There can be no Bastardy, where was never any motherhood: we were nephews to that Church; never, sons: unless, as Rome was the mother city of the world, so, by human institution, we suffered ourselves to be ranged under her patriarchal authority, as being the most famous Church of the West: a matter of courtesy, and pretended order; no necessity, no spiritual obligation.

As for our Sequestration, your mouth and theirs may be stopped with this answer :-As all corrupted Churches, so some things the Church of Rome still holds aright: a true God, in Three Persons; true Scriptures, though with addition; a true Christ, though mangled with foul and erroneous consequences; true Baptism, though shamefully deformed with rotten traditions: and many other undeniable truths of God. Some other things, and too many, her wicked Apostacy hath devised and maintained abominably amiss: the body of her antichristianism, gross errors, and, by just sequel, heresies; their Pope's Supremacy, Infallibility, Illimitation; Transubstantiation; idolatrous and superstitious worship; and a thousand other of this bran: in regard of all these latter, we profess to the world a just and ancient separation from this false faith and devotion of the Romish Church; which neither you will say, nor they shall ever prove, faulty: yea, rather, they have, in all these, separated from us; who still irrefragably profess to hold with the Ancient, from whom they are. departed. In regard of the other, we are still with them; holding and embracing, with them, what they hold with Christ: neither will you, I think, ever prove, that in these we should differ.

As for our Communion, they have separated us, by their proud and foolish excommunications, (if they had not, we would justly have begun :) from their tyranny and antichristianism, from their miserable idolatry. But, as for the body of their poor seduced Christians, which remain amongst them upon the true foundation; as doubtless there are thousands of them which laugh at their pardons, miracles, superstitions, and their trust in merits, reposing only upon Christ: we adhere to them in love and pity, and have testified our affection by our blood; ready, upon any just call, to do it more; neither would fear to join with them, in any true service of our common God.

But the full discourse of this point that honourable and learned Plesses hath so forestalled", that, whatsoever I say would seem but borrowed. Unto his rich Treatise, I refer my reader, for full satisfaction. Would God this point were thoroughly known and well weighed, on all parts! the neglect or ignorance whereof hath both bred and nursed your separa

Phil. Morn. du Plesses, lib. de Eccles. cap. 10.

tion, and driven the weak and inconsiderate into strange extremities.

This say we for ourselves, in no more charity than truth: but, for you, how dare you make this shameless comparison? Can your heart suffer your tongue to say, that there is no more difference betwixt Rome and us, than there is betwixt us and you? How many hundred errors, how many damnable heresies have we evinced, with you, in that, so compounded, Church! Shew us but one mis-opinion in our Church, that you can prove within the ken of the foundation. Let not zeal make you impudent.

Your Doctor could say, ingenuously sure, that "In the doctrines which she professeth, she is far better and purer than that Whore Mother of Rome:" and your last Martyr, yet better: "If you mean," saith he", "by a Church, as the most do, that public profession whereby men do profess salvation to be had by the death and righteousness of Jesus Christ, I am free from denying any Church of Christ to be in this land: for I know the doctrine touching the Holy Trinity, the Natures and Offices of the Lord Jesus, free Justification by him, both the Sacraments, &c. published by her Majesty's authority and commanded by her laws, to be the Lord's blessed and undoubted truths, without the knowledge and profession whereof no salvation is to be had." Thus he, with some honesty, though little sense.

If, therefore, your will do not stand in your light, you may well see, why we should thus forsake their communion, and yet not you ours.

Yet, though their corruptions be incomparably more, we have not dared to separate so far from them, as you have done from us for less 9. Still we hold them even a Visible Church; but unsound, sick, dying: sick, not of a consumption only, but of a leprosy or plague (so is the Papacy to the Church): diseases, not more deadly, than infectious. If they be not rather in Sardis' taking; of whom the Spirit of God saith, Thou hast a name that thou livest, but thou art dead; and yet, in the next words, bids them awake, and strengthen the things which are ready to die; Rev. iii. 1, 2.

And, though our judgment and practice have forsaken their erroneous doctrines and service; yet our charity, if you take that former distinction, hath not utterly forsaken and condemned their persons. This is not our coolness; but equality: your reprobation of us for them hath not more zeal, than headstrong uncharitableness.

• Counterp. p. 171.

P I. Penry. Éxam. before M. Fanshaw and Just. Young.

9 Fr. Jun. 1. de Eccles. M. Hooker, Eccles. Pol. Du Plesses, I. de Eccl. Jacob. Armin. Disput. D. Reynolds, Thes. D. Field, Of the Church.

SECT. 23.

The Separation made by our holy Martyrs.

Sep.-" And were not Luther, Zuinglius, Cranmer, Latimer, and the rest begot to the Lord in the womb of the Romish Church? Did they not receive the knowledge of his truth, when they stood actual members of it? whom, notwithstanding, afterwards they forsook; and that justly, for her forni

cations."

BUT how could you, without blushing, once name Cranmer, Latimer, and those other holy martyrs, which have been so oft objected to the conviction of your schism?

Those Saints so forsook the Romish Church, as we have done; died witnesses of God's truth in that Church, from which you are separated; lived, preached, governed, shed their blood in the communion of the Church of England, which you disclaim and condemn as no Church of God, as merely Antichristian.

