A Pleasant Purge for a Roman Catholic
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This project took a huge amount of time and skill to bring to fruition. I would particularly like to thank David Jonescue for the initial list of Puritans he found on EEBO and the concept behind this project as well as the continuous, unceasing efforts toward seeing this complete. Without his labor, this would not be available. Alex Sarrouf was invaluable in providing the initial list of over 7,000 spelling variations he had identified and corrected, as well as continuing to review more than 16,000 additions to that list for any typos.
Logan West
(with David Jonescue and Alex Sarrouf)
www.puritansearch.org
A PLEASANT PVRGE, FOR A ROMAN CATHOLIKE, To evacuate his EVILL HUMOVRS. Consisting of a Century of Polemicall Epigrams; wherein divers gross Errors, and Corruptions of the Church of Rome are discovered, censured, refuted, in a facetious, yet serious manner.
By WILLIAM PRYNNE, an Vtter-Barrister of Lincolns-Inn; who composed these Poems, to solace himself, in his late tedious Imprisonments.
Horatius de Art Poetica. Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci.
Jeremiah 51. 6. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his Soul; be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance; he will render unto her a recompense.
2 Thessalonians 2. 10, 11, 2. Because they received not the love of the Truth, that they might be saved; for this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Printed at London by R. C. for Michael Sparke Senior, dwelling at the blue Bible in Green Arbour, 1642.
TO The Most Illustrious CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES, AND Heir Apparant to the Crown of GREAT BRITAINE.
G
Reat Britain's
present
Joy,
her future
Hope,
And
Faiths Defender
against
Rome's
proud
Pope;
Vouchsafe to cast Your
Gracious Princely eye
On these
unpolishit Poems;
which descry,
Refute some
foul, gross Errors, Practises
Of
Rome's false Church.
By one short view of these,
Your
Highness
may conjecture of the rest,
And be stir'd up forever to detest
With greatest
Zeal, Rome's Errors, Blasphemies;
Which make
good hearts
with indignation rise
Against them.
Great Jehovah
Crown and bless
Your
Highness
with
all kinds of Happiness;
And, through
Your Favor,
make this
PVRGE
of use,
Si
•
ke Roman Souls
to
true Health
to reduce.
So prayeth,
Your Highnesses most humble devoted Servant, WILLIAM PRYNNE.
To the Courteous Reader.
Remain'd a Prisoner under Custody;
We oft conferred in a friendly way,
Of
divers points of Doctrine,
wherein they
Dissented from us; and
some Practical
Corruptions,
which they,
Rome, Devotion
call.
On this occasion, to help pass the time,
I some of our
Discourses
turned to
Rime;
That so I might with
greater Liberty,
And
less Offence,
their
Errors
lash, descry;
Both to convince, and cause them to despise,
Their
fond false Tenants, Worships, Blasphemies.
Which
Poems
since, being licensed the
Press,
As useful for these times; fit to repress
Not yet oppugn'd by any in that kind,
As here they are;) I them shall recommend
Unto thy use (kind Reader) to this end,
That thou mayest weigh their
matter,
not their
dress;
Which is but rude, unworthy
View,
or
Press.
Mind then their
Substance,
not lame
Poetry;
And all
Defects
in friendly sort pass by.
If any
Health
thou by this PVRGE shalt gain;
Bless God; and pray for him who shall remain,
Thine in the Truth, WILLIAM PRYNNE.
A Table of the Epigrams herein comprised.
- 1. O N, and against Popish Ave Mary's. Page 1
- 2. On, & against Popish Beads and Pater-nosters oft repetition on them. p. 19
- 3. On, and against Popish Crucifixes, and Images of Christ. p. 23
- 4. On, and against Popish Crucifixes, and Adoring them with Latria. p. 28
- 5. On, and against Popish Pictures of the Virgin Mary, as a crowned Queen, sitting on a Throne with Christ a sucking Infant held in her arms; And on the Relics o • her milk, which they keep and show. p. 31
- 6. On, and against Papists painting the Virgin Mary, and other Saints in new fashions, with frizled hair, and rich dresses. p. 35
- 7. On Saint Dominickes vision of Friars of his Order, hid in Heaven under the Virgin Mary's Peticoate; and on the Relics of her Garments, which Papists keep and show in sundry places. p. 37.
- 8. On, and against Papists reserving the Host, and carrying it in Procession. p. 39.
- 9. On Popish Tapers. p. 42
- 10. On Saint Michaels Buckler and Poynard kept for a Relique in the Chapel of Saint Michaels mount, in base Normandy. p. 42
- 11. On the Relics of Josephs Han, and the Asses tail, whereon Christ rode. p. 43
- 12. On the Popish Sacrifice of the Mass. p. 44
- 13. On Rome's 7. Sacraments. p. 45
- 14. On Rome's 7. deadly sins. ib.
- 15. On Rome's Latin Prayers. p. 46
- 16. On Popish Miracles ib.
- 17. On Popish Whippings and Satisfactions. p. 47
- 18. On Papists abstaining from flesh on Fasting days. ibid.
- 19. On Papists making Marriage a Sacrament; yet forbidding their Priests to marry, and permitting them to keep Whores. p. 48
- 20. On Rome's extreme Unction, and its being a Sacrament. ib.
- 21. On Papists implicit Faith, & Images. p. 49
- 22. On Popish blind obedience. ib.
- 23. On Popish Pilgrimages, Offerings, Kneelings, Prayers to the Images of the Virgin, and their worshipping of her and them. p. 50
- 24. On Rome's worshipping the Cross, nails, and what ever touched Christ's body, with Latria, or divine Worship. p. 52
- 25. On Rome's Prayers to dead Saints, and for the dead. p. 53
- 26. On Rome's divine Adoration of her painted Crosses. p. 54
- 27. On Papists supposed looking-glass of the Trinity, for their Saints to see prayers in. ib.
- 28. On Prayers in an unknown Tongue. p. 56
- 29. On Rome's Idol, and idle worship. ib.
- 30. On Transubstantiation. ib.
- 31. On Popish Transubstantiation, and Annihilation. p. 57
- 32. On Transubstantiation, and the Popes Vicarships repugnancy. p. 59
- 33. On the real presence, Pix and Crucifixes repugnancies. ib.
- 34. On Transubstantiation, and Popes Leaden Bulls. p. 60
- 35. On Popish Priests, taking away the cup from the people. ib.
- 36. On Popish Concomitancy, and the sacred Cup. p. 61
- 37. On Popish Concomitancy; and half Communion. ib.
- 38. On Praying to, and representing of God and Saints by Pictures. p. 62
- 39. On worshipping Images. ib.
- 40. On Popish Confessors and Pardons. p. 63
- 41. On Popish Altars and Mass-Priests. ib.
- 42. On Popish Purgatory and its fire. ib.
- 43. On Popish Indulgences. p. 64
- 44. On Popish Merits, and Prayers to Saints.
- 45. On Papists praying to Christ, to save them by Thomas Beckets blood. p. 65
- 46. On Rome's Freewill. ib.
- 47. On Popish Priests shaven beards, and shorn Nuns. ib.
- 48. On Popes Bulls, and doubting of Salvation, their contradict on. p. 67
- 49. On Pop • sh Sa • nts 〈…〉 for partiticular Coun •••• s, 〈…〉 , & kinds of 〈…〉 p. 68
- 50. 〈…〉 p. 69
- 5 • . 〈…〉 ib.
- 5 • . On Pop • sh Merits. ib.
- 53. On Auricular Confession. p. 70
- 54. On Rome's Prayers to Saints. ib.
- 55. On Popish Monks, Players, Prayers, and Merits. p. 71
- 56. On Rome's taking away the Scripture, Cup, and second Commandment from the people. ib.
- 57. On the Romish Mass. p. 72
- 58. On the Popes two swords. p. 73
- 59. On the Popes two keys. ib.
- 60. On kissing the Popes feet. ib.
- 61. On the Popes being Peters successor. ib.
- 62. On the Popes not erring, whilst he sits in Peters chair. p. 74
- 63. On the Popes not erring. ib.
- 64. On Popes not sinning and erring as Popes but as men. ib.
- 65. On the Popes not erring, and falling from Grace.
- 66. On the Popes pardons, and mortal sins. p. 75
- 67. On the Popes being Christ's Vicar general upon earth.
- 68. On Popes pardons of sins. p. 76
- 69. On the Popes being head of the Church
- 70. On Rome's sins, curses and pardons.
- 71. On the Pope and his Cardinals.
- 72. On the Popes being Christ's Vicar p. 77
- 73. On the Popes Vicarship, and Vicars.
- 74. On the Popes Porpherie chair, wherein they are groped, and tried to be men. p. 78
- 75. On Christ's Crown of Thorns, and the Popes triple crown of gold.
- 76 On Peters poverty, and the Popes great wealth; and being Peters successors.
- 77. On Popes prohibiting Priests from marriage. p. 79
- 78. On Protestants damnation by Papists, and the reason of it. p. 82
- 79. On Rome's Savior's and Jesuits.
- 80. On no Salvation out of the Church of Rome. p. 83
- 81. On Papists making Apocrypha Canoninicall, and Canonical Scripture less than Apocryphal; with their blasphemies against it, and Popes power over it. p. 84
- 82. On the two Arch-Patriarchs of Popish Friars, Saint Francis and Saint Dominick and their blasphemies concerning them. p. 85
- 83. On the strange Popish Miracles, attributed to, and forged of Saint Vincent Ferryer, and Saint Anthony of Padua. p. 93
- 84. On the Popish blasphemous Legends of their Saint Katherine of Sennes. p. 95
- 85. On a Popish Miracle of their deified Hostia. p. 98
- 86. On Papists Prayers to those for Saints, who neither were Saints nor men. p. 99
- 87. On Popish blind obedience. p. 100
- 88. On Rome's making perpetual visibility a note of the true Church. p. 101
- 89. On Rome's making Multitude, and Roman, another note thereof. p. 102
- 90. On Rome's engrossing the name of the true Church of Christ to her self alone.
- 91. On Rome's Religion turned to policy. p. 103
- 92. On Popes Right, to interpret Scripture, and their strange Glosses on sundry Texts to prove their supremacy, and the lawfulness of deposing and killing Kings, who disobey them. p. 104
- 93. On the Popes Supremacy and Sovereignty over Kings, Emperors, and Kingdoms. p. 109
- 94. On Popish Images. p. 111
- 95. On Rome's Doctrine and practice of Equivocation.
- 96. On Papists blasphemous assertions touching the Virgin Mary, to the dishonor of God the Father, and Christ his Son. p. 112
- 97. On Rome's Novelties, notwithstanding her pretence of Antiquity. p. 114
- 98. On, and against Rome's half-Communion, and Sacrilegious depriving of the people of the Sacramental Cup. p. 217
- 99. On, and against Popish and superstitious bowing to Altars, and railing in the Lord's Table Altarwise. p. 140
- 100. On, and against Popish bowing to Altars, and adoration of the Host. p. 181
Errata.
PAge 9. l. 3. for you, read your, l. 10 the, four. p. 13. l. 35. hers, his, p. 27. l. 5. it, is. p. 28. l. 1. Nazarene, p. 55. l. 25. ascend, p. 72. l. 16. eternity; extremity, p. 88. l. 18. there tarry, p. 95 l. 18. the Baker, p. 99 l. 12 you Saint, p. 113. l. 16. advocate, p. 117 l. 17. Constance, p. 120. l. 11. for to, p. 121. l. 33 great feast, l. 34. guest, p. 124. l. 17. received, l. 21. no; Nay, l. 27. whom when received, p. 126. l 25. makes, p. 129 l. 16. that, as, p. 131. l. 8. Dranke, l. 35. Sacraments of; Sacramental: p. 134 l. 4. yet, it. p. 135. l. 8. and some, l. 23. public, vulgar, p. 138. Nor, Not; p. 139. l. 9 they, th • are.
In the Margin, p. 12. l. 40. dele and, p. 13. l. 17. Novae, l. 27. Capreolus, p. 28. l. 34. Molanus, p. 66. l. 40. Rosella, p. 109. l. 24. Eutropius, p. 138. l. 5. Eucharistia, l. 11. Carnotensis, l. 17. Spe ••• . p. 174 l. 39 Sam. Sacr.
A PLEASANT PVRGE FOR A ROMAN CATHOLICK, TO EVACVATE HIS EVILL HVMORS. Consisting of sundry Epigrams ; wherein divers Errors, and gross Corruptions of the Church of Rome are discovered, censured, refuted, in a Facetious, yet serious Manner.
On, and against Popish Ave-Mary's.
N
O
Ave-Marie
now? No Salutation
Of the blest Virgin since her Exaltation?
Must we not then this honor now
her give,
In state of Glory, mounted up on High
[ 1]
And so Casheer'd by this Her Elevation.
Friends, Neighbors use none to salute or greete
By speech, whilst absent, but when as they meet.
If Men in
England
should salute with
Ave
Their friends in
Spain,
& cry to them,
God save ye,
All Hail
good sirs, and with them Complement
Whiles absent there, as if they were present;
Or should they
Aves
to their Pictures say,
And them Salute, as you do hers each day,
All would them deem mad, foolish; are not ye
Then Mad, Craz'd, Sottish thus to cry
Ave,
Hayle Mary full of Grace,
to
Mary
here,
And to her Pictures, as if still she were
Here present with you; when you
all grant, know,
Those now in
Spain
are from us
English
Men.
No doubt your wits are fled, you quite err, dote,
Thus to salute her from you so Remote,
Since Fools, yea little Children still deny
To ask their Parents blessing, if not by;
Go to Salute them with Cap, Congee, Knee,
Except they see them, and they present be.
Into her Presence;
pray do ye the same;
Stay, till you meet her Person, then salute;
The Angel else your folly will confute;
Who in her absence used no Complement,
Nor
Ave,
but when, where she was present.
Nor did he her Salute, nor
Ave
cry
To Her from Heaven Above, and to her came
With special tidings:
do you than the same.
Stay till God sends you to her, then salute:
The Angel, else, your Dotage will refute.
When you come to her with an Embassy
From God, then Her salute and
Ave
cry:
But not before, since tis Presumption
Her to salute without commission.
Saluted her with
Ave
here: how can
You then (no Angels, but mere men) presume
The
Angels Salutation
to Assume?
You are too bold with Him and
Mary
here,
First, to Vsurpe his words, and then to cry
Ave
to this grand Queen Familiarly,
Without their leave or God's, as if you were
Their equals; till you be so, pray forbear
Your
Aves:
Its not Manners, nor Decent
For you with this grand Queen to Complement:
It stands not with a Princesse Royalty,
That all should her salute Familiarly.
Then ceased, and did not oft repeat it over.
How then can you your
Aves
every Day
Repeate oft times together, when you pray,
And never cease? the Angle certainly
Did never teach you such Battology.
That she a thousand times used to recite
The Ave Mary, Prostrate on the Ground
On Each Feast, Vigil▪ which she sacred found
Unto the Virgin, and did cry Ave
When and where ere she did her Image see;
By sound of Bell, nine
Aves
for to Say,
Morning, Noone, Evening, three Aves together
Without one Pater Noster them to sever;
So that you pray to
Mary
nine times more
Each day, than unto God, if not nine Score.
For, in your
Ladies Beads
or
Rosary;
(Which all Dominican Monks, and sundry
Besides, are bound to use still) you each day
Successively; ten Ave Mary's to
One Pater Noster;
and so pray unto,
Her ten times more than to God the Father,
And so her ten times before him prefer,
Your hours, with Aves to her, ere you call
On God, your lips to open, and to be
Your Aide; proceeding, ending with Ave
To her:
with it you still
begin and end
Your Sermons, Prayers;
Her, more than God intend.
Fools, why do ye thus her prefer before
God, and than him invoke thus ten times more?
Why do you vex her with Battologies,
And Peales of oft rehearst
Ave Mary's
From day today? for shame this clamour cease,
The Angel else will bid you hold your Peace,
Who said his
Ave
only once, no more
For ought we read; give then your
Aves
over;
You have repeated them so oft Each day,
That now tis time to cast them quite Away,
The Angel his
Ave
to
Mary
said
To inform her of
something she before
Knew not at all;
which done, he spake no more.
You not to inform her of ought that's new,
Or of a thing which she before not knew;
But out of fear least she forget what He
Inform'd her then through flux of time,
Ave
Unceasantly, and naught but
Aves
say;
No doubt she hears them not, for if she did,
She would as many times each day have chid
You for your folly, as you
Ave
cry,
Not to her honor, but great infamy;
Who think her deaf, dull, void of Memory,
Forgetfull of her Grace, Felicity,
And of the Angels Message; at least wise
Delighted with your vain Tautologies,
That you such Peales of
Aves
to her Thunder;
If she hear ought for them it is a wonder.
Cease than to cloy, deaf, shame, vex her with
Ave,
Else she'l hear naught else, nor have time to save ye;
Tooke up, deaft, tired with
Aves
alone;
To her no pleasing, but distasteful Tone,
But now thus babled, her Provokes to Ire.
Learn Manners from the Angel,
Ave
cease
When uttered once, then after hold your peace.
Cease
Aves
now for shame; if you proceed
You are no
Angels
but the
Cuckoo's
breed.
Us'd his Ave, whiles she was here only
Among Women,
in State of Grace, not Glory;
Be you then guided by the Angels story.
You have no Embassy unto her Grace,
From God himself, to preface thus; her Case,
State, Place, are altered much from what they were
When as the Angel her
saluted here:
She hath no Women in her Company:
There are no women yet in heaven; its true
Good women's Souls are there in Bliss, but you
Cannot their Souls call women; since souls are
Not Male nor female, and naught doth declare,
Make, differ Sexes but bodies alone;
And women's Bodies yet in heaven are none;
Therefore no women doubtless are now there:
But Grant they be, yet no Women are near
On the throne of the Blessed Trinity,
Above all Angels, Saints, who come not nigh
The Virgin, whom you mount, advance so high.
You cannot then say truly,
Blest art thou
Among Women;
Unto the Virgin now;
Since no Women are in her Company:
When you say
Aves
now, you still do Lye.
His Ave Mary uttered first to her:
You as a prayer to her it say always;
This doth your Error, sottishness display▪
His
Salutation
was not, cannot be
God never sent an Angel to teach Men,
To pray to Him, much less to
Mary;
then
It is no Prayer; no Angels but Christ may
Presume once to prescribe what Men shall pray.
Of Christ's conception, craving her nothing.
A Prayer to her, makes God to pray to Men.
There is no word in it which possibly
His greete a Prayer to her can once Imply.
[ 4]
A
Salutation,
and no prayer at all.
And that a mere salute a pray'r should be
To her, seems strange, nay senseless unto me.
His saying, and did cast in her mind, what
Manner of Salutation this should be:
Which made the
Angel say, (c) Fear not:
Had she
Thought this a prayer made to her, certainly
She had not thus been troubled, scared thereby.
Nought this a prayer, unto her can import,
To make it then a Prayer now is mad sport,
Unless be for her: if you this deny,
A Prayer for her the words it prove clearly.
Attend you,
signifies, is an express
Prayer for, not to her; and is just the same
With our salute,
God save you
blessed Dame;
Which all confess to be a Prayer not to
But for those we salute; than
Ave's
so.
Next,
Dominus Tecum;
The Lord be with thee,
Is a prayer for, not to her: this to be
[ 2]
So, is most clear by all your
Liturgies,
Houres Mass-books,
where the Priest thus prays and cries.
A prayer to God,
for,
not to men at all.
By this then see your Madness, folly, shame,
In saying
Aves
to the Blessed
Dame.
You think thereby you only pray
unto
Not
for
the Virgin, when you quite cross do,
Praying not
to,
but
for
her always when
You say your
Aves:
O mad, senseless Men!
If she thus need your
Aves
her to save,
Bless, bring to God, how can you then ought crave
Pray, gain from her? If she needs prayers from you
She can ill aid, save those who to her sue.
That God, Christ, she, do now one throne possess.
It is mere folly then and surplusage
To Power out
Aves
for her in this Age:
At least wise
Salves;
which you make the same
With
Aves
in your
Mass-books;
where the Dame
Maria,
or
Regina,
God
save thee
Mary, or Queen of heaven;
which doth imply,
That she is not yet saved perfectly;
Because you pray God thus to save her still;
(A pray
•
re not
to,
But
for
her Grace, as will
Appeare by this prayer often Mentioned,
Not
to,
but
for
them, by their subjects:) or
If she be saved already, this prayer for
Her (made for none but those not saved yet,
And men on Earth, if I do not forget)
Must needs be Idle, Vain, Absur'd; and she
With it no doubt, will much displeased be,
Since it her not yet saved doth imply,
Before she saved was you might well say,
Aves
and
Salves
for her; but not pray
Thus for her now, when saved perfectly,
Sounding each morning, noon, night, him to tell
When he should say his
Ave to Mary,
As you have, by whose sound your Aves Cry,
Thrice trebled daily
which Bell, no Popes Ban
Or Interdicts from ringing silence Can,
All other Bells from ringing wholly stay.
The ringing these Bells is of such Moment,
To Law about it, before the Popes Grace,
To know which of them four should in first place
It ring each morning: where after long suit,
Much cost, more wrangling, and no small dispute:
It was at last resolved finally,
By an unalterable Act, that they
Who did first rise, should ring it first of all
Each morning,
men to
Aves
thus to call.
But since the Angel sounded no such Bell,
You should not ring it if you would do well.
The Angel had no Beads whereon to say
His
Aves
by set number every day;
[ 9]
He said it but once, without Beads, then you
He said it not by way of Penance;
ye
[ 10]
To Mumble over by set Scores,
and then
They are absolved and mere guiltless Men.
The Angel fell not on his knees when he
[ 11]
Unto the Virgin spake his first
Ave.
And
kneel when you with Aves on her call?
The Angel said his
Ave only to
Your
Ave Mary's only,
when you pray.
Is it that you her Pictures deem to be
Her self, that you them greete thus with
Ave?
If not, belike it is because you fear
Your voice, but yet her Images close by
May chance to hear you, when you
Ave
cry
Before them: but I doubt they both have lost
Their hearing quite, she, and the painted post:
And so your Babled
Aves
are lost, vain:
You may do well then from them to abstain.
[ 13]
The Angel said no
Pater Noster
as
A Prologue to his
Ave;
neither was
The
Ave
heretofore join'd to the
Pater
Ad its part or Apendix why of Later
Prayers, Mass-books use to
preface your Aves
With Pater Nosters, yea make them a part
Of the Lord's Prayer, or Codicell
by Art?
Conjoyning them so near, that none may say
A
Pater
without
Ave,
when they pray:
As if they both were prayers alike, and all
Who pray
Ovr Father,
ought likewise to call
On
Mary
as
their Mother, Queen,
else they
Shall not be answered though they
Paters
say.
Had this been so, the Angel, or Christ would
Have them conjoin'd thus, or at least we should
Have found them coupled thus in sacred writ;
Which since it doth disjoyne them as unfit
To Match, suit, run together; you both err
And sin no doubt to Yoke them thus together.
Belike the Pater is a Beggerly
Better than it, as some held heretofore,
That you conjoin them, and say half a score
Aves for one sole Pater Noster; this
Angel near taught you thus to pray amiss.
His
Ave
did in time and Place preceede
[ 14]
The
Pater:
you, in both make it succeed.
Pater long after it; Luke,
his
Ave
Records in his
first Chapter;
the
Pater
In his
Eleaventh,
in time, place later
Than it: you
Ave
after
Pater
say,
Place, and so from the Text run quite astray.
Nay you the Angles Ave far out-go
[ 15]
As if it were the Angels own; whereby
You Wrong the Text, and make the Angle Lye
And speak Non-sense, in saying,
blessed be
The Fruit of thy Wombe;
when tis clear that she
Whence he tells her,
The Holy Ghost shall come
Upon thee, and the Power of the Highest
Shall over-shadow thee,
both these expressed
Not in the Present, but the Future Tense,
Her clause as his, makes him lie, speak non-sense,
It being true when she it spake after
Mary's
conception; false when he to her.
Sayd his Ave before it. This is bad,
But that is worse which you to his words add.
Holy Mary pray for us,
none of his
Nor of
Elizabeth's
Words, nor once found
This cursed Prayer thus with the Angels speech
As if the Angels
Mary
did beseech
To Pray God for men, and this clause indite
Which you as part of his salute recite,
To make poor people to the Virgin pray,
Who think all Scripture, Angels words they say.
When these words are
Rome's
damned innovation,
Patcht to the Angels greete: which forgery
The silly People cannot possibly
Discover, since
Rome
takes God's Word away
From them, which should this Jugling trick display
And leaves them none but such books where they
find
This clause annexed, the better them to blind.
The Angle did not such forged
Aves
say:
You must them then discard and cast away.
[ 17]
Th' Angel before, and after Offices,
Psalms, Lessons, Hymns, Houres, Sermons and Glories
Into the 95.
Psalm his
Ave:
And Lord be with you,
insert, as you do
Four times within this Psalm, annexing two
Before it,
though in the old Testament none
Can find one
Ave:
Nay, whereas in the
Whose Bible there is only one
Ave
Us'd by the Angel, you do it record
Repeate at large, omitting not one word
An
hundred and fifty times
in one small
Rosary
only; and in most of all
Your
Offices, Houres, Missalls
I it find,
Well nigh
as oft recited
in this kind.
The Angel taught you no such Cuckooes Cry.
The Angel said his Ave only to
[ 18]
Mary
her self; you say,
(Nay write that you
May
say) these
Aves, Paters
to, before
Those other Saints whom you invoke,
implore,
As you now use to say your Beads and Pater
To
Mary
and her Image, as your Father,
And then say
Aves
at your
Paters
end
To God the Father: this for shame amend,
Since tis the height of Madness, Blasphemy
To God, to Saints to say
Ave Mary,
And to say
Paters
to Saints, and to her
As if they were God,
your heavenly Father.
He never said an
Ave
too, before
[ 19]
The Cross, which you now pray to and adore
O Cross our only hope; do thou avail
In Godly men to Judgment Righteousness,
And pardon to the guilty to adresse,
He never said an Ave to the spear
That did Christ's blessed side both pierce and tear,
When you sing
Ave Lignum triumphale,
Triumphant Iron, happy spear,
these you,
As you salute, adore,
Mary
for that
Contrary to them, these your Aves be
Quite Cross to hers, and cannot well agree
The Virgin cannot take it well that these
Should be adored with
Latry
and
Aves
As well as she, and equaliz'd to her
For killing Christ, who did him Nurse and bear.
Yea, you say
Ave Chrisma
to that
Oil
And Chrism wherewith you children grease & soil:
In all these you quite from the Angel stray.
