for putting away images, contrary to the second Council at Nice.a

Neither even amongst us is this so very a strange and a new trade. For we have had ere now in England Provincial Synods, and have governed our Churches by home-made laws.

Sect. 5. What should one say more? Of a truth, even those greatest Councils, and where most assembly of people ever was, (whereof these men use to make such an exceeding reckoning,) compare them with all the Churches which throughout the world acknowledge and profess the name of CHRIST, and what else, I pray you, can they seem to be, but certain private councils of bishops, and provincial synods? For, admit peradventure Italy, France, Spain, England, Germany, Denmark, and Scotland, meet together: if there want Asia, Greece, Armenia, Persia, Media, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Mauritania, in all which places there be both many Christian men, and also bishops: how can any man, being in his right mind, think such a Council to be a General Council? And where so many parts of the world do lack, how can they truly say, they have the consent of the whole world? Or what manner of Council, ween you, was the same last of Trent? Or how might it be a General Council, whereas out of all Christian kingdoms and nations there came unto it but only forty bishops; and of the

a [HARDING denies this statement, positively affirming that the Council in question was held at Frankfort by Pope Adrian and Charles the Great 'against the wicked Council of the heretics, named Image-breakers, which they held a little before that, at Constantinople.' Without entering into an examination of the proofs brought by JEWELL in support of his statement, may suffice to award to his adversary's affirmation its proper title-that of an impudent falsehood. Even Romish historians now admit without hesitation that the Council convened at Frankfort in 794 by Charlemagne, did sunction a book previously published by that emperor's authority, in which the decrees of the Second Council of Nice in favour of image-worship were opposed and severely censured, and the middle course of allowing images to remain in churches, but forbidding their worship, was adopted.LUMPER Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 290.]

b["What lawful summons sent your Pope Pius either to Peter Jan into Ethiopia; or to other bishops and Christians in India; or (Europe only, and that not whole, excepted,) what summons sent he unto any

same, some so cunning that they might be thought meet to be sent home again to learn their grammar, and so well learned that they had never studied any part of divinity?

Sect. 6. Howsoever it be, the truth of the Gospel dependeth not upon Councils, nor, as St. Paul saith, upon the judgments of mortal creatures. And if they which ought to be careful for God's Church will not be

other kingdom or country in the world?-Ye say: 'The Patriarchs of Assyria and Armenia' (that never saw neither the one country nor the other) 'were at Rome' (ye know not when) 'and subscribed to the articles of your Council of Trent.' Oh, M. Harding, ye can get no great credit by open mockery! It is no hard matter for your Pope, out of his own gard [wardship, or retinue,] to make such Patriarchs enow; one for Jerusalem, another for Constantinople, another for Alexandria, another for Antioch, another for Sidon, another for Tyre: and I marvel if there be not some patriarch, one or other, for Sodom and Gomorrha. These poor holy and hungry fathers are contented at all times to yield their submissions, and to set their hands to whatsoever they shall be required, and in the names of those countries that they scarcely ever heard of, to confess the Pope, their master, to be all, and more than all. With such vain shows and vizards it pleaseth you to smooth the world!

“If ye doubt hereof, ye may easily find that one Augustinus de Roma, in your late Council of Basil, bare the name of the Archbishop of Nazareth in Jewry: and yet, poor man, had he never seen Nazareth in all his life! Likewise, that one Peter Paludensis, a poor friar Observant, [of the Observantine order,] not long since, bare the name of the Patriarch of Jerusalem: and yet had he never seen Jerusalem, nor knew which way to go to it! But what need more examples? Your own Ceremoniary of Rome telleth you thus: Consueverunt antiqui,' &c. They were wont in old times to place the Patriarchs of the four principal Churches together with the Cardinals, one with another. But now-a-days they are placed next beneath all the Cardinals. For in a manner they have now nothing else but the name of Patriarchs.' (Ceremoniar. Lib. I. Sect. 3.) Such guests were your Patriarchs of Assyria and Armenia, that subscribed to your Council of Trent. They bare the names of those countries, M. Harding: but the countries they had never seen.

"It is most certain, that the Christian Patriarchs and bishops of those countries will neither communicate with the Pope, either in sacraments or in prayers, nor anywise yield to his authority, nor give any manner of honour or reverence to his person, no more than to Mahomet, or Antichrist; as I have sufficiently shown before.

Touching the number of bishops present at your former assembly at Trent, I refer myself to the records of the same. If ye find there more than forty bishops, I am content to lose my credit."-Defence, p. 624, 625.]

. 1 Cor. iv. 1-5.

make children and babes cunning,' er be some to confute their lies. For - only without Councils, but also will 1 the Councils, to advance his own ere are many devices in a man's heart;" nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, g "There is no wisdom nor underunsel against the LORD." "Things ch HILARY," that be set up with man's By another manner of means must the be builded and preserved for that upon the foundation of the Apostles d is holden fast together by one cornerCHRIST JESUS." i

ded

:

marvellous notable, and to very good hese days, be S. JEROME's words: "saith he, "the devil hath deceived, fall asleep, as it were, with the sweet hantments of the mermaids the sirens ;* oth God's word awake up, saying unto thou that sleepest, and arise from the ST shall give thee light. Therefore at CHRIST, of God's word, of the ecclesi, and of the full destruction of Nineveh, t beautiful harlot; then shall the people, re had been cast in a trance under their sed up, and shall make haste to go to the he Scripture and there shall they find Moses, and Joshua the son of Nun; O, which are the prophets; and hills of ament, which are the Apostles and the And when the people shall flee for succour nd shall be exercised in the reading of f Matt. xi. 25.

e Luke xix. 40.