Either, of necessity, they were no martyrs, yea, no Christians, or else your separations and censures of us are wicked. Choose whether you will.

They were in the same case with us: we are in the same case with them; no difference, but in the time. Either their blood will be upon your heads, or your own. This Church had then the same constitution, the same confusion, the same worship, the same ministry, the same government (which you brand with Antichristianism) swayed by the holy hands of these men of God: condemn them, or allow us.

For their Separation, they found many main errors of doctrine in the Church of Rome (in the Papacy, nothing but errors) worth dying for: shew us one such in ours, and we will not only approve your Separation, but imitate it.

SECT. 24.

What Separation England hath made.

Sep." But here, in the name of the Church of England, you wash your hands of all Babylonish abominations; which you pretend you have forsaken, and her for and with them. And, in this regard, you speak thus:-The Reformation you have made of the many and main corruptions of the Romish Church we do ingenuously acknowledge; and do, withal, embrace with you all the truths, which to our knowledge you have received instead of them. But Rome was not built all in a day."

VOL. X.

E

THE Church of England doth not now wash her hands of Babylonish abominations; but rather shews they are clean. Would God they were no more foul with your slander, than her own Antichristianism! Here will be found, not pretences, but proofs of our forsaking Babylon; of your forsaking us, not so much as well-coloured pretences.

You begin to be ingenuous; while you confess a Reformation in the Church of England: not of some corruptions, but many; and those many not slight, but main.

"The gifts of adversaries are thankless." As Jerome said of his Ruffinus; so may we of you, that you wrong us with praises. This is no more praise, than your next page gives to Antichrist himself. Leave out "many;" and, though your commendations be more uncertain, we shall accept it: so your indefinite proposition shall sound to us as general, That we have reformed the main corruptions of the Romish Church. None therefore remain upon us, but slight and superficial blemishes. So you have forsaken a Church of foul skin, but of a sound heart; for want of beauty, not of truth.

But you say "many," not "all;" that, if you can pick a quarrel with one, you might reject all. Yet shew us that one main and substantial error, which we have not reformed: and you do not more embrace those truths with us, which we have received; than we will condemn that falsehood which you have rejected, and embrace the truth of that separation which you have practised.

Sep.-"The Mystery of Iniquity did advance itself by degrees: and, as the rise was, so must the fall be. That Man of Sin, and Lawless Man, must languish and die away of a consumption; 2 Thes. ii. 3, 7, 8. And what though many of the highest towers of Babel and of the strongest pillars also be demolished and pulled down, yet may the building stand still, though tottering to and fro, as it doth, and only under-propped and upheld with the shoulder and arm of flesh; without which, in a very moment it would fall flat upon, and lie level with the earth.'

THE degrees, whereby that Strumpet of Babylon got on horseback, you have learned of us: who have both learned and taught, that, as Christ came not abruptly into the world, but with many presages and prefigurations (the day was long dawning ere this sun arose); so his adversary, that Antichrist,

* Εκθρῶν δῶρα άδωρα.

Hieron. Apol. advers. Ruffin. 1. i. Missu est mihi laudatio tua; id est, ac-
Bonum ex integrá naturá : malum ex singulari defectu.

cusatio mea.

breaks not suddenly upon the Church, but comes with much preparation and long expectance.

And, as his rise, so his fall must be gradual and leisurely. Why say you then, that the whole Church, every where, must, at once, utterly fall off from that Church, where that Man of Sin sitteth? His fall depends on the fall of others, or rather their rising from under him. If neither of these must be sudden, why is your haste?

But this must not be; yet ought: as there must be heresies, yet there ought not. It is one thing, what God hath secretly decreed; another, what must be desired of us. If we could pull that Harlot from her seat, and put her to Jezebel's death, it were happy. Have we not endeavoured it?

What speak you of the highest towers, and strongest pillars, or tottering remainders of Babylon? we shew you all her roofs bare; her walls razed; her vaults digged up; her monuments defaced; her altars sacrificed to desolation; shortly, all her buildings demolished, not a stone upon a stone, save in rude heaps, to tell that here once was Babylon. Your strife goes about to build again that her Tower of Confusion. God divides your languages. It will be well, if yet you build not more than we have reserved.

SECT. 25.

The Main Grounds of Separation.

Sep.-" You have renounced many false doctrines in Popery; and, in their places, embraced the truth."

You will now be free, both in your profession and gift.

You give us to have renounced many false doctrines in Popery, and to have embraced so many truths: we take it, until more.

You profess where you stick, what you mislike: in those four famous heads, which you have learned by heart from all your predecessors; a hateful Prelacy, a devised Ministry, a confused and profane Communion, and, lastly, the intermixtures of grievous Errors.

The Prelacy of the Church of England.

Sep.-"But what if this truth be taught under the same hateful Prelacy, in the same devised office of Ministry, and confused Communion of the profane multitude, and that mingled with many Errors?"

WHAT if this truth were taught under a hateful Prelacy? Suppose it were so; must I not embrace the truth, because I

'Bar. and Gr. against Gyff, Confer. et Exam. passim. Penry, in his Exam.