Conference Between Rainolds and Hart

How strong, it may appear by that which they have put last as the strongest; even their chiefest reason, the authority of witnesses. For therein they conclude that the ancient Popes were not authors of those epistles, because nether Eusebius, nor Jerome, nor Damasus, do make mention of them, nor any author lightly before the time of Charles the great. Of the which argument, the former part is fond: the later, untrue. For although Eusebius and Jerome are wont diligently to note what things have been written by any great Doctor; yet not all men's writings came to their hands. As for Damasus, he writeth not so much the lives of the Popes his predecessors, as brief Chronicle-notes: what place they were born in, what kindred they came off, in what time they lived, how often they gave orders, in what year they died, and where they were buried. Wherefore it is no marvel that he noted not what epistles they wrote. Though in a written copy at Rome (which Turrian saw) there is mention made of one of their epistles, namely of Anacletus.

In a written copy, at Rome, it may be: but in no printed copy yet. An oversight of some, who, when Frier Su • ius set forth the Councils last, did not inform him of it, that h • might have mended it in Damasus. But if Damasus thought it a matter worth the noting how often they gave orders : it is very likely that he would have noted how they wrote sometimes too, if they had been such writers. As for Eusebius, and Jerome, though (I grant) all writers came not to their hands: yet were it very strange, that the one of them being in great favor with Constantine the Roman Emperor, the other attending on Damasus the Roman Bishop in ecclesiastical writings, both of them desirous and curious to know all Christian writers monuments purposely to speak of them; neither of them could see one of these epistles, that such and so many Bishops of Rome had written. Chiefely, since they found sundry epistles written by them, which they mention: and yet of all which they found, there is not one amongst these nether.

Those, which then were common, might be lost since: and these, which now we have, might be then unknown. Nether is it reason that all they should be said to have written nothing, whose writings are not commonly known unto men. For even now there are (as Turrian reporteth) in the Popes library many books of epistles of the later Popes, which contain the acts and deeds of each their Popedomes, whence they are commonly called registers : of Gregory the seventh, Innocent the third, Honorius the third, Gregory the ninth, Innocent the fourth, Alexander the fourth, Urban the fourth, Clemens the fourth, Nicolas the third, Honorius the fourth, Boniface the eighth, John the two and twenteeth, Clemens the sixth, Innocent the sixth, and Urban the fifth. And these are known of few men, because they are in writing • nely and not printed: besides very few which Gregory the ninth, and Boniface the eighth have taken out of them, and compil • d them in the Decretals to the use of Church-causes. But, if these perhaps should be set forth hereafter: would you say that they are forged, because there hath no mention of them been made by writers, nor by the Popes themselves; nay▪ which the Popes them selves perhaps never saw?

The comparison is vn-even when you say, that the Popes them selves never saw books in their own library, thereby to show, that many books might be there, which Jerome and Eusebius knew not. For it is likely that the Popes have many books which they see not: they have other things to look on. But Eusebius and Jerome did study through libraries, to see all the authors which were extant in them. So that they were as likely to know the epistles of the former Popes, as Turrian these of the later. For Turrian doth not search old monuments more carefully to see up the Pope, then Jerome and Eusebius did to set forth Christ. But whatsoever Jerome or Eusebius saw: think you not that the Popes, as little as they see the books in their library, yet, if the sight of any thereof could avail them toward the recovering of their supremacy in England, they would find it quickly?

I think it should be forth coming to do good.

Then have the Centuries in this place of witnesses a very strong proof, that (about the time of Jerome and Eusebius ) these epistles were not in the Popes library. For there is no mention made of them at all either in the Council of Carthage, or of Afric : in which the Pope endeavoring to show that appeals might lawfully be made to him, would have all • aged them of likelihood, had they been extant. But this probability noted by the Centuries, Turrian passeth over in silence very smoothly; where yet he maketh semblance of answering all their witnesses: belike, after Antonies precept in Tully, who wisheth men, if they be troubled with a hard argument, to say nothing to it. Howbeit all these (I grant) are but likelyhoodes. Notwithstanding if you add to these likelyhoodes of Damasus, of Jerome, of Eusebius, of the Popes them selves, this also that neither any other Father or author worthy of credit may be lightly found that hath alleged them before the time of Charles the great, about eight hundred years after Christ : it may be well thought that there was good cause why the Centuries should suspect them.

Nay, that is the later part of their argument, which (as I said) is untrue. For Isidore (who lived above a hundred years before Charles the great) did gather them together at the request of fourscore Bishops. So that we have four score Bishops in that one, to testify with us against that lie • of the Centuries.

But how know you that, which you tell of Isidore and fourscore Bishops, to be true?

How? By the preface of Isidore him self set before the Councils. For therein, having shown how he was moved (by the request of fourscore Bishops) to gather the canons together: and we have enterlaced (saith he) the decrees of certain epistles of the Bishops of Rome, to weete of Clemens, Anacletus, Euaristus, and the rest, such epistles as we could find yet, til Sylvester the Pope; after the which we have set down the Council of Nice, and after that the remnant of the Popes decrees even until S. Gregori • . Thus far S. Isidore. And is not he a Father? an author worthy of credit?

Admit that he is so: what do you conclude thereof against the Centuries ?

Even that which Genebrard doth, to utter it with his words: then do the Century-writers err, who keep a babbling that those epistles decretal of the ancient Popes are not alleged by any author worthy of credit before the time of Charles the great.

Your Genebrard showeth him self a cunning man still against the Century-writers. For, whereas they say •• you shall not lightly find it ;] he clippeth off the word [lightly,] that, y ^e thing being found in a preface of Isidores, he may charge them with error, to discredit the heretics. But what if S. Isidore did not write that preface ? What if he be a counterfeit too?

Marry now you have the way, if you can hold it. Deny all the writers that do make against you, and say they be counterfeit. So shameless a cause you undertake as shameless patrons, that but by s • ameles means you are not able to maintain it.

Nay patience, I pray. Me thought you were agreed that I might lawfully e • cept against a Father, if he were counterfeit.

True: if he were so. But it is no good exception in law, to say this or that against a man: you must prove it.

So I mind to do. And that by demonstration out of the sa • e book of Genebrard himself, in which he • indeth this faute with the Century-writers. For about what year of Christ did Isidore die? How doth Genebrard reckon?

In the year six hundred thirty and seven: as he proveth out of Vasaeus.

When was the general Council of Constantinople under Agatho kept? What saith he of that?

In the year six hundred four score and one, or two, or there about.

Then Isidore was dead above forty years before that general Council.

He was: but what of that?

Of that it doth follow that the preface written in Isidores name and set before the Councils to purchase credit to those epistles, is a counterfeit, and not Isidores. For in that preface there is mention made of the general Council of Constantinople held against Bishop Macarius, and Stephanus, in the time of Pope Agatho, & Constantine the Emperor. Which, seeing it was held above forty years after Isidore was dead by Genebrards own confession: by his own confession Isidore could not tell the four score Bishops of it. And so the four score Bishops which Turrian hath found out in one Isidore, are dissolved all into one counterfeit, abusing both the name of Isidore and four score Bishops.

Igmarus who was Archbishop of Reims in the time of Louis son to Charles, about seven hundred years since, did think that work to be S. Isidores, and so he citeth it.

Why mention you that? Are you disposed to prove that some have been deceived, and thought him Isidore who was not?

No: But to prove that the work is Isidores (as Father Turrian doth) by the testimony of Igmarus.

Ignarus cannot prove that. He must be content to be deceived in some what as well as his ancestors. For it is too clear by the Councils them selves that Isidore did die about the time that we agreed of: and therefore no help, but it must be another who wrote that preface in his name. Which maketh me so much the more to suspect that the epistles are counterfeit, since I find that a Father was counterfeited to get them credit. And sure it is likely that about the time of Charles the great, when the western Churches did commonly-fetch books from the Roman library, some groome of the Popes (that had an eye to y ^e alms-box) conveyed this pamphlet in amongst them: and well meaning men (in France, and other countries) received it as a worthy work, compiled by S. Isidore, and coming from the See Apostolic. But say what may be said for the silence of old witnesses, which is urged, (and justly,) as a probable conjecture, that those epistles were not extant in their days, the matters that are handled and debated in them, the scriptures alleged, the stories recorded, the ceremonies mentioned, the times and dates assigned, are, not conjectures probable, but most certain proofs, that they could not be written by those ancient Bishops of Rome, whose names they bear. There is a book entitled to the Poet Ovid, touching an old woman : have you ever seen it?

What is that to the purpose? Doth he speak of the Popes epistles?

No: but their epistles are like to that book in sundry respects. It is ancient: it was printed above a hundred years ago. And he, who set it forth, saith that Ovid wrote it in his old age, and willed it to be laid up in his grave with him: in the which grave it was found at length by the inhabitants of the country who sent it to Constantinople, and the Emperor gave it to Leo his principal notarie, who did publish it. A smooth tale, to make men believe that it is Ouids. Of whom though it savor no more, then these epistles of the Bishops of Rome : yet if your Divines could find some antike verse there that were an evidence for the Popes supremacy, I see my former reasons would not dissuade you from believing but Ovid wrote the book. For, to the barbarousnes and baseness of the Latin and style, if I should urge it, you might answer that Ovid wrote so for two causes: that he might not seem to be vain gloriously given, and that his repentance might be known even to the simplest. To the silence of witnesses, that no man maketh mention of it amongst his works, you might answer that it lay hidden in his grave. And this you might answer with greater show of likelihood, then that the Popes epistles lay hidden in the Popes library. But unto the matters of which the book entreateth, and things that it discourseth on, no shadow of defense can be made with any reason. For it speaketh in the praise of the virgin Marie, that God shall give her to be our mediatresse, and shall assumpt her into heaven, and place her in a throne with him : yea, the author prayeth to her. Which are pointes of doctrine that were not heard of (I trow) in Ouids time. Neither is it likely that Ovid was so well read in the scriptures, that he could cite the law of Moses, and speak of Jacob and Esau, and allude to Solomon in Ecclesiastes. Even so for those epistles of the Bishops of Rome, although you have glosses to shift of other reasons: yet I am persuaded that you can lay no color on the contents and substance of them. For the scriptures are so alleged; and such pointes are taught about the government of the Church, about religion, about rites, about stories ecclesiastical, that it is not possible they should be written by those Bishops.

Why? Doo you think it as unlikely a matter, that they should allege the scriptures, as that Ovid should?

Nay, I do think it, or rather I do know it to be more unlikely, that they should so allege the scriptures as they do, then that Ovid should allude to Solomon, or cite Moses. For the books of Moses ( perhaps of Solomon too) were translated into Greek by the Seuentie interpreters many a year before Ovid : and he might have read them. But your common Latin translation of the old testament, made (a great part of it) by S. Jerome out of the Hebrew, (whence it is called S. Jerome's, ) could not be seen by Anacletus and other ancient Bishops of Rome. For they were deceased before he was borne. And yet all their epistles do allege the scriptures after that translation. An evident token, that the writer of them did live after S. Jerome : yea, a great while after him, as may be deemed probably. For the common Latin translation, which the ancient Latin Fathers used, was made out of the Greek of the Seuentie interpreters. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, Ambrose, and other of the same ages, show it in all their writings. Nether was that old translation forsaken straight ways, as soon as Jerome had set forth his new. For Austin, who saw Jerome's, preferred still the old translation before it. Gregory, who lived about two hundred years after, doth use them both indifferently (because the Church of Rome did so,) but liketh better of the new. And so in process of time the new translation did prevail, and the old was wholly left: save in the Psalms only, which being soong in Churches had taken deeper root then could be plucked up by Jerome. Now, since those epistles of the Bishops of Rome do allege the scriptures after that translation which the Fathers called the new, you call the old, and it was so long after Jerome's time before that translation was grown to such credit that it had shut the other out: it is probable that they were written long after, but whether long or short, it is certain that they were written after Jerome's time.

It is true that Anacletus and the rest of those Bishops, who lived before S. Jerome's time, must needs use that translation which the Fathers call the old. And so doth Turrian answer they did in these epistles.

The contrary is plain by the epistles themselves, in everyone of them.

I: but Turrian saith that when these epistles were first set abroad to the use of the Church that they might come to all men's knowledge, then was it thought good (because S. Jerome's translation was in all men's hands) that many places, which were cited according to the other, should be changed and cited according to S. Jerome's translation.

But how doth Turrian prove that they were cited first according to the other?

