Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name
by
Edmund Campion
Part 2 out of 3
Baptistes, Apostoli, qui biduo, triduo, vel hebdomadis inediam
terminarunt; quae quidem, ut a crimine, debebat esse perpetua.
Hoc quale sit, iam vidistis: propero.
Quartum his adiicitur "Circulatio," in hunc modum: Da mihi notas,
inquam, Ecclesiae. "Verbum Dei et purissima Sacramenta." Haeccine
sunt apud vos? "Quis dubitet?"--Ego vero pernego. "Consule verbum
Dei."--Iam consului, minusque vobis, quam antea, faveo. "Attamen
planum est."--Proba mihi. "Quia nos ne latum quidem unguem
discedimus a verbo Dei."--Vbi est acumen tuum? Semperne capies
pro argumento illud ipsum, quod ponitur in quaestione? Quoties
hoc iam inculco? Num tu evigilas? Num faces admovendae sunt? Dico
a te perperam exponi verbum Dei: testes habeo quindecim aetates,
sta sententiae, non meae, non tuae, sed harum omnium.--"Stabo
sententiae verbi Dei: Spiritus ubi vult, spirat." Eccum, quos
gyros, quas rotas fabricat. Hic nugator, tot verborum atque
sophismatum architectus, nescio cui formidolosus esse queat,
molestus erit fortasse. Molestiam vestra prudentia sublevabit,
formidinem res eripuit.
DECIMA RATIO
OMNE GENVS TESTIVM
"Haec erit vobis directa via, ita ut stulti non errent per
eam."[113] Quis enim, quamvis hebes in plebecula, dummodo salutis
cupidus parumper attenderit, semitam Ecclesiae tam egregie
complanatam, non videat, non teneat; vepres, et cautes, et avia
detestatus? Erunt haec etiam rudibus explorata, sicut Isaias
vaticinatus est; vobis igitur, si voletis, exploratissima.
COELITES.--Theatrum universitatis rerum ponamus ob oculos;
quidquid est uspiam peragremus; omnia nobis argumenta
suppeditant. Eamus in coelum: "Rosas[114] et lilia
contemplemur," purpuratos nempe martyrio, candidatos innocentia.
Romanos, inquam, Pontifices[115] tres et triginta continenter
occisos; Pastores terris omnibus, qui suum pro Christi nomine
sanguinem oppignerarunt; greges fidelium, qui Pastorum vestigiis
institere; Divos omnes coelites, qui turbae hominum puritate et
sanctimonia praeluxere. Nostros hic vixisse, nostros hinc
emigrasse reperias. Noster fuit, ut paucula delibemus, ille
martyrii sitientissimus Ignatius[116] "qui in rebus Ecclesiae
neminem, ne regen[117] quidem, aequavit Episcopo: qui
traditiones[118] quasdam Apostolicas, quarum testis ipse fuerat,
ne dilaberentur, scripto mandavit." Noster anachoreta
Telesphorus,[119] "qui ieiunium quadragesimale, sancitum ab
Apostolis, observari severius iussit." Noster Irenaeus,[120]
"qui a successione Cathedraque Romana fidem Apostolicam
declaravit." Noster etiam Victor Pontifex, "qui[121] Asiam
edicto coercuit universam:" quod quum aliquibus, atque etiam
huic Irenaeo, viro sacratissimo, videretur asperius, nemo tamen
attenuavit, ut exoticam potestatem. Noster Polycarpus,[122] qui
super quaestione Paschatis Romam adiit, cuius ambustas reliquias
Smyrna collegit, anniversario die rituque legitimo suum
Episcopum venerata. Nostri Cornelius et Cyprianus,[123] aureum
par Martyrum, ambo magni praesules; sed maior ille, qui Romanus
Africanum errorem resciderat; hic nobilitatus observantia, qua
maiorem est prosequutus, amicissimum sui. Noster Sixtus,[124]
"cui ad aram solemnibus sacris operanti ministrarunt e clero
septemviri." Noster Laurentius, huius Archidiaconus,[125] quem
adversarii de suis fastis eiiciunt, quem ante mille ducentos
annos vir consularis Prudentius[126] sic ornavit:
Quae sit potestas credita
Et muneris quantum datum,
Probant Quiritum gaudia,
Quibus rogatus annuis.
Hos inter, o Christi decus,
Audi et poetam rusticum,
Cordis fatentem crimina,
Et facta prodentem sua.
Audi benignus supplicem
Christi reum, Prudentium.
Nostrae virgines illae[127] perbeatae, Caecilia, Agatha,
Anastasia, Barbara, Agnes, Lucia, Dorothea, Catharina; quae
decretam pudicitiam adversus et hominum et daemonum tyrannidem
firmaverunt. Nostra Helena, quam dominicae Crucis inventio
celebravit. Nostra Monica, quae moriens[129] orari et
sacrificari pro se mortua ad altare Christi, religiosissime
flagitavit. Nostra Paula,[129] quae ex urbano palatio et opimis
praediis in speluncam Bethleemiticam tantis itineribus peregrina
cucurrit, ut ad Christi vagientis cunabula delitesceret. Nostri
Paulus, Hilarion, Antonius, seniculi solitarii. Noster
Satyrus,[130] Ambrosii germanus frater, qui tremendam illam
hostiam circum se gestans in orario, naufragus insiliit in
Oceanum, et fide plenissimus enatavit. Nostri Nicolaus et
Martinus, episcopi, exerciti vigiliis, paludati ciliciis,
ieiunio pasti, Noster Benedictus, tot monachorum pater.
Chiliadas istas decennio non exsequerer.
Sed nec illos repeto, quos in Ecclesiae Doctoribus ante posueram.
Memor sum brevitatis meae, Petat ista, qui volet, non solum ex
abundanti veterum historia, sed multo etiam magis ex gravissimis
auctoribus, qui paene singuli Divos singulos memoriae[131]
reliquerunt. Renuntiet mihi, de christianis illis antiquissimis
et beatissimis quid autumet? Vtrius doctrinae fuerint,
catholicae, an lutheranae? Testor Dei solium et illud tribunal,
ad quod stabo rationem rationum harum et dicti et facti
redditurus, aut nullum coelum esse, aut nostrorum esse; illud
exsecramur, hoc ergo defigimus.
DAMNATI.-Nunc e contrario, si libet, inspiciamus in Tartara.
Cremantur incendio sempiterno. Qui? Iudaei. Quam Ecclesiam
adversati? Nostram.--Qui? Ethnici. Quam Ecclesiam crudelissime
persequuti? Nostram.--Qui? Turcae. Quae templa demoliti?
Nostra.--Qui? Haeretici. Cuius Ecclesiae perduelles?
Nostrae.--Quae enim Ecclesia praeter nostram omnibus inferorum
portis[132] se opposuit?
IVDAEI.--Quum, pulsis Hebraeis, Christiani[133] succrescerent
Hierosolymis, Deum immortalem! qui concursus hominum ad loca
sacra fuit,[134] quae urbis religio, quae sepulcri, quae
praesepii, quae crucis, quae monumentorum omnium, quibus velut
exuviis mariti, Ecclesia sponsa delectatur? Hinc manavit in nos
Iudaeorum odium ferum et implacabile. Queruntur etiam nunc,
maiores nostros maioribus suis exitio fuisse. A Simone Mago et
lutheranis nullum ictum acceperunt.
ETHNICI.--In Ethnicis violentissimi fuere, qui toto Imperio,
trecentis annis, per intervalla temporum, aerumnosissima
Christianis supplicia machinati sunt. Quibus? Patribus et filiis
nostrae fidei. Cognoscite vocem tyranni, qui Divum Laurentium
torruit in craticula:[135]
Hunc esse vestris Orgiis
Moremque et artem, proditum est;
Hanc disciplinam foederis,
Libent ut auro antistites.
Argenteis scyphis ferunt
Fumare sacrum sanguinem,
Auroque nocturnis sacris
Adstare fixos cereos.
Tunc cura summa est fratribus,
(Vt sermo testatur loquax),
Offerre, fundis venditis,
Sestertiorum millia.
Addicta avorum praedia
Foedis sub auctionibus
Successor exhaeres gemit,
Sanctis egens parentibus.
Haec occulantur abditis
Ecclesiarum in angulis;
Et summa pietas creditur
Nudare dulces liberos.
Deprome thesauros, malis
Suadendo quos praestigiis
Exaggeratos obtines,
Nigrantes quos claudis specu.
Hoc poscit usus publicus;
Hoc fiscus, hoc aerarium,
Vt dedita stipendiis
Ducem iuvet petunia.
Sic dogma vestrum est, audio;
"Suum quibusque reddito."
En Caesar agnoscit suum
Numisma, nummis inditum.
Quod Caesaris scis, Caesari
Da: nempe iustum postulo,
Ni fallor; haud ullam tuus
Signat Deus pecuniam.
Nec quum veniret, aureos
Secum Philippos detulit;
Praecepta
sed verbis dedit
Inanis a marsupio.
Implete dictorum fidem,
Quae vos per orbem venditis,
Nummos libenter reddite;
Estote verbis divites.
Quis videtur? In quos furit? Cuius Ecclesiae sacra, lychnos,
ritus, ornamenta convellit? Cui patellas aureas, et argenteos
calices, et sumptuosa donaria, et opulentam gazam invidet?
Profecto lutherizat. Quod enim aliud velum suo latrocinio
nostri Nemrodes[136] obtenderunt, quum depecularentur
ecclesias, et Christi patrimonium dissiparent? Contra vero
magnus ille Constantinus Christomastigon terror, quam Eeclesiam
tranquillavit? Illam, cui Pontifex Sylvester praefuit,[137]
quem in Soracte latitantem accersiit, ut eius opera nostro
baptismate tingeretur.--Quibus auspiciis victor? Signo
crucis.[138]--Qua matre gloriosus? Helena.--Quibus se patribus
adiunxit? Nicaenis.--Cuiusmodi? Vt Sylvestro, ut Marco, ut
Iulio, ut Athanasio, ut Nicolao.--Cuius se precibus[139]
commendavit? Antonii.--Quam sellam postulavit[140] in Synodo?
Vltimam.--O quanto regalior hac sede, quam qui regis titulum,
non debitum, ambierunt! Singula narrare longum est. Sed ex his
duobus altero nobis infestissimo, altero nobis amicissimo,
licebit singula coniicere, quae sunt horum simillima. Etenim,
ut nostrorum illa fuit Epistasis turbulenta, sic nostrorum haec
evasit divina Catastrophe.
TVRCAE.-Turcica videamus. Mahometes et Sergius monachus apostata
in profundo barathro iacent ululantes, et suis et posterorum
sceleribus onusti. Haec portentosa et efferata bellua,
Sarraceni, Turcae, nisi a nostris ordinibus militiae
sacrae,[141] nisi a nostris principibus et populis accisa
fuisset ac repressa, per Lutherum quidem, (cui gratias hoc
nomine Solymanus Turcus litteris egisse dicitur), et per
lutheranos regulos (quibus Turcorum progressio laetabilis
existimatur); haec, inquam, Erinnys furiosa et exitiosa
mortalibus, totam iam depopularetur et vastaret Europam; neque
indiligentius altaria et signa crucis, quam ipse Calvinus
everteret. Ergo nostri hostes illi sunt proprii, utpote
nostrorum industria a christianorum iugulis repulsi.
HAERETICI.--Despectemus in haereticos, faeces, et folles, et
alimenta gehennae. Primus occurrit Simon Magus. Quid ille?
"Eripiebat homini liberam[142] voluntatem; solam fidem[143]
percrepabat." Mox Novatianus: Quis? Antipapa Cornelio,[144]
Pontifici Romano, "hostis sacramentorum poenitentiae et
chrismatis."[145] Deinde Manes Persa: hic docebat "baptismum
salutem[146] non conferre." Post Aerius Arianus "preces damnabat
pro mortuis,[147] confundebat episcopis sacerdotes." Hinc Aerius
"solam[148] et ipse fidem personabat," cognominatus atheos[149]
non minus quam Lucianus. Sequitur Vigilantius,[150] qui "Divos
orari non ferebat:" ac Iovinianus, qui "virginitatem et nuptias
aequiparabat." Denique colluvies universa Macedonius, Pelagius,
Nestorius, Entyches, Monothelitae, Iconomachi, caeteri, quibus
Lutherum et Calvinum posteritas aggregabit. Quid isti? Omnes mali
corvi, eodem ovo geniti, ab Ecclesiae nostrae Praesulibus
desciverunt, ab illis evicti et exinaniti sunt.