Psal. 126.

h Prov. xxi. 30.

is JEROME's expression. The words in the text o-fold translation, left in the manuscript for choice,

this kind of mountains, though they find not one to teach them, (for the harvest shall be great, and the labourers few,) yet shall the good desire of the people be well accepted, in that they have gotten them to such hills; and the negligence of their masters shall be openly reproved." These be S. JEROME'S Words, and that so plain, as there needeth no interpreter. For they agree so just with the things we now see with our eyes have already come to pass, that we may verily think he meant to foretell, as it were by the spirit of prophecy, and to paint before our face, the universal state of our time; the fall of the most gorgeous harlot Babylon; the repairing again of GoD's Church; the blindness and sloth of the bishops; and the good will and forwardness of the people. For who is so blind, but he seeth these men be the masters' by whom the people, as saith S. JEROME, hath been led into error, and Îulled asleep? Or who seeth not that Rome-that is their Nineveh, which sometime was painted with fairest colours, now, her vizard being pulled off, is both better seen, and less set by? Or who seeth not, that good men, being awaked, as it were, out of their dead sleep, at the light of the Gospel, and at the voice of God, have resorted to the 'hills' of the Scriptures, waiting not at all for the Councils of such 'masters' ?"

m HIERON. in Nahum iii. [The allusions of the passage can hardly be understood without a perusal of the chapter.]

n

[HARDING denies the pertinency of the passage of JEROME; alleging that it was designed to apply to the literal destruction of Nineveh, and to the time of our Saviour's advent, and denying its reference in any way to the Christian Church. JEWELL, in reply, shows at length from a multitude of parallel passages in JEROME, that it was his custom to speak of the corruption of the Christian Church and clergy in the terms used in this passage, and quotes similar expressions and sentiments from other early writers. As to the designation of the Church of Rome as Babylon, he writes: "About Babylon,' ye say, 'ye never make an end of babbling.' What babbling then, I pray you, made S. JEROME, when he said, Petrus in prima Epistola, sub nomine Babylonis, Romam significat: St. Peter, in his first Epistle, meant Rome, under the name of Babylon'? (Cat. Script. Eccles. in Marco.) S. AUGUSTINE saith: 'Roma est quasi secunda Babylon Rome is as the second Babylon.' (De Genesi cont. Manich. Lib. II. c. i.) Again he saith: 'Cives Babyloniæ nos fecerunt,' &c. 'They have made us the citizens of Babylon: (for) we have left our Creator and have worshipped a creature: we have left Him that made us, and have adored that thing that we made ourselves.' (In Ps. xliv.)

Sect. 8. But by your favour,' some will say, 'these things ought not to have been attempted without the bishop of Rome's commandment, forsomuch as he only is the knot and band of Christian society. He only is that priest of Levi's order, whom GoD signified in Deuteronomy, from whom counsel in matters of weight, and true judgment, ought to be fet [fetched]; and whoso obeyeth not his judgment, the same man ought to be killed in the sight of his brethren: and that no mortal creature hath authority to be judge over the Popewhatsoever he do that CHRIST reigneth in the heaven, and the Pope in earth: that the Pope alone can do as much as CHRIST or GoD can do, because CHRIST and the Pope have but one Consistory: that without him is no faith, no hope, no Church; and whoso goeth from him, quite casteth away and renounceth his own salvation.'-Such talk have the Canonists, the Pope's parasites; but with small discretion or soberness. For they could scantly say more, at least they could not speak more highly, of CHRIST himself.

Sect. 9. As for us, truly we have fallen from the bishop of Rome upon no manner of worldly respect or commodity. And would he had so behaved himself, that this falling away had not needed! But so the case stood, that unless we left him, we could not come to CHRIST. Neither will he now make any other league with us, than such a one as Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, would have made in times past with the city of Jabez; which was, to put out the right eye of

Likewise saith PRIMASIUS: 'Tunc Babylon cadet,' &c. Then shall Babylon come to the ground, when she shall last of all take power to persecute the saints of GOD.' (In Apoc. c. 16.) And again: 'Vidi mulierem,' &c. 'I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet robe, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads. Seven heads he calleth the seven mounts, upon which Rome was built; meaning thereby, Rome that sitteth upon seven hills.' (In idem caput.)"He proceeds to allege LOUIS VIVES, AMBROSE ANSBERT, BEATUS RHENANUS, AVENTINUS, PETRArch, and Dante, as writers of the Romish faith agreeing in the same application of the name Babylon; and concludes his answer by quoting from JEROME and CHRYSOSTOM some very strong passages relative to a future general apostacy, and the necessity of a resort, in such case, to the Scriptures, by the people deserted or neglected by their pastors. Defence, p. 628-631.]

Deut. xvii. 9-12,