AN ANSWER TO SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE Spirit of Martin Luther AND The Original of the REFORMATION; Lately Printed at OXFORD.  The fierceness of Man shall turn to thy praise, and the fiercness of Them shalt thou refrain. Ps. 76. 10. 
OXFORD, Printed at the THEATER. Anno 1687.   

Imprimatur.  
IO. VENN. Vice-Can. Oxon. julii 29. 1687.   

The PREFACE.  
WHEN I first happened upon this Pamphlet, and by some peculiar beauties in the style, easily discovered its Owner, I was, I must confess, not a little surprised: I could not have imagined that a Man of so big a reputation as the Author of the Guide in Controversy; One, whose thoughts had for some years conversed with nothing less than Ecumenical Counsels, Popes and Patriarches, should quit all those fine amusements for the humble task of Life-writing, and drawing of Characters. 'Twas mean prey, I thought, for a Bird of his Pounces: and the Design he did it with, made it ten times more a Riddle. The Doctrines of the Reformation have, for near two Centuries, kept the field, against all Encounterers: and does He think they may be foiled at last by two or three little Remarks upon the Life and Actions of a single Reformer? But it looks like a Jest, when the Irregularities committed by Luther in Germany, are turned upon Us here in England: as if any thing that He said, or did, could affect a Church established upon its own bottom, and as independent on any foreign authorities, as the Crown, Her Defender wears. Luther's Voice is indeed to Us, what our 
a Pag. 2. of Consid.  Author term's it, the Voice of the Stranger; and tho' we are always ready to wipe off the unjust aspersions cast upon him by his Enemies, yet this is what we are obliged to, not as Sons, but as Friends. Whenever injured Virtue is set upon, every Honest man is concerned in the Quarrel. But these last Attacqus have been so very feeble, that had we for once trusted the Cause to it's own strength, 'twould have suffered but little Damage. And I for my part should have done so, did I not know there were a sort of Men in the World, who have the vanity to think every thing on their side unanswerable, that does not receive a set Reply; tho' at the same time they are pleased to answer nothing themselves. They fight indeed all of 'em, like Tartars; make a bold and furious onset, and if that does not do, they retreat in disorder, and you never hear of 'em afterwards. And this, I expect, will be the present case. The Editor of these Considerations won't much care for replying, I believe; because that must be de proprio, and can't be drawn from the old store of provisions laid in by the Fraternity. But whether the Poisons were of an earlyer mixture, and designed, like Italian Preparations, to work now at a distance, or whether later tempered, is a thing we may safely be ignorant of; as long as we are secure of the Antidote, before they take their effect. And this the Theatre-Press thinks herself engaged to promise: considering from Whose Munificence she had her Birth, and especially to Whom she owes her Lustre; a late Prelate, of a remarkable zeal for the established Church; and who, were Religions to be tried by Lives, would have lived down the Pope, and the whole Consistory. If the Services she does now are not of the most deserving Character, 'tis what the Meanness of the Opposer, and a worn-out Cause will bear: she has already produced the strongest arguments against Popery, Fathers, and Bibles. The present Attempt is confined perfectly within the bounds of an Answer; and pretends to nothing more than a bare pursuit of the Author step by step; and the laying open his Blunders, for the Reader's ease, just in the same order they lie. There was nothing frightful in this Task, but the toil of being forced to think so long upon so very thoughtless a Writer: in all other respects 'twas as easy as one would wish. The History-part lay within a little room; and the Reasonings upon it were so thin, that they needed only setting in the light, to be looked through. In both, my greatest helps have been drawn from one single Author, the Considerer himself: who in every Book of his has made it appear, that he can write Contradictions, as well as believe 'em. This small performance had seen the light much sooner, but that it waited the Edition of another Piece which should regularly have prevented it. But the Gentleman employed on that occasion having not yet had all the leisure he expected, 'twas thought fit rather to send this abroad, out of its due place, then stay till every body had forgotten the Book it answers: a misfortune, which I fear it has already in a great measure undergone. In the Defence of Our Reformation, to come, 'twill be found, that the Considerer is no good Historian; the Replyer, has proved him no good Catholic; the Animadverter no good Subject; and all together no good Disputant: so that I have now no new side of him left, to entertain the Reader with. What he is, after all this, no body knows; 'tis much easier to guests, what, under another Revolution, he will be.   

Answer to Considerations etc.  
MARTIN Luther's Life was a continual Warfare, he was engaged against the united forces of the Papal world, and he stood the Shock of 'em bravely, both with Courage, and Success. After his Death, one would have expected, that generous Adversaries should have put up their Pens, and quitted at least so much of the Quarrel as was Personal. But on the contrary, when his Doctrines grew too strong to be shaken by his Enemies, they persecuted his Reputation; and by the venom of their tongues sufficiently convinced the world, that the Religion they were of, allowed not only Prayers for the Dead, but even Curses too. Among the rest, that have engaged in this unmanly design, our Author appears: not indeed after the blustering rate of some of the party, but with a more calm and better dissembled malice: He has charged his Instrument of Revenge with a sort of White Powder, that does the same base action, tho' with less noise. 'Tis cruel thus to interrupt the Peace of the Dead; and Luther's Spirit has reason to expostulate with this Man, as once the Spirit of Samuel did 
Ecclus. 46. 20. 1 Sam. 28. 15.  with Saul— Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up? He knows the sequel of the story: the answer that was given was no very pleasing one; it only afforded the Enquirer an account of his own Discomfiture. Let us see whether this Disturber of Luther's Ashes will have any better fortune.  
The first thing we are presented with, is a double Character of the Good, and Evil Spirit, set out by those Works or Properties, which are said to attend each of 'em in Scripture. And by this Test it is that Luther's 
Consid. p. 2.  Spirit is to be tried. For— so often as the Teachers of new and strange Doctrines come into the World, professing opposition to those received by our present superiors, and to the common Tenants of the Church, Christians are directed by St. john c. 4. v. 1. to try such Spirits, whether they are of God. And we are instructed by our Lord Mat. 7. v. 16. that they shall know and discern them by their Fruits. The inference from hence is, that Luther's Doctrine should be tried by his Works. Now, tho' we are very willing to stand to this Test, yet nothing hitherto said can any ways engage us to it. For here is a manifest violence offered to two places of Scripture: by leaving out the preceding verse in one, and the subsequent in t'other, he has quite perverted the meaning of both. St. john says, Beloved believe not 
1 John. 4. 1.  every Spirit, but try the Spirits whether they be of God. How shall we try them? the next verse instructs us. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God; every Spirit that confesseth 
Ib. v. 2.  that jesus Christ is come in the Flesh, is of God. Nothing can be plainer than that the Apostle here would have new Teachers proved, by the conformity their doctrine bore to that he had delivered. But this was not for our Author's purpose to observe; and therefore He dropped the latter part of the Quotation, which would have expounded the former, and slipped over to St. Matthew's— Ye shall know them by their Fruits. Whom? 