[ 20]
He never said his
Ave
at no one day
By sound of bell, as you it use to say
That these Aves might those aide and defend
Who did against the Turks fight usually,
A goodly charm, no doubt, to make
Turks
fly.
Nor did he ever chaunt
Ave Mary
Or rather Hell, as you do, when you say
Your Ave Mary
prayers at Nooneday,
And in your
Offices for the dead where
You Ave Mary's say,
and pray God there
Without one word at all of Purgatory
Whose name in Missals, Houres, appears rarely:
Good proof there is no Purgatory: you
[ 22]
Must than this kind of Aves bid adue.
The Angels Ave was but arbitrary,
You deem your Aves,
Mary's
right and due,
Though neither God, Christ, She, them crave
from you.
[ 23]
The Angel greeted
Mary
with
Ave
Cannot produce one Text, proof, that any
Thus greeted her since Christ's Nativitie:
Who came to worship Christ, and did not rest
Untill they found him, when they came into
The house, and saw him with his Mother too,
Fell prostrate, worshipped him only, not her
And to him offered Gold, Incense, and Myrrh,
But offered naught, we read, to her at all;
Worship, Salute, Present, Invoke only
Her, and the Babe Christ, in her Arms, pass by
Uncourted, uninvoked, No
Ave
Is said to him, knee bowed, thing offered; she
(A Crowned Queen) hath all the Ceremony,
Prayers, Worship, Off'rings, whiles he a Babie
In her Arms, is Neglected: O fools see
How opposite to the wise Men you be,
The sucking Babe,
but past the Mother by.
Had he seen Christ with her, before his eyes:
Or in her arms: you must not
Ave
cry
Then, or her greet henceforth, if Christ be by,
As he is still, in Picture, when you say
Your
Aves
to her Image, as you pray.
He never did his
Ave Mary
say
To purge all Mortall, Veniall sins away,
[ 24]
Use for to say;
a new found Purgatory
To Purge Men from all sins without Christ's
blood,
Which the Apostles never Understood.
Of our Ladies Chapter or Rosary,
As you have done, to cry
Ave
each day
An hundred and fifty
times without stay;
To all of which Order
Pope Innocent
The Eight by his hand, voice and full consent
Life one, in death the to'there of all sin;
And five years after gave an hundred years
And Quarantines of Pardons to each bears
The Chaplet but about him; and many
Popes since, to those who say the Rosary
And
Ave,
have granted them, seven, five, two
Yeares indulgence, with Quarantines thereto.
Nay
Alexander
the sixth gave Pardon
For thirty thousand years, to everyone
Who before the Altar of our Lady
With Christ and her Mother, should say only
A special
Ave,
importing that she
Was without sin conceived;
such Pardons he
Did neither give nor grant to any here
Then
for to grant them;
till God, Christ,
Mary,
This Angel give them such Authority.
[ 26]
The Angel which appeared to
Gideon,
Did use to him this Salutation;
Yet none this greete to
Gideon
will recite:
An Angel unto
Manoah's Wife,
also
Brought down from God these happy tidings;
Lo
Thou shalt conceive and bear a Son;
the same
In substance with those he to
Mary
came;
Yet none to her this greeting Message use:
You must then both repeat, or both refuse.
Brought tidings of Johns, Christ's Nativity;
And said to them as unto
Mary
here,
Fear not,
and so forth; yet it is most clear
That none to them these greets or Aves say;
You must your
Ave Mary's
cast away
Then by the selfsame reason, since that ye
Can show no Precept, Ground to say
Ave
To
Mary
only, and to pretermit
The Angels words to all these, as unfit
To use each day alone, or join'd to the
Lord's prayer, as your
Ave Mary's be.
The Angel never dreampit that his
Ave,
[ 27]
Could Reprobates and damned Souls set free
From hell it self, when as your Rosary
Not,)
but devoutly used will obtain
Eternal life for Reprobates,
and gain
Damn'd tortured Souls out of hell fire,
whence ye
The souls of Reprobates and damned men by
His Prayers, and his Covents of Clary
From Hell, or Vuleans Pots, in whose flames they
By Devils were tormented night and day:
All which the Devils did oft times Lament
In hearing of an Anchorite, who sent
This news to Odilo; who then ordains
All-souls day hereupon, damned souls from pains
Of hell to free,
and not from Purgatory,
As most now write against the first pend story.
If
Ave Mary's, Rosaries
can free
Damn'd Souls from hell, Few then shall damned
be.
In fine, his Ave was esteemed no part
[ 28]
Of
Mary's
or God's worship: by what art
And God too, by your Aves
worshipped be:
Yet
Mary
more than God, since that you all
Your
Offices, Houres, Psalters; Mass-books call
Not God's, but
Mary's,
so that you adore,
Serve, her only now, at least-wise her more
By far than God, Christ, since your books thus
bear
Her name and title, not theirs, as is clear
By your new Printed Mass-books, which stilled be
In all their Titles, Fronts, as you may see,
Our Ladies Psalters, Primers, Offices,
Houres, Rosaries,
and such like: This
Aves
Use hath in time produced, you to Make
God, Christ, the Holy Ghost, and Trinity
Adoring none for God, but her only:
She is Rome's Goddess; God, Father, Son, Sp'rite,
Trinity, Mother; and none else of Right.
Most Monks, Nuns, Orders; all Houres, Offices,
Books of Devotion are hers, bear her Name,
And all Grace, Pardon comes from this blest Dame,
As Rome Avers now.
This Aves have wrought
Beyond, contrary to the Angels thought,
And
Mary's
too; who by them hath undone,
Ungodded both the Father, and the Son.
On, and against Popish Beads, and Pater-Nosters [ 2] oft Repetition on them.
And all their
Pater-Nosters
by them say.
Is it because they set them out to sale,
And none will buy them by their weight but Tale?
As they do wooden Billets; and therefore
They must have
Beads
to keep true Count and
score?
If so; it seems a just and Lawfull Act;
Though to sell Prayers, be no Christian Fact.
Or is it, because they contract each day
With God, how many
Paters
they will say
To him? and so their Bedes serve to keep true
Account, that God from them may have his due;
So many
Pater-Nosters
just as they
By Contract, vow, or penance, ought to pay?
This seems an honest Practice, and most just,
To render God his due: yet then they must
First prove, that God takes all their prayers by
Tale
Not weight; but this would mar their price and
sale.
Their
Paters
are so light, that God must take
Them all by Tale, since they no weight will make.
For should he balance them, their endless tale
Of
Paters,
would not Poyse, nor turn the Scale.
Bedes then keep equal Scores, 'twixt God and
them;
God would forget else what they pay to him:
He is oblivious, if not false; therefore
They dare not trust him, they must keep the score.
Or else they deem he minds no more than they
Their mumbled Paters; else they would not pray
By Count; I doubt they cheat God in the Score
Sometimes, to make him mind their
Paters
more.
Or do they use their
Bedes
alone to find
That tale of
Paters
which they seldom mind?
Their thoughts being else-where when their
Pater's
said,
The Bedes must tell them still how oft they prayed:
Their
Paters
sure are said with great devotion;
They do not know their sum, but by Bedes
Motion:
Should God them take by weight, than, not by
Count,
So many feathers would their poise surmount.
I doubt their Beads, though light, will overweigh
All
Paters, Aves,
which they on them say;
And are far more worth were they to be sold,
Than all the
Paters, Aves,
on them told.
But why must
Paters
thus be said by score?
Did Christ's Apostles, Prophets, Saints before
Time use it? No, read Scripture new or old
You find no
Paters,
Prayers on Beads told.
Some think our
Bede,
these
Beads
did first invent,
From whom they took their Name; if I consent
Next after Christ, none
Paters
by Beads score
Said; now the Case is alt'red; few can say
Their
Paters,
unless they on Beads them pray.
Pray on them? No: let him mark who this reads
They never use to pray, but
say their Beads:
This is their Proper language, so as they
Confess, their Beads help make them not to
pray;
To
say
indeed, nay use
vain Repetition,
Against the Paters and Christ's Prohibition,
Vain Babling, and your Bedes quite to put by,
Which Christ condemns as
Heathnish, and defends
All his to use, because it God offends.
But Chaplets now this remedy hath marred,
And made it the disease it should discard:
Some scores of
Pater Nosters
must be said
On Beads, ere God can hear, mind what they
praide:
He's grown now deaf belike, and cannot hear
Their first, next, third, fourth
Pater;
or they fear
He is asleep, or dreaming; so that he
With peals of
Paters
must awaked be,
Or with their Beads great rattling sound and noise,
Ere he can hear or listen to their voice.
If he hears the first dozen
Paters,
all
The next are Idle, Bootelesse, Prodigal,
Which if it
merits
ought,
its naught but pain.
Such Idle Babble, and Battology
God doth condemn, reject, hate, and defy,
Especially when they kneel down before
Saints Images, and say their
Paters
over
To them, as if they God the Father were,
And did their Beads and babled
Paters
hear:
Which damned common practice
Rome
allow's
Yea,
Hubberdin,
with
others
long ago,
S.
Peter say, and other Saints full well
Us now of late, in his
Instruction
Of the chief points of your Religion,
That doubtless men may say the Pater, or
The
Ave Marie
unto the honor,
Or Invocation of any other
Saint or Angel, with this intent, either
To pray to God that he would have mercy
Upon their souls, for this Saints, Angels Cry;
Or to craze of the Saints themselves, that they
Will offer to God for them what they pray.
A new point of faith and devotion,
Not known to Christ, but to
Rome's
Priests alone:
Had Papists sense or Reason, they might see
How oft repeated
Pater Nosters
be
Most irksome, loathsome to God, not pleasing.
For if men here should to a Judge, Lord, King,
Ten, twenty, thirty, Forty times, or more
Together the same words, requests, say over,
(As they to God say
Paters)
all would think
Them mad or foolish; yea their suites would stink
And be denide for this their Clam'rous cry,
Thougst Just, since marred by such Battology.
If it be folly, frenzy, babbling then
Oft to repeat our suites and plaints to men,
Yea, the next way to make them us deny;
Is it not just the same to God to cry
Thus
Pater, Pater,
for an hour or more
Untill your Beads be fully numbered ore?
Of God, who turns his ears from this vain cry.
All deem the
Cuckoos,
which do oft times sing
Nought else but
Cuckoo, Cuckoo,
in the spring
For three Moneths space; most foolish birds because
They oft repeat their
Cuckoo,
without pause;
And we think children, fools, the
Cuckooes
play,
In counting then how oft they
Cuckoo
say.
Papists are worse than
Cuckooes,
which forbear
Their
Cuckooes
song for nine months space each
year;
When they their
Cuckoo-Paters
night and day,
All the year long repeat, and never stay.
Yea, whereas
Cuckooes
never keep account
How oft they
Cuckoo
cry; they them surmount
In this, that they cry
Cuckoo
and keep score
How oft they do it, on Beads made therefore;
So that they are more sottish, foolish, vain
Than
Cuckoos,
Children, Fools, and so remain;
Whose several follies all conjoined be
In them, and linked in one, as now we see.
If they on Beads to pray will still proceed,
They are Fools, Children, and the
Cuckooes
seed.
On, and against Popish Crucifixes, and Images of Christ.
NO Pictures can
so lively represent
And Word, the only Crucifixes he
Hath left his Church, his death, to mind, and see.
What need of Pictures, Crucifixes then
To show Christ's death, or Person unto men?
Had they been useful, he had instituted
Them too, like these: since not, they are refuted.
If we Christ's Person, or humanity
At any time would set before our eye.
Let us behold ourselves:
No Image can
So lively set forth Christ to us, as Man,
Not Christ sufficiently unto our view,
No pictures can; they false are,
He the true,
And perfect living Image of Christ;
why
The Scripture no description of
Christ's face
That none should dare presume to undertake
Because no ground, shape's left to draw them by.
And none now know Christ's true form, portraiture:
How can the Papists, others then be sure
Those Crucifixes they adore, keep, see
Are Christ's true Pictures, and not one of the
Since both alike upon their Crosses died?
And those who made them for ought they can tell
Intended to present by them as well
These Thieves as Christ; since nothing doth appear
From the bare Picture, this great doubt to clear?
You must then know the Painters thoughts ere ye
Them for Christ's Pictures can once take to be.
Which naught can make them, but your fantasie,
And theirs that made them, but by guess only.
But grant them true, what fruits, good can accrue
To men by Christ's mere outward shape they view?
Since all our comfort rests in this, that He
His Incarnation,
not his Countenance
Was that which did our Natures, States advance;
Which men alone, not Pictures can express
Unto the Life, they then are vain, useless.
Christ was unlike to most, or all in face,
In Graces, but not paint him outwardly.
Or use at all:
we must them then forsake.
The
holy noynting Oil which Sanctifi'd
The Ark, Priests, Tabernacle, all beside
Which did thereto belong, with that perfume
Which God prescribed of old, none might presume
Were holy; and in type did Christ display,
The stink of all our prayers, with his perfume.
If then it were so grand a crime for men
To make the like to these types of Christ, then
To make Christ's Image, likeness for a use
Civil, or Sacred, is a great abuse.
Its Civil use, walls, windows, Roomes to grace,
Doth Christ, profane, abuse and much debase;
Ordaind for holy uses;
the making
Then of him common, for a civil use
Is profanation, and more grand abuse
Than to turn Churches, Lord's Bords, Chalices
To profane uses; damned by Popes Decrees
For profanation, gross impiety.
Its civil use you then must needs deny.
It is sin, profaneness, by all men's consents,
For to translate the sacred Elements
And paint his Body, blood-shed to our eye,)
Unto a vulgar use; then by the same
Reason it must deserve as great a blame,
To make Christ's Image for a civil end,
Since both alike to profanation tend.
Its Sacred use, to worship, or adore,
Be it for Common, or for Sacred use,
To make Christ's Image is a gross abuse,
Nay Sacrilege, falsehood and blasphemy,
Since it presents Christ's bare humanity
Unto men's eyes, thoughts, fancies, separate
Quite from his Godhead and Divine estate,
Which hypostatically is join'd to
His human Nature, in such sort, that no
Man must behold, view his humanity
Unto the eye, since void of all likeness
And visibility.
Christ as mere man
Unto us no Christ, Jesus, Savior can
Be, Therefore 'tis both falsehood, blasphemy
To picture Christ as a dead man only,
Hanging upon his Cross, quite severed
From what made him a Savior, his Godhead.
What comfort, profit can it be to eye
Christ hanging on his Cross as man only?
Ah, none at all. Thus you him always view
In Crucifixes. Therefore bid adieu
Unto them: and the rather because they
Mis-represent Christ to you day by day;
Not only as mere man, but as hanging
Yet actually upon his Cross: a thing
Our faith, hope, joy, and cast them to the ground;
Christ's hanging on the Cross was transient,
Up into Heaven, where he now reigns only,
To paint him then still hanging on his Cross,
Or as a sucking infant, it most gross
Abuse, controlling sacred History,
And representing nothing but a lie.
These Idol Pictures, and aside them lay;
From Christ's form which the Scriptures represent.
And like a Nazarite, with long compt hair,
And somewhat fleshy; when the Text saith, he
And that he had no form nor comeliness
Of Person in him,
(as they him express)
So that when men should see him, no beauty,
Him to desire, they should in him espy;
Whence they should him reject, despise, despite,
And hide their faces from his gastly sight.
He was no
Nazarite,
nor long hair wore
(As some yet dream, and many heretofore:)
When he came near dead Corps as Nazarites
Were bound to do, nor used ought of their rites,
Into him.
He no
sin-peace-burnt-offering,
Nor yet could be, as some men vainly write:
Its true, he dwelt at
Nazareth;
whence he
A
Nazarite
by Order, as these dote,
Saith
Paul,
yea
Nature,
and so him defame.
Was like a pot-sheard, so lean, withered, dry,
That men might all his bones tell;
these mistake
In that they in their Images him make
Plumpe, fleshy, so that none can tell his bones;
His Pictures than are mere lies, and false ones,
Expressing not Christ's true shape, but only
The Painters fancy, and gross forgery:
Those than who these false Images adore,
Worship the Painters fancy, and no more,
Instead of Christ himself; which certainly
It is no doubt a great sin to misdraw,
And teach instead of them:
In this deal they
Like men with Children from whom they away
Take gold or silver, and then them content
With Babies, Counters, their cries to prevent.
Papists are children, or the Children play,
To set up Pictures, cast God's Word away.
On, and against Popish Crucifixes, and adoring them with Latria.
WHat, Christ still hanging on the Cross? not yet
Quite dead? or doth he his pains so forget
As to take pleasure thus to hang, not die
For sundry ages? or are none there by
To take him down, if dead; that he thus stays.
So long upon his Cross, both nights and days?
Is he not yet interred,
Rais'd again,
Ascended into heaven
there to remain
Salvation lost, and our poor Souls undone?
No Sabbath nigh? hath Joseph yet not spake
To Pilate for to take him down?
Shall He
Thus on his Gibbet always hanging be?
Not among Jews in
Jury,
but in
Rome,
His Spouse, some say; O where's her love become?
Hath
Peter now forever and a day
I fear he hath, else Christ had long ere this
Beene taken off the Cross by him, or his.
But once took down; Popes hang him up again
As at the first;
but from age unto age.
This is small show of love, no doubt 'tis rage;
Yea, greater malice far than ought we find
In Pilate, Jews, High-Priests, who were so kind
Upon his cross, when first they did him slay.
Rome's turned Jew, Judas, High-Priests, worse
than all;
Their malice join'd, of hers far short doth fall:
They nail'd him only to
one Cross;
no more;
She to ten hundred thousands, past all score
And number; taking pleasure and delight
To see Christ ever hanging in her sight.
Rome upon Crosses of gold, silver, stone,
Tin, Lead, Brasse, Copper, Glass, Wood, Tapestrie,
Wax, Brick, Past, Leather, Paper, Christ hang, tie;
And least she should not him sufficiently,
On all these Crosses, kill and Crucify;
Each day.
O blessed Jesus what great store
Of Crosses, Tortures, deaths doth Rome provide
To pierce thy hands, feet and thy blessed side?
And kill thee every day oft times afresh;
Is this thy Vicars, Spouses Love to thee,
Thus worse than Pilate, Jews, High-Priests to be?
But this their malice makes notorious,
No doubt it is so if they gloss it well;
It doth deserve the deepest place in Hell.
But why do they thus fixe thee to the Cross?
Because Rome's Pope else should sustain
•
great loss;
He could not else possess thy throne, and reign,
Not as thy Vicar but thy Sovereign;
Thy Laws else must be kept, thy word obeyed,
Thy will by him fulfilled, and not gain-said:
All which Popes do against, beside thy word
Should then be void, and by all men abhorred;
They must be
Peter
then in Truth, not name,
Else thou wouldst thrust them from his chair with
shame.
Good reason have they then to nail and tie
Christ to these Crosses for Eternity.
In this they show their peerless faith, and love,
To bind Christ fast that he should never move
From off these Crosses, to oppose their-will,
They do so love his precepts to fulfill.
If this be love, I may then truly say,
The Jews in love did Crucify and slay
Christ at the first; were Popes but loved so,
They would all Crucifixes damn, forgo,
And never more the Cross, nails, spear adore
For Saints, which killed Christ, and his body tore:
But whilst they thus adore these, they imply
That to kill Christ, deserves a Deity:
The Soldiers than and Jews who Crucifi'd
Him more than these, must now be deifide,
By which Hell, Devils, shall receive great loss;
Since none to Hell can damned be, if they
Demerrit Heaven, and
Latry,
who Christ slay.
On, and against, Popish Pictures of the Virgin Mary as a Queen, sitting on a Throne with a Triple Crown on her head, and holding Christ, painted like a sucking Infant, in her Arms; and on the Relics of her milk, which they keep and show.
FIe,
Mary,
fie; what give suck to a Baby?
It is not decent, fit for Queen, nor Lady:
With them it's out of fashion; thou wilt shame
Thy self with these, they will thee tax and blame:
Werit thou no Lady, Queen, as heretofore,
Thou migh'st do this; but now not do it more
Since Queen and Lady too: Thy child grows
great
Or old enough to be weaned from the Teat.
He hath sucked sixeteene hundred years and more,
Thirty men's ages, shall he never give over?
Shall he be still a suckling, or a fool
To suck so long? tis time he were at School.
Others give suck but for one year, or two;
Thou, sixteen hundred years, what doest thou do
Thus to turmoyle thyself? and all in vain,
He doth a little Infant yet remain,
Where some not half so old as he, have known
Ten Generations unto old men grown.
Sure thy milk, I doubt, is very bad,
Thy Babe ere this might else have been a Lad;
Out of his coats, at least; No age hath known
One suck so long, and yet so little grown.
No doubt, if noted, tis a Miracle
Whose strangeness doth all Wonders else excel.
But (blessed Virgin) can thy milk be ill,
This cannot be the reason, milk is scant
More likely, with thee; and thy Babe doth want
Milk, that he thrives not; and he'le suck no other
Nurse thou wouldst put him to, but thee his Mother.
Yet, since I find, thou hast much Milk to spare,
As Hogs-heads of its Relics now declare
(And tis thine own true milk, else they are liars;)
The want of milk is not the cause why he
Growes not, there must some other reason be:
How these thy milk have got it is not known,
Belike they stole it, and thy Babe's not grown,
Because these cheates each day commit High-Treason
In stealing of his milk: Loe here's the reason:
No milk they show, but its fresh, sweet, not sour;
No doubt they steal thy milk from thee each
hour
As other milk; such Thieves deserve to die
At least, for stealing thy Babes milk so long,
Else he ere this had grown more great and strong;
Why
Rome
hath so much Virgins milk to show,
And Christ is yet a Babe in part you know.
But can such theft be without her consent?
No sure; I fear his
Mother
is content
To keep him still an Infant, that she may
The better rule, and make him her obey:
Were he but grown once unto man's estate,
Her Regency would be quite out of date:
Men would no longer to her pray, and say,
Now show thyself a Mother,
would no more
Be heard, few would her aid, or grace implore,
But his alone, whom Papists now pass by
Because a Babe, and worship, honor, Eye
His Mother more than him; when as the
Wise
They ran in Pilgrimage to him; they fall
Down and odor him, not her; present all
Their gifts to him alone, but never once bent
Their knees her to salute
in Complement,
Much less her to adore, for ought we read:
Rome
will not here the Wisemens footsteps tread.
Nor suffer Christ to man's estate to grow,
Since this her Church, Monks, faith would overthrow.
Rome's
Ladies Prayers, her Primers, Offices,
Houres, Mass-books, Psalters, and such Blasphemies,
Must be casheer'd then, and her New faith too;
Most Monks, Nuns, Friars it would quite undo;
To hinder Christ from doing all this ill
He must be kept a little sucking still.
Mean time his mother rules all, wears the Crown,
And he (poove Infant) is deposed, kept down;
Least this should be forgot, or men it doubt
Rome
though it fit to Paint, Print, set it out,
In all her Churches, Psalters, Books we find
•
By
Statues, Pictures,
all of this to mind;
Of Heaven upon a Royal Throne, between
Two Angels, wearing a great Triple Crown,
Upon her head,
to add to her renown;
With Christ a little Babe, held in her Arms
Or Lap,
which she so over-rules and charms
With threats, or flatt'ries, that he there still lies.
For sundry ages, and yet never cries,
Though thus abused, kept from his Crown and
right
So long; perchance his Mother doth affright
Him with the Rod, and should he but once cry
For justice, she would whip him instantly.
But
Mary
thou art full of innocence,
Not guilty of these crimes; its
Rome's
offense
Thus to abuse thee, and thy Son, and make
Him still a Babe; thou from him thus to take
His rule, Crown, Kingdom: O Sweet Jesus thou
Art very patient, and to anger slow;
Else thou couldst never suffer
Rome
so long,
Thee and thy blessed Mother thus to wong
With these Blasphemous Pictures, Images,
False Relics, Legends, and Idolatries:
No doubt thou wilt avenge these in due time;
Mean while let me her censure, in this Rime.
Its not thy person, nor thy Mothers, I
Here lash, tax, censure, but
Rome's
Blasphemy;
I only jeer, discover to her Eyes
Her damned follies, and Idolatries
In these her Pictures, Relics, that she may
Discerne, renounce, and cast them clean away.
Lord clear her eyes by this, that she may see
Her cursed follies, and them henceforth flee.
Beholding thee, not as a small suckling,
But as her only crowned Lord and King:
Not as thou once waste, but as thou art now;
Then all their knees to thee alone shall bow,
Not unto
Mary,
who is grieved sore,
To see
Rome
thee neglect, and her adore.
On, and against Papists painting the Virgin [ 6] Mary, and other Saints in new fashions, with frizled, poudred hair, and rich dresses.
WHat? Lady
Mary
frizled, spotted, painted?
I fear the blessed Virgin is Un-Sainted;
Or hath quite lost her old Virginity,
She now appeeres so wanton to the Eye;
So rich, and stately, in such Dresses she
Never here used, and abhor'd to see.
I fear some Ladies who curle, powder, paint,
To warrant these, have made her such a Saint:
Stript her of all her modest, course array,
Put her in fashion, made her rich, compt, gay,
Curled and spotted; yea, as wanton, vain
As those lew'd Females who in Stews remain.
She was a modest Virgin heretofore,
Now she may be a
Lady,
or a
Whore.
Fie Ladies, fie! you may yourselves defame
And Antique thus, but not this blessed Dame,
Who spits at all such Dresses, and defies
Her self and you, whiles clad in such disguise.
No wonder if lewd
Rome
the Whore now play;
She makes the Virgin one by such Aray,
To Grace her Trade, and keep her Company:
How dare Her Nuns then save their Chastity?
They were
Rome's
Bastards else, not Progeny.
I will never think
Rome's
Church chaste anymore,
Who paints the blessed Virgin like a Whore;
Nor wonder why the Female Sexe curles, paints,
They learn to do it from the Roman Saints.
These are now lawful by Canonisation;
Not ill, but holy by Rome's Consecration;
No doubt most Madams will now curle, spot, paint,
Since to do these things is to be a Saint,
At least in show; and that may well suffice;
No matter for the Heart, these please the Eyes.
If by naught else, by this at least we know
Rome's Saints are void of substance, naught but
show;
Nay, Rome's great vaunting Church to be a Whore,
Since far more painted, gaudie than before,
More stored with Baudes and Panders to entice
Men to her lusts, and to uphold her vice.
Setting her Saints out to men's public views
In such Attyre as suites best with her stews.
She's than a
true Whore,
but a
varnisht Saint.
On Saint Dominicks vision of Friars of his Order hid in heaven under the Virgin [ 7] Mary's Peticote; and on the Relics of her Garments which Papists keep and show in sundry places.
