Conference Between Rainolds and Hart

There is a veil rather of presumption over your heart, who condemn the Catholic ceremonies as Jewish : then of ignorance over ours, who embrace them as Christian. For the Council of Trent, which was gathered together and guided by the holy Ghost, hath accursed them who say that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, used in the solemn ministering of sacraments, may be despised. And those of the blessed sacrifice of the Mass, whereat your spite is greatest, the holy Fathers of that Council have shown to be grounded on the tradition of the Apostles, not on the law of Moses. For as much (say they) as the nature of men is such, that it cannot be lifted up easily to the meditation of divine things without outward helps: therefore our holy mother the Church hath ordained certain rites, to weete, that some things should be pronounced in the Mass with a soft voice, and some things with a louder. Moreover she hath used ceremonies too, as namely mystical blessings, lights, incense, vestments, and many other such things, by the discipline and tradition of the Apostles: to the ende that both the majesty of so great a sacrifice might be set forth, and the minds of the faithful might be raised up by these visible signs of religion and godliness to the contemplation of most high things which do▪ lie hidden in this sacrifice. These are the Councils words. Whereby you may perceive, that the rites and ceremonies used at the Mass, are not Jewish, but Apostolic : as (if need were) it might be shown in particulars, of incense, by S. Denys ; of lights, by S. Austin ; of the rest, by other Fathers.

What? of the vestments too? fanel, amice, albe, stole, and such trinkets?

I, even of them too: as basely and scornfully as you speak of them. Nor yet are these of ours like in all respects to those which the Priests did wear amongst the Jews. From whom in other pointes our ceremonies differ also. As for example, their incense was a perfume most precious: ours, is simple frankincense. Their lights must be of pure oil : ours are of wax, and may be of other stuff indifferently. Which since it is likewise apparent in the rest, as you must needs confess, at least for sundry of them: you are to blame greatly to reproach the ceremonies of the Church as Jewish.

Nay, you did mistake me, if you thought I meant that they are all Jewish, or Jewish absolutely. For I must needs confess that some of them are Heathnish rather then Jewish. As namely the shaving of your Priests crowns: after the manner of Priests of Isis in Egypt. Your lighting of candles on Candlemas-day : which came from the Februall ceremonies of the Romans. Your painting or grauing of the images of men : a thing that Christians took by custom of the Heathens. Your censing of images, and setting tapers before them: as the Romans also did, when they were Heathens. To be short, the whole substance of your image-worship, your kyssing, kneeling, & creeping to the image of the cross, like Sicilians to Hercules ; your images borne in procession, like to the Grecians idols; your pilgrimage to Saints images, where they are most famous, as our Lady of Lauretto, like Diana of Ephesus, with infinite such other fancies, do resemble lively the Heathnish rites of Paganism, and grew by likelihood from the Heathens. But I▪ because the temple of Solomon had images, although not of men; the Levites had shaving, although not of crowns; the tabernacle had lights, although not in y ^e day time, much less at the beginning of February more then other times: did speak of your Popish rites herein as Jewish, to make the best of them. And for all the difference that you find betwixt them, of wax in yours, and oil in theirs; and their perfume, and your frankincense ; though frankincense was mingled with their perfume also, and made an incense too without it; but granting this difference betwixt them to the uttermost: yet are yours Jewish in the kind thereof, because they are shadows such as were the Jewish. And it is likely, that they who devised them did fetch them out of Moses, as they who defend them do ground them upon Moses. For the fairest color that either Bishop Durand, or others set upon them, is, that God ordained them in Moses law. As Pope Innocentius saith that the Catholic Church doth hold that Bishops ought to be anointed, because the Lord commanded Moses to anoint Aaron and his sons : and again, that temples, and altars, and chalices ought to be anointed, because the Lord commanded Moses to anoint the tabernacle, and ark▪ and table with the vessels.

But Pope Innocentius addeth, that the sacrament of unction (or anointing ) doth figure and work another thing in the new testament then it did in the old. And thereof he concludeth that they lie who charge the Church with Judaizing (that is, with doing as the Jews did ) in that it celebrateth the sacrament of unction.

Yet Pope Innocentius doth not bring that difference between the Jews and you, that your holy unction is made of oil, and balm, where theirs was made of oil & myrrh with other spices. He knew that the difference of this or that ingredient in the stuff of it would not clear your Church from Judaizing in the kind of the purgation, that is, the rite whereby you sanctify Priests and altars. No more, then if you should sacrifice a dog, and say that you do not therein as the Jews did, because they did sacrifice, not dogs, but sheep & oxen. As for the difference by which the Pope seuereth your vnctiō from theirs, that yours doth work and figure another thing then theirs did : first, it wrought as much in their altars, as in yours, for anything that I know. Secondly, it figured in their Priests the gifts of the holy ghost: which he saith it doth in yours. Thirdly, were it so that it had another either work or meaning with you then with them, as after a sort it hath, both in respect of him, who ordered theirs; and the cause, why: yet might the ceremony be Jewish notwithstanding. For (I trust) you will not maintain but it were Judaism for your Church to sacrifice a lamb in burnt offering, though you did it to signify, not Christ that was to come, as the Jews did, but that Christ is come, and hath by his passion both entered in himself and brought in others to his glory. At the least, S. Peter did contstrain the Gentiles to Judaize, (as you term it,) when they were induced by his example and authority to allow the Jewish rite in choice of meats. Yet neither he, nor they allowed it in that meaning, which it was given to the Jews in. For it was given them to betoken that holiness, and train them up unto it, which Christ by his grace should bring to the faithful. And Peter knew that Christ had doon this in truth, and taken away that figure, yea, the whole yoke of the law of Moses : which point he taught the Gentiles also. Wherefore, although your Church do keep the Jewish rites, with another meaning then God ordained them for the Jews, as Pope Innocentius saith, to salve that blister: yet this of Peter showeth that the thing is Jewish, and you do Judaize who keep them.

S. Peter did not err in faith, but in behavior, when he withdrew him self from eating with the Gentiles. For that was a defaute in conversation not in doctrine, as Tertullian saith. Neither doth S. Austin think otherwise of it.

I grant. For he offended not in the truth of the gospel, but in walking according to it, that having lived before not as the Jews, but Gentile-like, yet then he left the Gentiles for fear of the Jews, and dissembled his judgment touching that point of Christian doctrine. But this doth so much more convince both your Church of Judaizing in her ceremonies, and your doctrine of corrupting the gospel with that leaven. For if S. Peter was to be condemned, as causing them to Judaize, whom through infirmity he drew by example to play the Jews in one rite: what may your Church be thought of, which of settled judgment doth move and force Christians to play the Jews in so many? And he did acknowledge the truth of the doctrine by silence, and submission, when S. Paul reproved him. But Pope Innocentius saith that they lie who touch your Church for it. Wherefore the Pope, or rather the Popes and Papists all, who maintain the doctrine of the Trent-Council approving both the rest of your Jewish rites, and namely that of unction confirmed out of Moses by Pope Innocentius : they do not offend as the true Apostle of Christ S. Peter did; but as the false Apostles, who troubled the Galatians, and perverted the gospel by mingling of the law with it.

Your words should have some coolour of truth against the Church, if we taught that men ought to be circumcised, as did the false Apostles.

Why? Shall no heretics be counted false teachers in the Church of Christ, unless they teach in all point • as did the false Prophets ?

But, (as I have shown out of the Council of Trent, ) the ceremonies which we use in the sacrifice of the Mass, as namely mystical blessings, lights, incense, vestments, and many other such things, came all not from the false but from the true Apostles. And if there be any which they ordained not: that might be ordained by our holy mother the Church. As it was, that some things should be pronounced in the Mass with a soft voice, & some things with a louder. For such is the nature of men, that it cannot be lifted up easily to the meditation of divine things without outward helps. Which reason, added by the Council, doth warrant all our rites both of the Churches ordinance, and the Apostolic tradition against your cavils and surmises.

Alas. And see you not how giddily the Council doth bring in that reason, that because our nature doth need outward helps, therefore some things should be pronounced softly, some aloud? For the very chiefest of the outward helps, which God hath ordained to raise our minds from earth to heaven, is the hearing of his word. His word is rehearsed in the Epistle, the Gospel, the Canon, and other partes of the Mass. The Mass you forbid to be said in the vulgar or mother tongue of the people : so that if all were cried as loud as Baals service, the people could not understand it. Yet not content with that, you will a part of it to be said with a soft voice, that the poor souls may not as much as hear it. Wherefore the reason which your Council maketh for that Massing-rite, is this in effect, that because the blindness and coldness of men doth need to be lightened and warmed by God's word▪ which is rehearsed in the Mass: therefore a part of it must be pronounced with a soft voice, that they may not hear it; part with a louder, but in a strange tongue, that, although they hear it, they may not understand it. And was there not a mighty spirit of giddines in the Princes of Trent, that made them write so droonkenly? Yea, with a curse to seal it too?

They curse him who saith that the rite of the Roman Church, whereby part of the Canon and the words of consecration are uttered with a soft voice, is to be condemned: or that the Mass ought to be celebrated only in the vulgar tongue. And great reason why.

No dout. For as the Jews, when they could not justify their willful withstanding of the Son of God, agreeed, that if any man confessed him to be Christ, he should be excommunicated : so by like reason your Iudaizers of Rome do banne and curse us, when they cannot justify their impudent customs and corruptions against us.

The customs are Catholic and religious rites, which they do establish with the severity of the curse.

Catholic, and religious, to keep the Saints of God from hearing of God's word? Catholic, and religious, to have the Church-service in a tongue which the Church, the faithful people, understand not?

Yea, Catholic, and religious, if you mark the reasons which they give thereof. For of the one, they show, that the Church hath ordained it : of the other, that the Fathers thought it not expedient it should be had in the vulgar tongue.

Not the ancient Fathers ? Why, they are clear for it: and younger Fathers too. Yea, Fathers both, and children, I mean the whole Churches, of all nations, in the old time; of many, even till this day: as namely of the Syrians, Armenians, Slauonians, Moscouites, and Ethiopians.

What so ever Churches or Fathers do, or have doon: it seemed not expedient to the Fathers assembled in the Council of Trent. And they, being Bishops and Pastors of the Church, might take order for rites and ceremonies of the Church by your own confessions.

They might. But our confessions withal should have taught them, that as they may provide for things to be doon with comeliness and in order: so their rites and ceremonies must be all to edify. Which the Trent-fathers observed not in this rite, of having the service in a strange tongue, as themselves acknowledge. For they write expressly, that although the Mass contain great instruction of the faithful people, yet the Fathers have not thought it expedient that it should be soong or said everywhere in the vulgar tongue. Whereof this is the meaning, to open it in plainer words, that the corrupt custom of the Church of Rome, praying, and reading the scriptures in a strange tongue, in deed doth not edify: yet must stand for policy, to keep their Churches credit. For if they should yield that they have erred in one thing, men would dout perhaps that they might err in more. And this do they farther bewray by the other point of uttering the words of consecration secretly, that the faithful may not hear them. For in saying that the Church hath ordained that rite, they do closely grant that Christ ordained it not. Nay, their own men teach that the example of Christ, and the order of his Apostles, with the Fathers too, is manifest against it. Beside that, in calling it a rite of the Church of Rome, they signify that other Churches do not use it, no not the Greek Church. And yet against the practice of Churches, of Fathers, of Apostles, and of Christ, they say that a dumb show (which crept in by custom ) was ordained by our holy mother the Church : and, as men resolved to wallow in their own vomit, they curse him whosoever he be that shall condemn it.

