Romes Ruin(1), Answer · Paragraph 14
PARAGRAPH. XIV. Of protestants in the age immediately before LUTHER.
CHALLENGE.
Or at least they must shew us who were the true professors of protestancy in the immediate age before Luther beg…, in what city, town, or country they dwelt, and what writers speak of them which lived before our times.
Answer.
First I answer, that we need not give any particular or punctuall answer to this your demand: a question grounded upon a wrong supposall is sufficiently answered by overthrowing the ground; now the ground of this question is this supposall, that if there were any protestants before Luther, there must needs be some authenticall and particular record of them producible by …s at this day. Protestants there might be then, yet not now extant, at least for … to come by. I pray, how many millions, not only of right beleev…, but hereticks also have been since Christs time, who were never upon a particular record? Were there not a kind of hereticks called Acephali, because their head and first author could never be Photius biblioth. in S. Eph…. Theop… litano.known? Again, how many records and writings, especially of this nature, have perished, either by commands of authority, or by casualty? restore us the works of Wickliff which you burnt, and many other authors whom you have either extinguished, or of late by your Index Expurgatorius clipt their tongues, or you keep close prisoners in the Vatican, and this question of yours will soon be answered. In the mean while, as Petrus Molineus saith wittily, you deal with us herein as if a thief, who hath stoln away a mans purse, and made away the mony, should demand of the true man, what is become of your money? If you had any such sums of mony, in what bag, in what purse? where are those bags and purses, &c? If such a question as you make here had been put tothe prophet Elijah, to wit, who were those 7000. the oracle of God speaketh of, 1 Reg. 19. 18. R…m. 11. 4.who never bowed the knee to Baal? In what city, town, or country dwelt they? the prophet could not have satisfied at that time this demand, for he thought himself to be there left alone: the children of Israel (saith he) have forsaken thy covenant, thrown 1 Reg. 19. 10. 14.down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword: and I, even I only am left, and they seek my life to take it away. If I should put the like question to you, who were thosein the age immediately before Christ came in the flesh, who sincerely expounded the law, and gain-sayed the Scribes and Pharisees, their corrupt glosses refuced by our Saviour, Matth. 5. 21. in what city or town dwelt Matth. 5. 21. Matth, 23. 16.they? What writers speak of them which lived before Christs time? I know you would be to seek for answer. When the woman Apoc. 12, 6.in the Apocalyps fled into the wildernesse, where she was fled one thousand, two hundred and threescore days; and the saints, Heb. 11. wandred in wildernesses, and lay in dens and caves of the earth, can you tell me into what wildernesse she fled, or they wandered? In what caves and dens they lay? Yet have many worthy champions of our faith met with you even in this field, and come off with credit, as Abbot against Hill. Usher do succes. ecclesi…. Fox acts and monuments. Field of the church. Humphrey his answer to Campi…n his third reason. The author of Catalog… test. veritatis. Doctor White in his way. Iohan. Munster in Vortleg. nobilis discursus. Ioachimi Camerarii, histor. narratio de fratrum orthodoxorum ecclesia in Bohemia, Moravia, and Polonia. Ioh. Lidii Waldensis, The publisher of the history of the Waldenses in France, for 400 years and more. Nichol. Vignier eccles. histor. Birkeck the protestants evidence. Peruse AEneas Sylv. his story of the Bohemians, Fascic. rerum expetendarū & fugiendarum, & you …hal find more for the continuance of our Church till Luthers time, then ever you will be able to r…ell. Verily, Rainerius the inquisitor, though entcrtained against us, yet speaketh so much for us that he deserveth Rainer. contra Wald. cap. 4. Inter omnes sectas quae ad…uc sunt & fuerunt, non est pernitios…r eccles. Leonistarū idque tribus de ca…sis, 1. quia est diuturnior: aliqui enim dic…n… quod duravit a tempore Sylvestri; alij … tempore apost. 2. quia est generalior, fere enim nulla tetra est in qua haec secta non sit. 3. qui cum omnes a…i… secta immanitate blasphemiarum in Deum audientibus horrorem inducant Haec scilicet Leonistarum magnam habet speciem pietatis, co quod coram omnibus juste vivant, & bene omnia de Deo creda…t, & omnes articulos qui in Symbolo continentur: solummod… Roman. Eceles. blasphe…ant, & elerum.a fee of us: the sect (saith he) of the Waldenses or Lionists is more pernicious to the church of Rome then all other sects. First, because it hath been of longest continuance, for some say it hath endured ever since the apostles time. Secondly, because it is more generall than any other, for there is almost no country into which is doth not creep. Thirdly, for that all other sects do bring an horror with the hainousnesse of their blasphemies against God, but this hath a great appearance of godlinesse, because they live justly before men, and beleeve all things well concerning God, and all the articles which are contained in the creed, only they speak evill of the Roman church and clergy.
…o this popish inqui…tor I will add another Romish nomenclator, namely Conradus Wimpina ex fagis, who summeth up all his Sectarum, er…rum, &c. A…acephal…e…s edit… Fran…s. 1528.wits and readings to make a recapitulation of all hereticks and sectaries (as he termeth them,) indeed such as have opposed the corrupt doctrin and practises of the Roman church, and of these he gives us this pedegree; the Lionists begat the Waldenses, the Waldenses the Dulcinists, the Dulcinists the Wickliffists, the Wickliffist… the Hussites, the Hussites the Lutherans. You say these were all bnethren in iniquitie, and joyned hands against the church of Ro…e; but yet they agreed not among themselvs, not held the same doctrin which the protestants do at this day.