That he to heaven was wrapped up in his sprite,
Where he Monks of all Orders did espy,
But of his own, not one could there descry:
Whereat amazed, the Lord Christ bids him be
Of good Cheere, for of his own company.
There were great troops in heaven bid,
(where I wot?)
Under the Virgin
Mary's
Peticoate;
Whom he there showed him; none being so nigh
Or dear to her as his fraternity:
This story's Canoniz'd, we must give faith
To what this Saint saw, and another saith.
Mans carnal knowledge, and the Marriage bed,
Mounted to heaven, and in state of joy
Is grown more wanton, common, not so coy
As here she was; or hath forgot, cast by
Her Virgins state, and Pristine chastity,
Since swarms of Leacherous Friars thus reside
Under her coats, too near her skin, thighs, side.
T'was well this Order had no being when
She was on earth; Sh'ad scarce been Virgin then.
These
Jacobines
who now so near her lie,
I doubt had robbed her, of her chastity.
But is the Virgin in her Robes there clad?
This news perchance may make some Monks look sad.
Will prove all false, hath she her Wardrobe there;
Unless they say, she left her clothes behind:
How do they then her Coates in heaven thus find?
Perhaps she hath new suites made there, her old
She them be queath'd to be kept, showed, bought,
sold.
If so, then Tailors shall be saved, and skip
To heaven, to make Coates for her Lady-ship:
Have they no merits, faith, grace, yet their trade
Will save them; else her clothes could not be made.
And to make robes for Her deserves doubtless
A place in heaven, she cannot give them less.
But how came Friars by those clothes which she
Here wore on earth? or how can they or we
For certain know them to be hers? since they
So rich, fresh, gaudy, not like her array,
(Not heard off in the world nine hundred years
Or more from her decease,) may breed just fears
What trusty hands they were kept anciently,
And thence transmitted to them, for to make
Blind sots adore them for the Virgins sake.
Besides, her clothes were old when first off cast;
Full sixteen hundred years since that are past,
They then were rotted, perished long agone,
And so the fresh, rich Ragges, they show are none
Of hers, no doubt; unless they chance to say
New shreds of Relics drop from heaven each day
Of Relics now is more than heretofore;
Sagreat, that they ten thousand times or more
Ex
•
eede all Garments which on Earth shewore:
Their store of new, sine, gaudy Relics now
Must needs then fall from heaven to them below:
She's now a Queen, a Lady, hath each day
Or week at least, rich suites of new array,
Which once put on, the old drop to them here,
Because none will
adore such Relics there,
In pilgrimage them to see, kiss, embrace.
Since under them an Host of Friars lies:
I wondered much how Papists got such store
Of
Mary's
rags, but I wonder more,
They have so few,
since her Coat is so wide
And long, that it whole tooopes of Monks can hide.
O
Mary!
now thou hast a monstrous train,
Me thinks its weight, length, breadth, should thee
lade, pain,
And sink to earth, unless supported by
Those strong fat Monks who under it hid lie.
On, and against Papists reserving the Host and carryning it in Procession. [ 8]
Within her pixes,
quite against his will?
Untill the morning, if ought did they then
Must burn it in the fire forthwith: yea when
Christ did his Supper institute,
he
said,
Reserv'd within a pix: Christ's guess must eat
Not keep nor Closet up their sacred meat.
Abroade out of the house;
to Typifie,
That none must carry Christ's body abroad
Out of the Church, the place of its abode.
Abroad about the streets, and deemes it fit.
But now he doth oft in state, triumph pass
On great Men's shoulders in Procession,
As if he could not stand, walk, go alone:
When they Processions go, they ever stray.
And them adore;
these customs are but late.
Christ, the Apostles, neither used nor taught
Them; doubtless, than they are not good, but
naught.
Rome
may ill boast of her Antiquity,
Her pactise in all this is Novelty.
Within the Ark, by God's Command: therefore
She may and doth her Hosts reserve in store,
Thus in her pixes:
But this will not serve
Her turn, for he the
Manna did reserve
Command from God her Hosts to pix up so,
By God's procept, and might not be kept till
The morrow,
as her Sacred Hosts are still.
Besides, this Manna was not kept to eat,
As are her Hosts: nor did they oft repeat,
Renew the same;
when Rome her Hosts ea
•
h day
Or week doth change;
nor did Manna decay,
Wanting Christ's warrant to reserve them so;
To show unto the Jews posterity
In future ages, when all Manna ceased,
With what bread God did their forefathers feast
In wilderness, when he from Egypt Land
Them brought, and rescude with a potent hand:
So is the Text express: Now
Hosts remain
You then no ground from Manna have to store,
Reserve your Hosts in Pixes anymore,
But rather not to do it; since
none might
Of Christ, wherewith our souls are nourished.
Nor is the Arkes removing, any ground
Whereon
Rome
can her Hosts Processions found,
Whilst Israel journeyed towards Cana's land;
Still in one place, which by it was much blest.
Nor did the Ark once in Procession ride
About the streets, as your Hosts do: beside
When it removed none did fall down before
And worship it, as you your Hosts adore
In your Processions, on set days kept still:
But you have no command your Hosts to bear
Thus in Procession, and you seated are
In peace within your Countries; therefore you
To these Processions must quite bid adue
Till God command them, and you journey to
The Land of
Canaan,
as the
Jews
did though.
[ 9] On Popish Tapers.
TApers at noon day burning? why? to light
A blind Religion to which day seems Night.
Papists think all else blind: How blind are they
Who thus need burning Torches at Noone-day?
Doth not the shining Sun show this more bright
The world alone, and is the
Radicall
Fountain of all light;
whereas Tapers give
Light but to few, who cannot well perceive
Their Light at Noone-day: None then need such
light
But Romish Owls who hate the Sun, love
Night;
And are so senseless, that they cannot see
Feele, taste, their Sacred Host still Bread to be.
In
Pagans;
then in Papists 'tis much more.
On S. Michaels Buckler and Poynard, [ 10] kept for a Relique in the Chapel of S. Michaels Mount in Normandy.
Is kept a Relique of no small account,
Arch-Angel Michaels double Buckler, made
Of fine red velvet, which doth never fade;
And his steel Poynard, with which Arms he fought
Of Heaven, with all his Angels:
certainly
These famous Relics are a forgery,
War, as this was, could use no corporal
Arms, instruments of war; nor do I find
By Scripture, they had weapons of this kind:
I doubt these Arms were forged by
Rome's
Clergy,
In all their wars,
since
Michael
as they say
Clad with these Arms, not Prayers got the day
Of the red Dragon, Satan, and his Host;
Who else perchance the day and field had lost.
How Spirits can repelled, or conquered be
With swords and Bucklers, I cannot yet see.
Those who this Dragon will repulse or slay
And need no other Buckler, shield, or sword,
But Prayer, Faith, and God's most Sacred Word
Saint
Michaels
Buckler, Poinyard, and such Arms
Cannot defend men from the Devils charms.
On the Relics of Joseph's Han, and the [ 11] Asses tail.
Within a Bottle they keep, show the Noyse,
Or H
•
n which Joseph,
(Christ's reputed father)
Us'd when he cleft wood,
or when squar'd it rather.
A famous Relique: 'twas, a skillful man
Who could both catch and bottle up his Han
In such good pickle, that it keeps fresh still
For sixeteene hundred years and more: what ill
Fortune had
Josephs
Body to decay,
When as his breath and Han last to this day,
And are preserved with such special care,
When as his body, bones, flesh perished are.
His Han at first was not seen, only heard;
Now only seen, not heard; tis false, or marred:
Have yet to show,
to this Han join they may,
Nay wear the Asses tail, ears, skin and head,
Since they such Lyes for Truths have credited;
Which Fools and Children would deride and
jeer:
They are more sottish than the Ass, I fear.
[ 12] On the Popish Sacrifice of the Mass.
WHat, Mass no Sacrifice? this mine heart
cools
Why so? they think Priests offer Christ again,
Than that which Christ made on the Cross before.
As if that Pictures were more excellent
Than any Persons which they represent.
It
strangles, murders, Christ a fresh each day;
And yet it is unbloody, as they say:
Yea meritorious;
then the High-Priests, Jews
For killing Christ, Heaven merit, its strange news.
It
doth avail (they hold) both quick and dead:
True; Priests who live, by it are nourished;
Yea much inricht, and buried sumptuously
When dead; thus quick and dead Priests gain
thereby;
When as Lay-men by it are oft undone;
The dead man's Mass, quite breaks his living
Son.
On Rome's seven Sacraments. [ 13]
TWo Sacraments? No more? too few by five,
Had Popes no more to sell they could not
thrive:
One Sacrament each day, and so gain well;
Its fit each day should have its Sacrament
To vent, else Popes would hardly be content,
Now they may Market keep all week, year; this
Popes well remembering, thought it not amiss
To add five Sacraments to Christ's own two,
The sale of which if lost, would them undo.
On Rome's seven deadly Sins. [ 14]
All sins but these, thou mayst thrive pretty
well:
But thou to raise thy Holy Fathers rents
Mak'st venial all thy seven Sacraments:
The sale of each which is a mortal sin:
Thou must thy tale of deadly sins begin
To double, since they seven Sacraments
Thus sold, prove deadly sins in their events
But are these deadly, since thou selst them all?
Not so: at Rome all sins are
Veniall.
On Rome's Latin prayers.
Twere just to whip her with the self same rod;
Give her but
Latin,
henceforth, and no
Coyne,
She will to
Latin
any Language join:
Nay damn the Tongue, and to gain
Gold
good
store,
Swear she will never receive the
Latin
more.
[ 16] On Popish Miracles.
MIracles still? after so many done?
Is such a wonder as the world might stonne.
Doth Rome's faith stagger? is she yet in doubt
They did confirm,
else there's no need of new.
The old Faith's lost in Rome, she hath a new one,
She needs new wonders, it to make a true one:
For more: I doubt she knows they are but lies,
And false impostures, else she would not call
For fresh, her new false faith to keep from fall.
Hold then thy peace Rome, else I must thee tell
Thy faith is false, and thou an Infidel;
On Popish whippings and Satisfactions. [ 17]
IF whipping might sins purge and satisfy;
Each
Bridewell
should then be a
Purgatory;
And
Rogues
there daily whipt, should merit more
Than all the members of the Roman whore;
Who now to satisfy and merit well
Should still be kept, whipt, tortured in
Bridewell.
On Papists abstaining from flesh on fasting [ 18] days.
No roast, boyld, backed flesh: its unlawful meat,
Yea, mortal sin to taste it,
yet they will
On all these days of raw flesh take their fill
Rome against dressed flesh, on these days hath Law;
She might do well to make some Acts 'gainst raw:
Gainst flesh in Chambers, not in Halls only;
For her their Fasts, prove Feasts of Venery.
And yet to feast on fish or better meat;
As Papists do, who on their Fast days feed
On choicest fish, and in their Cates exceed.
Which do their flesh more pamper, more inflame
Their lusts, than
flesh,
which they for this cause
blame.
[ 19] On Papists making marriage a Sacrament, and forbidding Priests to marry, yet permitting them to keep Whores.
Yet that her Priests should marry disassents:
They are too Holy, wives to have;
yet they
But force them to it by an annual rent:
She should make whoredom then a Sacrament
Not marriage, since to her Sacred Clergy
She doth the last, not first, as ill, deny:
It is no Sacrament, but thing unclean▪
This marriage doth, not whoredom now in Rome,
Nought is her Sacrament then but whoredom.
On Rome's extreme unction, and its being [ 20] a Sacrament.
Them to their health again,
only, wherefore
Doth Rome then noint them solely at the last,
To die, when all hopes of health, Life are past?
Well may she this her Unction term,
Extreame;
It is
extreme madness,
folly or a dream:
Since never done in the Church, but always out.
It is a
Chamber,
not
Church
Sacrament;
In this it doth from all the rest dissent.
On Papists implicit Faith, and Images. [ 21]
As doth their Church;
they hang all on her sleeve;
Are
Infidels,
at least wise
Faithlesse
men:
They then of all faith must needs be bereft:
We may then call each Papist
Infidel,
Who hath no faith, or what he cannot tell.
No wonder than if Papists so delight
In Images, they
only walk by sight,
Of things not seen, not subject unto sense.
On Popish blind obedience. [ 22]
Why tell they then Priests money, weigh their
gold?
Belike their Doctrine's currant, not their scale:
Their
Cayne
not
Doctrine,
needs both
Weights
and
Tale.
If they may err, cheat, prove false in their coin;
Why may they not then in faith err, purloine?
[Which they than money less mind, and esteem;]
Its safe to try their faith by
weight
and
Beam.
By Scripture tried Paul's Doctrine, you much more
Since they are sinful, erring men at best.
On Popish Pilgrimages, Offerings, Kneelings [ 23] Prayers to the Images of the Virgin Mary ; and their Worshipping of her and them.
They err no doubt, who thus a wandering go;
Their way, light, guide are lost, yea faith, I doubt;
Perhaps they Straggle thus to find them out.
Out of the East, when Christ at Bethlehem
Was newly borne, led by a wondrous Star,
Tooke all this Paines and Pilgrimage so far
To worship Christ alone; whom when they found,
Saw with his Mother
Mary,
to the ground
Their gifts, Gold, Incense, Myrrh, with joint consent
To him alone, though then a Babe;
but to
His Mother they no gifts give; nor yet do
Her any Worship that we read off: Why
Do foolish Papists then quite contrary
From place to place? to sundry Images
(Not Persons) of the Virgin;
and before
Present with gifts, pray, supplicate for Grace;
Whilst Christ in all this Worship hath no place,
Or very little; no nor yet his Mother,
Whose Images adored are, and not her.
And Honor thus:
What then? these heretofore
Did not her Person Worship, when they came
Into her Presence, nor fall to the same,
But Worshipt Christ alone;
Why then give you
More to her Picture than was ever due,
Or done unto her Person anciently?
No doubt it is most gross Idolatry,
Point blank against God's Law: which
doth defend
Bow, fall, or Worship; though the Imagry
Be of no Creature, but the Deity.
If then none must God's, Christ's Statues adore,
Nor make; much less may they bow, kneel before
The Virgins; or as Pilgrims to them go
To offer gifts; the Wisemen did not so;
And those who these
Wise Men's
steps will not trace,
No doubt are errant Fools, Sots, Voyd of grace;
A Man possessed, two of the female kind,
Both Mary's, the Disciples, worshipping
Christ, and to him falling, kneeling, praying;
But read not in the whole New Testament
Of any that in Pilgrimage once went
Or made suite to her for grace, help, or Ayde,
Or once adored, or worshipped her: What ground,
What show have Papists then whereon to found
Their worship of, their Offerings, Pilgrimages
And prayers too, before her Images;
Their Ladies-Masses, Psalters, Houres? truly
None that I know, but their Priests knavery;
Who to enrich themselves make fools by flocks
To Run, pray, Offer, to their Ladies Stockes:
Substract these offerings, then your Priests will say
You need not to her Statues run, kneel, pray,
As now you do without all warrant, ground;
Take heed lest God your Souls for this confound.
[ 24] On Rome's Worshipping the Cross, Nayles and what ever touched Christ's Body, with Latria or Divine Worship.
Must be adored with Divine Latry.
Hence,
she adores the Cross, Nayles, Spear with it
They should add
Judas
to this Number, who
And touched him oftener,
hurt him more than Cross
Or Nayles; his Saint-ship must not suffer loss;
Rome must adore him too; with all the train
Each thorn that Crown'd him, all his vestments;
yea,
If these be not Enough, Rome, to adore,
I will yet show thee something else in store,
Thou must adore his very Excrement;
Twas in him, from him, hath a pleasant sent:
All other relics, hadst thou store of these,
Would lose their Honor, worship, dignities,
There is one yet left, thou dost most adore,
The Devil, will you know the cause wherefore?
First tempted him, as we in Scripture see,
Proffring him all Earths Kingdoms, Glory, store
If he would fall down, and but him adore;
Christ then resus'd his bribe, and worship too
His Vicar takes it, will the Homage do
Because he touched Christ's Body heretofore;
And that not with
Dulia,
but
Latrie;
Yet Rome is guiltless of Idolatry.
On Rome's Prayers to dead Saints, and [ 25] for the dead.
Its madness then to leave a certain way
And choose a doubtful, when we go to pray:
Why do they then from
him
to
them
appeal?
This done; they must rebound prayers back again,
Why do they trouble God and Saints in vain?
In fine; not they, but God alone must grant:
Why run they then to Saints for what they want?
Fly then to God alone who hears, grants all:
Rome Prayes to, and for
dead men;
well she may;
Her prayers dead are, fit for none else but they.
Th'one hears them not; the other no good thereby
Reape; they that make them less; such Prayers
then fly.
Prayers
to,
and
for dead men,
well agree;
They both
dead,
faithless, bootelesse, sinful be.
[ 26] On Rome's Divine adoration of her painted Crosses.
ROme thy Cross-worship now is at a loss,
Not one of all thy Relics of Christ's Cross,
His body;
for his Garments were no such.
But grant these did, yet sure not one of thy
Carv'd, painted Crosses had this dignity,
Unless thou say his Body's Nail'd to all
Those Crosses before which thou now dost fall:
Thou must then make as many Christ's or more,
As thou hast Crosses, or not one adore.
[ 27] On the Papists supposed Looking-glass of the Trinity, for their Saints to see Prayers in.
(A brittle God) to which her Prayers pass
That Saints may there behold them;
She doth fear
Her Saints are deaf, and cannot prayers hear;
Nor see at all unless God turn a glass,
God is no God; Saints deaf, or Rome an Ass:
Glasses Dense bodies are, not spirits, Frayle;
God is no God, but Glass, if Rome prevail.
She hath no Glass, if God; if Glass, no God:
Thy Glass I doubt is now become thy rod.
No Glass, no prayer to Saints, their sight is gone;
A Glass, no God, but thy deaf Saints alone.
Now seen, not heard by Saints, as we are told,
They see Rome's Prayers, they sure have lost their ear,
Or else their
Ears
are all turned into
Eye,
That they no Prayers now
hear,
but all
espy.
Nothing is seen but what is coloured,
Corporal, painted, guilt or varnished:
Rome's Orisons are such of late, therefore
Her Saints must only see, not hear them more:
But if they barely
see
them, and not
bear,
They will not grant, nor answer them I fear;
Since God, men never answer nor reply
But when they hear, as well as see Men cry;
Yet say they did, I doubt Rome's painted prayre
Which must be seen, will vanish in the Air,
Before it can ascended above the sky
Into this new Glass of the Trinity:
See then they frenzy, pray no more to Saints,
They cannot hear, grant, nor yet see thy Plaints:
Sounds are the proper Objects of the ear,
You cannot see, smell, taste, feel them, but hear
Them only; you may colors hear, as well
As see men's prayers; it is impossible
As all men know well by experience
For eyes to see the Objects of ears sense.
Rome's Looking-Glass then is a mere fancy,
And Saints sight of prayers in it, a gross Lye.
[ 28] On Prayers in an unknown Tongue.
Neither, I doubt, will hear or know your
plaints.
Its fit that those who know not what they prayed,
Should not be understood, or else gain-said.
[ 29] On Rome's Idol and Idle Worship.
ROme thou hast in thee
Idol
and
Latrie,
Conjoyne them, then, thou hast
Idolatry:
Deny me
Idols; Idle,
and
Latrie
Thou must yield; join them, here's
Idel-Latrie:
Idol,
or
Idle Worship,
choose thee whether,
If neither like thee, take them both together.
[ 30] On Transubstantiation.
PArdon great Rome, I hope it is no Treason,
To call thy
Transpanation
void of Reason:
Its
Non-sense
to the Eye, Hand, mouth which find
The substance of the Bread still left behind:
Because
Non-sense
to all the
Sense
in Men;
Since naught is
Reason,
but what first is
sense,
Its void of
Reason
than, because
Non-sense.
If ought be lost in
Transubstantiation,
It is Rome's
Senses
only; and her
Reason:
She cannot find what all else feel, taste, see,
And finds that there which is not cannot be.
If Sense may err, then (sweet Rome) tell me why
Thy Vicars, Priests, all else by sense do
••
y?
They know the Bread, Wine, which before them are
Then to be hallowed,
such, and so declare
When sacred, 'gainst sense they it bread deny.
If sense were certain, at the first, to know
Them Bread and Wine; how doth it senseless grow
Within a Moment? sure thy sense is fled,
Else thou must judge them still but Wine and Bread:
Thy meat thou tryest by sense; thy silver, gold
By sense are always felt, weighed, tried and told.
Thou ever sel'st, but never takes back
Lead
For
Gold:
thy Sense here
errs
not, nor is
dead.
If then Rome tries all else so sure by sense,
She must, her Host judge naught but bread from
hence,
The Proper judge of his humanity,
Birth, Miracles, Death, Resurrection,
The truth whereof are proved by sense alone.
On Popish Transubstantiation and Annihilation. [ 31]
How can they change, or work Annihilation?
That
Bread
which Christ would have us to enjoy;
Which if quite vanished in the Consecration,
These words must cause, or need breads
Re-creation.
Or else be Idle: for if bread begone
Nought can be sacred, but the words alone.
Cannot be
hallowed,
if the
Substances
fade;
Else by this Doctrine, a mere Hypocrite
For show were sacred though his heart's not right;
And Priests who lose their
substance
by Sacration,
Must by their shadows work out their Salvation.
When hallowed they from
substance
were made
free.
If Consecration make the
Substance
fade,
Rome's, Popes, Priests, Churches, Altars, Saints
are shade,
For they are Hallowed too, as well as Bread,
Their substance then as well as its is fled.
O Rome, recant this error, thou hast made;
Else all thou hast is nothing but a shade.
In all Rome's Hallowings of Priests, Churches,
days,
And other things their substances always
Remaine without change or destruction:
Why then must Breads, Wines substances alone
In hallowing be destroyed or changed? ye
Can give no Reason why. In fine, tell me,
What Priests do Hallow? if you say Wine, Bread:
They then remain such, though thus hallowed:
If you say ought else, tis an Error, Lye,
Now what you Hallow, that you take, eat, drink,
Its Bread, Wine, then; not true Christ, as you think
On Transubstantiation and the Popes Vicarship. [ 32]
IS not the Pope
Christ's
Vicar here?
Yes: why?
Is not Christ present in the Sacrament,
In real manner?
we have Rome's consent.
Thy Pope his Vicar then cannot here be,
Since Christ's here present by Rome's own decree.
Not in one Place or Country, as of old;
But in so many as cannot be told.
If his mere presence in one place; whilst here,
Banisht all Vicars; thou hast cause to fear
His omni-presence in each Church, Pix, Host,
Will quite exclud Popes from the wide earths Cost,
To be his
Vicar
nowhere but in
Hell;
Since he in
Heaven
and
Earth
doth always d well.
Pope Choose thy fate, to be his
Vicar
there,
Or else deny his Real presence here;
Else canst thou be no
Vicar General
On earth for him, no
Vicar,
Pope at all.
But if to save thy place, thou wilt deal fair,
And if in this, why not in more? in all?
Turn where thou wilt, Pope; here thou hast a fall.
On the Real Presence, Pix and Crucifix. [ 33]
IS Real Presence true? Christ in the Pix?
What need his Pictures than, or Crucifix?
Pictures are useless when the person's by,
Either your
Pictures
or your
Pixes
lie:
Both cannot stand together, one must part:
You
Lye
but are unskillful in the Art.
Lyes must keep quarter; if they chance to Jarre,
Or meet too near, they will the tale quite mar.
Ye must disclaim Christ's presence in the Pix,
Or else break down your lying Crucifix.
You were unwise to place these two so nigh,
That now they fight, and give each over the Lye.
[ 34] On Transubstantiation and Popes Leaders Bulls.
THose who can each day change
Lead
into
Gold,
Bread to Christ's Body changed, may safely hold.
The first, wants
Scripture,
but hath reason store;
Gaine proves the first, I think the latter too,
Should both prove falls, it would Popes quite undo.
Mean while they take the last by Scriptures show;
The first by
sense,
not
text
they will still know.
[ 35] On Popish Priests taking away the Cup from the People.
The Sacred Cup;
they love the Pot to toss.
Should Lay-men drink, Vines would not them
suffice
With Wine, at least, the price thereof would rise.
By this device they have engrossed all
The Wine to them, and made the price to fall.
Men wondered much before, why Priests were
drowned
So oft in drink; the reason now is found.
On Popish Concomitancy and the Sacred [ 36] Cup.
In eating of dry Bread,
and so they think.
Could they persuade them thus to drink at Table,
Drunkenness then would soon become a Fable
With them; and None but Joviall Priests be found
In wine or other liquors henceforth drowned:
And so they only of right should possess,
Both Pot, Cup, Barrel, Wine, and drunkenness.
But since they cannot make Fools, Children think
(Much less men, drunkards) that they wine, bear drink
In eating of bread, or meat at their Table,
They should disclaim this whimsie, as a Fable.
On Popish Concomitancy and half Communion. [ 37]
Do therein drink Christ's Blood; Bread's drink and
Meat.
If Laickes, then Priest likewise: pray then, why
Do Priests not to themselves the Cup deny?
Belike they need the Wine their Hearts to cheare,
And wash their throats to chaunt their Massemore
clear:
And eat Christ's body;
let them then part stake.
Priests drink the Wine, Laickes eat all the bread,
Else Priests will
twice,
Laickes but
once
be fed.
On Praying to, and representing of God [ 38] and Saints by Pictures.
WHat? go by Pictures both to God and
Saint?
You deem both shadows then, or else but Paint.
If God or Saints be like to what you see,
They then no substance but mere shadows be.
And dare Rome Shaddowes for her God's adore?
She's then more sot than Pagans heretofore.
Are they not like, nor what their picture
••
re,
More than the Painte
•
for he only Paints
These lies and errors, but they make them Saints,
By consecrating them for sacred use;
For shame now see, detest this great abuse.
[ 39] On Worshipping Images.
WHat? must we have no Images nor Stockes
All, at the best but Mettle, Blocks or stone:
Your whole Religion's blockish, or a Play;
You just like it; your Puppits this display.
On Popish Confessers and Pardons. [ 40]
What need they then their sins to Priests declare?
If to their Priests, not God, they may them Paine,
But not absolve: Confession then is Vain.
Without a fee;
why will they Pardons buy?
Their Pardon's void; why will they Money give?
On Popish Altars and Mass Priests. [ 41]
NO Altars now? Priests then are quite undone
There were no Mass-Priests till Altars begun;
Take them away, Mass, Massing-Priests must cease,
And Christ's rent Church shall live in greater peace:
No sweeter Sacrifice can men devise,
Than Priests and Altars both to Sacrifice.