Although Christ (we grant) did utter the words of consecration openly ; and the Apostles, and Fathers, and other Churches also have kept the same rite: yet the Church of Rome is not to be condemned for taking order to the contrary. For rites may be changed as it shall seem best to them who govern the Church: and there was great reason why they should change this, to weete, least those words so holy and sacred should grow into contempt, whiles all in a manner knowing them, through common use, would sing them in the streets and other places not convenient. In the which respect perhaps they thought good also that the Mass and Mattins, and all the Church-service should rather be in Latin, then in the vulgar tongue. For of familiar use there groweth contempt: and men are wont to wonder at things which they know not; thing • common are despised.

A great oversight of our Savior Christ, who willed his Apostles to speak that in the light, which he had told them in darkness; and, what they heard in the ear, that to preach on the houses. For men would despise his gospel, if they knew it: as they do meat who have it. And what meant S. Paul to disclose the words of consecration to the Corinthians ? Yea, in their vulgar tongue too? And that with instruction, to show forth th • Lord's death until he came, as oft as they received the sacrament? Did he go about to bring the words of consecration, and death of Christ, into contempt? Or was not Innocentius the Pope borne yet, of whom he might have learned that they must be uttered not only in a strange tongue, but also closely and in silence, least men, if they hear them, do know them through use, and sing them in the streets ? But will you see? Your Fathers of the Trent-council were ouershot a little, when they ordained that Pastors and all who have cure of souls should often times expound (by them selves, or by others,) somewhat of those things which are read in the Mass: and explain the scripture to the faithful people in their mother tongue. In the Latin tongue if they had willed them to to do it, the order had agreed better with your doctrine: the people would have wondered at it. Now the knowledge of it is like to breed contempt. Beside there is danger, least, by hearing of it often times expounded, men become to wise, and smell out your abuses. The less they do know: the fitter to be Papists. For ignorance is the mother of Popish devotion: as knowledge is the nurse of Christian religion.

We acknowledge that ignorance is the mother of all errors : neither do we seek to noosell Christians in it, but to wean them from it, as those decrees of the Council do sufficiently show.

They show sufficiently that you profess so: but how well you seek it, the former decrees of the rites, by which the people is nooseled in ignorance, do more sufficiently show. Nether is it likely that all Pastors and Curates shall have skil and leisure to expound the scripture to the people often. It may be that the service, read, and heard in a known tongue, would teach them more in a day, then some of them will in a moonth. Or if every Church had as good a Pastor, as Paul wisheth Timothy to be, that would divide the word of truth a right: yet they, being used to hear the scripture read, should understand him better, as the Jews did Paul, and be (through God's grace) the readier to believe him. And since the Trent-fathers declare this expounding therefore to be needful, least Christ's sheep be famished, or the young children ask bread & no man break it to them : it had been their duty withal to consider that God would have the table of his children furnished with this bread plenteously, and as David's table with a cup running over, to keep them in good liking, not only that they be not famished. At least, howsoever they smooth their practice in this point, it is sure that their reason is beside all reason, when they say that because the nature of men doth need outward helps for raising of it up to think upon the things of God, therefore hath the Church ordained those rites, that some things in the Mass should be pronounced with a soft voice, and some things with a louder : the one, not to be heard; the other, not to be understood. And yet herein their dealing is the more plain, that they do acknowledge the Church to have ordained these rites. For if they would have hardened their faces, and said, that they received them from the Apostles by tradition : they might as well have said it, and proved it as soundly, as they do of others, lights, incense, vestments, and all the rest of their beggary.

Beggerie call you that, which setteth forth the blessed sacrifice of the Mass with so comely ceremonies, to the consolation and instruction of the faithful?

Nay, the name of beggary is to good for it. For if S. Paul called the ceremonies of the Jews weak and beggarly rudiments, when they were matched with the gospel: what name deserve yours, ordained not of God, as theirs, but of men?

You do us great injury to apply S. Paul's words, spoken of the Jewish ceremonies which should cease, to ours which should continue. Much more, in that you say that God ordained not ours, as he did theirs. For he ordained theirs by Moses, and ours by S. Paul.

By S. Paul ? Fye? And who told you so?

S. Austin saith that all that order of doing which the whole Church observeth through the world in consecrating, offering, and distributing of the Eucharist (which order of doing we do call the Mass ) was ordained by S. Paul.

Your Jesuit in deed maketh that note upon S. Austin. And if his meaning be thereby to prove only so much of that order, as the whole Church observed through the world in S. Austin's time: then doth he disprove your ceremonies quite, yea some what more then ceremonies. For behold he mentioneth the distributing of the Eucharist, that is of the bread and cup of thanks-giving: both the which you distribute not in any Mass ; in private Masses, neither. But if he meant as Bristow did, and you would have him, that S. Paul ordained all that order of doing which your Church observeth and calleth it the Mass : your Council doth disprove him. For they confess that the Church of Rome hath certain rites, neither ordained by S. Paul, nor observed through the whole Church. And S. Austin speaketh of nothing but that which the whole Church observed, as namely the receiving of the Sacrament fasting : which custom being kept alike of all Christians, he gathereth on S. Paul's words to the Corinthians ( other things will I set in order when I come ) that he ordained it.

It is true, S. Austin doth speak of those rites, which the whole Church observed through the world without any change or diversity of manners. But so much the more doth he prove the doctrine of the Council of Trent. For the rites, which they say, the Church hath received from the Apostles by tradition, are namely mystical blessings, lights, incense, vestments, and many other such things. And for these S. Austin's witness is of force that S. Paul ordeinedal that order of doing which we call the Mass. For the proof whereof you may see a clearer testimony of his in an epistle to Paulinus, quoted by Torrensis, upon the same place of S. Austin's confession.

And in that also Torrensis doth 〈◊〉 you. For S. Austin there, writing to a Bishop who had inquired of him how those words differ one from another in S. Paul, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, doth tell him that he thinketh thereby is understood that, which all the church, or in a manner all practiseth, to weete, that supplications are those which are made in celebrating of the sacraments before that which is upon the Lord's table begin to be blessed; prayers, when it is blessed, and sanctified, and prepared to be distributed, and divided; intercessions, when the people is blessed and offered to God by their Pastors as it were by advocates; which things being doon, and the sacrament received, the giving of thanks doth knit up all, which S. Paul in those words remmbreth also last. Now, what is there here more for your Mass, then for our Communion ? Or if our Communion, which differeth from your Mass no less then light from darkness, yet hath all these things which S. Austin toucheth as meant by S. Paul : what face hath Torrensis, who saith that S. Paul is avouched by S. Austin to have ordained all that order of doing which you call the Mass ? Is this your Jesuits dealing with the ancient Fathers to make them fetch your Massing rites from the Apostles ?

Yet even there S. Austin doth mention blessing twice▪ and that out of S. Paul. Whereby the first point, which the Council of Trent nameth, is approved, to weete, of mystical blessings.

True, if the Council had meant by that word, as the scripture doth, either the giving of thanks unto God, or the sanctifying of creatures unto holy uses, or praying for the people, that the Lord will bless them. But if they meant the making of the sign of the cross, as it is plain they did, both by the matter which that▪ chapter handleth touching visible signs, and by their intent to confirm the ceremonies which Protestants condemn, and by the Canon of the Mass which is as full of crosses as a conjurers circle, and the word [ he blessed ] is taken so there with a cross in the midst of it: then your mystical blessings of the Trent-fathers were neither meant by S. Paul, nor mentioned by S. Austin.

Yes: S. Austin seemeth to mean • there by [blessing] • he 〈◊〉 of the sign of the cross on the sacrament. For in a •• rmon of his touching the same matter, he saith that the body of Christ is consecrated with the sign of the cross.

In what sermon is that?

Amongst his sermons de tempore, the hundred eightieth and one.

That is amongst his sermons, but none of his sermons. For it useth the words of Gregory, a Bishop of Rome who lived long after: and mo things it hath by which it is certain (as your Divines of Louan note) that it is not S. Austin's. Howbeit neither he that did compile that sermon, whosoever it were, saith that the ceremony of the cross in consecrating was of S. Paul's ordinance, or a tradition of the Apostles : which is the point that you had to prove by S. Austin ; and, if you prove it not, you do not clear the Trent-council. For I grant that in S. Austin's time, yea before it, the Christians, as they used to sign their forehead with the cross, in token that they were not ashamed of Christ crucified, whom the Jews and Gentiles reproached for the death which he suffered on the cross: so they brought the rite thereof into the sacraments, and used both the figure of the cross • and crossing in other things of God also. But it doth not follow because the Christians did it, therefore the Apostles ordained it to be doon.

But it is likely that they did. And certainly Tertullian, a very ancient writer, doth expressly say that Christians had it by tradition.

To sign their forehead with a cross, but not to sign the sacraments. Tertullian was so ancient, that he wrote (it seemeth) before that custom grew. Besides, you mistake him if you think he meant by the name of [tradition] a tradition of the Apostles. For whatsoever custom not written in the scripture was kept by the faithful, that, because it was delivered by somebody from whom the use thereof was taken, he saith it came in by tradition. In so much that he affirmeth it both of Jewish customs before the Apostles, as that their women covered their faces with veils : and of Christian after, which yet are not Apostolic, as, the dipping thri • e of them who are baptized, and feeding them with milk and honey. And, (which plainly showeth he meant not the Apostles in it,) every faithful man may (by his judgment) devise such rites upon reason: neither must we respect the authors, but the authority; & regard the thing delivered, whosoever did deliver it. Wherefore the tradition, that Tertullian speaketh of, is against the doctrine of your Trent-council. For neither doth he mention the sign of the cross to have been used in consecration, which he would of likelihood if then it had been used: nor saith he that it came by tradition frō the Apostles in that sort as it was used, but he knoweth not from whom.

Though none of th • Fathers perhaps bear witness of it: yet if the Council meant it by mystical blessings, they knew that the Church had it from the Apostles. For else they would not vouch it.

Then you were best to say that they learned it from heaven by revelation: as the Anabaptists are wont to do their mysteries. For else they could not know it.

You confess yourself that S. Austin and others of the ancient Fathers did use it in celebrating of the holy sacraments. I marvel why you like it not in our Mass, since we do therein but as the Fathers did.

Nay, I confess not that. For your Massing-priest doth trick i • as a sorcerer, all in mathematical or rather magical numbers: by crossing thrice the bread, and wine, both together, and thrice again both; then once each in several, and once again each: and again thri • e, & once ; and again once, and thrice, with a cross on him self betwixt: hitherto with his hand: after with the host he crosseth thrice the chalice; and twice (to make up five ) between his breast and the chalice▪ next with the pa • en he •• osseth once himself, and the chalice thri • e witha piece of the host, and once himself again with the host over the paten, and lastly once him self again with the chalice; all these in the Canon and Communion of the Mass, besid • a number mo before he cometh to the Canon. But the ancient Fathers and namely S. Austin were far from such mystical toyi • ges with the sacrament. Pope Hildebrandes magi • e, that so many cross • es, though yet not so many as you are grown to now, but the tradition of Pope Hildebrand that crossinges must come in by one, or three, or five, still in an odd number, after the rule of old sorcerers, was a profounder rite of mystical blessings, then either S. Austin, or other ancient Fathers used.

