The Proof of the Third Argument

I need not stand to prove the proposition; the assumption is rather to be confirmed: which first I will prove by induction of particulars. 1. That a man should be justified by works is an opinion settled in nature, as may appear in them that crucified our Savior Christ: for when they were pricked in their hearts at Peter's sermon, they said, Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved, and this said the young man before named, not what should I believe, but what should I do to be saved: for in them it appears that it is a natural opinion of all men to think that they must be saved by doing of something. A Papist will say, though this be natural thus to think, yet it may be good: for there is some goodness in nature.

I answer, that the wisdom of the flesh is enmity to God's wisdom (Romans 8:7), and all men by nature are nothing but flesh, for naturally they are the children of wrath. 2. The worshiping of God in images is a great matter in the Church of Rome: but this manner of worshiping is nothing but a work of the flesh, which thus I prove: idolatry is natural, and a work of the flesh, but to worship God in images is idolatry. The children of Israel when they erected the golden calf, they did commit idolatry, and yet they did not worship the calf itself, but God in the calf. For when the calf was made, they proclaimed a holiday, not to the calf, but to the Lord. And Baal, that detestable idol, was nothing but the image of God, as appears in Hosea the prophet. At that day, says the Lord, you shall call me no more Baal (Hosea 2:16).

It remains therefore, that to serve God in an image is a work of the flesh, and altogether agrees to the vile corruption of nature. 3. Pride, and a desire to be advanced above others, is a natural corruption: to this agrees the Pope's primacy, his double sword, and triple crown; indeed the outrageous pomp of that seat is as a pair of bellows to kindle the concupiscence, and to make the hidden sparks of pride to break out into a great flame. 4. Doubting of God's providence and mercy is a natural corruption in all men: to this agrees, and from here issues that foolish and vain opinion, concerning doubting of our salvation, and of the remission of sin. 5. Self-love, and self-liking, are natural corruptions: to this agrees that doctrine of the Papists, not overmuch to abase ourselves, but to maintain free will by nature, and to think that we have so much goodness, that we are able to prepare ourselves to receive and in some sort to merit grace. 6. Idleness and riotousness is a corruption natural, and to it very fitly answers the great number of feasts, of holidays, of half holidays which the Church of Rome uses. 7. Covetousness is a natural corruption, and to the feeding of this vice serves Purgatory, a fire of great gain, which in very truth, if it had not burned very hot, the fire in the Pope's kitchen had burned very cold: hitherto serve pilgrimages, saying of masses, and selling of pardons for money. 8. To be at liberty is the desire of nature: answerable to this is that opinion, that the spirituality is to be exempted from subjection to magistrates. 9. To commit adultery is natural: to this agrees the stewes, and the permission of simple fornication. 10. Ignorance is a filthy corruption in nature: this the Church of Rome makes the mother of devotion, and it is enjoined the lay man as a means of his salvation: for he must believe as the Church believes, he is not bound to know. 11. Infidelity is natural, and to this agrees that they call upon saints and angels, the Lord having commanded them to call upon him in the name of Christ — what argues this else, but hearts distrusting God's goodness, and guilty consciences. 12. Images in the Church of Rome came from infidelity, because men in reason could not persuade themselves that God was present unless that were made manifest by some sign and image. Which thing the Israelites declared, when they said to Aaron in the wilderness in Moses' absence, Make us gods to go before us. 13. Satisfactions for sin are natural: for wicked men when they have offended God, they have always used some ceremonies to pacify God with, which when they have performed, they think they have done enough. 14. The Church of Rome says, that the Scriptures are dark and obscure: the blind man finds fault with the darkness of the sun; if the Scriptures appear to any to be obscure, the fault is not in the Scriptures, but in the blindness of the mind of him who reads and hears them. 15. Lastly, pardons open a gap to all licentiousness: therefore they agree to man's corrupt nature: for who almost will not sin, when he may get a pardon for his sins, for a little piece of money, as twenty shillings, or four nobles.

It is natural to a man to serve God in certain ceremonies, without the power of godliness: and this service is prescribed by the religion of the Church of Rome, which stands only in outward and corporal ceremonies, as the outward succession of bishops, garments, vestures, gestures, colors, choice of meat, difference of days, times, and places, hearing, seeing, saying, touching, tasting, numbering of beads, gilding and worshipping of images, building monasteries, rising at midnight, silence in cloisters, abstaining from flesh and white meat. Fasting in Lent, keeping Ember days, hearing Mass and divine service, seeing and adoring the body in the form of bread, receiving holy water, and holy bread, creeping to the Cross, carrying palms, taking ashes, bearing candles, pilgrimage going, censing, kneeling, knocking, altars, super-altars, candlesticks, pardons: in orders crossing, anointing, shaving, forswearing marriage; in Baptism, salting, crossing, spitting, exorcising, washing of hands: at Easter, confession, dirge, satisfaction, and in receiving with a new shaven [reconstructed: priest], to imagine a body where they [reconstructed: stand], though he were there present to be seen — the outward seeing and touching of him without faith conduces no more than it did to the Jews. At Rogation days to carry banners, to follow the Cross, to walk about the fields; after Pentecost to go about with the Corpus Christi play. At Hallowmas to watch in the church, to say a dirge or commendation, and to ring for all souls, to pay tithes truly, to give to the high altar. And if a man will be a priest to say Mass and Matins, to serve the saint of that day, and to lift well over the head. In sickness to be anointed, to take his rites, after his death to have funeral and obits said for him, and to be rung for at his funeral, months mind, and year mind: this is the sum of the Catholic religion, standing in bodily actions, not in any motion or work of the Holy Ghost working in the heart.