Because sundry sentences, which in them are cited out of the Prophets, would better fit the purpose if they had been cited according to the other which was out of the Greek, then according to S. Jerome's which is out of the Hebrew. For example, in the first epistle of Pope Alexander, that text is alleged out of the Prophet Zechariah, He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye, as it is in Jerome. But the other translation out of the Greek should be, He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye: that is, of his own eye, and not of God's. In the which sort it had been more fit for Alexander to cite it, as Turrian doth prove by the circumstances of the text. And the like he showeth in two or three examples mo.

And thereof he concludeth that the Pope did cite it so. As who say the Pope must needs do that which was most fit.

Nay, it doth not well agree to his purpose, unless he did cite it so.

Whether it do, or no: it is plain that the author meant not so to cite it. For in the same epistle he saith that Priests and Bishops (to whom he applieth it) are called the eyes of the Lord. Which since he saith on those words, He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye : it seemeth that he meant [eye] not of his eye who toucheth, but of God's. Neither had he meant otherwise if he had cited the words after the Greek translation, and not Jerome's. For though it be in Greek, He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye, (as it is in Hebrew, and in the best copies of Jerome's Latin too:) yet the word [ his, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] is referred to [the Lord of hosts] whose care of his people the Prophet noteth by that speech, in like sort as Moses had also doon before him. Wherefore if it agree not well in that sense to the purpose and drift of the Popes epistle, in which it is alleged, as Turrian saith it doth not: then himself confesseth that not all the scriptures are there alleged fitly. Which he cannot abide the Centuries should say. But if this answer be good and allowable, that when those epistles of the Popes were published, the texts, which could not be alleged so by them, were changed : then is it impossible to bring any reason, but you may shield them from it easily. For if there be a point of order in discipline, or doctrine in faith, or the state of times, or circumstances of persons and things whatsoever, that is disproved by writers and witnesses of that age, as there are infinite: you may say that it was not so in the epistles, but they who set them forth did alter that point. For example, in one of them which is fathered on Cornelius, appeals unto the See of Rome are approved. But Cyprian doth show that Cornelius agreed with him and other Bishops, that causes should be ended where they began, without appeals.

We shall never make an end if we stand on every particular that may be caviled at. It sufficeth me that all which you can say is set down in the Centuries, and that which they have said is answered by Turrian. This is Stapletons defense of those epistles : and I content myself with it.

Not all which they have said is answered by Turrian : perhaps not this very point about Cornelius. But if you like so well of Stapletons policy to lay all on Turrian : let us leave his dealing therein against the Centuries to be considered by the jury. Whom I must request withal to consider of one reason more▪ which they shall neither find in Turrian, nor in the Centuries.

What reason is that?

The judgment of three learned men of your own side, Cusanus, the Cardinal; Bellarmine, the Jesuit; and Contius, the famous Lawyer. For Cardinal Cusanus, saying, that peradventure those epistles of Clemens and Ana • letus are counterfeit, upon the which they, who would exalt the See of Rome more then is expedient and seemly for the holy Church, do ground them selves : addeth for proof thereof, that if a man first did read them over diligently, applying the state of their times to those epistles, and then were perfect in the works of all the holy Fathers who lived until Austin, Jerome, and Ambrose, and in the acts of Councils where true and authentical writings are alleged; he should find this true, that neither are the said epistles mentioned in any of those writings, yea, and the epistles being applied to the time of those holy men do betray them selves.

Cusanus, when he wrote these things, was not Cardinal: neither doth he affirm it, but saith, [peradventure:] and he mentioneth the epistles of Clemens and Anacletus only, not of all.

But his reasons, of the contents and witnesses, do touch them all: as doth his drift also. Nor saith he [peradventure] of douting▪ but of modesty: for he addeth farther that things a great number do prove it manifestly. And though he were not Cardinal then, yet he was Doctor of the Canon law, and Dean of a Cathedral Church, and fit to be made Cardinal within a few years after. Neither spake he of hatred to the See of Rome, which he calleth the divine, the most excellent in all praise, yea most superexcellent, the first, the chief See ; and saith that she needeth not to help her self with these doutfull arguments, which are drawn out of those epistles and put in the decrees of Gratian. But if he were not Cardinal when he gave that judgment: yet Bellarmine was Jesuit when he confirmed it. For when he read at Rome of the Popes supremacy, and came to that argument of these epistles of the Popes: he said that Father Turrian a learned man had defended them to be their own, but he thought the contrary opinion to be truer.

How know you that he said so, when he read at Rome ?

One of your own friends and fellows, who was present, told me he heard him say so. And I do the rather believe his report, because, whereas Bellarmine him self hath set in writing the sum of those lectures, he saith though not altogether so much, yet in effect. For I will not deny (saith he) but there are some errors crept into them.

But he addeth that certes he thinketh nevertheless that they are very ancient.

And why? because Isidore maketh mention of them. Which reason, that he therefore doth think them very ancient because there is mention made of them by Isidore, is as much in softer words, as if he said, he thinketh them ancient, howbeit not so ancient as they are pretended. It may be that Bellarmine, if he were advertised that Isidore is forged too, would think them less ancient by one degree then yet he thought. But that which the Jesuit was loath to deal with over roughly: the Lawyer, a man of better mind, and bolder spirit, doth plainly avouch. For he affirmeth it to be clear and evident, that those epistles of the Popes, who were before Sylvester, are all false and counterfeit. Now Sylvester was Pope at the time of the Nicene Council, above three hundred years after Christ. And so the exception which I made against your first band of Popes, who lived three hundred years after Christ, and upward: you see it is confirmed by a famous Lawyer, a man of great judgment, and of your own religion.

What famous Lawyer is it? Or how doth he confirm it?

It is Antonius Contius, the kings professor of the law in the university of Burgess : with whose notes (allowed and approved by the privileges of the Spanish & French kings) your Canon-law was printed at Anwerpe by Plantin. In one of those notes, he saith, that he hath brought many reasons in his preface, by which he hath proved and shown manifestly, that the epistles of the Popes who were before Sylvester, are all false and counterfeit. Behold, he hath shown it, not by one or two ghesses, but by many reasons ; and that, manifestly.

But what are the reasons, which he hath shown it so by?

Nay, I am bound to keep counsel in that. For the preface (wherein he brought those reasons ) is not printed. Though I must clear Plantin the printer from the faute. For I caused a friend of mine to ask of him, why it was not printed, and what became of it, whether a man might see it or no. To whom he made answer, that the Censour, appointed to oversee books to be allowed to the print, would not suffer it to pass; but what became of it, he remembered not, nor knew how to procure it. They that do evil, hate the light. There was somewhat in that preface, which the Censour would not that all men should see. But the truth (saith Tully ) which is pressed down by many lewd men, doth rise up often times by this one means: that either they, who are crafty to deceive, are not bold to enterprise so much as they devise; or they, who are bold enough to do anything, have not wit and subtlety to convey their practices. Which consideration of a wise Orator, the folly of your Censour hath proved to be true. For though he were bold enough to leave out the preface of Contius : yet he had not craft enough to raze out that note which mentioneth the preface. And yet a little after, (to see the mischief of it how that should scape his hands,) he hath put in a note under Contius his name, which would have helped well if he had razed out the other. For, upon a text of Pope Anacletus he hath made him say: I know that some affirm those epistles of the Popes who next succceded Peter to be false and counterfeit; but I would desire them to bring better proof: specially since they are found in all the courses of canons that are extant, collected by Isidore out of the book of Damasus which was Bishop of Rome. This note was iuggled in well by the Censour, with this subscription, [Contius.] Pity, that he took not away the other note, where [Contius] is subscribed too.

Why suspect you the Censour that he should make that note, and not Contius him self write it? You have a lesson in S. Paul, that charity is not suspicious.

Charity is not sottish neither: I learn that lesson of him too. For as it is a vice to suspect unjustly: so it is no virtue to believe unwisely. And S. Paul, who saith that charity believeth all things : yet believed not that they meant him well, of whom he understood by his sisters son that they would lie in wait to kill him. Charity believeth all things, which a wise and godly man should believe. But to believe that Contius wrote that note him self, were greater folly to the believer, then charity to the Censour. For how could it be that a learned man, the kings professor of the law, should say concerning the same epistles, first, I have shown manifestly by many reasons that they are counterfeit : and anon, I know that some affirm them to be counterfeit; but I would desire them to bring better proof. Chiefly since the cause, that is added there why he desireth better proof, is Isidores authority: whom Contius (in that respect) doth discredit; which note is printed too. And afterward again, on other texts of those epistles, he noteth sundry pointes whereby it is manifest (he saith) that they are forged : and yet again, on other, he mentioneth the proof thereof made in his preface : yea, and that is more, upon the same epistle of the same Anacletus, on which that counterfeit note was coined, Contius again noteth, this epistle is falsely fathered on Anacletus, as I advertised in my preface. See you not how rightly Tully did observe, that if, either suttletie were bold, or boldness crafty, it would go hard with the truth? The truth which is oppugned by those epistles of the Popes should have had one patron less to speak for her, if your Censour had been as politic to blot out the notes touching the preface, as he was hardie to leave the preface out, and coin a new note against it. And yet perhaps he blotted out some notes too. But men, who deal with much, shall oversee somewhat.

You still suspect the worst. It might be the correctors faute and not the Censours. Or if the Censour did it, he did it of a good mind, because he thought that Contius was deceived in it.

The likelihood and presumption is not so much of the correctour, who vewing all the notes might have left out the rest too, if he had been the dooer: as it is of the Censour, who suffering not the preface to pass to the print for the Popes sake, may justly be suspected that he would strain an ynch farther to help the Pope. But, you say, he did it of a good mind. But good minds must learn to use good means also. At least, he should have doon as Frier Surius did: who, whereas in the old edition of the Councils there were certain things noted out of Cassiodore, Marianus Scotus, and Gregory Haloander, touching the years of the Consuls who are named in the dates of those epistles of the Popes: Surius (in his new edition thereof) hath left out all those notes, yielding this reason why he left them out, because both the thing is dark of it self, & it is made more dark and intricate by their variance; in so much that Calvin seemeth on that occasion to have rejected those epistles. In deed the Century-writers (whom Surius meant perhaps when he named Calvin ) do set down that circumstance, of the year of the Consuls assigned in their dates, for a proof that they be forged: and they confirm that proof by those very notes that were set forth with the epistles. For many of the epistles have the names of such Consuls, as never were Consuls together, or lived not then : as appeareth by Marianus Scotus & others, yea, even by the notes added to those epistles in the Tome of Councils. Which words might work discredit to the Century-writers with them who see the Councils in no edition but the last: for there are no such notes. And Surius, in leaving them out, hath answered well that reason of the Century-writers. Though he should have answered it a great deal better, if he had left out also the epistles them selves. For as long as they are extant: we shall not need the notes upon their dates to control them. Yet as he dealt wisely in leaving out the notes, so he shown honesty in telling men of it: that they may know there were notes before, which impaired the credit of the epistles ; and if they list to see them, they may seek and find them too. But the Censour, who fell upon the notes of Contius, hath shown no such honesty. For neither hath he given any signification that he caused the preface to be left out; neither hath he told us of another edition where it might be found; and, that which is the worst, he hath made Contius to speak in maintenance of that which him self knew and had declared to be forged. All the which pointes it behooveth the jury to consider off; and not to weigh only the judgment of Contius, or Bellarmine, or Cusanus, for the disproof of those counterfeits on which you ground the Popes supremacy: but to think with them selves how many more of likelihood even in the midst of Popery have spoken against them; yea, sundry peradventure, who, (as their writings are printed now,) speak for them. For if in these days when men do sift their doings, Surius durst adventure to leave out notes already printed, and the Censour to suppress things in printers hands that they may never come to light, yea, to write notes in the names of authors flat contrary to their judgment, & print them as their own too: what is it to be feared they did in former times, when there were few that would espy them? Or, if espy them, yet who so hardy to bewray them?

The judgment of Cusanus, and Bellarmine, and Contius, and the rest of our side, (if there were more who thought so,) may not disprove those epistles: seeing that themselves allow the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome.

So much the greater force they have to disprove them: since it is not likely that they would leave this hold of that, which they favor, if manifest truth and reason did not compel them thereunto.

But why do you bring the judgment of our Cardinals, or Jesuits, or Lawiers herein against 〈◊〉 : when, in as weighty a point against yourself, you will not receive them.

