A little warm sun, and some indulgent showers of a softer rain, have made many weeds of erroneous doctrine to take root greatly, and to spread themselves widely: and the bigots of the Roman church, by their late importune boldness and indiscreet forwardness in making proselytes, have but too manifestly declared to all the world, that if they were rerum potiti,''masters of our affairs,' they would suffer nothing to grow but their own colocynths and gourds. And although the natural remedy for this were to take away that impunity, upon the account of which alone they do increase; yet because we shall never be authors of such counsels, but confidently rely upon God, the holy Scriptures, right reason, and the most venerable and prime antiquity, which are the proper defensatives of truth for its support and maintenance; yet we must not conceal from the people committed to our charges, the great evils, to which they are tempted by the Roman emissaries, that while the king and the parliament take care to secure all the public interests by instruments of their own, we also may, by the word of our proper ministry, endeavour to stop the progression of such errors, which we know to be destructive of Christian religion, and, consequently, dangerous to the interest of souls.

In this procedure, although we shall say some things, which have not been always placed before their eyes, and others we shall represent with a fitness to their present necessities, and all with charity too, and zeal for their souls, yet if we were to say nothing, but what hath been often said already, we are still doing the work of God, and repeating his voice, and by the same remedies curing the same diseases, and we only wait for the blessing of God prospering that importunity which is our duty: according to the advice of Solomon," In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good."

a Eccles. xi. 6.

CHAPTER I.

The Doctrine of the Roman Church, in the controverted Articles, is neither catholic, apostolic, nor primitive.

SECTION I.

It was the challenge of St. Austin to the Donatists, who (as the church of Rome does at this day) enclosed the catholic church within their own circuits: "Ye say that Christ is heir of no lands, but where Donatus is coheir. Read this to us out of the law and the prophets, out of the Psalms, out of the Gospel itself, or out of the letters of the apostles: read it thence and we believe it :"-plainly directing us to the fountains of our faith, the Old and New Testament, the words of Christ, and the words of the apostles. For nothing else can be the fountain of our faith: whatsoever came in after these, "foris est," it belongs not unto Christ.

To these we also add, not as authors or finishers, but as helpers of our faith, and heirs of the doctrine apostolical, the sentiments and catholic doctrine of the church of God, in the ages next after the apostles. Not that we think them or ourselves bound to every private opinion, even of a primitive bishop and martyr; but that we all acknowledge that the whole church of God kept the faith entire, and transmitted faithfully to the after-ages the whole faith, Túпov didaxñs, "the form of doctrine, and sound words, which was at first delivered to the saints," and was defective in nothing that belonged unto salvation; and we believe that those ages sent millions of saints to the bosom of Christ, and sealed the true faith with their lives and with their deaths, and by both gave testimony unto Jesus, and had from him the testimony of his Spirit.

And this method of procedure we now choose, not only because to them that know well how to use it, to the sober and moderate, the peaceable and the wise, it is the best, the

a De Unit. Eccles. c. 6.

b Ecclesia ex sacris et canonicis Scripturis ostendenda est; quæque ex illis ostendi non potest, ecclesia non est. S. Aug. de Unit. Eccle. c. 4, et c. 3. Ibi quæramus ecclesiam, ibi decernamus causam nostrani.

most certain, visible and tangible, most humble and satisfactory; but also because the church of Rome does, with greatest noises, pretend her conformity to antiquity. Indeed the present Roman doctrines, which are in difference, were invisible and unheard of in the first and best antiquity, and with how ill success their quotations are out of the fathers of the three first ages, every inquiring man may easily discern. But the noises, therefore, which they make, are from the writings of the succeeding ages; where secular interest did more prevail, and the writings of the fathers were vast and voluminous, full of controversy and ambiguous senses, fitted to their own times and questions, full of proper opinions, and such variety of sayings, that both sides, eternally and inconfutably, shall bring sayings for themselves respectively. Now although things being thus, it will be impossible for them to conclude from the sayings of a number of fathers, that their doctrine, which they would prove thence, was the catholic doctrine of the church; because any number that is less than all, does not prove a catholic consent: yet the clear sayings of one or two of these fathers, truly alleged by us to the contrary, will certainly prove that what many of them (suppose it) do affirm, and which but two or three as good catholics as the other do deny, was not then matter of faith, or a doctrine of the church; for if it had, these had been accounted heretics, and not have remained in the communion of the church. But although for the reasonableness of the thing, we have thought fit to take notice of it; yet we shall have no need to make use of it, since, not only in the prime and purest antiquity, we are indubitably more than conquerors, but even in the succeeding ages, we have the advantage both ' numero, pondere, et mensurâ,' ' in number, weight, and measure.'