Deseramus avernum, reddamur terris. Quocumque me oculis et
cogitatione convertero, sive Patriarchas intueor et sedes
Apostolicas, sive Antistites caeterarum gentium, sive laudatos
principes, reges, caesares, sive christianorum cuiusque nationis
initia, sive ullum iudicium vetustatis, aut lumen rationis, aut
honestatis decus; nostrae fidei serviunt et suffragantur omnia.
SEDES APOSTOLICA.--Testis Romana successio, "In qua semper
Ecclesia, (ut cum Augustino ep. 162 loquar), Apostolicae
Cathedrae viguit principatus." Testes illae reliquae sedes
apostolicae, in quas hoc nomen insignite convenit, quod ab ipsis
Apostolis horumve auditoribus exaedificatae[151] fuerint.
DISIVNCTTISSIMAE TERRAE.--Testes ubivis gentium pastores, loco
dissiti, religione nostra concordes, Ignatius et Chrysostomus,
Antiochiae; Petrus, Alexander, Athanasius, Theophilus,
Alexandriae; Macharius et Cyrillus, Hierosolymis; Proclus,
Constantinopoli; Gregorius et Basilius, in Cappadocia;
Thaumaturgus, in Ponto; Smyrnae, Polycarpus; Iustinus, Athenis;
Dionysius, Corinthi; Gregorius, Nissae; Methodius, Tyri; Ephremus,
in Cyria; Cyprianus, Optatus, Augustinus, in Africa; Epiphanius,
in Cypro; Andreas, Cretae; Ambrosius, Paulinus, Gaudentius,
Prosper, Faustus, Vigilius in Italia; Irenaeus, Martinus,
Hilarilius, Eucherius, Gregorius, Salvianus, in Gallia;
Vincentius, Orosius, Ildefonsus, Leander, Isidorus, in Hispania;
in Britannia, Fugatius, Damianus, Iustus, Mellitus, Beda. Denique,
ne ambitiosus videar in nominibus, quaecumque vel opera, vel
fragmenta supersunt eorum, qui disiunctissimis terris Evangelium
severunt, omnia nobis unam fidem exhibent, quam hodie catholici
profitemur. Christe, quid causae tibi afferam, quo minus me de
tuis extermines, si tot luminibus Ecclesiae tenebricosos homulos,
paucos, indoctos, dissectos, improbos, antetulero?
PRINCIPES.--Testes item principes, reges, caesares, horumque
respublicae, quorum et ipsorum pietas, et ditionum populi, et
pacis bellique disciplina, se penitus in hac nostra doctrina
catholica fundaverunt. Hic ergo quos ab oriente Theodosios, quos
ab occidente Carolos, quos Eduardos ex Anglia, Ludovicos e
Gallia, Hermenegildos ex Hispania, Henricos a Saxonia, Wenceslaos
e Bohemia, Leopoldos ex Austria, Stephanos ex Hungaria,
Iosaphatos ex India, quos orbe toto dynastas atque toparchas
possim arcessere; qui exemplo, qui armis qui legibus, qui
sollicitudine, qui sumptu, nostram Ecclesiam nutrierunt? Sic enim
praecinuit Isaias (xlix. 23): "Erunt reges nutricii tui, et
reginae iutrices tuae." Audi, Elisabetha, Regina potentissima,
tibi canit, te tuas partes edocet. Narro tibi: Calvinum et hos
principes unum coelum capere non potest. His ergo te principibus
adiunge, dignam maioribus, dignam ingenio, dignam litteris,
dignam laudibus, dignam fortuna tua. Solum hoc de te molior ego
et moliar, quidquid me fiet, cui, tamquam hosti capitis tui,
toties iam isti patibulum ominantur. Salve bona crux. Veniet,
Elisabetha, dies ille, ille dies, qui tibi liquido commonstrabit,
utri te dilexerint, Societas Iesu, an Lutheri progeies Pergo.
NATIONES AD CHRISTAM TRADVCTAE.--Testes iam omne sorae plagaeque
mundi, quibus evangelica tuba post Christum natum insonuit.
Parumne hoc fuit, idolis ora claudere, Dei regnum gentibus
importare? Christum Lutherus, catholici Christum loquimur. "Num
divisus est Christus?"[152] Minime. Aut nos, aut ille, falsum
Christum loquimur. Quid ergo? Dicam. Christus ille sit, et
illorum sit, quo Dagon[153] invecto cervices fregerit. Noster
Christus opera nostrorum uti voluit, quum Ioves, Mercurios,
Dianas, Phaebadas, et illam noctem saeculorum atram, Erebumque
tristem, e tot populorum cordibus relegaret. Non est otium
longinqua perquirere; finitima tantum atque domestica speculemur.
Hiberni ex Patritio, Scoti ex Palladio, Angli ex Augustino, Romae
sacratis, Roma missis, Romam venerantibus, fidem aut nullam aut
certe nostram, id est, catholicam insuxerunt. Res aperta. Curro.
CVMVLVS TESTIVM.--Testes academiae, testes legum tabulae, testes
vernaculi mores hominum, testes selectio caesarum et inauguratio,
testes regum ritus et inunctio, testes equitum ordines, ipsaeque
chlamydes, testes fenestrae, testes nummi, testes urbanae portae
domusque civicae, testes avorum fructus et vita, testes res omnes
et reculae, nullam in orbe religionem, nisi nostram, imis umquam
radicibus insedisse.
Quae mihi quum suppeterent, et certe sic efficerent meditantem,
ut his omnibus nuntium remittere christianis, et consociari cum
perditissimis quibusque, videretur insolentis insaniae; non
diffiteor, animatus sum et incensus ad conflictum, in quo nisi
Divi de coelo deturbentur, et superbus Lucifer coelum recuperet,
cadere numquam potero. Quo mihi sit aequior Charcus, qui me tam
immaniter concerpit, si hanc animulam peccatricem, quam tanti
Christus emit, viae tutae, viae certae, viae regiae malui
credere, quam Calvinis scopulis dumetisve suspendere.
CONCLVSIO
Habetis a me, florentes Academici, hoc munusculum, contextum
operis in itinere subcisivis. Animus fuit et purgare me vobis de
arrogantia, et satisfacere de fiducia, et interim dum ab
adversariis una mecum in scholas invitemini, quaedam apponere
degustanda. Si aequam, si tutum, si honestum ducitis, haberi
Lutherum, aut Calvinum, canonem Scripturae, mentem sancti
Spiritus, normam Ecclesiae, Conciliorum Patrumque paedagogum,
omnium denique testium et saeculorum Deum, nihil est quod
sperem, vobis lectoribus vel auditoribus. Sin estis ii, quos
apud animum formavi meum, philosophi occulati, amatores veri,
simplicitatis, modestiae; hostes temeritatis, nugarum,
sophismatum; facile diem in aprico videbitis, qui dieculam
angusta rima dispicitis. Dicam libere, quod meus in vos amor, et
vestrum periculum et rei magnitudo postulat. Non hoc nescit
diabolus, vos istam lucem, si quando coeperitis oculos attolere,
conspecturos. Cuius enim stuporis fuerit, antiquitati
christianae Hammeros et Charcos anteponere? Sed sunt quaedam
illecebrae lutheranae, quibus suum ille regnum amplificat,
quibus ille tendiculis hamatus multos iani vestri ordinis
inescavit. Quaenam? Aurum, gloria, deliciae, veneres.
Contemnite. Quid enim aliud ista sunt, nisi terrarum ilia,
canorus aer, propina vermium, bella sterquilinia? Spernite.
Christus dives est, qui vos alet; Rex est, qui ornabit; lautus
est, qui satiabit, speciosus est, qui felicitatum omnium cumulos
largietur. Huic vos adscribite militanti, ut cum eo triumphos,
vere doctissimi vereque clarissimi, reportetis. Valete.
Cosmopoli 1581.
[Footnote 1: A Beato Edmundo anglice scripta, ab alio
latine reddita.]
[Footnote 2: Est hic locus supplicii anglice _Tyburn_.]
[Footnote 3: Aug. l. 28 contra Faust. c. 2 et de utilit. cred. c. 3.]
[Footnote 4: Iren. l. 1, c. 26.]
[Footnote 5: Lut. in novo test. german.; Praef. in ep. Iac.;
vide etiam l. de capt. Babyl. cap. de extr. unct. et cent,
Magd. 2 p. 58.]
[Foonote 6: Ii sunt Baruch, Tobias, Iudith, Sapientia,
Ecclesiast., duo Machab.]
[Footnote 7: Ep. ad Hebr., Ep. Iudae, Ep. 2 Petri, Epist. 2 et 3 Ioan.]
[Footnote 8: De doctr. christ. l. 2 c. 3.]
[Footnote 9: Conc. Trid. sess. 4; vid. Melch. Can. l. 2 de loc, theol.]
[Footnote 10: De praedest, sanct. c. 14.]
[Footnote 11: Instit. I. lib. I, c. 7, num. 4 et 5.]
[Footnote 12: Xistus Sen. l. 8, haer. 10.]
[Footnote 13: Praef. in Cant. Vide Bezam in sua praef. ante comm.
Calv. in Iosue.]
[Footnote 4: Epist. ad Paulinum.]
[Footnote 15: Lut. praef. in Apoc.--Kemn. in exam. Conc.
Trid. sess. 4.]
[Footnote 16: Praef. in nov. Test.]
[Footnote 17: Lut. serm. de Pharis. et Publ.]
[Footnote 18: Matth. xxvi. 26; Marc. xiv. 22; Luc. xxii. 19.]
[Footnote 19: In epist. ad Argent.]
[Footnote 20: Matth. viii. 29; Marc. i. 24.]
[Footnote 21: Luc. xxii. 19; Matth. xxvi. 28; Marc. xiv. 24.]
[Footnote 22: Ioan. vi.; Matth. xvi.; Marc. xiv.; Luc. xxii.;. 1
Cor. x. et xi.]
[Footnote 23: Calv. Instit. l. iv., c. 1 n. 2 et 3.]
[Footnote 24: Act. xv. 28.]
[Footnote 25: Greg. I. 1, ep. 24.]
[Footnote 26: Ang. I Elizab.]
[Footnote 27: Nic. can. vi.; Chalc. act. iv.; Const. c. 5.]
[Footnote 28: Ephes. conc. in epist. ad Nestor; Nic. c. xiv.]
[Footnote 29: Chalc. act. xi.]
[Footnote 30: Nic. conc. apud Soc. I. i. c. 8.]
[Footnote 31: Vide Chalc. can. iv., vii., xvi., xxiv.]
[Footnote 32: Matth. xviii. 20; Ioan. xiv. 26.]
[Footnote 33: Lib. de capt. Bab.]
[Footnote 34: Exam. Conc. Trid]
[Footnote 35: Vide Conc. Trid. sess. 11, 15 et 18.]
[Footnote 36: Act. xiii. 1; 1 Cor. xii. 28; Ephes. iv. 11; 1 Cor.
xiv., 1 et seq.]
[Footnote 37: Matth. xiii. 52.]
[Footnote 38: S. Dion. Areop. de quo vide. 6 Syn. act. 4, Adon.,
Tren. in martyr. Turon., Syng., Suid., Metap.]
[Footnote 39: Comm. in 1, 13, 17 Deut. Item in capt. Babyl.]
[Footnote 40: Dial. 5 et 11.]
[Footnote 41: Cent. 2, c. 10.]
[Footnote 42: Inst. l. I, c. 13, n. 29.]
[Footnote 43: Cent. 2, c. 5.]
[Footnote 44: Cent. 1, l. 2, c. 10 et seq.]
[Footnote 45: Tert. l. de praescr. contr. haer.]
[Footnote 46: Orat. de cos. secul.]
[Footnote 47: Causs. dial. 8 et 11.]
[Footnote 48: Cent. 3, c. 4.]
[Footnote 49: Ibid.]
[Footnote 50: Ezech. xiii. 18.]
