touching the first, Gregorius de Valentia, one of your principal champions, confesseth, that the use of receiving the sacrament in one kind began first in some churches, and grew to be a general custom in the Latin Church not much before the council of Constance, in which at last (to wit, two hundred years ago) this custom was made a law. But if you put the question to him as you do to us, What bishop of Rome did first bring in this custom? he giveth you this answer, that it "began to be used, not by the decree of any bishop, but by the very use of the churches, and the consent of the faithful." If you further question with him, "Quando primum vigere cœpit ea consuetudo in aliquibus ecclesiis? when first did that custom get footing in some churches?" he returneth you for answer, "Minime constat :" it is more than he can tell. The like doth Fisher bishop of Rochester, and cardinal' Cajetan, give us to understand of indulgences; that no certainty can be had, what their original was, or by whom they were first brought in. Fisher also further addeth concerning purgatory: that in the ancient fathers there is either none at all, or very rare mention of it; that by the Grecians it is not believed, even to this day; that the Latins also, not all at once but by little and little, received it: and that, purgatory being so lately known, it is not to be marvelled, that in the first times of the Church there was no use of indulgences; seeing these had their beginning, after that men for a while had been affrighted with the torments of purgatory. Out of which confession of the adverse part you may observe: 1. What little reason these men have, to require us to set down the precise time wherein all their prophane novelties were first brought in: seeing that this is more than they themselves are able to do. 2. That some of them may come in pedetentim (as Fisher acknowledgeth purgatory did) by little and little, and by very slow steps, which are not so easy to be dis d Valent. de legit. usu euchar. cap. 10. e Roffen. assert. Lutheran. confutat. artic. 18. ! Cajet, opusc. tom. 1. tract. 15. de indulgent. cap. 1. cerned, as fools be borne in hand they are. 3. That it is a fond imagination, to suppose that all such changes must be made by some bishop, or any one certain author: whereas it is confessed, that some may come in by the tacit consent of many, and grow after into a general custom, the beginning whereof is past man's memory. And as some superstitious usages may draw their original from the indiscreet devotion of the multitude, so some also may be derived from want of devotion in the people; and some alterations likewise must be attributed to the very change of time itself. Of the one we cannot give a fitter instance, than in your private mass, wherein the priest receiveth the sacrament alone: which Hardingh fetcheth from no other ground, than "lack of devotion of the people's part." When you therefore can tell us, in what pope's days the people fell from their devotion; we may chance tell you, in what pope's days your private mass began. An experiment of the other we may see in the use of the Latin service in the churches of Italy, France, and Spain. For if we be questioned, When that use first began there? and further demanded, Whether' the language, formerly used in their liturgy, was changed upon a sudden? our answer must be, that Latin service was used in those countries from the beginning: but that the Latin tongue at that time was commonly understood of all; which afterward by little and little degenerated into those vulgar languages which now are used. When you therefore shall be pleased to certify us, in what pope's days the Latin tongue was changed into the Italian, French, and Spanish, which we pray you do for our learning; we will then give you to understand, that from that time forward the language, not of the service, but of the people, was altered. "Nec enim lingua vulgaris populo So saith Bonfrerius, the Jesuit, of the vulgar Latin edition of the Bible. Pedetentim usu ipso et tacita doctorum approbatione cœpit esse in pretio, hac æstimatione sensim sine sensu crescente. præloqu. in scriptur. cap. 15. sec. 2. h Hard. answer to the first article of Jewell's challenge. fol. 26. b. edit. Antwerp. ann. 1565. Allen. artic. 11. demand. 9. subtracta est, sed populus ab ea recessit, saith Erasmus*, the vulgar tongue was not taken away from the people; but the people departed from it." If this which I have said will not satisfy you; I would wish you call unto your remembrance the answer, which Arnobius sometimes gave, to a foolish question propounded by the enemies of the Christian faith: "Nec' si nequivero causas vobis exponere, cur aliquid fiat illo, vel hoc modo, continuo sequitur, ut infecta fiant quæ facta sunt." And consider whether I may not return the like answer unto you. If I be not able to declare unto you by what bishop of Rome, and in what pope's days, the simplicity of the ancient faith was first corrupted; it will not presently follow, that what was done must needs be undone. Or rather, if you please, call to mind the parable in the Gospel, where "the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man, which sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way." These