These are your shifts, but Wimpina will beat you out of these dodges: for first, for the doctrin of the Lionists and Waldenses, …e delivereth it as followeth:
That the church of Rome is spirituall Babylon, and a harlot; that in the altar after consecration there is not the body of Christ, but only consecrated bread, which by a figure is said to be Christs body, as it Anacephalaeosis l. 3. haeres. Romana ecclesia Babylon est & meretrix; in altari post consecrationem non est corpus Christi, sed d… taxat panis benedictus, qui in figura corpus Christi dicitur, sicut de Petra dicitur quod erat C…ristus; sansti nihil sciunt quae in humanis aguntur; solus Deus invocandus est; non est purg…torium, nec ullum est veni…le peccatum; consecratio se… benedictio aquae, salis, cinerum, &c. nihil utilitatis habet: indulgentiae, peregrinationes, jubilei, nullius sunt valoris: imagines sanctorum nequ…quam sunt in templis habendae, nec ull… modo venera…dae; exorcis…i sunt vani & inutiles, &c. Cont. Waldens. c 5. canonem missae non recipiunt; dicunt quod …blatio quae …it in missa à sacerdotibus nihil sit, neque proficit; horas canonicas reprobant; dicunt quod ecclesia erraverit matrimonium clericis prohibend…: sacramentum confirmationis & unctionis reprobant: dicunt quod latina oratio nihil laicis prosit, legendas sanctorum non credunt; sanctam crucem reputant ut simplex lignum; dicunt quod suffragia non prosunt animabus, & quod doctrina Christi & apostolorum sine statutis ecclesiae sufficit ad salutem.is said of the rock, that it was Christ; that the saints understand nothing of humane affairs upon earth, that God alone is to be called upon; there is no purgatory, no veniall sins; the benediction of salt, ashes, holy water, &c. hath no profit in it; indulgences, pardons, and jubilees are of …o worth; the images of saints are not to be kept in churches, nor to be worshipped; exorcisms are vain and unprofitable.
Whereunto Rainerius addeth, the Waldenses do not receive the canon of the masse; they say that the offering which is made in the masse by the priest is nothing, nor doth any way profit; they dislike canonicall hours; they say, that the church did erre in forbidding priests marriages; they disallow the sacraments of confirmation and extream unction, they condemn latin prayers, and say they doe the people no good; they beleeve not the legends of saints; they esteem the holy crosse no other then simple and bare wood; they affirm, that prayers for the dead, do not at all profit the souls of the departed; and lastly, that the doctrin of Christ and the apostles without the ordinances of the church is sufficient to salvation.
If any desire to read more concerning the doctrin of the Lionists, Albigenses, and Waldenses, and their agreement with the present reformed churches, in every point of moment, I refer him to the confession of the Waldenses exhibited to Uladislaus King of Hungary, in the year of our lord, 1508. extant in Orthwin…s Gr… tius, and to the writings of Lucas Tudensis, Plichdor…ius, and others against the Waldenses set forth by Iames Gretzer at Ingolstad, An. 1613. Now that Dulcinists and Wickliffists received their doctrin from these Waldenses or Lionists, the same Wimpina clearly testifieth; Wickliffe, faith he, suckt heresies which he endeavoured Wimp. ana…ph. l. 3. in prol. Wickliff, quas anglis inferre nixus fuit baeres…s ex Waldensibus Iohanneque Lugdunensi d… suxit. Dulcinus prioribus Waldensium erroribus infectus totam ferme Europam instuporem vert…; & quamvis discerptus, & ossa ejus concremata sint & in ventum dispersa nec propterea haec pestis omninò deleri potuit, quin adhuc in Triden…inis montibus ubi idem Dulcinus initia haerescos jecit, aliquae ejus extant reliquiae. Wimp. l. 4. in prologo. Perspectum ex h… tandem a…cep…al…si habes, si rite memoria recorderis, ex Anglia in Bohemiam, ex Bohemia in Saxoniam, hoc est, ut vetustiora mittamus, ex O…ionia Pragam; ex Praga Wittenberga… …reses … cessisse: ad…o ut illas sibi ipsis velut successionariis vicibus per manus, Wickliff, H… & Lut…r tradidisse credantur, ut sit nihil dictum nunca Lutheranis, quod dictum …n …ra… … Wickliffistis Hussitisque.to bring into England from the Waldenses, and Iohn of Lion, ringleaders among hereticks. And in the same book, p. 21. he saith, That Dulcinus in the year of our Lord, 1306. was tainted with the errours of the Walders…s; and that he put all Europe into a kind of amazement; and that in the mountains of Trent there is a remainder of the Dulci…sts even to this day. And in the prologue of his fourth book, he casts up the totall sum in this manner, out of this recapitulation of he…esies, …f thou keepest it well in thy mind, thou mayst see how heresies came out of England into Bohemia, out of Bohemia into Saxony, that is, …o let passe those things which are more ancient, how they made a progresse from Oxford to Prague, from Prague to Wittenberg; so that Wickliffe, H…ss, and Luther delivered them successively from hand to hand; whence it appears, that there is nothing uttered by the Luthera is at this day, which was not before spoken of and taught by the Wick…ffists and Hussites. This confession of Conradus Wimpina a very learned Romanist, and a witnesse beyond exception against them, is worth gold, and may be fitly compared to the Bufonites, a pretions stone well known, yet taken out of the head of a toad; for no better is this Wimpina, full himself of the poyson of popery, and swelling with malice against the Lutheran and all other reformed churches.