[Footnote 51: Praef. in Cent. 5.]
[Footnote 52: Dial. 6, 7, 8.]
[Footnote 53: Beza in act. c. 23, v. 3]
[Footnote 54: Test. Stanch. l. de Trinit.]
[Footnote 55: Contr. Henr. reg. Angl.]
[Footnote 56: Lib. 22 de Civit. Dei c. 8 et serm. de
divers. 34 et seq.]
[Footnote 57: Contr. ep. Man. quam vocant funda c. 4.]
[Footnote 58: Lib. 1 contr. Parmen.]
[Footnote 59: Aug. l. 1. contr. Parmen.; De unit. c 16; et De
doctr. christ. c. 40.]
[Footnote 60: Lib. 2 ad Monim.]
[Footnote 61: Vide S. Hieron. de Script. Eccles.]
[Footnote 62: Vide Epist. Syn. Alexandr. ad Felic. 2.]
[Footnote 63: Epist. ad Ital. Item serm. 91.]
[Footnote 64: Aug. l. 22 de Civ. Dei; Greg. Tur. l. de glor,
Mart. e. 46 et Metaph.]
[Footnote 65: Instit. l. 1, c. 11, n. 5.]
[Footnote 66: Lib. de vita Ivelli.]
[Footnote 67: Ioan. v. 39.]
[Footnote 68: Rom. 1, 8, 9; xv. 29; xvi, 16, 19.]
[Footnote 69: Act. xxviii. 30.]
[Footnote 70: 1 Pet. v. 13.]
[Footnote 71: Hieron. in cap. script. Eccles.; Euseb. 2 hist.c, 14.]
[Footnote 72: Phillip. iv. 3.]
[Footnote 73: Iren. l. 3, c. 3.]
[Footnote 74: Inst. l. 4, c. 2, n. 3 et in epist. ad Sadol.]
[Footnote 75: Calv. Inst. l. 1, c. 18; l. 2, c. 4; l. 3, cc. 23
et 24; Petr. Mart. in 1, Sam. 2.]
[Footnote 76: Melanct. in cap. Rom. 8.]
[Footnote 77: Sic docet Luth. in asser. 36 et in resol. asser. 36
et in libr. de servo arbitrio.]
[Footnote 78: Praef. in Phillip. in ep. ad Rom.]
[Footnote 79: In Apol. Eccl. Anglic.]
[Footnote 80: Vide enchir. prec. an. 1541.]
[Footnote 81: Calv. Inst. l. 1, c. 13, n. 23, 24.]
[Footnote 82: Beza in Hes.]
[Footnote 83: Beza cont. Schmidel. l. de unitat. hypost. duas
in Christ. nat.]
[Footnote 84: Calv. in Ioan. x, 30.]
[Footnote 85: Luth. contr. Latom.]
[Footnote 86: Bucer. in Luc. 2; Calv. in har. ev.; Luc. Los.;
Melanct. in ev. Dom. 1 p. Epiph.]
[Footnote 87: Marlorat. in Matth. 26; Calv. in harm. eveng.]
[Footnote 88: Brent. in Luc. part. 2, hom. 65 et in Ioan. hom.
54; Calv. in harm. evang.]
[Footnote 89: Schmidel. Conc. de pass. et coena Dom.; Aepinus
comm. in Ps. 16.]
[Footnote 90: Calv. Inst. l. 2, c. 16, n. 10, 11; Brent. in
catech, an. 1551.]
[Footnote 91: Ibid. n. 12.]
[Footnote 92: Buc. in Matt. cap. 26.]
[Footnote 93: Illyr. in var. l. de orig. pecc.; Sarcer. de cons.
vet Eccles.; Aepinus de imb. et pecc. Sanct.; Kemn. contra cens.
col.; Calv. Inst. l. 4, c. 15, n. 10, 11.]
[Footnote 94: Illyr. in var. l. de pecc. orig.--Vide Hesbusium
in ep. ad Illyr.]
[Footnote 95: Calv. in antidot. Conc. Trid.--Idem docuerat
Wiclef. apud. Wald. l. 2, de Sacr. c. 154.]
[Footnote 96: Luth. in resp. contra Lovan.]
[Footnote 97: Bucer. in Ioan. 1; Wald. in nat. Christi; Brent.
hom 16 in Ioan.; Cent. l. 1, c. 4.]
[Footnote 98: Hesb. de iustif. in resp . asv. 115 obiect.
Illyric. in Apol. confes. Antuerp. c. 6 de iustif.]
[Footnote 99: Calv. Inst. l. 3, c. 2, n. 28 etc.]
[Footnote 100: Calv. Inst. l. 3, c. 2, n. 40.]
[Footnote 101: Lib. de capt. Babyl.]
[Footnote 102: Calv. Inst. l. 4, c. 15, n. 2 et 10; Cent. l. 1,
c. 19; Luth. l. de capt. Babyl.]
[Footonote 103: Cent. 2 et 5, c. 4.]
[Footnote 104: Luth. adv. Cochlae, Item epist. ad Melanct. t. 2;
et in ep. ad Wald.]
[Footnote 105: Luth. serm. de matrim. et lib. de vit. coniug.; in
asser. art. 16; lib. de vot. monast.]
[Footnote 106: Charc. in Cens. suum.]
[Footnote 107: Luth. serm. de Pet.; in asser. art. 32.]
[Footnote 108: Id. l. de serv. arbit.]
[Footnote 109: Id. serm. de Moyse.]
[Footnote 110: Id. l. de capt. Bab. c. de Euch.]
[Footnote 111: Apol. Eccles. Angl.]
[Footnote 112: In 1, p. q. 13, a. 2 ad 2.]
[Footnote 113: Isai. xxxv. 8.]
[Footnote 114: Aug. serm. 37 de Sanct.]
[Footnote 115: Dam. in vit. Pont. Rom.]
[Footnote 116: Hier. cat. Script.]
[Footnote 117: Ign. epist. ad Smyrn.]
[Footnote 118: Euseb. l. 3, c. 30.]
[Footnote 119: Dam. in vita Telesph. to. 1 con. c. stat. d. 5.]
[Footnote 120: Lib. 3, c. 3.]
[Footnote 121: Euseb. 5 hist. 24.]
[Footnote 122: Euseb. 4 hist. 13 et 14.]
[Footnote 123: Euseb. 7 hist. 2 interp. Ruff.]
[Footnote 124: Prud. in hym. de S. Laur.]
[Footnote 125: Vid. Aug. Ser. 1 de S. Laur.; Ambr. l. 1 offi, c.
41; Leo serm. in die S. Laur.]
[Footnote 126: Prud. in hym. de S. Laur.]
[Footnote 127: Metaph.; Ambr. et alii.]
[Footnote 128: Aug. l. 6 confess. c. 7 ad 13.]
[Footnote 129: Hier. in epit. Paul.]
[Footnote 130: Ambr. in orat. fun. de Satyro.]
[Footnote 131: Vide sex tomos Surii de vitis Sanct.]
[Footnote 132: Matth. xv. 18.]
[Footnote 133: Euseb. 4 hist. 5.]
[Footnote 134: Hieron, in epit. Paul. et passim in epist.]
[Footnote 135: Prudent. in Pin. de S, Laur.]
[Footnote 136: Gen. x. 9.]
[Footnote 137: Dam. in Sylv.; Niceph. l. 7, c. 33; Zonaras, Cedremus.]
[Footnote 138: Euseb. l. 2 de vit. Const. c. 7, 8, 9; Sozom.
l. 1, c. 8, 9.]
[Footnote 139: Athan. in vita S. Ant.]
[Footnote 140: Theod. l. 1, hist. cap.]
[Footnote 141: Vid. Volate, lovium Aemilium l. 8, Blond. l. 9 de 2.]
[Footnote 142: Clem. l. 1, recog.]
[Footnote 143: Iren. l. 1, c. 2.]
[Footnote 144: Cypr. ep. ad Iubatam et l. 4 ep. 2.]
[Footnote 145: Theod. de fab. haeret.]
[Footnote 146: Aug. haer. 46, 53, 54.]
[Footnote 147: Epiph. haer. 75.]
[Footnote 148: Aug. haer. 54.]
[Footnote 149: Socr. l. 2, C. 28.]
[Footnote 150: Hier. in Iovin. et Vigilant.; Aug. haer. 82.]
[Footnote 151: Vid. Tert. de praescr.; Aug. l. 2 de
doctr. christ. c. 8.]
[Footnote 152: 1 Cor. i. 13.]
[Footnote 153: 1 Reg. v. 4.]
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
This is no dry controversial divinity, but a sort of illuminated
copy of _theses_, the call of a knight's trumpet challenging his
antagonist to come forth. The Ten Reasons represent the ten
_theses_, which Edmund Campion would fain have maintained in the
Divinity School at Oxford against all comers, sharing, as he did
to the full, the passion which his age felt and seems entirely to
have lost, for such intellectual tournaments, as the natural
means to bring out the truth and compose religious differences.
The reader, then, must not be surprised to find in this little
work quite as much of rhetoric as of logic; if he is unfriendly,
he may say considerably more. Nor, if he knows anything of the
controversial methods of the sixteenth century, will he be
surprised at the vehemence of the language. Compared with his
opponents, Luther for example, Edmund Campion is mere milk and
honey. His book made a great stir: it is what a successful book
must be, instinct with the spirit of the age in which and for
which it was written.
The Protestant answer to the Ten Reasons was not given in the
Divinity School at Oxford. It was the rack in the Tower, and the
gibbet at Tyburn; and that answer was returned ere the year was out.
J.R.
Pope's Hall, Oxford
May 1910
PREFACE.
_Edmund Campion, to the Learned Members of the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, Greeting._
Last year, Gentlemen, when in accordance with my calling in life
I returned under orders to this Island, I found on the shore of
England not a little wilder waves than those I had recently left
behind the in the British Seas. As thereupon I made my way into
the interior of England, I had no more familiar sight than that
of unusual executions, no greater certainty than the uncertainty
of threatening dangers. I gathered my wits together as best I
could, remembering the cause which I was serving and the times in
which I lived. And lest I might perhaps be arrested before I had
got a hearing from any one, I at once put my purpose in writing,
stating who I was, what was my errand, what war I thought of
declaring and upon whom. I kept the original document on my
person, that it might be taken with me, if I were taken. I
deposited a copy with a friend, and this copy, without my
knowledge, was shown to many. Adversaries took very ill the
publication of the paper. What they particularly disliked and
blamed was my having offered to hold the field alone against all
comers in this matter of religion, though to be sure I should not
have been alone had I disputed under a public safe conduct.
Hanmer and Chartres have replied to my demands. What is the
tenour of their reply? All off the point. The only honest answer
for them to give is one they will never give: "We embrace the
conditions, the Queen pledges her word, come at once." Meanwhile
they fill the air with their cries: "Your conspiracy! your
seditious proceedings! your arrogance! traitor! aye marry,
traitor!" The whole thing is absurd. These men are not fools: why
are they wasting their pains and damaging their own reputation?
Nevertheless, in reply to these two gentlemen (one of whom has
chosen my paper to run at for his amusement, the other more
maliciously has confused the whole issue) there has recently been
presented a very clear memorial setting forth all that need be
said about our Society and their calumnies and the part that we
are taking. The only course left open to me (since as I see, it
is tortures, not academic disputations, that the high-priests are
making ready) was to make good to you the account of my conduct;
to show you the chief heads and point my finger to the sources
from whence I derive this confidence; to exhort you also, as it
is your concern above others, to give to this business that
attention which Christ, the Church, the Common Weal, and your own
salvation demand of you. If it were confidence in my own talents,
erudition, art, reading, memory, that led me to challenge all the
skill that could be brought against me, then were I the vainest
and proudest of mortals, not having considered either myself or
my opponents. But if, with my cause before my eyes, I thought
myself competent to show that the sun here shines at noon-day,
you ought to allow in me that heat which the honour of Jesus
Christ, my King, and the unconquered force of truth have put upon
me. You know how in Marcus Tullius's speech for Publius Quintius,
when Roscius promised that he should win the case if he could
make out by arguments that a journey of 700 miles had not been
accomplished in two days, Cicero not only had no fear of all the
force of the pleading of the opposing counsel, Hortensius, but
could not have been afraid even of greater orators than
Hortensius, men of the stamp of Cotta and Antonius and Crassus,
whose reputation for speaking he set higher than that of all
other men: for truth does sometimes stand out in so clear a light
that no artifice of word or deed can hide it. Now the case on our
side is clearer even than that position of Roscius. I have only
to evince this, that there is a Heaven, that there is a God, that
there is a Faith, that there is a Christ, and I have gained my
cause. Standing on such ground should I not pluck up heart? I may
be killed, beaten I cannot be. I take my stand on those Doctors,
whom that Spirit has instructed who is neither deceived nor
overcome. I beg of you, consent to be saved. Of those from whom I
obtain this consent I expect without the least doubt that all the
rest will follow. Only give yourselves up to take interest in
this inquiry, entreat Christ, add efforts of your own, and
certainly you will perceive how the case lies, how our
adversaries are in despair, and ourselves so solidly founded that
we cannot but desire this conflict with serene and high courage.
