IV. XI. The illiterate are obliged to magnify or make much CHAP. of the servants of God, by whom they have learned the most certain laws of living. XII. Illiterate men should highly detest the books of Reginald, meaning our Bishop. XIII. That it is not unreasonably asked or inquired, where all the doctrine of morals is founded in Scripture. 75. Such were the Conclusions which Bury laboured to maintain, in express contradiction to the Bishop, as was pretended by him; of the truth of which the reader is left to judge, who has before had an account of what it was the Bishop asserted in behalf of the Established Church, in vindication of which his Lordship wrote. But however zealous Bury was in opposing the Bishop, it does not appear to me that the Conclusions he finds fault with were either condemned by the Archbishop, or retracted and abjured by the Bishop. Treatise of P. 16. P. 15. P. 23. P. 27. CHAP. V. Of the Bishop's Opinions. 1. THESE I have occasionally given some account of before, in what I have said of his books and writings yet remaining. But because the enemies of his person and memory have represented them as so very wicked and dangerous, I think it not improper to give the reader a view of them together. This I shall do from his book of Faith, from which the Conclusions which the Bishop was forced to abjure seem to have been taken. 66 2. In the first place therefore our Bishop affirmed, that holy Writ is such a ground and foundation of our Chris"tian general faith, that there is no greater, or better, "or surer ground or foundation to us for our Christian "general faith; and that this writing, containing our all "whole faith, is precious, and ought not to be set little 66 by, neither be faintly and unworthily received." By holy Writ he declared he meant the writing of the Old Testament and the New, in which he did not include the stories of Tobie and Susannah, and the additions to Daniel; all which he styled Apocryphas. He likewise rejected as a feigned thing, and worthy to be laid aside, the tradition that Esdras by inspiration wrote, without any copy, all the five books of Moses, and all the other books of history and of prophecies to his days. 3. He likewise observed, that "the Scripture of the "New Testament is not through each part of it like in authority, in worthiness, and dignity. For why? some "parts of Scripture teach us faith, and some teach us the "law of nature, and of natural reason, as the text itself "sheweth, and Austin witnesseth. Some parts of the "Scripture teach us positive ordinances of Christ, as are "the Sacraments; and some parts thereof teach us ordi1 Tim. iii. "nances of some Apostle, as the law of bigamy, or St. 2, 12. 66 V. "Paul's ordaining, that a a bigam should not be a Deacon CHAP. "or Priest, and that a woman b vow not chastity before "the sixtieth year of her age." Which positive ordinances of the Apostle's, the Bishop said, the Clergy and Pope that now is may dispense with; because "the Pope "is of like 'authority and jurisdiction with each, or with "the greatest of the Apostles. Yet hereof followeth not," he said, "the Clergy now living, or the Pope now living, may dispense with this, that Scripture teacheth as the "positive ordinance of Christ, or, that he may revoke any "of those ordinances. For why? so revoke or dispense 66 might none of the Apostles." So that it was with some distinction and qualification that the Bishop allowed holy Scripture to be the primary or only rule of faith and manners. For elsewhere his Lordship, to use his own words, "rebukes and adauntes the presumpcioun of tho ley per- Repressour, 66 soones, which weenen bi her reding in the Bible for to 66 come into more kunnyng than thei or alle the men in 66 erthe, Clerkis and others, mowe come to bi the Bible ❝oonli, withoute moral philosophie and lawe of kinde or "nature." &c. p. i. c. 7. MS. Looking rium de S. 4. Our Bishop was very earnest in exhorting and per- Poor Man's suading the people to study the Scriptures, to read them, glass, MS. to meditate on them, and to be constant in the use of apud Ussethem; and advised that they who cannot read themselves Scriptur. should hear others read and explain them; meaning the Vernacul. Scriptures in the Latin Vulgate. Accordingly he observed, that "ech thrifty and well-sped studente in divinity has Treatise of power to declare and expound holy Scripture; yea and Faith, p.28, "ech good grammarian hath power to construe Scrip 66 66 66 ture," or to turn it into English. That very often "One who has been twice married, or has been married to one widow. Duaren. de Sac. Benef. lib. iv. c. 8. ll. Pontificiarum, Gregorii IX. Pentateuchus, Mesnartii lib. i. tit. 20. b So the Bishop represents the Apostle's words, 1 Tim. v. 9. Let not a widow be chosen into the number under threescore years old: which the Bishop thus expresses; Poul ordeynyd a widowe to not take perpetual videwite undir boond err sche be of sixty winter, and but if sche hadde be wyf of oon man. 29. CHAP. V. P. 14. 