Pope Gregory the seventh (named Hildebrand before his Popedom, kept not those odd numbers for any magical fancy, though Benno charge him falsely with that devilish art: but to note a mystery. For he said that one, or three, or five crosses must therefore still be made, because by one, and three, we signify one God in trinity; by five, the five partes of the passion of Christ ▪

As who say magicians had not the like mysteries in their odd numbers too. And if Pope Hildebrand would have had a circle made about the Priest to keep the devil from him while he is saying Mass: there were a mystery for that also, to weete, that it signifieth God, who nether hath beginning, nor ende.

Nay, the circle is a ceremony proper to conjurers: and he would never have admitted it. But, in that he kept an odd number always in making of crosses upon the oblation: he did as he had learned in Rome, where he was brought up under ten of his predecessors. And that, which he learned there, was the tradition of the Apostles.

So his scholar saith; and he saith truly, for sundry pointes of that he learned : as namely, that the people did, and must receive the sacrament with the Priest, and that, under both kinds. Which showeth (by the way) that your private Mass, and Communion under one kind, was against the tradition and order of the Apostles, by the judgment of the Church of Rome and Popes them selves above a thousand years after Christ. But the making of crosses on the sacrament still in an odd number was so far from being a thing delivered by the Apostles, that the Church of Rome had then begoon it lately, if yet the Church began it, and not Pope Hildebrand were rather the father & first inuentour of that mystery. For Bishop Amalarius, who lived two hundred years or thereabout before Hildebrand, and did both know and reverence the order of the Church of Rome, having said that it sufficeth to make a cross once upon the bread and wine, because Christ was once crucified, addeth, that it is not amiss to make it twice, because he was crucified for two kinds of people, that is, the Jews and the Gentiles. Whereto he noteth farther, that the Priest made two crosses with the host near unto the chalice, to signify that Christ was taken down from the cross being crucified for two people's. And this which he reporteth of two, was the order of the Church of Rome before Hildebrand came: who controlled it (as appeareth by his scholar) upon this reason, that Christ had no wound in his side but one, and therefore but one cross must be made beside the chalice. Which reason is so good, that it may seem strange why the reformers of your Mass-book have kept the former order against the rule of Pope Hildebrand : unless perhaps they thought that Hildebrand misliked it not so much for that reason as for the number of two ; which number, the sooth-sayers and sorcerers hol • to be naught. But hereby them selves have opened their judgment, that not all which Hildebrand is said to have learned under ten of his predecessors was the tradition of the Apostles. And it is worth the noting how these mystical blessings, which at Trent were fathered on the Apostolic tradition, have lately got that parentage by the help of such as was Hildebrands scholar, whē before they seem not to have been accounted so. For Amalarius, (whom I named,) a man that was likely for zeal to speak the best, for skill to know the most that might be said of the service and ceremonies of the Church; he had read so much and travailed so far even to Rome, and that in embassage from the Emperor to confer with the Pope about them: yet this Amalarius, speaking of the sign of the cross which they used to make in consecratiō, leaveth it in dout whether Christ made any when he did bless the bread, or rather thinketh he made none, because the cross at that time was not yet set up; but now (saith he) we know that it must be made, for S. Austin saith so. Where it is not probable that he would have grounded it on man's authority, if he could have said that either Christ had used it, or, though Christ used it not, yet the Apostles had ordained it. No more, then that after the testimony of S. Austin he would have judged it sufficient to cross the bread and wine once, if he had thought that so many crosses, as you make, were to be required by S. Austin's judgment.

Thus you reprove us as varying from S. Austin, because we make so many. What may we say of you who make none at all? Who nether use it in consecration of the holy sacraments, nor sign your forheads with it, nor set it in your Churches, nor allow it in the sanctifying of meats and other creatures. Though all these things were doon by the ancient Fathers, in remembrance of him who died for us on the cross: yea, though Christ himself have commended to us the sign thereof by miracles, as the story of Constantine the Emperor doth witness; who saw it in the element with these words written by it, In this sign overcome ; and was charged in a dream to make the form and likeness of that which he had seen, and use it as a defense against his enemies assaults; which he did accordingly, and mightily subdued them by it. But nether the vision of Christ unto Constantine, nor that and other miracles which have been wrought by it, nor the practice of the primitive Church and ancient Fathers can prevail with your men, but that they must seek to raze out from among Christians so worthy and notable a monument of Christ's passion. And yet you will bear the simple people in hand that you are of the same religion that they were, when you pluck down that which they did set up, and do clean contrary unto them.

The sign that appeared to Constantine in the element, was a sign of the name of Christ, not of his cross : howsoever the coiners and cross-maintainers of your Church do falsely paint it out. For, as Eusebius writeth, (unto whom Constantine did report the thing, and shown him that ensign which he had caused to be made in the likeness thereof,) it was the form of a spear standing straight upright, with a crown at the top of it, & as it were a horn which did cross the midst of the spear a slope. So that it represented two of the Greek letters, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : which being the first letters of the name of Christ, the name of Christ was signified by that sign to Constantine. Thus he describeth it, who saw it.

But out of dout he calleth it the sign, or the monument of the cross ^q also.

But him self showeth that he called it so, because it resembled some what the sign of a cross. For nether was it like the cross of Christ fully, which had another figure: and, where he describeth it, he saith in plain terms that it was a sign of the name of Christ. Nether were those words that you rehearsed written by it, In this sign overcome, as your Doctor saith, (belike because he read it coined in y ^e cruseado so, or in the por • igue:) but, By this overcome ; as if God, showing him the name of Christ, should have said unto him, that there is given no other name under heaven whereby he must be saved. In the which meaning it seemeth that Constantine did understand it also: because he used afterward to carry in his helmet, not the sign of the cross, but those two letters by which the name of Christ was represented to him. Howbeit, if it were so, that not the name only of Christ but his cross too were meant by that sign, as the Bishops took it, who thereupon taught Constantine the mystery of Christ crucified ; yet nether that vision, nor Constantine's victories, nor other miracles wrought thereby, nor practice of the faithful in the primitive Church doth prove that we have doon amiss in plucking down the sign of the cross, wherewith you en •• ite us; or that we are not of the same religion that they were who did set it up. For tell me, what think you of the brazen serpent, which God commanded Moses to set up in the wilderness? Was it not a figure of the passion of Christ ?

Yes. But what of that?

And there were many miracles also wrought by it. For, when the Jews were stoong by the fiery serpents, they looked on the serpent of brass, and were healed.

If they were: what then?

Yet king Hezekiah, a man of the same religion that Moses was, did break it in pieces : and he did well in it.

He brake the brazen serpent in pieces I grant: but that was because the children of Israel did burn incense to it.

So have we plucked down the sign of the cross, because you burn incense to it, M. Hart.

Nay, that we do not.

It is written in your Mass-book, that in solemn Masses the Priest having made obeisance to the cross doth incense it thrice.

But that is not to burn incense as the Jews did. For they had a superstitions estimation of the serpent, putting trust and affiance in it.

So have you a superstitious estimation of the cross. For you think it a special defense against the devil; and (by your common phrase) they do bless them selves who sign their breasts with it; and you carry about you crosses made of metal, with an opinion that you are the safer thereby, as superstitious women in S. Jerome's time did the wood of the cross.

If any do it of superstition, as those women did: we reprove them with S. Jerome. But the Jews did worship the brasent serpent as God: and we do not the cross so.

If any do it as those women, which your crossecariers do: they do it of superstition. But how did the Jews worship the serpent, as God?

S. Austin saith that they did worship it as an idol : which is to make a God of it. And Hezekiah shown the same in effect, by that he called it nechushtan, that is, brazen-stuff : as if he should have said, that it had no divine power, which they by error thought it had.

The Jews gave the honor of God to a creature, in that they burned incense to it. And therefore Hezekiah did call it brazen-stuff ; as if we should call your roodes wooden-stuff, your Agnus-deis waxen stuff, your crucifixes and crosses made of copper, copper-stuff, because you impart the honor of God to them, by putting trust and hope in them. And if the covetous man be called an idolater, because he maketh money his God, not as though he thought the coin to be God, but because he trusteth to live and prosper by it, which confidence and hope he should repose in God only: then worship you the sign of the cross as an idol, because you trust to be saved by it, as in your Church-service you profess notoriously, and so yourselves confess you worship it as God. Wherefore if Hezekiah be praised by God, for breaking in pieces the serpent of brass, because the children of Israel did burn incense to it : we who have removed the sign of the cross because you put the hope of salvation in it, may content our selves to be dispraised by men. But if you say therefore, that we be against the ancient Fathers in religion, because we pluck down that which they did set up: take heed least your speech do touch the holy Ghost, who saith that Hezekiah did keep God's commandments, which he commanded Moses, and yet withal saith that he brake in pieces the serpent of brass which Moses had made. And if you will not learn this lesson of me, yet learn it of the Canon law, that, if our predecessors have done some things which at that time might be without faute and afterward be turned to error, & superstition: we are taught by Hezekiah breaking the brazen serpent that the posterity may destroy them without any delay, and with great authority.

The divine worship with the which we honor the image of the cross, is proved by S. Thomas to be due thereto. For, the honor of an image is referred to that which the image resembleth: and the motion of our mind is the same to the image of a thing, as an image, and to the thing it self. Wherefore, since the cross doth represent Christ, who died upon a cross, and Christ is to be worshipped with divine honor: it followeth that the cross is to be worshipped so too. Yet you and your men are still objecting to us our honoring of the cross, as though we committed idolatry therein. In good sooth, Masters, ye are too young to control the Church of Rome in her doings.

So M. Harding telleth us of the city of Rome, when we control her stews. And in deed you have almost as much reason to speak for the maintenance of this spiritual whoredom, which you commit with the cross: as he for the carnal, which they commit with Courtisans. Now well had it fared with the brazen serpent, if Thomas had been schoolemaister to king Hezekiah. For he would have taught him, that since the brazen serpent did represent Christ, and Christ was to be worshipped with divine honor: therefore the brazen serpent was to be worshipped so too. You are angry when we say that you worship the Pope, as God. Me thinks you should grant it. Sure you might defend it by this Schoolediuinitie. For, though he bear one way the image of the beast : yet in that he is a man, he is an image of God, whom he resembleth more lively then any cross or crucifix doth represent Christ. But to return to the mystical blessings of the Mass, which you went about to fetch by S. Austin from the Apostolic tradition : you see that neither they, nor incense, nor lights, nor vestments, nor the rest of that suite of ceremonies are mentioned at all, much less avouched to be Apostolic, in that of S. Austin which your Jesuit groundeth on.

I know that S. Austin doth entreat rather of the substance of the Mass, then of the ceremonies, in that place. But in the other which I cited he doth entreat of customs: and so, that he proveth the ceremonies of the Mass to have come from the Apostles. For of the things (saith he) which we keep by tradition, it is to be thought that such as are observed through the whole world were either ordained by the Apostles them selves, or by general Councils. Wherefore since the ceremonies of incense, lights, vestments, and other of the like sort were not ordained by general Councils : it followeth by S. Austin, that the Apostles did ordain them.

