A reply to Fulke, In defense of M. D. Allens scroll of articles, and booke of purgatorie. By Richard Bristo Doctor of Diuinitie ... perused and allowed by me Th. Stapleton.

* 1.119 Kinges.

My 19. Demaund is of the Christian Emperours and Kinges, of whose conuersion together the Scripture speaketh expresly, and of the conuersion of Nations. The chiefe of them Fulke na∣meth here cap. 2. and confesseth (with vs and for vs) that they were of the true Church in the first 600. yeares: yea and chalen∣geth them to haue bene of his Religion, no lesse then we doe. But what proufes doth he bring thereof? Not one. Neither doth he answere so much as any one of our proufes, no not that which D. Allen alleageth,* 1.2 how Constantinus honored the Sentence of the Priestes Councell (at Nice) tanquam a deo prolatam, as pro∣nounced of God.* 1.3 Ruff. li. 1. ca. 5. yea he is faine to confesse, that in the burial of Constantinus him selfe, the very first Christian Em∣perour,* 1.4 there was prayer for his soule, according to the errour of the time, being the time of the first Nicen Counsell. In Eusebius is much more, Sacrifice also for his soule, with the intercession of the Apostles, in whose honor it was offered at their Relikes,

in their Temple,* 1.5 and all by the procurement of Constātinus him self. Again, That the Emperour Theodosius Iunior prayed for his fathers and mothers soules, Arcadius and Eudoria. But the storie saith not (quoth he) that he prayed to S. Chrysostome for them, as M. Allen thinketh. The storie is Theodorets, and his words are these:* 1.6 And he setting his face and eyes vpon the shrine of that holy man, made supplications for his parentes, and prayed (him) vt veniam illis tribueret, that he would pardon them the iniuries which of ignorance they had done him in working his death. Againe, as touching Honorius of the west, brother to the said Arcadius of the East, wher S. Ambrose saith,

Eius principis (The∣odosij Senioris) et proximè conclamauimus Obitum, et nunc quadragesimum diem celebramus, assistente sacris Altaribus Honorio Principe, We finished of late (vpon the seuenth day) this Princes Obite (Theodotius Senior their father) and now we ce∣lebrate his fourtyth day, our Prince Honorius standing by the sacred Altares. To this Fulke had nothing, but partly to repre∣hend the thing as superstitious both in the Bishop and in the Em∣perour, partely to inueigh blindly against D. Allens translation.

For Ambrose speaketh not (he saith) of his fortyth dayes minde, but of the solemnitie of his funerall kept 40. dayes togeather. As though the fortyth day is not one of the fortie, and yet also how playnly he expresseth the singulare solemnitie of the fortyth day, as of the Obite before, saying,

And now we celebrate his fortyth day

, whereas others vse to kepe the Thirde day and the Thir∣tith, (which was and is the vse of the Romane Church:) But the Church of Millaine kept the seuenth day, and the fortyth.

Al this considered, who seeth not, that aswel the Catholike Em∣perours within the first 600. yeres be against him, as the others of later tymes: and therefore that it is but a cast of his facing & deceiuing arte, that he saith:* 1.7 Before the generall Defection (and Reuelation of Antichrist) it is an easye matter to name you the Emperours and Princes of our Church, as Constantine the great,* 1.8 Iouinianus, Valentinianus, Theodosius, Arcadius, Honorius, Martianus, Iustinianus, Mauritius, & diuers other. But when the Kings of the earth had cōmitted fornicatiō with the great Whore of Babylō (as the holy ghost foresheweth Apo. 17. & 18.) it is no preiudice to our cause, if we cannot shew any of them, that haue

maintained our Religion. Your malicious and ignorāt setting of the Defection & Antichrists reuealing, at the yere 607, I haue cōfuted cap. 8. pag. 126. by the Scriptures most manifestly. But that you poynt the same time for the Kinges of the earth to haue fornicated with her, your ignorance and malice surmounteth it selfe, as it is euidēt by that which I say there pag. 126. that Ba∣bylon is this world frō the beginning to the ending thereof, and called a Whore for that it hath such alluremēts, wherevpon the same S. Iohn exhorteth vs in his Epistle,* 1.9 and saith:

Loue not the world nor the thinges that are in the world. The world is transi∣torie, and also the cōcupiscence of it.

