against his Christ, and still go on to pervert the direct and straight ways of the Lord, God will make the stones to cry out, and endow infants with an oratorical eloquence, that there may ever be some to confute their shams; for God can protect and enlarge his church, not only without help, but against the opposition of councils." There be "There be many devices in man's heart," saith Solomon (Prov. xix. 21); "but the counsel of the Lord that shall stand;" for there is neither wisdom, nor prudence, nor counsel against the Lord; for, saith Hilary, "Those things that are set up by human industry, do not continue long; the church was otherwise built, and must be preserved by other means; for she was built upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets, and is fixed and cemented together by one corner-stone, Jesus Christ."

18. Very elegant, and to our times most seasonable, are the words of St. Jerome: "As often (saith he) as the devil lulls any asleep with the sweet blandishments of his syrens, the holy Scriptures never fail to awaken them with, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." (Eph. v. 14.) At the coming of Christ, and of the word of God, and of the ecclesiastical doctrine, when the time of the ruin of Nineveh, that beautiful harlot, is come, then shall the people awake, which had before been lulled asleep under their former teachers, and shall pass to the mountains of the Scriptures; there shall they find the mountains of Moses, and Joshua the son of Nun; the mountains of the Prophets, and the mountains of the New Testament, the Apostles and Evangelists; and when the people are fled to these mountains, and are exercised in the reading of them, though they find no teacher (for the harvest shall be great, and the labourers few), yet the industry of the people shall be

approved, in that they have fled to the mountains, and the negligence of their teachers shall be repre

hended."

Thus hath St. Jerome written so very plainly, that here is no need of an interpreter, and with so great a congruity to the events which have happened in our times, that it looks as if he had designed to foretel and describe to us, with a prophetic spirit, the whole state of our times, the ruin of that richly-adorned Babylonish harlot, and the reformation of the church of God, the blindness and negligence of the bishops, and the alacrity and zeal of the people. For who can be so blind, as not to see that these were the masters, who, as St. Jerome saith, led the people into error, and stupified them in it; or that Rome, their Nineveh, which was once painted with the most lively colours, is not now better known and less valued; or that pious men, being now as it were awakened out of a deep sleep,have not betaken them→ selves to the mountains of the Scriptures, the word of God, and the light of the Gospel, without ever expecting the councils of such teachers as these?

19. But without the Pope's consent at least (some may think) these things ought not to have been attempted, because he is the bond that unites the Christian society; he is that one priest, whom God means in Deuteronomy, from whom counsel was to be expected in all difficult cases, and from whom the judgment of truth was to be fetched; and if any man should dare to disobey him, he was to be put to death in the sight of his brethren; and whatsoever he doth, he can be judged by no mortal man; that as Christ reigns in heaven, so he rules on earth; that he can do whatever Christ or God himself can do; that his consistory and Christ's are one and the same; that without him there is no faith, no hope,

no church; that he who forsakes him, rejects his own salvation.

For thus the canonists, the flatterers of the Pope, write not very modestly of him, for they could scarce say more, and certainly not greater things, of Christ himself. As for us, we have not forsaken the Pope for any human pleasure or worldly profit, and we wish passionately, he would behave himself so, that there should be no need of a departure from him but so it was, except we left him, there was no coming to Christ; nor will he now enter a league with us upon any other terms than those proposed by Nahash, king of Ammon, to the men of Jabeshgilead, that he may thrust out all our right eyes (1 Sam. xi. 2); for he will deprive us of the holy Scriptures, the Gospel of our salvation, and of all that hope we have in Christ Jesus; for upon other conditions no peace with him can be had.

20. And as to that which so many of them accustom themselves to extol so very much, that the Pope only is St. Peter's successor, as if upon that account he always carried the Holy Ghost in his bosom, and so could not err, it is an airy and a silly pretence. The grace of God is promised to pious souls, and to those that fear God, and not affixed to chairs and successions. Riches (saith St. Jerome) may render one bishop more powerful than another; but yet all bishops, whatever they are, are the successors of the Apostles. But if the place and inauguration be it they so much rely on, both Manasses succeeded David, and Caiaphas, Aaron; and an idol hath often stood in the house of God. Long since one Archidamus, a Lacedemonian, made a mighty boasting that he was descended from Hercules. One Nicostratus chastised his insolence, by telling him it did not seem probable that he could be descended from Hercules, because Hercules made it his business to

rid the world of bad men, but (saith he) you make all the good men you can bad. And when the Pharisees boasted of their succession and lineage, that they were of the blood of Abraham, Christ replied, "Ye seek to kill me: a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard of God, this did not Abraham; ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." (John, viii. 40. 44.)

But now suppose we should grant something to successions, doth the Pope only succeed St. Peter? In what thing? in what religion? in what function ? in what part of his life? what one thing ever had St. Peter like the Pope, or the Pope like St. Peter, unless they will say, that when St. Peter was at Rome, he never taught the Gospel, he never fed the flock; that he took away the keys of the kingdom of heaven, hid his Lord's treasure, that he only sat in the Lateran, and with his finger pointed out all the spaces of purgatory, and the several sorts of pains there; presently, and at his pleasure, dismissed some souls for money, and sent other miserable souls into torture; that he taught them the use of private masses, which might be mumbled over in every corner; that he muttered the sacred mysteries in a soft low voice, and in a strange language; that he hanged up the eucharist, or consecrated bread, in every church, and enshrined it on every altar, and carried it before him whither-ever he went on an ambling jennet with lights and bells; that he consecrated oil, wax, wool, bells, chalices, temples, and altars, with his sacred breath; that he sold jubilees, graces, immunities, expectancies, preventions, first fruits, palls, the use of palls, bulls, indulgences, and pardons; that he called himself the head of the church, the high priest, the bishop of bishops, and the only most holy; that he usurped authority over other churches; that he exempted himself from all civil power; that he

made wars, set discord amongst princes; that he was carried upon the shoulders of noblemen in a gilded chair, with a crown full of labels or tassels, with a Persian gallantry, adorned with a royal sceptre, and a golden diadem glittering with jewels. Did St. Peter heretofore do all these things at Rome, and, as it were, from hand to hand deliver them down to his successors for all these fine things are now done at Rome, and that in such manner as if nothing else ought to be done.

21. Unless perhaps they would be better pleased with turning the table, and saying, that the Pope does all those things which we know heretofore St. Peter did; that he travels into all countries, preacheth the Gospel, not only publicly but privately from house to house; that he insisteth opportunely and inopportunely, in season and out of season; that he doth the work of an Evangelist, and performs the ministry of Christ; that he is the watchman of the house of Israel; that he receives the oracles and word of God, and delivers them, as he received them, to the people; that he is the salt of the earth, the light of the world; that he feeds not himself, but the flock; that he doth not entangle himself with the civil affairs of this life; that he doth not exercise lordship and dominion over the people of the Lord; that he doth not so much seek to have others minister to and serve him, but rather that he may serve and assist others; that he thinks with St. Peter, that all bishops are his companions and equals; that he submitteth himself to princes, as to them that are sent by God; that he renders to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and (which all the ancient bishops of Rome without exception have done) calls the Emperor his lord. Now, unless the Pope at this day do all these things, or that St. Peter did all the other which we have set forth in the foregoing paragraph,