tinency and true gospel purity as the doctrine of devils, and of reforming the old works of the flesh under the false pretext of an ordinance of God, and that without regarding even so much as the restrictions which the law of Moses had laid on the corrupt and beastly passions of man. 20. "JOHN CALVIN was originally designed for the church, and had actually obtained a benefice;" of course he must have come under the common oath of continency; yet it seems that he was not subject even to the law which saith concerning the high priest among his brethren, that a widow shall he not take, but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife. 21. Nor was he subject to the example of Jesus Christ, nor to his own solemn oath; for he married the widow of an anabaptist at Strasburg." And thus, according to the law, he profaned his seed in the highest degree, by mixing with a people who were condemned, both by Papists and Protestants, as heretics, and counted by LUTHER himself, no better than mad dogs. CHAP. VII. Eccl. History, vol. iv. p. 87. note [a]. Lev. xxi. 13, 14. Eccl. Re searches, p. 341. 22. Theodore Beza, Calvin's companion and successor, contributed not a little to this part of the Reformation, both by his practice, and his writings. Robinson says that, thirteen years after his conversion, "he published a collection of Latin poems, the most lascivious that can be imagined. There is one epigram Ibid. p. 344. which, in licentiousness, surpasses any thing that the most unguarded debauchees have ever ventured to offer to the public eye.' 23. From such reforming priests we may descend to the princes, and see how far their popish lusts were restrained or lessened by their reformed gospel. It has been observed that, Henry the eighth obtained a divorce from Catharine, his brother's old widow, whereupon he married Anne Boleyn, a woman of respectable family and connexions. History of 24. Her he afterwards beheaded under pretence of adultery, Hume's though there appears no proof of her guilt. Next he married Eng. Jane Seymour, who died in child-bed. Again, he married Anne of Cleves, whom he also divorced, and married Katharine Howard. She was beheaded. And his sixth and last wife was Katharine Parr. 25. Such were the fruits of that good example which the first reformers set their followers, with which Luther was so wonderfully pleased, and which was sanctioned by their universities, who set to their seal that this same HENRY should be the su • Beza's Candida was not his wife, for his wife was never with child, and there are some verses on the pregnancy of Candida in the poems.-Robinson's Eccl. Researches, p. 344. Henry had been for some time enamoured with Jane Seymour, and his marrying her the next day after the execution of his queen, is considered as a presumptive evidence, not only of the queen's innocence, but of the cause which led to her execution. СНАР. VII. Cobbett's. p. 46. v. 103. preme head of the Church, instead of the Pope; and such was the example of lawless lust and butchery, which this Protestant supreme head openly manifested, which was never equalled by any who supported the title before him. 26. This does not complete the portrait of the enormous ty rannical cruelty of this great and bloody reformer. It is generally known (says Blackwood) that HENRY the VIII. put seventy-two thousand persons of all religious persuasions to death, on the scaffold, during his single reign!! This implacable tyrant would admit of no nonconformity to his sentiments; although he was first a zealous Catholic, then a Protestant, and also successively espoused the cause of the different parties, into which they were split. Yet, all who differed from him, and would not submit their own judgment to his dictation, let him be then of whatever persuasion, were doomed to death. 66 27. Can the human mind conceive of a more horrid, cruel and blood-stained character, than this first founder and supreme head of the Protestant national Church of England? These horrid butcheries of Henry are confirmed by Cobbett, who says: Amongst his tenets, there were such as neither Catholics nor Protestants could, consistently with their creeds, adopt. He therefore sent both to the stake, and, in order to add mental pangs to those of the body, he dragged them to the fire on the same hurdle, tied together in pairs, back to back, each pair containing a Catholic and a Protestant. 28. "Was this the way that St. AUSTIN and St. PATRIC propagated their religions? Yet, such is the malignity of BURNET and of many, many others called Protestant "divines," that they apologize for, if they do not absolutely applaud this execrable tyrant, at the very moment that they are compelled to confess that he soaked the earth with Protestant blood, and filled the air with the fumes of their roasting flesh!!" CHAPTER VIII. PROTESTANT DOCTRINES CONCERNING MARRIAGE AND CONTINENCE. IN tracing the effects of the Reformation in England, we find bishop Cranmer making a conspicuous appearance. This ambitious primate, instead of promoting purity and truth, began his reforming career by paving the way for a flood of licentiousness, injustice, and corruption. When his crimes are considered, we need not wonder that the Papists accused him with treason and perjury, in giving the supremacy to such a profane and wicked prince as HENRY VIII. and for his hypocritical and treacherous conduct in other respects. 2. This great reformer, on his trial, was charged by Martin, a Popish doctor, that, "being yet free, and before he entered into holy orders, he married one Joan Black, or Brown, of Cambridge. That he married there one Joan, he granted. That after the death of the aforesaid wife, he entered into holy orders, and after that was made archbishop by the pope." 3. "That he, being in holy orders, married another woman as his second wife, named Anne, and so was twice married. That in the time of king HENRY VIII, he kept the said wife secretly, and had children by her. Hereto he also granted, affirming that it was better for him to have his own, than to do like other priests, holding and keeping other men's wives." 4. MARTIN. 66 Did you swear obedience to the see of Rome?" Cranmer. "Indeed I did once swear unto the same. Martin. "Yea, that you did twice, as appeareth from records and writings here ready to be showed. At your consecration you took two solemn oaths for your due obedience to be given to the see of Rome, to become a true preacher or pastor of his flock; yet, contrary to your oath and allegiance, for unity, you have sowed discord; for chastity, marriage and adultery; for obedience, contention; and for faith, you have been the author of all mischief." 