The Moral Law containing perfect righteousness is flatly opposite to man's corrupt nature: therefore whatever religion shall repeal and make of no effect the commandments of the Moral Law, that same religion must needs join hands with the corruption of nature, and stand for the maintenance of it. This does the religion of the Church of Rome: it may be, it does not plainly repeal them, yet in effect it does: and if it shall frustrate but any one point of any one commandment, the whole commandment — indeed, the whole law thereby is made in vain. The first commandment requires that we have the true Jehovah for our only God: the Church of Rome makes other gods besides this true God: it makes the body of Christ to be God, because they hold it may be in many places, in heaven, in earth, at the same time, which thing is only proper to God. It makes every saint departed to be God, because it holds that saints do hear us now being upon the earth, and that they know our thoughts when we pray to them, which none but the true God can do. It makes the Pope to be God, and that in plain words. Pope Nicholas says, "Constat, summum Pontificem a pio principe Constantino Deum appellari" — it is well known that the Pope by the godly Prince Constantine was called God. Again, in the extravagants of the same Canon law it is written, "Dominus Deus noster Papa" — Our Lord God the Pope. And again, Christopher Marcellus said to the Pope, "Tu es alter deus in terris" — you are another God upon earth: and the Pope took it to himself. As the Pope in plain words is made God, so the power given to him declares the same. He can make holy that which is unholy, and justify the wicked and pardon sins: he may dispense contrary to the saying of an apostle: he can change the nature of things, and of nothing make something. What is all this, but to place the Pope in God's room, and to rob the Lord of his majesty.

Again, the Church of Rome makes Mary the mother of Jesus to be as God. In the breviary reformed and published at the commandment of Pius, she is called a goddess, in express words: and she is further termed the Queen of heaven, the Queen of the world, the gate of heaven, the mother of grace and mercy: indeed she is far exalted above Christ, and he in regard of her is made but a poor underling in heaven: for Papists in their service to her they pray in this manner, saying: Show yourself to be a mother: and cause your son to receive our prayers: set free the captives and give light to the blind. Lastly the very Cross is made as a God. For they salute it by the name of their only hope, and pray it to increase justice to the godly, and to give sinners pardon. Therefore the Church of Rome, besides the one true God distinguished into three persons — the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost — makes also many others, and so in truth has repealed this first commandment.

And they have very plainly repealed the second commandment in that they teach it lawful to make images of the true God, and to worship him in them. For the flat contrary is the very scope of this commandment: namely that no image must be made of the true Jehovah, nor any worship be performed to him in an image: which appears thus. In Deuteronomy Moses makes a large commentary of this commandment, and this very point he sets down expressly, saying, take heed to yourselves: for you saw no image in the day that the Lord spoke to you in Horeb, out of the midst of the fire: that you corrupt not yourselves, and make you a graven image or representation of any figure, etc. His argument I set down thus: as God appeared in Mount Horeb, so he is to be conceived and represented: but he appeared in no image in Mount Horeb, only his voice was heard: therefore he is not to be conceived or represented in any image: but men are to be content, if they may hear his voice. Again, that sin to which the people of Israel were especially given — even that does the Lord especially forbid: but to this were the people of Israel especially given, not so much to make images of false gods, as to make images of the true God, and to worship him in them: which I prove thus.

In the book of Judges it is said that the children of Israel did wickedly in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim. Now these Baalim, what are they? Surely idols resembling the true God, as the prophet Hosea declares, and at that day says the Lord you shall call me Ishai, and shall call me no more Baali. Here it appears that the Israelites' meaning was not to worship a false God, but the true God in Baalim. And Aaron when he made the golden Calf proclaimed that the next day should be holy day, not of any false God but of the Lord that brought them out of Egypt. The prophet Isaiah after that he had set forth God's majesty very worthily, he comes in with this conclusion: To whom then will you liken God? Or what similitude will you set up of him? Which declares that the Jews after the manner of the Gentiles, ran a whoring after idols, that is images not only of false Gods, but also of the true God. I conclude therefore as I began, that the Church of Rome, by maintaining images, has repealed this commandment.