That rule of S. Austin, is probable, not necessary. For though it be likely that there was no custom observed by the Church through the whole world, which it had not from the Apostles, chiefly, seeing Christians did vary then so much in rites of all sortes: yet they might either have taken up, or kept of that they had before, something which the Apostles delivered not unto them. But admit his rule as an undoubted principle to your most advantage: and yet are you no nearer the proof of those ceremonies. For how can you prove that incense, lights, vestments, and the rest of your baggage were used at that time through the whole world?

Incense to have been used, I have proved by S. Denys Areopagita: lights, by S. Austin.

But you have not proved that they were used through the whole world, either by S. Austin, or by S. Denys. Nay, that Denys (who so ever he were,) doth prove the contrary. For in his description of the Mass (as you call it) there are neither lights, nor vestments, nor crossinges, nor all the other ceremonies: whereby it is manifest that they were not used through the whole world when that Denys wrote. As for incense, howsoever it crept into that Church in the which he lived: it appeareth by the writings of Tertullian, and Arnobius, that the Church used it not in their days. Neither is the censing, which Denys speaketh of, liker to yours: then (I shown) your blessings are like to S. Austin's. For he hath it only once about the Church. But in your solemn Mass it is used often, and to sundry things: to the cross, to relics, to images, to candlesticks, to the altar, the lower part of it, and the higher, to the Priests, to the book, to the bread and wine, thrice above the chalice, and the host, and thrice about them, to the altar, and the Priest again and again, to the quire, to the deacon, to the subdeacon, to the people; and, in Masses for the dead, to the sacrament also at the time of the elevation. So that, if the words of the Trent-council be weighed with your practice: you will leese the countenance of that which Denys showeth to. For with him it is incense in the singular number. Your Masses and the Council hau • incenses in the plural. By the which word if the Council meant to note all the censinges that are used in Massing, as they did of likelihood: then neither Denys maketh for your Massing-incense. Though, whatsoever he make, he maketh naught for your reason: because he proveth not that it was used through the whole world. Now the lights, which your Jesuit hath found in S. Austin, make less a great deal for it. For S. Austin calleth the lights which they used, ¹ lights of the night : because they did use them in the night time when they met at prayers, as Christians were wont. But your Massing-lights are used in the day time, when the sun shineth: a thing perhaps observed through the whole world, but of idolatrous Heathens, not of the Church of Christ.

Yes, that Christian Churches had also lights burning in the bright sun-shine while the gospel was reading, S. Jerome is a witness; and, before S. Jerome, his Master Nazianzen maketh mention of it; and Athanasius before them both. Wherefore out of dout it is an ancient custom, and that very general.

As you say: if it be witnessed by these three Doctors, S. Jerome of Europe, Nazianzen of Asia, & Athanasius of Afric. But he who saith they witness it, hath not read them, I think.

But I think he hath: or rather I am sure of it. For D. Stapleton saith it, in his comparison of the Catholic and Roman Churches Mass with the Lord's supper of the Protestants. Wherein as he allegeth these Doctors for this point: so he proveth all things, which your Supper wanteth and our Mass hath, to be Apostolic.

He proveth? Nay he promiseth to prove them Apostolic. For in very truth he proveth not one: not one of all those things wherein your Mass differeth from our Lord's supper. No more then he proveth this of lights burning in the bright sun-shine: in y ^e which he notably abuseth their names whom he doth cite to prove it. For in Athanasius the tapers of the Church are mentioned only: but that they were lighted in the daytime while the gospel was reading, there is no such word. Nazianzen speaketh of lights that were burning upon Easter-even : but to lighten the night, he saith, not the day.

But speaketh he there of those night-lights alone, and of no other light ?

He speaketh of another light, but spiritual For he saith that the most bright shining light followeth the candle that did go before it.

Why, that is it that showeth the ceremony which we talk off. For they were wont to carry candles before the gospel when they did read it.

They were wont afterward. But we speak of Nazianzen. And he meant nothing less. For by [the light] he signified Christ, the light of the world : and by [ the candle ] John the Baptist▪ who went before Christ to prepare his ways. The light (saith he) shining most excellently bright followeth the candle that did go before it; and the word, the voice; and the bridegroom, the bride man, or friend who bringeth the bride to him. Is this D. Stapletons proof out of Nazianzen for burning tapers in the day time ?

Of Nazianzen I know not. But certainly S. Jerome is a witness of it against Vigilanti • s▪

Yet these are S. Jerome's own words in that treatise: We do light tapers not in the bright • daytime, as thou dost vainly slander us, but by this comfort to ease the darkness of the night.

But he addeth that Churches of the east had lights burning in the daytime, while the gospel was reading, thereby to show their joy.

But nether this usage of the eastern Churches was the same that yours is. For they did keep lights, while the gospel was reading, and put them out after: which rite you had also, and some where have perhaps yet. But the general rite which you have gotten now of burning tapers still, before the gospel, and after: that in S. Jerome's time not only was unborn in the we •• , but in the • ast too. Though if the east had used it: yet nether were it proved so (by your reason) that the Apostles did ordain it, because it was not used in the western Churches, & therefore not through the whole world. Howbeit I deny not but there is good reason why your Church should use it. For Tertullian saith: let them light candles daily who have no light; the testimonies of darkness do well beseem them.

You may bring Tertullian's werdes, when you have proved that we have no light : which you shall never do.

Not while you are able to say with the Pharisees, Are we blind also? But since there were so ancient Churches which lighted candles in the bright sun-shine: that may be some color for your Massing-lights. For your Massing-vestments not so much can be found. Yet they are also fathered on the tradition of the Apostles.

And D. Stapleton saith that if we list to run through everyone of them, we shall find that the primitive Church did use them all.

Belike you will never list then. For sure you will never find that.

No? Why say you so? When himself hath found it, and proveth it particularly. For hitherto belongeth the plate, or Bishoply miter ▪

The miter ? That is none of your Massing-vestments.

Though it be none of them which simple Priests wear, yet it is a vestiment that Bishops wear at Mass.

O, that Bishops wear. Then I perceive your Doctor meaneth to prove not only the six vestments, common to all Priests, in token that they are perfect, because the sixth day the Lord did perfect heaven and earth: but also the nine which Bishops have beyond them, in token that they are spiritual like the nine orders of Angels, as Pope Innocentius and Bishop Durand open.

If he prove them both: your shame is the greater, who nether use the Priestly vestments, nor the Bishoply.

But they both together do make fifteen vestments: which Bishops must put on, when they say Mass, to signify the fifteen degrees of virtues (according to the fifteen psalms of degrees) wherewith they must be clad. And, I may tell you, it will be as hard to prove that any Bishop did wear those fifteen vestments in the primitive Church: as, that every Bishop, who weareth them in yours, hath the the fifteen degrees of virtues which they signify.

Well, if you will hearken unto D. Stapleton : hehath proved more, then may be with your liking. For hitherto belongeth the plate, or Bishoply miter, which John the Evangelist did wear, as Polycrates the Bishop of Ephesus saith in the story of Eusebius. Hitherto the Priestly attire of the head, mentioned by Tertullian. Hitherto the stole mentioned by S. Ambrose, and by the Councils of Braga and Toledo. Hitherto the copes, which Epiphanius calleth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Hitherto the Deacons albe, as it is named in the Council of Carthage : Chrysostom nameth it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Hitherto the robes, or hangings, with the which the altar is beautified, in the story of Theodoret. Hitherto the linen clothes, and the coverings, wherewith (as Optatus doth expressly mention) altars in old time were covered, as they are now. Hitherto the holy robe that reached down to the feet, in Eusebius. To conclude, hitherto belongeth the amice, the girdle, the chisible, the fanel, and the corporace : which the Greek Fathers Chrysostom, and Basil, note also by their names, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Which all to have been holy, and consecrated to this function, the same Fathers testify. There is in Theodoret a notable example of an interlude-plaier, who wearing on a stage a holy garment, that he had bought, fell suddenly down and died. Of the like vengeance of God there are examples in Victor, and Bede. And Optatus also, more ancient then they both, doth sharply touch the Dona • ists for spoiling and profaning the o • naments of the Church.

Here is a fair tale for them, whose eyes are dim, and cannot judge of colors. But they who can discern between words, and proofs, do see that never less was said with greater show. For, the pointe whereof proof should be made, is that the vestments which are worn of Bishops and Priests saying Mass, were used all of them by the primitive Church. The words which D. Stapleton speaketh of this point, are so far from proving it, that the most of them do not as much as touch it. For the copes, which Epiphanius (he saith) calleth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , are the garments which the Scribes & Pharisees did wear with phylacteries, and fri • ges. And the Scribes and Pharisees (I trow) said not Mass. The robes or hangings of the altar in Theodoret, are coverings. The coverings and linen clothes, in Optatus, are ornaments of the Communion table, such as we also use. Is our communion Mass too?

• ay, he calleth it an altar.

By a figure, as I have shown. For by the name of [altar] he meaneth a table, as these his words declare: who of the faithful knoweth not that the boordes them selves are covered with a linen cloth in celebrating of the sacrament ? Of this kind is also the cloth called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which word importeth not so much as your corporace : but though it did, of this kind it is in the counterfeit Chrysostom and Basil. As for the examples of the vengeance of God on them who profanely did abuse garments appointed unto holy uses : the first, in Theodoret, is not of a Massing but a baptizing garment, (a peculiar solemnity more then yourselves use:) to omit that the matter of the interlude-player was devised to spite a Bishop▪ whose harm was sought as having sold it. The second, in U ••• or, is of the linen clothes and coverings of the altar, such as I spake of in Optatus. The third, in Bede, is added to make up the tale: for there is no such s • orie. Finally, the Church-ornaments, which Optatus showeth that co • etous men would have spoiled, were of gold and silver: vessels belike, & plate, wherewith S. Jerome noteth that many (though he reprove it as Jewish and superstitious) did decke up Christistian Churches after the example of the temple in Jury. But whether they were vessels, as dishes and cups for bread and wine at the Communiō, or whatsoever other instruments, or jewels: Optatus neither saith, nor seemeth to say, that they were Massing-vestments. There remaineth the miter, the stole, the albe, the amice, the girdle, the chisible, & the fanel. Which first are far beneth the number of fifteen ; and so they reach not to all your Massing-vestments. Then, for sundry of them, it appeareth not that they were such as yours; or rather it is plain that they were not such. Lastly, if they were such: yet how doth it follow that they came from the Apostles? Which is the point that Stapleton would and ought to prove; or else farewell the Trent-council.

Came not the Bishoply miter from the Apostles, which S. John, an Apostle and Evangelist did wear, as you may see in Eusebius ?

Polycrates, whom Eusebius allegeth, doth not mention a miter, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is to say, a thin plate, such as was the plate of gold set in the front of the miter of Aaron, the high Priest of the Jews, that it might be upon his his forehead.

But Polycrates signified a miter by that [plate,] after a figure of speech, wherein a part is used to signify the whole.

