Commentary on the Gospels and Acts, Commentary 1 · Chapter 7 · Verse 17
Verse 17. Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit.]
i e. All … doctrine tends to good life: and rotten opinions to wretched practises. As, besides the old haereticks, we see in the Papists…. (their Priests especially) of whom the L. Audely (Chancellourforeign …. Martyr. of England in K. Henry the eights time) said to 13. Callice men prisoners for Religion, whom he discharged: For Gods sake, …, beware how you deal with Popish Priests: for I assure you, some of them be knaves all. After the one thousand year of Christ,Act. and …. … 1117. there was no where lesse piety, then in those that dwelt nearest to Rome, as Machiavell himself observed: who yet was himselfDisp. de rep. … 1. cap …. De principe, …. none of the best, as is well known: for he professeth Caesar … (not withstanding all his villanies) as the onelyonly example for a Prince to imitate. The Romish Pharisees, like the devils, are…. …. 6. cap. …. In … bodie …. then thought to doe well, when they cease to doe hurt, saith Joannes Sarisburiensis. In Popes (saith Papirius Massonius, a popish writer, speaking of those Popes that lived in the time of the … -councell) no man now-adaies requireth holinesse. They are thought to be very good, if not exstream evil: or any thingOptimi put …, si vel levi tur mali, &c. In …. Pauli 3. Bennio ait … brand: …, adulterū, …, …, …. better then the worst use to be. The Sea of Rome, saith Another, hath not merited alate, to be ruled by any better then reprobates. Divers Popes have been …, Atheists, Epicures, Monsters, as Bennio Cardinalis describes Hildebrand: and Luitprandus reports of John the twelfth, that he Ordained Priests in a stable among his horses, that he went into his fathers Concubines, that he drank a health to the devil, &c. Benedict the twelfth had this Epitaph set over him,
Hic situs est …, Laicis …, vipera …;Luit prand. lib. 6. de …. gest is in Europa … tempore.
Devius a vero, turba repleta mero.
I am not ignorant what is the common put-off of Papists, when urged with these and the like histories, viz. Luitprandi illud non est, sed … cujusdam, … hoc historiae ipsius appenderit. Luitprandus … bist … cles. pag. …. Tertia classis continet papas, … foreign. Alsted. Inde … esse, illud non esse, … pro me … contra me. Faust. Manich ap.never wrote any such thing, but some other namelesse Authour, that hath … it to his history, saith Bellarmine and Baronius: But who this namelesse Authour was, or when he lived, or how it may appear, that it was … indeed, they say not a word. So if we cite Bemio Cardinalis. Imò potius Lutheranus, saith Bellarmine, and Florimund. How disdainfully they reject the Fathers when they make against them, I need not here recite. I would sooner believe one Pope, then a thousand Augustines, saith a Jesuite: And yet, when they cannot be heard, they are ready … to cry out, as that haeretike Dioscorus didAug. in the Councell of Chalcedon. I am cast out with the Fathers, I defend Corn. Mus in Rom. 3.the doctrine of the Fathers, I transgresse them not in any point. If we produce their own Doctours and Schoolmen as witnessesSee Guild his popish glorying, &c. pag. 59. of the truth, these men, say they, are Catholike Authours, but they stand not recti in curia, they must be purged. So witty are … rather to devise a thousand shifts to delude the … Bellarm. saith to …, ….then once to yeeld and acknowledge it. They will not … the love of the truth, (as the intemperate patient, will not be ruled by the Physician,) And for this cause God delivers them upEusebius, and Luther. I answer. … manifesti … sunt. De Christo lib. 1. cap. … to strong delusions, vile affections, base and beastly practises: as committing and defending of Sodomy, and such like abhorred filth, not once to be named amongst Christians. But some having put away a good conscience, as concerning faith have made shipwrack, saith the Apostle. A good conscience is as it were a chest, wherein the doctrine of faith is to be kept safe:Mathew … speaking of the Court of Rome, saith, Hujus … usque ad nubes sumum …. which will quickly be lost, if the chest be once broken. And they that turne from the truth, will prove abominable, disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.