Neither does it show less favor to the third commandment: which also is repealed. First in that they teach men to give the glory which is proper to God, to something else: it is proper to God after the day of judgment to be all in all. This they give to Mary, saying that she is all in all.

It is proper to Christ in respect of other creatures to be a light enlightening all that come into the world, yet they pray to Mary to give light to the blind. It is proper to Christ to be the redeemer of mankind, and this work of redemption is ascribed to Mary, whom Papists call their hope, their joy, their mediatress, a medicine for the diseased, a defense from the enemy, a friend in the hour of death. Again they make Saint Martin a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, which is proper to Christ.

Secondly they hold that the people are to be barred from the reading of the Scriptures, unless it be in an unknown tongue, and so they maintain ignorance and the profaning of God's name. For the free preaching of the word, and therefore also the hearing, learning, reading, searching of it, is the glorifying of the word, and so the glorifying of God's name.

The fourth commandment is repealed in that they require that their feast days should be kept as solemnly as the Lord's Sabbath day. For they must be kept in all honor and comeliness: and men must rest from all their labors, from morning to evening, as on the Sabbath. Whereas contrarily, the Lord has given permission to his servants to labor the six days, so be it, on the seventh they will rest from the works of their callings, and do the works of the spirit.

They repeal the fifth commandment in that they teach that their clergy has an immunity, and therefore is not bound to perform obedience to Magistrates. For so they have decreed, that clerks are to be judged only of bishops: and that they are only to rescue them from injuries. Again that the bishop must not be judged of the secular power: and that the Pope himself owes no subjection to kings, princes, emperors, but has power to make them, and to put them down at his pleasure. But Saint Paul for the maintaining of the fifth commandment, bids every soul be subject to the higher powers: and therefore the Pope with his clergy (as Chrysostome has expounded it) must be subject to civil magistrates, unless they will exclude themselves out of the number of men, for Paul speaks to all.

Against the sixth commandment they have decreed asylums for murderers, plainly permitting them which fear authority to have safety in the lap of their mother the Church. Thus they annihilate God's commandment, indeed and more than this, where tends all that they teach but the very murdering of souls? For example, salvation by works of grace, is one of their chief [reconstructed: points]. But that man that is persuaded that he must be saved by his works, must also [reconstructed: put] his trust in them, and he which trusts [reconstructed: to] his works is accursed before God. For [reconstructed: Cursed] is that man that trusts in man, [reconstructed: whether it] be himself or other.

The seventh commandment is [reconstructed: repealed] in diverse ways. First in that they maintain the occasions of adultery and fornication: namely, the vow of single life both in men and women, when they have not received the gift from God to be continent. Which gift when they lack, and yet are bound to single life, they must needs break out into much looseness. This sin made Mantuan, Palingenius, and Petrarch to cry out against the Church of Rome. Again some Papists defend the toleration of the stews in Rome, for the avoiding of greater evils. And in the Council of Trent chastity and priests' marriage are made opposite, so that marriage with them is a filthy thing, although God has ordained it for the avoiding of fornication in all. Furthermore that which is most abominable and proves the Church of Rome to be an Antichristian Church: they maintain marriages within the degrees forbidden both by the law of nature, and of God's word. For in the table of consanguinity they which are placed in the transverse unequal line cannot marry, because they are as parents and children. Yet if they be distant four degrees on diverse sides from the common stock they may marry together by the canon law. As for example, the grand uncle may marry his sister's nephew's niece, a thing very filthy in nature considering that a man cannot marry with any honesty his sister's child. To go further, by God's word they which are distant four degrees in the transverse equal line may marry together, as cousins german. Thus the daughters of Zelophehad were married to [reconstructed: their] fathers' brothers' sons: this example I take it is warrant of the lawfulness of this marriage elsewhere. Yet the canon law condemns this marriage of cousins german, and the marriage of their children after them though they be eight degrees distant. Thus the Church of Rome does thwart the Lord: where he gives liberty they restrain it, and when he [reconstructed: restrains] men, then they give liberty.

They repeal the eighth commandment by their spiritual merchandise in which they sell those things which are not to be sold, as crosses to dead men, images, prayers, the sound of bells, remission of sins and the merits by which men may come to the kingdom of heaven. Their shaveling priests will do no duty unless they be paid with money, hence comes the [reconstructed: proverb], No penny no pater noster.

They teach men to bear false witness, and so to sin against the ninth commandment, in that they hold that Mary is the queen of heaven: whereas indeed she is no queen, but does continually cast down her crown before Christ with the rest of the saints (Revelation 7:11; 5:10). And a man may as well bear false witness in speaking too much as in speaking too little.

In the tenth commandment the first motions that go before consent are forbidden: otherwise there shall be no difference between it and the rest, for they also are spiritual, and forbid inward motions: but the difference is that they forbid only the motions that go with consent. Now, the Papists say that these motions are no sin properly unless consent follows: and therefore they in express words repeal this commandment. For if concupiscence and the first motions be no sins properly then there need no prohibition of them.