A Brief Confutation of a Popish Discourse, Part 1 · Reason 1
The first Reason:
THe first reason why I being a Catholyke in minde, maye not goe to the churches or seruice of the cōtrary relygion; is, because I perswading myself theyr doctrine to be false doctrine, & consequētly venomous…. P…rill of i… fection. vntounto the …earer, I may not venture my soule to be infected with the …. For us it is damnable for a man to kyll him selfe▪ and consequently deadly si…ne (without … cause) to put his body in probable daunger of death▪ so is it much more offens… to God, to put my soule ten thousand tymesNote the Simili…. of more valewe then my body, in daunger to the deadly stroke of fals… doctrine and heresie, especially seeing I … …o warrant of … … ping, but rather I heare God crying to the contrary. Hee that▪ …eth daunger shall per… in the same. Neyther is it sufficient for me to thinkeEccle. 3. that I am sure inoughe from beeing infected, for that I am grounded inough, I am learned sufficiently. For what yf God take his grace from thee, and let thee fall, because thou hast not folowed his … which is, If thou wilt not be bi…ten with the … not do sleepe …gh the hedg…. If thou wil… not be spo…ed, then not to touch the Pitch. Wherefore 8. Paule to as good a man as learned, as strong, as I am, gaue a generall ruleEccle. 3. Eccle. 3. to auoyde and flye an he…ticall man. The lyke precepte hee gaue to Timothy beeyng a By sho…, to auoyde a certayne heretyque by name Alexa…der: … yet hee … as it we…e the Thessalon … in the name of Iesus Christes, that they should … Tit. 3. 2. Tim. 4. 2. Thes. 3. Rom. 16. 1. Tim. 2. Rom. 16.drawe them selues … like fellowes. The sa…e hee repeateth agayne to the … beseechyng them to note and to de…yne from … The reason of this …. … vttereth … Ty…thye: Because their speech creepeth like a canker, and they …. … to the … of the same men: By sweete wordes and gay blessinges they s…uce the heartes of the Innocent. And S. Peter saieth of them, that they doe allure vntounto them vnconstant soules. Heere nowe I see the scripture carefully counsayling,2. Pet. 2▪ and commannding mee to auoyde the company, and speech of falle teachers, it putteth downe also the perrill, if I doe it not, which is as great as the death of my soule. And on the contrary …de, I hauehave no warrant of scripture, or example of good men to aduenture the same. For I doe reade this written of farre my betters. The Apostles and their schollers were so warie and circumspect in this case (in a…yding heretikes)Nicep. li. 3. Ca. 30 that they would not so much as once reason the matter with any of them who endeuoured by their lyings or new deuices, to corrupt the truth. … I am sure, I can neuer take good by hearing them, but I am in great possibilitie to take euill, as many more learned men then I, in olde tyme hauehave done. As Dionisius Alexandrinus, confesseth of himselfe:…. his. …. …. cap. 6. and of Origen and Tertulian it is knowne, and manye men in England can be witnesses, which both to thems…ues and also to other … ▪ … (the time was) so firme and grounded in religion, as nothing could moue them: and yet nowe they hauehave proued otherwise. Wherefore it cannot bee but great sinne in mee (notwithstanding all this) if I shall put my soule in such daunger, by aduenturing to their companie, to their serui…e, to theyr sermons, to reading their boo…es, or the lyke, wherby in any wise I may be corrupted. The which aduenture, what a … it was counted in the primatiue church, it may appeare by the seue… lawes made both by the clergie and temporaltie, for the prohibiting, and punishing of the same in that time, as is to be seene in the councels, and fathers, and in the decrees of the good christian Emperours Martian andVide Gre. li. 5. ep. 64. Sozo. li. 2. ca. 31. & li. 1. cap. 20. …, and especially of the noble and zelous first christian Emperour Constantine, which made it death, after the condemnation of Arius by the generall councell of Nyce, for anye man more to reade his bookes and thereby to aduenture to be poysoned with his heresies: And reason, For if Da… had not ventured to behold Be…abe, he had not beene entrapped wi…h her lone, and so had not committed those horrible sins that ensewed.2. Reg. 11 Gene. 3. And if Dame Eua had not presumed to heare the serpent talke, she had not beene beguiled, and if when Luther first began to teach new doctrine, the catholiks, at that time had not vouchsa…ed to giuegive him the hering, but had auoided his prechings & preuy cōuenticles, the… had not bin now in worlde, either Lutheran, Swinglian, Caluenist, Puritan, Anabaptist, Trinetarie, Family of louelove, Adamite, or the lyke: whereof now there are so many thousands abroad, al springing of that first secte, and troubling at this day the whole worlde, with the eternall damnation of infinite soules, the which soules at the day of iudgement shall be scuselesse, and receaue that heauie sentence of euerlasting fire, for that they had not a…oyded the daunger of infection.