[ 42]
On Popish Purgatory, and its fire.
The
Wise,
to gain; the
Fools
to spend their
Money:
The first, to
fill;
the last, to
Purge
the
Purse:
The ones great
blessing;
but the others
Curse.
If it hath any fire, tis fed with Gold;
Substract but it, this fire will soon grow cold.
[ 43] On Popish Judulgencies.
WHat need men pray to God, Angels or
Saints
They that can loose from Hell, and Men Heaven
grant,
No doubt will give, if asked, all things they want.
Give did I say, if asked? No, they sell all,
Else none to God, Angels, or Saints would call
To give what Popes can grant; their sales to high,
Force most from them, to these to run and cry.
If Popes would give, as free as sell; they might
In gross all suites from these, be God's out right.
[ 44] On Popish Merits and Prayers to Saints.
And others too;
yet not enough to crave
(Not Christ)
put up their undeserving plaints:
They who can find no Merit once to cry
For Alms, or Pardon; sure have none to buy
Heaven for themselves, or others: they must now
Their Prayers to Saints, or Merits disavow.
On Papists praying to Christ to save them [ 45] by Thomas Beckets blood, an Arch-Traitor and Rebell.
By
Beckets
blood shed for him; an Arch-knave,
Yet his blood's saving, Christ's, but shed in Vain;
Else they would pray to Christ to save them by
His own, not
Beckets blood,
yet tis only
To make them to ascend where Thomas went:
If to the Gallows, be their sole intent
Which he deserved, and some of them, its well;
Else they shall doubtless but ascend to hell
As
Becket
did; a place almost too good
For those who will be saved by his blood.
Its sign Rome Traitors loves, else would not she
By theirs, not Christ's blood, pray thus saved to be.
On Rome's Freewill. [ 46]
As unto Ill:
why doth she then excel
In naught but
Ill,
and no good thing pursue?
Her Practice proves this her Doctrine untrue.
Either do
good,
Rome, if thou hast Free-will;
Else confess thou art
Free
to naught but
Ill.
On Popish Priests shaven beards, and [ 47] Shorne Nuns.
Thereon:
twere better quite to take away
The cup from them, which they from Laymen, take
For fear their Beards should of Christ's blood
partake.
Let them his blood drink only in the bread,
No drop thereof can on their beards be shed.
That so their heads may some proportion hold
With spheres above, and earth below,
both round
Bald, hairelesse,
yet is neither shaven Crown'd:
When Spheres and Earth shave their Crounes,
then Priests may
Shave theirs; till then, let them their shaving stay.
Whose long Haire is her * Glory, Covering,
By God's and Natures dictate; yea a thing
Which for them thus to shave and sheare away
Is shameful, sinful, both to disobey.
Whence some who used it,
dam'd, accursed were
This shaving of their Nuns did thus begin;
Some
Germans Wives Convicted of the Sin
Of Whoredom and adultery, were by
Shav'd by their Husbands, to their Infamy,
And then shut Prisoners in a Nunnery;
Some Empresses, and Ladies of great Name
Thus used, for to abate and cloak this shame
Of shaving, turning Nuns and Abbesses,
Brought in Nuns shaving with them by degrees.
So long till none at last Nuns made be might
This badge of whores, and by it hallowed are.
Did they respect their fame or chastity,
Shorne Crounes, the badge of Whores, they would
defy,
And rather follow
God's, Paul's, Natures
Lores
Than this invention of Notorious Whores:
The Pattern doth the Practice so disgrace,
That honesty forbids it to take place
In any Females, in Nuns specially,
Who vow, profess naught else but Chastity.
On Popes Bulls and doubting of Salvation. [ 48]
That none must doubt but that they will avail,
And yet they deem
Salvations Certainty
See how they damn themselves; if to believe
Be such a Crime, what is it then to give
Assurance of Salvation? Give? I Lye,
Makes void their Sales;
they then to doubt have
cause,
Since these Sales void are by all kind of Laws;
Rome now must hold, and give Heavens certainty
Hence forth; else none but fools her Bulls will
buy.
[ 49] On Popish Saints and Patrons for particular Countries, Professions, Diseases, and kinds of Cattle, and their Maladies.
Profession, sickness, and Infirmity
In Man or Beasts; to whom for help they call,
God is no God, but these who gard, help all;
To
whose bands, guidance, care, and Custody,
They still commit their whole Soul, Sprite, Body,
Wits, Senses, Members, Thoughts, Words, Actions, Ways
If they say, these are but God's Substitutes;
They must them Prove, that God these Saints deputes
To these distinct Climes, trades, beasts, maladies
Which they assign them: this their great Rabbies,
Popes, Doctors, Monks, and Jesuits cannot do;
These Patrons then are false; they fools, sots, to
Rely upon, pray to them; God alone
Make then your Patron, since these Saints are
none.
Is a
true Relique of Idolatry,
Climes, Trades, Diseases which Men, beasts, befall.
That she turns Pagan, is to all most clear.
On Works of Supererogation.
And think this is a Meritorious deed:
True, they do all besides, against God's will,
Not it; I fear the Merit then is Ill.
Heaven,
say they;
Hell,
I; else there's no hell
If men may merit Heaven by not doing well.
On Papists good Works to Merit Salvation.
They must do so, for true faith they have
none.
But since their
good works
from no
good saith
flow
No doubt at last they will no good works grow.
On Popish Merits. [ 52]
Or right rewards:
This Papists quite forget
And promise only;
debt hath here no place.
Not wages,
Merits they knew not at all.
I doubt at last they will her quite undo.
Rome by her faith will not be justified:
Good reason, its not true, but false if tried;
Her works, or naught, must then her justify;
But these prove ill, not good, if God them try:
Since then her Faith, works, both prove Ill, when tried,
Rome must be
damned
by them, not
justified.
[ 53] On Auricular Confession.
IF men confess to God, will that suffice?
No: tell me why? Priests should not then be wise:
Lay-men should then have Secrets, and lose pains
Impos'd for sins confessed, Priests chiefest gains.
Priests now know all men's secrets, none Priests
know;
And by enjoined Penance, wealthy grow.
Confess and so be
hanged
said once of old;
By Confess and Absolv'd,
seems now controlled.
Not so, both stand well, since Priests absolution,
Makes men neglect God's, to their just confusion.
At leastwise hangs them in Priests halters, pains;
Who torture, rack them, to improve their gains.
They to confession may all others send.
[ 54] On Rome's Prayers to Saints.
Is God deaf to them? or else doth she fear,
So faithless, heartless, dead, ill, are here plaints,
They are not fit for God, but for her Saints?
Or doth she try her patience thus to pray
To Saints that cannot hear or else delay
To hear or grant! hence oft her cause is marred
Before her pray'rs by her dead Saints are heard;
And we who go to God immediately,
Are heard and answered ere Saints hear her cry.
On Popish Monks, Players, Prayers, and [ 55] Merits.
OUr Church hath some who work not, but
still play:
Rome's more, who work not, but yet always pray:
Prayer's no work with Rome to
merit by
Her
Prayers
therefore are
Players,
and do play
Not work, but when men wage them for to pray.
How can they merit then by works, who play
Still, and no work do for which God can pay?
Men over-pay them for their prayers still here,
God than cannot owe, pay them any arreare:
They should be double paid if God and men
Should both reward them; where's their merit then?
On Rome's taking away the Scripture, [ 56] Cup, and Second Commandment from the People.
LAickes read Scripture? fie, it is not fit;
Rich Rome might soon lose all her wealth by it:
Her Popes & Canons then must both dismount;
Her Faith, Works, Pardons, be of no account,
Her Monks, Nuns, Friars, Abbots, Prelates then
Would soon be banished and cast out by men.
Better the people lose their soul, heaven, all,
Than Rome's Popes, Prelates, Monks, catch such a fall.
To search, read, meditate, that so they might
And from Lay-men the Scripture takes away:
He is not here true
vicar
unto Christ,
But
Anti-Christian,
and true
Antichrist.
Popes steal from people too: Thieves are they sure
Of highest rank: in that they stolen have
What Father, Some, and holy Ghost men gave;
For robbing Men and the whole Trinity:
They then deserve Laws, deaths eternity
I wonder Papists dare their souls once trust
With these Arch-thieves, to God, men so unjust:
They will not trust thieves with their coin, I fear
Their
Souls
than
Money
are to them less dear.
[ 57] On the Romish Mass.
For quick and dead;
and
for all maladies
In Man or Beast,
a rare receipt and cure;
A sick Man, Beast, Ass, Ox, Cow, Hog, is sure
To be releast from any Malady,
If you a Mass for them, of Priests will buy:
Physicians, Farriers will be now undone,
All sickemen, beasts to Priests for cure will run,
They need no other Physic but a Mass,
Or any Creature else,
all which must pay
Priests well, for
Gratis
they will no Mass say.
On the Popes two Swords. [ 58]
No wonder they more slay than feed Christ's sheep.
On the Popes two Keys. [ 59]
Some do oppose: I like it very well,
Since they lock
Heavens
strait gate fast up to all
Their flock, but ope
Hells
wide, wherein they fall.
On kissing the Popes feet. [ 60]
Their breath is Poison, but their Shooe is
sweet;
They therefore will have none their lips come nigh.
On the Pope being Peters Successor.
Confess it, both their Master Christ deny.
In sin; Him, they in Place, not Grace
Succeed.
But are they
Peters
Successors alone?
[ 62] On the Popes Non erring whilst he sits in Peters Chair.
It is true, for sure, They
nere once sat there yet:
No wonder then if they naught else but
Err,
Since they in his un-erring chair sat never.
[ 63] On the Popes not Erring.
They cannot then once err, because not stray
Quite from themselves, unto God's Rules and way.
[ 64] On the Popes not sinning and Erring as Popes, but as Men.
Why doth not then the
Pope
the
Man
deter
From sin and Error? Can he not this do?
The
Man
the
Pope
may make sin, and err too:
And if the
Man
for sin and Error go
To Hell, I fear the
Pope
too must do so.
[ 55] On the Popes not Erring, and on falling from Grace.
Away from Grace fall, yea and finally,
By Rome's own Doctrine;
which they oft times do,
To prove her Doctrine by their practice true.
It is no error thus to fall from grace,
Since Popes herein Rome's doctrines footsteps trace.
I wonder not at Rome's Apostasy,
Her practice else her Doctrine would bely:
Now both accord, and she falls quite away
From faith, grace, truth, that none once question
may,
Or doubt her Doctrine, which was questionable;
But thus confirmed, it must be true and stable.
On the Popes Pardons, and mortal sins. [ 66]
Pardons
are truly
venial
then, not
sins:
But yet at Rome alone, for
God,
Kings, all
On the Popes being Christ's Vicar General upon Earth. [ 67]
THe Pope on Earth's Christ's Vicar General,
But be he something, tis in Earth, or Hell,
Not Heaven: Christ lets no Vicar never him dwell:
Popes are his Vicars but in
Hell
I fear.
[ 68] On Popes Pardons of Sins.
THe Popes do Pardon sins; I think so too;
All, which men for them; None, they against
them do.
All against God; against themselves, not one.
What can, is not, what cannot they, is done.
[ 69] On the Popes being head of the Church.
But of the false Church only, not the True.
The false but one, the Pope, true Anti-Christ.
[ 70] On Rome's Sins, Curses and Pardons.
AT Rome all's Veniall,
some say; I say no;
Her Sins, and Curses doubtless are not so:
The first are
mortal;
last not sold, but free
Bestow'd, all is not venial Rome in thee.
[ 71] On the Pope and his Cardinals.
If the Church on them, only
hanged
be,
Nought but an
Halter's
left by them for thee;
Thou mayst go
bang
thyself therewith; for they,
Not thou, the Church uphold, support, and stay.
On the Popes being Christ's Vicar. [ 72]
IF Popes Christ's Vicars be, his flock to teach,
They are his Vicars, but to sheare his sheep;
When they should feed them, they are fast asleep.
Christ but
one Vicar
can have here; He
many,
To do his Office; he then is not any.
Either the Pope must do his work alone,
Or if by
Vicar,
he must make but
one:
Else Christ may chance to make more
Vicars
too
By his example, and so him undo,
Unless he tie Christ's hands from making any,
Because himself before had made too many.
On the Popes Vicarship and Vicars. [ 73]
Another Vicar:
see how Popes mistake,
Who make so many Vicars of each kind,
In every Country were they profit find,
Either this Law is
Error,
or these be
No
Vicars,
but mere
Factors
for Rome's See.
True, for they only his rents help get in;
He, not they keep them, else it were a sin:
They are Christ's rents, tithes,
Peters
patrimony;
Popes must be still sole Vicars of the money:
Twere Sacrilege, at least, for to assign
Another Vicar to keep
Peters
Coyne.
[ 74] On the Popes porphiry Chair, wherein they are groped and tried to be men.
If they be males or not; they it descry
To all the world beforehand by the store
Fit now, their Testicles to cut, than grope,
For fear a
Leacher,
not a
Whore,
turn Pope.
[ 75] On Christ's crown of Thorns and the Popes triple Crown of gold.
No wonder then that Christ's by them controlled.
The streets:
No wonder, they make Christ their Page
He never rode in such state, Equipage.
Popes now no
Vicars,
but
Lord's Paramount
Are, since they Kings, and Christ so far surmount.
[ 76] On Peters poverty and the Popes great wealth and on the Popes being Peters Successors.
The Church, poor then, had
Peter
a poor head;
She's now grown rich, great, since that
Peter's
dead.
Her head must then grow rich, great, like her body;
Else 'twere unseemly, and he were a Noddy:
Peter
had no such Court, State, Table, train
As Popes; who need much gold them to maintain:
Peter
was but a fisher, not a Pope,
They must have gold store to support their State,
They cannot now live at S.
Peters
rate.
To succeed
Peter
in his poverty;
Whose very name they scorn, since none of all
Himself by this name
Peter,
but still by
Some other name, as
John, Paul, Gregory,
And such like, which in all great doubt may breed,
That Popes, who
Peter
never will succeed
In name, do less in Office, Grace, Chair, State
Succeede him: then succession's out of date:
Till Popes resemble
Peter
more: say I,
That they succeed him, is an arrant lie.
On Popes Prohibiting Priests from marriage. [ 77]
PRiests are the seed of
Adam, Noah;
why
Should they not then have wives
to multiply
And store the earth;
as well as other men,
Hundred years after Christ, or more, Priests were
Still free to Marry, and did not forbear
But use the marriage bed:
why do Popes now
Was used by, allowed to Priests as well
As any others;
yea God did prescribe
Wives, with their qualities, to Levies Tribe.
In Priests;
belike Rome's Priests are beasts, not men
For if they were, by
Paul's
rule marriage then
To them were lawful, honorable, all
Priests under his
all men,
if men, must fall.
Al married; why should Priests then wives forbear,
And godly Bishops did wives wed and hold?
Which they no doubt would not have done, if it
Had been unlawful, or for Priests unfit.
To put this out of doubt, we find that
Paul
Himself among the qualities which all
The husbands of one wife must be;
none may
Which to this day retain this very clause;
Priests, Bishops, Deacons then may lawfully
Keep wives; this clause else were a nullity,
Vain, Idle, nay repugnant, and S.
Paul
Mistaken in prescribing it to all
Bishops, and Deacons, midst those qualities
Which simply needful are. If Rome denies
This meant of Wives enjoyed actually
By Bishops, Deacons, whilst such; certainly
S.
Paul
confutes her by prescribing there
Themselves, and rule their Children well; else they
God's Church unfitting were to rule and sway:
All which were needless, vain; if meant of those
Not yet in Orders as
Rome doth
it gloss.
Are Priests or Deacons,
and not futurely
To be so; and this quality,
to be
The Husband of one wife,
is in degree
There, which to Priests in act must be applied
In the
present
not
Preterperfect Tense:
Priests marriage then must needs be lawful hence.
And meats, men to forbid in this last age,
[Both which Rome's Popes do]
is Apostasy
From faith, mere devils doctrine, and a Lye.
Whence I conclude, that Popes have fallen away
From faith, and that Lyes, devils doctrines sway
And rule them now, since they Priests marriage,
Free use of meats forbid, in this last age;
Them quite unfit Orders to keep or take,
Whereas
gross whoredom and Adultery
From Orders none thrust out, nor yet put by;
The Lawfull use of marriage to restore.
Was first to English Priests prohibited,
In Council, by
John Crema,
Legat to
The Pope, by whose Command he this did do,
That he himself at night in bed was took
By Priests, lying with a whore, and so forsook
And fled the Realm with public shame, whereby
The Priests their wives retained quietly
Long after:
Were Rome's Popes, Priests narrowly
Watchit, men them with whores might too oft
espy;
Yea, its a
Common trade
now, and no news
Which Popes maintain, and have in Italy
Dispenc'd with Priests to commit Sodomy
In the hot months, with boys and Ganymedes;
That is not good, but ill which such fruits breeds;
Which I forbear at large to specify,
Wishing that Popes, Priests marriage would restore,
The want whereof hath made their Church a whore.
There is no
Pia-Mater
in Popes brain
Who Priests from marriage, 'gainst God's Word restrain,
And them quite bar from this their Sacrament,
Yet give them free leave, whores, stews to frequent.
[ 78] On Protestants damnation by Papists, and the Reason of it.
Because they to one Savior, Christ, all fly.
Few or none damned are in Rome's Church if any,
Since she besides Christ, Savior's hath full many.
One Savior is enough to whom to pray;
Who seldom used in Rome's Church, which him wants
Not, may find leisure to save Protestants.
Lest this prove true, Rome's Church may now
do well,
All Savior's, but Christ only, to expel.
[ 79] On Rome's Savior's and Jesuits.
NO wonder if all Rome's flock saved be,
They have ten thousand Savior's more than we;
So many that to keep them from disorder,
She marshalls some into a distinct Order,
Grac'd with the saving name of
Jesuits,
They are such active good, sweet, saving Sprits,
Savior's
no doubt to Rome's Church, Popes, and
Crown,
Which their plots, wits, pens keep from tumbling
down.
It is not their goodness, virtue, grace or merits
That make them
Savior's,
but their treasons, wits;
Savior's to Popes; could Kings and States say so,
They
Jesuits
were in
Name
and
Nature
too.
But whilst their Treasons, plots, 'gainst these them
shame,
They are not such in truth, deed, but in name:
Nay mere Antipodes to this name, they
It into
Judasites
now alter may,
Or
Jebusites,
since they disturb, annoy
Al States, Kings, Churches, & would them destroy.
On no Salvation out of the Church of [ 80] Rome.
And that no Church is Catholic but she.
It's pride and gain that make her thus to boast,
Since she faith and Salvation both hath lost.
The Patriarchs, Prophets, holy Jews of old,
Christ, his Apostles, were not of Rome's fold;
Yet were all saved: Greeks, with sundry more
Since them were, and are saved without the whore
Of Rome's precincts; whose whoredoms, vices are
Now
Catholic,
her faith, grace none, or rare.
She then had need prevent her own damnation,
Not others; doubt her own, not our Salvation.
[ 81] On Papists making Apocrypha Canonical, and Canonical Scripture less than Apocryphal, and their blasphemies against it, and Popes power over it.
Fathers)
Apocrypha, Canonical
Make, and all Protestants revile, condemn,
For not consenting in this point with them.
Mean time [ô wonder] that which both confess
To be true Scripture Canon, they far less
Esteem, than what is mere Apocryphal,
And deem no Scripture Text Canonical;
A nose of wax, a dead letter or word,
A leaden Parchment Rule; no Judge, rule, guide
Of faith, by which all doctrines must be tried.
They write,
it hath its force, authority,
Sense, exposition from the Pope only,
Who can, may, doth it change, control, annual,
Repeale, dispence against it, by his Bull.
If this be true, Rome no Canonical
Text grants; but makes all mere Apocryphal:
And so unchurcheth, yea quite overturns
Her self, whilst she against God's Word thus spurns
If Scripture cease to be Canonical.
O Rome recant thy fearful blasphemy
Against God's Word, which doth for vengeance cry
And into Hell, without repentance cast.
On the two Arch-Patriarchs of Popish [ 82] Friars S. Francis and S. Dominic.
I Hope I may without offense, recite
What Papists of their great S.
Francis
write,
The father of their Friars Minorites,
They write,
that he John the Baptist did surpass
In four respects: For first, John the Baptist was
But Christ's fore-runner, Francis
[as they say]
Both his fore-runner to prepare his way,
And standard-bearer too:
John
received
The Word of Penance, but from Christ our head;
Francis,
from Christ and the Pope, which is more:
John,
but the Bridegroom's friend was, heretofore,
Francis
was like the Bridegroom:
John,
on high,
Is but exalted to the Company
Of Seraphim, where
Francis
on the throne
Whence Lucifer was cast down, sits alone.
They write,
that
Francis
in worth far excels
All the Apostles, and that now he dwells
In Heaven in Christ's own bosom, More: That he
Was here a Jesus typically: yea
A figurative Savior: who upon
His body received in a Vision
The self-same wounds that Christ did, yea suffered
The self-same pains: and thereby renewed
Christ's passion in him, for to save man-kind:
Of which the
Prophet
David doth men mind
Him Crown'd, and thou hast him also set over
The works of thine own hands;
of whom did write
Saw, and rejoiced for to see the same.
[All meant of Christ alone.] Besides they write,
That what the Gospel saith of Christ, of right
Are given of my Father;
whence we see
Will be to him; and he again shall my
Son be; [both meant of Christ.] They add,
that all
The virtues of the Saints, both great and small,
In the Old and New Testament, do rest
United and conjoined in his breast.
That by his merits he deserved to be
The Son of God, and that
Leo
did see
A roll descend from heaven, which rested on
His head, containing this Inscription:
This man, is the grace of God, conformable
Wholly to Christ in all things, the Example
Of all perfection; deified in
The Glory of God the Father, and now in
The glory of the Saints united, to
God, whereby he precedes and doth out-go
All living Creatures, is made one and the
Same spirit with God: Nay, they aver, that he
Deserves with God to be the Advocate
Of the who
•
e Militant Church on earth: that
Christ's Passion is in him renu'd, for the
Salvation of all Mankind: So as he
By one Mass only hath God pacifi'd
For all the world:
This must not be denied.
They add;
that all are saved certainly
Who in S.
Francis
Order, Rule shall die.
For
Francis
prayed and obtained likewise
From God, that none who in his Order dies
Than Christ obtained
from God heretofore
For all who him profess:]
That the same grace
Descendeth on him, who shall but embrace
His Order of Religion, as doth fall
On him that is baptized.
Is this all?
No: they
say further, the mere putting on
Of
Francis
hood gives full remission
Of sins, and frees from their guilt, punishment:
That the bare resolution and intent
To take his Order, though not put inure,
Is a new Baptism, doth pardon procure.
They teach;
that Christ hath but prayed, but
Francis
Hath impetrated or obtained.
All this
(With sundry such like fearful Blasphemies)
Appears in the
Book of Conformities
Presented to the Chapter General
Of Cordiliers, and there approved by all
With this express clause; We have carefully
Searched, perused, examined thoroughly
This book, and we have nothing in it found
Worthy Correction;
all there is so sound
That they it term,
a Golden book
[So prize
They their S.
Francis,
and these Blasphemies]
Which
Gregory
the ninth, Pope
Alexander
The fifth,
Nichlas
the third [a whoremaster]
Sent unto all the faithful; charging all
S.
Francis
wounds to credit, and not call
Them into doubt, on pain of Heresy:
And
Benedict
the twelfth, lest this gross lie
Should be forgotten, did enjoin all men
Yearely to keep that day as Holy, when
S.
Francis
these forged wounds received. After,
The Hill
Averna
by Pope
Alexander
The fourth his Bull, was took into the See
Of Rome's protection, because these scar's he
Thereon received;
which sundry deem a lie,
And damn for a notorious Blasphemy.
Unto the very Birds, who their necks reached
Out to receive his Blessing, and did stay
Their singing whiles that he his Mass did say:
Or,
how his hair did suddenly cement
A great new house from top to bottom rent
And like to fall, so that they could not get
The hair out thence:
Or,
how his Cord but wet
In water, and that drunk, did instantly
Cure divers sick men of their malady:
I shall but one thing more of him relate,
Recorded as a truth past all debate;
About the year twelve hundred thirty three
An Angel to S.
Francis
did appear,
And told him that in
Mary's
great Church there,
Cal'd Angels, Jesus Christ, the Virgin
Mary
With sundry Angels did for him tarry;
Where being come, Christ Jesus to him spake
Thus:
Francis,
for saving Souls one suite make,
For thou are sent to be a light unto
The Gentiles;
Francis
answered thereunto,
I crave that thou the Pardon of all sin
Wilt grant to everyone who enters in
To this Church, and I likewise supplicate
The Virgin
Mary,
mankindes Advocate,
To aid me in this suite: then Jesus said
Freer
Francis,
that which thou of me has
•
prayed
Is a great matter, but thou art worthy
Of greater things: I do accord to thy
Request, and grant it: but yet go to Rome
Unto the Pope my Vicar, unto whom
I have given power to bind and to untie
In Earth and Heaven, and of him ask in my
Behalfe this indulgence: On which he goes
To Pope
Honorius,
and doth this disclose.
Demanding of him for these plenary
Indulgence, without offerings or money.
The Pope replied, that this could not be done,
Because he that would gain such full pardon
To
Peters
Treasure, and this suite withstands.
By this we see, Popes can, do, will deny
Those suites which Christ hath granted formerly.
The Pope demanded next, for how many
Yeares he desired pardon: His reply
Was, I not for years, but for souls did crave
Pardon, and will no Bulls for this grace have;
Adding, the Virgin should unto him be
Insteed of paper, Christ his Scribe, and the
Angels his witnesses. The Pope at last,
This indulgence at his entreaty past,
That whosoever this Church visited
Each first of August, and therein entered
During that whole days and nights space, should gain
Perfect remission from the guilt and pain
Of all his sins, from baptism till that day:
An easy rate to purge all sins away.
Now least S.
Francis
merits, wounds, and fame
Should quite eclipse S.
Dominickes
great Name,
I shall from
Antonine,
one of his Sect
[A Romish Saint] him clear from disrespect;
Who writes as much of
Dominic
well nigh
As others do of
Francis
dignity,
Comparing him with Christ, in such a sort
Which makes Christ of him oft times to fall short.
Rays'd up, when
Dominick
•
within Rome's wall
Did raise up three; and forty that were dead
And drowned near
Tolouse,
he restored
Entred in to his sad Disciples: but
S. Dominic
[which is far more] whiles yet
A mortal man into the Church did get
At night, the Gates fast shut, least he should wake
His Brethren:
Christ,
after his death thus spake
And this power to S.