I am brief here, because I address you in the rest of my
discourse. Farewell.
FIRST REASON
HOLY WRIT
Of the many signs that tell of the adversaries' mistrust of their
own cause, none declares it so loudly as the shameful outrage
they put upon the majesty of the Holy Bible. After they have
dismissed with scorn the utterances and suffrages of the rest of
the witnesses, they are nevertheless brought to such straits that
they cannot hold their own otherwise than by laying violent hands
on the divine volumes themselves, thereby showing beyond all
question that they are brought to their last stand, and are
having recourse to the hardest and most extreme of expedients to
retrieve their desperate and ruined fortunes. What induced the
Manichees to tear out the Gospel of Matthew and the Acts of the
Apostles? Despair. For these volumes were a torment to men who
denied Christ's birth of a Virgin, and who pretended that the
Spirit then first descended upon Christians when their peculiar
Paraclete, a good-for-nothing Persian, made his appearance. What
induced the Ebionites to reject all St. Paul's Epistles? Despair.
For while those Letters kept their credit, the custom of
circumcision, which these men had reintroduced, was set aside as
an anachronism. What induced that crime-laden apostate Luther to
call the Epistle of James contentious, turgid, arid, a thing of
straw, and unworthy of the Apostolic spirit? Despair. For by this
writing the wretched man's argument of righteousness consisting
in faith alone was stabbed through and rent assunder. What
induced Luther's whelps to expunge off-hand from the genuine
canon of Scripture, Tobias, Ecclesiasticus, Maccabees, and, for
hatred of these, several other books involved in the same false
charge? Despair. For by these Oracles they are most manifestly
confuted whenever they argue about the patronage of Angels, about
free will, about the faithful departed, about the intercession of
Saints. Is it possible? So much perversity, so much audacity?
After trampling underfoot Church, Councils, Episcopal Sees,
Fathers, Martyrs, Potentates, Peoples, Laws, Universities,
Histories, all vestiges of Antiquity and Sanctity, and declaring
that they would settle their disputes by the written word of God
alone, to think that they should have emasculated that same Word,
which alone was left, by cutting out of the whole body so many
excellent and goodly parts! Seven whole books, to ignore lesser
diminutions, have the Calvinists cut out of the Old Testament.
The Lutherans take away the Epistle of James besides, and, in
their dislike of that, five other Epistles, about which there had
been controversy of old in certain places and times. To the
number of these the latest authorities at Geneva add the book of
Esther and about three chapters of Daniel, which their
fellow-disciples, the Anabaptists, had some time before condemned
and derided. How much greater was the modesty of Augustine (_De
doct. Christ. lib._ 2, _c._ 8.), who, in making his catalogue of
the Sacred Books, did not take for his rule the Hebrew Alphabet,
like the Jews, nor private judgment, like the Sectaries, but that
Spirit wherewith Christ animates the whole Church. The Church,
the guardian of this treasure, not its mistress (as heretics
falsely make out), vindicated publicly in former times by very
ancient Councils this entire treasure, which the Council of Trent
has taken up and embraced. Augustine also in a special discussion
on one small portion of Scripture cannot bring himself to think
that any man's rash murmuring should be permitted to thrust out
of the Canon the book of Wisdom, which even in his time had
obtained a sure place as a well-authenticated and Canonical book
in the reckoning of the Church, the judgment of ages, the
testimony of ancients, and the sense of the faithful. What would
he say now if he were alive on earth, and saw men like Luther and
Calvin manufacturing Bibles, filing down Old and New Testament
with a neat pretty little file of their own, setting aside, not
the book of wisdom alone, but with it very many others from the
list of Canonical Books? Thus whatever does not come out from
their shop, by a mad decree, is liable to be, spat upon by all as
a rude and barbarous composition. They who have stooped to this
dire and execrable way of saving themselves surely are beaten,
overthrown, and flung rolling in the dust, for all their fine
praises that are in the mouths of their admirers, for all their
traffic in priesthoods, for all their bawling in pulpits, for all
their sentencing of Catholics to chains, rack and gallows. Seated
in their armchairs as censors, as though any one had elected them
to that office, they seize their pens and mark passages as
spurious even in God's own Holy Writ, putting their pens through
whatever they cannot stomach. Can any fairly educated man be
afraid of battalions of such enemies? If in the midst of your
learned body they had recourse to such trickster's arts, calling
like wizards upon their familiar spirit, you would shout at
them,--you would stamp your feet at them. For instance I would
ask them what right they have to rend and mutilate the body of
the Bible. They would answer that they do not cut out true
Scriptures, but prune away supposititious accretions. By
authority of what judge? By the Holy Ghost. This is the answer
prescribed by Calvin (_Instit. lib._ I, _c._ 7), for escaping
this judgment of the Church whereby spirits of prophesy are
examined. Why then do some of you tear out one piece of
Scripture, and others another, whereas you all boast of being led
by the same Spirit? The Spirit of the Calvinists receives six
Epistles which do not please the Lutheran Spirit, both all the
while in full confidence reposing on the Holy Ghost. The
Anabaptists call the book of Job a fable, intermixed with tragedy
and comedy. How do they know? The Spirit has taught them. Whereas
the Song of Solomon is admired by Catholics as a paradise of the
soul, a hidden manna, and rich delight in Christ, Castalio, a
lewd rogue, has reckoned it nothing better than a love-song about
a mistress, and an amorous conversation with Court flunkeys.
Whence drew he that intimation? From the Spirit. In the
Apocalypse of John, every jot and tittle of which Jerane declares
to bear some lofty and magnificent meaning, Luther and Brent and
Kemnitz, critics hard to please, find something wanting, and are
inclined to throw over the whole book. Whom have they consulted?
The Spirit. Luther with preposterous heat pits the Four Gospels
one against another (_Praef. in Nov. Test._), and far prefers
Paul's Epistles to the first three, while he declares the Gospel
of St. John above the rest to be beautiful, true, and worthy of
mention in the first place,--thereby enrolling even the Apostles,
so far as in him lay, as having a hand in his quarrels. Who
taught him to do that? The Spirit. Nay this imp of a friar has
not hesitated in petulant style to assail Luke's Gospel because
therein good and virtuous works are frequently commended to us.
Whom did he consult? The Spirit. Theodore Beza has dared to carp
at, as a corruption and perversion of the original, that mystical
word from the twenty-second chapter of Luke, _this is the
chalice, the new testament in my blood, which_ (chalice) _shall
be shed for you_ [Greek: potaerion ekchunomenon], because this
language admits of no explanation other than that of the wine in
the chalice being converted into the true blood of Christ. Who
pointed that out? The Spirit. In short, in believing all things
every man in the faith of his own spirit, they horribly belie and
blaspheme the name of the Holy Ghost. So acting, do they not give
themselves away? are they not easily refuted? In an assembly of
learned men, such as yours, Gentlemen of the University, are they
not caught and throttled without trouble? Should I be afraid on
behalf of the Catholic faith to dispute with these men, who have
handled with the utmost ill faith not human but heavenly
utterances? I say nothing here of their perverse versions of
Scripture, though I could accuse them in this respect of
intolerable doings. I will not take the bread out of the mouth of
that great linguist, my fellow-Collegian, Gregory Martin, who
will do this work with more learning and abundance of detail than
I could; nor from others whom I understand already to have that
task in hand. More wicked and more abominable is the crime that I
am now prosecuting, that there have been found upstart Doctors
who have made a drunken onslaught on the handwriting that is of
heaven; who have given judgment against it as being in many
places defiled, defective, false, surreptitious; who have
corrected some passages, tampered with others; torn out others;
who have converted every bulwark wherewith it was guarded into
Lutheran "spirits," what I may call phantom ramparts and parted
walls. All this they have done that they might not be utterly
dumbfounded by falling upon Scripture texts contrary to their
errors, texts which they would have found it as hard to get over
as to swallow hot ashes or chew stones. This then has been my
First Reason, a strong and a just one. By revealing the shadowy
and broken powers of the adverse faction, it has certainly given
new courage to a Christian man, not unversed in these studies, to
fight for the Letters Patent of the Eternal King against the
remnant of a routed foe.
SECOND REASON
THE SENSE OF HOLY WRIT
Another thing to incite me to the encounter, and to disparage in
my eyes the poor forces of the enemy, is the habit of mind which
they continually display in their exposition of the Scriptures,
full of deceit, void of wisdom. As philosophers, you would seize
these points at once. Therefore I have desired to have you for my
audience. Suppose, for example, we ask our adversaries on what
ground they have concocted that novel and sectarian opinion which
banishes Christ from the Mystic Supper. If they name the Gospel,
we meet them promptly. On our side are the words, _this is my
body, this is my blood._ This language seemed to Luther himself
so forcible, that for all his strong desire to turn Zwinglian,
thinking by that means to make it most awkward for the Pope,
nevertheless he was caught and fast bound by this most open
context, and gave in to it (_Luther, epistol. ad Argent._), and
confessed Christ truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament no less
unwillingly than the demons of old, overcome by His miracles,
cried aloud that He was Christ, the Son of God. Well then, the
written text gives us the advantage: the dispute now turns on the
sense of what is written. Let us examine this from the words in
the context, _my body which is given for you, my blood which hall
be shed for many_. Still the explanation on Calvin's side is most
hard, on ours easy and quite plain.
What further? Compare the Scriptures, they say, one with another.
By all means. The Gospels agree, Paul concurs. The words, the
clauses, the whole sentence reverently repeat living bread,
signal miracle, heavenly food, flesh, body, blood. There is
nothing enigmatical, nothing befogged with a mist of words. Still
our adversaries hold on and make no end of altercation. What are
we to do? I presume, Antiquity should be heard; and what we, two
parties suspect of one another, cannot settle, let it be settled
by the decision of venerable ancient men of all past ages, as
being nearer Christ and further removed from this contention.
They cannot stand that, they protest that they are being
betrayed, they appeal to the word of God pure and simple, they
turn away from the comments of men. Treacherous and fatuous
excuse. We urge the word of God, they darken the meaning of it.
We appeal to the witness of the Saints as interpreters, they
withstand them. In short their position is that there shall be no
trial, unless you stand by the judgment of the accused party. And
so they behave in every controversy which we start. On infused
grace, on inherent justice, on the visible Church, on the
necessity of Baptism, on Sacraments and Sacrifice, on the merits
of the good, on hope and fear, on the difference of guilt in
sins, on the authority of Peter, on the keys, on vows, on the
evangelical counsels, on other such points, we Catholics have
cited and discussed Scripture texts not a few, and of much
weight, everywhere in books, in meetings, in churches, in the
Divinity School: they have eluded them. We have brought to bear
upon them the _scholia_ of the ancients, Greek and Latin: they
have refused them. What then is their refuge? Doctor Martin
Luther, or else Philip (Melancthon), or anyhow Zwingle, or beyond
doubt Calvin and Besa have faithfully laid down the facts. Can I
suppose any of you to be so dull of sense as not to perceive this
artifice when he is told of it? Wherefore I must confess how
earnestly I long for the University Schools as a place where,
with you looking on, I could call those carpet-knights out of
their delicious retreats into the heat and dust of action, and
break their power, not by any strength of my own,--for I am not
comparable, not one per cent., with the rest of our people;--but
by force of strong case and most certain truth.