I gave you the reason before out of the scriptures, which cite the Poets so. But if you will have it confirmed by the Fathers, you know that Lactantius, Eusebius, Arnobius, and many more of them do bring the writings of Sibylla, and Orpheus, and Hermes, and other Gentiles against the Gentiles, whose judgments they would not receive against them selves. For, if Sibylla (saith▪ Austin ) and Orpheus, and Hermes, and other ether Prophets, or Divines, or wise men, or Philosophers of the Gentiles have said true things touching god: that is of some force, not for us to embrace the authority of them, but to convince by them the vanity of Gentiles when we show that we do worship that God of whom even they have spoken, who partly did teach, partly durst not for bid their fellow Gentiles to worship idols. And it is written in your law, that if a Catholic be in suite against an heretic, the testimony of an heretic is of force for the Catholic: but against the Catholic no testimony is of force, saving the testimony of a Catholic only. The testimonies therefore of Cardinals, & Jesuits, and whatsoever Papists, are of force against you, but not for you against us▪ Nether is there caus • why you should ask rather why I bring their judgments against the Popes epistles, and yet allow them not in the Popes supremacy : then why the Israelites took jewels and furniture of gold and silver of the Egyptians, when yet they forsook their idols and heavy burdens▪ And thus you see what malte the soft fire hath made for the first band of Popes, whom ether you named out of Stapleton, and Cano; or wrapped up without names in the decrees of Gratian. Have you any hope of better success in the remnant of them: or will you muster new soldiers?

You shall find more valure in these then you look for, as hotly as you call for new. For, the exceptions which you made against the second sort ofPopes are naught doutlesse: to say nothing of the third.

You do well to say nothing of the third sort. But what mislike you in my exceptions to the other?

You should ask me rather what I mislike not. For I mislike all that you have said therein. First, that they avouch not the Popes supremacy. Which who would say, but you? For it is too clear that Innocentius the first, Leo the first, Gelasius, Vigilius, Pelagius, and S. Gregory, (whom all you comprehend in the second sort of Popes,) avouch it as fully and in as ample manner, as any Popes since them have doon.

It is too clear they do not. And that will I prove by the third sort ofPopes, in the same places, that yourself alleged out of the decretals, and extrauagants, and the Council of Lateran. For Paschal the second, Innocentius the third, Nicolas the third, Boniface the eighth, and Leo the tenth, (the authors of the chapters and texts which you quoted,) do claim much therein, that nether Innocentius the first, nor Leo the first, nor Gelasius, nor Vigilius, nor Pelagius, nor Gregory, nor any of that sort claimed.

What one point, that toucheth the substance of the Popes supremacy?

First, their sovereign power over all Princes, that they may depose them: and that themselves are subject to none, not to the Emperor. For Nicolas the third saith, that the monarchy of both powers (he meaneth ecclesiastical and civil) belongeth in the city of Rome to the Pope by the donation of Constantine: who thought it unmeet that an earthly Emperor should have dominion there, where God had set the Prince of Priests. And Boniface the eighth proclaimeth himself to be set ofGod over nations, & kingdoms, to pluck up, and to root out, and so forth, even to judge the Princes of the earth. Which ordinance of Boniface (renewed, and approved by Leo the tenth,) hath been put in practice accordingly by sundry ofthem. Many kings, and Emperors deposed by their sentence (as your own writers boast) have felt the proof thereof: and we have seen lately their will in our Queen, and her father of famous memory, though God hath blessed where they cursed, and held them up whom they deposed. But the second sort of Popes were so far from claiming this power over all Princes, that they claimed it not over any. Neither were they monarches of the civil power in Rome, (as I have proved,) by Constantine's donation: but subject to the Emperor, to whom that sovereignty belonged, as they acknowledged. For Leo the first, when the Emperor Martianus had summoned the general Council of Chalcedon, and sent out his writs for him and other Bishops (as Emperors used) to come thither: although he nether liked the place, nor the time, appointed by the Emperor; yet did he according as he was commanded. The obedience of the rest I need not show in particular. The dutiful submission of Gregory to the Emperor Mauricius, his Lord, as still he calleth him▪ may be a general token of it. But when the third sort of Popes bore the sway, the state was turned upside-down. In so much that whereas the Pope said before, our most godly Lord the Emperor : now must the Emperor say, yea, and be sworn to our most holy Lord the Pope. And whereas the Emperor before did summon Cou • cels, & called the Pope unto them: now the Pope denieth y ^• he may deal therewith; and neither him self obeyeth, nor suffereth others to obey him. When Charles the fifth (in the assembly of Spier ) had mentioned a general Council, and a national, and order to be taken for matters of religion in the Imperial assembly : he was reproved by Paul the third for touching those things without naming the Pope, to whom the sovereign power (he said) of gathering Councils, & ordering affairs of the Church, is given. Nay, when the same Charles requested most earnestly that the Council, called by the Pope to Trent, might be kept there, & not at Bononia, whither the Pope (of policy) had removed it: the same Paul rejected his earnest request, and would by no means yield thereto. So plainly in sight, so greatly in weight, do the later Popes differ from the former, in the chiefest point of their supremacy over all, and being subject unto no man.

It may be that the Popes of the second sort would not, of modesty; or could not, for occasions, claim their full supremacy.

You should speak more truly and Christianly of them, if you said, they thought it not to be their right. But would not, or could not, your own answer granteth that they did not claim it. Wherefore since their supremacy implieth sovereign power over kings and Emperors, as it is defined by the last sort of Popes: the second, who were subject to the civil powers, and claimed no such sovereignty, avouched not the Popes supremacy.

Yet over the spiritual powers they avouched it, that is, over Bishops. And that is more then you will yield too.

Though less then you lay claim too. But nether over Bishops did they avouch that which your last sort of Popes doth, and toucheth their supremacy most. For Paschal requireth Archbishops to be sworn, that they shall be faithful and obedient to him. Yea the same oath of fealty and obedience Innocentius the third exacteth of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Where the second sort of Popes, as namely Gregory, acknowledged the Patriarchs to be his equals, not his subjects▪ And they were so far from offering that violence, and injury to them, that they required not any such oath, no, not of the meanest Pastor in their diocese.

Yes, that they did: as you may see by Pelagius. Who decreed and ordained, that if any Metropolitan did not send to Rome within three months of his consecrtion to take his oath, and receive the pall, he should be deprived of his place and dignity.

Pelagius? Where is that decree?

In the Canon-law: whence it is alleged by Franciscus Vargas, a notable learned man, king Philip's counselor and embassadour to Pope Pius the fourth. He, when the question of the jurisdiction of Bishops and the Popes authority could not be well agreed on in the Council of Trent, was called by the Pope to a consultation with the chiefest Cardinals. Where he spake his judgment of the point so wisely, that it was thought fit his answer should be set in print. Therein, amongst many reasons and authorities for the Popes supremacy, he saith that Pelagius declared it by this decree, in that he would have all Metropolitans sworn to him.

This decree was made by a Popish Lawyer, not by Pope Pelagius. For Pelagius, least that he should rashly give consent to the allowing of any Metropolitan who were not sound in faith, required them to make profession of their faith, and so to send for the pall, that is to say, for his consent, whereof the pall was a token. A Lawyer of Paris, one Remundus Rufus, to frame hereof a stronger weapon for y ^e Pope, (in whose defense he wrote,) hath changed the words [ad exponendam fidem suam,] into these words, [dandae fidei causa:] & so by dare fidem, in steed of fidem exponere, he proveth that Pelagius would have their oaths to the Pope, whereas he required profession of their faith in Christ. Now, Franciscus Vargas, alleging (as I guess) this text on Rufus credit, (though he name him not,) did mistake the matter; the rather, through a prejudice conceived of the later times. For, that Metropolitans should profess Christ, it was a thing required then. But, that they should be sworn to maintain the Papacy, it is a weed that grew ••• e or six hundred years after.

That they should be sworn to maintain the Papacy, it is though a newer yet a needful order: least men should fall away from unity and obedience of the See of Rome. But thus much yet Pelagius decreed, as you grant, that they should all make profession of their faith to him, & be allowed by his consent.

All, within his diocese: not all, throughout the world.

Nay he saith, if any, if any Metropolitan send not unto the See of Rome, to show his faith, and receive the pall: let him be deprived. Behold, he speaketh generally.

So the States of England make their acts of Parliament: if any man do this or that. Which yet they mean not of men in Rome and Turkey ; but of all men within the Queens dominion.

But the whole world is the Popes diocese. And that he meant of all Metropolitans therein, it is the more likely, because that all Bishops were then confirmed by the Pope, and it was thought necessary that they should be so. Whereof there are evident and notable examples, (as D Stapleton showeth,) in Leo the great, about the election of Anatolius the Patriarke of Constantinople, and Proterius the Patriarke of Alexandria : in Sozomen, and Theodoret, about Nectarius also elected by the whole Council, and yet to be confirmed by Damasus : in Gregory the great about the Bishop of Salonae, who was confirmed by the Emperors, he being not made privy to it; a thing that never happened under any Christian Prince before, saith Gregory. Yea Bishops newly chosen were wont to send letters (called synodicall ) to the Pope: in which they made profession of the faith they held, and so declared their agreement with the Church of Rome. Such letters Proterius, the Patriarke afore named of Alexandria, sent to Leo ; Sophronius, the Patriarke of Jerusalem, to Pope Honorius ; Nicephorus, the Patriarke of Constantinople, to Leo the third; and Peter after him, to Leo the ninth.

But, as other Patriarchs did send unto the Popes such letters of conference, whereby they made profession of their faith to him, and shown their agreement with the Church of Rome : in like sort the Pope was wont to make profession of his faith to them, and show his consent in religion with their Churches. For Gregory the great wrote so to John the Patriarke of Constantinople, to Eulogius the Patriarke of Alexandria, to Gregory and Anastasius the Patriarchs of Antioch, to John the Patriarke of Jerusalem : and this he did according to the ancient custom of his predecessors, amongst whom was Leo. Wherefore the preeminence of Leo was no greater in confirming Patriarchs of Constantinople, and Alexandria : then was their preeminence in confirming him. For as he allowed not them for lawful Bishops, until by their letters of conference he knew them to be sound in faith: so neither were they wont to allow of any, of whose faith they were not informed in the same manner. As for the example in Sozomen & Theodoret, that Nectarius elected by the whole Council was yet to be confirmed by Damasus: therein your Doctor playeth with Sozomen and Theodoret. For Sozomen neither saith it, nor maketh any show of saying it, not as much as by naming Damasus. Theodoret setteth down the letters written by the Council to Damasus, Ambrose, Britto, and other Bishops of the west: but they disprove that privilege of the Popes prerogative, which Stapleton would prove by them. For he allegeth them to show that the Pope had at length (at that time) a necessary consent in the confirming of all Bishops more then other Bishops, yea then him self before had. Whereas the letters mention the consent of Ambrose, Britto, and the rest, no less then the consent of Damasus : and they crave their common consent in like sort to the confirming of Nectarius, as in former time all Bishops were confirmed (yea, the Pope too) by the consent ech of others, for better keeping of the faith, and fostering of love amongst them. So the rest of your proofs import an equality between all Bishops at the first, and afterward between all Patriarchs. The only example that hath any kin with the decree of Pope Pelagius for his superiority ever Metropolitans, is that out of Gregory touching the Bishop of Salonae, a Metropolitan city in the country of Dalmatia. For he was accustomed in deed to be confirmed by the consent of the Pope, as of his Archbishop, & to receive a pall from him. But thereof to conclude that all Metropolitans throughout the whole world were likewise subject to the Pope; it hath as much reason, as if you should conclude that the Queen of England appointeth Lieutenants throughout all Christendom, because she appointeth a Lord Deputy in Ireland. You are deceived, M. Hart, if you think the Pope was swollen so big in the time of Pelagius. His dropsy had made him to drink up much, but not all. He was become Archbishop of a Princely diocese, but he was yet but an Archbishop. He was not universal Pope, & Patriarke of y ^e whole world.

Your speech is absurd, and doth confute it self, in seeking to confute the Pope. For if he had but a diocese, how was he an Archbishop ? Since a diocese is y ^e charge committed to a Bishop: an Archbishop, hath a province. And if he were but an Archbishop how had he Metropolitans under him? Whereas a Metropolitan, and an Archbishop, is all one. Beside that, you granted him to be a Patriarke : for else the other Patriarchs must be his superiors, to whom you made him equal. So while you strive against him, and go about to bring him under, to bereue him of the supremacy: you speak as though you were bereft of sense and reason, and knew not what to say of him.