Dominic [writes he]
Was not communicated sparingly
Whiles here, 'ore all things in the Heavens high
On Earth, and underneath the Earth: For he
Had the blest Angels at his Service; the
Four Elements did unto him obey,
The Devils trembled at his sight, and they
Vnable were to dis-obey him; as
He doth by Legends prove: That ere he was
Borne or brought forth into the world, there were
In
Venice
two Statues: In
Markes
Church there,
The one of
Paul
as they use him to paint,
Over the which was this Inscription,
Saint
Paul,
but under the Image feet was writ,
By this man we come unto Christ;
Neare it
The other of S.
Dominic
was placed
In a poor preaching Friars habit, graced
With this Motto, S.
Dominic,
above,
But underfoote with;
By this man we move
And go more easy unto Christ;
For why
The doctrine of
St Paul
[writes
Anthony]
And other Apostles, did but only lead
To Faith, and keeping of God's Laws we read;
But
Dominickes
did teach men to obey
Counsels, which is the shorter, easier way
To go to Christ:
Oh horrid blasphemy
S.
Dominic
thus to advance so high
Above S.
Paul,
all the Apostles; and
To make his Doctrines take the upper hand
Of the Apostles, as the shortest, best,
Way unto Christ! He adds yet to the rest,
That he was aptly named
Dominike,
Because he was to Christ himself most like:
For
Dominic
was that principally,
And by possession, what absolutely,
And by authority Christ was
[mark ye
Light of the world,
and the Church doth thus sing
Of
Dominick,
Thou art the Light, Day-spring
Of the world: yea, as the Prophets of old
Of the Lord Christ bore witness, and foretold
In divers ways: So Prophet
Zacharias
Have taken unto me two staves,
•
ne I
Did call Beauty, the other Cords: Beauty
Is the Sect of Saint
Dominic,
for the
Beautiful habits of their Prelates we
Behold: the Cords, are naught but Minor Friars
Girt with a Cord, and thence called Cordeliers
[A worthy Gloss on this Text;] thus they play
With Sacred Scripture: Furthermore they say,
Christ was borne on the bare earth, but
Mary
And put into a Manger.
Dominic,
Whiles yet an Infant, oft times off did kick
His clothes, and getting from his cratch, was found
By his Nurse lying naked on hare ground,
Detesting, as it were, all the delights
Of the flesh:
Anthony yet farther writes;
Which guided the wise men who came from far
Unto him: which did intimate that the
Whole world by him should then enlightened be.
So in the forehead of
Dominic,
when
He was Baptiz'd his God-mother did
〈◊〉
A shining star; which signifi'd, that he
A new light come into the world should be.
He adds:
The prayer of Christ was heard always
When ere he would: but yet when he did pray
F
•
om him, this suite of his denied was;
Because he praying thus but sensually,
He would in reason have God him deny.
But
Dominic
did never ought require
Of God, but he obtained his full desire,
Because he naught requested according
Unto the flesh;
They harp more on this string:
Our sins in his blood:
Dominic, say they,
Out of perfection of his Charity,
Spending the whole night with God fervently
In prayer, did with his own hands every day
A threefold whipping undergo
[I pray
By what command from God?]
not with whipcord
But with an Iron chain, wherewith be goard
And lashed himself to blood-shed; One was done
For his own sins, which were but small or none;
Another for those Souls in Purgatory;
The third for those who in this world yet lie:
In fine, (to pass by and not name the rest
Of their blasphemous Parallels, at best;)
When our Lord Christ would leave this world, be to
His grieved Disciples
[loath him to fore-go]
The holy Ghost: Saint
Domincke
to his
Disciples, near his death, said; Do not ye
My dear Friends mourn, nor vex at all for me,
Nor let my now departure hence you move,
For in the place to which I go, above
The Clouds, I shall be far more profitable
To you than I, whiles here, to be am able:
For after my decease you shall me have
A better Advocate by much, to crave
Ought for you then I now am; by which speech
Who that hath any conscience, saith, grace, fear
Or love of God, can once with patience hear
Such gross blasphemous speeches? or not hate
Those shameless Friars who dare them to relate?
For Saints, those who spake, writ these blasphemies.
With what face than can any man aver,
No doubt in this they err so shamefully,
That all who love God, truth, their souls, will fly
From their Communion, since they Canonize
Such men for Saints, approve such blasphemies.
On the strange Popish Miracles, attributed [ 83] to, and forged of S. Vincent Ferrier, and S. Anthony of Padua.
SOme Popish Saints in Miracles out-reach
To sundry Nations, were most wondrously
Endow'd with all tongues knowledge, from an high,
That so they might to all men preach in their
Preaching in Spanish to strangers who knew
Not this his Language
[if the tale be true]
Was understood by all as perfectly,
As if he had preached to them severally
In their own tongues;
Nay,
some who earnestly▪
Desir'd to hear him Preach, not possibly
Able to come unto the Church, did hear
Him more than one whole league off, very clear;
He had a louder voice belike than all
Christ's twelve Apostles, joined with S.
Paul,
Since none could hear them preaching half that
space
As these this Saint heard. Nor was this his case
Of
Padua,
who Preacht in one only
Language, to those of sundry Nations, who
Were unacquainted with his Tongue, was so
Well understood of them, as if that he
Had Preacht in their own Dialect: yea the
Good wife who would have come to his Sermo
•
But hindered by her husband, got upon
Her Barn to hear it, heard him perfectly
Halfe a league off the place he preached in;
she
Had very good ears doubtless, or else he
A thundering voice. They make him yet do more
Than Christ, or his Apostles heretofore.
For Preaching at
Ariminum
unto
The Heretics, who stopped their Ears that so
They might not hear his voice; he presently
Went to the Sea-side, to that Town then nigh,
And there with great affiance in God's aid,
Called unto the fishes, and them prayed
To hearken to him, whom the Sectaries
And Heretics to hear did then despise.
This said:
an infinite scooll of great, small
And middle sort of fishes, ranged all
In their set Order, lift their heads above
The water, him to hear; who out of love,
Calls them his Brethren, then did to them make
A Sermon of the blessings they partake,
And still receive from God, instructing them
What thanks and Service they should yield to him:
Which Sermon ended,
all the Fishes bowed
Their heads his blessing to receive; The crowd
Of people seeing this strange sight, were all
Astonied, and the Heretics did fall
Down at his feet, desiring him to preach
To them, and God's truth among them to teach:
I wish he had it taught to those who write
These lies of him, and them for truths recite.
To Bouivil his Ass or Mule, brought the
Host with great reverence, when she had been
Kept three days fasting, and no meat had seen,
Commanding the beast in the Lord's name, he
Then held in his hands, to come how the knee
Forthwith to his Creator, and adore
Him, that Christ's presence therein might no more
Be henceforth doubted, Heretics thereby
Confounded; which spoke, the Ass instantly
Her Master, and her Provender forsakes,
Though hungry, and upon her knees there makes
Prostration to the Host, as to her maker
And Lord
[though made by the Priest or Baker.]
Which miracle so evident, greatly
The Catholics did comfort, edify:
But did encourage Heretics much more,
Who the Host as their Lord would not adore
For all this miracle:
Rome might let pass
This piece of worship, proved thus by this Ass,
Since they at least are Asses, if not more,
Who from an Ass learn how God to adore.
On the Popish Blasphemous Legends of [ 84] their S. Catherine of Sennes.
Saint Catherine
of
Sennes,
who cut her hair
To shun her Marriage, having formerly
Espous'd her self to Christ most solemnly,
And
•
ow'd to be his spouse alone.
They say
That she did whip her self three times each day
For three hours space, with a sharp Iron chain,
So that her blood did issue forth amaine
Out of all parts of her body; willing
To repay Christ by this her blood-shedding,
The blood which he for her sins shed on the
Cross, that she might no debtor to him be.
To pass by all her strict Fasts, Disciplines,
Strange Visions,
as requiring many lines,
They write,
that Christ did so familiarly
Converse with her, appear so frequently
To her, when she did pray, or meditate,
Walk or repose her self, early and late,
That he seemed always present with her, yea
And talk with her saying, Think thou of me
And I shall think and take of thee the care,
With sundry such discourses which I spare:
That Jesus Christ enamored with her,
Appeared to her with his own mother
And other Saints, and her most solemnly
Espoused in their presence visibly,
The Virgin
Mary
leading her unto
Her Son Christ Jesus, as a person who
Was worthy to be wedded specially
To him; who condescending, presently
To this her motion, put a Ring of Gold
With four rich stones on her finger, then told
Her: I betroth thee to me thy maker
And Savior: After which act he did her
Continually visit familiarly,
Bringing with him oft times Virgin
Mary,
And sometimes other Saints, yet usually
Comming alone, keeping her company,
Walking, reciting Psalms with her, which She
Unlearned knew not how to read, till he
At her request, did teach her instantly
By Miracle to read them perfectly.
They write,
that Christ himself the Sacrament
Gave unto her, that the Host it self went
Unto her mouth without help, and that she
The Child Jesus in the Host oft did see:
That Christ his wound in his left side opened
For her, who thence Christ's own warm blood sucked:
That he stamped on her his five wounds, that she
In suffering torments might like to Christ be.
In fine; they write,
that Christ did really
Change hearts with her, took out of her body
[Opened on the left side] her heart; which he
Tooke with him for some space: that mean time She
Lived without an heart: that soon after
Christ in his glory did appear to her
With a red beautiful heart in his hand,
And coming near to her, where she did stand
He thrust it in to her on the left side,
Saying to her, My daughter and my Bride,
I here deliver my heart unto thee
In leiw of thine: which uttered then be
Her side closed up: and that this really
Was done, not in a vision, show only,
The scar remaining in her side descry'd,
Which her Companions oft times viewed and ey'd.
These most Blasphemous, gross, notorious lies
Which every Christian Soul abhors, defies,
Rome's Church proclaims for truths
conformable
Unto her faith: and them approves full well.
Prefixt in Print before their late relation
Of Rabadeneira the Jesuit
His Flours of Saints lives,
[Saints lies
a more fit
Title were for it]
Re-Printed lately
With approbation in French.
Certainly
Rome's Church must needs be false; which justifies
Such monstrous Lyes, such horrid Blasphemies,
And deemes them very
useful, necessary,
For all to know;
true; them, her to defy.
On a Popish Miracle of their Deifide Hostia.
That
Otho,
when deposed, not being well,
At point of death did earnestly desire
His extreme Viand, ere he should expire:
Which he [unable to retain ought, he
Then took] desired only but to see,
Not eat Christ's Body; which when the Priest nigh
Him brought, he it with great humility
Ador'd, then drawing near to it stretching
His arms out, as if he were most willing
It to embrace, his body quite naked,
The Host out of the Priests hands then leaped,
And through an hole which opened instantly
In his flesh, just whereas his heart did lie
Entred into his Body: which done, the
Hole forthwith closed up so that none could see
The Print of any scar: When he the Host
Had thus received, he rendered up the Ghost.
This nimble skipping Host was certainly
Ill tutored, to leap so wondrously
Into the heart of one deposed by
The Pope himself, as the Church enemy;
And to break Christ's own institution
Which makes me fear this Monstrous Miracle
Is but a Fable, coin'd in some Monks Cell.
On Papists prayers to those for Saints who [ 86] neither were Saints nor Men.
I Much admire, deplore the sottishness,
Of Rome's deluded flock,
who oft address
George, Margarite,
and Saints who never were;
Which they have made a Saint, and him now Name
They pray unto the Nayles, which nail'd his feet
And hands; Saint them too
(tis very meet)
And then Saint
Eloy
nominate. I fear
These wooden, Iron Saints will hardly hear
The three chief graces,
Faith, Hope, Charity,
(Which they have
made three Saints of later days,
And in their solemn
Liturgies
always
Hope pray for us, S. Charity our plaint
Hear and pray for us)
will undoubtedly
Both hear and give an answer to their cry,
Else they would not them invocate: I fear
These Saints are deaf too, and cannot them hear,
Extreame remote from those, not near at hand,
Who them for Saints invoke, who certainly
Have in them no true
Faith, Hope, Charity;
Since they yet know not what they are, or where;
And cry to them as Saints in heaven, not here.
[ 87] On Popish blind Obedience.
They both shall fall into the pit, nay find
Determines:
'tis then false Divinity
That he who doth believe his own Prelate,
When as he shall propound an Heresy
Against the faith, shall merit much thereby,
Although it be an error, because he
Is bound for to believe him, till it be
Apparent to him that tis contrary
To what the Church believes; whence they thus cry;
For no man can be deceived, no not by
An evil Bishop. If thou to God say,
O Lord I did thee in my Priest obey;
This shall suffice thee to Salvation,
For thou by the willing submission
That thou yeeldst to thy Bishop canst not be
Deceived, although he shall command thee
Other things than he ought to do; for the
Church doth presume his sentence good to be;
Which sentence, though false, if thou shalt obey
Thy reward shall be great.
Therefore [say they]
Obedience without reason is a most
Full and complete obedience, when thou dost
Obey without inquiring reason why,
As beasts obey their masters: a beastly
All men suspect Rome's Priests; and them forsake;
Who make them worse than beasts, cause thē deny
Their reason, senses, lest they should descry
Their gross erroneous Doctrines, which if tried
By Scripture, reason, sense, would be denied
Of all, received of none; Rome's faith would fall,
Did not her blind obedience most enthrall.
On Rome's making perpetual visibility a [ 88] note of the true Church.
Monthes, weeks at least, no Church, nor head appears
At all in Rome, which sometimes two or three
Popes hath at once, so as no man can see
Which is the true Church, Head, Pope, since each one
Doth then pretend he's true Church, Pope alone,
Rome then must bid this mark of hers adieu,
Else it will prove her a false Church, not true;
Since Popes [her Church] are not still seen, & she
Hath oft no Pope, head; sometimes two or three.
[ 89] On Rome's making Multitude and Roman a note of the true Church.
A Churches truth and goodness doth conclude,
If so, the damned in Hell a truer Church are
Then world, flesh, Devil, whom most serve, adore,
And Mahomet, whose worshippers are more
Than Christ's or God's, shall truer, better be
Than Christ, God, Christians. Rome thine error see
In this, which thou must needs retract, recall,
Those famous Churches to whom
John, James,
Paul,
Writ their Epistles, and that Church from whom
All other Churches are derived, (Yea Rome
True Churches, since not Roman. And if so,
Of God and Christ;
this Rome dares not affirm.
But if these were true, though not
Roman,
then
Roman's
no Note of the true Church to men;
At least in this age, when Rome's Church of due,
Is either no Church, or corrupt, untrue.
On Rome's engrossing the name of the true [ 90] Church of Christ to her self only.
ROme boasts, that
She is Christ's true Church only
When as in Scripture none can her descry
And that by
Peter,
when as sacred writ
Why so? I doubt not but to signify
Her future errors and Apostasy,
By which she should so far from true faith fall
That none should her a true Church deem or call,
Of Errors,
lewdness and confusion.
On Rome's Religion turned to Policy. [ 91]
WHat Rome's Religion now decayed? pray
why?
It is changed to State, wealth, worldly policy:
But what's Exchang'd for gain, is not decayd
But much improved, it cannot be gain-said;
Profit, and worldly honor comprise all
Those points which Rome doth now religion call:
Substract these two, and all Rome's faith is gone;
Its Policy then, not Religion
Which Rome professeth: if these will her save
Her Machiavill chief place in heaven shall have.
Durst write and Print, this fearful blasphemy;
It is the Devils invention to permit
The people to read Scripture (no way fit
For them to know)
may by mere policy
Escape hell flames, and mount above the sky.
[ 92] On Popes right to interpret Scripture, and their strange Glosses on sundry Texts, to prove their Supremacy, and the Lawfulnesse of deposing and killing Kings, who disobey them.
MUst not the Pope interpret Scripture? yea
Good reason, else a Pope he could not be.
No Text him makes Christ's vicar,
Peter,
Pope;
His Gloss must help here, else he had no hope
Of being either, that makes him these, more:
No reason then he should this right give over.
To expound the Scriptures,
which none do so true,
So well as they, in all points, specially
In defense of their own Supremacy,
And right to judge, depose, kill Kings, here they
Such comments make on Texts, as will display
Their learning, wisdom, and unerring power;
For instance, they say,
that our Savior
The Popes Supreame head of Christ's Church: nay
more
They
hence infer,
that they may judge, depose,
Kill Christian Kings, & of their Crowns dispose:
Feeding
is
killing
now with Popes, and they
Good shepherds are, when they their flocks
spoil, slay.
Into the deep, and loose your Nets;
therefore
The Pope is supreme head, may Kings put down
And loose his Net, to catch their Kingdoms
Crown:
I doubt S.
Peter
never had one thought
Of catching such Fish when he lanchit his boat.
Shalt bind, or loose here upon Earth below,
Shall be bound, loos'd in heaven,
therefore Popes may
Kings Excomunicate, depose, judge, slay;
Nay loose those Subjects from their oaths, which tie
Them to obedience, truth, and Loyalty;
And bind Kings so, that they shall vassals be
To Popes, and never once strive against Rome's See▪
I fear this kind of binding, loosing fall
Besides this text, which meant them not at all.
Here are two swords,
upon which Christ them told,
That is enough;
therefore both swords, with all
Sovereign power, as well temporal
As spiritual doth appertain of right
Unto the Pope; he may with both swords smite,
I think S.
Peter
did not then descry
That these two swords did so great power imply
As his successors have since in them found;
Who on the
sword,
not
word
their Empire ground.
No wonder if they
slay,
not
Preach
the Word;
They stick not to the Text, but to the Sword.
Are given of my Father;
therefore the
Pope hath all power, Crowns, Kingdoms of mere right
Belonging to him, and by his own might
May dispossess all Kings who them enjoy,
When he thinks meet, if they him disobey,
And Purgatory
[wherein they Christ excel]
Belong to Popes, who can redeem, release
Men from hell, Purgatory when they please,
Or send or keep them there, or let in men
Or shut them out of Heaven: They gods are then
I deem this Text belongs to Christ only,
Its error then it to Popes to apply.
[That is,
such beasts, fowls only made for meat
Which he saw in a trance, from heaven let down
In a great sheet:]
Therefore Popes may uncrowne,
Depose, kill Kings, and Princes at their will,
If they refuse their mandates to fulfill:
Nay send them soul and body unto h
•
ll.
I fear the Pope expounds this text not well,
Since there was no King, man within the sheet,
Bu
•
creeping things, fowls and beasts with four fe
••
e.
If Popes from hence will kill Kings, they must eat
Their flesh likewise. O'tis a royal meat.
An Asses colt, and bring him
[can you choose
But laugh at this rare gloss?] the Pope therefore
Hath right to all men's goods, both rich and poor:
Yea, to Kings Crowns, & may them bind, untie;
Depose; free subjects from their Loyalty,
Oaths of Allegiance, fealty, even as
Christ's two Disciples did untie the Ass:
Popes are hard driven when they must repair
Unto this Ass, to prop up
Peters
chair.
Will draw all things unto me:
Popes hereby
All Kingdoms, Crowns, things of right to them draw
And claim them as their due, by Christ's own law.
But since Christ draws all things to him, on high,
Not to the Pope, on Earth, I must deny
This Roman gloss, till Popes can make it clear
That Christ speaks of them, of Crowns not Souls
Created Heaven and earth
[note here Popes odd here.
Gloss and deduction;] Therefore there's but one
Beginning, Monarch; who? the Pope alone,
Whence all Kings, Princes, Prelates, Priests pour
springs;
And Popes may make, judge, sway, depose, kill
Kings.
In this beginning Popes were not at all;
This text then to their aid they cannot call.
To rule the day, the less to rule the night:
Light is the Pope, the less the Emperor;
And then concludes most learnedly from hence,
That there's as great and vast a difference
Between the Pope and Emperor, as is
Sort manifests;
That as the Suns greatness
And magnitude exceeds the Moons, no less
Than forty seven
[nay fifty six]
times; so,
The Pope in greatness, might, power, doth out-go
Him, no less than forty seven times;
and as
The moon no luster, nor light in it has
But what the Sun derives to it: so Kings
And Emperors power, luster from Popes springs;
Whereas in truth, the
Popes authority,
But since the Sun, not Pope, was this great light
Here meant, I doubt the Gloss is false, not right.
Christ there interprets it to be,
a Stone
Whence he infers,
that none but Popes alone
Are heads of Christ's Church
and Lord's Paramount
To Kings, and may them censure, kill, dismount.
This Gloss was made but by an
Innocent,
Who understood not what this
Cephas
meant,
Not kill the members,
or them rule with pride.
Into the seabbard;
from which very word
Resolves,
the temporal sword doth rightly
Belong to Popes; and that the Temporal
Sword subject is to the Hierarchical.
But since Christ said,
put up,
not use this sword,
This Text no such conclusion will afford.
God said to
Jeremiah
the Prophet,
See
To root out, pull down and destroy [namely
By threatening judgments for their sins only:]
[Two learned Popes]
the Pope hath power, right, place,
Over all Monarch's and their Kingdoms, Crowns
All subject to him, and within the bounds
Of his Grand Empire; and he may at will
Destroy all Kingdoms, Kings dethrone, judge, kill.
This, not to
Peter
spoke, but
Jeremy
Makes little for the Popes Supremacy:
Confounds, not proves the Popes, state, power and
grace.
The Lyon, Adder, yea the young Lyon
And eke the Dragon trample under feet:
And lawful for him, from
this text, his foot
On
Frederick
the first his throat to put,
And tr
•
mple on him, uttering this clause,
Whiles he
〈◊〉
on him with his Papal Paws.
By
Adder, Lyon, Dragon,
certainly
In this Text, not the Emperor, therefore
This Pope mis-glost, abused it heretofore.
Popes hence have right to all things temporal,
And may dispose of Kings Crowns, as some write,
Then all men sure may claim the self-same right
Since they have power to eat and drink; but yet
Not Kings, Crowns, Kingdoms, but their drink
and meat.
Store of such learned glosses everywhere
Which I omit, since these do well descry
That Popes all else excel, in glossery,
And can from any text, high Treason draw.
Good cause then they alone should gloss God's Law
On the Popes Supremacy, and Soveraignety Over Kings, Emperors, and Kingdoms. [ 93]
Rome's Popes confirmed, chose, judged, ruld heretofore;
Who swore them homage and fidelity
As their Supreme Lord's, who did summon, try,
Censure, depose them oft for crimes, as we
By Histories of former times may see.
By what right then do Rome's Popes now of late
And them elect, confirm, crown, judge, depose,
Kill, excommunicate, their Crowns dispose,
Their Kingdoms interdict, absolve, untie
Their subjects from their Oaths, faith, loyalty,
And stir them up to fight, revolt, rebel
Against their lawful Princes, them to quell,
Exempt all Clergy men's goods, persons, lands
From public taxes, and Lay-Judges hands?
The things that are Caesar's;
yea blessed
Paul
Or every Soul be subject to obey,
The higher powers, and to them tribute pay,
Not out of fear but conscience, since they be
Ordain'd of God.
The like precept read we
To the King, as supreme,
why so?
for it
Is the will of God, and for the Lord's sake
You must this do;
Here Popes
Peter
forsake,
And quite abandon: his
Divinity
The
Jewish high-Priests to their Kings of old
Appeal'd, submitted;
if Popes Vicars be
To Christ, or
Peters Successors,
their See,
Goods, persons, Lands, they must to Emperors
And Kings subject, as did their Ancestors;
They must no longer them judge, kill, depose,
Accurse, command, nor of their Crowns dispose;
Else they will prove the Devils Vicars, who
All earthly Kingdoms claimed,
[as Popes now do
Are mine to give unto whom I shall please;
But neither Devil, Pope have right to one
And Kings from under them immediately.
If Popes lay claim to any, certainly
They from the Devil must their right derive,
And such bad Title, doubtless will not thrive;
Which if they look not well unto, I fear
The Devil will at last them to hell bear
For their encroachments on his royalties.
Popes than forbear this claim, if ye be wise;
Therefore Popes claims to them are vain,
groundless.
On Popish • mages. [ 94]
PApists
in Lent
(a time of most devotion)
In all their Churches; So that none can eye
Them when they pray.
This practice certainly
Is an undoubted sign that Images
And pictures placed, used in Rome Churches
Do hinder men's devotion, since they hid
•
Them thus in Lent: than lay them quite aside
At all times else, since no Saints heretofore
Had Images in Churches, or before
Them used to pray, bow, kneel, or worshipped
Them as Rome's Creatures of late have learned
And after them when lost like Pagans cry,
As some of late have done in Spain; 'twere well
Therefore if Images were damned to Hell,
Wherewith Rome's flock as gross Idolatry
Commits, as Pagans with theirs anciently.
On Rome's Doctrine and Practice of Equivocation. [ 95]
ALL Rome for a false Church should damn,
fly, hate,
Can be in Rome, who this defends, pursu'th.
How can men pin their faith on Rome's Church
sleeve,
Whose doubling faith, words, oaths none can believe.
They may more faith, truth find in Devils, then
In most of Rome's Popes, Jesuits, Clergy-men;
Whose strange Equivocations, Lyes, should make,
All them, and their false Church quite to forsake.
[ 96] On Papists blasphemous Assertions touching the Virgin Mary, to the dishonor of God the Father, and Christ his Son.
Since him,
record,
that God's Kingdom consists
Chiefely in these two, Justice and Mercy:
That God this last hath resign
•
d to
Mary
As his Kingdoms best half; whence all who by
God's Justice grieved are, may appeal and fly,
From God to her, as men here commonly
From Courts of Law, appe
•
le to Chancery:
Who by her Mercy, will them aid, relieve
Against God's Justice when ere it them grieve.
So that if God in justice men condemn
Her Mercy, mauger God, will absolve them,
And free from condemnation; if this be
True, God's but half a God; no God but she:
God hath naught left but Justice, which damns all;
Not one for Justice, all for Mercy call:
Mary
hath all God's Mercy; is all grace
Her for their only Goddess; all will fly,
Sue, pray to her, not one to God will cry;
Nor yet to Christ,
who being just as well
As merciful, doth oft delay, repel
Compos'd of naught but mercy, clemency,
Heares and grants all men's suites without delay,
As soon as they unto her seek or pray.
So as all those who their suites would obtain
With speed, must unto her resort, complain.