Mat. 7. 16. Ibid. v. 17.  Consult the foregoing words. Beware of false Prophets, which come to you in Sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening Wolves. The caution here given is against such as come in Sheep's clothing, that is in all outward innocence and meekness (as our learned Paraphrast expound's it 
* Nor is this merely a Protestant-Exposition. Luca-Brugensis, upon the place, says Induti speciem ●…vium i ●…. m●…ntientes 〈◊〉 fraudisque nesciam simplicitatem. And Maldonate, much to my purpose ●…ensus est facilis: Vestimenta vocat quicquid extrinsecus apparet▪ 〈◊〉 & Opera, 〈◊〉, ●…iaque 〈◊〉 ch●…ritatis. ) Ye shall know them by their Fruits: not by their well or ill living sure, for they are supposed to put on the Vizard of seeming sanctity: but- by the doctrines, which, as soon as they have got any authority with you, they will endeavour to infuse into you [id. ibid.] Thus are the two Texts, which should be the Basis of the whole discourse, proved directly contrary to the design of it, and naturally leading us to the examination of particular doctrines according to a received standard, the thing which our Adversaries so studiously avoid. But Scripture-proof was never the Talon of these men, and 'tis no wonder they are foiled, when they fight us at our own weapon. Yet in these places, the sense offers itself so easily, and that shuffling way in which they are proposed, looks so like a Trick, that we can't but question our Author's sincerity: and shall therefore be the less concerned, when, in the Progress of these Papers, we find him m●…gling and putting a wry ●…ense upon our Protest●…t Writers, since 'tis but what he has done to the inspired Penmen themselves. But to drive this point further, whether Works ought to be the adequate measure of Doctrines? I say, not only that he has not proved it by any authorities drawn from Scripture, but that it is impossible he ever should. For Scripture cannot be against Scripture: Now we have frequent instances in Holy Writ, where God Allmighty has made bad men the Instruments and Promoters of a good Doctrine; such indeed, whose actions were not agreeable to what they taught. So Balaam was a Diviner, yet the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and 
Num. 24▪ 2.  he prophesied of the coming of Christ. jehu tho' otherwise none of the Holiest men, was yet employed by God in that grand Reformation of his, when the whole Land of Israel was overrun with Baalism. A Case so parallel to this we are upon, that one would wonder it should never be taken notice of in the whole course of the Pamphlet, did we not know some men's Talon lay in dissembling things, when speaking out won't be for their turn. I ask him again, if the jews should have contrasted thus with Hosea; that his message could not come from God, since his works were not answerable: he 
Host 1. 2.  had taken a Wife of Whoredoms to him, and loved another that was an Adulteress: or should a Ninevite 
Hos 3. 1.  have disputed the mission of jonas, because he was a wicked person, and had been thrown into the Sea to appease a tempest, would this kind of Plea have held against the Prophets? If not, why is it urged against Luther? Or why are Scripture-Maxims put upon us, without taking notice of Scripture-Examples, that lie cross 'em? He has not offered any thing from the Fathers upon this occasion, and therefore we may take it for granted, they are Ours. Indeed, to instance in no more, St. Austin 
a Ne objiciatis haereticis, nisi quia non sunt Catholici: ne similes iis sitis, qui non habendo quod in causa suae divisionis defendant, non nisi hominum crimina colligere affectant; & ea ipsa plura falsissime jactant, ut quia ipsam divinae Scripturae veritatem criminari & obscurare non possunt, homines p●…r quos praedicatur adducant in odium, de quibus & fingere quicquid in mentem venerit possunt. August. Ep. 137.  is express upon the point. Nay the greatest of their own party even the two pillars of the Romish faith, Bellarmin 
b Certum est ex ipsorum hominum, qui nos docent, operibus, non posse cognosci doctrinam, cum opera interna non videantur, externa autem sint commun●…a ●…que etc. Bellarm de great. & lib. arb. L▪ 5. c. 10.  and Baronius 
c Ignarum Vulgus dum non ex sacris literis, quas ignorat, sed ex vitae exemplo definire soleat Catholica dogmata. B●…ron. Annal. Tom. 7. An▪ 526. n. 58.  are in this case as much Protestants as we are. But he himself has given up the Cause p. 98. He there in broad words confesses, that a teacher of Truth may bring forth the fruits of a bad life. And if so, I would ask him, why he writ his Book?  
And here the business seems to be at an end. For if no proof has been brought, why a good Doctrine should always require good outward works to support it: and yet it be the whole drift of the Pamphlet, to bring Luther's preaching to such a scrutiny, 'tis all built on a false foundation, and, when that's weakened, must drop a course. But because we are pretty well assured of Luther's Morals too, we'll be so obliging as to give up what has been already said, and put the Cause upon that Issue: tho' his Life does not in the least concern the Church of England. In order to this let us take the prescribed method, and put ourselves in the same posture 
Consid. p. 2.  now, as we should have been in, had we lived at the first appearance of Luther. And since the Properties of the Evil Spirit are reducible to Two. 1. Fleshly Lusts. 2. Contention and Disobedience, (as One, who●…e knowledge in this case we shall not question, has informed us) let us see, whether after our most impartial researches, we in those circumstances could have fixed either of these blots upon him.  
1. As to Fleshly Lusts, there is no one action through the whole course of Luther's life, that can possibly come under that Character, but only his Match with Bora. Now this happened not till 1525, and in 1517 Luther had begun to Reform: so that, should I put myself into that posture, the Considerer desires, yet here would be nothing for my observation to lay hold of for above eight years together. Fleshly Lusts therefore could have given me no prejudice against Luther's Doctrine, when it first appeared, since his very Adversaries do not till long after that time charge 'em upon him. Yes but we 
pag. 20.  are told, that he preached against the Vow of Continence long before he married. Now tho' it be something improper, to call preaching an Act of Fleshly Lust, and give me that to try his Doctrine by, which is indeed a piece of the Doctrine itself; yet neither did Luther let fall a syllable against these Vows for several years after his first setting out. So that had I lived in the dawn of the Reformation, and made all those Observations I am desired to do, I can as yet see no reason, why I should not have been Luther's Proselyte. And thus much will serve to free Luther from Incontinence, as far as the method proposed reaches: the Breach of Vow, and Marriage itself shall be more largely discoursed of in their proper places.  
2. The other Head of the Charge is Contention and Disobedience. And here again I am invited to consider, whether Luther was not in an high manner guilty of these? and, if so, whether a wise man that had lived in those days, could have had any reason to follow so unruly a Guide? Now the Question here is not whether Luther disobeyed? for that's confessed: but when and in what manner he did it. For if upon enquiry it be found, that for near three years together he treated his Adversaries with all mildness, and paid a just deference to his Superiors; if he threw not off their Authority, while there was any hope left of doing things in a regular way, and mingled no gall in his expressions till after all the venomous mouths in Europe had been opened upon him, how can he with any colour of reason be termed contentious or disobedient? And that this was his case any impartial man that reads the joint accounts of Sleidan, Soave, Melancthon▪ and Melchior Adamus, must needs acknowledge. 'Tis a known story that he first stood up against the gross abuse of pecuniary Pardons: he proposed his sentiments about it in a mild Scholastic way, and invited all that should think themselves strong enough to a fair disputation. This Challenge was not thought fit to be accepted of: but Thecel the ●…preader of the Pardons answered him an easier way, by branding him with Heresy, and denouncing Anathemas against him from all the Pulpits in Saxony 
a Melch. Ad. Vit. ●…uth. . This did not heat him, he went on calmly, representing the case in a letter to the Archbishop of Mentz 
b It gins thus. Pardon me Reverend in Christ, if I the meanest of men have the boldness to approach your highness with a Letter. etc. Luth. Op. T. 1. p. 92. , and afterwards in two more to the Bishop of Brandenburg, in whose Dioceses the scene lay: all written with so deep an humility, that one would say, the impressions he took from his Vow of Obedience were then strong upon him 
c Tom. 1: Op. p. 9●…. Edit. Wittenb▪ 1582. . I am well content, (says he) I had rather obey▪ than even, if I could, to do miracles 
a Melch. Ad. Vit. ●…uth. . This submissive way of representing things he continued afterwards in several Letters to the Pope, though he knew Leo had formed a design against his Life 
d Sleid. Com. L. 2. ad An. 1519. , and taken Friar Hogostrat's advice, to confute his Doctrine by fire and faggot 
e Soave p. 2. Ed. Lond. 1620. . Upon the Legat's summons, he submitted himself to an Examination, and appeared before him; and tho' Cajetan used him very coarsely in the Conference 
f Id. p. 8. , yet no unbecoming word came from him 
g See the Account of this Conf. in. 1. Tom. Op. . At last, when for along time he had employed all the most inoffensive methods; and instead of the Redress he expected from Rome, found his Books burnt there, himself condemned without an hearing, and his Adversaries Eckius and Prierias supported in all the Ribaldry of Language, that their passions could suggest, he then, and not till then, first changed his note, and put on a greater freedom of Expression. Before this time, he strove with no man, but in the spirit of meekness, and threw off no Authorities that he had engaged himself to obey 
a Hear an Enemy confess it. In ipsis hujus Tragaediae initiis visus est Lutherus etiam plerisque viris gravibus & eruditis non p●…ssimo zelo moveri, plan●…que nihil spectare aliud quam Eccle●… Refo●…matioonem. Surius Comment. ad Ann. 1517. . But the Pope had now declared his judgement by a fresh Bull, and owned the Cause: so he was forced▪ to de●…line his censure, and appeal to a Council. Thus are the earliest actions of Luther in no wise chargeable with contumacy; and I believe that part of the first Volume of his Works, which contains whatever he wrote in his two leading Years, will, tho' sifted by an Enemy, hardly afford, throughout, one single indecency.  