And therefore in his Apoca∣lipse, he maketh her to sit vpon all the earthly & worldly Kinges that euer tooke or shall take her parte against Gods Church. But your blindnes could finde no earthly Kinges in the world but within these last 900. yeares: yea none to be the Kinges of the Earth, but those that be the Kinges of the Church, and their for∣nicatiō to consist In humbly adoring her,* 1.10

& licking the very dust of her feete

, which they are cōmaunded by the Prophet to do vn∣der paine of Damnation.* 1.11 And thereupon D. Allen told you, that to be the true Church, Which exerciseth Discipline vpon offen∣ders in all degrees, And that al true the Christian Kings haue and doe obey her accordingly: which is an vnuincible argument for vs against you, in this Demaund.

And yet you haue Kings on your side, also since the Reuelation of Antichrist:* 1.12 The Grecian Emperours that were Image-brea∣kers: Charles the great, who wrote a booke against Images, and called Bertrame to declare his mind vpon the Real presence and transubstantiation: and those Princes that defended their maried Priests. But least we should obiect, that it was but in one or two poynts, that these did fauour you: Edward the third defended Wickleue. Also Zisca & Procopius defended the Bohemians: and George king of Bohemia was depriued of his kingdome by the Pope, for defending the Protestants An. 1466. Which is wel to∣wards an hundred yeres before y^e name of Protestants (by your own confession here Dem. 8.) and much more before the religion of the Protestants, was coyned. For though you say, Wickleue, I wene, you will not deny but he was of our Church and Religion, yet you may sée in my 40. Dem. that in déede he was not, neither

also the Bohemians or Hussits. But that Edward the third was a Wickleuist, who euer heard? though I denie not, but that Ca∣tholike Princes are often times passing negligent in their office and othe, to extirpate Heresies, vntill by God and his Churches admonition on the one side, and by the wast (on thother side) that Heretikes in time doe make both spiritually and temporally of all Common wealthes, they be spurred therevnto. The like ab∣surd ignoraunce in stories, or rather malice, you and your bre∣thren declare, in saying that fonde booke against Images to be Charles the greates, who was cleane contrarie,* 1.13 an enimie of the Image-breakers, as is at large & learnedly declared in M. Copes Dialogues. Neither is it Carolus Magnus, but Carolus rex, brother to Lotharius the Emperor An. 840. (by Trithemius) to whō Bertrame wrote De corpore & sanguine Domini. Neither was that (as the learned thinke for good causes) this Hereticall booke which Oecolampadius set foorth vnder Bertrames name. And is not this a substantiall reason, He declared that he liked not the Real presence and Transubstantiation, in that he called Bertrame to declare his mind of that matter? How much better may I reason, that both the Emperour or King, and all Christen∣dome held the Real presence and transubstantiation, because this Bertrame durst not but so timerously & about the bush (after the maner of all heretikes in the beginning) go against it, as we sée in that booke? No no, syr: As I said before of Nations, so I say of Princes: If any were euerted, he might in some thing fall on your side. But those Princes in al countries that were cōuerted from Paganisme, & also their Successors, that continued in their steppes, were in no poynt yours, but ours in all things.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Motiue 41. Article 10.
• * 1.2

  Pur. 429.
• * 1.3

  Pur. 313.
• * 1.4

  Eus. in vita Const. li. 4 c. 58.59.60.66.71.
• * 1.5

  Pur. 312.
• * 1.6

  Hist. Trip. li. 10. c. 26. ex Theo. l. 5. c. 35.36 Pur. 222.226. Amb. super obitum Theod.
• * 1.7

  Ar. 33.51.
• * 1.8

  See the impu∣dent Heretike, them vvh••m he condemned be∣fore.
• * 1.9

  1. Ioan 2.
• * 1.10

  Esa. 49.60.
• * 1.11

  Ar. 17. Discipline.
• * 1.12

  Ar. 33.34.32.
• * 1.13

  Cop. Dial. 4. c. 18.19. Sander. de Imag. li. 2. ca. 5.