Which (if true Doctrine) all to her will run,
And Christ, as Mediator, be undone,
Since all will sue to her, who doth first grant,
And never demand of God one thing they want
For Christ his Intercession, but seek all
If these write truth, the Virgin hath undone
Un-Godded both the Father and Son:
Ingrost their Mercy, Office, Di
•
ty,
And made herself Rome's only god: Truly
Then well might
Bonaventure,
in his Psalter
Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I
Thine enemies make thy footstool;
translate;
My right hand, until I thine enemies
Thy footstool make:
And in like sort disguise,
Me never be confounded,
and to set
It thus:
O Lady I my trust in thee
Have put, O never suffer me to be
Put to confusion: in thy righteousness
Deliver me, for thou art my fortress:
With sundry such like: This gross Blasphemy
Which Rome's Popes Church approve, use, justify,
To God's and Christ's dishonor, should now make
All them quite to abandon and forsake.
[ 97] On Rome's Novelties, notwithstanding her pretence of Antiquity.
ROme is still vaunting of
Antiquity,
Though all, or most in her be
Novelty.
Her Popes, Arch-prelates, Prelates, Cardinals,
Arch-Deacons, Prebends, Deans, Officials,
Subdeacons, Readers, Clerks, Acolythists,
Abbots, Abbesses, Priors, Massing-Priests,
Monk
•
, Friers, Nuns of all sorts, Anchorites,
Con
•
essors,
•
egats, Pard'ners, Jesuits,
Chancellors, Vicars, Proctors, Commissaries,
Not found in Scripture, men's late forgery.
Her Church is but a Novelty built on
Her blotting out the second Commandment,
And doubling of the tenth, to give content.
Her monstrous Transubstan
•••
tion,
Mass, Ladies Psalters, h
•
lfe Communion;
Her drinking of Christ's blood within the bread
She eats, and that
〈◊〉
in the veins not shed;
Making, ado
•••
g gods, Saints Images,
〈…〉
Crosses, Pixes, Crucifixes▪
Pray
••
s to God in unknown Tongues: to Saints
Departed, who cannot hear their complaints;
Auricular confession, exempting
Delinquent clerks from justice of their King;
Election for men's fore-seen works; freewill,
Falling from Grace, new Miracles wrought still;
Her marks of a true Church, the Priests intent
Essentiall to make a true Sacrament,
Adoring of the host conditionally,
If it in truth be turned to Christ's body;
Saints seeing Prayers in the Looking-glass
O'th' Trinity, to which men's prayers still pass;
Her worshipping of all things with Latry
(As Cross, spear, Nayles, Thorns) which
touched Christ's body;
Her Pictures of our Lady on a throne
Crown'd Queen of Heaven, with Christ a little one
Held in her Arms: Her praying unto her,
Still fresh, sweet) sins in nature venial;
Prayer to Angels, Limbus, Purgatory,
Popes Indulgences, Pardons sold for money,
For any sin; five new coin'd Sacraments,
Her public stews allowed to raise Popes rents,
Her Merits, works of supererogation;
Doubt, no certain assurance of Salvation;
Popes right to both swords, their supremacy
Over all Persons, Clergy, Laity:
Their excommunicating, deposing,
Iudging, nay killing Kings, interdicting
Whole Kingdoms; absolving from loyalty
And solemn oaths of that fidelity
Which subjects make unto their kings; arming,
Exciting subjects 'gainst their lawful King;
Processions, Pilgrimages, reservations
Of Hosts in Pixes, with their elevations,
And Adorations: Lay men not to read
God's Word: that it must be interpreted,
Confirm'd by Popes: that Rome's Popes may dispense
Against God's word; control the text, and sense;
That Popes are above Councils general,
And must confirm, nay over-rule, and call
Them of due right: that Councils cannot err,
Nor Popes in Peters chair, where they sit never:
Saints canonizing; Rome's rich Treasaury
Of Merit, whereof Popes must keep the key;
Cases reserved to his Sanctity,
Bulls, Masses to free Souls from Purgatory,
Justification not by faith alone
But works, more Mediators besides one;
That
Mary
is the Churches Advocate,
Damning Priests marriage, vowing Celibate,
Saints Legends, Holi-days, strict abstinence
From meats at set days out of conscience;
Bowing at Altars, shaving Priests, Nuns Crowns,
Great difference in habits, Coules, Frocks, Gowns,
Beads, Pater Nosters, Aves, said by score,
Yea Ave Mary Bels, not known afore
Time; Holy-water, Holy-bred, Candels
Palms, Churches, Church-yards, Altars, Chalices,
Salt, Spittle, Chrism, Swords, Pals, Ro
•
bets, Abbees,
Copes, Altar-Clothes; Organs, strange Ducks, Bowings,
Nods, Gestures, Ceremonies, and Crossings;
Chaunting of Masses, praying toward the East,
Choosing of some Saints more than all the rest
For certain Kingdoms, Countries, diseases;
Cities, Professions like the Pagans; these
With sundry other things, are Novelties,
Not found in Scripture, but men's Forgeries▪
Cease then thy Bragges Rome, thy Religion's new,
Vain, false; ours only is old, saving, true.
On, and against Rome's half Communion, and Sacrilegious depriving the people of the Sacramental Cup.
TEll me lewd Rome, with what sense, reason,
grace
Canst thou fly in our blessed Savior's face?
As if it were superfluous, or amiss?
Yea, bid a
Non-obstante
unto it,
To Christ, Apostles, Fathers, as unfit
And curse damn all those to the pit of Hell
Who dare tread in their Footesteps, or say, Lay
Men ought to drink Christ's Cup, and him obey
Herein; styling receiving in both kind,
A perverse custom, error, as we find
In the Council of Constan
insolent,
Blasphemous Act, against Christ's Sacrament.
Had Rome not lost her wits, sense, grace, all shame,
She would not thus Christ's Laws annul, Acts blame
Who hold the Cup to be to Lay-men due.
To salve this sore: Rome first saith, she being
Christ's Spouse, hath power, right to decree this thing.
This I deny: No wives have power, right to.
She is no true spouse, but whore, who dares rent,
Divide or change her Husbands Testament.
He is no good child, servant, or subject,
But Rebell, Traitor, who dares change, dissect
His Fathers, Masters, Princes Testament,
Or their Edicts oppose, control or rent:
Rome is no true Spouse, servant, child, subject
Of Christ then, as she boasts, who dares neglect,
Change, disannul his will and Testament,
And thus divide his blessed Sacrament,
Against his precept: Nor can she of right
It do. For what Authority, Law, might
Hath any wife, child, Servant or subject
Their Husbands, Parents, Masters, Princes will,
And their Acts, Edicts, Pleasures to fulfill)
To alter, nullify, halve, disobey
Their Testaments, Acts, Edicts, or to stray
From, run cross to them? Rome's Church cannot
be
More than Christ's Spouse, child, servant, subject; she
Then being no more, if this, cannot cancel
Christ's ordinances, nor his Laws repeal,
Much less deprave, pervert his Testament,
His Cup restrain, divide his Sacrament.
[ 2]
Ought from his Word,
much more from his last act,
The Sacrament,
by his death ratifi'de,
What is another's right:
None can gainsay
Christ's Cup and blood to be the Peoples right
As well as Priests; since Christ in the same night
To drink of his blest Cup in General;
As well for Laymen, as for Priests,
and such
As be in Orders. Since then Lay-men by
Christ's own gift, Charter, as great property
[ 4]
And right have to Christ's Cup, as Rome's Clergy
Or any Pope or Prelate; certainly
It cannot but be Sacrilege and theft
Them to deprive of what Christ to them left;
And that at his death, by his Testament,
To which the Church must yield, not disassent.
Christ's own Apostles here had no right, power
To change his Acts, Laws; Hence our Savior
Keep:
adding,
For he who loves me, assents
To, and keeps my Commandments.
Rome's Church then
Who keeps not Christ's Commandments, and
doth when
She please, annul, control his Acts and will,
Loves not Christ, but rebels against him still.
[ 5]
All the Apostles, and S.
Peter
say
Therefore we rather must obey Chri
•
t here
Who bids us drink, than Popes who say forbear.
[ 6]
The Sacred
Cup, Blood in the Sacrament
Whence Christ not of the Bread, but Cup saith,
This
Cup the New Testament in my Blood is:
Are as the day and night, impossible
Once to be canceled, and stand fast forever;
Therefore none can the Cups seal from them sover,
Containing Christ's blood of the Covenant;
Which will be void, if it this great seal want.
[ 7]
When Christ gave his Apostles their Charter
And grand Commission, he expressly there
The Gospel to all Nations, and them teach
ALL THINGS FOR TO OBSERVE WHATSOEVER
I
HAVE YOU COMMANDED:
adding,
and loe, I
Am with you always unto the worlds end.
Since Christ then did his own Apostles send
Forth, but to teach all men to observe
Whatever he commanded, and not swerve
From it unto the left hand or the right:
How Rome's Popes, Church have now more power,
might, right
Than
Peter,
the Apostles had to change,
Repeal Christ's will, Acts, Edicts, seems most
strange
To me, and she must show me some express
Commission from Christ, which doth theirs suppress,
And give Popes power to rob the Laity
Quite of Christ's Chalice, given formerly
Unto them by his will, and that Popes be
Exempt from Christ's Injunctions now, though He
Be always present in his Church as King
And Supreame Lord, directing everything;
Or else I must deny that Popes justly
May take Christ's Cup thus from the Laity.
When
Paul
th' abuses in the Sacrament
[ 8]
At
Corinth
would reform, he that Church sent
Blaming them first for its transgression,
And then informs them very punctually;
I have received of the Lord that which I
Also delivered unto you; that the
Lord Jesus in the self-same night that he
Was betrayed took bread;
and so forth:
After
Supper he took the Cup in like manner
Adding this clause to both;
As oft as ye
Do this, do it in memory of me.
For as oft as ye eat this bread; AND this
Cup drink, ye show the Lord's death until his
Comming again:
By which words it is plain,
All must drink Christ's Cup till he come again.
Since
Paul
then doth them check for varying
From Christ's first Institution, enjoining
All to conform thereto; I hence clearly
Conclude Rome's Church hath no Authority
Or right at all from Christ's first form to stray;
Much less his Cup, Blood, thus to take away
From Laickes, who must it drink and retain
By this Texts warrant,
till Christ come again.
The scripture calls the blessed Sacrament
To signify, that as all
constantly
Men to Sup with them at their Tables:
so
Christ would have all the Guests invited to
His Sacred Table Supper, as well drink
His wine, as eat his bread,
else they might think
His feast defective, and himself to be
A niggard, not a bountiful, good, free
House-keeper. This was it which makes him cry▪
As Scripture oft recites, that so no guests
Might depart thirsty. This his bounteousnesse
Rome now controules, and deemes it an excess,
And therefore sends all from his Supper dry
Except Mass-Priests, who drink the wine only;
To Christ's dishonor, his guests discontents,
Who neither love dry feasts, nor Sacraments.
All will those lewd, presumptuous Servants think
Who dare eclipse their liberality,
And send their guests away from Supper dry.
Thus Rome deals with her Lord Christ's guests:
I fear
In cases of Divorce did really
Dispence with God's own Law;
Therefore Popes may
The Sacred Cup from Lay-men take away.
[ 1]
His own mere power and Authority,
In sundry Texts upon record yet see.
But Popes have no command from Christ to take
Away the Cup: see then their gross mistake
And absurd argument:
Moses,
say they,
By God's Command, did let men put away
Their wives in certain cases, contrary
To the first law of Marriage; formerly
Enacted: therefore Popes without command
From Christ, by their own might may countermand
Christ's Institutions; and quite take away
His Cup from people who are merely Lay.
[ 2]
A gross inconsequent. But if that I
Grant,
Moses
by his own (authority
Did this, which is not true; yet Popes must next
Prove their power as great as his from some Text,
And that this cause of divorce, arbitrary
At men's free choice, and practiced only
By few,) is just the same, with Popes taking
The Cup by force from all Lay-men: which thing
Since they can no ways prove, they must confess
Their wicked error, theft, and it redress.
But Rome's Popes here object, this precept was
Still drink the Cup; not unto Lay-men. I
That if,
Drink ye ALL of it,
were spoke to
Th' Apostles only as Priests, not Lay; so
Likewise must,
Take, eat, this is my body;
Be spoken to, and meant of Priests only,
Since both were spoke to the same men, at the
Same time, and this word,
All,
we clearly see
Omitted in the Breads delivery,
And expressed in this of the Cup only,
Will this enforce; which if true, then you may
As well the Bread as Cup now take away
From all Lay-men; and so deprive them quite
Of the Lord's Supper, Bread, Wine, Priests sole
right.
Lay-men have right to both kinds, else to nether;
Rome must then keep back or give both together.
But was it spoke to Priests only? why then
[ 2]
Doth Rome
deny, (as well as to Lay-men)
And by
Trents Acts, leave them in Lay-men's state?
Christ only hallow'd by consent of all,
The bread and wine at first; and did not call
Any of his Disciples to assist
Him in the consecration: yet then Christ
Its then against Christ's precept, practice, to
Deny the Cup to such Priests, as you do;
Or unto any who communicate,
Since Christ words to all such alike relate.
But how knows Rome, that at this Sacrament
[ 3]
When first ordained, none but Priests were present?
The Twelve were present; but than they only
Were there, no Text doth prove infallibly.
But grant it true; they did not receive then
As Priests, Apostles, but as Christian men
And members of Christ's body, Church, which they
There represented; else no Priests nor Lay
Men any ground had to receive the bread
Or wine at all,
••
th Christ's words related
Only to the Apostles then present,
To whom he spake and gave the Sacrament.
Since therefore they first received bread and wine
In this sense only, as all grant, define:
Then all Lay men have as good Title right
Unto the Cup, as any Jesuit,
Pope, Priest, or Prelate. Nor can Rome, say they,
Receive them as they were Priests, but as Lay.
That the Apostles were not made Priests till
After the consecration, and the bread
No sacred Cup to them delivered;
And that by virtue of these words; Do this
In remembrance of me; which they say is,
The ground, and form of her new Sacrament
Of Orders, Priesthood.
Then by Rome's assent
Not being Priests till these words uttered,
They were Laymen whom they first received.
In my remembrance, after the Cup too.
Which clause if it makes Mass-priests all shall be
Created such Priests, who receive; which she
Cannot gain say, since all men equally
Must take the bread and wine in memory
Of Christ, and DOE THIS,
in as ample wise
As any Mass-priests: whence this will arise,
None must be kept from the cup anymore.
Add,
Paul
C
•
rists words applieth equally
To all Receivers, Priests or Laity;
And makes the Cup as common unto all
As is the bread.
Hence he is general
ALL (as we do) the same spiritual meat,
And did ALL DRINKE, the SAME spiritual drink;
For they drank of the Rock Christ:
If you think
This proof not full enough, he writes
to all
The Cup of Devils,
which can never stand
Together)
ye cannot partakers be
Of the Lord's Table, and partake of the
Table of Devils:
In which notable
And sacred bread;
and eke
appropriated
To all the faithful,
as well as the bread.
And drink this Cup, ye the Lord's death repeat
And show forth till be come:
wherefore (O think
Of this)
who ere shall eat this bread and DRINKE
THIS CUP of the Lord but unworthily
Shall be guilty of the blood and body
Of Christ. But let a man well examine
Himself, and so eat of that bread divine
AND DRINKE of that Cup: for he that eateth
AND DRINKES unworthily, eats, AND DRINKETH
Da
••
ation to himself.
Christ by S.
Paul
Declares the Cup as common unto all
As is the bread. That Laymen must it drink
As well as Priests, whence he the bread doth link
Five times together with the Cup.
Cup, Bread
Eate, Drink
are still conjoin'd not severed:
All must them both receive, or both forbear,
All Lay men must eat, drink, as well as Priests,
Else they prove Rebles and mere Antichrists;
Yea, bar themselves both from the life of grace
And glory too; witness that noted place
The blood of the Son of Man,
(which Priests think
Meant only of the Sacrament, though then
Not instituted, nor made known to men:)
You have no life in you. Whoso eateth
My flesh, AND my blood
(by true faith)
DRINKETH,
Hath life eternal, and at the last day
I will raise him up: for my flesh
(I say)
(Which cross conversion stands Rome in no steed
But damns that Transubstantiation
Which she endeavors to erect hereon:)
He that eateth my flesh, AND DRINKETH my
Blood, dwells in me, and I in him,
(only
Spiritually, not corporally.) Here
Christ's
flesh and blood; eating, drinking,
appear
Four several times combined: and
drinking
Christ's blood
is thrice made a most needful thing
To gain eternal life: Nor can Rome cry,
That this was spoken unto Priests only;
For 'twas spoke to the people, as is clear
By express words, and Christ's whole discourse
here.
Oft times, as a distinct and diverse thing;
And make both equally needful.
Therefore
Rome to Lay-men the Cup must now restore;
Else she will rob them of life eternal,
Christ's blood in eating the dry Host:
I think
None but mere sots devoyd of reason, sense,
Will be deluded with this gross non-sense.
Is any man so simple once to think
That he Wine, Cyder, Beer, doth truly drink
Or that he drinks swine's blood when he doth
eat
Black puddings; and so needs not for drink call
Because he drinks Wine, Cyder, Beer in all
Reasons, Bread, Apples, meats he eats? Truly
I never yet heard, nor read in History
Of any so besotted as to think,
That in bare eating, he did truly drink
Wine, Bear, included in dry bread only,
And eat, drink, both in one, for company.
Should Priests tell Children, fools, (than how
much more
Wisemen) when they eat bread, dry meats good
store
And then call for wine, bear, that they need
none
Because they truly drink Wine, Beer alone,
In eating bread or dry meats; they would cry
Forthwith, they did but them mock, cheat, bely,
And give no credit to their words at all
But them mere Liars and impostors call.
Should Priests in this sort only drink at Table
They would this shift damn as a senseless Fable;
Why are lay Papists then such blocks to think
Their Priests speak truth, in saying that they
drink
Christ's Cup, blood truly, in eating dry bread?
No doubt their wits are lost; their senses fled.
Should they tell Priests, or Priests tell them when as
They feast at home in private, not at Mass,
That they drink wine in eating of their bread,
Neither by either would be credited:
How then can they believe they drink truly
Christ's Cup, Blood, when they eat the bread
only?
All know that eating is not drinking; they
Distinct things, and still put as opposite,
One to another. How then dares Rome write
Or Pope decree such
Nonsense,
that
eating
Is drinking, drinking eating, both, one thing?
When each man, child, fool knows the contrary,
And may here justly say they err and lie.
And drink?
yea, both of them so
oft repeat,
As different things? why do Priests both eat,
drink
And as to them eating no drinking think?
If Lay-men drink in eating, not Priests, then
They can do more than Popes, Priests, Clergy-men:
If Priests in eating drink as well as they,
The Cup must then from Priests be took away,
Lest they drink twice for once; nay eat twice too
Eate Christ's body, conjoin'd unseprably
Unto his blood; and by concomitancy
Is eat in drinking.
But if neither drink
In truth in eating bread, why doth Rome think
She doth it, against Scripture, reason, sense,
Christ's express verdict, and experience?
Men always chew the things they eat; and they
Hard, solid, dense (not liquid) things always,
(The Objects of eating) are said to eat;
They swallow when they drink; not chew; not
meat,
Bread, solid things, but liquors, drinks only,
The objects which men still drink properly.
Men take what they eat with hand, knife, spone:
sup,
Quaffe what they drink out of some, pot, glass,
Cup.
It is a contradiction then to think,
Say, he that eats the bread, doth truly drink
The Cup thereby. O Papists now espy,
Renounce Rome's monstrous
Nonsense,
Foolery.
Christ bids
all eat and drink
still distinctly,
Not both in one; and that
successively:
At first ordained, and them gave, thus the
Apostles still took them
successively
In former times;
but those who drink only
In eating of the bread, do both together
In one act, moment, and do not them sever.
Who take it in the Host, it eat always,
Not drink at all; as men do only eat
Blood in black puddings, fowls, or strangled
meat,
Wherein blood is contained: Nay he bids all
But specially
to drink it in the Cup
And wine.
Now those who only drink it up
Within the bread; and neither Cup, wine take,
Transgresse Christ's precept, and his form forsake;
The Bread is not the Cup, wine: Christ's body
Is not his blood; these differ really
One from another; then those who only
The Body, Bread eat, cannot possibly
That Christ's body under the form of bread
Containes his blood, and is accompaned
Still with it;
Therefore
those who eat the one
Do drink the other in it, not alone.
Lord's Supper first ordained, since that he
The bread alone, his blood to drink within
The Cup and wine only, not in the bread,
Which he from Cup and wine distinguished.
Those then who eat the body, bread only,
Can not the Cup, Wine, Blood thus drink thereby
As Christ enjoins them: Nay, the Sacrament
Ordain'd by Christ to this end and intent
Is quite subverted by this Novelty:
For blood within Christ's Body and the Bread,
Unshed, cannot Christ's Passion and Blood-shed
In any lively manner represent;
And so cannot be a true Sacrament
Of Christ's death, bloodshed: who saith expressly
Blood which IS SHED for many, for pardon
Whereby we are washed, cleansed from all sin.
You must then in the Sacrament, drink up
Christ's blood not in his body, veins, but Cup,
As shed and severed from his body on
The Cross; else you his bloods effusion,
And sins remission cannot represent,
By an unbloody Host or Sacrament:
Which can no comfort to men's souls convey
Since it Christ's blood-shed, death doth not display.
Add, that Christ's body in the sacred bread
Nail'd, broken on the Cross; quite void of blood,
All shed out of his body for our good;
As three Evangelists, Saint Paul,
and he
Expressely witness.
His blood cannot then be
Drink, taken in his body, which is dead,
And out of which his blood is wholly shed?
Besides, admit his blood enclosed to lie▪
Within the Host, and Veines of his body;
Yet since none drink, but eat the Host always,
And eating is not drinking; none can say
That those who only eat the Host, body,
Do drink the blood in truth, or properly.
More; Rome takes that for granted which she can
Not prove; nor all the learning, wit of man
Make good; that Christ's true Body, Blood combinde
Are in each Host received in their kind,
And proper substance: A gross forgery:
For grant Christ's blood be there substantially,
(Which I deny) it is still there
as shed
Within the Cup, Wine only,
not the Bread.
This Christ himself resolves. Its then most clear
That those who eat the bread only donit there
In Christ's blood eat, or drink in any kind;
But grant they do it: did Christ himself mind,
Know, understand this Crochet when as he
Ordain'd the Sacrament, or not? if ye
Say no: then how come you now to know more,
And understand that Christ knew not before?
And that in point of his presence, being
In the Sacraments of Bread, Wine; the thing
Which he himself ordained, and so should know
Far better then; than Rome, you can do now;
Unless you make Christ ignorant, and so
No God at all. But if he knew it though,
That those who eat the bread do really
Therein his blood drink, and receive; than why
To drink of it,
in such a special
Strict manner? which had been superfluous,
Had all within the bread his blood drunk thus.
Since then Christ did ordain the Sacrament
In both kinds, and gave express Commandment
That all should drink his sacred blood,
as shed,
Within the Cup, wine only,
not the bread,
I may conclude, (since Christ did naught in vain)
That the dry Host doth not Christ's blood contain;
And that those who the body, bread only
Eate, cannot therein drink Christ's blood truly.
Rome then Christ's Cup to Lay-men must restore,
And with these non-sense lies, them cheat no
more.
Only,
in some Texts, the Cup not named;
Therefore they did receive the bread only
Without the Cup: Is an absurdity,
Since eating, breaking bread doth there imply
A full repast, with meat, drink, wine, not dry
Professe we therein pray for wine, drink, and
All things of which our Bodies in need stand.
But say these texts be meant of bread only,
And of the Sacrament, (which I deny:)
Without the Cup or Wine, yet they imply
Not as Rome dreams, that eating properly
Is drinking, and that those who eat the bread
Do therewith drink Christ's blood in veins, or shed;
The thing in question; or that Priests only
Must drink the Cup; but proves the contrary;
That both Priests, people, must the Cup forbear,
Because in these Texts no Cup, Wine, appear
At all: and that Priests may well consecrate
Bread without Wine, since these Texts nominate
No Cup nor wine them used; Rome must take
To justify her theft, are to no end.
Since Christ, no doubt, did them foresee, as well
Rome
then must be more careful, wise, than he,
The danger,
lest some drops of it should shed;
Is common to the crumbs of Sacred bread,
As well as to the Cup; which Priests shed may
In drunken sits may chance to vomit up
Christ's blood they drank out of the Sacred Cup.
Whence
Rome
hath made
Decrees
for to redress
This mischief, in the case of Priests excess;
So that
Rome
must both of the Cup deprive,
Or it alike to Priests and People give.
Is vain, since no wine in one day or hour
Will putrefy, much less Christ's blood: and bread
As well as wine will mould, be corrupted:
Till it grow stale: you must this shift decline.
The danger of
its sticking on the beard
Of those that drink,
was never thought of, heard
In former times by any; and you may
With better color shave men's beards away
The Cup to them, l
•
st their beards it come nigh.
However, since youths, women, beardless men
Have no Beards to steal Christ's blood; you must
then
To all these give the Cup and yet deny
To none but men with beards; on which truly
Since crumbs of bread may chance to stick, as
well
Alike from both:
That some want wine,
therefore
Rome may the Cup take from those who have
store;
Is most absurd: and she may likewise say
The bread must be from all sorts took away
That have bread; because some Countries have, eat
No bread at all, but live on roots, fish, meat.
But where no wine is, there Priests, Laity,
Are both alike; none drink, both are still dry.
Those who can drink it, must not drink it more,
Is most ridiculous: some love not bread,
Must none then with the sacred bread be fed?
If so, then neither Priests nor Laity
Must henceforth to Christ's Supper once draw
nigh.
Rome's Transubstantiation doth quite end,
For if the bread and wine be really
Christ's body, blood, they cannot certainly
Receive, nor yet convey infection
To any; nor read I that any one
Tooke any sickness (Poxe, Plague, Leprosy)
By drinking Christ's Cup in sincerity
As he commandeth: Nay, Christ who cures all
Kinds of diseases, will not let them fall
On such who thus obey his Sacred will,
But will preserve them from Contagion still.
Add, that the bread may be infectious
Through Priests, Clerks, Bakers, hands, nay poisonous
The seventh (Emperor) was poisoned by
Bernard, and Victor the third in the bread,
With the Cup, by Monks and Clergy men:
Neither of both are Christ's body, blood then,
But bread and wine for substance: and if you
This inconvenience further will persue,
You must the bread as well as wine remove,
Eates, drinks, damnation to himself thereby;
If then this greater danger must not drive
Men from Christ's Supper; nor good men deprive
Thereof, though certain: this less danger you
Pretend, but casual, not like to ensue,
Must not debar the people from drinking
The Cup:
Much less the plea of differing
The Clergy from the public Laity:
A
•
ike;
none must them of this right deprive.