I might here again very justly drop this Answer: for since the drift of his book is already evacuated, what 
Consid. p. 2.  need I pursue him through all its particulars? He advised me to put myself in the same posture I should have been in had I lived at Luther's FIRST APPEARANCE: I have done so, and find that this first appearance of his has nothing hideous or frightful in it: the Posture, he put me in, has proved flatly against his design: for it represents Luther under the Image of an holy and humble person, with nothing of Fleshly Lust, or disobedience about him. But because I find the bulk of his book employed upon the latter passages of Luther's life, I am tempted to think that by first appearance, he might mean last appearance; and shall therefore (after I have desired him to consider to what trouble his odd way of expression has put me) follow him even in that sense too; confronting his Accusations Paragraph by Paragraph, as they lie in order. And perhaps, by that time this is done, 'twill appear, that he meant, neither first, nor last appearance▪ but just nothing at all.  
The thing promised was to set out some of Ls. Works or Fruits, that by them we might pass sentence upon his Doctrines: let us see how he performs. He entertains us first with a Preamble about the holiness of Martin Ls. life, while a Monk; in such obliging terms, that for a page or two, you'd think him on our side: but 'tis only a piece of his address, a small civility before he opens his busyness: in return to't therefore I am his humble Servant, and so (if he pleases) we'll come to the Point.  
We find him then §. 3. and 6. crying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: he has discovered the main root of the Reformation: the first wheel it seems which set all the rest a work; was a new Doctrine that Martin, while a Monk, embraced, of justification by Faith alone. Now 'twill be found I believe, when this is looked into, that he has discovered just nothing but the depth of his own understanding. For  
1st. I would ask him, whether this new Doctrine of Justification be one of those Works which Ls. Faith is to be tried by? if not, why are we amused with it here for a dozen pages together? was he serious when he proposed a method, which he quits now the first step he advances? But admit the pertinence of the remark, I am sure we have a great deal of reason to question the Truth of it. For though we are not at all concerned, where L. first took up this opinion, yet  
2dly, How is it proved, that he embraced it while in the Monastery? why, by express assertions of this Doctrine, in Treatises of his, written ten years after he came out on't A fine discovery indeed! and every ways befitting a man of my Author's Sagacity! Now should I turn this way of reasoning upon him, and prove from what he now writes, he must needs have been a Papist 20. years ago, he would not, I believe, admit the argument, because there is a scurvy inference hanging at the tail of it. Nay.  
3dly, He is so far from fixing the time when this new Doctrine was first hatched, that he has not proved the Doctrine itself to be new: tho, he attempts it §. 6. by citing a decision of the Council of Trent's, together with Bellarmin and Cassander's authorities. But I would have him remember, that the Epocha of that Doctrine, he calls new, does by his own account run at least 30 years higher than the oldest of these: so that L. is brought in guilty of novelism, as Strafford was of Treason, by a Law made after the fact was done. Now to urge the supposed perpetuity of their Faith for the validity of this instance, is to urge a thing, which Protestants deny: and therefore any argument grounded upon that maxim can be nothing but a childish petitio Principii, a fault which his own Logic whips him for. Should I insist upon every failure of this nature, I must write Volumes, for there is never a step made without a stumble. 'Twill be more material to observe, that  
4thly, He has not dealt fairly with Ls. Doctrine in 
vid. §. 7.  this point; insinuating all along that it falls in with the Solifidian and Fiduciary Errors: but he wrongs him infinitely, for an hundred instances might be brought from his writings, where the necessity of good works in order to Salvation is displayed. But instead of that, I shall leave him to be confuted by Bellarmin's confession 
a Lutherus docet aliquo modo necessaria esse bona opera, cum affirmet veram fidem non esse, quae non parit bona op●…▪ de Justif. L. 4. C. 1. , or, if he won't take his word, by his own p. 16. where he allows Ls. faith to be such, as when true, has always good works joined with it. L. teaches indeed that fides sola justificat, but not solitaria; that faith alone justifies, but not the Faith that is alone: Good Works are inseparable attendants upon this justifying Faith, but they contribute nothing to the act of Justification: they make not just, but are always with them that are made so. This is Ls. was the C. of Rome's 
a Viqe Tho Aqu. Lect. 4. in Gal. 3. , and is now the C. of England's Doctrine: if he'll be pleased to attack it as such, it shall not want a Defender. As to his Quotations on this occasion, they are, (as at other times) very trifling. To pursue every particular of 'em would be nauseous and unnecessary: one general Remark, that I shall leave with the Reader, will lead him into the sense of 'em all. L. wrote against a sort of men that held good works to be meritorious, and relied on 'em, as of themselves satisfactory, without a particular application of faith: this was the Doctrine (or at least the practice) of the cloister; and this L. through all his Writings encounters: so that where ever he put's a slight upon good works 'tis as they stand distinct from Faith, under the notion that superstitious zeal had then clothed 'em with 
b Thus when he had said Contritio quae paratur per discussionem, collectionem, & detestationem peccati etc. facit hypocritam. Assert. Art. 6 he expound's himself afterwards by telling you that the contrition he's talking of is naturalis, impia & extra fidem. When he tell's you (Assert. Art. 11.) Crede fortiter t●… absolutum, & absolutus vere eris quicquid sit de c●…tritione, what is meant by these last words, is not whether you are contrite or no, as his sly interpreter has it, but without respect to your contrition, i. e the contrition you so much rely upon, as the article itself when propounded entire, and the paraphrase upon it sufficiently evidence. And so of the rest. . I will not say that in the prosecution of this he never went awry, he did so in reviving that doubt, which was sometime in the primitive Church, of St. James' Epistle being Canonical, because he thought it ran counter to St. Paul: but he withdrew this plea of his, when better informed; if quoting from it afterwards, as from Scripture, be owning its Authority. 'Tis plain his followers think so: the most rigid of whom, and who in every puncttlio would be thought like Luther, do yet retain this Epistle in the Canon. Indeed in the 1st. Edition of his Germane Bible he calls it straminea; not absolutely, but in comparison with those of St. Paul. But in all the Editions after 1526 'tis left out: and the arida, the Pamphlet talks of, is in none of 'em at all. The objection drawn from his calling St. Paul Evangelist in preference to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is ridiculous, for he there tells you what he mean's by Evangelists, viz: such as preach the glad tidings of that comfortable Doctrine (as our Articles term it)▪ of Justif●…cation by Faith alone: and in this sense he says- you may more properly say the Gospel of St. Paul then of Matthew etc. And what is there so heinous in this expression? 'Tis low ebb sure with his Accuser, when such Peccadilloes as these are put in to swell the Charge. But the grand Article is to come. L. (he says) was so strangely affected with this new invention [he mean's justifying Faith] that he made bold much to prefer the Mahometan life as to good manners before the Christian. Now had L. spoke up to this accusation, yet Chrysostom's example would have been his defence. For he says the very same thing in almost the same terms of the Christians in his time compared with the Pagans 
a Chrysost Open Imp. in Matth. hom. 49. . But L has indeed said no such thing. In the place cited he compares Mahometans▪ and Papists as to the austerities of living: but 'tis far from his principles to say all good life and practice consists in these strictnesses 
b Christiana Religio longe aliud est, & sublimius aliquid, quam Ceremoniae spe●…iosae Rasura, Cucullus, Pallor vultus, Jejunia, Horae Canonicae, & universa ill●… facies Ecclesiae Romanae per orbem▪ Luth Praef in Tract. de Turcismo. . He only urges that if it were so, than the one would lay as fair a claim to it as the other. For the proof of this he vouches the testimony of a Papist, one used barbarously by 'em in a slavery of 11 years' continuance; and who had therefore no great reason to favour 'em. The Considerer here gives him the lie, and says no such thing is to be found in that Relation. I shall not return the Compliment, but desire the Reader to look at the bottom of the page 
a Chap. the 14th, of the Relation I find these words. In ista specie religionis inveniunt aliquid tant●… 〈◊〉, ut impassibiles s●…nt, ut nihil exterioris▪ impressionis, sentire val●…ant: nam in maximis frig●…ribus ●…udato corpore incedunt, & non sentiu●…. Isti suae probationis rationes & veritatem ostendunt in v●…riis stigmatibus c●…bustionum, & cicatricibus incisionum etc. A living witness of good credit has confirmed this account▪ He says th●… Turks have their M●…ks, and thoseof different Orders, the D●…rvices, the Kadri, the Nimi●…ali, the E●…i and twenty more. These live under as great austerities as Cap●…s, or C●…lites: they go barefoot, use corporal penn●…ce, have frequent▪ Pilgrimages, and take some of 'em th●… three Vow●… of 〈◊〉, Poverty, and Obedience Ryc. pr●…st▪ of the O●…. Emp. p. 138 etc. , and he'll be pretty well satisfied of my Author's modesty. This innocent reflection gives occasion for one of the wildest inferences that ever was made. He is condemned immediately as preferring Turcisin to Christianity, the Koran to the Bible, and Mahomet to Christ. With this false scent my Author runs away at full cry; proves manifestly to you, that the Christian Religion is the most holy of all Religions; and after he has heated his imagination to an high pitch of zeal, concludes with a Deus tibi imperet, the Ld. rebuke thee. His fancy, it seems has made a Giant of a Windmill, and he's now engaging it: I shall slip away in the mean time, and when he has spent his fury, meet him at the 10th Paragraph.  
