you said your mass was a heap of idolatry, and the mystery of iniquity; you wished your voice had been equal to the great bell of Oseney, that you might ring, as you then said, in the dull ears of the deaf papists. No man was so vehement and so earnest as you. The whole university and city of Oxford, the cross at Paul's, and other like places of great concourse, can well record it. You bade us then believe you upon your credit, and we believed you. The prince died; another was placed. Suddenly you had quite forgotten all that you had taught us before, and had as suddenly learned other things, all contrary to the former; which you told us you never knew before, and yet with one faith and one conscience, you required us earnestly to believe you still, even as we had done before!

As though your bare word were the rule of our faith, and whatsoever you should say, true or false, we simple people were bound of necessity to believe you. Howbeit, we think, if you tell us truth now, then you deceived us before; if you told us truth before, then you deceive us now. And thus it cannot be denied but this way or that way you have deceived us. And how may we know whether you speak as you think, or dissemble with us now, as ye did before? Surely St. James showeth us, That a man of double mind is ever inconstant in all his ways.

We marvelled how you could attain to all this doctrine, especially in so short a time, but most of all in such perfection. For the writings are large, and we hear say the councils are sundry, the doctors' volumes are long and many. So suddenly, in seven days, to read them all, and so to read them, it was not possible. You may, by your eloquence, persuade us many things. But this one thing you never can persuade us. You wanted time; it is not credible; it was not possible. Therefore you must needs say you were taught these things, even as the prophets were, by revelation! If any of your old hearers should thus put you in remembrance, what answer could you make him?

But it was not you, Mr. Harding-it was the time. If the time had been one, you had still continued one. But you were forced to know that which you knew not; and to think that which you thought not, and so to believe that which you believed not. Howbeit Hilary saith, "Forced faith is no faith."

Oh, Mr. Harding, you know right well the weakness of your side. No man seeth it better than yourself. If you

will dissemble and say you see it not, open your eyes, behold your own book, and you shall see it. You have forced the

old doctors and ancient fathers to speak your mind and not their own. You should have brought some truth for proof of your purpose-the world will not now be led with lies.

These are cases not of wit but of faith, not of eloquence but of truth. Not invented or devised by us, but from the apostles and holy fathers, and founders of the church by long succession brought unto us. We are not the devisers thereof, but only the keepers; not the masters, but the scholars. Touching the substance of religion, we believe what the ancient, catholic, learned fathers believedwe do what they did; we say what they said. And marvel not in what side soever ye see them, if ye see us join to the same. It is our great comfort that we see their faith and our faith to agree in one. And we pity and lament your miserable case, that having of yourselves erected a doctrine contrary to all the ancient fathers, yet would thus assay to colour the same, and to deceive the people only with the names and titles of ancient fathers.

Cyprian saith, "Lies can never deceive us long. It is night until the day spring. But when the day appeareth, and the sun is up, both the darkness of the night, and the thefts and robberies that in the darkness were committed, are fain to give place." Now the sun is up, your smother is scattered. God with his truth will have the victory. The heavens and the earth shall perish, but the word of God shall never perish.

O, Mr. Harding, O fight no longer against God. It is hard to kick against the spur. To maintain a fault known, is a double fault. Untruth cannot be shielded but by untruth. Error cannot be defended but by error. And the mouth that speaketh untruth killeth the soul.

God direct our hearts that we be not ashamed of his gospel, but that we may see it, and be seen to see it. God make us the vessels of his mercy that we may have pity of Sion, and build up again the broken walls of his Jerusalem to the honour and glory of his holy name. Amen.

The following Extract is from Jewell's Reply to Harding's Answer.

ON THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.

To prove that the priest offereth up the Son of God, Mr. Harding hath here brought in Eusebius, an ancient father,

JEWELL.

36

who never once named any such oblation of the Son of God.-True it is, the ministration of the holy communion is often times by the old learned fathers called a sacrifice, not for that they thought the priest had authority to sacrifice the Son of God; but for that therein we offer up unto God thanks and praises for that great sacrifice once made upon the cross. So saith Augustine, "In this sacrifice is a thanksgiving, and a remembrance of the flesh of Christ, which he hath offered for us." Likewise Eusebius saith, "Christ after all things done, made a marvellous oblation and a passing sacrifice unto his Father (upon his cross) for the salvation of us all, giving unto us to offer continually unto God a remembrance instead of a sacrifice." So Nazianzen calleth the holy communion, "A figure of that great mystery of the death of Christ.”

This it is Eusebius calleth "the sacrifice of the Lord's table;" also," the sacrifice of praise." But Eusebius saith farther, "This sacrifice is dreadful, and causeth the heart to quake." Mr. Harding may not well gather by any force of these words, that the Son of God is really offered up by the priest unto his Father. For all things, whatsoever, that put us in remembrance of the majesty and judgments of God, are called dreadful by the holy fathers.

