Chapter III: Part 3

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.