For so far we must go before any new matter offers itself. His reflections between are so very mean, that a bare recital confutes them. Ls. Doctrine (he says) 
§. 7.  is since detested by many judicious Protestants. If you ask him how he knew it, he'll tell you- Hammond and Thorndike wrote against the Solifidians, and Luther himself (one of those judicious Protestants) confessed, that some wrested what he taught to their own destruction. it is a Doctrine void of Consolation- because some men 
§. 8.  think they have this Faith, when they have it not, and so are betrayed into a fatal security. This is such stuff as no patience can digest. But L. pursued this notion 
§. 9  so far, as to hold a parity of honour in all justified. He did so, as to the act of Justification itself, and so must all do that hold it gratuitous: but not as to the degrees of Sanctification afterwards. The honour of Knighthood is the same in all upon whom the Prince confer's it: but some Knights may live up to their characters better than others, and so possess a larger share in the Prince's favour. What little amusements these are for so mighty a man in Controversy to sport himself withal? He might even as well have employed his time (as the Author of a Book of Education says some Princes have 
Educ. p. 13.  done) in the frivolous and low delights of catching Moles, baltering Frogs, hunting Mice with humble-bees, making Lanterns, Tinderboxes, and such like Manufacture.  
Come we now to the second Branch of Ls. Accusation, 
§. 10.  his vilifying Religious Vows, Penance. etc. Again I must ask him, is this a work to try the Doctrine by, or rather a part of the Doctrine that is to be tried? If Works are to decide the goodness or badness of Ls. cause, according to what was first proposed, why are these speculative points preposterously put upon us? But if our Author, in spite of his own design, is resolved to give us a list of his Doctrines, with what colour of reason can that about Indulgences be slipped over? 'Twas the main Article that made the breach, as all their own writers confess: and does it not deserve a mention? But we deal with a man that understands very well the ordering of his scenes. This busyness of Indulgences is too gross to be touched upon, 'twould leave ill impressions upon the Reader's mind; and therefore he passes it over just as Mezeray and the French Writers do the battle of Cressy. It cannot be shown so much as in Profile, no light will make it look lovely. Here is a fair occasion given to supply the defects of my Author's story, and show to what beastly uses Indulgences were then put, and upon how brave an occasion it was, that L. first appeared: but because the whole voice of Germany in the Centum Gravamina 
a Grav. 31. , and the Trent-Council itself 
b Sess. 25 Decret▪ de Indulg.  has done it to my hands, 'twill be perhaps a needless trouble. I go on then to see what L. has said in disparagement of Penance, Vows, etc.  
As to the first of these, Penance, and what falls under it in all that heap of Quotations which he has piled up Paragr. the 10th, nothing is aimed at but the superstitious, and meritorious use of it: and this all Protestants as well as L. decry. When he's pleased to urge any thing in its favour, 'twill be time to think of our reasons. In the mean while he's resolved, I find, by such dry tedious accounts, to force his Reader upon the Practice of Penance, where he is not able to recommend the Doctrine of it. He hath a long passage out of the Colloquia where L. deter's men from solitaryness: from indulging themselves in a strange affected retirement, he does not from a sober solitude, that rallies our scattered strengths, and prepares us against any new encounters from without: for this he both taught and practised, He has indeed said nothing there, which St. Bernard did not say 500 years ago of some who in pursuit of greater sanctity withdrew themselves into deserts 
c Daemon ille meridianus Eremum petere persuasit; & cognoverunt &c. Rem in Ca●…t. Serm. 33.  such, says he, are tempted by the Devil, and in the end, by sad experience find the truth of that saying. woe unto him that is alone! for if he falleth, he hath none to help him. But a shorter Answer may be given to this and all other places taken from the Colloquin mensali●…▪ 'Tis a book not received yet into the Canon by the Learned: It depends purely on the credit of one Van-Spar●…, that tell's a blind story of his finding it in the ruins of an old house many years after L. and Aurifaber the pretended compiler was dead: but should it be genuine, yet no fair adversary would urge lose table talk against a man in controversy, and build serious inferences upon what perhaps was spoken but in jest.  
Vow's and Celibacy are the next points he goes upon. The latter of these makes an entire Treatise of itself, and is the Task of another hand, to which I refer the Reader, that desires a fuller satisfaction; and shall only make a reflection or two en passant. L. recommended matrimony, 
§. 11. n. 2.  he did well, I hope, to follow so good a Guide as St. Paul:— Yes, but in preference to Celibacy: now this, I say, is a piece of my Author's mendacity: for in that very place that he has recourse to, for the proof of this assertion, these words are plainly read. 
a Comm. in 1 Cor. 7. 6.  Sicubi conjugium quis cum caelibatu conferat, praestantius certe donum est caelibatus. With what tolerable ingenuity could he pass this over unmentioned? Yet in spite of Ls. declaration in the case, he will it seems prove the Tenet upon him. He urges that place, where L. says, that— properly speaking the state of the Religious Orders is mundane, 
§. 11. n. 6.  and that of Matrimony Spiritual. He does so, but he says more too; for the very next words are De istis autem Ordinibus & Religiosis loquor, qui eo nomine ha●…tenus sese & nominari & jactari perpessi sunt. He affirms not absolutely that Marriage is the more Spiritual state, but in comparison with Celibacy as then practised in the Church of Rome: where it was commonly forced 
b Juventam passim in caenobia ad coelibatum cogunt. Luth. Exeg▪ in 1 Cor. 1. , taken up under a bold vow 
a Continentia donum est non nostri operis, nostrarum ve virium, proinde nec quisquam id vovere potest. Ibid. , thought meri●…orlous 
b Ex castitate meritum & jactantiam coram Deo & hominibus saciunt. Ibid. , and lead in all uncleaness 
c Nullus statuum impudentior est, & ad libidinem promptior Ecclesiastico & spirituali statu, ut hodiernus dies testatur. Ibid. . And in this sense it was that he said, Matrimonium velut esse aurum, spiritualem vero statum ut stercus; for to the objection made immediately upon this,— What then must none live unmarried? he answers— I am now talking not of Celibacy itself, but of the Spiritual state (as they term it) two as different things, as can well be imagined. Again when he expound's that Text urged for virginity, ['Tis good for a man so to be] of conveniency in 
1 Cor. 7. 26. §. 11. ●…. 6.  this life, not of Spiritual good; 'tis in consent to his own Principles, which allow no merit, no intrinsic worth to accompany one state more than another. But then he own's this convenience may be employed to a very good use in respect of another life too 
e Mallet Apostolus cuivis eximium continentiae donum concessum esse, ut anxiae matrimonii ex●…ers curae & miseriae, soli Deo & verbo ejus libere totis viribus incumberet. Ibid. , as it affords us freer seasons of attending upon God and Virtue. The state itself is not more holy than another, but it gives a larger scope to display the holiness we already have, and to procure what we have not. He invites all people in general to matrimony because he thinks the Qui potest capere, capiat of o●…r Saviors, implies 
f Ibid. , the gift of Continence to belong but to a few. But where he meets these few, he break's out into Euges, and Acclamations; and expresses himself in terms that might become the mouth of St. Hierome. 
