The Grand Sacrilege of the Church of Rome, Essay – Title page 3
A CHALLENGE TO MASTER IOHN FISHER, alias PERCIF, ahas STEPDEN, Iesuite.
FIrst, whereas you, Master Iohn Fisher, sent questions by way of challenge to Doct White, now L. Bishop of Norwich, and to mee, Iune 21. 1623. concerning the visibilitie of Protestant Professors in all Ages: whereupon we returned you this answer, viz. Although diuine infallible Faith is not built vponupon deduction out of humane History, but vponupon diuine reuelation; as is confessed by your owne Schoolemen, and expresly by Cardinall Bellarmine: Historiae humanae faciunt tantùm fidem humanam, cui subesse potest falsum: Humane histories, and Records beget onelyonly an humane Faith, or rather credulitie, subiect to error, not a diuine and infallible beliefe, which must be built vponupon surer ground.
Secondly, although, I say, this question of visibility are grounded vponupon vncertaine and false supposals. For a Church may hauehave been visible, yet not the names of all visible Professors now bee shewed and proued out of good Authors. There might be millions of Professors, yet no particular, and authenticall record of them by name. Records there might bee many in ancient time, yet not now extant, at least for vsus to come by. Yet we will not refuse to deale with you in your owne question, if you in like manner will vndertake the like taske in your owne defence, and maintaine the affirmatiue in the like question, which we now propound here vntounto you in writing.
Whether the Romish Church (that is, a Church holding the particular entire doctrine of the now Romanists, (as it is comprised in the Councell of Trent) was in all Ages visible, especially in the first 600. yeeres; and whether the names of such visible, or legible Romanists in all Ages can bee shewed, and proued out of good Authors?
Secondly, whereas in a Conference, Iune 27. 1623. with you, and M. Sweete, I vndertook to proue the perpetuall visibility of the Protestant Church, both à priore by Syllogisme, and à posteriore, by Induction: and then also made an Essay in both kinds, as the time permitted, demonstrating the visibility of the Protestant Church, being an effect, by the eternity of our Faith, as the cause: And further, to stop your clamour for names, I produced at that time the names of visible Professors of our beliefe for 200. yeeres.
Thirdly, wheras since the Conference I hauehave made good my demonstration, à priore, of the perpetuall visibility of the Protestant Church, against all your cauils, refuted at large through my whole booke, intituled, The Romish Fisher caught, and held in his own net, printed at London, 1624. but particularly, & more especially in the Remonstrance therein to Sr. Humphry Linde, frō page the 14. vsque ad finem, and in my Reply to your answer, Paragraph 8. pag. 89. vsus que ad 112:
Fourthly, whereas now I hauehave quite finished my demonstration à posteriore, and hauehave set downe the so much harangued for Catalogue of visible Professors, in all Ages from Christ to Luther, of our Protestant doctrine, in a maine point of difference, and one of the first mentioned in the Conference, touching the communicating in both kinds:
I now therfore challenge you, M. Iohn Fisher, according to your deepe ingagement, before, in, and since the Conference, as you tender the tickle state of your Catholike cause with your collapsed Ladies, immediately after the perusall of this my Treatise, to goe about, and in conuenient time without further delayes, and tergiuersatiō, to draw a like Catalogue for your part, of such Writers, and Authors of note in all Ages, who hauehave defended, or at least approued your dry and halfe Communion. Which after that you hauehave performed, I will proceed, God assisting me, to name visible Professors in all Ages in other points of greatest moment.
But if you refuse to meete mee in this field, pitched by your selfe, diuerting into your common place of railing at Sectaries and Nouelists:
Or if like Caligula, you triumph at Rome, for a signall victory in Germany, when he had gathered onelyonly a few pebbles on the shore at Caieta: and you thereupon cry out vponupon the shifts, and tergiuersations of D. Featly, whereas (to pay you backsome of your owne in coine) your Fishers reply to D. White, and D. Featly, pag. 79. anno. 1625.white liuer wil not suffer you to come so much as in sight of the walles and gates of my defence, but onelyonly to shoote a few paper bullets against three or foure of my redoubts; you in all your Replyer not replying one word to the defence of my proceeding in the Conference; and Refutations of your answers;
Or if for want of better imployment,
Ne toga condylis, & penula desit oliuis:
You shall tacke together a cento of relations, See a booke intituled, Sundry Relations by I. C. printed permissu superiorum. 1626.like Sibylles leaues, as much distracted, as the braines of the Penner: and if you shall intreate in good earnest your Midas Reader, to giuegive credit to your own report, in your own cause (you being both a Romanist and a Iesuite) against the subscription of sundry persons of honor, worth, and qualitie, affixed to the Conference:
Or if hauing a leaden Treatise, that hath long See the second part of the Reply to D. White and D. Featly.lyen heauy vponupon your hands, touching no saluation out of the Church of Rome, you shall clap my name, and D. Whites vponupon it, to make it sell, intituling it: A Reply to D. White, and D. Featly; whereas from the first page, being 145. to the last, 181. there is not one syllable against either of their writings:
Fifthly, and lastly, if you shall change your trade, and of a Fisher turne Sawyer, nothing but drawing the Saw of your ragged stile 1000. times by the same line backward, and forward, and neuer pierce into the heart of any Controuersie: impute it to no other thing, then meere compassion in your opposites, that they reioyne not to your Replyes; ne famam tuam sponte concidentem Cicero proCaelio.maturiùs extinguant suo vulnere; lest they should giuegive a deaths-wound to your reputation, that lyeth on bleeding already.
In tauros ruunt Libyci leones,
Ne sint Papilionibus molesti.
FINIS.
THE SVMME AND SVBSTANCE OF A DISPVTATION BETWEENE M. DAN. FEATLY, OPONENT, AND D. SMITH THE younger, Respondent, (now by the Pope intitutuled Bishop of Chalcedon, and Ordinary of all England) at Paris. Sept. 4. 1612. Stylo nouo, touching the Reall presence in the Sacrament.
LONDON, Printed by Felix Kyngston for Robert Milbourne, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Churchyard at the signe of the Greyhound. 1630.