In deed, as the names of [Archbishop] and [diocese] are used in our days, and have been of some writers in ancient times also: my speech may seem absurd, who say that the Pope was but Archbishop of a diocese, when he was Patriarke as I grant. But after the language that was then received when the second sort of Popes were at the best, I speak the words of sense and reason. For Justinian the Emperor, who (as it is requisite in penning of laws) is wont to keep the proper and usual speech of his time, (and his reign did fall into the time we treat off,) ordained, that if an Elder or Deacon were accused, his Bishop should have the hearing of the matter; if a Bishop, his Metropolitan; if a Metropolitan, his Archbishop. And again he provided for the ecclesiastical causes of clergy men, that first they should be brought to the Bishop of the city; from the Bishop of the city, to the Metropolitan; frō the Metropolitan, to the Synod of the province; frō the Synod of the province, to the Patriarke of the diocese : and a Patriarke is all one with an Archbishop, in him. Whereby you may perceive, both that an Archbishop had Metropolitans under him: and that a diocese was more then a province. In which respect I called it a Princely diocese, to distinguish it from a Lordly, that you might know I meant a diocese of a larger sise, then as the word is taken for a Bishops circuit. But that you may have the clearer light to see the truth of mine answer, and thereby to perceue how the Pope encroched on Bishops by degrees, until of an equal he became a sovereign, first over a few, next over many, at last over all: I must fetch the matter of Bishops, Metropolitans, and Archbishops somewhat higher, and show how Christian cities provinces, and dioceses, were allotted to them. First therefore, when Elders were ordained by the Apostles in every Church, through every city, to feed the flock of Christ, whereof the holy Ghost had made them overseers : they, to the intent they might the better do it by common counsel and consent, did use to assemble themselves and meet together. In the which meetings, for the more orderly handling and concluding of things pertaining to their charge: they those one amongst them to be the President of their company, and moderatour of their actions. As in the Church of Ephesus, though it had sundry Elders and Pastors to guide it: yet amongst those sundry was there one chief, whom our Savior calleth the Angel of the Church, and writeth that to him which by him the rest should know. And this is he whom afterward in the primitive Church the Fathers called Bishop. For as the name of Ministers, common to all them who serve Christ in the stewardship of the mysteries of God, that is, in preaching of the gospel, is now by the custom of our English speech restrained to Elders who are under a Bishop : so the name of Bishop common to all Elders and Pastors of the Church, was then by the usual language of the Fathers appropriated to him who had the Presidentship over Elders. Thus are certain Elders reproved by Cyprian ; for receiving to the communion them who had fallen (in time of persecution,) before the Bishops had advised of it with them and others. And Cornelius writeth that the Catholic Church committed to his charge had six and forty Elders, and ought to have but one Bishop. And both of them being Bishops, the one of Rome, the other of Carthage, do witness of them selves that they dealt in matters of their Churches government by the consent and counsel of the company of Elders, or the Eldership, as they both (after S. Paul ) do call it.

Elders, and Eldership: you mean presbyteros, and presbyterium, that is to say Priests, and Priesthood. But these new fangled names came in by your English translations of the new testament: which (as our translation doth justly note them for it) have changed Priests into Elders of falsehood and corruption, and that of farther purpose then the simple can see. Which is, to take away the office of sacrificing, and other functions of Priests, proper in the new testament to such as the Apostles often, and the posterity in manner altogether do call Priests, presbyteros. Which word doth so certainly imply the authority of sacrificing, that it is by use made also the only English of sacerdos, yourselves as well as we so translating it in all the old and new testament: though you cannot be ignorant that Priest cometh of presbyter, and not of sacerdos : and, that antiquity for no other cause applied the signification of presbyter to sacerdos, but to show that presbyter is in the new law, that which sacerdos was in the old: the Apostles abstaining from this and other like old names at the first, and rather using the words Bishops, Pastors, and Priests, because they might be distinguished from the governors and sacrificers of Aaron's order, who as yet in the Apostles time did their old functions still in the temple. And this to be true, and that to be a Priest is to be a man appointed to sacrifice: yourselves calling sacerdos always a Priest must needs be driven to confess. Albeit your folly is therein notorious, to apply willingly the word Priest to sacerdos, and to take it from presbyter, whereof it is derived properly not only in English but in other languages, both French, and Italian: which is to take away the name that the Apostles and Fathers gave to the Priests of the Church, and to give it wholly and only to the order of Aaron.

Wholy and only to the order of Aaron? Nay, then I can abide your Rhemists no longer, if their mouths do so run over. For we give it also to the order of Melchizedek, after the which our Savior is is a Priest forever. And they who charge us with falsehood and corruption in that we call the Ministers of the gospel, Elders : are guilty themselves of heresy and blasphemy in that they call them Priests. For they do not call them Priests in respect of the spiritual sacrifices of prayers and good works, which Christians of all sortes are bound to offer unto God, and thence are called Priests in scripture: but they call them Priests in respect of the carnal and external sacrifice of the cursed Mass, wherein they pretend that they offer Christ under the forms of bread and wine to God his Father, a sacrifice propiciatorie, that is, of force to pacify God, and reconcile him unto men. So, whereas the scripture doth teach that one Priest, by one sacrifice, once offered, that is, our Savior Christ, by giving himself to death upon the cross hath reconciled God unto us, and sanctified us forever: the doctrine of Reims ordeineth many Priests, to offer up often, whether the same sacrifice that Christ, or another, they speak staggeringly, but to offer it often. As though there were yet left an offering for sin after the death of Christ: or his precious blood were of no greater value then the blood of bulls and goats, which were offered often, because they could not purge sins. And this • bomination they seek to maintain by the name of Priests, since Priests are men (they say) appointed to sacrifice, and that name was given to them by the Apostles. In saying whereof they do play the Sophisters: and that with greater art then the simple can see. Which is, in that they use our English word [Priest] after a dooble sort: the one, as it is derived from presbyter ; the other, as it signifieth the same that sacerdos. For Priest, as it signifieth a man appointed to sacrifice, is sacerdos, and not presbyter. The name which the Apostles give a Minister of the gospel, is presbyter, and not sacerdos. Which difference of words, necessary to be observed for the distinction of things between the Ministers of the old and the new testament, as the Apostles kept it in the tongue in which the new testament is written, so they who translated the testament into English were to keep it also. Wherefore it was not of falsehood and corruption, but of religious zeal of truth, that they called presbyter, an Elder, not a Priest. For since the custom of our English speech hath made the name of Priest proper to a man appointed to sacrifice, such as were the Priests after the order of Aaron in the old testament, the Priest after the order of Melchizedek in the new: the Ministers of the gospel, ordained, not (as Christ) to sacrifice to God, but to feed God's people with his word and sacraments, must have another name according to the scripture: and our English word, expressing that in scripture, is the name of Elders. But you by confusion of these sundry names do seek confusion of the things: and as thieves are wont to change the marks of things which they have stolen; so you, to make the Priesthood of Christ seem your own, do change names, as marks of things which they signify. For in steed of that which we call [an Elder] you would have [a Priest,] that your Massing Priests may be accounted Priests after the order of Melchizedek, as Christ is a Priest : and so your sacrifice of the Mass be thought the sovereign sacrifice, (as your Master calleth it,) wherein Christ is offered unto God his father. In the which conveyance, if you painted it with naught but colors of your own: the matter were less. For, the abusing of one name applied unto sundry things was a common shift of sophisters among the heathens. And you are to be borne with, if, having no better cause then they had, sometimes you adventure on the shifts that they did. But to abuse the credit of the Apostles to this sophistry, and say that they gave the name of Priests to Pastors of the Church of Christ : that is a fault that cannot be excused. For seeing our language doth mean by [Priests] sacrificers, which in their language are called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and they never gave the name of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to Pastors of the Christian Church: it followeth that they gave them not the name of Priests. Or if you reply, they gave them that name because they called thē 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , whence our English name of Priests is derived: yet you cannot say they called them Priests, as the name of Priest hath a relation to sacrifice : and therefore that name is nothing to the Mass, which you would prove by it. For so the word [Priest] must yet have two meaninges: the one of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the other of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Wherof the one is given by the Apostles : but doth not imply authority to sacrifice. The other doth imply authority to sacrifice : but is not given by the Apostles,

But since the name of Priest is properly derived from the word presbyter, or (as it is in Greek) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , not only in English, but in other languages, both French, and Italian: why did not your translators keep this according to the Greek, and devise another for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is sacerdos, if they would needs distinguish them by different names. For it is (as I said) a notorious folly to apply willingly the word Priest to sacerdos, and to take it from presbyter whereof it is derived properly.

If our translators had been Lord's of words, and might have forced men to take them in what sense they would: then had you spoken reason. For he, whom others follow • in our English translations, did note that if Antichrist had not deceived us with unknown and strange terms, to bring us into confusion & superstitious blindness, a Priest, that is, a sacrificer as Aaron was a Priest and sacrificed for the people, should have had some other name in English then Priest. Which he spake in respect that the name of Priest, as it came from presbyter, betokening a Minister of the new testament, should not have been given to the Ministers of the old, who differ, as in function, so in name, by scripture. But you, in whose eyes our folly is notorious, for that we give the name of Priest to sacerdos, and take it from presbyter whereof it is derived properly : what say you (I pray) for your own translation in the fourth of the Acts, where it is said of Peter and John the Apostles, that they were men unlettered and of the vulgar sort.

Why? What faute find you with our translation in that?

I find not any faute; but I would know of you why you call them [men of the vulgar sort,] and not rather [idiotes:] since in the Greek text the word is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Latin idiotae.

That were a profane term for the Apostles, who were endued with heavenly wisdom.

It were so in deed. But if the derivation of words must be followed in translating authors: that term should have been given them. For the name of idiot is properly derived from the Greek or Latin, not only in English but in other languages, both French and Italian, and (if that help) the Spanish, Dutch, and Syriac too. Yea it cometh nearer in everyone of these to the Latin word of the old translation (which you pretend to follow,) then the name of Priest in any of them doth to presbyter.

But the word in English hath not the same meaning that it hath in Latin; and in translating things the sense must • e kept. Nor is it to be marked so much whence a word is properly derived, as what it doth signify. Now it doth signify that which usually men understand by it. For the consent of men taking a word for this or that, doth make it to signify that for which they take it, as Aristotle showeth. Who frameth thereupon a rule, that we must call things by those names, by which the common people calleth them. Wherefore since the name of idiot in English is taken for a fool, or sot, and the Latin idiota where it is used in scripture doth signify the unlearned, such as the vulgar sort of men : we have translated it the vulgar, and not idiot, according to the meaning not the deriving of it. Neither may you therefore charge us with varying from the Latin text: which, as we pretend, so we do follow faithfully. For whereas S. Paul saith to the Corinthians, If thou bless in the spirit, how shall he that supplieth the place of the vulgar, say Amen upon thy blessing? in Latin, for the vulgar, it is idiotae. Which word if we should have translated, the idiot : we should have doon injury to the common sort of rude unlearned men, whom it doth betoken, as you must needs acknowledge, who translate it the unlearned, as we do the vulgar.

True. But you may see then how wise your Rhemists are, who charge us with notorious folly becau • e we give the name of Priest to sacerdos, and not to presbyter. For as the name of idiot, doth come from idiota, but is taken for a fool : so the name of Priest is derived from presbyter, but signifieth a sacrificer by custom of our English speech. Wherefore if your reason do prove that all Pastors of the Christian Church must be called Priests, and have authority to sacrifice; because they are presbyter • : it will prove as well that all unlearned Christians must be called idiotes, and may be begged for fools, because they are idiotae. Which if you dare not say of unlearned Christians, though in very truth you deal with them as idiotes when you make such reasons to approve your Mass & Massing Priests unto them: learn, by discharging yourselves in the one, to clear us of notorious folly in the other. For since in translating things (as you confess) the sense must be kept, and the sense of words is that which usually men understand by them, and by the word Priest men understand sacerdos, that is to say, a man appointed to sacrifice : it followeth thereof that our translators did their duty, in giving the name of Priests to them only, to whom the Priestly function in scripture doth appropriate it. As for your Rhemists who still do translate sacerdos a Priest, as granting that we have no other English woe • d for it, and yet translate presbyter by the same word too: they do join together that which God hath severed; and the words, which the holy Gost hath distinguished, they wittingly confound. Wherein they do lewdly abuse the simple Christians, who are unskillful in the tongues, to make them in love with the whorish sacrifice of the idolatrous Mass; and alienate their minds from the true religion professed in the Church of England. For the name of Priest, as it hath relation to sacrifice, is sacerdos : which word your Trent-fathers do therefore use in handling the sacrifice of the Mass. Now because the name of sacerdos is not given to the Ministers of the gospel in the new testament: your Rhemists make the name, that is given them, the same in English with sacerdos. To the intent, that the simple, not seeing the sleight, may conceive thereby that ministers of the gospel are Priests ordained to sacrifice : and so may loath our Ministers, who neither do sacrifice, nor list to be called Priests; and may embrace your Priests, who profess them selves to be Priests, yea Mass priests, and are sent to sacrifice, as it is shown in your Apology of the English Seminaries.