g Alti & praedivites spiritus sunt per gratiam Dei infraenati, qui natura corporisque viribus ad rem inidonei non sunt, & saupte tamen sponte coelibes permanent Serm. de Mat. item Comm. in Ps. 128. 3.  Those are high and noble Souls (says he) who by the Grace of God have laid such a chain upon their passions, as, tho' supplied by nature with all bodily 
d Respondeo— De spirituali nunc statu loquor ad matrimonium comparato, non de Caelibatu. ●…aelibatus & vera continentia aliud est ac spiritualis status. Ibid.  vigour, can yet willingly abstain. Thus after all the little sleights and cavils of the Considerer, 'tis plain that Luther's expressions are just, and his thoughts every way regular upon the point. Tho', should he have indulged himself in a flight or two beyond strict truth, in praise of marriage, it had been no more than what some Fathers have been guilty of on the other side, as his very Adversaries confess 
a Espencaeus. L. 3. de Cont. in c. 11. Hieronymus aequus sane parum esse videtur vel unis nuptiis. Apolog. Tumult. p. 14. Gregorio viro ut videtur plus satis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. . And a great deal must have been allowed to his natural warmth of temper, in this case, when 'tis considered what sort of Church he engaged: a Church, where marriage had by 
b Syricius, & Innocent.  two Popes been styled 
c Innocen Exup. Tolos. Episc. Ep. 3. c. 1. Dist. 128. Proposuisti. Vide Surium Tom. 1. p. 530.  unholy, 
d Syricius Pap. Decr. Tom: 1. Conc. apud Surium p. 495.  carnal, and unpleasing to God; by 
e St. Dunstan & St. Oswald. vide Reg. Eccl. Wigorn. Bp. Hall Honour of the Married ●…lergy. lib. 3. §. 10.  two Saints, filthy beastlyness; and by 
f Concil. Tolet. 8. c. 5. Quosdam sacerdotes aut uxorum aut quarumcunque soeminarum immunda societate & execrabili contagio turpari. Mode●…n examples might be alleged in good store. Even Bellarmin says— conjugii actus hominem reddit totum carnalem & ineptum ad divina. L. 1. de cler. c. 18.  a Council itself, unclean abominable contagion. I shall dismiss this point with a request to the Considerer, that he would do Lr. at least this justice in citing him, as not to make him speak in congruously: Christus ipse non consuluit— says Lr.— caelibatum, my Author wisely put's in. Now unless he can prove 
p. 21.  caelibatum a man or a woman, this Latin will be much-what the same with a solaecism: for nothing but men and women dos consulo ever advise. But a piece of false Grammar is easily pardoned, where we have so much false reason to deal with.  
The discourse of Vows (blended with that of Celibacy in the Pamphlet) has that art and address in it as to make Lr. appear a Lampetian. But this is an unworthy design. For any man conversant in his Works must know, that he was not utterly against all Vows 
a Bellarmin L. 2. de Mon. c. 15. own's it.  but only for regulating the use of some. Hear him once for all thus speaking, Ego sane non repugnaverim, siquis privatim arbitrio suo velit vovere, ne vota penitus contemnam aut damnem 
b Lib. de Vot. Monast. . The thing he blamed was their being taken up absolutely, without any reserve of necessity: His maxim was, that absolute Vows can be made only of such things as are wholly in our power then, when we Vow: and of this kind, he says 
c Nullum omnino in scriptures Voti Exemplum legimus, nisi in his rebus, quae nobis jam antea dat sunt, aut subinde dabuntur (ut Numer. 30. constat.) ut de aedibus, agris, castigatione etc. Exeg in 1 Cor. 7.  all Scripture-Vows were. Now Continence he thinks is a Gift perfectly out of our reach, and therefore does not lie within the compass of such a Vow. The Considerer supposes otherwise, affirming this Gift to be given to all those, who use a just endeavour for 
p. 21.  it. But we say, that the wisdom of the Holy Ghost would then never have prescribed marriage as a remedy for fornication, for what need of a remedy, where there is no Disease? We appeal to that Text— All men receive not this saying, and from thence urge, that a single Life 
Mat. 9 11.  is not the Talon of all men: and Maldonate allows us, that almost all the Interpreters (amongst whom he reckons three Fathers of the first magnitude) do so expound it 
d Sic fere omnes exponunt: quam interpretationem adduci non possum ut sequar. Maldon. in locum. . Tho', with the modesty of a jesuit, he says afterwards, that nevertheless he is not of their opinion. To his three Fathers (Origen, Nazianzen, and Ambrose) we add two more, St. Hierome 
e Si omnes virgines esse possent, nunquam & Dominus diceret [qui potest capere capiat] & Apostolus in suadendo non trepidaret. Hier. adv. Jovi●. L. 1. p 412. , and St. Austin; 
f Nunc rectissime dicitur [qui potest capere, capiat qui autem se non continet, nubat. Aug. de Adult. Cons. L. 2. c. 2.  and are content to err in the interpretation of a Text, with almost all the Fathers on our side. But Lr. sometimes presumes upon the Gift of Continency, as when the Wife is sick etc. 
§ 11. n. 4  Right! in such circumstances as took their rise from a lawful and warranted action the does; and there he thinks the divine veracity engaged to make good the promise of our being tempted no farther than we are able; not so, when the necessity that lies upon us, had its rise from something unlawful, and unwarranted, such as he accounts Vowed Celibacy to be: which he knew under this indispensable restraint was never taught nor practised by Ancient Fathers; and he knew too the wild effects that had followed upon this restraint in latter times, when men allowed themselves all Liberties that did not directly infringe their Vow, and Concubinage, and simple Fornication were almost expunged out of the list of Sins. Damianus' letter to Nicholas the 2d about the middle of the 11th Century is an Authentic Record of the lewdnesses committed under the reign of Celibacy: the grossest part of his confession, was (as Baronius owns) suppressed by the Pope, yet as it now stands, 'twould make a man think Sodom and Gomorrah were rebuilt again. Clemangis' complaints 
a De statu Eccl. p. 47. & inde.  near 300 years ago are known things, and Erasmus' confession 
b Quam innumeri Monachi sint publicè incesti & impudici etc. Erasm. Annot. in. 1 Tim. 3. p. 533.  is a standing testimony. Who is ignorant of the story of Petrus Aloysius, Paul the 3d's, Bastard, or of the Archbishop of Benevento's Poetry? These were crying lewdnesses, yet not resented by the Popes then in the See: nay the latter was thought fit to be honoured afterwards with the character of Nuntio to the Venetians. Yet the Pamphlet is very warm with Lr. for impiously accusing the Religious of uncleanness. And 
§ 11. n. 3. §. 11. n. 7.  if it were so, how could he know it, that himself lived chaste? The Question is silly enough to Answer itself. The matter of fact has been already in part made out, and might yet farther be cleared by a Cloud of Witnesses. The beastlynesses upon Record committed in our English Monasteries are a sufficient sample of what was done in the rest. We have the Prior of St. Andrew's Confession amongst our Rolls: we have an abstract of the Breviarium Compertorium in Monasteriis Aᵒ. 1538. Which if we do not more largely insist upon, 'tis our good manners that will not suffer us to talk of those sins, which their Religion did not hinder them from Acting. In such a time therefore as this, when the Celibate was stained with these impurities, 'twas requisite to preach up the honour of the married state in the highest strains it would bear. Prudent Zeal could contrive no better an expedient, and I see not how Lr. Accuser can charge him on this account, as encouraging the liberties of the Flesh, 
Vide §. 3. 12.  unless he first subscribe the lewd determination of Coster and the Casuists, that says— ' 'tis less sin for Priests to fornicate then marry 
a Sacerdos si fornicetur, aut domi Concubinam habeat, tametsi gravi sacrilegio se obstringat, gravius tamen peccat▪ si matrimonium contrahat. Coster. Ench. c. 15. . As for that expression, si Domina nolit, 
§ 11. n. 3.  adveniat ancilla, tho' it be indeed too light upon so serious an occasion, yet any man who consults the Context will find nothing indecent at the bottom on't. Lr. is making a decision upon St. Paul's rule of separating only for a time. Here, says He, if the Wife persists in an obstinate denial of the Bed— opportunum est ut dicat maritus- si tu nolueris, alia volet; si Uxor nolit, adveniat Ancilla. That is, she shall be taken into her place not as Woman but as Wife; after divorce made from the other: for so the next words plainly speak— ita tamen ut antea iterum & tertio uxorem admoneat, & coram aliis ejus etiam pertinaciam detegat, ut publice & ante conspectum Ecclesiae duritia ejus & agnoscatur & Reprehendatur. Si tum renuat, repudia eam— He must first admonish her twice or thrice in public, and then— Repudietur Uxor, adveniat Ancilla. I was willing to propose this passage entire, to take off the disguise which its Quoter has put upon it. He has shuf●…led the two ends of the sentence together, and by taking out the ita tamen &c in the middle, made it speak just as he would have it. That which gives distaste to the Ear in it is a Germane byword: and such kind of things Lr. according to the humour of those times, pursues with some fondness: take it singly, and it carries an air of levity, I confess; but, in consort with the rest, you see, has a meaning quite different from what this Author would insinuate.  
