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THIS the Pharisees likewise alledged against our Lord Jesus Christ, and urged the same Prejudices. Mark 1. 27. They question among themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new Do∣ctrine is this? And, Acts 17. 19. St. Paul being brought to Areopagus, they demanded of him, May we know what this New Doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? So likewise this is the Tone of the Romish Do∣ctors, who call the Reformation an upstart Religion,
and say, that our Doctrine is new; and still are in∣sisting upon the thread-bare Question, Where was your Religion before Luther? As the Ancient Heathens no doubt would be almost perpetually questioning the Jews in the same manner, Where was your Reli∣gion before Abraham?
And the same Answer for substance will serve for our Defence, that would do for theirs. For as our Saviour said to the Pharisees, Whatever they may pretend about the Antiquity of their Religion, the like the Jews might say to the Heathen, and so we may say to the Church of Rome, That from the beginning it was not so. Idolatry, and the worship of Idols, was not from the beginning. So neither was the Mass, Purgatory, worship of Images, In∣vocation of Saints, believed or taught from the beginning of Christianity. But our Religion is as ancient as Christianity it self, as the Jewish Religion in worshipping the True God, in opposition to the Heathen Idolatry, was as old as that of Noah, or Enoch, or Adam. For we believe and receive no∣thing, as absolutely necessary to Salvation, but what our Saviour and his Apostles taught and deli∣vered to the World, and what is contained in the Ancient Creeds. But as the Worship of the one True God, and the True Religion, was grea••ly cor∣rupted in the Ancient Times, which Abraham was raised up to reform; and so his Reformation was new in comparison of the Abuses that were before. So indeed the Reformation of the Corruptions and Errors, which for many Ages had obtained in these Western Parts of the World, did not begin very long ago. And if this be accused of Novelty, we cannot help that, but are sorry it was no sooner. All Reformation is new, in comparison of the Abuses that went before; and so therefore was that set a••oot by Luther.
But how could this be remedied, unless there should be no Reformation at all; or because things are once ••ad, they should never be better? For they cannot be better without being reformed; and whenever a Reformation begins, it is certain∣ly New. So that the Question is, Whether those were Errors and Abuses which the Reformation cut off? and so whether it were a Reformation re∣ally or no? And if this be so, as may appear in part by the foregoing Treatise, then the Re∣formation justifies it self, though it was p••••y it had not been sooner. And all those Negative Articles, which we hold in opposition to the Er∣rors of the Church of Rome, and which now make up part of our Confession of Faith in opposition to those Errors, are only New because the Refor∣mation is New. And so it must be, whensoever Men renounce or protest against Errors, or unless they will err still.