That learned Apology, which D. Allen wrote in the defense of our Seminaries, doth justly blame your new pulpits, (the very chairs of the scorneful,) for calling us by that term merrily or mockingly. For the Church of God knoweth no other Priests, neither hath Christ instituted any other order of Priests, but of these▪ whom contemptuously you do call Mass-priests.

So D. Allen saith. But he proveth neither Priests nor Mass, by scripture: unless the Mass be the chair; and the Priests be the scornful.

Though he allege not the scripture there to prove them, yet hath he done it other where: as in his Latin treatise of the sacrifice of the Mass, and in our Annotations on the testament in English, wherein his hand was chiefest. For Isaiah doth specially prophecy of the Priests of the new testament (as S. Jerome declareth upon the same place) in these words: You shall be called the Priests of God, the Ministers of our God shall it be said unto you. And as here the Ministers of God are called Priests, in that very term which yourself confess hath a relation to sacrifice : so, that they did sacrifice, you may perceive too by the Acts of the Apostles, where it is written of Prophets and Doctors in the Church at Antioch, that they were ministering to our Lord. For the Greek signifieth that they were sacrificing: and so Erasmus translated. Whereby it is meant that they did say Mass: and the Greek Fathers hereof had their name Liturgy, which Era • mus translateth Mass, saying Missa Chrysostomi. Howbeit we translate it, ministering, and not sacrificing, or saying Mass, though we might: if we would (as you do) boldly turn what text we list, and flee from one language to another for the advantage of our cause. But we keep our text: as the translators of the scriptures should do most religiously.

Your text then doth say, that the Prophets & Doctors at Antioch were ministering ▪ but you, to prove the Mass, do reprove your text. For if the Greek signify that they were sacrificing, and your text translated the Greek into Latin: how did your text keep his text, when he translated it, not sacrificing but ministering ? Will you say that the author of your old translation ( which only is approved by your men as authentical ) did not perform that duty which the translators of the scriptures ought most religiously? You do so for advantage. But in this point you do him injury. For though the word may (by consequent) import to sacrifice, when sacrifice is a service pertaining unto them whose ministry it betokeneth, as where it is spoken of Levites and Priests : yet doth it properly signify to minister, either in public function (after the original thereof) or in any; as magistrates are called the ministers of God, and Angels are said to be ministering spirits, and the Gentiles are willed to minister unto the Jews in relieving of their necessity. In so much that the learnedst of your own translators, Isidorus Clarius, and Arias Montanus, who both have turned the new testament out of Greek into Latin, the one approved by the Deputies of the Trent-council, the other by the Doctors of Louan, do both of them translate it in this very place of the Acts of the Apostles not sacrificing, but ministering ; which their affection to the Mass would have been loath to do, unless the truth had forced them to it. How much the more shameful is the demeanour of your Rhemists, who, where they carp us, as leaving the Greek for the advantage of our cause, them selves for the advantage of their own cause do clip the meaning of the Greek: against, I say not, the judgment of Grammarians, even such as seek to help them most, but against the common use of it in scripture, against their old text, against their new translations, yea, against their own conscience, as that which you alleged out of the Prophet Isaiah, (where they have Englished it, the Ministers, ) doth show. And herein their dealing is so much the worse, because they set it out with the name of Erasmus ; as if he meant by [sacrificing] the saying of Mass : which is far from him. For although by reason he thought that the word doth properly signify, not simply to minister, but to minister in holy things, as they who serve in the Priesthood, therefore he did translate it that the Prophets & Doctors in the Church at Antioch were sacrificing to the Lord : yet he saith that hereby is meant that they employed their gifts to God's glory, and the salvation of the Church, the Prophets in propheciing, the Doctors in teaching the doctrine of the Gospel. So he understandeth nothing else by sacrificing, then others do by ministering, or rather then the scripture doth: as it is observed out of the circumstances of the text by the best of your own interpreters. Who seeing that the men were Prophets, and Doctors, which are said to have been ministering to the Lord, thereupon do gather that they served him in executing their own ministry, that is to say, the ministry of prophesying, and teaching. In which sort the Greek fathers do expound it also: what meaneth the word ministering? (say they,) it meaneth preaching. Wherefore if the name of Liturgy were taken hereof, by the Greek fathers, as your Rhemists add: it is a good hearing, but so much the less will it prove your Mas • e. For if they understood preaching, by ministering, when the word is spoken of Prophets, and Doctors : it is the more likely that when they applied it to the ministry of the Pastors, • service of the Church, they meant the public prayers and other holy functions which we do call Divine service. As in truth they did. For that which we call evening prayer, they called the evening Liturgy, as you would say the service doon to God at evening : and in the very Liturgy, that is called Chrysostom's, because he made some part of it belike, not all, for himself therein is prayed too; but in that very Liturgy the word is applied to the Churches service in the same manner as it is to the service which Angels do to God. And I hope you will not affirm that the Angels do say Mass in heaven. Wherefore howsoever Erasmus did translate it after the phrase of his time, wherein the Churches service was commonly called Missa: the ministry mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles doth not prove that sacrifice of which you would infer your Priesthood. As for the place of Isaiah, in which it is written, you shall be called the Priests of God, the Ministers of our God shall it be said unto you : the course of the text doth seem to mean by Priests all the servants of God, whom Peter calleth an holy Priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. For the words are spoken as in Christ's person to all the faithful and repentant, who should be trees of righteousness, to build up the Church: and thereupon are promised that their enemies shall serve them, and they shall serve God. But in another place of Isaiah, (I grant,) the name of Priest is given to Pastors and Elders: where speaking of the calling and conversion of the Gentiles, And of them (saith he) will I take for Priests, for Levites, saith the Lord.

S. Jerome doth expound the former place of them also. But all is one to my purpose. For seeing that Pastors and Elders (as you term them) are called Priests in scripture, and the name of Priest implieth (you confess) authority to sacrifice : it followeth that Pastors and Elders are Priests autorized to sacrifice. Now the Priest that hath authority to sacrifice, is he, whom you do call a Mass-priest. Wherefore both Mass and Priests are proved by the scripture.

Why? Think you that every Christian man and woman is a Mass-priest, because the name of Priests is given them by scripture in respect of spiritual sacrifices which they must offer unto God?

No. Because the sacrifices that they must offer, are spiritual : and are called sacrifices by a borrowed kind of speech, and not properly. But the sacrifice which is offered to God in the Mass, is an external, visible, true, and proper sacrifice, as it is declared by the Council of Trent. So that the Priests ordained to offer this sacrifice are properly called Priests : whereas other Christians are called so improperly, according to the nature of the sacrifices which they offer.

Then the name of Priests alleged out of Isaiah doth not prove your Mass-priests. For he doth call the Ministers of the gospel Priests, in respect of the spiritual sacrifices which they must offer. And that appeareth by the words going next before: in which the Lord declaring (even by S. Jerome's judgment too) that he would call the Jews to the same honor, that by the name of Priests is signified: and they (saith he) shall bring the Gentiles for an offering to the Lord, as the children of Israel offer in a clean vessel in the house of the Lord. So to bring the Gentiles as an offering to the Lord, is that, for which they, who do bring such offerings, are named Priests and Levites. But the offering up of the Gentiles unto him, is a spiritual sacrifice: made by the Ministers of Christ (as Paul showeth) when they convert the Gentiles through the preaching of the gospel. The sacrifice therefore, in respect whereof the Ministers of the gospel are called Priests by Isaiah, is a spiritual sacrifice. And as every faithful person is a Priest, because we must offer, each his own body, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God: so that name is given to Ministers of the gospel, because they are called to offer up the bodies of other men in like sort. Wherefore if private Christians are not Mass-priests, because their sacrifices are spiritual : then since the Ministers must offer up the like sacrifices, it followeth by your answer that nether they are Mass-priests.

The Ministers of the gospel must offer up the like sacrifices : I deny it not. And in that respect it is true, that nether they, nor private Christians are proved to be Mass-priests. But there is another, an external sacrifice, that Ministers must offer also: even that which our Lord in the prophet Malachi doth call a clean oblation, and saith that in every place it is sacrificed and offered to his name, because his name is great among the Gentiles. And that is the sacrifice, in respect whereof the Ministers of the gospel are called Priests properly, and are indeed Mass-priests. For the clean oblation is the sacrifice of the Mass, wherein the body and blood of Christ is offered up unto God his father, as the Council showeth, an oblation that cannot be defiled by the unworthiness or wickedness of them who offer it.

What? And be your Priests of the tribe of Levi, who offer up this sacrifice?

No syr, nor of the Jews: but they are Christian Priests.

But they, who must offer the sacrifice that is spoken of in the prophet Malachi, are of the tribe of Levi. For afterward entreating of y ^e same oblation, or offering (as we cal it,) that shall be offered unto God in the time of the gospel, he saith that the Lord shall fine the sons of Levi, and purify them as gold, and silver, that they may offer an offering unto God in righteousness. Wherefore if the offering that Malachi doth speak of, be the sacrifice of the Mass, that is, a sacrifice properly: then the proper Priests, by whom it is offered, are the Jewish Priests after the order of Aaron, even the sons of Levi. But if the sons of Levi betoken (by a figure) the spiritual Levites, that is, all the faithful, whom Christ in the new testament hath made a royal Priesthood, even Kings and Priests to God his father, as your Montanus well expoundeth it: then must the offering (by a figure) signify the spiritual sacrifice, which Christians of all sortes are bound to offer unto God. And in truth, as Christ said of John the Baptist, If you will receive it, this is Elias which was to come, meaning, that the Prophet did signify John the Baptist by the name of Elias : so I may say to you touching the spiritual sacrifices of Christians, If you will receive it, this is the clean offering which should in every place be offered to the Lord. For the Prophets, when they spake of the gospel of Christ, and the religious worship of God in spirit and truth, (which Gentiles converted by the preaching of the gospel should serve him in, through all the world:) are wont to describe it by figurative speeches drawn from the external and carnal worship of God in the ceremonies of the law. So they say that there shall be an altar of the Lord in the middes of the land of Egypt; that God will accept the burnt offerings and sacrifices of strangers upon his altar; that all the sheeepe of Kedar shall be offefered on it, and the rams of Nebaioth; that the Gentiles shall go up to keep the feast of tabernacles from year to year unto Jerusalem, and every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the Lord of hosts, and all they who sacrifice shall come & take of them and seeth therein; finally, that the offering of Judah and Jerusalem shall be sweet unto the Lord, as in the days of old and in the years afore. Wherefore, as the Prophets do mention an offering which the Christian Church shall offer unto God in the time of the gospel: so do they mention burnt offerings, and sacrifices, the sheep of Kedar, the rams of Nebaioth, to be offered on an altar ; they mention Jerusalem to be gone unto, the feast of tabernacles to be kept, the flesh of beasts sacrificed to be sodde in pots, the Levites to be the Ministers who shall make the offering in righteousness to God. But neither doth the Priesthood of the Levites continue, neither is Jerusalem the place to worship God, neither are the Jewish feasts the times to do it, nor will he be served with sacrifice, and offering, if they be taken properly. The Prophets therefore meant by an allegory (as we term it) to show that all Christians should, as Priests, and Levites ; offer up them selves, and theirs, as sacrifices; at all times, as solemn feasts; in all places, as in Jerusalem. And so the clean offering, whereof the Prophet Malachi saith it shall be offered in every place unto the Lord, doth signify not a sacrifice to be made upon an altar, as your Council would have it, but the spiritual sacrifice which S. Paul exhorteth the faithful to offer, when he willeth men to pray in every place, lifting up pure hands without wrath & douting.

The Prophets speak much in deed of things to come not properly, and simply, but figuratively, by obscure speeches, and allegories, and parables, that must be understood otherwise then they are written as Tertullian noteth. But the name of altar is used properly for a material altar by the Apostle to the Hebrews, saying, we have an altar whereof they have not power to eat which serve the tabernacle. For he putteth them in mind by these words, that in following too much their old Jewish rites they deprived themselves of another manner & a more excellent sacrifice and meat: meaning, of the holy altar, and Christ's own blessed body offered and eaten there. Of which they that continue in the figures of the old law could not be partakers. This altar (saith Isychius ) is the altar of Christ's body, which the Jews for their incredulity must not behold. And the Greek word (as also the Hebrew answering thereunto in the old testament) signifieth properly an altar to sacrifice on, and not a metaphorical and spiritual altar. Wherefore seeing that we have a very altar in the proper sense, and the name of altar doth import a sacrifice that is offered on it: it followeth that the body of Christ upon the altar is a very sacrifice in the proper sense. And that out of doubt is the clean offering which the Prophet speaketh of: according as the Council of Trent hath defined.