Thus far my Author has slipped his first design; not a letter of what has been yet said promoting any ways the trial of Ls Spirit, by the Fruits of it. He gins now (after a Parenthesis of 25. Page's) to offer something that looks that way. Ls Anticelibacy stay's not here, he says, he shook 
§. 12.  off his Vow, and Married a Nun: This we acknowledge to be a Work, and we'll prove it no bad one. Had he done it with the Pope's Licence, his Adversaries must have been silent, for that's a ruled case with the Schoolmen; and the K. of Aragon's story is too known to be repeated. Yet these same Schoolmen do not stretch the point so far, as to say the Pope has an absolute unlimited power over these Vows: no, a solemn Vow (such as Luther's was) is, they say, de jure positivo ac naturali: and that in this therefore, the Pope cannot make a nullity, where there is none; but only declare it, where it is 
a Papa non potest dispensare in Voto solenni: quis enim potest dispensare in jure naturali & positivo? possunt quidem incidere causae, in quibus Papa non quidem dispenset, sed per interpretationem aequi & boni declaret eum qui voverat, non teneri voto. Maldon. Sum. q. 12. art. 7. . Now if Ls Vow was of itself void, what need of a recourse to the Pope to have it declared so? 'Twas made immediately to God, without any intervening obligation to his Holiness; and tho' the judgement of the Church be desirable to satisfy a scrupulous Votary that he is released, yet if the Votary be satisfied without this judgement, and his grounds be rational, he may act accordingly, without sin. Now Lr. had several reasons to think his Vow not binding. It was taken up without deliberation, or even consent. Neque enim libens, & cupiens fiebam Monachus, sed à terrore & ago subitae mortis vovi coactum ac necessarium votum 
a Praef. ad Lib. de Vot. Monast. This citation my Author has pag▪ 3. but mangled, he leaves out those first words- neque enim libens & cupiens fiebam Monachus, sed- and then in the end- coactum ac necessarium votum. And yet p. 63. when these expressions are for his purpose, he citys 'em all entire. : And against the express commands of his Father 
b Te ignorant, & invito id tentavi. Ib▪ : to whom Obedience was he knew enjoined by Scripture, when Continence was not 
c Continentia non est mandata, Obedientia vero est mandata. Ibid. . So many flaws had this Vow in its first conception, And as he had taken it up through disobedience, so 'twas laid down in compliance to that very authority it had defied: for so Melchior Adamus relates the story. But what need was there of doing this in the 42d year of his Age? when (in the homely phrase of the Pamphlet) the boilings of nature were now well assuaged? But is the Considerer so well acquainted with Luther's Crasis, as to be sure of that? Are fresh lustings a greater wonder after forty, than a new Religion after threescore? If Lr. did not then burn, how comes this act to be a Fleshly Lust with my Author? If he did, why is it questioned, when an Apostle has given his warrant for it? He himself, I own, gives another reason for his Marriage— the leaving his own doctrine confirmed by his own example 
d Epist. ad Mich. Shifel▪ . But he does not give it as the only one. Tho should he lay the whole stress of the case upon this principle▪ 'twould easily bear it. Men were then strangely possessed with the aeternal obligation of a Vow: when they grew uneasy under it, yet they looked on Marriage with horror and detestation, and chose rather the methods God had forbid▪ than the remedies he had appointed. To rescue men's minds from the slavery of these notions was Ls design: He could no ways so effectually recommend his doctrine, as by being himself the example of it. This motive therefore was sufficient to authorize what he did: since according to St. Thomas 
a Qui ●…ovet que dammodo sibi statuit legem, obligans se ad aliquid, quod est secundum se & in pluribus bonum: potest tamen accidere, quod in casu aliquo sit in utile, vel majoris boni impedimentum, quod est contra rationem ejus quod sub voto cadit: & ideo necesse est quod in tali casu determinetur▪ votum▪ non esse servandum. Aqu. 2. 2. qu. 88 10.  and St. Bernard's 
b Non arbitror Deum exigere à nobis quodcunque sibi promissum bonum, si pro eo aliquid melius fuerit absolurum. Bernard. Ep 57  rules, 'tis allowable to exchange a Vow for any greater good that stands in competition with it. And the picking out Bora to match with, one who had formerly been a Nun▪ was but making the Precedent he was going to set, more conspicuous; and an open declaration that the quarrel between him and Rome was irreconcilable.  
Besides it must be considered, that Lr. did not by any particular solicitations invite Bora, either to leave her Monastery, or to take up thoughts of marriage: she had done both of her own accord. Her Veil she had thrown off above two years before her acquaintance with Lr. and went so far in these resolutions, as almost to close with a match that was proffered her, but this breaking off, His offer was accepted. But Adamus says that Lr. himself afterwards 
§. 12.  regretted this action. What is meant here by regretting, I don't understand: for Adamus says no more, then that he was concerned at the censures of some people about it: But the Pamphlet in the next words will explain itself, where we are informed, that Melancthon too by Ls procurement took a Wife, so that it's plain now that by regretting is meant approving: for certainly, if a man were disgusted at marriage, he would never recommend it to his friend▪ This I take, in the language of the book▪ to be a sufficient autocatacrisy. If the English Reader be 
p. 10.  startled at the Word, he may be pleased to know, that its Greek for a Blunder.  
After these advances, Lr. wholly left off his▪ Canonleal 
§. 13.  Hours: an heinous accusation! why, he had left off his Monkhood too, and was no longer obliged to 'em▪ How could he have the leisure and retiredness of the Cloister, to perform all those acts of Devotion in, when the Burden of the Reformation lay upon his Shoulders? No▪ his active spirit was employed upon things more acceptable to God almighty, because more useful to mankind. He was wrestling against Principalities and Powers, against 
Ephes. 6. 12, 13. 14, 15. 16, 17. 18, 19  the Rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places. To that end he took unto him the whole armour of God, that he might be able to withstand in the evil day; and having done all, to stand. He stood therefore, having his Loins girt about with Truth, and having on the breast plate of righteousness, and his feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace: Above all, taking the shield of Faith, wherewith he was able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And he took the Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Yet praying always with all Prayer and Supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance, and supplication for all Saints; And for himself, that utterance might be given unto him, that he might open his mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the Gospel. I could not forbear setting down at full length this Panoply of St. Paul, wherewith Lr. completely armed himself in his spiritual warfare: and I do not know whether this description belongs so justly to any man as him, since the day's of the Apostles. Should he therefore have laid aside his Canonical Hours, yet the Work he was about, sufficiently atoned for the omission. But I had rather his Accuser should vindicate him, than I. You will find then, that though Lr. has discharged these duties quite at the entrance of the Paragraph; yet at the end of it you will be told, that he never totally cast off this holy Exercise. So obligingly does this author contradict himself, to spare the Replyer's pains. ●…d And this ease I must acknowledge he has more than once afforded me.  