66 66 Scripture expoundeth itself, inasmuch as by the reading "of Scripture in one part, a man shall learn which is the "true understanding of Scripture in all other parts, where"in he doubted, or was ignorant before. Certain," says he," it may be, that one simple person, as in fame, or in 66 state, is wiser for to know, judge, and declare, what is "the true sense of a certain portion of Scripture, and "what is the truth of some article, and that for his long studying, labouring, and advising thereupon, than is a "great general council." So again: "The writing made "and found by God, and by the Apostles,-may ground "sufficiently the same faith in every Clerk or layman 66 notably reasoned for to understand what he readeth in "the New Testament, though he learne not the same faith "by any general council, or any multitude of Clerks to Repressour, "be gathered together." Hence in another place he says, &c. part i. that "he does not understand it to be unlawful to layc. 7. MS. 66 men for to read in the Bible, and for to study and learn "therein, with help and counsel of wise and well learned "Clerks, and with licence of their governor the Bishop." 5. The Bishop further declared against a submission to Treatise of unexamined decisions. "It was," saith he, 66 a full shameFaith, p. 2. "ful thing for the Christian Church to hold such a faith "for substance of its salvation, and yet not to dare to "suffer it to be examined, whether it is worthy to be al"lowed for true faith or no; it were imputing a villany to "Christ, that he should give such a faith to his people, "into which faith he would his people should turn all "other people, and yet would not allow his faith to be at "the full tried, and durst not be aknowe his faith to be so 66 pure, and so fine from all falsehood, that it might not by "strength of evidence be overcome. Lord Almighty," says he," thou forbid that any such prisoning of thy faith "be made in thy Church." P. 13. 6. He disputed against unwritten verities, as they are termed, or oral traditions being the rule of saving faith. "The Apostles," saith he, "nor any other Clerks, might "or could have taught sufficiently the said faith without "Scripture; all the whole faith written in the Gospel be- CHAP. ❝ing too long a tale to be sufficiently learned without V. writing of it." For this purpose, his Lordship observes, that "a tale or tiding, by the time that it hath run "through four or five men's mouths, taketh patches and "clouts, and is changed in divers parts, and turned into "lesyngs, and all for defaulte thereof the writing." And therefore his Lordship concludes, that "the Apostles in- P. 40, 41. "tended not to give any catholic faith, necessary to Chris"tian men's salvation, by word only, to be kept without "writing and remembrance. That they betoken not, out P. 36. "and besides holy Scripture, any articles unwritten to be "believed for necessary faiths." 7. He observed that the articles, that we should pray P. 38, 39. towards the east; bless ourselves with a cross; that Priests should make three crosses upon the bread and wine offered on the altar before consecration; that the font of Baptism shall be blessed with oil, and baptized persons anointed with it; are every one of them governances, which took their beginning and ordinance, not of the Apostles, but of the Fathers only. That the same is to be judged or thought of holy water which Pope Alexander II. ordained of holy bread, of the most part of the observations or ceremonies in the Mass, and of the fasting of Lent, and of many other such observations, which were all ordained by the holy Fathers since the Apostles, and were not to be kept and believed for necessary faiths. 8. He shewed that St. Basil divided those things which all Christian men ought to hold and believe into three parts: viz. Things delivered to us by apostolic ordinance, things delivered in holy Scripture, and things or articles which are derived to us through devout use or custom of the generality of the people; from whence, he said, it followed, that not such a fourth member is to be taken and kept of the people, viz. which the Apostles left and delivered for substantial faith without writing. 9. His opinion of the authority of the Church or Clergy, in matters of faith, our Bishop thus expressed. Faith, |