And are you out of doubt that by the words, we have an altar, the Apostle meaneth a material altar, such as your altars made of stone.

What else? a very altar.

And they who have not power to eat of this altar are the stubborn Jews, who keep the ceremonies of the law.

The Jews, and such profane men.

Then your Mass-priests may and do use to • ate of this altar.

They do. And what then?

Their teeth be good and strong, if they eat of an altar that is made of stone. Are ye sure that they eat of it?

Eate of an altar ? As though ye knew not, that, by the altar, the sacrifice which is offered upon the altar is signified. They eat of Christ's body, which thereby is meant.

Is it so? Then the word [altar] is not taken for a very altar in the proper sense, but figuratively for the body of Christ the which was sacrificed and offered. Neither is it taken for the body of Christ, in that respect that Christ is offered in the sacrament, in the which sort he is mystically offered as often as the faithful do eat of that bread, and drink of that cup, wherein the breaking of his body and shedding of his blood is represented to them: but in that respect that Christ was offered on the cross, in the which sort he was truly offered not often, but once, to take away the sins of many, and to sanctify them forever who believe in him.

Nay, the ancient Father Isychius expoundeth it of the body of Christ in the sacrament, (as I shown) which the Jews must not behold. They might behold his body upon the cross, and did so.

But the holy Apostle him self doth understand it of the body of Christ as it was offered on the cross. And that is manifest by the words he addeth to show his meaning touching the Jews and the altar. For (saith he) the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high Priest for sin, are burnt without the campe. Therefore even Jesus, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Which words are somewhat dark, but they will be plain, if we consider both the thing that the Apostle would prove, and the reason by which he proveth it. The thing that he would prove, is, that the Jews cannot be partakers of the fruit of Christ's death and the redemption which he purchased with his precious blood, if they still retain the ceremonial worship of the law of Moses. The reason by which he proveth it, is an ordinance of God in a kind of sacrifices appointed by the law to be offered for sin, which sacrifices shadowed Christ, and taught this doctrine. For whereas the Priests who served the tabernacle in the ceremonies of the law, had a part of other sacrifices and offerings and did eat of them: there were certain beasts commanded to be offered for sin in special sort, and their blood to be brought into the holy place, whose bodies might not be eaten, but must be burnt without the campe. Now, by these sacrifices offered so for sin, our only sovereign sacrifice Jesus Christ was figured: who entered by his blood into the holy place, to cleanse us from all sin ; and his body was crucified without the gate, that is, the gate of the city of Jerusalem ; and they who keep the Priestly rites of Moses law, cannot eat of him, that by his death they may live : for none shall live by him who seek to be saved by the law, as it is written, if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. The Apostle therefore exhorting the Hebrews to stablish their hearts with grace, that teacheth them to serve the Lord in spirit and truth after the doctrine of the gospel, not with meats, that is to say, with the ceremonies of the law, a part whereof was the difference between unclean and clean in meats: doth move them to it with this reason, that if they serve the tabernacle, and stick unto the rites of the Jewish Priesthood, their souls shall have no part of the food of our sacrifice, no fruit of Christ's death. For, as the bodies of those beasts which were offered for sin, and their blood brought into the holy place by the hye Priest, might not be eaten by the Priests, but were burnt without the campe: so neither may the keepers of the Priestly ceremonies have life by feeding upon Christ, who (to show this mystery) did suffer death without the gate, when he shed his blood to cleanse the people from their sin. And thus it appeareth by the text it self that the name of altar betokeneth the sacrifice, that is to say, Christ crucified : not as his death is shown forth in the sacrament, but as he did suffer death without the gate. Whereby you may perceive, first, the folly of your Rhemists about the Greek word, (as also the Hebrew) that it signifieth properly an altar to sacrifice on : as though it might not therefore be used figuratively; where yet them selves must needs acknowledge it to be so too. Next, the weakness of your reason, who thereof do gather, that, by the sacrifice, which that word importeth in the Apostle, is meant the clean offering of which the Prophet speaketh. For, the clean offering, of which the Prophet speaketh, is offered in every place : the sacrifice meant by the Apostle, in one place only, without the gate. Wherefore the name of altar in the epistle to the Hebrews doth neither signify a Massing-altar, nor prove the sacrifice of Massing-priests.

That which you touch, as foolishly noted by our Rhemists, about the Greek and Hebrew word, is noted very truly. For you cannot deny yourself, but that it signifieth properly an altar, a material altar to sacrifice upon, and not a metaphorical and spiritual altar. Whereby as they conclude that we have not a common table, or profane communion board to eat mere bread upon, but a very altar in the proper sense to sacrifice Christ's body upon : so for proof hereof they add, that, in respect of the said body sacrificed, it is also called an altar of the Fathers, even of Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Socrates, Augustine, and Theophylact. And when it is called a table, it is in respect of the heavenly food of Christ's body and blood received.

The note of your Rhemists, about the Greek & Hebrew word, is true (I grant,) yet foolish too: though true in the thing, yet foolish in the drift. For to the intent that where the Apostle saith, we have an altar, it may be thought he meant not that word spiritually, or in a figurative sense, as we expound it of Christ, but materially of a very altar such as is used in their Masses : they say that the Greek word (as also the Hebrew answering thereunto in the old testament) signifieth properly an altar to sacrifice on, and not a metaphorical and spiritual altar. Which speech how dull it is in respect of the point to which they apply it: I will make you see by an example of their own. Our Savior in the gospel teacheth of himself that he is the true bread, which giveth life unto the world; the bread which came down from heaven, that whosoever eateth of it should not die: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. Your Rhemists do note hereon, that the person of Christ incarnate is meant under the metaphor of bread, and our belief in him is signified by eating. Wherein they say well. But if a man should tell them that the Greek word (as also the Hebrew answering thereunto in the old testament) doth properly signify bread which we eat bodily, and not a metaphorical or spiritual bread : were not this as true a speech as their own? Yet how wise to the purpose, who is so blind that seeth not? Yea, to go no farther then the very word, whereof by their Hebrew and Greek they seek advantage: them selves, upon that place of John that he saw under the altar the souls of them who were killed for the word of God, do affirm expressly that Christ is this altar. Christ (say they) as man, no dout is this altar. They mean it (I hope) in a metaphorical, or other figurative speech. For they will not make him by transubstantiation to be an altar properly. Yet here it is as true that the Greek word (as also the Hebrew answering thereunto in the old testament) signifieth properly an altar to sacrifice on, and not a metaphorical or spiritual altar. And if it were as much for the advantage of their cause to prove that Mass is said in heaven, as that in earth; and, that Christ is properly bread without a figure, as that bread is properly Christ in the sacrament: the text of the scripture where Christ is called bread, yea the true bread, would prove the one clearly, as they could fit it with this note; and the word altar, would put the other out of controversy, chiefly if that were noted withal, that an Angel stood before the altar having a golden censer, though others there also affirm the altar to be Christ. But it fareth with your Rhemists, as it is wont with false prophets: one buildeth up a muddy wall, and others daube it over with a rotten plaster, and when a storm cometh, the wall falleth and plaster with it. For though, as they lay it on, it seemeth hansom, that words signify properly the natural things which they are used to signify, and not metaphoric • ll or spiritual things: yet if it be opened that hereby is meant that words may not be used (by metaphores, or other figures) to signify those things which properly they do not signify, the boys in grammar schools, who know what a metaphor is, will laugh at it. Wherefore this plaster will not help the weakness of your muddy wall, I mean of the conclusion which you would prove by it and do infer upon it, that we have an altar in the proper sense to sacrifice Christ's body upon. In the daubing up whereof yet your plaisterers do show a piece of greater art: partly, by drawing us into hatred who have not Popish altars, but communion tables ; partly, by winding the names of Fathers in, as if they made for you against us. Both, with skill and cunning: but more of sophistry, then divinity. For that which the scripture doth call the Lord's table, because it is ordained for the Lord's supper in the administration of the blessed sacrament of his body and blood: the Fathers also call it a table in respect of the heavenly banket that is served upon it. And this in proper sense. Marry, by a figure of speech, by which the names of things that are like one another in some quality, are given one unto another, as Christ is called David; John the Baptist, Elias ; the city of Rome, Babylon ; the Church of God, Jerusalem : the Fathers for resemblance of the Ministers and sacraments in the new testament to them in the old, are wont to give the name, as of Priests, and Levites, to Pastors, and Deacons ; so of a sacrifice, to the Lord's supper ; and of an altar, to the Lord's table. For these things are lynked by nature in relation, and mutual dependence (as I may say) one of another: the altar, the sacrifice, and the sacrificers who serve the altar, that is, Priests and Levites. Wherefore if the Fathers meant a very altar in the proper sense to sacrifice Christ's body upon : then must they mean also the Levitical Priesthood to serve in sacrificing of it. But the Levitical Priesthood is gone, and they knew it: nether did they call the ministry of the Gospel so, but by a figure. Your Rhemists therefore do abuse them, in proving, as by them, that the communion table is called an altar properly. But us of the other side they do abuse more, by setting an altar against a common table in such sort of speech, as if we, whose Churches have not a very altar to kill our Savior Christ and sacrifice him upon it, had but a common table and profane communion board to eat mere bread upon. A seat to make us odious in the eyes of men, whom you would persuade that we discern not the body of the Lord. Which your privy sclander doth us open injury. For we have not a common, but a holy table, as both we call it, and esteem it; not a profane communion boorde, but a sanctified; to eat, not mere bread, but the Lord's supper ; wherein we receive the bread of thanks-giving and the cup of blessing, as the Apostles doctrine and practice of the Fathers teach us. Your selves are guilty rather of feeding men with mere bread, who do take away the cup of the new testament in the blood of Christ from the Christian people; and in steed of the blessed bread of the sacrament do give in your Masses mere bread in deed by your own confession, the common bread that goeth under the name of holy-bread. I would to God, M. Hart, you would think with yourself, even in your bed, (as the Prophet speaketh,) and consider more deeply both the wicked abuses wherewith the holy sacrament of the Lord's supper is profaned in your unholy sacrifice of the Mass ; and the treacherous means whereby your Master and Felowes of the College of Reims do seek to maintain it. Who being not able to prove it by the scriptures either of the altar, or of the clean offering, the principal places whereon their show standeth: they go about to breed a good opinion of it in the hearts of the simple, partly, by discrediting us with false reproaches; partly, by abusing the credit of the Fathers. Which two kinds of proof do bear the greatest sway through all your Rhemish Annotations.

We do not abuse the credit of the Fathers to persuade an error: but as we endeavor to follow them in truth, so allege we them to prove the truth by them. And howsoever you avoid the place of S. Paul, where it is said, we have an altar : the prophecy of Malachi, that in every place there is sacrificed and offered a clean offering to God, must needs belong to the very and outward sacrifice of the Mass, not to spiritual sacrifices. Which because that reverend man, D▪ Allen, whose treatise of the Mass is such a mote in your eye, doth prove by six reasons, the pith whereof he greatly praiseth: I will bring them forth in his own words, that you may yield the rather to them. First therefore, the word to sacrifice and to offer, being used by it self without a term abridging it, is taken in the scripture always properly for the act of outward sacrifice. But when it is said, the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of crying, the sacrifice of contrition, and the like: it is perceived easily by the words annexed that they be taken improperly. Secondly, this sacrifice, of the which the Prophet speaketh, is one: but spiritual sacrifices there are so many as there are good works of Christian religion. Thirdly, this is the proper and peculiar sacrifice of the new law, and the Gentiles, not of the Jews. But spiritual sacrifices of prayers and works are common to the Jews with us. Fourthly, this that Malachi meaneth doth succeed the sacrifices of the Jews, and is offered in their steed: but prayer, fasting, and the works of charity do not succeed any, but are joined and coopled to every kind of sacrifices. Fifthly, our works (chiefly in the judgment of heretics) are defiled, howsoever they seem beautiful: but this Prophetical offering is clean of it self, and so clean of it self in comparison of the old sacrifices, that it cannot be polluted any way by us or by the worst Priests. For here, in our testament, they cannot choose all the best to them selves, and offer to the Lord for sacrifice the feeble, the lame, and the sick, as before in the old: because there is now one sacrifice so appointed, that it cannot be changed; so clean, that no work of ours can distaine it. Finally, the Fathers, and all that ever have expounded this place of purpose catholikely, have expounded it of the sacrifice of the Mass: yea then, when they speak of the sacrifice of prayer, yea or of spiritual sacrifice. Wherein the heretics deceive and are deceived. For the Fathers call our sacrifice sometimes an offering of prayer, and a spiritual sacrifice, because it is made with blessing and with prayer mystical: because the victime that is here, hath not a gross, carnal, and bloody consecration or sacrification, as had the victimes of the Jews. See Tertullian in the third book against Marcion, in the end; Justin, in Trypho; Irenaeus, in the fourth book, the two and thirtieth chapter; Jerome, on the eighth of Zechariah; Austin, in the first book against the adversary of the law, and the eightenth chapter; albeit in the second book against the letters of Petilian he doth expound it of the sacrifice of praise: Cyprian also, in the first book the sixtenth chapter against the Jews; Cyril, in the book of worshipping in spirit and truth; Eusebius, in the first book of preparation of the gospel; Damascene, in the fourth book of the Catholic faith, and the fourtenth chapter; Theodoret, upon the first chapter of Malachi. Thus far D. Allen. By whom you may perceive, that we bring the right opinion of the Fathers, with many other reasons out of the circumstances of the text it self, to prove that the clean offering in the Prophet Malachi doth signify the sacrifice of the blessed Mass.