In the following Account of Ls. appearing before 
§. 14.  the Legate in Germany, I must desire him to rectify a mistake or two: for neither was Lr. condemned by Cajetan there, nor was Cajetan a moderate Prelate. He descended to bitter reprehensions (says Soave Hist. Counc. Tr. p. 8.) and base terms, and concluded that Princes have long hands, and so bid him be gone. Here was no Judicial Process, all ended in a threatening: and this moderate Prelate behaved himself with such a rude zeal through the whole conference, that even his own party blamed the furiousness of it. [Soave ibid.] If Lr. afterwards threw off the Pope's Authority, it was not till he had tried all softer ways of redress, by Letters, Remonstrances, and the most submiss applications: it was not till a fresh Bull of Leo's had declared how inflexible the Court of Rome was in the point of Abuses; and not till Prierias had in downright terms told him— Indulgentiae authoritate scripturae non innotuere nobis, sed authoritate Ecclesiae Romanae, Romanorumque Pontificum, quae major est. The Pope now was become a party in the cause, and could not be relied upon for a decision: to a Council therefore he appealed; and, if he afterwards revoked this Plea too▪ 'twas because he found the expected Council was dwindling into a Conventicle; a packed Assembly of Italian Bishops, not a free convention of Fathers from all Quarters of the Christian World. So that to urge upon this account, that he denied the Authority of the present Church, 
§. 15.  or denied 〈◊〉 pres●… Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 true 〈◊〉, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ●…ay 
§. 16.  no worse of it, an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f●… b●… ●…e present Church here is meant 〈◊〉 more than the Court of Rome, and its dependants. But he is challenged of going much farther than this, even to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the visibility of the Church for many ages upon what account? Because he made this the only note of the 〈◊〉 Church▪ that there the Gospel be truly and sincerely 〈◊〉. As if 〈◊〉. and with him a great train of learned 〈◊〉, did not own, that in all that dark 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were still some gleams of light, some witnesses that arose, to give testimony to the truth, and protest against innovations▪ I cannot but take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 way, of a little artifice of the Considerer's▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he has of disguising a Doctrine, when it lies a little too open, by putting a new name to it▪ Is it too bold to say the Elements must be adored? they shall then only have a certain sort of a Cul●… paid them▪ So here the Priest is said, to operate the presence of the body and blood of Christ: which in plain broad English is neither more nor less than to make God. But that's too gross to go off, so a term is coined to make the conveyance easy.  
As for the newness of Ls. opinions, and his marching 
§. 16.  alone, against the Doctrine of the primitive ages, 'tis so beaten a point, that it deserves no other Answer then that true Jest of Scaliger's▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Novatores, sed Vos estis Veteratores: and the Considerer, if he pleases, may apply it.  
But 'tis ridiculous to say he denied the validity of 
§. 18.  the former Clergy's ordination: for that necessarily draws along with it, the invalidity of his too. Yet he proceeded, we see, in the work of his Ministry without expecting any new Mission, and never thought himself 
a See Disc about the Euch.  obliged to a reordination. No, he was so far from this, that in the Articles of Smalcald he own's Orders conferred by a Popish Bishop even then to be valid 
a Smalcald. Art. 10.  and in his Letter about the Anabaptists, you will find him in 20 places owning, that the C. of Rome hath the true Faith, Baptism, Sacraments, the Keys, the Office of Preaching etc. Concessions that run as high, as any the most charitable Protestants now make. So that that objection of the Devil's in Ls. book of the Mass, must be counted a flourish only, and not a convincing argument; for tho' Lr. gives his assent in general to the reasoning of that discourse, yet he does not say every particular of it amounted to a demonstration. As for his book adversus falso-nominatum ordinem Episcoporum, and some harsh expressions about the Prelates of his time, they must not be so understood as if he meant to unbishop 'em, but only to set out their corruption and degeneracy. Athan●…sius does not speak more softly of the Arrian Bishops in Constantius his Court: he says they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: and that if any of'em has a mind to be consecrated, he is not told, that a Bishop should be blameless, but only bid to rage against Christ and never trouble himself about manners 
b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Athan. Ep. ad. Solit. Vit. agentes. p. 812. Edit. Paris. 1●…27.  But these words must be allowed a latitude, and are not strictly to be taken, as if the Father denied the validity of their Consecration.  
After the Breach with the Pope, 'tis owned that Lr. 
●…. 17.  took the freedom of calling him Antichrist, when ever he came in his way: but ere this can be made his crime, it must be proved, that St. Paul has not called him so too; for otherwise we can't but think that he has taken after a good pattern. If his spirit must be dubbed evil for an hard▪ word or two against his holiness, of what spirit pray was the sacred Council of Brixia, when they stigmatised Hildebrand? calling him— Virum procacissimum, sacrilegia & in●…endia praedicantem, Perjuria & Homicidia defendentem, manifestum Necromanticum- and a deal of that stuff. Now can I see no great difference between Lr. and the Council in this matter, but that they railed perhaps with infallibility on their side, when He had only plain certainty on his.  
But he rejected the authority of Councils: yes, siquando 
§. 19  contraria Scripturae statuunt 
a Assert. Art. 29. , and so do all the Reformed, as well, as Herald So that this won't pass for a fault in him, till 'tis proved one in us too. But he never refused to be concluded by the authority of One legally summoned: as is plain from that Preface of his to the Smalcald Articles, written a little while before he went out of the world. Indeed the sense he had of the tricks and Artifices used in convening these Synods for some Centuries together, and the noise of his Adversaries, who were perpetually crying Councils, Canons etc. when they had nothing else to say for their cause, might perhaps force out an expression or two from him, that did not carry all the respect due to those great Names: he had fire in his temper, and a Germane bluntness, and, upon these provocations, might possibly strain a phrase with too great freedom: yet even the diligence of his accuser has in all his works been able to find out but a few passages of this nature; and of them the most material perhaps were never found out by any body else but himself. For those two, which seem the warmest on this occasion, are quoted, the one from Assertio Art. 36. contra Reg. Angliae; the other from a Treatise of his about Councils in 1639; two imaginary books that the considerer dreamt of perhaps, but I am sure L. never wrote 
a In Luther's Works in High Dutch there is a Book of Councils I confess. But this can't be that my Author means, because his Quotations here are in Latin. . So that till he lay'●… his Indictment in some certain County, we don't think ourselves bound to answer an indefinite charge. As for the rest, we acknowledge, he called the Council of Constance, Synagogam Satanae; and I wonder my author should be offended at the expression, when 'tis considered what unlucky things they did in the business of the Pope's Supremacy: especially since their own Annalist has given the same Title to that of Syrmium: a Council legally summoned by the Emperor Constantius, approved by Pope Liberius; and which they of the Roman Persuasion have no colour to reject, but upon Protestant grounds, because it made Heretical Decrees. Lr. says— sive Papa, sive Concilium sic aiunt; abundet quisque in sensu suo, in rebus non necessariis ad salutem. Assert. Art. 28. Here is He represented by this author as denying the power of the Church in indifferent things: but this is foul dealing to conceal the occasion the words were spoken upon, and then fasten a sense of his own. This Article is aimed against the pretences of a Pope or Council to make that a necessary point of faith, by their determination, which was of itself unnecessary before. For they took upon 'em he knew to enlarge the Creeds which were already fixed; and had explained a Parable of our Saviors in a far different sense to what he taught it in: The Faith, which was but a Mustardseed in the Primitive ages, was grown by little and little towards the beginning of the 16th Century into a great Tree. This power of theirs and no other Lr. here disowns: as any one that views the place but cursorily, must needs see. There is no harm in this I hope: and yet how big the accusation looked, as his sly Enemy had managed it? There is another sentence taken from Tom. 2. p. 243. But I must desire the Citer henceforward to inform us of his Editions too: for in the first Wirtenberg one, which I now have by me, no such thing appears. I would request of him too, to be punctual in his Titles, that we who are at the drudgery of Reading him, may lose no more time than is necessary. By the book de gravi doctrina, is meant, I suppose de quavis doctrina: 
p. 33.  but 'tis a trifle he has taken from it, and what he knows every body own's. Thus has this one Paragraph afforded us more absurdities, than we could possibly have expected in so narrow a compass; and methinks, though I don't well know what the words mean, yet in the phrase of the man, it discover's a strange plerophory of blindnes●….  