5. "What doctrine taught you when you condemned Lambert, the sacramentary, in the king's presence at Whitehall?" Cranmer. "I maintained then the Papist doctrine." Martin. "Then from a Lutheran you became a Zuinglian-and for the same heresy, you will help to burn Lambert, the sacramentary, which you now call the Catholic faith and God's word." The criminality of this charge is founded on the violation of his oath of continency, which he had taken as an ecclesiastic; but this reforming archbishop manifested on this as well as on other occasions, that the violation of a solemn oath was but a small matter with him. CHAP. VIII. CHAP. 6. From these short hints it is easy to perceive, who bore the highest marks of antichrist, and most evidently filled the character of those entire apostates from the faith and practice of Christ, spoken of in the Scriptures. Therefore, Martin, with the highest Catholic authority, addresses Cranmer, as follows. 7. "Christ foretold there should come against his Church, ravening wolves, and false apostles. But how shall we know them? Why, Christ teacheth us, saying, By their fruits ye shall know them. What are their fruits? St. Paul declareth, after the flesh they walk in concupiscence, and uncleanness, they contemn power.' 8" Again: in the latter days there shall be perilous times. Then shall there be men loving themselves, covetous, proud, disobedient to parents, treason-workers. Whether these be not the fruits of your gospel, I refer to this audience; whether the said gospel began not with perjury, proceeded with adultery, and ended in conspiracy." 9. So much then have the Protestants gained, by endeavoring to prove that the Papists forbid to marry, in order that they might be released from every obligation to chastity, and take full liberty in their incestuous and beastly works; so that, in this respect, they evidently reformed from bad to worse. 10. Likewise their charging the pope with forbidding to marry in order to excuse themselves, will be but weakly supported, if See Dod- we consider that their translation of 1 Tim. iv. 1, 2, 3, is, according to their own critics, much to be disputed.* ridge, in Loc. 11. But, admitting their translation to be never so correct, it is a question whether the Papists, from a comparison of their *See Rom doctrines with those of the Protestants on that subject, have not vii. 4. and the greatest right to charge the latter with forbidding to marry, according to the Apostle's use of the term.* 2 Cor. xi. 2. 12. It is most certain that the people of God always did consider marriage to be something very different from what the lost and corrupt nations of the earth conceived it to be; then, from such a plain distinction, the question would naturally arise, whether those apostates in the latter times would forbid what was called marriage by the people of God, or that which went under that name among the nations of the earth; and no one need to doubt that the Apostle meant they would forbid marriage in its true order and sense, and not in the corrupt sense of the world: for the world loveth its own, and apostates love the same. 13. Although it is evident enough that the papal hierarchy did, by law, oblige their clergy to abstain from marriage, according to the sense in which the Gentiles consider marriage, which is a plain evidence that their institution of celibacy was a spurious institution; yet there is not the smallest proof that they forbade marriage, as it was instituted in the innocent state of man, nor (according to their creeds) did they forbid it as it was considered by the followers of Christ, relative to their spiritual union in the Lord, and with one another. This is manifest from the Grounds of the Catholic Doctrine, as follows. CHAP. VIII. C. Doc. p. 23. 14. " Q. When was matrimony instituted? Ans. It was first Grounds of instituted by God Almighty in Paradise, between our first parents; and this institution was confirmed by Christ in the new law, Matt. xix. 4, 5, 6. where he concludes, What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." 15. "Q. How do you prove that matrimony is a sacrament? Ans. Because it is a conjunction made and sanctified by God himself, and not to be dissolved by any power of man, as being a sacred sign, or mysterious representation of the indissoluble union of Christ and his Church. Eph. v. 31, 32. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery. (uusnpiov, a sacrament,") &c. Gr. muste rion. 16. Now in the Protestant articles of faith it is expressly asserted to the contrary. "Matrimony, &c., are not to be xxxix Arcounted for sacraments, for that they have not any visible sign ticles. or ceremony ordained of God." With this the Protestant confessions universally agree. They scoff at the popish sacrament of marriage, and call it, "a bastard sacrament," and affirm that marriage is no sacrament or sacred rite at all, but equally pertains to all sorts of people who are able with judgment to give their consent. 17. The Jews' bible or book was very different from a book that was common among all sorts of people, and as different was their law of marriage, from marriage so called among the profane Gentiles. The same distinction will hold good between that marriage which the followers of Christ called a mystery, and that civil contract which was common among all sorts. 18. Then if the Protestants did, in any sense, impede, hinder, prohibit or forbid such marriage as God instituted in Paradise, or prescribed by the ministry of angels to the Jews, or that innocent, pure, and chaste union in Christ, which implies a state of continency, and is spiritually called a marriage, or being married in the Lord, then it evidently follows. that they are the ones who forbid to marry, in a more important sense than the Papists. 19. As far as both the Papists and Protestants were unanimous in persecuting those who bore a practical testimony concerning the faith of Christ, and the spiritual union of the saints, so far they jointly fill up the character of those apostates of the latter times spoken of by the Apostle. 20. It is evident, from the Scriptures of truth that this spiritual union in Christ, and in his Church, is the last marriage that was National Covenant. Faith. |