ment of affairs, or almost any other persons, either did, or, indeed, understood, what was their duty; for it is not credible, that in that time, in which they were so idle and drowsy, the devil was perpetually asleep or idle too. For what kind of men they were, and with what fidelity they took care of the house of God, though we are silent, they may be pleased to hear their own St. Bernard: Those bishops (saith he) to whom the church of God is now committed, are not teachers, but seducers; not pastors, but impostors; not prelates, but Pilates. Thus St. Bernard wrote then of him that called himself the Great Pontiff, and of the bishops, who then sat at the helm. He was no heretic, he was no Lutheran, he never forsook their church, and yet he never stuck at calling those bishops they then had, sẻducers, impostors, Pilates. And now when the people were openly seduced, and Christians imposed upon, and Pilate mounted the tribunal, and adjudged Christ and his members to the fire and sword; O good God! in what condition was the church then? And now of so many and such gross errors, what one error have they reformed to this day? yea, what one error have they at any time acknowledged and confessed?

26. But now, whereas they pretend to be in possession of the whole Catholic church, and call us heretics because we do not agree with them; let us see what mark that church hath of the church of God: nor is the church of God very difficult to be found, if you seriously and diligently seek for it; for it is placed in a high and illustrious place, and built on the top of a mountain, and the foundations of it are laid upon the apostles and prophets. There (saith St. Augustine) let us seek the church; there let us try our cause: and in another place he saith, The church is to be shewn out of the sacred Scriptures;

and whatever (society) cannot derive itself from them, is not the church. And yet I know not whence it proceeds, whether from reverence or conscience, or a despair of victory, that these men always dread and shun the word of God as much as a thief does the gallows; and, in truth, it is no wonder; for as they say a beetle is presently extinguished in opobalsam, although it is a most fragrant ointment; so they see their cause is suffocated and ruined whenever it comes near the Scriptures, which are a sort of deadly poison to it. Therefore they accustom themselves to call the holy Scriptures, which our Saviour Jesus Christ did not only cite, on all occasions, but, at the last, sealed them with his blood; that they may drive the people from them, as' if they were dangerous and destructive, with the greater facility; these very Scriptures, I say, they call a cold, uncertain, unprofitable, dumb, killing, dead letter, which seems to us to be the same thing as if they should wholly deny them to be the word of God; and, besides all this, they commonly add a no very proper simile too: They are (say they) a nose of wax, and may be formed and set all manner of ways, and be made to serve all manner of purposes. Does the Pope not know that these things are said by his followers? Does he not understand what kind of patrons he has ?

27. Let the Pope, then, be pleased to hear how piously and how holily Hosius, a certain Polander, and a bishop, as he saith himself (certainly an eloquent, and not unlearned man, and a sharp and violent defender of his interest), writes concerning the Scriptures. I believe he will admire a pious man, that could possibly entertain such impious thoughts, or write so contemptuously, of those very words which he knew proceeded from the mouth of God; and, above all, that he should seem to desire

VOL. VII.

that it might not pass for his sense alone, but the common opinion of the whole popish party. We (saith he) have bid adieu to the Scriptures, having seen so many, not only different, but contrary interpretations given of them. Let us, then, rather hear "God himself speak, than apply ourselves, and trust our salvation to those jejune elements. There is no need of being skilful in the law and Scriptures, but of being taught by God. That labour is ill employed, that is bestowed on the Scriptures; for the Scripture is a creature, and a poor kind of element. Thus far Hosius, in his book of the express word of God, in this place craftily, under the person of another man, though he speaks the same thing in several other places in the same book, as his own opinion, without any disguise, which is said with the same spirit and affection as the like things were heretofore by Montanus and Marcion, who are reported frequently to have said, when they contemptuously rejected the holy Scriptures, that they knew more and better things than either Christ or his Apostles ever knew.

What, then, shall I say on this occasion? Oh ! ye pillars of religion! Oh! ye presidents of the church of Christ! is this the reverence ye pay to the word of God? Do ye bid an adieu to the sacred -Scriptures, which St. Paul saith are divinely inspired, which the holy God hath illustrated by so many miracles, in which the certain footsteps of Jesus Christ are imprinted, which were cited as testimonies by all the holy fathers, by the Apostles, by Christ himself, the Son of God, when occasion required it? do ye (I say) bid adieu to these, as if they were not worthy of your regard? that is, do ye impose silence upon God, who it is that speaks clearly to you in the Scriptures? or will you call that word a poor and a dead element, by which only, as St. Paul saith, we are

reconciled to God, and which, as the Prophet David saith (Ps. xix.8), is holy and pure, and shall endure for ever? Or will you say, that all the pains we spend in that which Christ commanded us to scarch diligently, and to have ever in our eye, is lost? and that Christ and the Apostles, when they exhorted the people to a careful perusal of the Scriptures, that they might thereby abound in all knowledge and wisdom, designed only to delude and abuse men? It is no wonder that these men despise us and our writings, who thus undervalue God himself and his oracles; but it was a most foolish action to offer so great an affront to the word of God, that they might do us a small mischief.

28. And now, as if all this were too little, they commit the holy Scriptures to the fire, as the wicked king Jehoiakim, and Antiochus and Maximinius, two heathen persecutors, did, calling them the books of heretics; and they seem altogether disposed to imitate Herod the Great, in what he did for the establishing his power; for he, being an Idumæan, of another race and blood than the Jews were, and desiring to be thought a Jew, that so he might the better settle that his kingdom over them, which he had obtained from Augustus Cæsar, he commanded all their genealogies which they kept in their public register, and were carefully preserved from Abraham's times (by which, without any error, it was easy to find of which tribe any person was descended), to be burnt and abolished, that there might be nothing to be found for the future, by which it might be proved he was of another nation: so these men, pretending that all their innovations were consigned to them by Christ and his Apostles, and desiring they should be accordingly esteemed, lest there should be any thing, any where extant, which might contradict these dreams and shams, either

burn or suppress the Scriptures, and keep them from the people. St. Chrysostom has written very well and appositely against such men as these: Heretics (saith he) shut the gates of truth; for they know, if they be kept open, the church will never be thought 'theirs. And Theophylact styles the word of God a *candle, by the light of which, a thief may be discovered. And Tertullian saith the Scriptures convict the frauds and thefts of heretics. For why else do they hide and suppress the Gospel, which Christ commanded his disciples to publish from the housetop? Why else do they endeavour to put that candle under a bushel which ought to be set in a candlestick? Why do they trust more to the ignorance, blindness, and folly of the multitude, than to the goodness of their cause? Do they think, their arts are not disclosed? or that, as if they had 'Gyges' ring, they can go undiscovered? The world sees now, with both eyes, what is so carefully locked up in the cabinet of the Pope's breast; this one argument is sufficient to prove they do not act well and sincerely. That cause deserves to be suspected, which declines a scrutiny, and hates the light; for, as Christ saith, he that doth evil, seeks darkness, and hates the light (John, iii. 20); but a mind 'conscious of what is good, willingly comes forth, that the works which come from God may be seen. But these gentlemen are not so blind, but they see what will become of their kingdom, if the Scriptures come once to be generally known: and, as it is said of old, all the idols of the demons, which before gave oracles, suddenly became dumb upon the appearance of Christ upon earth; so, now, will all their arts, at the approach of the Gospel, sink down into ruins and rubbish; for antichrist is not to be deposed by any other thing than the brightness of the coming of Christ. (2 Thess. ii. 8.)