that slept took no notice, when or by whom the tares were scattered among the wheat; neither at the first rising did they discern betwixt the one and the other, though they were awake. But "when" the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares:" and then they put the question unto their master; "Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?" Their master indeed telleth them, it was the enemy's doing: but you could tell them otherwise, and come upon them thus. You yourselves grant, that the seed which was first sown in this field was good seed, and such as was put there by your master himself. If this which you call tares be no good grain, and hath sprung from some other seed than that which was sown here at first; I would fain know that man's name, who was the sower of it; and likewise the time in which it was * Erasm. in declarationib. ad censuras Parisiens. tit. 12. sec. 41. 1 Arnob. lib. 2. contra gentes. n Mat. chap. 13. ver. 26, 27. Mat. chap. 13. ver. 24, 25. sown. Now you being not able to shew either the one or the other, it must needs be that your eyes here deceive you: or if these be tares, they are of no enemy's, but of your master's own sowing. 66 To let pass the slumberings of former times, we could tell you of an age, wherein men not only slept, but also snorted it was, if you know it not, the tenth from Christ, the next neighbour to that wherein hell broke loose. That "unhappy" age," as Genebrard, and other of your own writers term it, exhausted both of men of account for wit and learning, and of worthy princes and bishops." In which there were "no famous writers, nor councils;" than which, if we will credit Bellarmine, there was never age "more unlearned and unhappy." If I be not able to discover what feats the devil wrought in that time of darkness, wherein men were not so vigilant in marking his conveyances; and such as might see somewhat, were not so forward in writing books of their observations: must the infelicity of that age, wherein there was little learning, and less writing, yea, which "for want of writers," as cardinal Baronius acknowledgeth, "hath been usually named the obscure age;" must this, I say, enforce me to yield, that the devil brought in no tares all that while, but let slip the opportunity of so dark a night, and slept himself for company? There are other means left unto us, whereby we may discern the tares brought in by the instruments of Satan, from the good seed which was sown by the apostles of Christ; beside this observation of times and seasons, which will often fail us. "Ipsa' doctrina eorum," saith Tertullian, "cum apostolica comparata, ex diversitate et contrarietate sua pronuntiabit, neque apostoli alicujus auctoris esse, neque apostolici: their very doctrine itself, being compared with the apostolic, by the Apoc. chap. 20. ver. 7. p Infelix dicitur hoc seculum, exhaustum hominibus ingenio et doctrina claris, sive etiam claris principibus et pontificibus. Genebr. chron. lib. 4. p Bellarm, in chronol. ann. 970. r Id. de Rom. pontif. lib. 4. cap. 12. Baron. annal, tom. 10. ann. 900, sec. 1. diversity and contrariety thereof, will pronounce that it had for author neither any apostle nor any man apostolical." For there cannot be a better prescription against heretical novelties, than that which our Saviour Christ useth against the Pharisees; " From" the beginning it was not so:" nor a better preservative against the infection of seducers, that are "crept in unawares," than that which is prescribed by the apostle Jude", "earnestly to contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." Now to the end we might know the certainty of those things, wherein the saints were at the first instructed, God hath provided, that the memorial thereof should be recorded in his own book, that it might remain "for the time to come, for ever and ever." He then who out of that book is able to demonstrate, that the doctrine and practice now prevailing swerveth from that, which was at first established in the Church by the apostles of Christ, doth as strongly prove, that a change hath been made in the middle times, as if he were able to nominate the place where, the time when, and the person by whom any such corruption was first brought in. In the apostles' days, when a man had examined himself, he was admitted unto the Lord's table, there to "eat of that bread, and drink of that cup :" as appeareth plainly from the first to the Corinthians. In the Church of Rome at this day, the people are indeed permitted to eat of the bread (if bread they may call it); but not allowed to drink of the cup. Must all of us now shut our eyes, and sing, "Sicut erat in principio, et nunc :" unless we be able to tell by whom, and when this first institution was altered? By St. Paul's order, who would have all things done to edification, Christians should pray with "understanding," and not in an unknown language: as may be seen in the fourteenth chapter of the same epistle to the Corinthians. The case is now so altered, that the bringing in of a tongue not understood, which hindered the u Matt. chap. 19. ver. 8. "Luke, chap. 1. ver. 4. chap. 11. ver. 28. V Jude, ver. 3, 4. * Isa. chap. 30, ver. 8. 2 As it was in the beginning so now |