THIRD REASON
THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH
At hearing the name of the Church the enemy has turned pale.
Still he has devised some explanation which I wish you to notice,
that you may observe the ruinous and poverty-stricken estate of
falsehood. He was well aware that in the Scriptures, as well of
Prophets as of Apostles, everywhere there is made honourable
mention of the Church: that it is called the holy city, the
fruitful vine, the high mountain, the straight way, the only
dove, the kingdom of heaven, the spouse and body of Christ, the
ground of truth, the multitude to whom the Spirit has been
promised and into whom He breathes all truths that make for
salvation; her on whom, taken as a whole, the devil's jaws are
never to inflict a deadly bite; her against whom whoever rebels,
however much he preach Christ with his mouth, has no more hold on
Christ than the publican or the heathen. Such a loud
pronouncement he dared not gainsay; he would not seem rebellious
against a Church of which the Scriptures make such frequent
mention: so he cunningly kept the name, while by his definition
he utterly abolished the thing, He has depicted the Church with
such properties as altogether hide her away, and leave her open
to the secret gaze of a very few men, as though she were removed
from the senses, like a Platonic Idea. They only could discern
her, who by a singular inspiration had got the faculty of
grasping with their intelligence this aerial body, and with keen
eye regarding the members of such a company.
What has become of candour and straightforwardness? What
Scripture texts or Scripture meanings or authorities of Fathers
thus portray the Church? There are letters of Christ to the
Asiatic Churches (Apoc. i. 3), letters of Peter, Paul, John, and
others to various Churches; frequent mention in the Acts of the
Apostles of the origin and spread of Churches. What of these
Churches? Were they visible to God alone and holy men, or to
Christians of every rank and degree? But, doubtless, necessity
is a hard weapon. Pardon these subterfuges. Throughout the whole
course of fifteen centuries these men find neither town, village
nor household professing their doctrine, until an unhappy monk
by an incestuous marriage had deflowered a virgin vowed to God,
or a Swiss gladiator had conspired against his country, or a
branded runaway had occupied Geneva. These people, if they want
to have a Church at all, are compelled to crack up a Church all
hidden away; and to claim parents whom they themselves have
never known, and no mortal has ever set eyes on, Perhaps they
glory in the ancestry of men whom every one knows to have been
heretics, such as Aerius, Jovinianus, Vigilantius, Helvidius,
Berengarius, the Waldenses, the Lollards, Wycliffe, Huss, of
whom they have begged sundry poisonous fragments of dogmas.
Wonder not that I have no fear of their empty talk: once I can
meet them in the noon-day, I shall have no trouble in dispelling
such vapourings. Our conversation with them would take this
line. Tell me, do you subscribe to the Church which flourished
in bygone ages? Certainly. Let us traverse, then, different
countries and periods. What Church? The assembly of the
faithful. What faithful? Their names are unknown, but it is
certain that there have been many of them. Certain? to whom is
it certain? To God Who says so! We, who have been taught of
God--stuff and nonsense, how am I to believe it? If you had the
fire of faith in you, you would know it as well as you know you
are alive. Let in as spectators, could you withhold your
laughter? To think that all Christians should be bidden to join
the Church; to beware of being cut down by the spiritual sword;
to keep peace in the house of God; to trust their soul to the
Church as to the pillar of truth; to lay all their complaints
before the Church; to hold for heathen all who are cast out of
the Church; and that nevertheless so many men for so many
centuries should not know where the Church is or who belong to
it! This much only they prate in the darkness, that wherever the
Church is, only Saints and persons destined for heaven are
contained in it. Hence it follows that whoever wishes to
withdraw himself from the authority of his ecclesiastical
superior has only to persuade himself that the priest has fallen
into sin and is quite cut off from the Church. Knowing as I did
that the adversaries were inventing these fictions, contrary to
the customary sense of the Churches in all ages, and that,
having lost the whole substance, they still wished in their
difficulties to retain the name, I took comfort in the thought
of your sagacity, and so promised myself that, as soon as ever
you had cognisance of such artifices by their own confession,
you would at once like men of mark and intelligence rend asunder
the web of foolish sophistry woven for your undoing.
FOURTH REASON
COUNCILS
In the infant Church a grave question about lawful ceremonies,
which troubled the minds of believers, was solved by the
gathering of a Council of Apostles and elders. The Children
believed their parents, the sheep their shepherds, commanding in
their words, _It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us_
(Acts xv). There followed for the extirpation of various heresies
in various several ages, four Oecumenical Councils of the
ancients, the doctrine whereof was so well established that a
thousand years ago (see St. Gregory the Great's Epistles, lib. i.
cap. 24) singular honour was paid to it as to an utterance of
God. I will travel no further abroad. Even in our home, in
Parliament (ann. 1 Elisabeth), the same Councils keep their
former right and their dignity inviolate. These I will cite, and
I will call thee, England, my sweet country, to witness. If, as
thou professest, thou wilt reverence these four Councils, thou
shalt give chief honour to the Bishop of the first See, that is
to Peter: thou shalt recognise on the altar the unbloody
sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ: thou shalt beseech the
blessed martyrs and all the saints to intercede with Christ on
thy behalf: thou shalt restrain womanish apostates from unnatural
vice and public incest: thou shalt do many things that thou art
undoing, and wish undone much that thou art doing. Furthermore, I
promise and undertake to show, when opportunity offers, that the
Synods of other ages, and notably the Synod of Trent, have been
of the same authority and credence as the first. Armed therefore
with the strong and choice support of all the Councils, why
should I not enter into this arena with calmness and presence of
mind, watchful to keep an eye on my adversary and see on what
point he will show himself? I will produce testimonies most
evident that he cannot wrest aside. Possibly he will take to
scolding, and endeavour to talk against time, but he will not
elude the eyes and ears of men who will watch him hard, as you
will do, if you are the men I take you for. But if there shall be
any one found so stark mad as to set his single self up as a
match for the senators of the world, men whose greatness,
holiness, learning and antiquity is beyond all exception, I shall
be glad to look upon that face of impudence; and when I have
shown it to you, I will leave the rest to your own thoughts.
Meanwhile I will say thus much: The man who refuses consideration
and weight to a Plenary Council, brought to a conclusion in due
and orderly fashion, seems to me witless, brainless, a dullard in
theology, and a fool in politics. If ever the Spirit of God has
shone upon the Church, then surely is the time for the sending of
divine aid, when the most manifest religiousness, ripeness of
judgment, science, wisdom, dignity of all the Churches on earth
have flocked together in one city, and with employment of all
means, divine and human, for the investigation of truth, implore
the promised Spirit that they may make wholesome and prudent
decrees. Let there now leap to the front some mannikin master of
an heretical faction, let him arch his eyebrows, turn up his
nose, rub his forehead, and scurrilously take upon himself to
judge his judges, what sport, what ridicule will he excite! There
was found a Luther to say that he preferred to Councils the
opinions of two godly and learned men (say his own and Philip
Melanchthon's) when they agreed in the name of Christ. Oh what
quackery! There was found a Kemnitz to try the Council of Trent
by the standard of his own rude and giddy humour. What gained he
thereby? Infamy. While he, unless he takes care, shall be buried
with Arius, the Synod of Trent, the older it grows, shall
flourish the more, day by day, and year by year. Good God! what
variety of nations, what a choice assembly of Bishops of the
whole world, what a splendid representation of Kings and
Commonwealths, what a quintessence of theologians, what sanctity,
what tears, what fears, what flowers of Universities, what
tongues, what subtlety, what labour, what infinite reading, what
wealth of virtues and of studies filled that august sanctuary! I
have myself heard Bishops, eminent and prudent men,--and among
them Antony, Archbishop of Prague, by whom I was made
Priest,--exulting that they had attended such a school for some
years; so that, much as they owed to Kaiser Ferdinand, they
considered that he had shown them no more royal and abundant
bounty than this of sending them to sit in that Academy of Trent
as Legates from Bohemia. The Kaiser understood this, and on their
return he welcomed them with the words, "We have kept you at a
good school." Invited as our adversaries have been under a safe
conduct, why have they not hastened thither, publicly to refute
those against whom they go on quacking like frogs from their
holes? "They broke their promise to Huss and Jerome," is their
reply. Who broke it? "The Fathers of the Council of Constance."
It is false; they never gave any promise. But anyhow, not even
Huss would have been punished had not the perfidious and
pestilent fellow been brought back from that flight which the
Emperor Sigusmund had forbidden him under pain of death; had he
not violated the conditions which he had agreed to in writing
with the Kaiser and thereby nullified all the value of that
safe-conduct. Huss's hasty wickedness played him false. For,
having instigated deeds of savage violence in his native Bohemia,
and being bidden thereupon to present himself at Constance, he
despised the prerogative of the Council, and sought his
safe-conduct of the Kaiser. Caesar signed it; the Christian
world, greater than Caesar, cancelled the signature. The
heresiarch refused to return to a sound mind, and so perished. As
for Jerome of Prague, he came to Constance protected by no one;
he was detected and arraigned; he spoke in his own behalf, was
treated very kindly, went free whither he would; he was healed,
abjured his heresy, relapsed, and was burnt. Why do they so often
drag out one case in a thousand? Let them read their own annals.
Martin Luther himself, that abomination of God and men, was put
in court at Augsburg before Cardinal Cajetan: there did he not
belch out all he could, and then depart in safety, fortified with
a letter of Maximilian? Likewise, when he was summoned to Worms,
and had against him the Kaiser and most of the Princes of the
Empire, was he not safe under the protection of the Kaiser's
word? Lastly, at the Diet of Augsburg, in presence of Charles V.,
an enemy of heretics, flushed with victory, master of the
situation, did not the heads of the Lutherans and Zwinglians,
under truce, present their Confessions, so frequently re-edited,
and depart in peace? Not otherwise had the letter from Trent
provided most ample safe-guards for the adversary; he would not
take advantage of them. The fact is, he airs his condition in
corners, where he expects to figure as a sage by coming out with
three words of Greek: he shrinks from the light, which should
place him in the number of men of letters [_lilleratorum_
{transcribers note: the Latin is interpolated into the
translation here}] and call him to sit in honourable place. Let
them obtain for English Catholics such a written promise of
impunity, if they love the salvation of souls. We will not raise
the instance of Huss: relying on the Sovereign's word, we will
fly to Court. But, to return to the point whence I digressed, the
General Councils are mine, the first, the last, and those
between. With them I will fight. Let the adversary look for a
javelin hurled with force, which he will never be able to pluck
out. Let Satan be overthrown in him, and Christ live.
FIFTH REASON
FATHERS
At Antioch, in which city the noble surname of Christians first
became common, there flourished _Doctors_, that is, eminent
theologians, and _Prophets_, that is, very celebrated preachers
(Acts xiii. 1). Of this sort were the scribes and wise men,
learned in the kingdom of God, bringing forth new things and old
(Matth. xiii. 52; xxiii. 34), knowing Christ and Moses, whom the
Lord promised to His future flock. What a wicked thing it is to
scout these teachers, given as they are by way of a mighty boon!
The adversary has scouted them. Why? Because their standing means
his fall. Having found that out for certain beyond doubt, I have
asked for a fight unqualified, not that sham-fight in which the
crowds in the street engage, and skirmish with one another, but
the earnest and keen struggle in which we join in the arena of
yon philosophers,
Foot to foot, and man close gripping man.
If ever we shall be allowed to turn to the Fathers, the battle is
lost and won: they are as thoroughly ours as is Gregory XIII.
himself, the loving Father of the children of the Church. To say
nothing of isolated passages, which are gathered from the records
of the ancients, apt and clear statements in defence of our
faith, we hold entire volumes of these Fathers, which professedly
illustrate in clear and abundant light the Gospel religion which
we defend. Take the twofold _Hierarchy_ of the martyr Dionysius,
what classes, what sacrifices, what rites does he teach? This
fact struck Luther so forcibly that he pronounced the works of
this Father to be "such stuff as dreams are made of, and that of
the most pernicious kind." In imitation of his parent, an obscure
Frenchman, Caussee, has not hesitated to call this Dionysius, the
Apostle of an illustrious nation, "an old dotard." Ignatius has
given grievous offence to the Centuriators of Magdeburg, as also
to Calvin, so that these men, the offscouring of mankind, have
noted in his works "unsightly blemishes and tasteless prosings."
