A replye to an ansvvere made of M. Doctor VVhitgifte Against the admonition to the Parliament. By T.C.

To the next section beginning in the. 38. page.

WHat ought to be generall / if thys ought not / to put the minister that hathe bene an idolater / from hys mynisterie? is it not a commaūdement of God / and geuen / not of one Leuite or two / but of all those that went backe / not at one tyme / but at others also / when the like occasion was geuen / as appeareth in the booke of Kings / where all the priestes of the Lord that had sacrificed in the * 1.1 high places / were not suffered to come to the altare in Ierusalem? Doth not S. Paul make smaller causes of deposing from the mynistery then idolatrie? for af∣ter * 1.2 he hath described what manner of men the ministers should be / and deacons / he addeth: And being tryed / let them execute their functions / as long as they re∣mayne

blamelesse. I thinke if so be a man had bene knowne to be an adulterer / although he repented him / yet none that is well aduised / would take him into the ministerie. For if S. Paul reiect him that had ij. wyues at once (which was a thing that the Iewes and Gentiles thought lawfull / and that was common a∣mongst them / and had preuayled throughout all the world) how much les would he suffer any to be admitted to the ministerie / which should be an adulterer / and haue an other mans wyfe / which is condemned of all that professe the name of Christ / and which is not so generall a mischeefe as that was: Or would he suffer him to abyde in the ministerie / which should commit such wickednes during his function / lykewyse of a murtherer. Now the sinne of Idolatry is greater & more detestable / then any of them / in as much as pertayning to the first table / it imme∣diatly stayneth Gods honor / and breaketh duetie to him / vnto whom we more owe it (without all comparison) then to any mortall man. And if S. Paul in the choyse of the widow / to attende vpon the sicke of the church / which was the low∣est office in the church / requireth not only such a one as is at the time of the choise / honest and holy / but such a one as hath led her whole life in all good workes / and with commendation / how much more is that to be obserued in the minister or byshop of the church / that he be not only at the tyme of his choyse / but all other times before such a one / as hath lyued without any notable / and open offence of those / amongst whome he had his conuersation.

If I should stand with you / whether Peter his forswearing that he knew not Christ / were a greater fault then to go from the gospell to idolatrie / and there in / for some long space to continue / as the Leuites dyd / I shoulde trouble you. For if a man / sodenly and at a push / for feare / and to saue his life / say and sweare he is no christian / and the same day repent him of hys fault / although it be a great and haynous cryme / yet it seemeth not to be so great / as his is / which not only denyeth Christ in words / but doth it also in deedes / and worshippeth Antichrist / and continueth in that worship / not a day / but moneths / and yeares.

But I wil answere you / that euen as our sauiour Christ called S. Paule in the heate of his persecution / & whē he was a blasphemer vnto the Apostleship / so he hauing the law in his owne handes / and making no lawes for him selfe / but for vs / might call S. Peter also to that function / which had thrise denyed him.

But as it is not lawfull for vs / to follow the example of Christ in calling of Paul / by admitting those which are new conuerted / hauing a contrary precept geuen / that no * new plant / or greene christian / should be taken to the mynisterie: * 1.3 So is it not lawfull / to follow that example of our sauiour Christ / the contrary being commaunded / as I haue before alledged. For albeit the examples of our sauiour Christ be to be followed of vs / yet if there be commaundementes gene∣rall to the contrary / then we must know / that it is our partes to walke in the broade and beaten way / as it were the common caussie of the commaundement / rather then an outpathe of the example.

I know Ambrose was taken newly from Paganisme / to be bishop of Mil∣laine / for the great estimatiō & credite he had amongst the people / but besides that I haue shewed / that suche thinges are vnlawfull being forbidden. The errors and corrupt expounding of scriptures / which are founde in his workes / declare that it had bene more safe for the churche / if by studie of the scriptures / he hadde first bene a scholer of dyuinitie / or euer he hadde beene made doctor. There may be more examples shewed out of that / which you call the prymitiue churche / to the contrary of that which you say. For when they vsed often tymes agaynste those that hadde so falne suche seueritie (in deede extreme and excessiue) that they were neuer after / vntill their deathes admitted to the Lordes table: I leaue to you to thinke / whether they woulde then suffer any suche to execute the func∣tion * 1.4 of the ministerie. Besides that S. Cyprian hath also a speciall treatise of

thys / that those that haue sacrificed to idolles / should not be permitted any more to minister in the church. But you aske what they say to M. Luther / Bucer / Crannier / Latimer / Ridley? I pray you when dyd these excellent personages / euer slide from the gospell vnto idolatrie? which of them dyd euer say Masse / af∣ter God had opened them the truth? what hath so blynded you that you can not distinguishe and put a difference / betweene one that hauing bene nousled from hys youthe vp in idolatrie / commeth afterwardes out of it / and betweene hym / which hauing knowledge of the gospell / afterward departeth from it / and of such is the place of Ezechiel / of such I say / as haue gone backe and fallen away.