It is more than devilish pride for to deny
Laickes the Cup, to raise Priests dignity,
And to subvert Christ's very Sacrament,
(Which bread alone cannot well represent)
Yea hurt men's souls, to Mount Mass-Priests on
high
And them advance above the Laity.
In his unerring chair determined thus;
In this same case, long since,
(when some only
Would take the Sacred bread, and then deny
The sacred Cup to drink, because they were
Perswaded wine was ill, and did forbear
It only from this superstition:)
That Priests such people with great caution,
Should cause to take both Elements entire,
Or drive them from both:
If you now desire
His reason, mark it well:
Because that one
And the same very Sacrament alone
Can no way possibly divided be
Without GREAT SACRILEDGE.
In which Decree,
Rome
these particulars, well worthy note,
[ 1]
First, that lay people in the Eucharist
Must drink the Cup still, as well as the Priest.
[ 2]
Next, that the
Manichees
did first invent
The half Communion, and half Sacrament.
Because they thought wine in it self to be
[ 3]
Unlawfull. Thirdly, that by this Decree
Men's false persuasion in their conscience
That wine is simply ill, must not dispence
With, nor exempt them from the sacred Cup
But they must drink it here, or else not Sup
With Christ at all, nor taste his bread and body:
Whence I against
Rome's
Church shall plead
strongly;
That if those who thought wine in conscience
Unlawfull, must yet drink it in plain sense
Within the Cup, not bread, at Sacrament,
Or else be from the bread, and Church out-pent,
And quite secluded: Then much more must they
Who deem Wine lawful, not be kept away
From the Lord's Cup; but drink it punctually;
Nay be for'st to receive it constantly
If they refuse it: and by this decree
Eating to be no drinking, all may see.
Next that Popes, Prelates, Mass-Priests, must
compel
All to drink of Christ's Cup, or else repel,
Them from the Sacred bread.
But Rome's Clergy,
Popes, Prelates, Priests d
•
e now quite contrary:
Compelling Laymen to eat bread alone,
Vsually suffering not so much as one
Of them to drink the Sacred Cup: nay the
That if any Priest shall exhort Laymen
To take the Sacrament in both kinds, then
For this offense, or if he admit any
Thus to receive, he shall be presently
Excommunicated; and if that he
Perssist herein, he shall condemned be
Men, who shall be so bold as once to say
As this Pope doth, that it is SACRILEDGE,
Unlawfull, or erroneous to abridge
Them of the Cup, shall for this cause only
Be persecuted, punished grievously
As Heretics.
O strange, prodigious
Decrees; quite cross to Pope
Gelasius!
Fifthly, that those who eat the Host only
Drink not Christ's blood enclosed in his body;
Nor take they the whole Sacrament, but it
Divide in half, and into pieces split:
Belike they love truth,
Popes
to contrary.
Sixthly, that not one element alone,
[ 6]
But both together taken by each one,
Christ's bloody death compleately represent;
And make up one entire sweet Sacrament.
In fine,
that none can sever or divide
The bread and Wine, or put the Cup aside
Taking the bread alone, or give it to
[ 7]
Lay men without the Cup,
(as Priests now do)
Without GREAT SACRILEDGE:
And if that
they
Who think wine ill in point of conscience, may
Nor here the Sacred wine refuse to drink
Without great Sacrilege;
then all must think
Those Sacrilegious in the top degree
Who deem wine lawful, and will drink it free
In Taverns, and all places else, but here
In Christ's own Supper it forbid, forbear.
These seven conclusions, Pope
Gelasius
Hath in his chair decreed of old for us,
In his Decrees, which Rome cannot gainsay,
Now tell me Rome, did this Pope err? if so;
Then Popes may err in chair like him. If no;
Then thou and thy late Popes, Mass-Priests,
Council
Of
Constance, Trent
erred grossly, and err still;
Yea they commit great Sacrilege each day
From Laymen, contrary to Christ's command
And this Decree, which they do much withstand.
O Rome, now see thy great impiety,
Grand Sacrilege,
theft, gross iniquity
In robbing Laickes of Christ Cup, Wine, Blood,
Which be bequeathed them for their endless good.
Pronounced by the Priest, doth really
The bread into Christ's body; change when they
Recited in the Mass but to display
What Christ once did and said of old, when he
Ordain'd the Sacrament, at most can be
And of no more force to make Christ's body
When uttered in the Mass, than when they read
In the Gospels themselves, since tis granted
By, and known unto all that the reading
Of any story doth change, make nothing
Anew at all. The reading the story
Of the Creation, Christ's Nativity,
Death, resurrection, Miracles, effects
No new Creation of the world; reflects
The old, not makes a new Nativity,
Death, Resurrection of Christ really:
Therefore
this is my body
spoken by
The Priest, not Christ himself, rehearsively
Can work no real change of bread into
Christ's body. And if bread be changed 'tis to
The Priests own body, who saith, this is my
Body, not Christ's; who being Christ only
In represent when he doth consecrate
And use these words, which now to him relate
The bread can be Christ's body only as
The Priest is Christ himself, when he saith Mass,
And that is not in truth but represent,
Rome
cannot from this clear truth dis-assent.
On, and against, Popish and Superstitious Bowing to Altars, and railing in the Lord Tables Altarwise.
NO Patriarchs, Prophets, Saints for ought
we find
In Sacred writ, once bowed or Inclin'd
Command from God, and did Christ typify.
Altars of old, and Sacrifices too
[Christ] in their Sacrifice, as we now eat.
Yet none did then to, towards Altars bow,
Why then must we bow, congie to them now,
Or Tables, or the Sacred Element,
Which Christ, no more, than theirs did, represent?
They had the self-same ground, to bow as you,
Yet did it not, nor ever thought it due,
As you do now: Either you Err, or they:
Judge whether is more like to go astray.
By Christ's death,
to, before them cringe or bow?
Are they now grown more Sacred then before,
By men's Erections, that you them adore?
If they had no such honor done them when
Set up by God, why now, when made by men?
If not against, at least besides God's word:
Perchance because men's own, they are adored.
If you say you bow to them as a Table,
Not Altar; sure I think it is a Fable;
Your language doth betray you, you it call
You fix and
•
aile it in, and still you say,
You to the Altar how; before it pray.
But be it so, where do you read that now
Men to Lord's Tables ought to stoop, or bow?
Did Christ, or his Apostles do it? No,
Much less Command it; why must we do so?
We read, when Christ ordained this Sacrament
Had they so done, or willed us so to do
The text had said they sat, yet bowed too.
What are ye now more holy, or more wise
Than Christ or his Apostles, to devise
An inclination, which not one of them
Did ever use, command, or of it dream?
Belike they were mere Rustickes, never knew
Fit Table Congees, they must learn from you.
Right, due alone, and must not given be
To any Creature but by his express
Command or License;
you then much transgress
In yielding honor, worship, reverence
To Altars, Tables, without God's License
And warrant; which you never can produce
Out of his Word: For shame leave this abuse.
But you have Reasons for it: did they them know?
If you say yea, why did they not then bow?
Belike they were too weak to bend them: why
Are they so strong than you to bow awry?
If no, they were then ignorants to you,
And must learn from you now, what they never
knew.
Christ, his Apostles must be put to School
But may we know your pond'rous Reasons why
You bow, stoop, ducke thus? you shall instantly.
We must to, and before the Altar
•
end:
Till you can prove this
holy Reverence,
An Altar-cringe, going in, or out from thence,
And that good
Jacob
did bow and adore
Upon their Face at door of Tabernacle.
True, but what then? they fell flat on their face,
Not bowed, like you, to supplicate for Grace,
Not Cringe and so away, as you adore;
Not at, to Altars: If you say no more,
All that your wits can rack from thence will be,
You must at, to the Church door, bow your knee,
Fall prostrate on your face; but once, not still,
Not to an Altar, if you will fulfill
This Text: nay at the Church-door make a stay,
Fall down, rise up, not enter, then away,
Like them: and since it saith not, they did fall
To, before th' Altar [not named there] twill mall
Your cause to pieces: they then did not bow
To, before Altars, you than must not now.
And quite without the Tabernacle door;
The Laver standing twixt the door and it
By God's express Command.
See then how sit
This text is for your purpose:
Moses
fell
On his face at the door oth' Tabernacle
With his back to, face from the Altar [then
Behind him unsaluted,] Therefore men
Must towards, to, before the Altar bow;
And turn their face, not backs still to it now.
A strange Non-sequel, Men must do quite Cross
To
Moses,
and this Text, as you it gloss.
He fell down once, no more, and that behind
The Altar, not before it: if you mind
His steps to trace, you must fall once no more,
And that behind your Altars, not before.
Which now you may not, cannot do at all,
Unless you quite remove them from the wall,
Into the middle of the Church or Choir,
Their place of old, where men yet still desire
Lord's Tables should now placed be. This Text
With all the people bowed, worshipped.
True, but not towards, to, before the Altar
Like you, this Text then is become your halter.
In places where no Altars were, therefore
They did not towards them, but Earth adore.
We find not in God's text, one named who to
Or towards Altars did his worship do.
Which had they done, and it were exemplary
It had not been omitted in the Story:
Or Earth,
your Altar worship doth confound:
Had they bowed to the Altar, then you had
Urg'd something; now your case proves very bad.
They did not then unto the Altar bow;
Therefore you must and ought to do it now;
Is but mere non-sense, and a running Cross
To them: your cause, and you are at a loss;
This King and people
jointly bowed their head
Together; and God jointly worshipped;
You, one by one: they when they
Sacrificed
Upon the Altar,
and
new hallowed
The Temple;
you when as no Sacrifice
Is offered, or upon your Altar lies:
They bowed once,
when the Sacrifice was ended;
You oft, ere it begins; O well defended!
Bids us, Come Worship, fall down, bow the knee
Before the Lord our Maker:
Very true;
Therefore this bowing's to the Altar due:
A learned Sequell: Men must kneel, adore,
And bow before their Maker, Lord; therefore
To, and before the Altar: I think then
Not God, but Altars made you
Priests,
or men.
If Altars be your
Makers,
you wood, stone,
It's fit you should bow, kneel, to them alone:
But if God only, you must then bow, fall,
Kneele before him alone, and on him call,
By this Texts precept, which whiles you apply
To Altar worship, you confess thereby,
You bow to God and Altars both alike,
If that you say, you bow to God thereby;
It is false,
it is to Christ's humanity
Is present on it:
grant this, yet you err
From this your Text, since Christ's humanity
Is not your Maker, but the Deity:
And to adore Christ's body and no more
Without his divine nature, heretofore
Was always judged gross Idolatry,
Since but a creature, and no Deity.
This Text then doth your practice quite confound,
Yea casts your cause and it down to the ground.
As for the
Liturgy,
it saith no more
But what the Text, it helps you not therefore;
Nay it strikes dead, & quite confounds your cause,
Because it Ever reads this Psalm and clause,
Not when you down before the Altar bend
At the Communion, Entrance, Service end,
At morning prayer only, which thing quite calms
Your new devotions: for by this you must
Kneele, fall, bow down, before the Altar just
When this Psalm's read; all jointly, not before,
After, or single, as you now adore:
But since you bow not to the Altar when
This
Psalm
is read, nor kneel, fall down, but then
Do always stand, or sit, by this you show
Both Text and Church-book your cause overthrow,
And either you against them both offend
In not adoring when they bid you bend,
Or else you make both Church-book and this
Text
The Altar, God, not it do still adore.
First, show where God commands you thus to bow
To him before the Altar; this I know
You cannot do: in all the Texts you name,
There is no Scripture warrant for the same.
Nought but commanded worship is God's due.
Should make you and this worship at a stand.
We must not to our parents, Kings, Men, bow
To do it;
much less may we bow before
An Altar, Table, or them once adore;
Which
are more base and vile by much than we,
With Cap or knee, since God forbids us to
But you bow unto God alone, Not so,
There is an holy Reverence due to it;
Which you unto it give, as just and fit,
Both jointly, in one bowing and prostration
To God and it: the self-same adoration
You give then unto both; Is God's divine?
Then Altars too, you cannot it decline.
Both have the same for time, act, motion, place,
Therefore the self-same worship, honor, grace;
And so you act most gross Idolatry
In joining Altars thus with God most high.
If that you give to both like Reverence,
Not worship; God no doubt will take offense
That you give like and equal veneration
To him and Altars; it's no Christian fashion;
Nor courtly neither, for if any one
Should equal worship give to King and Throne,
And both at once in self-same sort adore
He would be trust up, or thrust out of door.
You should do well then to distinguish that
Worship, you say, you give to God, from what
You yield the Altar, in time, gesture, show,
That they, you, others might their difference know
But do you give to both like honor? I
Presume the Altar hath precedency.
Were not the Altar there, you would not bend;
From it your bowings spring, to it they tend.
If Altars then this worship cause, and share
Therein with God, they most adored are;
God for the Altars sake, First: they for his:
The Altar hath more share than God in this;
He is beholding only to the Altar
For this his worship, which else would quite falter;
Remove but it, God's worship's at an end;
It doth then from, to it, not God move, tend:
You then commit the same Idolatry
As
Pagans, Papists,
in their Imag'rie:
Image and Altar worship are the same
In substance, differ but in object, name;
When as they bow, kneel, fall down, to, before
Their Idols; not the stocks or Images
Themselves:
if then their worship God displease,
Your Altar worship cannot but do so;
They are the same, you cannot say me no.
Your Reasons, grounds, excuses both agree,
They are but one in substance then we see.
But God alone.
No doubt it is a Fable,
Your words betray you, and in terms you do
Confess
you bow to God and Altars too;
To both conjointly;
see your guiltiness,
You all acknowledge that you bow before
The Altar [which you eye] to God; therefore
You worship it, before it, and thereby
Make it an Idol, act Idolatry.
In Scripture phrase, and due to God alone.
Injoynes all to
fall, worship, kneel before
Their Lord and Maker only;
how then dare
You swerve from it, and openly declare,
That you before the Altar bow, adore,
As well as before God, if not far more?
Are you then guiltless of Idolatry?
Not so in Scriptures judgment, for thereby
With bowing to it, and hath equal blame;
Both are alike Idolatrous:
this you
May from the
Devil
learn to be most true,
Who tempted Christ,
to fall down and adore
Christ
this refused;
mark his reason why,
Its written, thou shalt worship God only;
If then to
worship, bow down, kneel before
An Idol, Devil, be them to adore
As Scripture, Christ, resolve, and we must all
Before God only worship, bow, and fall
Religiously; your worshipping before
The Altar, is it, not God to adore;
And to give that to Altars which only
Is due to God; which is Idolatry.
See then you vain distinctions, whose conclusion
Towards God's mercy-seat, look, pray, adore,
Should to the Altar look, pray, bow the knee,
It being now God's only Mercy-seat,
Yea the most holy place, where we Christ eat.
Well argu'd gentle Sir, you here descry
Your learned Logic, and Divinity;
The Jews did never towards their Altars bow,
Pray look of old, therefore you must doit now:
They looked, prayed towards the
Mercy-Seat,
Not Altar; this your cause doth clean defeat.
But when, and why looked they sometimes that
way?
(In special cases only, not always:)
An answer to them, when they should it want,
And there to meet them, to declare his will
And commune with them, which he did fulfill:
This made them look that way,
because from thence
God did his answers unto them dispence
As men still turn their face towards those to whom
They speak, to places, Courts whence answers
come.
But God no answers from their Altars gave;
Hence they looked, prayed not so towards them; you
have
No reason, ground, then hence to worship, bow
Or pray towards Altars, or Lord's Tables now,
Since they did not: and God doth not from thence
But from the Pulpit, and the reading Pue,
Your bowing then to them [if ought] is due.
These, not your Altars, are God's mercy-seat,
His Person, and from him to us are sent:
But that your Altars Merci-seats should be
Have neither Scripture, reason, ground at all
To warrant it, and so your cause must fall:
With Cherubs at each end, and stood of old
God did his will and answers still dispence.
On it no Shew bread, Incense, Sacrifice,
Stood, or were offered; therefore in no wise
Can you make Altars, Tables now to be
God's Mercy-seat: Hence then your dotage see.
And, if you will bow, cringe to Mercy-Seats,
You must hence-forth to Pulpits do these feats,
Sanctum Sanct
•
rums:
Here you more declare
Your brain-sick Non-sense, dotage▪ then before.
In former times,
there must be millions now
If you speak truth, towards which to worship,
bow.
We must have now a
new High Priest to go
Into these Holiest places,
Yet no moe
Within your Chancels or your Altar-room:
No Priest, nor Laicke must once enter, see
Your Chancells, Altars: what becomes of ye,
And this your worship then? you can no more
Before your Altars bow, kneel or adore;
Nor yet approach them there to celebrate,
Read Second Service, offer, early, late,
To light your Tapers: all your Altar-play,
And court-ship now must vanish clean away.
Fools, then recant, and see how God confounds
And overthrows you quite with your own
grounds;
Learn now at last, that this most Holy place,
Where to each year with blood the High-Priests grace
Our High Priest Christ's Ascension, once only,
Into the highest Heavens; with his own blood,
There to redeem us, for our endless good.
Thus saith the Text: then all
Sanctorums
gone
And vanished are, none left but heaven alone:
See then the badness of your cause, when all
Your proofs on it, and you so heavy fall,
Of old did worship God, or to him pray,
Turned their faces to the Temple-ward.
What then? this puts you to it very hard;
Must towards the Altar pray, bow, bend the knee.
No Altar is once named within the letter;
They looked towards the Temple, not the Altar
When as they prayed: In this you err and faltar,
That you not towards the Church, but Altar bow
Pray, look, herein you cross the Text, I trow.
Of Exile, or when as removed far
Both from the Temple, and its view;
but ye
In times of peace, not war, when you are free,
Not Exiles, nor when out of Churches view,
But in the Church alone, will have it due:
None can look towards the Church, place where
they be,
You turn the Text to Non-sense, falsity,
Unless without the Church you pray, as they;
For in it, toward it, you can never pray.
See then how you pervert the Text, and make
It senseless, vain, and false by your mistake.
Towards the Temple,
when they sought for grace;
You not in private, but in public bend
Towards the Altar, yea, when as you send
No prayers up
•
nto God: you bow, and so
Passe in, out of the Church, or by it go.
See now your learned arguments, from hence,
Yea Contradiction, folly, and non-sense.
Of the Temples bounds, sight, did turn about
Their face, not bow towards it when as they prayed,
[Not towards the Altar; or ought on it laid;]
Therefore must ye, if you their steps will trace,
Not in the Church, but in each private place
You pray, now turn your face towards some
Church [to
What Church I wot not] which you never do,
Not towards the Table, Altar, nor when ye
Within the Churches Precincts praying be:
And only turn your face that way, not bow
Towards your Altars, as you practice now.
This is the only sum and Consequence
That you for Altar-worship can draw hence.
Which quite confounds it; as shall yet more clear
By that which follows, unto all appear.
The Jews did towards the Temple look and pray
His special presence; and there to reside
More than in any place on Earth beside,
Filling the Temple with his glory, and
His presence so, that the Priests could not stand
Nor stay therein to do their Ministry:
But God by promise never yet did tie
His special presence in such sort to any
Church, Altar, Table [much less unto many]
Now Extant; nor from them immediately
With his own Mouth, give answers to their cry.
We have no reason than to turn our face
To any Altar, Table, Church or Place
On Earth, when as we pray; but still to move
And lift our hearts, hands, eyes, to heaven above,
Hear, answer, grant us all for which we pray.
Towards Heaven alone, when as they prayed, as all
Or most do now, who on God truly call.
That if they should but towards the Temple look
And pray, in wars, or their Captivity,
(When they to God in it could not draw nigh)
That he would hear their prayers;
and hence did they
But you have no such promise in God's book,
That if you towards the Altar pray, bow, look,
That he will hear you: therefore you must stay
Till God shall warrant you thus to bow, pray.
This promise was made to the
Jews,
and ye
Can scarce apply it, till you Jews shall be:
It was made only to their
Temple,
(not
Their
Synagogues:)
which ruined and forgot
Long since, this promise is quite gone with it:
You cannot it unto your Altars fit,
Nor to our
Churches,
which
succeed
unto
Can then extract from hence will be, that all
Must towards this ruined Temple, pray, bow, fall,
Not towards the Altar; strange Divinity
At this day, though by Jews used anciently.
Add, that this promise runs promiscuously,
[First named] as well as towards the
Temple
pray,
That God would hear.
Hence
Daniel thrice each day,
In Babylon, whilst he there exiled, staid;
Which
City, Temple,
being there out of view
And kenning, gives at least a check to you
Who bow not towards the Altar but in sight
Thereof, and out of its view stand upright;
Though out of sight, and kenning, heretofore.
God's promise then, not their view, did excite
Them thus to pray; naught makes you bow but sight
Since then the text names praying towards
all three
Alike, and that where men could not them see;
You may more fitly thence in ferre that all
When they in public, private, on God call,
Ought towards their
Countries, Cities
turn their face
Or towards
Jury,
or the ruined place,
Where then God's Temple stood, than that they
now
Must towards the Altar, Church, or Temple bow.
City and House,
as they in order stand;
Not to the Altar: whence conclude I may,
That they did never towards the Altar pray,
Bow, look: for then no doubt the Text had knit
The
Altar
to these three, not past by it.
Which not once naming, and prescribing how
They should towards
these three
only pray; all now
May see that bowing towards the Altar then
Was not once thought on, nor in use with men.
That Solomon did not bow to, but STAND
Before the Altar, on a Scaffold; where
His
•
ands he spread forth towards heaven,
and there
Kneeled down upon his knees, before all
Inferre; that had he bowed towards, or unto
The
Altar,
doubtless the Text had said so;
But since it only saith, he
stood before
The Altar;
not, that he did bow, adore
Towards it, it is most clear from hence that he
To, towards it did not bow, nor bend the knee.
Nor did they then towards Altars turn their eyes,
But when on them they offered Sacrifice,
Or took some solemn Oath before them; (yet
They then to bow to them did quite forget;
Them,
but not bowing, nere used anciently:)
If you thus towards the Table look when ye
Thereat receive, the Elements, to see
Whilst they are consecrating, I consent
Thereto, but not when there's no Sacrament.
His Prayer, and the fire which from God descended
Consum'd the Sacrifice, and God's glory,
Quite filled the house; that all who then stood by
And saw this fight, bowed themselves with their face
Unto the ground,
(not Altar)
in that place;
And worshipped, and praised God, saying, For he
Is good, for his Mercies e're-lasting be.
Had they towards Temple, Altar, worshipped,
Or bowed themselves, we should no doubt have read
It in the Text; whose silence in this kind
Proves, that they to, towards neither thus inclined,
But simply bowed to, before God alone:
The ground whereon thou standest is holy,
Spoken to Moses, Joshua of old;
No Altar, Bowing, is here named: if you
These special Texts mean strictly to pursue,
Into the Church, Church-yard; no shoes wear, so
These very Texts;
which you more misapply
And wrest then they;
Who got the brand
•
nd name
Of Heretics, for practicing the same,
In going barefoot:
If you these Texts strain
To prove your Altar-worship, sure your brain
Is far more crazy, and your practice more
Cross to these Texts, than their was heretofore.
For what sense, reason, can in this be found?
By God's express command;
therefore all men
Must bow down towards, or to th' Altar when
They it approach; and when they come or go
Into or from the Church, though they have no
Command or pattern so to do? Surely
This is pure
nonsense,
if not
Heresy.
Your Altars, Tables, are stone, wood, not
ground:
No worship then of these, can here be found,
But of the Church-yard, Churches soil, which
you
To ought, it is to the
Church-ground
only,
Not Table, Altar; See now your folly,
In quoting Texts to prove, which overthrow
Your cause, and your nonsense to all men show.
Add, that the
shoes
are here enjoin'd to be
Put off the feet,
the lowest part; not the
Hat
••
lled off, head bowed down; no art
Can from the lowest to the highest part,
Conclude ought that is solid: here your
feet
And
heads
without
sense, reason,
strangely meet:
You may do well then these Texts to
put off,
Thou go'st unto the House of God;
is clean
•
Besides the purpose: To press bowing thence
To Altars, Tables, is to speak nonsense;
When men go to God's house, they must their feet
Keep with all care;
therefore they must there greet
And bow down to the Altar, is a bad,
A senseless sequel; fit for none but mad
Or crazy pates: No Altar, bowing are
Nam'd in this Text; whose scope is to declare,
That men when
they approach
God's house to pray,
Must watch their feet (affections) and that they
Must shun vain thoughts, rash, fond loquacity.
Their senses then are lost, who now apply
This Text, their Altar-worship to maintain,
From whence they can naught to this purpose
strain.
The cause is bad which such extravagant
And far-fetched proofs, it to defend doth want.
Which none but those who are past grace or shame
Or void of wit, would for this purpose name.
Him who sat on the Throne, and did adore,
Casting their Crowns before the Throne;
thus we
Before the Altar must fall, bow the knee.
Are you an
Elder?
then you may fall down,
If not, forbear; since there you read of none
That prostrate fell, but
twenty four alone,
Round by them, yet fell not;
your proof's not good.
But yet not here on
Earth,
but
Heaven
they fell;
This then concerns not those who on earth dwell.
But did they bow like you? no, their prostration
Was far unlike your new-found adoration,
Unto the Lamb;
you never then sing such Lays:
All full of Odours:
you bowing, none such hold;
They prostrate fell,
not going in, or out
Of any Church, or passing to, about.
Or from the Altar, as you now; their fact
Is then no warrant for what you now act.
Within their view.
Do you so? no not one;
You see not Christ, nor to him bow and fall,
But to the Altar, not Christ's Throne at all;
There is no
Altar, Table
in the Text.
You may go whistle then: what say you next?
Though Scripture fail, yet we have reasons left:
I fear you will be at last of both bereft;
For Sacred things,
as you shall see in season.
Must therefore bow before, and to them.
I
Sitting at God's right hand;
His Thrones I fear
On earth are now cast down. But yet to clear
This further, if they be Christ's Throne, its either
Of his divine or human nature; neither
Of these they be. Of his humanity
Say you: its false;
that only is on high.
Fixt in one place, cannot be but in one.
But if each Altar, Table be his Chair,
Wherein he sits, it must be everywhere
Upon these Thrones, and he must have as many
Bodies as Thrones: he is not then in any
Of all your Thrones; he never yet once sat there,
They are not his, but your Thrones then, I fear.
This will not then your cause one hair advance;
And prove it too, I shall it still gain-say:
A proof which cannot be gainsaid in this;
More grace is present with, more reverence due
Unto Christ's body then word:
What say you?