In their judgment, Irenaeus has brought out "a fanatical
production": Clement, the author of the _Stromata_, has produced
"Tares and dregs": the other Fathers of this age, Apostolic men
to be sure, "have left blasphemies and monstrosities to
posterity." In Tertullian they eagerly seize upon what they have
learned from us, in common with us, to detest; but they should
remember that his book _On Prescriptions_, which has so signally
smitten the heretics of our times, was never found fault with.
How finely, how, clearly, has Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto pointed
out beforehand the power of Antichrist, the times of Luther! They
call him, therefore, "a most babyish writer, an owl." Cyprian,
the delight and glory of Africa, that French critic Caussee, and
the Centuriators of Magdeburg, have termed "stupid, God-forsaken
corrupter of repentance." What harm has he done? He has written
_On Virgins, On the Lapsed, On the Unity of the Church_, such
treatises as also such letters to Cornelius, the Roman Pontiff,
that, unless credence be withdrawn from this Martyr, Peter Martyr
Vermilius and all his associates must count for worse than
adulterers and men guilty of sacrilege. And, not to dwell longer
on individuals, the Fathers of this age are all condemned "for
wonderful corruption of the doctrine of repentance." How so?
Because the austerity of the Canons in vogue at that time is
particularly obnoxious to this plausible sect which, better
fitted for dining-rooms than for churches, is wont to tickle
voluptuous ears and to sew _cushions on every arm_ (Ezech. xiii.
18). Take the next age, what offence has that committed?
Chrysostom and those Fathers, forsooth, have "foully obscured the
justice of faith." Gregory Nazianzen whom the ancients called
eminently "the Theologian," is in the judgment of Caussee "a
chatter-box, who did not know what he was saying." Ambrose was
"under the spell of an evil demon." Jerome is "as damnable as the
devil, injurious to the Apostle, a blasphemer, a wicked wretch."
To Gregory Massow--"Calvin alone is worth more than a hundred
Augustines." A hundred is a small number: Luther "reckons nothing
of having against him a thousand Augustines, a thousand Cyprians,
a thousand Churches." I think I need not carry the matter
further. For when men rage against the above-mentioned Fathers,
who can wonder at the impertinence of their language against
Optatus, Hilary, the two Cyrils, Epiphanius, Basil, Vincent,
Fulgentius, Leo, and the Roman Gregory. However, if we grant any
just defence of an unjust cause, I do not deny that the Fathers
wherever you light upon them, afford the party of our opponents
matter they needs must disagree with, so long as they are
consistent with themselves. Men who have appointed fast-days, how
must they be minded in regard of Basil, Gregory, Nazianzen, Leo,
Chrysostom, who have published telling sermons on Lent and
prescribed days of fasting as things already in customary use?
Men who have sold their souls for gold, lust, drunkenness and
ambitious display, can they be other than most hostile to Basil,
Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, whose excellent books are in the
hands of all, treating of the institute, rule, and virtues of
monks? Men who have carried the human will into captivity, who
have abolished Christian funerals, who have burnt the relics of
Saints, can they possibly be reconciled to Augustine, who has
composed three books on Free Will, one on Care for the Dead,
besides sundry sermons and a long chapter in a noble work on the
Miracles wrought at the Basilicas and Monuments of the Martyrs?
Men who measure faith by their own quips and quirks, must they
not be angry with Augustine, of whom there is extant a remarkable
Letter against a Manichean, in which he professes himself to
assent to Antiquity, to Consent, to Perpetuity of Succession, and
to the Church which, alone among so many heresies, claims by
prescriptive right the name of Catholic?
Optatus, Bishop of Milevis, refutes the Donatist faction by
appeal to Catholic communion: he accuses their wickedness by
appeal to the decree of Melchiades: he convicts their heresy by
reference to the order of succession of Roman Pontiffs: he lays
open their frenzy in their defilement of the Eucharist and of
schism: he abhors their sacrilege in their breaking of altars "on
which the members of Christ are borne," and their pollution of
chalices "which have held the blood of Christ." I greatly desire
to know what they think of Optatus, whom Augustine mentions as a
venerable Catholic Bishop, the equal of Ambrose and of Cyprian;
and Fulgentius as a holy and faithful interpreter of Paul, like
unto Augustine and Ambrose. They sing in their churches the Creed
of Athanasius. Do they stand by him? That grave anchor who has
written an elaborate book in praise of the Egyptian hermit
Antony, and who with the Synod of Alexandria suppliantly appealed
to the judgment of the Apostolic See, the See of St. Peter. How
often does Prudentius in his Hymns pray to the martyrs whose
praises he sings! how often at their ashes and bones does he
venerate the King of Martyrs! Will they approve his proceeding?
Jerome writes against Vigilantius in defence of the relics of the
Saints and the honours paid to them; as also against Jovinian for
the rank to be allowed to virginity. Will they endure him?
Ambrose honoured his patron saints Gervase and Protase with a
most glorious solemnity by way of putting the Arians to shame.
This action of his was praised by most godly Fathers, and God
honoured it with more than one miracle. Are they going to take a
kindly view off Ambrose here? Gregory the Great, our Apostle, is
most manifestly with us, and therefore is a hateful personage to
our adversaries. Calvin, in his rage, says that he was not
brought up in the school of the Holy Ghost, seeing that he had
called holy images the books of the illiterate.
Time would fail me were I to try to count up the Epistles,
Sermons, Homilies, Orations, Opuscula and dissertations of the
Fathers, in which they have laboriously, earnestly and with much
learning supported the doctrines of us Catholics. As long as
these works are for sale at the booksellers' shops, it will be
vain to prohibit the writings of our controversialists; vain to
keep watch at the ports and on the sea-coast; vain to search
houses, boxes, desks, and book-chests; vain to set up so many
threatening notices at the gates. No Harding, nor Sanders, nor
Allen, nor Stapleton, nor Bristow, attack these new-fangled
fancies with more vigour than do the Fathers whom I have
enumerated. As I think over these and the like facts, my courage
has grown and my ardour for battle, in which whatever way the
adversary stirs, unless he will yield glory to God, he will be in
straits. Let him admit the Fathers, he is caught: let him shut
them out, he is undone.
When we were young men, the following incident occurred. John
Jewell, a foremost champion of the Calvinists of England, with
incredible arrogance challenged the Catholics at St. Paul's,
London, invoking hypocritically and calling upon the Fathers, who
had flourished within the first six hundred years of
Christianity. His wager was taken up by the illustrious men who
were then in exile at Louvain, hemmed in though they were with
very great difficulties by reason of the iniquity of their times.
I venture to assert that that device of Jewell's, stupid,
unconscionable, shameless as it was, qualities which those
writers happily brought out, did so much good to our countrymen
that scarcely anything in my recollection has turned out to the
better advantage of the suffering English Church. At once an
edict is hung up on the doors, forbidding the reading or
retaining of any of those books, whereas they had come out, or
were wrung out, I may almost say, by the outcry that Jewell had
raised. The result was that all the persons interested in the
matter came to understand that the Fathers were Catholics, that
is to say, ours. Nor has Lawrence Humphrey passed over in silence
this wound inflicted on him and his party. After high praise of
Jewell in other respects, he fixes on him this role of
inconsiderateness, that he admitted the reasonings of the
Fathers, with whom Humphrey declares, without any beating about
the bush, that he has nothing in common nor ever will have.
We also sounded once in familiar discourse Toby Matthews, now a
leading preacher, whom we loved for his good accomplishments and
the seeds of virtue in him; we asked him to answer honestly
whether one who read the Fathers assiduously could belong to that
party which he supported. He answered that he could not, if,
besides reading, he also believed them.[1] This saying is most
true; nor do I think that either he at the present time, or
Matthew Hutten, a man of name, who is said to read the Fathers
with an assiduity that few equal, or other adversaries who do the
like, are otherwise minded.
Thus far I have been able to descend with security into this
field of conflict, to wage war with men, who, as though they held
a wolf by the ears, are compelled to brand their cause with an
everlasting stigma of shame, whether they refuse the Fathers or
whether they call for them. In the one case they are preparing to
run away, in the other they are caught by the throat.
SIXTH REASON
THE GROUNDS OF ARGUMENT ASSUMED BY THE FATHERS
If ever any men took to heart and made their special care,--as
men of our religion have made it and should make it their special
care,--to observe the rule, _Search the Scriptures_ (John v. 39),
the holy Fathers easily come out first and take the palm for the
matter of this observance. By their labour and at their expense
Bibles have been transcribed and carried among so many nations
and tongues by the perils they have run and the tortures they
have endured the Sacred Volumes have been snatched from the
flames and devastation spread by enemies: by their labours and
vigils they have been explained in every detail. Night and day
they drank in Holy Writ, from all pulpits they gave forth Holy
Writ, with Holy Writ they enriched immense volumes, with most
faithful commentaries they unfolded the sense of Holy Writ, with
Holy Writ they seasoned alike their abstinence and their meals,
finally, occupied about Holy Writ they arrived at decrepit old
age. And if they also frequently have argued from the Authority
of Elders, from the Practice of the Church, from the Succession
of Pontiffs, from ecumenical Councils, from Apostolic Traditions,
from the Blood of Martyrs, from the decrees of Bishops, from
Miracles, yet most persistently of all and most willingly do they
set forth in close array the testimonies of Holy Writ: these they
press home, on these they dwell, to this _armour of the strong_
(Cant. iii. 7), for the best of reasons, is the first and the
most honourable part assigned by these valiant leaders in their
work of forgiving and keeping in repair the City of God against
the assaults of the wicked.
Wherefore I do all the more wonder at that haughty and famous
objection of the adversary, who, like one looking for water in a
running stream, takes exception to the lack of Scripture texts
in writings crowded with Scripture texts. He says he will agree
with the Fathers so long as they keep close to Holy Scripture.
Does he mean what he says? I will see then that there come
forth, armed and begirt with Christ, with Prophets and Apostles,
and with all array of Biblical erudition, those celebrated
authors, those ancient Fathers, those holy men, Dionyius,
Cyprian, Athanasius, Basil, Nazianzen, Ambrose, Jerome,
Chrysostom, Augustine, and the Latin Gregory. Let that faith
reign in England, Oh that it may reign! which these Fathers,
dear lovers of the Scriptures, build up out of the Scriptures.
The texts that they bring, we will bring: the texts they confer,
we will confer: what they infer, we will infer. Are you agreed?
Out with it and say so, please. Not bit of it, he says, unless
they expound rightly. What is this "rightly"? At your
discretion. Are you not ashamed of the vicious circle?
Hopeful as I am that in flourishing Universities there will be
gathered together a good number, who will be no dull spectators,
but acute judges of these controversies and who will weigh for
what they are worth the frivolous answers of our adversaries, I
will gladly await this meeting-day, as one minded to lead forth
against wooded hillocks [cf. Cicero _in Catilinam_ ii. 11],
covered with unarmed tramps, the nobility and strength of the
Church of Christ.
SEVENTH REASON
HISTORY
Ancient History unveils the primitive face of the Church. To this
I appeal. Certainly, the more ancient historians, whom our
adversaries also habitually, consult, are enumerated pretty well
as follows: Eusebius, Damasus, Jerome, Rufinus, Orosius,
Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret Cassiodorus, Gregory of Tours,
Usuard, Regino, Marianus, Sigebert, Zonaras, Cedrinus,
Nicephorus. What have they to tell? The praises of our religion,
its progress, vicissitudes, enemies. Nay, and this is a point I
would have you observe diligently, they who in deadly hatred
dissent from us,--Melancthon, Pantaleon, Funck, the Centuriators
of Magdeburg,--on applying themselves to write either the
chronology or the history of the Church, if they did not get
together the exploits of our heroes, and heap up the accounts of
the frauds and crimes of the enemies of our Church, would pass by
fifteen hundred years with no story to tell.
