Reply to Mortons Defense of Ceremonies, Addition by printer
I hauehave added to the Authors Reply, but without his knowledge, the advertisement following; to fill up this page, which without some purpose had otherwise been left blank.
WHEN you finde, good Reader, any straggling testimonies of some few forraine Divines alledged by the formalists, which seeme to savour of toleration, consider first that some did write in the dawning of the day of reformation, and therefore could not so soone see distinctly and clearly every corruption which was in the Church, 2. That notvvithstanding of greater light shining in the Church, after the rising of the Sun aboue our Horizon, the Divines treating upon many poynts, could not bee exact in everie one, or intending principally to beat downe such corruptions as did most assault their owne Churches, no vvonder that there fell from their pens some sentences not ripely digested concerning other poynts. 3. That howbeit these had purposely set themselues to consider the controversies of our Churches, yet not being throughly acquainted with the particular state of the same, might giuegive their iudgment in the generall case, but could not so vvell in the particular, as many worthy Divines in England hauehave done. 4. They vvere but men, and might erre in judgement, and so appeareth by the vveak reasons subjoyned somtimes to their opinions. And living in Churches vvhere some corruptions doe remaine, they might the more readily stumble at the like in others. 6. It hath been the practise of the English Prelates from time to time, and is at this present houre, not onelyonly to offer preferment to Divines at home, but also to send gifts to forraine Divines, to blunt at least the edge of their zeale, if they could not make them altogether their own, as they hauehave done some. For proofe of this their old practise I hauehave here subjoyned a few lines taken out of the friendly caveat to B. Sands, then Bishop of London, vvritten ann…. 1567. extant in the book intituled, The Register.
Although you hauehave, as much as in you lieth, gone about to win credit, and as it were to tie the tongues of Bullinger, Gualter, Zanchius, and others with your bribes, which you hauehave divers times sent them under the name of friendly tokens and remembrances, yet when they shal be informed better of more then they were the last time, and confirmed in the former satisfaction of these two last set forth bookes, as well these that I hauehave named, as divers more wil not bee ashamed, like true and constant professors of the truth, to answer your L. as Aristotle did Plato, when he said, Amicus Plato, sed magis amica viritas, that is to say, openly to confesse, not in privat meeting onelyonly, but in print also, that English ti…ne, English cloathes, and English silver and gold are and shall bee welcome to them, as long as they are not meant to stop them from the truth against both their conscience, and their printed writings and confessions. Yea if yee will look well on the matter, Gualter hath condemned you and your splendida Pontificalia alreadie. For in his last Epistle to you Lords, he denieth not that those informations, these two that he speaketh of delivered him, were intollerable in the Church: but trusting onelyonly upon your words, and beleeving your coloured lying informations too much, would not credit them as t…o too monstrous things to bee in such a realme, that hau… alway had so good a report for zealousnesse in religion, and to be maintained of such men, that in time of their banishment, both hee himselfe, and a great sort more knew to be godlie, learned, and earnest in religion.
MElanchton did write in the dawning of the day. …anchius in …n Epistle to Bullinger, reporteth that he was of a fearefull spirit, and did many things which he did not approue. His advices in the time of the Interim proved pernicious to the Germane Churches, and grievous to all the godly. Harder things, if true, are written concerning him. P. Martyr, freer in writing after he had left England then he was before, in a letter to a certaine friend there, confesseth his oversight in advisi…g rather to conform to Popish apparell then to leaue the Ministerie, and that now with …ullinger he was of another minde, seeing the scandals which did arise unavoideably of them, which he did not perceiue before. He confesseth in another Epistle to a certaine friend there, that he could not giuegive full and particular direction not being acquainted with all the particular circumstances. Tu autem qui…es in ipso certamine consilia hic non expecta. Valde quippe sumus à vobis procul. In ipsa consultetis arena. Which answer holdeth in other forraine Divines. The Author of this sound Reply, craving the removall or at least the free use of the ceremonies, and that none be enthralled; or saying if there Deanes, Canons, and Prebendaries will practise them in their Cathedrall Churches, they will not contend with them, providing the Prelates impose them not upon others, is to be understood to speak onelyonly of the English Church, where they hauehave kept possession ever since the Reformation, and as a man almost despairing of any cure after these fifty yeares contestation against them, rather then resolving. But all Writers condemn the reducing of corruptions into a Church, specially after exile of many yeares. Many worthies hauehave suffered much for Reformation, what would they hauehave done to withstand the re-entry of Deformation?
FINIS.
End of the text · William Ames, Reply to Mortons Defense of Ceremonies (1622)