I know none / that haue beene preachers of the gospell / and after in the time of Queene Mary malsemongers / which now are zealous / godly / & learned prea∣chers / and if there be any suche / I thincke for offence sake / the Church might better be without them then haue them. You say God in that place sheweth how greuous a sinne idolatrie is / in the priestes especially. And is it not now more gre∣uous in the mynister of the gospell / whose function is more precious and know∣ledge greater? And if the sinne be greater / should it haue now a lesse punishment / then it had then? how shall the fault be esteemed great or little / but by y^e greatnes or smalnesse of the punishment? you sayde before the places of Deuteronomie / touching adding and diminishing nothing from that which the Lord commaun∣deth / were for the Iewes / and are not for our times. And thys commaundement of God in Ezechiel / you say / serued for that time / and not for oures.

You worke a sure way / which to mayntayne your corruptions / deny the scripture / which speaketh agaynst them / to be vnderstanded of those which be in our time / and that to be vnderstanded of our ministers / which was of theirs / or of our faultes / which was of theirs. Thys is not the way to Anabaptisme / but to all heresies / and schismes / that euer haue bene or shall be. For if you goe forwarde in clipping the scripture / as you begin / you will leaue vs nothing in the ende / wherewith we may eyther defend our selues agaynst heretikes / or be able to strike at them.

Whereas you say / there is a great difference / betweene the seueritie of the law / and lenitie of the gospell / me thinkes I smell a spice of the error of the Ma∣niches / which were also schollers in that behalfe of the olde hereticke Cerdon / that there is a good and an euill / a gentle and a seuere God / one vnder the law / and an other vnder the gospell. For to saye that God was then a seuere puny∣sher of sinne / and that now he is not at so great hatred wyth it / but that he will haue it gentlyer and softlyer dealt with: is euen all one in effect with that / which supposeth two Goddes. I will ioyne with you in it / that the transgressyons of the law in the tyme of the gospell oughte rather to be seuerelyer punyshed / then they were vnder the law / for as muche as the knowledge is greater / and the a∣boundance of the spirite of God / whereby the lawes are kept is more plentifull / then vnder the lawe.

At this tyme I will content me with the place of Zach. which prophesying * 1.5 of the kingdome of Christe / and of the tyme of the gospell sayth / that then the father and mother of the false Prophet shall cause theyr owne sonne to bee put to deathe. It is as absurde which is brought / to proue that the papistes whiche worshippe God falsly / doe not faulte so haynously as the Israelites dyd / which worshipped the Idolles. As who shoulde saye / the Iewes or any other the grossest idolaters that euer were / dyd euer take those thinges which they wor∣shipped / Serpentes / Oxen / Fire / Water. &c. to be God / or knew not the I∣mages before which they fell downe / were Woode or Stone / Siluer and Gold. And who knoweth not / that they thought that they worshipped by them and in them / the God which made heauen & earth. The Iewes when they molted a gol∣den * 1.6 calfe / and fell downe before it / did neuer thinke that to be God / * but sayde

that they wold kepe holy day to the Lord Iehouah. Wherein I will put you ouer to y^e learned treatises of the godly new wryters / which do refute this distinction being brought of the papistes / as a shift to proue that the Idolatrie which is for∣bidden in the olde Testament / toucheth not them / because they worship God by these things / and the idolatrous Iewes and infidels / worshipped nothing else / nor loked at nothing else / thē the bare things before which they fell down. Which selfe same distinction you bring to proue / that papistrie is not so detestable / as the idolatrie of the Iewes. It may be / that certayne of the Gentiles worshipped by their images / Iupiter and Iuno. &c. but you can not shew / that the Israelites euer worshipped any other God / then the true God / so that their fault was only / in that they worshipped him otherwise / then he had appoynted. And the Gentiles that worshipped many Gods / worshipped one as the head and cheefe / and the rest as small companions / and as they termed them / minorum gentium deos, as the papistes doe God as the cheefe / and the sainctes as other petie gods.

And here all men may see / what a good proctor you be for the papistes / bothe in lestning their faultes / and abating their punishments / and yet will not I saye / that you are conspired with them / or haue receiued your see of them. But if you can shew where / or in what one poynt / those that you charge with confederacie / haue layde so softe pillowes vnder their heades as these are: they refuse not to be called confederate and conspired with the papistes.

Notes

• * 1.1

  2. Chap. 23. 9.
• * 1.2

  1. Timo. 3.
• * 1.3

  1. Tim. 3. 6.
• * 1.4

  1. Lib. Epist. epist. 7.
• * 1.5

  13. Chap. 3.
• * 1.6

  Exod. 32.