Along with the above-mentioned consider the local historians, who
have searched with laborious curiosity into the transactions of
some one particular nation. These men, wishing by all means to
enrich and adorn the Sparta which they had gotten for their own,
and to that effect not passing over in silence even such things
as banquets of unusual splendour, or sleeved tunics, or hilts of
daggers, or gilt spurs, and other such minutiae having any smack
of revelry about them, surely, if they had heard of any change in
religion, or any falling off from the standard of early ages,
would have related it, many of them; or, if not many, at least
several; if not several, some one anyhow. Not one, well-disposed
or ill-disposed towards us, has related anything of the sort, or
even dropped the slightest hint of the same.
For example. Our adversaries grant us,--they cannot do
otherwise,--that the Roman Church was at one time holy,
Catholic, Apostolic, at the time when it deserved these
eulogiums from St. Paul: _Your faith is spoken of in the whole
world. Without ceasing I make a commemoration of you. I know
that when I come to you, I shall come in the abundance of the
blessing of Christ. All the Churches of Christ salute you. Your
obedience is published in every place_ (Rom. i. 8, 9; xv. 29;
xvi. 17, 19): at the time when Paul, being kept there in free
custody, was spreading the gospel (Acts xxviii. 31) : at the
time when Peter once in that city was ruling _the Church
gathered at Babylon_ (1 Peter v. 13): at the time when that
Clement, so singularly praised by the Apostle (Phil. iv. 3) was
governing the Church: at the time when the pagan Caesars, Nero,
Domitian, Trajan, Antoninus, were butchering the Roman Pontiffs:
also at the time when, as even Calvin bears witness, Damasus,
Siricius, Anastasius and Innocent guided the Apostolic bark. For
at this epoch he generously allows that men, at Rome
particularly, had so far not swerved from Gospel teaching. When
then did Rome lose this faith so highly celebrated? when did she
cease to be what she was before? at what time, under what
Pontiff, by what way, by what compulsion, by what increments,
did a foreign religion come to pervade city and world? What
outcries, what disturbances, what lamentations did it provoke?
Were all mankind all over the rest of the world lulled to sleep,
while Rome, Rome I say, was forging new Sacraments, a new
Sacrifice, new religious dogma? Has there been found no
historian, neither Greek nor Latin, neither far nor near, to
fling out in his chronicles even an obscure hint of so
remarkable a proceeding?
Therefore this much is clear, that the articles of our belief are
what History, manifold and various, History the messenger of
antiquity, and life of memory, utters and repeats in abundance;
while no narrative penned in human times records that the
doctrines foisted in by our opponents ever had any footing in the
Church. It is clear, I say, that the historians are mine, and
that the adversary's raids upon history are utterly without
point. No impression can they make unless the assertion be first
received, that all Christians of all ages had lapsed into gross
infidelity and gone down to the abyss of hell, until such time as
Luther entered into an unblessed union with Catherine Bora.
EIGHTH REASON
PARADOXES
For myself, most excellent Sirs, when, choosing out of many
heresies, I think over in my mind certain portentous errors of
self-opinionated men, errors that it will be incumbent on me to
refute, I should condemn myself of want of spirit and discernment
if in this trial of strength I were to be afraid of any man's
ability or powers. Let him be able, let him be eloquent, let him
be a practised disputant, let him be a devourer of all books,
still his thought must dry up and his utterance fail him when he
shall have to maintain such impossible positions as these. For we
shall dispute, if perchance they will allow us, on God, on
Christ, on Man, on Sin, on Justice, on Sacraments, on Morals. I
shall see whether they will dare to speak out what they think,
and what under the constraint of their situation they publish in
their miserable writings. I will take care that they know these
maxims of their teachers:--"God is the author and cause of evil,
willing it, suggesting it, effecting it, commanding it, working
it out, and guiding the guilty counsels of the wicked to this
end. As the call of Paul, so the adultery of David, and the
wickedness of the traitor Judas, was God's own work" (Calvin,
_Institut_. i. 18; ii. 4; iii. 23, 24). This monstrous doctrine,
of which Philip Melanchthon was for once ashamed, Luther however,
of whom Philip had learned it, extols as an oracle from heaven
with wonderful praises, and on that score puts his foster-child
all but on an equality, with the Apostle Paul (Luther, _De servo
arbitrio_). I will also enquire what was in Luther's mind, whom
the English Calvinists pronounce to be "a man given of God for
the enlightenment of the world," when he wished to take this
versicle out of the Church's prayers, "Holy Trinity, one God,
have mercy on us."
I will proceed to the person of Christ. I will ask what these
words, "Christ the Son of God, God of God," mean to Calvin, who
says, "God of Himself" (_Instit._ i. 13); or to Beza, who says,
"He is not begotten of the essence of the Father" (Beza in Josue,
nn. 23, 24). Again. Let there be set up two hypostate unions in
Christ, one of His soul with His flesh, the other of His Divinity
with His Humanity (Beza, _Contra Schmidel_). The passage in John
x. 30, _I and the Father are one_, does not show Christ to be
God, consubstantial with God the Father (Calvin on John x.), the
fact is, says Luther, "my soul hates this word, _homousion._" Go
on. Christ was not perfect in grace from His infancy, but grew in
gifts of the soul like other men, and by experience daily became
wiser, so that as a little child He laboured under ignorance
(Melanchthon on the gospel for first Sunday after Epiphany).
Which is as much as to say that He was defiled with the stain and
vice of original sin. But observe still more direful utterances.
When Christ, praying in the Garden, was streaming with a sweat of
water and blood, He shuddered under a sense of eternal damnation,
He uttered an irrational cry, an unspiritual cry, a sudden cry
prompted by the force of His distress, which He quickly checked
as not sufficiently premeditated (Marlorati in Matth. xxvi.;
Calvin _in Harm. Evangel._). Is there anything further? Attend.
When Christ Crucified exclaimed, _My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken me,_ He was on fire with the flames of hell, He uttered
a cry of despair, He felt exactly as if nothing were before Him
but to perish in everlasting death (Calvin _in Harm. Evangel._).
To this also let them add something, if they can. Christ, they
say, descended into hell, that is, when dead, He tasted hell not
otherwise than do the damned souls, except that He was destined
to be restored to Himself: for since by His mere bodily death He
would have profited us nothing, He needed in soul also to
struggle with everlasting death, and in this way to pay the debt
of our crime and our punishment. And lest any one might haply
suspect that this theory had stolen upon Calvin unawares, the
same Calvin calls _all of you who have repelled this doctrine,
full as it is of comfort, God-forsaken boobies_ (Institut. ii.
16). Times, times, what a monster you have reared! That delicate
and royal Blood, which ran in a flood from the lacerated and torn
Body of the innocent Lamb, one little drop of which Blood, for
the dignity of the Victim, might have redeemed a thousand worlds,
availed the human race nothing, unless _the mediator of God and
men, the man Christ Jesus_ (I Tim. ii. 5) had borne also _the
second death_ (Apoc. xx. 6), the death of the soul, the death to
grace, that accompaniment only of sin and damnable blasphemy! In
comparison with this insanity, Bucer, impudent fellow that he is,
will appear modest, for he (on Matth. xxvi.), by an explanation
very preposterous, or rather, an inept and stupid tautology,
takes _hell_ in the creed to mean the tomb. Of the Anglican
sectaries, some are wont to adhere to their idol, Calvin, others
to their great master, Bucer; some also murmur in an undertone
against this article, wishing that it may be quietly removed
altogether from the Creed, that it may give no more trouble. Nay,
this was actually tried in a meeting at London, as I remember
being told by one who was present, Richard Cheyne, a miserable
old man, who was badly mauled by robbers outside, and, for all
that, never entered his father's house.[2]
And thus far of Christ. What of Man? The image of God is utterly
blotted out in man, not the slightest spark of good is left: his
whole nature in all the parts of his soul is so thoroughly
overturned that, even after he is born again and sanctified in
baptism, there is nothing whatever within him but mere corruption
and contagion. What does this lead up to? That they who mean to
seize glory by faith alone may wallow in the filth of every
turpitude, may accuse nature, despair of virtue, and discharge
themselves of the commandments (Calvin, _Instit._ ii. 3). To
this, Illyricus, the standard-bearer of the Magdeburg company,
has added his own monstrous teaching about original sin, which he
makes out to be the innermost substance of souls, whom, since
Adam's fall, the devil himself engenders and transforms into
himself. This also is a received maxim in this scum of evil
doctrine, that all sins are equal, yet with this qualification
(not to revive the Stoics), "if sins are weighed in the judgment
of God." As if God, the most equitable judge, were to add to our
burden rather than lighten it; and, for all His justice, were to
exaggerate and make it what it is not in itself. By this
estimation, as heavy an offence would be committed against God,
judging in all severity, by the innkeeper who has killed a
barn-door cock, when he should not have done, as by that infamous
assassin who, his head full of Beza, stealthily slew by the shot
of a musket the French hero, the Duke of Guise, a Prince of
admirable virtue, than which crime our world has seen in our age
nothing more deadly, nothing more lamentable.
But perchance they who are so severe in the matter of sin
philosophise magnificently on divine grace, as able to bring
succour and remedy to this evil. Fine indeed is the function
which they assign to grace, which their ranting preachers say is
neither infused into our hearts, nor strong enough to resist sin,
but lies wholly outside of us, and consists in the mere favour of
God,--a favour which does not amend the wicked, nor cleanse, nor
illuminate, nor enrich them, but, leaving still the old stinking
ordure of their sin, dissembles it by God's connivance, that it
be not counted unsightly and hateful. And with this their
invention they are so delighted that, with them, even Christ is
not otherwise called _full of grace and truth_ than inasmuch as
God the Father has borne wonderful favour to Him (Bucer on John
i: Brent hom. 12 on John).
What sort of thing then is righteousness? A relation. It is not
made up of faith, hope and charity, vesting the soul in their
splendour; it is only a hiding away of guilt, such that, whoever
has seized upon this righteousness by faith alone, he is as sure
of salvation as though he were already enjoying the unending joy
of heaven. Well, let this dream pass: but how can one be sure of
future perseverance, in the absence of which a man's exit would
be most miserable, though for a time he had observed
righteousness purely and piously? Nay, says Calvin (_Instit._
iii. 2), unless this your faith foretells you your perseverance
assuredly, without possibility of hallucination, it must be cast
aside as vain and feeble. I recognise the disciple of Luther. A
Christian, said Luther (_De captivitate Babylonis_), cannot lose
his salvation, even if he wanted, except by refusing to believe.
I hasten to pass on to the Sacraments. None, none, not two, not
one, O holy Christ, have they left. Their bread is poison; and
as for their baptism, though it is still true baptism,
nevertheless in their judgment it is nothing, it is not a wave
of salvation, it is not a channel of grace, it does not apply to
us the merits of Christ, it is a mere token of salvation
(Calvin, _Instit._ iv. 15). Thus they have made no more of the
baptism of Christ, so far as the nature of the thing goes, than
of the ceremony of John. If you have it, it is well; if you go
without it, there is no loss suffered; believe, you are saved,
before you are washed. What then of infants, who, unless they
are aided by the virtue of the Sacrament, poor little things,
gain nothing by any faith of their own? Rather than allow
anything to the Sacrament of baptism, say the Magdeburg
Centuriators (Cent. v. 4.), let us grant that there is faith in
the infants themselves, enough to save them; and that the said
babies are aware of certain secret stirrings of this faith,
albeit they are not yet aware whether they are alive or not. A
hard nut to crack! If this is so very hard, listen to Luther's
remedy. It is better, he says (_Advers. Cochl._), to omit the
baptism; since, unless the infant believes, to no purpose is it
washed. This is what they say, doubtful in mind what absolutely
to affirm. Therefore let Balthasar Pacimontanus step in to sort
the votes. This father of the Anabaptists, unable to assign to
infants any stirring of faith, approved Luther's suggestion;
and, casting infant baptism out of the churches, resolved to
wash at the sacred font none who was not grown up. For the rest
of the Sacraments, though that many headed beast utters many
insults, yet, seeing that they are now of daily occurrence, and
our ears have grown callous to them, I here pass them over.
There remain the sayings of the heretics concerning life and
morals, the noxious goblets which Luther has vomited on his
pages, that out of the filthy hovel of his one breast he might
breathe pestilence upon his readers. Listen patiently, and blush,
and pardon me the recital. If the wife will not, or cannot, let
the handmaid come (_Serm. de matrimon._); seeing that commerce
with a wife is as necessary to every man as food, drink, and
sleep. Matrimony is much more excellent than virginity. Christ
and Paul dissuaded men from virginity (_Liber de vot. evangel._).