Nay, I may perceive that D. Allen bringeth the names of the Fathers, though Damascene a child in respect of the rest, far in years beneth them, & farther in judgment; but their names he bringeth, he bringeth not their right opiniō. For if their opiniō be searched & examined, it maketh nothing for him. And therefore he doth only name them & quote them. Which point of his wisdom your Rhemists follow much. Many other reasons he bringeth, I grant, besides the names of Fathers : but it had been better for him not to bring them. For Tertullian, Justin, Irenaeus, Jerome, Austin, Cyprian, Cyril, Eusebius, Damascene, and Theodoret, would make a fair show with their names alone, if the other reasons and they were set a sunder. Now, being matched in a band together, and agreeing no better then Ephraim with Manasseh, and Manasseh with Ephraim, who did eat up one another, they mar the matter with their discord. That, as the Emperor Adrian said, when he was dying, The multitude of physicians hath cast away the Emperor: so may you complain, the multitude of reasons hath cast away the proof, which your Mass did hope to procure by Malachi.

Not so. But their multitude helpeth one another. For many things, which singled by them selves are weak, are strong if they be joined: and a threefold cord is not easily broken.

This is a roape of sand rather, then a cord : it will not hang together. For whereas D. Allen doth thus allege Malachi after your old translation, in every place there is sacrificed and offered a clean offering to my name, saith the Lord of hosts: the Hebrew text, and after the Hebrew the Greek of the seventy interpreters (which the Fathers follow) do set it down thus; in every place there is incense offered to my name, and a clean offering. Now the word [incense] is used in the scripture simply for prayers, in the fifth chapter of the Revelation : where the golden vials of the four and twenty Elders are full of odors, or incenses (to keep the word,) which are the prayers of the Saints. And so do the Fathers expound the same in Malachi. Wherefore the first reason which you rehearsed of D. Allens, that the word [to sacrifice] being used by it self without a term abridging it, is taken in the scripture always properly for the act of outward sacrifice, is false, both in it self, and by the judgment of the Fathers. For that word of his, is incense in the Fathers according to the scripture. But incense in the scripture is taken for prayers figuratively. By the judgment therefore and exposition of the Fathers, that word doth not infer the sacrifice of the Mass, but our spiritual sacrifices.

In deed S. John expoundeth in the Apocalypse those odors to be the prayers of the Saints. But thereby it is plain (as we note upon it) that the Saints in heaven offer up y ^e prayers of faithful and holy persons in earth (called here Saints, and in the scripture often) unto Christ. And among so many divine and unsearchable mysteries set down without exposition, it pleased God yet, that the Apostle him self should open this one point unto us, that these odors be the laudes and prayers of the faithful, ascending and offered up to God as incense, by the Saints in heaven. That so you may have no excuse of your error, that the Saints have no knowledge of our affairs or desires.

You are too too flitting on every occasion from the present point in question to others. And yet, if we should enter into that controversy about the worship of Saints: that honor which you give them would find no succor here. For neither doth it follow that we must pray to them though they did offer up our prayers; neither is it certain, that the Saints in heaven only are represented in the four and twenty Elders; neither, if they be, can you prove that the prayers of Saints, which they offer, are other men's prayers, they may be their own. And for my part I do rather think that the four and twenty Elders represent all the Saints and faithful both in heaven and earth, who offer up their own prayers as incense to God. For after that S. John had said that the odors are the prayers of the Saints: he addeth, that they sang a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, because thou wast killed and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us Kings and Priests unto our God, and we shall reign upon the earth. By the which words it seemeth that he openeth what the prayers are which they offer to Christ. And since they, who offer them, do say of them selves that Christ hath made them Kings and Priests, which S. John before affirmeth of the Saints on earth: it may be that they also, and not the Saints in heaven only, are represented by the four and twenty Elders.

Nay: the four and twenty Elders are described with golden crowns upon their heads. And the crown is given to Saints in heaven, as it is written: Be thou faithful until death, and I will give thee the crown of life.

The reward of life, given to the Saints in heaven when they have strived as they ought to do, and gotten the victory, is called a crown, or (as we speak) a garland, by allusion to a custom that was among the Grecians. For such as got the mastery in their games of wrestling, or running, or the like, were crowned with a garland in token of victory. Whereupon the scripture (by a figure of speech) doth call life eternal, wherewith God rewardeth the conquerors, the crown of life: not a corruptible crown, as those of the Grecians were, but incorruptible, a crown that cannot wither, even a crown of glory. And as the crown is taken in this sense for a garland, to signify the bliss of endless life and joy: it is given only to the Saints in heaven, who rest from their labors. But the four and twenty Elders had golden crowns set upon their heads; and a crown of gold betokeneth a kingdom. Wherefore since the Saints on earth are kings also, and not the Saints in heaven only: the four & twenty Elders may signify them both. As it is both their duties to cast their crowns before the throne, and say to him who sitteth on it, Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory, and honor, and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy willes sake they are, and were created.

But they are said also to be clothed in white raiment. And the white raiment is used to betoken the brightness of glory, wherewith the Saints in heaven are clad. For Christ doth pronounce of the godly in Sardis, that they shall walk with him in white : and when upon the mountain his clothes were white glistering, it was a token of his glory.

But as white raiment doth betoken glory, so doth it grace too. For our Savior adviseth the Church of the Laodiceans to buy of him white raiment, that she may be clothed, and that her filthy nakedness do not appear. And the scripture showeth touching the faithful of all tongues, and people's, and kindreds, and nations, that they had washed their robes and made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb. Wherefore since no more is said of the Elders but that they were in white raiment : it may as well agree to the Saints on earth, who are in white of grace; as to the Saints in heaven, who are in white of glory.

But they were sitting on four and twenty seats about the throne of God : and the throne is said to have been set in heaven. Wherefore it cannot be that the Saints on earth should be meant thereby.

Why? Was not S. Paul on earth when he said our conversation is in heaven ? Or, doth he not mean the same of all the faithful, who live after the laws of the heavenly city, that is, the Church of God, and are not earthly minded? Doth not S. John him self in the Revelation say that a great wonder appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon was under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars, and she was with child, and cried travailing in birth, and was pained ready to be delivered ? And is not the Church on earth hereby meant, clad as it were with Christ, who is the sun of righteousness; treading down things worldly, which change as the moon; adorned with the doctrine of the Apostles, as of stars; and bringing forth the faithful, as children, unto God? Doth not he say farther that there was a battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, but they prevailed not, nether was their place found anymore in heaven ? And is not this also meant of the militant Church: in which the Prince of the faithful, Michael, that is Christ, with his angels and servants, doth fight against the dragon, that is, the devil, with his angels, even all his powers and ministers, and doth prevail against them? Then if the Church militant on earth be represented both in this battle and in that woman, as yourselves confess, and yet S. John describeth the one to have appeared, the other to be doon in heaven: the four & twenty Elders might have their seats in heaven by S. John's vision, and notwithstanding signify the faithful on the earth also. Which yet I say not, as defining it to be so; for I had rather learn then teach the Revelation, wherein I do acknowledge there are many mysteries that God hath not revealed to me: but only to show that you have no ground in the holy scripture why you should restrain it to the Saints in heaven. And if I could satisfy myself with such advantage to pluck down your fancies, as you content yourselves with to set them up: I might as well restrain it to the Saints on earth, since the Elders say, we shall reign upon the earth; perhaps, as Christ said, that the meek are blessed, for they shall inherit the earth. But you and your Rhemists should have doon well (before you meddled with the scriptures) to learn S. Austin's lesson given to the Donatists : who when they alleged as fit a place of scripture out of the song of Solomon to prove that the Church was in Afric alone, as you to prove that Saints in heaven know our desires, out of the Revelation: S. Austin telleth them that he were very impudent who would expound an allegory or dark speech of scripture for his own advantage, unless he have also plain and manifest testimonies, by the light whereof the dark may be made evident. Which point in this place doth touch you the nearer, because, though it be granted that the Elders signify the Saints in heaven alone: yet the prayers, which are spoken off, may be their own prayers, to show that they serve God, as it is shown after that the Angels do, and all the creatures in heaven, and on the earth, and in the sea, and under the earth, and the four beasts, and finally them selves again. For, there are manifest testimonies of scripture that all the Saints offer up their own prayers, in which respect they all are Priests. But no manifest testimony, that their prayers are offered in heaven unto God by any other person then by Christ Jesus, the hye Priest of our profession, the Angel of the covenant, the only mediator between God and man. And this doth seem to be that Angel, that other Angel, of whom it is written in the Revelation, An other Angel came and stood before the altar having a golden censer, and there was much odors given unto him that he should put them into the prayers of all the Saints on the golden altar which is before the throne: and the smoke of the odors, which were put into the prayers of the Saints, went up before God out of the Angels hand. For although the Angels be ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for the Saints on earth, who shall inherit salvation, and therefore as they serve to certify them that their prayers are come up before God, so they might rather offer their prayers to God, then the Saints in heaven, who have no such ministry to serve the Saints on earth: yet because this Angel standing with a censer at the altar of incense to burn perfume before God, is set forth as doing that duty, which the hie Priest did figure in the law; and our hye Priest is, no created Angel, but he by whom the Angels were created, even Christ ; it followeth that Christ is meant by the Angel. To whom this name is given oftentimes in scripture, because he is an Angel, that is to say, a messenger, sent by God his father to open his will unto his servants, and work their salvation by his covenant. And it may be, that, as God the father having said of him, Behold I send an Angel, doth add, my name is in him, to show that he is God : so, to distinguish him from the created Angels, who are often mentioned in the Revelation, S. John doth cal him another Angel, as differing from the rest, not only in number, but also in nature, authority, and dignity. For those things which are written of the Angel, who had the seal of the living God ; who casting fire into the earth the Angels blew their trumpets, and poured out the plagues of God: who coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and the rainebow upon his head, and his face was as the sun, & his feet as pillars of fire, had in his hand a little book, & set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the lande ; which are namely written of an other Angel, an other mighty Angel, as he is also called: do (if the circumstances of the text be weighed) best agree to Christ. But whether it be so, or no: it is certain that Christ is the Angel who putteth odors of most sweet perfume into the prayers of all the Saints, as our hye Priest, and offereth them to God his father, to whom he maketh always intercession for us, and is not only for our prayers but for our selves also an odour of a sweet smelling savor before him. Wherefore since the scripture manifestly showeth that our Savior Christ offereth the prayers of all the Saints, and not that the Saints in heaven offer the prayers of the Saints on earth: you might have been contented to leave this honor unto Christ, and have suffered me to go forward with your reasons about the offering in Malachi. For you see how we are fallen from the Pope to Priests, from Priests to the Mass, from Mass to the Saints. And if I should follow the same vein on that which you have said of Saints, and touch your abuse, who confessing that the scriptures give that name to faithful and holy persons in earth, yet (to maintain your solemn invocation of dead men ) do make it proper, not to Saints in heaven, but to them whom it shall please the Pope to canonize, or defy, (as the Master of his sacred ceremonies termeth it,) wherein notwithstanding your Doctors also teache that the Pope may err, and canonize a wicked person for a Saint, so that it may be (even by your own doctrine) that in your Church-service you worship them, as Saints, whose spirits are in hell with the devil and his Angels: I say, if I should flit thus from point to point on every occasion that your speech doth offer, we should confound our conference, and never make an end of the point in question. Wherefore let other questions I pray be reserved to their due place touching the faith of the Church. And now, to finish this touching the head of the Church, let us go forward with your Mass-priests, that so we may return to the Popes supremacy. Of the six reasons therefore which you alleged out of D. Allen, to prove, that the clean offering which Malachi doth write of is the sacrifice of the Mass, and not spiritual sacrifices: the first is convinced clearly to be false, and that by the consent of all the same Fathers whom he would prove it by. For the word, which noteth an outward sacrifice with him, with all them is incense of sweet perfumes and odors. But incense in the scripture is taken for the prayers of the Saints as you grant. The word then which he doth build the Mass upon, is not always taken properly in scripture for the act of outward sacrifice.