We do easily acknowledge, that to dispute these questions from the sayings of the fathers, is not the readiest way to make an end of them; but, therefore, we do wholly rely upon Scriptures, as the foundation and final resort of all our persuasions, and from thence can never be confuted; but we also admit the fathers as admirable helps for the understanding of the Scriptures, and as good testimony of the doctrine delivered from their forefathers down to them, of what the church esteemed the way of salvation: and, there

fore, if we find any doctrine now taught, which was not placed in their way of salvation, we reject it as being no part of the Christian faith, and which ought not to be imposed upon consciences. They were "wise unto salvation," and fully instructed to every good work;" and, therefore, the faith, which they professed and derived from Scripture, we profess also; and in the same faith, we hope to be saved even as they. But for the new doctors, we understand them not, we know them not: our faith is the same from the beginning, and cannot become new.

But because we shall make it to appear, that they do greatly innovate in all their points of controversy with us, and show nothing but shadows instead of substances, and little images of things instead of solid arguments; we shall take from them their armour in which they trusted, and choose this sword of Goliah to combat their errors; for "non est alter talis ;" it is not easy to find a better than the word of God, expounded by the prime and best antiquity.

The first thing, therefore, we are to advertise is, that the emissaries of the Roman church endeavour to persuade the good people of our dioceses, from a religion that is truly primitive and apostolic, and divert them to propositions of their own, new and unheard of in the first ages of the Christian church.

For the religion of our church is, therefore, certainly primitive and apostolic, because it teaches us to believe the whole Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and nothing else, as matter of faith; and, therefore, unless there can be new Scriptures, we can have no new matters of belief, no new articles of faith. Whatsoever we cannot prove from thence, we disclaim it, as not deriving from the fountains of our Saviour. We also do believe the apostles' creed, the Nicene, with the additions of Constantinople, and that which is commonly called the symbol of St. Athanasius: and the four first general councils are so entirely admitted by us, that they, together with the plain words of Scripture, are made the rule and measure of judging heresies amongst us; and in pursuance of these, it is commanded by our church, that the clergy shall never teach any thing as matter of “faith, religiously to be observed, but that which is agreeable to the Old and New Testament, and collected out of the same

doctrine, by the ancient fathers and catholic bishops of the church." This was, undoubtedly, the faith of the primitive church; they admitted all into their communion that were of this faith; they condemned no man, that did not condemn these; they gave letters communicatory by no other cognizance, and all were brethren who spake this voice. "Hanc legem sequentes, Christianorum catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti ; reliquos verò dementes, vesanosque judicantes hæretici dogmatis infamiam sustinere," said the emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, in their proclamation to the people of Constantinople. All that believed this doctrine, were Christians and catholics, viz. all they who believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one Divinity of equal Majesty in the Holy Trinity; which, indeed, was the sum of what was decreed in explication of the apostles' creed in the four first general councils.

And what faith can be the foundation of a more solid peace, the surer ligaments of catholic communion, or the firmer basis of a holy life, and of the hopes of heaven hereafter, than the measures which the holy primitive church did hold, and we after them? That which we rely upon, is the same that the primitive church did acknowledge to be the adequate foundation of their hopes in the matters of belief: the way which they thought sufficient to go to heaven in, is the way which we walk: what they did not teach, we do not publish and impose; into this faith entirely, and into no other, as they did theirs, so we baptize our catechumens: the discriminations of heresy from catholic doctrine which they used, we use also, and we use no other: and in short, we believe all that doctrine which the church of Rome believes, except those things, which they have superinduced upon the old religion, and in which we shall prove that they have innovated. So that, by their confession, all the doctrine which we teach the people as matter of faith, must be confessed to be ancient, primitive, and apostolic, or else theirs is not so for ours is the same, and we both have received this faith from the fountains of Scripture and universal tradition; not they from us, or we from them, but both of us from

c Lib. Canon. discip. Eccles. Angl. et injuuct. Regin. Elis. A. D. 1571, Can. de Concionatoribus.

Dat. 3. Calen. Mart. Thessalonicae.