The sacrifice maketh the heart to tremble, for that therein is laid forth the mystery that was hidden from worlds and generations-the horror of sin: the death of the Son of God. That he took our heaviness, and bare our sorrows, and was wounded for our offences, and was rent and tormented for our wickedness; that he was carried like an innocent lamb unto the slaughter; that he cried unto his Father, “O God, O my God, why hast thou thus forsaken me?"

There we call to remembrance all the causes, and circumstances of Christ's death; the shame of the cross; the darkening of the air; the shaking of the earth; the rending of the vail; the cleaving of the rocks; the opening of the graves; the descending into hell; and the conquering of the devil. Therefore, Chrysostom saith, "Any man hearing of the order of that night, how Christ was mournful among his disciples, how he was delivered, how he was bound, how he was led away, how he was arraigned, and how meekly he suffered all that was done unto him; were he as hard as a stone, yet would he be as soft as wax, and would throw both the earth, and all earthly cogitations away from him.”

AN

EPISTLE

WRITTEN BY JOHN JEWELL,

BISHOP OF SARUM,

TO

SCIPIO, A GENTLEMAN OF VENICE,

IN ANSWER TO A LETTER IN WHICH THE LATTER COMPLAINS OF THE KINGDOM OF ENGLAND, FOR NOT AP

PEARING IN THE COUNCIL OF TRENT,

NOR EXCUSING THAT ABSENCE
BY LETTERS.

THIS letter has been briefly noticed in the life of Jewell p. 18. It is inserted in the present collection, as it contains a valuable exposure of the papal proceedings relative to the council of Trent, and a full statement of the unanswerable reasons that could be urged, even to a Romanist, on his own grounds, against the authority assumed by that council, which in reality was merely a political engine whereby the court of Rome farther established its power, both in civil and ecclesiastical affairs. A collection of the writings of the British Reformers would not be complete without some notice of that celebrated assembly.

In the early part of the sixteenth century, the corruptions of the church of Rome were advanced to such a height, that all Europe called for a reform in ecclesiastical affairs. When the Reformation, under Luther and his coadjutors had made some progress, this desire was still more strongly expressed; and many, both Protestants and Romanists, desired that a general council might be assembled, to make some settlement as to the disputed points of religion, and to remove the most crying abuses of popery. The court of Rome was very averse to such a measure; several successive popes endeavoured, by all the means in their power, to interpose obstacles to the meeting of a general council, remembering how the papal authority had been interfered with by the councils of Constance and Basil, not many years before. At length, however, they found that such an assembly could not be longer deferred. Their policy then was, that it should be so conducted as to be the means of strengthening their usurpations, and to confirm erroneous doctrine, rather than to promote reform, or advance the chris

tian faith. The artful intrigues to which the court of Rome had recourse with these views, are fully exposed by father Paul in his History of the council of Trent, and in other works; they are incontestably proved by many documents which cannot be denied, or disputed by papists. These intrigues were successful, the chains by which the church of Rome has so long enthralled a large portion of the world, were rivetted more firmly by the decrees of the council. By them, the errors of that apostate church were moulded into a more plausible form, although none of its extravagant and wicked pretensions were condemned or laid aside. This was the LAST general council, and to its decrees, with the unscriptural principles and practices they authorize, every Romanist virtually declares allegiance. They may at all times be referred to as the AUTHORIZED opinions and doctrines of that corrupt church. It is true that many estimable individuals, professing to be Romanists, do not admit that they hold some of these errors, but they only prove thereby that on such points they themselves dissent from the church of Rome, not that the more moderate and correct views they entertain are become the doctrines of popery. The penalties which they would suffer for such dissent where the papal power has full authority, are well known, and if ever that power were again preeminent in England, it would bear most severely upon many who profess themselves to be its subjects as "English Catholics." Thus in the THE DECREES OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, we find the errors of the church of Rome, from the denial of justification by faith in Christ alone, to the adoration of saints, of the virgin, and of a wafer cake-from the punishment of death denounced against all who differ from its opinions, to the prohibition of the use of the word of God by the laity without license from priestly authority,—all are directly set forth, and sanctioned. To THESE DECREES, the protestant may refer, as containing a full exhibition of the reasons, "Why he will NOT be a papist," and from these DECREES, with the errors they set forth and sanction, no Romanist can appeal. Private judgment is not allowed him, and there is no superior authority recognised or admitted by his church

Only a very brief sketch of the council of Trent can be here given. The political intrigues of the powers by whom it was conducted and influenced; the unblushing profligacy, and the wickedness of life openly exhibited by the prelates who attended; the small proportion of the professedly christian world by which it was supported, all must be left to the historians of that council. It met in 1545, after an abortive attempt to procure a sufficient attendance two years before. It did not sit at Trent long without interruption, but in that period the famous, or rather infamous, decree respecting the scriptures was passed, although the cardinals and bishops then in attendance scarcely exceeded fifty, nearly all of whom were Italians, and on other occasions