But he doth not only urge the word, to sacrifice, for which indeed the Fathers and the Hebrew text have incense : but the word, to offer. And if that be always taken properly for the act of outward sacrifice: his reason is of force still.

But the force of his reason doth lie upon the word, to sacrifice, not to offer. For him self granteth that lay men, yea women too, are said to offer properly and truly: when, as in the old law the tithes and first fruits commanded to be given to the Levites and the poor were presented before God; so they present bread and wine for the communion, or alms for the relief of the poor and needy, or any earthly gifts and offerings for holy uses, as the Fathers show. Wherefore though the word, to offer, were always taken properly for the act of outward offering: it proveth not the offering of your outward sacrifice: since the wise men offered gifts unto Christ, the faithful Jews at the altar, lay men and women at the Mass ; and yet nether any of them were Massing-priests, nor their offerings, Massing-hosts. Much less doth it prove it, as Malachi applieth it to the offering of incense. For, as incense signifieth the prayers of the Saints : so to offer incense must be to sacrifice those prayers. But the sacrifice of prayers is a spiritual sacrifice. Wherefore the word to offer, doth not prove your outward sacrifice of the Mass. And so the first reason is gone. The second followeth: which is no sounder then the former. For why doth Allen say, that the sacrifice spoken of in Malachi is one: and therefore betokeneth not spiritual sacrifices, the which are as many as there are Christian good works?

Why? Because the text of the Prophet Malachi saith that there is offered a clean oblation, or offering, as you call it. And offering is spoken of one, not of many. For else he should have said, offerings, not offering.

So. And do you think that he who said to God, sacrifice & offering thou art not delited with, or (as you translate it) host and oblation thou wouldest not : did mean the Mass by that host?

The Mass ? No. He meant the hosts and oblations of the old law. For they are the words of the Prophet David, spoken of the legal and carnal sacrifices of the Jews.

The Jews? Nay: the text of the Prophet David saith that God mislyked host and oblation ; it saith not, hosts and oblations. Wherefore since he speaketh of one, not of many; and the carnal sacrifices of the Jews were many, but the sacrifice of the Mass is one, as you say: it seemeth he should mean that. A point some what dangerous for the host, which your Priests lift up to be adored. More dangerous for them, who live by lifting it up.

Our adoration of the host is good, in spite of all heretics, and not reproved by the Prophet. For, although he saith, host and oblation thou wouldest not: yet is it plain he meaneth the sacrifices of the Jews by a figure of speech, in which a part is used for the whole, and one for many; as host, and oblation, for hosts, and oblations.

Then Allens second reason is not worth a shoobuckle to prove that the sacrifice of y ^e Mass is meant by the oblation in Malachi. For the word oblation, or offering, which he useth in his own language, is used likewise still, as of one, not as of many, through all the old testament. Wherefore if the sacrifices of the Jews were many, which nevertheless are called not offerings, but offering : the same word applied to the sacrifices of Christians cannot enforce them to be one. Howbeit, were they one, to grant you that by a supposal: yet might that one sacrifice be a spiritual sacrifice, and so your Mass no whit the nearer. For as the Prophet Isaiah saith that the Gentiles shall be an offering to the Lord, using the same word that the Prophet Malachi : so the Apostle Paul exhorteth them with Isaiah to present their bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, speaking of their sundry sacrifices as one; as also, in a mystery, we that are many are one body. But without supposal, the course of the text doth import rather that the Prophet, saying, there is offered an offering, doth mean not one, but many, by that figure which you touched: as by another figure he saith, it is offered, meaning, it shall be offered. For the Lord declaring his detestation of the sacrifices of the Jewish Priests, saith that he will not accept an offering at their hand : but the Gentiles shall offer to him a clean offering, which he meaneth of the contrary that he will accept. And this he showeth farther, where, touching it again, he saith it shall be offered unto him in righteousness, and shall be acceptable to him. Now, the offering that is acceptable to God from the Gentiles in the new testament, is all sortes of spiritual sacrifices and good works. By the offering therefore mentioned in Malachi there are many sacrifices meant, not one only. Which yet your old translation maketh more evident, opening the meaning of the Hebrew word by terming it sacrifices, They shall offer sacrifices to the Lord in righteousenesse. Wherefore since our offering that should please God in the time of the gospel, is sacrifices by the judgment of your old translation, which you in no case may refuse; and sacrifices cannot be meant of the Mass, for that is one sacrifice, but of spiritual sacrifices it may, for they are many, as Allens second reason saith: you see, we must conclude on his own principles, that the clean offering, which Malachi writeth of, doth signify the spiritual sacrifices of Christians, and not the sacrifice of the Mass. The third and fourth reasons have greater show, but lesser weight. For, though it be true that spiritual sacrifices of praying to God and doing good to men are common to the Jews with us, and therefore may seem not to be the offering spoken of in Malachi, which, beside that it is proper to the Gospel and the Gentiles, it should succeed also the sacrifices of the Jews, and be offered in their steed : yet if we mark the difference that the scriptures put between the Jewish worship of God in the law, and the Christian in the gospel, that seeming will melt as snow before the sun. For in the law of Moses, the Jews, to the intent that both their redemption by the death of Christ & duty of thankfulness which they did owe to God for it, might still be set before them as in a figure & shadow; were willed to offer beasts without spot & blemish in sacrifice, with ceremonies thereto annexed, and to offer them in the place that God should choose, which was the city of Jerusalem, and the sanctuary, that is to say, the temple built therein. Now Christ, in the gospel, when that was fulfilled which the temple of Jerusalem and sacrifices did represent, shown that the time of reformation was come, and removed that worship both in respect of the place and of the manner of it. For as it was prophesied that he should destroy the city and the sanctuary, and cause the sacrifice and offering to cease : so him self taught that now the Father would not be worshipped in Jerusalem, nor as the Jews did worship him, but he would be worshipped in spirit and truth. The Christian worship therefore that did succeed the Jewish, doth differ from it in two pointes: one, that it worshippeth God not in Jerusalem, but in all places ; another, that it worshippeth him in spirit, and truth; in spirit, without the carnal ceremonies & rites; in truth, without the shadows of the law of Moses. The which sort of worship seeing he requireth of the true worshippers, that is of all the Saints, his servants; and in the new testament the Gentiles by the Gospel are called to be Saints : the worship, that is proper to the Gospel and the Gentiles, is the true spiritual worship of God, the reasonable serving of him by godliness, and good works, in righteousness, and true holiness ; even the offering up of spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And thus you may see the weakness of those cavils which are brought to prove that our spiritual sacrifices cannot be the offering whereof God in Malachi saith it shall be offered to him in every place. For the former of them, that spiritual sacrifices of prayers and works are common to the Jews with us, deceiveth with a fallacy: because ou • spiritual are spiritual merely, whereas they had carnal sacrifices with their spiritual. The later doth discover this fraud of the former, but with another fraud. For in that it saith, that praying, fasting, and the works of charity were joined to their sacrifices: it showeth that their worship (though in part spiritual ) was not spiritual merely. But in that it gathereth thereof, that these things cannot succeed their sacrifices, there is another fallacy: because although the worship of God were still spiritual, as he is still a spirit, and so no worship may succeed, for how can a thing succeed it self? yet, the same in substance came forth in sundry manners, and so one manner of it might succeed another. As the word of God, touching the salvation of men by faith in Christ, was always the same: but uttered in sundry manners by the Prophets, and by Christ. In which sort the worship of God was ordered also: by the Prophets, covertly, under the veils of ceremonies; by Christ, plainly and simply. Wherefore, as the doctrine of Christ did succeed the doctrine of the Prophets, both the same doctrine, but taught by Christ more clearly, more darkly by the Prophets: so the spiritual worship of God in the Gospel succeeded his spiritual worship in the law, both the same worship, but laden with ceremonies & shadows in the law, disburdned of them in the Gospel.

I cannot see those fallacies which you charge D. Allen with. For if the Jews did offer prayers to God and other such spiritual sacrifices, as they did: then is it true, as he saith, that spiritual sacrifices are common unto them with us. And if they be common unto them with us, it followeth, in my judgment, that ours succeed not theirs: since to succeed, is to come after; and how may that come after which did go before?

I have shown, how. And if you see it not: the veil may be the cause, which is very likely to be laid on your heart in reading of the new testament, as it was on the heart of others, in reading of the old. For the thing is plain of it self, and evident, that the spiritual sacrifices which the Jews offered, as namely their prayers, did not discharge their duty but they must offer carnal also; and that not everywhere, but in the place that God had chosen. In so much, that albeit they might pray in all places lawfully, as we may, yet must they come thither to worship God at certain times : and Daniel, though he could not because of their captivity, yet had his windows open toward Jerusalem, when he prayed: and the faithful wept by the rivers of Babylon, how should we sing the lords song in a strange lande ? and the princely Prophet lamented that his banishment did keep him from appeering there, and longed to behold the power and glory of God, as he beheld it in the sanctuary ; and being sick as it were with the love of his tabernacles, yea fainting with desire of coming to his courts and altars, he pronounced them blessed who dwell in that house, yea, who may come unto it, yea though they travail hardly thereto through dry places, to present themselves before God in Zion. Whereas Christians, of the other side, neither have those altars or offerings made theron to join with their spiritual sacrifice of praise, and they may sing the songs of the Lord in all places. No land is strange : no ground unholy. Every coast is Jewry, and every town Jerusalem, and every house Zion, and every faithful company, yea every faithful body a temple to serve God in. The Christian worship then doth differ even in prayers from that of the Jews, both in respect of the temple, which they had a regard to: and of the ceremonies of the law, which they were bound therewith to keep. Wherefore, as the ministry of the new testament, that is, of them who taught the gospel, came after the ministry of Priests in the old, and yet both old and new are the Lord's testament : so might and did the worship of God amongst Christians in spirit and truth come after the worship of God amongst the Jews, though yet they both did worship God spiritually. For the Jews before did worship in the temple with the ceremonies of the law: as when the Priest was burning incense at the altar in the inner part thereof, the multitude of the people were praying in the outer. And the Christians after did pray without incense in any place, the people and Pastor all together: as the Apos • les with the disciples, and ( according to their instruction) the primitive Churches practice show. But these points of difference between us and them be perhaps the harder for you to understand, because your Popish worship is so like the Jewish, both for the temple, and the ceremonies, that you may justly think their worship was in spirit and truth as much as yours. For as the Priest with them was severed from the people by the division of the sanctuary and court of the temple : so with you, by the chancell and body of the church. As with them he burned incense at the altar: so with you he doth. As with them he was clad in an Ephod, a miter, a broidered coat, a girdle, a breastplate, and a robe, and they who served him were in their linen coats too: so with you he must have an amice, an albe, a girdle, a fanel, a chisible, and a stole, and they who are about him have surplesses, yea copes also. Their Priests had a laver whereat they must wash before they sacrificed: so have yours. Your veil between the quire and the altar in lent, resembleth theirs, that severed the holy place from the most holy. Your pyx with the sacrament, and their ark with the mercy seat ; your phylacterie with Saints relics, and their pot with Manna ; your monstrancie with the host, and their table with the show-bread ; your holy oil of balm, and theirs of myrrh with spices; their purifying water made of the ashes of an heifer, and yours of other ashes with water, wine, and salt ; their fire sent from heaven, and yours fetched thence by art; their rod of Aaron, and your cross of Christ ; finally, your candles, or tapers, or torches, and their candlestick with lamps, do match one another in proportion of rites: nay, you surpass them in your candles. For theirs were lighted in the night: yours, in the day too. Theirs, in the temple only: yours, abroad also. Theirs, before the Lord : yours, before images. Theirs, in one manner: yours, with great variety. Theirs, in small number: yours, at times, and places, as many as the sand of the sea. And what should I speak of the rest of the things in which you do not only follow their ceremonies, but also go beyond them? Your consecrating of Bishops, of churches, of altars, of patens, of chalices, and other instruments of your Priesthood, by anointing them, according to the order of Aaron and the tabernacle. Your shaving, as of Levites ; your imagery, as from Solomon ; your halowing of men, belles, ashes, boughs, bread, the paschal Lamb, the paschal taper, agnus-deis (and what not?) with exorcized water : wherewith almost all things are purged by your law, as by theirs with blood. Your purifying (as they called it) or (as you term it) reconciling of a churchyard,