But perhaps these doctrines are peculiar to Luther. They are not.
They have been lately defended by my friend Chark but miserably
and timidly. Do you wish to hear any more? Certainly. The more
wicked you, are, he says, the nearer you are to grace (_Serm. de.
pisc. Petri_). All good actions are sins, in God's judgment,
mortal sins; in God's mercy, venial. No one thinks evil of his
own will. The Ten Commandments are nothing to Christians. God
cares nought at all about our works. They alone rightly partake
of the Lord's Supper, who bury consciences sad, afflicted,
troubled, confused, erring. Sins are to be confessed, but to
anyone you like; and if he absolves you even in joke, provided
you believe, you are absolved. To read the Hours of the Divine
Office is not the function of priests, but of laymen. Christians
are free from the enactments of men (Luther, _De servo arbitrio,
De captivilate Babylon_).
I think I have stirred up this puddle sufficiently. I now finish.
Nor must you think me unfair for having turned my argument against
Lutherans and Zwinglians indiscriminately. For, remembering their
common parentage, they wish to be brothers and friends to one
another; and they take it as a grave affront, whenever any
distinction is drawn between them in any point but one. I am not
of consequence enough to claim for myself so much as an
undistinguished place among the select theologians who at this day
have declared war on heresies: but this I know, that, puny as I
am, I run no risk while, supported by the grace of Christ, I shall
do battle, with the aid of heaven and earth, against such
fabrications as these, so odious, so tasteless, so stupid.
NINTH REASON
SOPHISM
It is a shrewd saying that a one-eyed man may be king among the
blind. With uneducated people a mock-proof has force which a
school of philosophers dismisses with scorn. Many are the
offences of the adversary under this head; but his case is made
out by four fallacies chiefly, fallacies which I would rather
unravel in the University than in a popular audience. The first
vice is [Greek: skiamachia], with mighty effort hammering at
breezes and shadows. In this way: against such as have sworn to
celibacy and vowed chastity, because, while marriage is good,
virginity is better (1 Cor. vii.), Scripture texts are brought
up speaking honourably of marriage. Whom do they hit? Against
the merit of a Christian man, a merit dyed in the Blood of
Christ, otherwise null, testimonies are alleged whereby we are
bidden to put our trust neither in nature nor in the law, but in
the Blood of Christ. Whom do they refute? Against those who
worship Saints, as Christ's servants, especially acceptable to
Him, whole pages are quoted, forbidding the worship of many
gods? Where are these many gods? By such arguments, which I find
in endless quantity in the writings of heretics, they cannot
hurt us, they may bore you.
Another vice is [Greek: logomachia], which leaves the sense, and
wrangles loquaciously over the word. _Find me Mass or Purgatory
in the Scriptures_, they say. What then? Trinity, Consubstantial,
Person, are they nowhere in the Bible, because these words are
not found? Allied to this fault is the catching at letters, when,
to the neglect of usage and the mind of the speakers, war is
waged on the letters of the alphabet. For instance, thus they
say: _Presbyter to the Greeks means nothing else than elder;
Sacrament, any mystery_. On this, as on all other points, St.
Thomas shrewdly observes: "In words, we must look not whence they
are derived, but to what meaning they are put."
The third vice is [Greek: homonumia], which has a very wide
range. For example: _What is the meaning of an Order of Priests,
when John has called us all priests?_ (Apoc. v. 10). He has also
added this: _we shall reign upon the earth_. What then is the use
of Kings? Again: _the Prophet_ (Isaias lviii.) _cries up a
spiritual fast, that is, abstinence from inveterate crimes.
Farewell then to any discernment of meats and prescription of
days._ Indeed? Mad therefore were Moses, David, Elias, the
Baptist, the Apostles, who terminated their fasts in two days,
three days, or in so many weeks, which fasting, being from sin,
ought to have been perpetual. You have already seen what manner
of argument this is. I hasten on.
Added to the above is a fourth vice, Vicious Circle, in this way.
Give me the notes, I say, of the Church. _The word of God and
undefiled Sacraments_. Are these with you? _Who can doubt it?_ I
do, I deny it utterly. _Consult the word of God._ I have
consulted it, and I favour you less than before. _Ah, but it is
plain._ Prove it to me. _Because we do not depart a nail's
breadth from the word of God._ Where is your persecution? Will
you always go on taking for an argument the very point that is
called in question? How often have I insisted on this already? Do
wake up: do you want torches applied to you? I say that your
exposition of the word of God is perverse and mistaken: I have
fifteen centuries to bear me witness stand by an opinion, not
mine, nor yours, but that of all these ages. _I will stand by the
sentence of the word of God: the Spirit breatheth where it will_
(John iii. 8). There he is at it again; what circumvolutions,
what wheels he is making! This trifler, this arch-contriver of
words and sophisms, I know not to whom he can be formidable:
tiresome he possibly will be. His tiresomeness will find its
corrective in your sagacity: all that was formidable about him
facts have taken away.
TENTH REASON
ALL MANNER OF WITNESS
_This shall be to you a straight way, so that fools shall not go
astray in it_ (Isaias xxxv. 8).
Who is there, however small and lost in the crowd of
illiterates, that, with a desire of salvation and some little
attention, cannot see, cannot keep to the path of the Church, so
admirably smoothed out, eschewing brambles and rocks and
pathless wastes! For, as Isaias prophesies, this path shall be
plain even to the uneducated; most plain therefore, if you
choose, to you. Let us put before our eyes the theatre of the
universe: let us wander everywhere: all things supply us with an
argument. Let us go to heaven: let us contemplate roses and
lilies, Saints empurpled with martyrdom or white with innocence:
Roman Pontiffs, I say, three and thirty in a continuous line put
to death: Pastors all the world over, who have pledged their
blood for the name of Christ: Flocks of faithful, who have
followed in the footsteps of their Pastors: all the Saints of
heaven, who as shining lights in purity and holiness have gone
before the crowd of mankind. You will find that these were ours
when they lived on earth, ours when they passed away from this
world. To cull a few instances, ours was that Ignatius, who in
church matters put no one not even the Emperor, on a level with
the Bishop; who committed to writing, that they might not be
lost, certain Apostolic traditions of which he himself had been
witness. Ours was that anchoret Telesphorus, who ordered the
more strict observance of the fast of Lent established by the
Apostles. Ours was Irenaeus, who declared the Apostolic faith by
the Roman succession and chair (lib. iii. cap. 3). Ours was Pope
Victor, who by an edict brought to order the whole of Asia; and
though this proceeding seemed to some minds, and even to that
holy man Irenaeus, somewhat harsh, yet no one made light of it
as coming from a foreign power. Ours was Polycarp, who went to
Rome on the question of Easter, whose burnt relics Smyrna
gathered, and honoured her Bishop with an anniversary feast and
appointed ceremony. Ours were Cornelius and Cyprian, a golden
pair of Martyrs, both great Bishops, but greater he, the Roman,
who had rescinded the African error; while the latter was
ennobled by the obedience which he paid to the elder, his very
dear friend. Ours was Sixtus, to whom, as he offered solemn
sacrifice at the altar, seven men of the clergy ministered. Ours
was his Archdeacon Lawrence, whom the adversaries cast out of
their calendar, to whom, twelve hundred years ago, the Consular
man Prudentius thus prayed:
What is the power entrusted thee,
And how great function is given thee,
The joyful thanks of Roman citizens prove,
To whom thou grantest their petitions.
Among them, O glory of Christ,
Hear also a rustic poet,
Confessing the crimes of his heart
And publishing his doings.
Hear bountifully the supplication
Of Christ's culprit Prudentius.
Ours are those highly-blest maids, Cecily, Agatha, Anastasia,
Barbara, Agnes, Lucy, Dorothy, Catherine, who held fast against
the violent assault of men and devils the virginity they had
resolved upon. Ours was Helen, celebrated for the finding of the
Lord's Cross. Ours was Monica, who in death most piously begged
prayers and sacrifices to be offered for her at the altar of
Christ. Ours was Paula, who, leaving her City palace and her rich
estates, hastened on a long journey a pilgrim to the cave at
Bethlehem, to hide herself by the cradle of the Infant Christ.
Ours were Paul, Hilarion, Antony, those dear ancient solitaries.
Ours was Satyrus, own brother to Ambrose, who, when shipwrecked,
jumped into the ocean, carrying about his neck in a napkin the
Sacred Host, and full of faith swam to shore (_Ambrose, Orat.
fun. de Satyro_).
Ours are the Bishops Martin and Nicholas, exercised in watchings,
clad in the military garb of hair cloths, fed with fasts. Ours is
Benedict, father of so many monks. I should not run through their
thousands in ten years. But neither do I set down those whom I
mentioned before among the Doctors of the Church. I am mindful of
the brevity imposed upon me. Whoever wills, may seek these
further details, not only from the copious histories of the
ancients, but even much more from the grave authors who have
bequeathed to memory almost one man one Saint. Let the reader
report to me his judgment concerning those ancient blessed
Christians, to what doctrine they adhered, the Catholic or the
Lutheran. I call to witness the throne of God, and that Tribunal
at which I shall stand to render reason for these Reasons, of
everything I have said and done, that either there is no heaven
at all, or heaven belongs to our people. The former position we
abhor, we fix therefore upon the latter.
Now contrariwise, if you please, let us look into hell. There are
burnt with everlasting fire, who? The Jews. On what Church have
they turned their backs? On ours. Who again? The heathen. What
Church have they most cruelly persecuted? Ours. Who again? The
Turks. What temples have they destroyed? Ours. Who once more?
Heretics. Against what Church are they in rebellion? Against
ours. What Church but ours has opposed itself against all the
gates of hell? When, after the driving away of the Hebrews,
Christian inhabitants began to multiply at Jerusalem, what a
concourse of men there was to the Holy Places, what veneration
attached to the City, to the Sepulchre, to the Manger, to the
Cross, to all the memorials in which the Church delights as a
wife in what has been worn by her husband. Hence arose against us
the hatred of the Jews, cruel and implacable. Even now they
complain that our ancestors were the ruin of their ancestors.
From Simon Magus and the Lutherans they have received no wound.
Among the heathen, they were the most violent who, throughout the
Roman Empire, for three hundred years, at intervals of time,
contrived most painful punishments for Christians. What
Christians? The fathers and children of our faith. Learn the
language of the tyrant who roasted St. Lawrence on the gridiron:
That this is of your rites
The custom and practice, it has been handed down to memory:
This the discipline of the institution,
That priests pour libations from golden cups.
In silver goblets they say
That the sacred blood smokes;
And that in golden candlestick, at the nightly sacrifices,
There stand fixed waxen candles.
Then is it the chief care of the brethren,
As many-tongued report does testify,
To offer from the sale of estates,
Thousands of pence.
Ancestral property made over
To dishonest auctions,
The disinherited successor groans,
Needy child of holy parents.
These treasures are concealed in secret,
In corners of the churches;
And it is believed the height of piety
To strip your sweet children.
Bring out your treasures,
Which by evil arts of persuasion
You have heaped up and hold,
Which you shut up in darkling cave.
Public utility demands this,
The privy purse demands it, the treasury demands it,
That the soldiers may be paid for their services,
And the commander may benefit thereby.
This is your dogma, then:
Give every man his own.
Now Caesar recognises his own
Image, stamped on the coin.
What you know to be Caesar's, to Caesar
Give; surely what I ask is just.
If I am not mistaken, your Deity
Coins no money,
Nor when he came did he bring
Golden Jacobuses[3] with him;
But he gave his precepts in words,
Empty in point of pocket.
Fulfil the promise of the words
Which you sell the round world over.
Give up your hard cash willingly,
Be rich in words.
(_Prudentius, Hymn on St. Lawrence_).
Whom does this speaker resemble. Against whom does he rage? What
Church is it whose sacred vessels, lamps, and ornaments he is
pillaging, whose ritual he overthrows? Whose golden patens and
silver chalices, sumptuous votive offerings and rich treasure,
does he envy? Why, the man is a Lutheran all over. With what
other cloak did our Nimrods[4] cover their brigandage, when they
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