Nay, if you come to figures, it is more likely that Polycrates, in saying, S. John was a Priest that did bear the plate, meant (by an allusion to the law of Moses ) that he entered as it were into the sanctuary with prerogative, and had the very mysteries of God revealed to him. Whereto S. Jerome seemeth somewhat to incline: who translating the same of Polycrates touching John, saith, that he was a high Priest bearing the plate of gold upon his head. For if he had used to bear a plate of gold in deed, upon his forehead: sure, when Peter said, silver and gold have I none, to the creple who desired an alms of Peter and him, that plate would not have saved his forehead from blushing. Neither is it nothing that Polycrates mentioned the plate, and not a miter : since other of the Jewish Priests did wear miters ; none, but th • high Priest, the plate. Howbeit, if the word were meant as you would have it, and S. John had worn a miter like to Aaron : yet his example proveth not that all Apostles, much less that all Bishops wore it. Nay, the special note thereof in S. John doth rather prove the contrary: as, when we read that John the Baptist had his garment of camels hear, and a girdle of skin, we gather that all preachers wore not such apparel.

But infulae, that is a Priestly attire of the head, which Tertullian speaketh of, was common to them all: and the miter seemeth to be the same with us, that infulae with him.

I grant that the attire, which Tertullian speaketh of, doth touch your miter nearer: but it doth not prove it. For infulae were miters, which the heathenish Priests, as namely the Priests of Ceres, and Apollo did wear in their solemnities. Of the which ceremony Tertullian deriving a proverbial phrase (after the manner of his style) doth say touching Christians, who refuse to be counted Priests, that they lay down the miters. In deed it is likely the miters of your Bishops came from that heathenish rite: although they draw some what from the Jewish custom, as Wolfgangus Lazius, your friend, hath well observed. But it is neither true, nor fit for you to hold, that it was a miter worn by Christian Priests which Tertullian meant. Not fit for you to hold: least all Priests be proved to have as good right to the miter, as your Bishops; which doctrine they will never account of, as catholic. Not true: because your Bishoply miters were not used in many hundred years after Tertullian.

No? Is it not written in the donation of Constantine, that when he offered Pope Sylvester a golden crown beset with gems, the Pope refused it, and only took a white miter?

What tell you me again of that foolish forgery? Which yet doth make the first original of the miter younger then Tertullian : But the true records and monuments of antiquity do show that it was not bred a great while after. For Amalarius Fortunatus, and Rabanus Maurus, and Walafridus Strabo who lived above eight hundred years after Christ, and wrote of the vestments which Bishops wore in their days, make no mention of it. And Alcuinus, the Master of Charles the great, who lived and wrote not long before them, treating of Priestly vestments, and therein of the miter of the Jewish Priests: we have not (saith he) such a vestiment in the Church of Rome, or in our countries. Yea Iuo Carnotensis, who lived three hundred years after Alcuinus, doth show that in his days it was not yet come in: and, with express mention of the plate of gold, he saith that no Priests of the New Testament do wear it. Wherefore the first and highest of your Massing-vestments is nether confirmed by the plate in Eusebius, nor by the miters in Tertullian. The next is the stole : whereof you have no better proof in S. Ambrose. For that, which he mentioneth, was either a towell, (as it may seem,) or a napkin, wherein his brother Satyrus caused the sacrament to be wrapped up, and laid it to his neck. At least, seeing Satyrus was nether Priest, nor perfect Christian: what show have you of likelihood that it was a Massing-vestiment ?

S. Ambrose calleth it orarium. And orarium is used in the Council of Toledo for the same that stola, that is, a stole, as we call it.

But if S. Ambrose meant a stole by orarium, because the Council meant so: then stol • in the later writers of those matters must be a woman's garment, because it is so in Isidore, who lived nearer to them, then did S. Ambrose to the Council. And as for that Council, and the other of Braga : no marvel if the stole be mentioned in them. For they were kept at that time when rites did steal in upon religion very fast. Though nether was it then half settled in the Mass yet: as by a later Council of Braga may be gathered. Howbeit, if it had been: your proof faileth still. For you may not say that because a Spanish Council speaketh of it, therefore the Church had it by tradition of the Apostles. Unless you will say also, that your shaven crowns ought to be great circles about the whole head by the tradition of the Apostles, and not such little circles on the top of the head only, as now a days are made: because a Spanish Council condemneth the shaving of those little circles as a rite of heretics, and alloweth none, but great ones. So far of the stole. There followeth the albe. For which the Deacons albe, so named in the Council of Carthage, maketh nothing. For though the name of albe be derived from alba, by which word the Council doth note a white garment, as it were a surplisse, forbidding the Decons to wear it all the service time : yet the thing differeth from your Massing-albe which is peculiar to Priests, as the Canonists also declare on the same word of the Council of Carthage. Which difference removeth your proof, out of Chrysostom, touching 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 too. For whatsoever kind of garment that were: it was common to the Deacons, not proper to the Priests; and therefore not your Massing-albe. Hitherto the holy robe (in Eusebius, ) that reached down to the feet, should be referred by their judgment, who compare the garments of Aaron with yours. But Stapleton, who found that holy robe in Eusebius, might have found withal another meaning of it by the words following. For he, whose oration Eusebius doth report, telleth Bishops that they are clad with the holy robe that reached down to the feet, and with the heavenly crown of glory, and with the unction of God, and with the Priestly garment of the holy Ghost. Wherein, as the garment, and unction, and crown do signify spiritual gifts, not things corporal: so the holy robe that reached down to the feet betokeneth that function, which that robe in Aaron did represent and shadow.

You persuade not me that he alluded so to the robe of Aaron : but that he meant in deed a robe which Christian Bishops wore.

And what gain you by it, if so much were granted? For you cannot prove by any circumstance of the place, that it must be a Massing-robe. The only show of any such is in your last proof out of the Greek Fathers, Chrysostom, and Basil; or rather, out of the Liturgies, which falsely bear their names; or rather, out of some copies ofthose Liturgies, wherein are mentioned the amice, the girdle, the chisible, and the fanel. Howbeit, if a man should sift the Greek words, out of the which you pick these, and confer your amice with their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , your biggin of the head with their shoulder garment, your one cord or fanel with their mo 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , your chisible with their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : perhaps he should leave the girdle post alone to bind your proof with. And doutlesse, in that which is most mask-like, and least beseemeth Christian Pastors at public service, I mean that which the Priest at Mass weareth uppermost, the chisible you call it (I trow) or upper vestiment : the Greek word declareth that you do wrong to the Grecians in matching that of theirs with yours. For the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by the which their upper vestiment is noted, doth signify a cloak: a garment worn much ( as single, and ready) by Christians in old time, chiefly by the Grecians, whose Bishops kept it thence belike in solemnities, when other wise they left it off▪ But your upper vestiment is far from that singleness: nor is it like to that common garment, but to a little cottage, (whence it is named casula, ) closing the Priest round as it were with walls, and having a hole for him to put out his head at, as it were a loouer-hole to let out the smoke at.

The high Priest of the Jews had the like robe.

Like your cottage-vestiment ? Which robe was that?

If not like our upper vestiment altogether, yet like in that respect that it was close about, with a hole for his head in the •• ddes of it. And therefore you need not to scoff in such sort at that kind of vestiment.

If you take the little cottage to be a scoff, it is not my scoff, but your own Doctors, whose words I do but open. Your self are rather faulty, who compare your cottage-rag patched by man's brain, with a Priestly robe made by God's commandment. And yet, in that you match your vestiment with the Jewish for the form of it, I reprove you not. For though there be difference between theirs, and yours, in sundry respects: yet yours were taken up after the example, and made in likeness of theirs. Which is plainly shown by those ancient authors whom I named before, Alcuinus, Amalarius, and Walafridus Strabo. Of whom the first treating of Massing-vestments, saith, that the Church received them after the facion of the Priests of Moses law. The next, that our hye Priest (he meaneth every Bishop) hath them after the rule of Aarō. The last, that they came in by little & little: for at the first (saith he) men celebrated Masses in common apparel, as certain of the east Church are said to do till this day. And so he goeth forward showing in particular, how Stephen, and Sylvester, and other Popes, and Prelates did softly bring them in, and some devised this, some that, either to resemble the robes of the Jewish Priests, or to note a mystery. To be short, it is shown plainly by them all, that the Massing-vestments of Bishops at that time (which was eight hundred years after Christ) were but eight in number: just as many as Aaron's. Whereof the former seven, (for the eighth was proper to Archbishops only) are grown now to be fifteen, more then twice as many. And do you not perceive hereby, M. Hart, how lewdly D. Stapleton allegeth the Fathers, to prove your Massing-vestimentes all to have been used by the primitive Church ? How falsely the Council of Trent doth father them, nor only them but also lights, incense, crossinges, and other ceremonies of the Mass on the tradition of the Apostles ? And saw I not truly that if you see not how the Christian worship of God in spirit and truth doth differ from the Jewish, and so might succeed it: the cause thereof (by likelihood) is the veil of Popery, which having brought in a Jewish kind of worship doth hide it from your eyes? For is it not evident that the Jewish shadows, that is, the dark lineaments of Christ, as of a picture, which he abolished by his coming as being the image it self and body of them, are drawn out again by the painters of your religion? Or may not he, that hath but half an eye, see, that you surpass the Jews in sundry shows of outward service, and go beyond the priesthood of Aaron in carnal rites? For the most whereof though you have meanings mystical▪ or spiritual matters which they are said to figure in other significations then the Jewish did: yet they set the Church to school with new rudiments after a Jewish manner, and press it with that bondage from which the Lord hath made it free. Wherefore, were they taken from the Jews, or not: yet in respect of us, on whom God hath not laid them, they are of the commandments & doctrines of men. And we may justly say of them, now being bred, the same, that S· Austin said, when they were breeding: Although it cannot be found in what sense they are against the faith, yet religion it self which God of his mercy would have to be free under very few and most manifest ceremonies of divine service, is by them o • pressed so with servile burdens, that the case and state of the Jews is more tolerable; who although they have not acknowledged the time of liberty, yet are they 〈◊〉 with the packes of God's law, not with the devises and presumptions of men.

It is a calumnious speech that our ceremonies are shadows, or rudiments, or keep the Church in bondage as the Jewish did. For theirs were very many, cumbersome, & dark: ours are v • ry few, easy, and significant. As S. Austin saith, that since that our liberty hath shined most brightly by Christ's resurrection, we are not laden with a heavy charge of signs, as were the Jews: but our Lord himself and the Apostolic discipline hath delivered to us some few in steed of many, and them most easy to be doon, most honorable for signification, most clean and pure to be observed. But you would have (me thinks) no ceremonies at all: for you said that the worship of God amongst Christians is spiritual merely.

I spake in comparison of the Jewish worship : or rather Christ, not I. For they are his words, that God will be worshipped now in spirit and truth. Which must needs be meant of mere spiritual worship: since the reason following, that God is a spirit, doth show that the Jews did worship him in spirit too. And yet is that spoken in comparison, as I said. For Christ him self ordained two principal ceremonies, which we call the sacraments, his Supper, and his Baptism. And the Church-assemblies, which are helps most necessary for us to learn and practice that spiritual worship, must have their time, when; their place, where; their manner, how; things to be directed with coomelinesse and order, in rites fit to edify. But these are few in number and clear in signification. So few, that they are nothing in comparison of the Jewish: so clear, that they do lively represent Christ, and are no dark shadows. Now whether that your Popish ceremonies have kept this fewnes, and cleerenes.

