise of god / for no example / warning ner exhortation) will be counseled / but still blaspheme his holy word thorough their ungodly conversation / let not that withdraw the from the way of righteousness. Love not thou Christ the worse / though Judas be a traytoure. Sett not thou the less by his wholesome doctrine / though dogs turn to their vomit / and though swine walow in their stinking mire again.
I know (gentle reader) that to all true Christ̄ hearts / it is a great tentaciō / to se gods holy word either persecuted / belied / or unthankfully received. But first remember thyself well by the practice of all stories / whan was it without persecucion? Whan was there not one tyrant or other / that exercised all his power / strength / wit / and counsel against it? Whan were the childrē of Israel without some bloody Edomites / Egyptians Assyrians / Babylonians / Philistines / or other?
Secondly / Whan was not gods word belied / perverted or evil spoken of by one false Prophet or other? Were there not heretics and flatringe chaplens in all ages / that withdrue men from the truth / and misreported the straight ways of the lord? Thirdly / whan were there not some multitudes / that pretending a love toward Christ's word / did but follow him for their own belies sake? whan was the seed of Christ's word sow̄ / but some parte of it fell vpō the stony ground where it withered / and among the thorns that choked it up?
Wherefore seeing thou art compased about with so great a number of witnesses / that is to say / with the ensamples of so many godly and holy mē / which not only did chose rather to suffer aduersite with the people of god then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season / but also eschued false doctrine and brought forth allwaye good works in their living / follow thou the same trade / follow thou them (I say) as thou seist they followed Christ / and no farther. And as touching any manner of doctrine / believe no man without gods word / according as. S. Jerome counceleth the. In Epistolam ad Gal. ca. v. For certain it is / that like as many times thou shalt spy even great faults in the conuersaciō of gods elect / so readest thou of very few teachers sense the Apostles time / which have not erred (and that grossly) in sundry things.
Wherefore whom so ever thou hearest teach / preach or write / or whose books so ever thou readest / try them by gods word / whether they be agreeable there to or no. Whan thou knowest them (I say) and art certain and sure by Christ's doctrine / that they are false / seditious or abhominable / then hold them accursed / avoid them utterly / eschew them in any wise / and give over thyself to the wholesome hearing and reading of the scripture. But so / that thou be sober and discrete in the knowledge and use thereof / And that in confessing the true faith and believe of Christ / thy heart mouth and deed go together / and that thou consent to none opinion contrary to the same / That god may have the praise / and thy neghboure be edified in all thy conversation. So doing / thou shalt not only stop the mouth of evil speakers / but also allure and provoke other men to be frutefully givē to faith and good works / and to help (with such their unfeigned faith and godly living) that the tabernacle of god may be set up again. The grace of our lord Jesus Christ be with us all. Amen.
Iacobi. iii.