as your men use when they meet with women and tender confciences and weaker understandings.

The firft is, where was your church before Luther? now if you had called upon them to speak fomething against your religion from fcripture, or right reason, or univerfal tradition, you had been fecure as a tortoife in her fhell; a cart preffed with fheaves could not have oppreffed your caufe or perfon, though you had confeffed you understood nothing of the mifteries of fucceffion, doctrinal or perfonal. For if we can make it appear that our religion was that which Chrift and his apoftles taught, let the truth fuffer what eclipfes or prejudices can be fuppofed,let it be hid like the holy fire in the captivity; yet what Christ and his apostles taught us, is eternally true, and fhall by fome means or other be conveyed to us; even the enemies of truth have been confervators of that truth by which we can confute their errors. But if you still afk where it was before Luther? I anfwer, it was there where it was after; even in the fcriptures of the old and new teftament; and I know no warrant for any other religion : and if you will expect I fhould fhew any fociety of men who professed all the doctrines which are now expreffed in the confeffion of the church of England: I shall tell you it is unreasonable, because fome of our truths are now brought into our public confeffions that they might be oppofed against your errors, before the occafion of which there was no need of any fuch confeffions, till you made many things neceffary to be profeffed, which are not lawful to be believed. For if we believe your fuperinduced follies, we shall do unreasonably, unconfcionably, and wickedly; but the questions themselves are so useless, abstracting from the accidental neceffity which your follies have brought upon us, that it had been hap

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ру if we had never heard of them more than the faints and martyrs did in the first ages of the church. But because your clergy have invaded the liberty of the church, and multiplied the dangers of damnation, and pretend new neceffities, and have introduced new articles, and affright the fimple upon new pretenfions, and flight the very institution and the commands of Chrift and of the apostles,and invent new facramentals,conftituting ceremonies of their own head, and promise grace along with the use of them, as if they were not ministers but Lords of the fpirit, and teach for doctrines the commandments of men, and make void the commandment of God by their tradition, and have made a strange body of divinity: therefore it is neceffary that we should immure our faith by the refufal of fuch vain and fuperftitious dreams; but our faith was completed at firft, it is no other than that which was delivered to the faints, and can be no more for ever.

So that it is a foolish demand to require that we should show before Luther a fyftem of articles declaring our fenfe in these questions: it was long before they were questions at all, and when they were made queftions, they remained so a long time; and when by their feveral pieces they were determined, this part of the church was oppreffed with a violent power; and when God. gave opportunity, then the yoke was broken; and this is the whole progrefs of this affair. But if you will still infift upon it, then let the matter be put into equal balances, and let them fhew any church whofe confeffion of faith was fuch as was obtruded upon you at Trent; and if your religion be Pius Quartus his creed at Trent, then we also have a question to ask, and that is, where was your religion before Trent?

The

The council of Trent determined, that the fouls departed before the day of judgment enjoy the beatifical vifion. It is certain this article could not be shown in the confeffion of any of the ancient churches; for most of the fathers were of another opinion. But that which is the greatest offence of Christendom, is not only that these doctrines which we fay are false were yet affirmed, but that those things which the church of God did always reject, or held as uncertain, fhould be made articles of faith, and fo become parts of your religion; and of thefe it is that I again afk the question which none of your fide fhall ever be able to answer for you: where was your religion. before Trent?

I could inftance in many particulars, but I shall name one to you, which because the thing of itself is of no great confequence, it will appear the more unreasonable and intolerable that your church fhould adopt it into the things of neceffary belief, especially fince it was only a matter of fact and they took the falfe part too. For in the 21. feff. chap. 4. it is affirmed that although the holy fathers did give the facrament of the eucharist to infants, yet they did it without any neceffity of falvation, that is, they did not believe it neceffary to their falvation: which is notoriously falfe, and the contrary is marked out with the black lead of every man almost that reads their works; and yet your council fays this is fine controverfia credendum, to be believed without all controverfy; and all chriftians forbidden to believe or teach otherwife: fo that here it is made an article of faith amougft you, that a man fhall neither believe his reafon nor his eyes: and who can fhew any confeffion of faith in which all the Trent doctrine was profeffed and enjoined under pain of damnation?

And

And before the council of Conftance, the doctrine touching the pope's power was fo new, fo defcried, that as Gerson says, he hardly should have escaped the note of herefy, that would have faid fo much as was there defined: fo that in that article which now makes a great part of your belief, where was your religion before the council of Conftance? and it is notorious that your council of Conftance determined the doctrine of the half communion with a non obftante to Christ's inftitution, that is, with a defiance to it, or a noted, obferved neglect of it, and with a profeffion it was otherwise in the primitive church. Where then was your religion before John Hus and Hierom of Prague's time, against whom that council was convened? but by this inftance it appears moft certainly that your church cannot fhow her confeffions immediately after Chrift, and therefore if we could not fhow ours immediately before Luther, it were not half so much; for fince you receded from Chrift's doctrine, we might well recede from yours; and it matters not who or how many or how long they profeffed your doctrine, if neither Chrift nor his apostles did teach it: fo that if these articles conftitute your church, your church was invifible at the firft; and if ours was invifible afterwards, it matters not; for yours was invisible in the days of light, and ours was invisible in the days of darkness. For our church was alway visible in the reflections of fcripture, and he that had his eyes of faith and reafon might eafily have seen thefe truths all the way which conftitutes our church. But I add yet farther, that our church before Luther was there where your church was, in the fame place and in the fame perions for divers of the errors which have been amongst us reformed, were not the conftituent articles of your church before Luther's

time.

time, for before the last councils of your church aman might have been of your communion upon eafier terms; and indulgences were indeed a practice, but no article of faith before your men made it fo, and that very lately, and fo were many other things befides. So that although your men cozin the credulous and the fimple by calling yours the old religion, yet the difference is vaft between truth and their affirmative, even as much as between old errors and new articles. For although ignorance and fuperftition had prepared the ore, yet the councils of Conftance and Bafil, and Trent especially, were the forges and

the mint.

Lastly, if your men had not by all the vile and violent arts of the world stopped the mouths of diffenters, the queftion would quickly have been answered, or our articles would have been fo confeffed, so owned, and so public that the question could never have been asked, but in defpite of all oppofition, there were great numbers of profeffors who did proteft and profefs and practice our doctrines contrary to your articles; as it is demonftrated by the divines of Germany in. Illyricus his catalogus teftium veritatis, and in bishop Morton's appeal.

But with your next objection you are better pleased, and your men make most noise with it. For you pretend that by our confeffion falvation may be had in your church, but your men deny it to us; and therefore by the confeffion of both fides you may be fafe, and there is no queftion concerning you, but of us there is great question, for none but ourselves fay that we can be faved..

I answer, ift, That falvation may be had in your church, is it ever the truer because we fay it? if it be not, it can have no confidence to you,

for