Perhaps you mean because we have seven sacraments, and not two only. But the Fathers, as namely S. Austin (though your men allege him to the contrary,) do name other sacraments beside the Lord's Supper (as you call it) and Baptism.

But S. Austin nameth not your seven sacraments, as you may see by his Confession.

Yet he nameth more then your two sacraments. And the rest of ours are proved by other Fathers. Whereupon the Council of Trent hath defined that there are seven sacraments of the new law, neither more, nor fewer: & they all are sacraments truly and properly.

The Fathers do commonly use the word [sacrament] for a mystery or sign of a holy thing. And so you may prove seven and twenty sacraments by them, as well as seven. Which is manifest by S. Austin, whom you pretend herein most. For as he giveth the name of sacrament to marriage, to the ordering of ministers, to laying on of hands, and reconci •• ng of the repentant: so he giveth it to Easter, and to the Lord's day, to the sanctifying and instructing of novices in the faith, the feeding, the signing, the catechizing of them, the making of prayers, the singing of Psalms, and so forth to other holy rites and actions. But as the word [sacrament] is taken in a straiter signification, to note the visible signs inistuted by Christ for the assurance and increase of grace in the faithful, which is the sense of it both with you, and us, when we speak of sacraments : so doth he name those two, as principal ones, by an excellency; and, when there issued blood and water out of Christ's side, these are the two sacraments (saith he) of the Church, meaning the Lord's supper by blood, by water baptism. Yea, the Schoolmen them selves, who were the first authors that did raise them up to the precise number of seven, no more, nor fewer; for you •• nde it not in any of the Fathers or other writers whatsoever before a thousand years after Christ: but the Schoolmen them selves have shown that the seven are not all sacraments, if the name of sacrament be taken properly and straitly. For neither can marriage so be of the number, as Durand proveth well: neither confirmation (the chrism of oil and balm ) as Bonaventure teacheth. And, to be short, their captain Alexander of Ales doth avouch expressly, that there are only two principal sacraments, which Christ himself did institute : so that (by his confession) as we speak of sacraments, there are two only. But my meaning was not to blame you for seven. I spake of all your ceremonies, which are (I may say boldly) seventy times seven. Which whether that they be so few, and so clear in comparison of the Jewish, as I have declared and you confess that Christian ceremonies should be: let the learned judge by comparing of your Church-books, chiefly the Ceremonial, Pontifical, and Missal, with the books of Moses. Let the unlearned guess by the store and straungenesse of sacrificing vestments: whereof their common Priests had three, yours have six; their high Priest had eight, your Bishops have fifteen at least, and some sixteen, beside the Popes prerogative-robes. And so, to leave this matter to their consideration: your own confession, yieldeth enough for my purpose touching the place of Malachi. For if the spiritual worshipping of God, wherewith the Jews did serve him, had ceremonies in number more, in signification darker, then it hath amongst the Gentiles : this kind of serving him with fewer ceremonies & clearer is proper to the Gentiles, & might succeed that which was amongst the Jews. Wherefore D. Allens third, & fourth reasons, whereby he would prove that the offering spokē of in Malachi the Prophet must signify the outward sacrifice of the Mass, and not spiritual sacrifices, can take no hold against us. No more then ours could take against you of the contrary, if we should conclude that it must betoken a spiritual worship not outward offerings on an altar, because outward offerings are common to the Jews with us, and this is proper to the Gentiles : and this should succeed the Jewish worship of God, and come in steed of it, which no outward offerings and sacrifices can do, since they are coopled always to God's spiritual worship. Would you allow these reasons?

They are not like to D. Allens. But the fifth reason doth put the matter out of doubt. For, (in the judgment chiefly of heretics,) our works are defiled, howsoever they seem beautiful: but that 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.

And think you M. Hart, that the works of Christians cannot be the offering which the Prophet speaketh of, because they are defiled, howsoever they seem beautiful ? Think you thus in deed? Then you consent yet in the chiefest point of Christian religion (which God grant you do) with heretics, as you term us. For, if our works be defiled, howsoever they seem beautiful, chiefly as heretics judge : then are men justified by faith, not by works. If our works be defiled, howsoever they seem beautiful: then fulfill we not the law of God perfectly, much less super-erogate. If our works be defiled, howsoever they seem beautiful : then are they meritorious of everlasting death, but everlasting life it is impossible they should merit.

Nay, I meant not so. For though they be defiled, as they are of our selves: yet as they are of Christ, whose grace worketh in us, they are pure and perfect.

Then, as they are wrought by the grace of Christ, so they may be the offering which the Prophet speaketh of. For they are pure and perfect so, and therefore clean by your own opinion.

But the Prophetical offering is clean of it self. Our works are not clean of them selves, but of Christ: and therefore cannot be that offering.

Now may you feel the falsehood of D. Allens dealing. For himself addeth those words [ of it self, ] to make his reason serve: the Prophet saith no more but that the offering is clean. Wherefore since our works are clean and undefiled; chiefly as Papists judge: our works might be meant by the Prophetical offering, howsoever they be vnperfit and impure of them selves.

What? And do you think, M. Rainolds, that our works, though unclean of them selves, yet as they are wrought by the grace of Christ, are clean and undefiled ? And see you not then, that of the other side you consent in the chiefest point of Catholic faith with Papists, as you term us? For if you think in deed that our works be clean, as they are wrought by grace : then must you needs think that we may so fulfil the law, and merit life, and be justified by works, not by faith only.

I meant not so, M. Hart. But according to the proverb, that for a hard knot a hard wedge must be sought, I thought good to cleave a Popish dream in sunder with a Popish fancy. For otherwise, I know, that, although our works be wrought by Christ's grace : yet is man's nature and flesh in us who work them, and therefore do they carry a stain of uncleanness. It was of grace, that the children of Israel did consecrate their holy things and gifts to God. Yet that work of theirs was not free from spot: in so much that Aaron must bear on his forehead a plate of pure gold, wherein was engraven, Holines of the Lord, (a monument of Christ) that he might take away the iniquity of the holy things which they consecrated, of all the gifts of their holy things; and he should bear it always to make them acceptable before the Lord. It is of grace, that the Saints of God do pray to him. Yet, the other Angel, that stood before the altar with a golden censer, had much odors given him that he might put them into the prayers of all the Saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne, and the smoke of the odors put into the prayers went up before God out of the Angels hand. Which is a token that the prayers of Saints have their infirmity: and yield no sweet smelling favor unto God, without favor in Christ. To be short, in all the gracious and good works of men, God doth work in us both to will, and to do. But evil is so present with us, that the good which we would do, we cannot: we would, through God's grace; we cannot, through our frailty. Yea, when we do good, it is a will rather of doing, then a doing; we are so far from perfect doing it. For we ought to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, & with all our thought: and our neighbors, as our selves. But as long as the flesh doth lust against the spirit, and a law in our members doth rebel against the law of our mind ; which is as long as we are in this body of death : we love him not with all our heart, soul, strength, and thought, but with part; and therefore in lesser measure, then we ought. Now, whatsoever is less, then it should be, is fautie: for it transgresseth his commandment. Wherefore since our works should be doon with perfect love of God and men, and that perfect love we have not in this life: it followeth that our works in this life are fautie; yea, though they 〈◊〉 wrought by the grace of Christ. Not as though his grace had any blemish, (God forbid;) but because our selves, in whom it worketh, are corrupt: as water, though it flow from a fountain most clear, yet, if it do run through a muddy channel, it becometh muddy. So nether fulfill we the law in any work, much less in all our works, which they must do, who will fulfill it; for he that offendeth in one, is guilty of all : nether can we merit ought at God's hands, much less eternal life ; for he oweth us no thanks though we did all things which are commanded us, because we ought to do them ; and what is our desert then, who do not all things ? nether may we possibly be justified by works before the judgment seat of God; for cursed is every man that continueth not in all things, which are written in the book of the law, to do them, and we all offend in many things.

But if all our works be muddy, as you say, and stained with uncleanness : then is it much surer that the clean offering, which the Prophet speaketh off, cannot betoken them. For the Lord reproveth the Jewish Priests there for offering unclean bread, and sacrificing the blind, the lame, and the sick. Wherefore since of the contrary he saith that the offering made among the Gentiles shall be a clean offering : it followeth that he meant not the spiritual sacrifices, that is, the works of Christians; and what then, but the outward sacrifice of the Mass?

In deed if clean things stained with uncleanness were the very same that unclean things : you might justly think that our spiritual sacrifices could not be allowed, no more then the carnal of those Jewish Priests. But the only sacrifice that is clean perfectly, and hath no stain at all, is Christ, the undefiled and unspotted Lamb, offered on the cross to sanctify us with his blood. The sacrifices of the faithful are clean, but vnperfitly: and therefore need his favor, with pardon, (as I shown,) that they may be acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. The sacrifices of the wicked, and hypocrites, are unclean : as being either unlawful, such as were the blind, and lame, and sick among the Jews; or offered unlawfully, with minds and consciences defiled. So the sacrifices of those Jewish Priests, which God reproveth, were absolutely unclean. Our spiritual sacrifices are vnperfitly clean: clean in comparison, and clean by acceptation. Cleane in comparison & respect of men: as Habakkuk complaining that the wicked man deuouteth the righteous, saith, him that is righteous in respect of him self ; praising not the righteous man as simply righteous, but in comparison of the wicked. Cleane by acceptation in the sight of God: who dealing as a loving father with his children, taketh in good part that which they do willingly, though they do it weakly. For as he accepted the sacrifices of the Jews, when they offered the best and soundest that they had: so when the Gentiles were brought him for an offering, in like sort as the Israelites do offer an offering in a clean vessel, the offering up of them was acceptable to him. And thus might the spiritual sacrifices of Christians be meant by the clean offering, whereof the Lord saith in the Prophet Malachi that it shall be offered to him in every place. According to the scripture, that instructeth us to pray in every place, lifting up pure hands without wrath, and douting. For though nether our prayers be so intier and fervent, nor our hands so pure, and unspotted of the world, nor our minds so settled in love of our neighbor, nor our faith so constant, and steadfast towards God, but that they be stained with remnants of uncleanness, and have less perfitnes then they should: yet are they all clean in respect of the sacrifices of those Jewish hypocrites, which God in the Prophet rejecteth as unclean ; and so, where he refuseth to accept theirs, he promiseth to accept ours, and showeth that they please him well. Wherefore the Mass findeth no footing in Malachi by D. Allens fifth reason. Now the sixth, and last, which he concludeth with, as it were to set the Mass in full possession of the clean offering mentioned by Malachi : doth dispossess it clean and casteth out the reasons which he brought to strengthen it. For the Fathers expound it of our spiritual sacrifices, of prayers, of thanks giving, of holiness, of godly works, of repentant hearts, of cleansed minds, and bodies sanctified, of the gifts offered in Christian Church-assemblies, and of the whole worship wherewith we honor him in spirit and truth. Wherein to say that they mean the sacrifice of the Mass by the sacrifice of prayer, and the spiritual sacrifice, as he • aith they do, and that they call it so because the victime, that is here, hath not a gross, carnal, and bloody consecration or sacrification, as had the victimes of the Jews : it is gross, and carnal. For the victime, (as you term it) which they mean, and speak of, is either our selves, purified by faith; o • our fruits, accepted as pure from persons purified : not Christ, killed, and sacrificed unto God his Father, which is your Massing-uictime, pure of it self, and purifying others, as you fancy. Yea, since it is granted by D. Allens own words, that Austin, expounding it of the sacrifice of praise, meaneth not the sacrifice of the Mass thereby: let that place of Austin he weighed with the rest of his and other Fathers, and it shall be found that Malachi toucheth not the Mass in their judgment, by D. Allens own grant. The six reasons therefore which he setteth forth, as strong, and very good, for the proof thereof, prove it no better out of the Prophets in the old testament: then do his bare words out of the Apostles in the new. In deed there is no letter through all the scriptures for it. And thus much perhaps him self hath espied, since he wrote his treatise of the sacrifice of the Mass. For in his Apology of the English Seminaries, (where he would of likelihood make the strongest proof of it, that he could, for the defense of Mass-priests, and the Mass-priests Nourseries,) he citeth not the scriptures, but the Fathers only. Which, unless he thought that the scriptures fail him, I see not why he should. Chiefly, since he knoweth, that they, whose good liking of Mass-priests, & the Mass he seeketh specially to win by his Apology, do give greater credit to five words of God then to ten thousand words of men.