If Natural, that's in Heaven, bread's not it,
Its but Christ's
Body figurative,
or it
Doth rather only show and typify
The breaking of Christ's body to the eye.
True: what then makes bread Christ's Body? I say,
If then Christ's word doth make the bread his
body,
You must to it then, not to them incline.
That which gives being, honor to another;
Is greater, Nobler [if ought] than the tother.
Its greater, Nobler, then; can you dissent?
And Church is stilled:
your reason then is faint,
And quite casheer'd: each Saint is better then
And for their Service;
therefore they are better:
For this, there's Text store, for you not one letter.
With ours; Bread is his Body but in name,
Within his Saints by Grace, and Spiritually.
He dwells not so within the bread; if then
You bow to ought, it must be godly men;
Flesh, and with Christ himself by Grace made one.
If he have any Throne on earth, its they,
If then you will bow to, before Christ's Throne,
It must be to, before his Saints alone:
But to the Word again, Christ's Deity
Of both, whereby his
God-head
is expressed.
Doth but confirm Faith, Grace; Now all consent,
That what gives Life, excels what serves only
To save, convert;
the other's but supply.
Our grace to strengthen, seal, and ratify,
Without Christ's breaden Body;
but not one
A Sacrament;
as you before may see.
Now what is able to save men alone,
Excels that which alone serves to save none.
In public, private:
tother's not so good,
Because more rare, less common, not for all;
The Word then is, of both, most excellent
In these respects; you cannot dis-assent.
Than in the word,
by which on souls are fed.
Some hold so I confess, in this sense true,
His grace and presence are more there, I may
Deny with safety; they co-operate
As much in all (nay more in most men's state,
Since it requires a greater power from Christ,
A greater presence of him, and far more
Strength to
raise up dead men
and
them restore
From death to life,
then to corroborate
A living Christian in a gracious state.
Which quickens dead men,
as Divines consent.
Of Sacred writ.
Christ promiseth to be
His Spirit joins therewith, makes it the main,
Chief business of himself, Apostles, train,
To preach the Word,
this is their
special charge
Most pressed, Acted;
as we read at large
In Scripture, where we find but thin and rare
Speech of Christ's Supper;
Whose most special
care
Of his sweet word,
oft termed,
his power, and might
Unto Salvation:
All which will declare
That Christ's grace, spirit, presence always are
Than with his Supper. Have you ought in store
Yet? yea, Christ's more present in the Sacrament
Then in the Word: It's held so without ground,
But if discust, will prove an empty sound:
Mark what I say, Christ's body, spirit, grace,
Have no inherent real presence, place
Within the bread, or Wine themselves: for then
Both wicked, faithless, good, and faithful men
Should them receive alike inclusively
And Sacramental wise, not grace divine.
The true bread Christ to men, whereby they live.
But Christ doth give himself there, unto all
Worthy Receivers, in a spiritual,
Yet real manner; not by descending
From Heaven above, but by the secret sending
Down of his Spirit, which doth comprehend
Them, and their Faith; Hearts, souls, cause to ascend
To heaven to him, and there on him to feed
By faith, as their mouths feed here on the bread.
That makes Christ present in the Sacrament:
As that is greater, less, so they more feed
Or less on Christ in Heaven, not in the bread,
Which ill men take; but not Christ, or his grace
Therein, for want of Faith, this quels your case.
For if Christ's presence, spirit, grace, be not
Included in the signs, as now you wot,
And he be present only in the heart,
Not mouth, of each believer; then no part
Of his grace, body, presence, placed are
Upon your Altars, Tables, as their chair,
Or throne; where if he were, its not in State,
Not in a state of glory, but as bread,
[In basest state] wherewith our
••
iles are fed.
How can Lord's-Tables the
••
be stilled his Throne;
When as he sits, not, but
〈◊〉
, stands thereon,
As food alone? who
〈◊〉
, yet heard, or read
Of Thrones, or cha
••
s prepared for meat, drink,
bread?
It is mere nonsense thus to call Lord's-Tables,
Or Altars
Christ's Thrones,
here your words prove
fables;
To all these
Christ's Thrones,
is to play the fools.
Therefore the reasons why you thus adore;
And bow to Altars, are quite out of door.
Christ sits not on your Altars, Tables;
he
You must to Heaven then only look, and bow.
Hence doth the
Church-book,
at the Sacrament
Unto the Lord on high,
without one word
Of looking, bowing, to the Altar, Board:
There must your eyes, thoughts, hearts be, there your love.
If you presume he sits upon the Table,
You make the Scripture, Church-book but a fable
Besides, you do not take the Sacrament,
From off Lord's-Tables, whence men now are pent
And bard with rails, for fear they should draw
near
Unto them, there to eat Christ's sacred cheare:
What they receive, is from the Priests hands, at
The rails; why should they then bow, cringe to
that,
From whence they naught receive? they must adore
The Priests hands, rails, not Tables, Altars more:
From them, not these they take the Elements,
They then do best deserve these Complements.
But grant you what you would, that Christ's body
[As Papists hold] doth on your Altars lie,
And that this is the cause, why you adore
To, towards Altars: I desire no more
But this your plain confession, to descry
Your folly, falsehood, and Idolatry.
You say you bow to God alone, but lie;
This reason proves, it is to Christ's body
There present [as you hold,] which is not God,
But man; your reason is become your rod:
For to adore Christ's body,
or
the bread,
Which shows his Manhood only, not God-head;
Or to adore God, or Christ's Deity,
Meerely because of his humanity,
Will-worship, Error, and Idolatry;
Since Christ's body a creature is; and none
And that still for himself; where you adore
God for Christ's Manhood, or it, and no more.
In Papists,
who adore Christ's bread-body,
As God Almighty,
and bow down before
Their Altars, only it for to adore
(Not them) there present in the pix always;
You are their Apes, say, do the same as they;
Nay worse, in that you to
the Altar bend
If Christ his presence be the cause wherefore
You to, before the Altar thus adore,
You ought to do it only when, and where
He present is thereon; not when not there.
But you to your Altars bow commonly,
When as no sacred Elements there lie,
And Christ's not on them, so that you adore
The Altars, Tables only, and no more.
At Court, do use to bow to chairs of state,
Because that Kings in them sometimes have sat,
Though absent when they bow; so we likewise
Bow when there are no signs before our eyes.
It was from Court, from whence you learnt the
same,
But not from God's Court, but the Kings; so then
It is a worship not from God, but men;
Yea, its no more but a Court complement:
To court, not serve God then, is your intent.
I doubt you mean to turn mere Courtiers now,
And therefore practice, thus to Congee, bow
Unto the Altar, Table, that thereby
You may be perfect in Court ceremony,
Against you resort thither, for to find
Or seek preferment: now I know your mind:
Those who would rise high, must first stoop, and
bow;
I feel your pulses, and your tempers know:
But pray you show me, where God ever sent
Men to the Court, to learn to complement
With him in his own Temple? or that he
With Courtly complements will served be,
Which all deem feigned, gross hypocrisy;
Take heed you prove not hypocrites thereby;
But say that some to chairs of State thus bow,
When Kings are absent; wisemen doubtless know
That this is nothing but Court adulation;
Such then must be your Courtly adoration.
It is a custom; true, yet void of reason;
Should men adore each place where Kings have
set,
They must their senses, or themselves forget;
Yea,
thus to congie when the Kings are gone,
Is but to mock the Kings,
and
grace
their
Throne.
It is mere folly, frenzy too, I fear,
To now to chairs, because Kings once sat there.
But be this as it may, no chair of State
Is bowed to, but that wherein Kings once sat
In person, not in picture only; True,
Hence see your sottish folly; then must you
Bow to no Altars, Tables henceforth; Why?
Because Christ nere sat on them really
In person, but in figure, picture; ye
By this your instance quite confounded be:
Its just with God men's reason to confound,
When they make Reason, not his Word, their
ground.
But grant you further, that Christ's present in
The sacred bread and wine; yet still you spin
A greater thread of folly, and ensnare
Your selves more fast, as I shall next declare.
For first, no Tables, Altars touch, contain,
Immediately, the sacred bread and wine;
But only hold the vessels, Paten, Cup,
(As Tables do our dishes when we sup)
Which the bread, wine, contain in them alone;
They therefore (if ought) are Christ's chair, and
Throne,
Or Christ's at least:
why play you then the fools
To bow to Altars, Tables, as Christ's Throne,
Not Cup, or Paten, where he sits alone?
All Altars, Tables, are but stone, or wood;
These vessels silver, gold, not near so good
As these for matter, substance; and in end,
They, Tables, Altars, in worth far transcend,
Made purposely these vessels to sustain,
Which the blest bread and wine in them contain;
Therefore more worthy Congees and respect.
Why bow you then to those, yet these neglect?
If there be any reason to incline
To ought, its to these vessels; the bread, wine:
Yet see more folly, you bow to the Table,
When these are in your hands, count these a fable,
And Christ within them [as you hold.] And here
You are most gross Idolaters, I fear;
For when you hold these & Christ in your hand,
You bow to Altars, whereon neither stand:
Did you thus bow to Christ, as you pretend,
You would not to your naked Altars bend,
When he is in your hands, contained in
These vessels: here you faulter, err, and sin;
As you do likewise, when you bow, adore
Towards the Altar, Tables, just before
You go to consecrate the Sacrament,
Ere Christ's there present in the Element:
You should (me thinks) not bow, but stay till he
By consecration should there present be.
Yet one bout more; the bread and wine you say,
Are, or contain Christ's body, blood; and they
Are better, greater than God's sacred word:
Why do you then bow to the Altar, Board,
Not to the Bread, Wine, Christ, nay them neglect,
When in your hands, to turn, bow with respect
Unto mere naked Tables, Altars? sure
Your wits are lost, and Christ will not endure
To see a stone, or plank adored, whilst he,
Then in your hands, must not thus worshipped be.
By this all know it is a truth, no fable,
That you adore not Christ thus, but the Table,
Or Altar, else you would not to them bow,
Whilst you hold Christ within your hands. Then
now
At last discern your folly, and pretend
No more, you worship Christ; you him offend:
And since naught in the Sacrament presents
Christ to us, but the Sacred Elements,
You must your Altar-worship quite give over,
And naught but them (if ought) henceforth adore.
And yet the signs, are not so venerable,
In far more lively, real
manner, then
In bread, wine, Altars, made for holy men.
Christ's real presence is in these alone,
Christ where he dwells most, you must bow before,
He still resides;
this you'le not do, I fear,
But rather bow to senseless Altars, stones
Then to the dearest of Christ's holy ones,
The common objects of your disrespect;
Take heed you be not one day for it checked.
If this displease, to give you some content,
Me thinks your Priests, by office reverent,
Who hallow, hold, take, give the sacred bread
And wine to all, should be more worshipped
Christ's person,
who blest, gave this Sacrament
At first: are Altars (senseless wood or stone)
More sacred, worthy then Priests? who alone
Neglected are, not bowed to then by you;
Doubtless, if bowing be to either due,
It is to Priests [your name] or if you will,
Christ's Office, who more present then resides
In their hands, persons,
then in ought besides,
More than in Paten, Chalice, Altar: yet
These worthy persons, now too oft forget
Their honor, office, Christ, whom they present,
And whilst they Paten, Cup, blest Element,
They unto Altars turn, and bow their bones,
Whereas, if Altars, Tables, had but sense,
Life, they would bow and do them reverence.
For shame then be not stocks, or fools henceforth
But know yourselves, your office, place, state, worth
And no more crack your brains to justify
Gestures, that strip you of your dignity,
And senses both at once, as you must see,
And now confess, unless you senseless be:
Where Christ's more truly present on the Altar
Then in the Priests; the Priests deserve an halter;
And I shall deem that man a stock or stone,
Who bows to Altars, lets the Priests alone.
O Priests consider well of what I say,
And then in this you will not say me nay:
But if you do, and Altars still adore,
I will not spend breath to plead a Priests cause more.
But ere we part, once more to Church we'l tend;
Why do you not to Font, Pue, Pulpit bend,
As well as Altars, Tables? since in these
Christ is more present in his Ordinances,
Then on these, in most Churches, places where
Baptism, Lord's Supper, Sermons frequent are:
In these each week, day, Christ is constantly
Present; on Altars, Tables, quarterly,
Or monthly at the most; he then resides
More in the Pulpit, Font, than ought besides.
Are simply needful men to save;
but so
Is not the Eucharist, as all agree;
They then more useful, worthy, needs must be.
These two save men alone, but toother not,
The greatest reverence then you should allot
To Pulpits, Fonts, whence these dispensed are,
Than to the Altars, where Christ is more rare.
But let these pass; you cannot this deny,
That Bibles far surpass in dignity,
Fonts, Altars, Tables, Churches, Pulpits, all;
Which without God's word, to the ground will fall;
All else without it, is naught but mere shade;
Both Table, Pulpit, Church, Font, Sacrament:
Of all these then God's word's most excellent;
In it God's Spirit, Christ, grace, more reside
Then in all places of the Church beside;
If then you will adore, bow, cringe at all,
You must unto, before Church-Bibles fall:
Your Altar-bowings, while you these neglect,
With God and good men will find no respect.
In fine, Christ's promise is,
where two or three
In his name meet together, he will be
That God amidst his Church, house, folk doth stay:
As he dwells, lives, most in men's middle part
Whence Altars in the midst of Church did stand
To say then that Christ sits upon the Table
As you now place it, is no doubt a Fable:
For it stands not in
midst
of Church, Choir, but
Against the Chancels East-wall, there up shut
Close prisoner, with a new rail, remote from
The Congregation,
which now must not come
And sacred for Lay people to come nigh.
If then God, Christ,
midst Church
and people be,
As by forequoted Scriptures you may see,
Your Tables, Altars, which now stand alone
Far from the Churches
midst,
are not their Throne:
If you will have them graced with their presence
You must remove them to the midst from thence,
Where they are present; else they will still set,
But
ancient Christians prayed, looked
towards the East,
Because the Altar was so placed, at least,
To justify the placing of the Table
Though he no Altars, Tables, finds in all
Antiquity so seated; when as they
In midst of Church, or Choir were placed always;
Hence
Quires were so stilled,
because men did stand
About the Altar round, like a Crown;
and
Though some fond Novellists the contrary
Averre, against truth, and antiquity.
Hence in old times, the
people round about
The Priest and Table stood
[not thence barred out
With rayles as now]
when as the Sacrament
Was celebrated, as is evident,
Canons
at home,
forbidding Priests alone
To celebrate Mass.
[mark the reason why]
Because there ought some people to stand by
There round about him, whom he may salute,
And who may answer him, and in pursuit
Hereof, he must remember Christ's words, where
Two or three in my name together are
Met, there am I in midst of them;
hence we
Priest kneeling at the Altar, praying thus;
Be present, be present, O good Jesus
In midst of us, an high Priest, as thou wast
In midst of thy Disciples in times past;
And
sanctify this our Oblation:
That of the
Psalmist, He shall not dwell in
The midst of my house who works pride and sin;
Saith,
Jesus in the midst of the Church is
Not in a corner; which he proves by this
His speech, Where two or three are met together
In my name, I in midst of them am ever.
With
others
write, that
Deacons heretofore
Stood round about the Altar, as if they
Its pillars were, it to support and stay.
Find Priests still singing, thus
I will wash my
Hands in innocence, and so I will
Compass thine Altar round;
and Bishops still
When they did hallow Altars anciently,
Which they could not do, unless they stood so
That they might round about them freely go.
This passage find, that
Bishops anciently
Did round about the Altar go, when they
Did consecrate;
that
sub-deacons
always
Behind the Altar went,
and stood upright
After the Offerture, with their eye-sight
Fixt on the Pope,
which could not be at all,
If Altars stood not distant from the wall.
Stood in the midst of Churches, Quires, not by
The Eastwall, Altarwise, as now they place
Them in our Churches, with a brazen face.
Affirming that they so stood of old, when
Men, in Reformed foreign Churches bred,
Altars stood not against the wall,
close by
The
East end of the Choir,
as in these days,
But in the midst, that people might always
Go or stand round about them;
Thus stood the
At
Rome,
and in Saint
Peters Church
lately,
[Rome's
prime Cathedral;] and in
history
Of
Charles
the great, decked with a cheerful grace,
After his approach to the Lord's Table
In the midst of the Church:
And I am able
That Altars stood not anciently at th'East
End of the Choir, against the wall, but I
Will only name two more for brevity:
Austin,
first Arch-bishop of Canterbury:
In that great Church, in
Bedes
time, the Altar
Stood almost in the midst of the Church,
far
Abbey in Suffolk
in King
Edwards days,
[The first of that name]
whiles they went to raise
Them a new Chapel, as they digged, found
The walls of an old Church, that was built round,
So as the Altar stood, as it were nigh
Or in the midst; and we think verily,
[Writes
Everden
a Monk of that place, yea
And
Cambden
out of him]
that this was the
First Church there built unto Saint Edmond's name
And service:
In these two Churches of Fame,
Of special note, and great antiquity,
The Altar stood in, near the midst only:
Above
the
Altars East end;
as I find,
Interr'd above the Altar,
even here
At home: therefore it stood not anciently
Against the East wall of the Choir. Lastly,
That in Greek Churches, the high Altars site,
Or
place, is in the midst of the Choir,
where
That Altars seated were of old,
both by
Eusebius, and Martyrs Tombes, anciently
Not North and South.
We must then needs detest
Their shameless impudence, and forgery
Who contradict so clear a verity,
And dare affirm, that Altars heretofore
Were placed against the East wall evermore,
And there rayl'd in; and that men did receive
The Sacrament
kneeling,
as most believe,
When as its clear, they did
receive only
Them:
and where
Heylin
writes,
that men did pray
Eastward, because their Altars stood that way.
There is no ancient Writer, Council, Book,
Attests, that Christians to the East did look,
Because their Altars were so placed: bely
To bolster out your errors, Novelties;
That cause is naught which needs the help of lies.
Stood there of old, and there the Sun did rise;
Poor reasons if well scan'd; yet not the truth,
As might be proved by
grave authority,
And Fathers verdicts,
which I here pass by.
There is small reason then to symbolize
With them in this their heathenish Rite and guise.
Yet Christians bowed to Altars anciently.
It is a falsehood, one passage only
And that corrupted by some evil hands,
Whereas tis
Charis
in the true Copy,
The best and oldest Manuscripts so read
That place; yea, sense, and reason for it plead:
Excluded both from Church and Sacraments.
For some great crimes;
which since they might not
come
Within the Church,
much less the Altar room,
Unto the Altar, which they might not see,
But to God's
dear Saints,
out of Church, whom
they
Kneeld down to, at their houses,
both to pray
Them to forgive them, and to supplicate
God for them, whilst thus Excommunicate:
This is the only sense, scope of that place:
This
Aris
then for
Charis,
doth disgrace,
Not help your cause. Besides this, there's not any
Clear proof or passage in Antiquity,
To prove that Images of holy men
And Christ might be adored, writ,
men may bow
To Images, and Altars, (as Rome
now
On him, you must commit
Idolatry,
As well as towards them, which you mislike,
But
towards
them; these Authors both say,
To:
This last, seven hundred twenty years and more
From Christ lived; till then none did thus adore
Altars, nor since, till Transubstantiation
Brought in the breads, then
Altars
adoration.
The Christians for eight hundred years, or more
After Christ, did not bow, kneel, or adore
In Prayer on the Lord's days, nor yet between
Easter and Pentecost,
as may be seen
That they to Tables, Altars, did not bow;
Nor to the sacred Elements, since they
These always
standing
took on the Lord's day,
Wherein their knees to pray they never once bent,
Much less to
Altars,
or the Sacrament.
[Not bowed,
kneel'd
to] the
Altar anciently,
In all their stations when they celebrated
Christ's supper; Altars
then were not rail'd, grated
From coming near them,
since they
them stood by,
Who stand upright when they receive always.
The Altar, and both God and it adore.
What then? I hope this new found argument,
Proves it no worship, but a Complement;
Us'd by those Knights alone, [not other men]
Not commonly in each place, but where, when
They offer in their grand solemnity;
Their practice then, to others is no tie;
Nor do they deem these congies then, divine,
But merely civil, since they then incline,
As much, or more to the Kings Person, Throne,
As to the Altar, or ought placed thereon:
In him who this objects, may read; where he
Once named in English
Annals,
but forgot]
Confesseth, that
King Henry of that name
The fifth, by Charter first ordained the same,
When as these Knights first bowed to him alone,
And to his seat; but of them all not one
To God, or to the Altar; whereat he
Offended, thereupon made this decree,
That they thenceforth in their solemnity
Should not to him, and his seat bow only,
As Priests and Monks then used for to do:
The King and Lord's, who made this Act, were all
Blind Papists, and the times quite blind withal;
The pattern which they then took, was unsound,
Blind Priests
and
Monks:
what shadow then or
ground
Can thence be raised, true Christians to induce
Unto this Courtly, or mere Popish use?
Which since it orders them,
alike to bow
To God and Altars in one act,
I know
Not how they can escape Idolatry;
This then's no rule to follow, but to fly.
And though these Knights, these congies still retain
As civil, they this act and them disdain,
As Popish, as an apish imitation,
Of Priests and Monks gross Altar-adoration.
Who in
their Masses, used for to bow
To
(before) Altars, as our Priests do now:
In England (lately
Printed,)
which enjoin
Their Priests at Mass to bow down and incline
Unto their Altars,
and
due reverence
Unto the Altar,
as our Priests do now.
Should I to this Kings Act, annex the story
Of Card'nall
Poole,
Popes Legate to Queen
Mary,
Scholars [in her days] to
bow,
and incline
To,
and before the Altar, [the only
Injunction of this kind, our Church story
Affords for Altar-worship] all would cry
Forthwith, it is a brat of Popery;
Begot at first by Transubstantiation,
But since my Muse may not expatiate,
I leave this point for others to dilate;
Before their Idol-Altars heretofore.
But will you not have men for to adore
God with their bodies?
Yes, fall, kneel before
Him with all humble reverence, when you pray:
This is a worship, which none will gainsay:
Worship but this, and will be pleased with it,
Though all these Altar-bowings should omit;
As you by this one Text may understand;
Whereon you this new Altar-worship found;
And made you see, how they all severally
Confute, confound it by God's destiny;
Your Scriptures, Reasons now are all quite spent;
Had God, or Christ, willed that you should have
bent,
Or bowed thus, they no doubt would have expressed
It in the Scripture, where is not the least
Touch, show, or color of it: and if these
Texts, grounds and reasons which some men now
please,
To urge, had been sufficient to inclined
Men thus to bow, those holy men we find
In sacred writ, would doubtless constantly
Have practice'd it; be not more wise then they.
You have no more, I know, left to produce;
Consider all here said, and make good use.
On, and against Popish bowing to Altars, [ 100] and adoration of the Host.
Of Rome's Saint
Raimond of Rochfort,
doth write,
That in the nights he used it discipline
Himself, after the Mattins, and compline,
He all the Altars in the Church, duly
Would visit, and unto them severally
Prostrate himself, and make low reverence.
Belike our Priests and Prelates learnt from hence
To bow to their new Altars; since I find
Adored; yet not constantly, but when
He whipt himself; in nights, not days. If then
Our Novellers will imitate him, they
Must whip themselves, ere they bow; and in day
Time quite forbear this Complement; and use
It but at night: Both these they will refuse.
A Cade-Lamb
(for he to Beasts, Birds, Preached
Oft-times;)
to be attentive to God's praise;
And hereupon, this holy Lamb always
After, the Church frequented every day,
And without any Tutor
(as they say)
Kneeled before the Altar of our Lady,
At the Hosts elevation;
(mark you why)
Who doth relate this history to us,
Writes;
O let heretics learn to adore
The blessed Sacrament, and bow before
It, by this Lambes example:
happily
Our Altar Worshippers were lessoned by
This silly Lambes example, to kneel, bow,
Adore before their Altars, Tables now;
And worship them, and Christ, who sitteth on
But then they should, like this Lamb, kneel only,
And bow thus, when they lift the Host on high;
And that not to the Altar, but the Host:
Should they this do yet, their design were lost,
Have rather from
two Asses
learned this thing,
Famous in
Popish Legends,
who before
The
Host,
and
Altar kneeled,
to adore
Kept three days fasting, who of her Free-will
Forsooke her provender for to adore
The Host her Maker, brought and held before
Her by
Saint Anthony;
which miracle
That it her own did Convert,
nay,
more,
Teach Catholics the host for to adore.
Into Jerusalem,
fell not upon
Her knees, her Makers person to adore,
When as this Ass fell on her knees before
This Host, which did but only represent
His body. Sure some lewd Friar did invent
This Legend; or this Ass was tutored
Like
Banks
his horse, to kneel thus to the bread,
To cheat the vulgar, and make them adore
The Host, like this Ass, for their Creator;
Else that Ass whereon Christ rode, would as well
As this, have to him on her knees down fell.
In memory whereof Saint
Anthony
Holding the Host, and this Ass kneeling by
Thereto, are graven on the high Altar
At
Padua,
where this hap'ned, or not far
From thence. But this devout Ass did adore
The
Host,
not
Altar;
but once, and no more.
Those then who bow to Altars frequently,
Transcend this Ass in devout foolery;
And the next
Ass,
or
Mule;
which, as I read,
The relics of
Saint Bernard, Accurse,
and
Three Martyrs more, slain by the cruel hand
Of Pagan Moore in Morrocco, unto
(If you believe the
Legend
which writes so)
Conimbri, by God's conduct directly;
And went to the Gate of the Monast'ry
Of
Saint Cross,
where the Canons Regular
Of
Saint Austin
reside; and staying there
Untill' the gates were opened to her, she
Went in first,
King Alphonsus,
•
is
Queen,
the
Whole Court, and multitudes then following her
In great procession, to the high Altar;
Before which she kneel'd down, and would not stir
Thence, until they had quite discharged her
Of these Saints relics she thus carried;
Which, for a miracle is registered.
This devout Ass, who kneeled thus before
This Altar, taught our
Ass-priests
to adore
And bow before their Altars constantly:
Yet the
but once,
and that
prodigiously
Thus kneeled;
they, in this her far transcend,
In that they to their Altars daily bend,
Without a miracle, and them adore;
Whereas she did, not kneel
to,
but
before
The
Altar;
not in to rev'rence, or pray
To God; but
there her burden down to lay.
Those then who bow to Altars, far surpass
Saint
Francis Lamb, Bonivils, and this Ass
In fond devotion; Beasts, Sheep, Asses, Mules
Acts, in God's worship, must not be men's rules;
Which Altar-worship doth not justify;
Nor yet the adoration of the Host,
FINIS.