Nay, you are deceued much in D. Allen, if you think his judgment changed any whit from that it was in this point. But in his Apology he citeth the Fathers only, not the scriptures, because you have colors of spiritual sacrifices to shift the scriptures off; but you cannot the Fathers so. For they all were Mass-priests themselves, and said Mass.

What one of them, M. Hart? If you speak indeed to the point of the Mass, and daly not, as D. Allen : who maketh Mass-priests of the Apostles, because they did consecrate the body and blood of Christ, and offer it. For if to consecrate and offer, as they did, be to say Mass : then we say Mass in our Communion, and our Ministers are Mass-priests Which (I think) you mean not.

I mean that all the Fathers said Mass, as we do; and were, as we be, Mass-priests. Which he meaneth also, and proveth by the most of them. For so was S. Ambrose, testifying of him self that he offered sacrifice, and said Mass, even in that plain term.

In that plain term? Why? S. Ambose spake not English, I trust.

No. But he saith in Latin, Missam facere.

That is not to say Mass, but to do mass, or rather to dimisse. Missam fecit, in Suetonius, would prove the Mass as well as that. Which I dare not say that perhaps him self espied since he wrote it, least again you tell me that I am much deceived in him. But in his Apology turned into Latin, S. Ambroses missam facere is changed into missam dixisse. And so the words are fitter to prove he said Mass.

Dixisse, or facere : the matter standeth not in that, but in the word missa. From which since the name of Mass doth come in English: it followeth that S. Ambrose did celebrate Mass, that is, say Mass, as we term it.

Must I tell you again, that idiot cometh from idiota? And will you say that all the simple, idiotae, who hear Mass, are idiotes ?

That is a jest: you may not so put off my reason. For the name openeth the nature of the thing, as Aristotle showeth. Wherefore since the name of Mass is in S. Ambrose : how can you deny but that he did celebrate the thing, that is, the Mass it self, as we do, whom you call Mass-priests ?

And think you in earnest that S. Paul did celebrate the communion of the body and blood of Christ, as we do, who are called Ministers ?

As you do? who saith so?

You: if your reason be of any value. For the name openeth the nature of the thing, as Aristotle showeth. Wherefore since the name of communion is in S. Paul : how can you deny but that he did celebrate the thing, even the communion it self, as we do, who are called Ministers?

Yes. For though you keep the name with S. Paul: yet you keep not the thing. As sorcerers are called magi, like the Sages of the East : yet is their wisdom wicked, not like that of the Sages.

That is false M. Hart, as you refer it to our Communion. For as we keep the name, so we keep the meaning of the name too: and therefore the thing it self with S. Paul. But turn it to your Mass : and it is very true. For in S. Ambroses time the Christian people, having public prayers in many Churches daily, did therewithal daily receive the holy sacrament of Christ's body, and blood. Now, because sundry were at other partes of divine service, for whom it was not lawful to receive the sacrament, as novices in the faith who were not yet baptized, and such as Church discipline removed from the communion: therefore they were wont (after prayers made, and scriptures read, and taught,) to dimisse the rest who might not communicate, the faithful only staying to receue together. And this dimission of them was noted by the word missa, used for missio, that is a sending away, or licensing to depart. Whence it came to pass that the very name of missa was given to that part of the service: and they were said missam facere, who celebrated the communion as S. Ambrose did. Wherefore though your sacrifice keepeth the name of Mass, that S. Ambrose used: yet doth it not keep the thing meant thereby. For nether send you them away, who receive not : and many a Mass is said that hath no communicants.

But we wish (as the Council of Trent hath declared) that the faithful, who stand by at Mass, would communicate. Wherefore if they do not: it is through their own default, and not through ours.

But it is your faute that you send not them away from the communion who communicate not. And herein your Council doth vary from S. Ambrose, and other ancient Fathers, that it alloweth non-communicants to be standers by. For in the primitive Church, yea, in S. Gregory's time, (who for naming Mass too is made a Mass-priest by your Doctor,) the Deacon was accustomed to bid them depart, who did not communicate. Wherefore seeing that they meant the Communion by the name of Mass, and termed it so, because they sent away the non-communicants from it: you, who do not so, may see how fond a reason D. Allen maketh for your Mass, and Mass-priests, when he showeth Ambrose, Gregory, and Leo to have used that name. Then which there can be nothing in deed more against him. For if the name open the nature of the thing as Aristotle showeth: then is not your Mass, the mass of the Fathers, because it is not missa, that is, a dimissing, and sending away of them who receive not.

Nay, it is not only the name of the Mass, whereon he relieth, but the thing it self. For who knoweth not (saith he) that S. Gregory the great was a Mass-priest, who hath the very word, the manner, and the partes thereof so expressly in his Epistles: who sent all holy furniture and ornaments for the same to our Blessed Apostle.

What? to S. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles?

I mean, to S. Austin the Apostle of the Englishmen.

I know no such Apostle: if you mean of that sort▪ of which Christ gave Apostles ; as the majesty of the words [our Blessed Apostle] should import. But the ornaments, and furniture which S. Gregory sent to Austin the Moonke, were not Massing-vestments: no more then the vessels and clothes (that you mentioned before out of Optatus, and other ancient Fathers,) which served for the Communion. As for the manner and partes of the Mass, which he hath (you say) in his Epistles so expressly : all that which he hath▪ is, that there was said, praise ye the Lord ; and, the clergy saying, Lord have mercy upon us, the people answered them with the same words ; and Christ have mercy upon us was said in like sort ; and the Lord's prayer, with the prayer (called the Canon,) was said over the offering; and after consecration the Communion was ministered. Now compare the manner and partes of your Mass with this of S. Gregory : and they are as like it, as is an * ape unto a man. For in outward gestures, and shape of face & body, that is, in show of actions, and form of words & prayers, yours resemble it. But the soul, & reason as it were of it, which is, that the people did pray with the Pastor, nor only pray together, but communicate too: that your Mass hath not.

They pray, and communicate both in affection, though they receive not always the communion bodily, nor understand the prayers.

But, to communicate, is to eat, and drink ; which the people did in S. Gregory's time: and they understood the prayers which were made, that they might say Amen thereto. Now the Priest hath swallowed up their right, in the one; and the Clerke, in the other.

But the Canon of the Mass, which is the chiefest part, we have in like sort as S. Gregory had. And therein, the worship of Saints, and prayers for the dead: where of there is no shadow at all in your Communion, neither can you abide them. The greater wrong you do both to him, and us, to make as though you followed that which he practiced ; and to say, that our Mass is no lyker his, then is an ape unto a man.

We follow him in that, wherein he followed Christ, and the followers of Christ. Himself beareth witness that the Apostles neither used nor made that Canon, but I know not what Scholar. Wherefore, though a Scholar presenteth the merits and prayers of the Saints before the throne of God, desiring help for their sakes; and prayeth for the faithful, who do rest in Christ, that they may have a place of cooling, peace, and light : yet because our Master teacheth that himself alone wrought all righteousness, that we might find favor through his desert and intercession ; and showeth that the dead who die in him, are blessed, and rest from their labors, in light, peace, and comfort ; we follow not S. Gregory's Canon in those pointes, but answer him with Christ, from the beginning it was not so. And you, who think your Mass better then an ape in respect of his, because it resembleth his in the Canon, the chiefest part of it : may know that it resembleth his therein no better then doth an ape a man, when he sweareth by the cross of his ten bones. For the Canon also, beside that y ^e people did hear, & understand it, recordeth their receiving of the body & blood : as do the other prayers too after the communion. Which being as it were the soul and reason of it: your Mass, which hath it not, is but an apish counterfeit of his, for all the Canon. Nay, it is in deed so much the more apish ; because it hath his words, and not the meaning of them.

You grate on the Communion still, as if the Canon and all S. Gregory's Mass did aim at that. Which is not so. For the principal point thereof is the sacrifice, even the sovereign sacrifice, that is, our Savior Christ offered to God his father. And since this is that which the Canon speaketh of, and S. Gregory offered, and the Mass importeth with us, whom you call Mass-priests : it followeth that S. Gregory celebrated the sacrifice of the Mass, as we do; and therefore was a Mass-priest, not a Minister of the Communion.

Then the men & women of Rome were Mass-priests too in S. Gregory's time, and celebrated the sacrifice of the Mass, as you do. For the sacrifice which he offered, and the Canon speaketh of, is the bread and wine, offered by the men and women for the Communion; and the sacrifice of praise, which they did offer all to God.

Nay, it is the very body and blood of Christ.

The words of the Canon are plain to the contrary. For it desireth God to accept and bless their offering, that it may be made the body and blood of Christ to th • m. It was not the body, and blood of Christ therefore, but very bread and wine, which the faithful people offered to be •• nctified to the use of the Communion.

It was bread and wine before consecration: as it is declared by those words of the Canon. But after consecration the Canon saith of it, Hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam, that is, the pure, holy, and undefiled host.

But upon those words it followeth in the Canon : the holy bread of eternal life, and the cup of salvation. Wherefore the bread, and the cup, that is, the wine, though holy now, and sanctified to be the bread of life, and cup of salvation, that is, the body and blood of Christ in a mystery, but the bread, and wine are the pure, holy and undefiled sacrifice, or host (as you term it,) not only before but after consecration too.

Nay, the real body, and blood of Christ are meant by the bread, and the cup, in a figurative speech: and so Christ himself, is the pure, holy, and undefiled host.

Where a figurative speech is used in scripture: you will none of it. Here, where your Canon useth none, you fancy it. For it followeth straight touching that bread, and that cup: upon the which things vouchsafe o Lord to look down with a merciful & cheerful countenance, and to accept them as thou didst vouchsafe to accept the offerings of thy righteous servant Abel. So that, if Christ him self were meant really by the bread, and the cup, in a figurative speech: then the Priest desireth God to look on Christ with a merciful and cheerful countenance, and to accept of him at the Priests request, as he did accept the gifts, which Abel offered. There hath been heretofore a saying amongst you, (which I hope you like not,) that a Priest is the creator of his creator. But by this means the Priest is lifted higher to be the mediator of his mediator. And so will you vouch in earnest of Mass-priests, that, which Tertullian did jest at in the Heathens: man must be merciful unto God now ; unless it please the Priest, Christ shall not find favor in his fathers sight.

The prayer of the Priest that God will look upon his offerings, and accept them, hath a very good meaning, whereof I do not dout. But the former words, touching the host, must needs betoken Christ. For how can the name of a pure, holy, and undefiled host be given to the bread, and wine?

How are they called pure, or undefiled gifts, offerings, and sacrifices in the Canon it self before consecration?

They may be called pure by acceptation there, as yourself expounded. Which the Canon seemeth to imports also, in that it prayeth God to accept them and bless them.

Even so they may be called here a pure, holy, and undefiled sacrifice. For the Canon also likewise prayeth God to accept them, in express terms; and, in effect, to bless them. Whereof it hath a farther and plainer proof too, in that it saith they offer to God that pure sacrifice, the bread of life, and cup of salvation, of his gifts. For in saying that they offer it of the gifts of God, it showeth that the very bread and wine is meant. Which the people being used then to offer, (as now we offer money:) the rest there of was given after to the poor; a part was taken first for the use of the communicants, that they might be partakers of the bread of life and cup of salvation, that is, the holy sacrament of the body and blood of Christ.

I know that the name of sacrifice is given to the people's offerings, and other things often. But I am persuaded that, by the pure, holy, and undefiled sacrifice, S. Gregory meant Christ: and so did offer him up to God his Father, in the Mass, as we do. Which I think the rather, because they were Mass-priests (as our Apology showeth,) who lived in the function of Priesthood before him. For the holy Council of Nice knew none but such offerers, or sacrificing, that is, Massing-priests. S. Cyprian acknowledgeth the Priests of his time, to have offered, or sacrificed, yea even in prisons. He was a Mass-priest, that S. Austin sent to do sacrifice in a house infested with evil spirits. They were Mass-priests of whom Eusebius writeth, that they pacified the divine majesty with unbloody sacrifices and mystical consecrations. The dignity of Priesthood set forth in the work of the same title by S. Chrysostom, is specially commended there for the power of doing the unbloody sacrifice upon the altar. To be short, he, and all the other Fathers both Greek and Latin were Mass-priests, none being ever made but for that purpose principally: S. Ambrose testifying that to take the order of Priesthood, which he calleth with the Apostle, Imposition of hands, is to receive authority to offer sacrifice to God in our Lord's steed.

These testimonies, M. Hart, of Greek, and Latin Fathers, with the rest quoted by your Apology-writer either at Douay, or at Reims : do some of them mention offering, and not sacrificing ; some speak of sacrificing, but not the sacrificing of Christ. Between the which pointes what difference there is: for the one, himself is a sufficient witness, in that he declareth that sundry things are offered which are not sacrificed ; for the other, they, who show that the faithful did offer sundry sacrifices, as namely, of alms, of praise, of them selves, even at the celebration of the Lord's supper. But admit they meant by offering, and sacrificing, the sacrificing of Christ, as some of them did: yet nether was their sacrificing, that, which your Massing is; nor they who sacrificed, Mass-priests. For you will have the sacrifice offered in the Mass to be a very, sovereign, true, and proper sacrifice : whereby you mean that Christ is killed there indeed, and sacrificed to God. But the Fathers named their offering, a sacrifice, not properly, but by a figure: meaning the death of Christ (our only very, sovereign, true, and proper sacrifice,) to be represented there, in a mystery, not exequuted in deed. For as in the Scripture sacraments are noted by the names of things whereof they are sacraments, that men may lift their eyes from the outward signs to the things signified: so because we are willed to celebrate the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ in his remembrance, and to show his death ; that showing of his death, and remembering of his sacrifice, is called by the Fathers his sacrifice, and death. So doth Cyprian treat of the offering of Christ. For teaching that we mention his death in all sacrifices, he giveth this as a reason of it, for the death of Christ is the sacrifice which we offer. So doth Chrysostom open his meaning of the sacrifice. For he affirmeth it to be a sign of Christ's death : and having said that we offer the very sacrifice that Christ did, he correcteth his speech thus, or rather we work a remembrance of that sacrifice. So the same Ambrose who speaketh of sacrificing to God in Christ's steed, doth expound it too, even with Chrysostom's words. So Austin saith that Christ, although he were sacrificed but once in himself, is sacrificed every day to Christian folk in a sacrament or mystery: nether is he falsely said to be sacrificed. For sacraments have a certain resemblance of those things whereof they are sacraments; and for that resemblance they take the names commonly of the things themselves: as the sacrament of the body of Christ is Christ's body after a certain sort, and the sacrament of the blood of Christ is Christ's blood. Finally, Eusebius (who may serve also to declare the judgment of the Council of Nice, whereof he was a part) doth by the very name of vnblooddy sacrifices witness his agreement therein with the rest. For he calleth our remembrances and representations of the death of Christ in celebrating the sacrament of his body and blood, though sacrifices, for the lykenes; yet unbloody, for the difference: to show that Christ is not sacrificed in them truly, and properly, (for then must his blood be shed, as it was, when he suffered death,) but only by the way of a sacrament, & mystery, wherein the true sacrifice is set forth before us, and remembered by us. And this he maketh plainer other where by saying, that Christ having offered him self for a sovereign sacrifice unto his • ather, ordained that we should offer a remembrance thereof unto God in steed of a sacrifice. Which remembrance we celebrate by the signs of his body and blood, upon his table: and, pleasing God well, we offer unbloody sacrifices, and reasonable, and acceptable to him.

Nay, Eusebius calleth our sacrifices, unbloody, in respect of the manner, and not of the thing. For they are true sacrifices of Christ, and therefore bloody : but Christ who was offered upon the cross blooddily, is offered in the Mass vnblooddily.

That is your Trent-doctrine: but it will not cleave with the words of Eusebius. For he calleth them vnblooddy sacrifices : not bloody sacrifices offered vnblooddily, but unbloody sacrifices. And adding that we celebrate the remembrance therein of the sacrifice of Christ by the signs of his body, and blood: he showeth that they are not in deed bloody sacrifices, but mysteries of the bloody.

Nay, the blood of Christ, the very sacrificall blood (as we term it) which Christ did shed upon the cross, is in the blessed chalice of the altar at the sacrifice of the Mass. For Chrysostom (in that notable work of the Priesthood ) saith that Christ is seen there by all the faithful, and mentioneth his blood too.

Yea, and (that is more) he saith that Christ is held there in all their hands, and all are made red with that precious blood. The Fathers delight much in such effectual speeches: which need wiser readers, then many be who light on them. But if yourself know that the whole people which cometh to your Mass, is not made red with the sacrificall blood : you may learn thereby that Chrysostom, speaking of blood in the sacrifice, doth consider of it as bloody in a mystery, but in deed unbloody.

Nay: it is called unbloody by the Fathers, as D. Allen noteth, not because the blood in deed is not in it, but to distinguish it frō the same sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, which was made and offered not without blood shed.

The blood is not shed then in this sacrifice. And therefore it is neither propiciatorie ; for sins are not remitted without shedding of blood : nor the true and sovereign sacrifice of Christ; for that is the only true, and sovereign sacrifice, wherein his blood was shed for us.

Yes: the blood is shed in the sacrifice of the Mass, but it is shed vnblooddily.

Blood, vnblooddily shed ? You speak monsters, M. Hart, unless you mean by [vnblooddily] not truly, and in deed, but sacramentally. For then you say well, that his blood is shed, when we show his death, and remember the shedding of it. But as S. Austin writeth, that the flesh and blood of the sacrifice of Christ was promised by sacrifices of resemblance before he came, was performed in truth and in deed when he suffered, is celebrated by a sacrament of remembrance since he ascended : so, when the blood of Christ is shed in this sort by the sacrament of remembrance, it is not shed in deed, for that was doon at his death only. And this is the most that you can make of the Fathers, although it be granted that they called their celebrating of the Lord's supper an unbloody sacrifice in respect of the bloody sacrifice of Christ which he offered on the cross. Much less make they for you, if they called it not so in respect of his sacrifice, but of the sacrifices of the Jews. Which it is the more likely that they did, because they called their prayers and their very worship of God vnblooddy too: no doubt to distinguish it from the Jewish worship, which offered bloody sacrifices. For as S. Paul, treating of our serving of God, calleth it reasonable, because we do sacrifice our selves spiritually; not brute beasts and senseless things with carnal ceremonies, as the Jews did▪ so the Fathers called it reasonable, and vnblooddy, to the same effect. And Eusebius namely saith that we offer vnblooddy and reasonable sacrifices to God as long as we live, meaning all spiritual sacrifices thereby, which every Christian offereth as a Priest to God. Yea, even in that place which D. Allen chose as making most for his Apology, the prayers, which the Ministers (for so Eusebius termeth them) did offer unto God, may well be understood by those sacrifices too. But if he meant only their offerings of the remembrance of Christ's death in the sacrament, as that which ensueth of mystical consecrations may seem to import: yet himself declareth by the word [vnblooddy] that he called them sacrifices, not properly, but by a figure; as meaning not that Christ is put to death there in deed, but in a mystery. To be short, he, and all the other Fathers, both Greek, and Latin, are so fully and plainly of one mind in this point: that the Master of the Sentences (in his abridgement of Divinity gathered out of them) proposing this question, whether that which the Priest doth exequute be called a sacrifice properly, resolveth that it is not. But that which is offered and consecrated by the Priest is called a sacrifice (saith he) and an offering, because it is a remembrance and representation of the true sacrifice and the holy offering made on the altar of the cross, as he proveth by the Fathers. Wherefore since the sacrifice offered in the Mass is a true and proper sacrifice, as you define it; and that of the Fathers is not a true sacrifice, but called so improperly: it remaineth to be concluded that the Fathers nether said Mass, nor were Mass-priests. And so, to make an end with that which you began with, the cause is just, and holy, why we call presbyteros, not Priests, but Elders. For since the name of Priest hath relation to sacrifice, & men by the sacrifice understand your Mass, and your Mass is a monster of abomination, profaning the blood of Christ, condemned by the Scriptures, unknown to the Fathers, detestable in the sight of God and of the godly: the charge of the Lord, not to lay a stumbling block before the blind, might have removed that name from Ministers of the gospel, yea, although they had been ordained to sacrifice, much more since they are not, but as other Christians. The name of Elders therefore expressing that word whereby the Scripture calleth them, as it is confessed by your own authentical, translating it so: we could not but allow it. Chiefly since the very necessity of opening our meaning unto others (which is the end of languages) required different words for the different things of presbyter, and sacerdos. For how will you translate that saying of S. Austin, that S. John's words [ they shall be Priests of God, & of Christ ] are meant of all Christians; non de solis episcopis, & presbyteris, qui proprie iam vocantur in ecclesia sacerdotes ; that is, as we translate, not of Bishops and Elders only, which now are called peculiarly Priests in the Church. But how would you translate it?

There is a defect in our English tongue, that we cannot translate it so perspicuously as it is in Latin, because we have but one word for presbyter, and sacerdos.

Then you should not play the dog in the manger, nether yourselves mending the defectes of our tongue, nor suffering us to mend them. For if a man translate it as your Rhemists do, not of Bishops and Priests only, which are properly now in the Church called Priests: how shall the English reader understand his meaning which Priests