Lr. is next arraigned for speaking contemptuously of 
§. 20.  Fathers: but this is a rank calumny: No man has a greater veneration for 'em then Herald Let his latest Writings (which our. Author observes to have been the most haughty) give us a taste of his thoughts on this point. I say not this, to lay a blot on the Holy Fathers, whose Labours we ought with veneration to receive; They were great men, but men still— and a little afterwards▪ 
b Quoties videmus patrum opinione●… cum scriptura non conven●…re, cum reverentia eos toleramus, & agnoscimus tanquam major●…s 〈◊〉, sed●… 〈◊〉 eo●…●…almen non discedimus ab authoritate scripturae: Ibid.  When ●…e find the opinions of Fathers jarring with Scriptures, we must pay a respect to 'em even in their very Errors, and acknowledge the●… as our Betters: but we are not nevertheless for their sakes to departed from the authority of holy Writ. Nothing can be expressed with greater decency; and therefore we may reasonably suspect false play in the Citations, which would persuade us to the contrary. To instance in the first— Non ego quaero quid Ambrose, Augustinus▪ Concilia etc. dicunt. Contra Reg. Angliae. Lr. is there proving that no sort of Tradition 
a Non haec dico in contumeliam Santorum Patrum, quorum labores venerari▪ decet. fuerunt magni viri, sed viri tamen. Comm. in Genes. c. 2. p. 72.  can make an Article of faith, of what is not contained in Scripture; and in this case if a thousand Ambroses, or Councils should vote it such, he would slight the decision. This is plain from what immediately follows— Non disputo quid à quoquam dictum vel non dictum sit, sed an hoc dictum necessarium sit servatu, an sit articulus fidei, an sit aequale verbo Dei etc. I desire the Reader to trust his own eyes in consulting this Passage, and then tell me, whether this Man be not the foulest Trader in Quotations, that ever he dealt with. Indeed he is a very Procrustes in his way: whatever he meets of other men's, he unmercifully either stretches, or curtails, till he has made it exactly of a size with his own notions. The rest of the Testimonies are highly impertinent: and if they be looked into, 'twill be found they signify no more than this— the Fathers have erred and therefore he cannot rely merely upon their authority: and what is this more than their own) Canus and Cajetan say? that no man should detest a new sense of Scripture for this, that it differs from the ancient Doctors, for God hath not (say they) tied exposition of Scripture to their senses 
a Can Loc. Com. L. 7. C. 7. where he quotes Cajetan too. . We have a surfeit of Quotations here again from the Colloquia: but I have told him what credit they are like to find with us. That from Captivitas Babylonica, needs only to be proposed entire. It goes upon a supposition that Lr. had already showed the plain meaning of Scripture to be against the doctrine of the Mass. Here says he— Quid dicimus ad authoritates Patrum? Primum respondeo— si nihil habetur quod dicatur, satius est omnia negasse, quam Missam sacrificium esse concedere, ne verbum Christi negemus. Very right! supposing, as he does, that Christ's words are express in the case: But neither does he rely on this Plea: for in the very next line he reconciles the Fathers, and Scripture: and shows there is no clash betwixt 'em. What he wrote in comm●…ndation of Melancthon before his works, cannot be supposed so exact, as to discover his judgement on the point: but was only a compliment strained a little too high in behalf of a friend.  
I must leave the Track of the Discourse here, to fetch in another instance of Lr. despising Church-Guides, and yet arrogating to himself all the Authority of them. 'Tis at §. 23. Which because I take to be the compleatest 
§. 23.  piece of false dealing that ever was used 〈◊〉 paper, I shall set down entire.  
Upon the same presumption of his unerring judgement, he by his single Authority altered the former public Lit●…rgy, and reformed the service of the Mass. (apud Hosp. fol. 20.)— The place cited in Hospinian has not one word of this, but it has something directly contrary to it. Luther began not the Reformation of the service of the Mass, the Austin-friars-s did it, 
a Hosp. fol. 20.  without his knowledge, when he was in his retirement after the Diet of Worms; and he wrote his book of the Abolition of the Mass afterwards, only to confirm them in what they had done. Carlstat too, 
b Melch. Ad. V L.  while he was absent, promoted a Reformation of the Mass, and of several other abuses: but in too tumultuous a manner, so that Lr. upon his return to Wirtenburg complained of the violence of their proceed.— Non quod impie fecissent, sed quod non ordine: damnare se Missam Papisticam &c, sed damnare solo verbo, non violenta abrogatione. The Mass then was abrogated, without Ls. consent; and not either by the single Authority, of him or any one man else; the whole University of Wirtenburg first gave in their reasons to D. Frederic, and he himself complied with the alteration. Luther afterwards prevailed to have as much of the service as was innocent restored again; and he was deputed to throw out all that part of it, that made the Sacrament a Sacrifice. He did so, but imposed not even this form as obligatory: for thus he speaks in the preface to it. Nulli praejudicamus, ne aliam amplecti formulam aut sequi liceat; quin ex animo per Christum obsecramus, ut siquid melius illis revelatum fuerit, nos priores tacere jubeant, ut communi opera rem communem juvemus.  
— and generally held in matters of Religion no Ecclesiastical [i. e. human] Laws obliging. (See before §. 19)— I have proved already, that that Paragraph says no such thing, and that Lr. never disallowed the power of the Church in things indifferent.  
— began a new ordination of Bishops and Ministers descending from him, after having declared their former unction null, and God's Church to be only that where the Gospel was purely preached; that was his— I have shown that he's far from declaring their former Unction null, since in the Smalcald Articles he allows their Ordinations to be valid. Nor did ●…e ever deny that the true Gospel was preached under the Papacy— Nos fatemur (they are his words) sub Papata plurimum esse boni Christiani, imo omne bonum Christianum, imo verum nucleum Christianitatis 
a Ep. de Anabapt. .  
— By the same Authority assisted by the Power of the Prince, he made new Bishops, and put them in the places of the deceased: against the Canonical Election of another, made his intimate Friend Amsdorf Bishop of Neoburg. (see Melch. Ad. vit. p. 150.) George Auhaltinus, Bishop of Mersburg. That he made new Bishops, we admit; not out of choice, but necessity: following, as he thought, in this case the practice of the Church, mentioned in that well-known passage of St. Austin's— in Alexandria & per totam AEgyptum, si desit Episcopus, consecrat Presbyter. But that he put these Bishops in the places of the deceased by his 〈◊〉 Authority, is notoriously false; for the D. of Saxony always presented: as the following story will evince, when freed from the disguises he has put upon it, and honestly told. The Canons of Neoburg upon a vacancy, presented one Psugius to the Bishopric, who was refused unanimously ab Ecclesia, ab Ordinibus, & Patroni●… Ecclesiae, says adam's 
a Ad. in Vit. Amsdorfii. . The D. of Saxony had always the right of Allowance; but in this case 'twas denied him: so he thrust out the Invader, and collated Amsdorf to the Benefice: Luther performed the Consecration, and the D. and his Brother Ernest, were present at the Ceremony 
b Ibid. ▪  
— By the same Authority he sentenced the Canon-Law consisting of the former decrees amassed, as well those of Councils, as those of Popes to the fire; and assembling the University solemnly burned it at Wirtenberg. The matter of Fact is true, but 'tis frivolous to say he assumed to himself any particular Authority in the doing it. The reasons, he published, declare that 'twas done by virtue of the Commission, he had as Preacher of God's word; and the Oath he took, at his going out Dr. of confounding all pernicious Doctrines, as much as in him lay. So that he own's himself upon the level with all of the same degree. But he had other motives he tell's you. His books had been solemnly burnt at Rome as Haeretical: some people, he found, were startled at it; so he was forced boldly to make reprisals, and do an action in the same way, to buoy up their courages: yet he did it not singly, the University concurred. This way of Burning declares no such Authority as the Considerer talks of. Neither he, nor any one else that assisted at the Oxon-Decree, pretended to it: if He declared his opinion then against Bellarmin the jesuits &c, 'twas all that was expected.  
— By the same, he frequently pronounced Anathemas, and Excommunications to those reformed that dissented from him in opinion— Is there no difference between an Authoritative judicial Anathema, and a Wish of Execration? The Monks certainly did not pretend to the Anathematising power; and yet at the entrance of their MSS. we always find this sentence— Quicunque hunc librum violaverit &c sit Anathema Maranatha. 'Tis the constant style of all their own men that writ warmly: The Papist Repr. and Misrepr. has used it at the tail of his Pamphlet for some pages together. Thus has not this Paragraph one ingenuous word throughout. I have dissected it for a sample, to show how a man that had the patience, and was sure of the days of job, might handle the rest: for I'll do my Author this right, to acknowledge, that his Book's all of a piece. But he is here inconsistent not only with truth but himself. He would make us believe that Lr. in these actions pretended to a je ne scay quoy Authority, forgetting what he had sleepily owned in the Paragraph before, that Lr. required not conformity to his Doctrines, out of any Authority he claimed to impose them, which Authority ●…e renounced— He think's perhaps, that what's past ought not to be thought of, but we are not of his opinion.  
In this point of Church-Authority, and that other of Marriage, I have si●…ted all the little scraps alleged by the Pamphlet, with the greater care, because here it is, if any where, that the Author seems to be awake, and have some eye to his design. I don't know whether the Reader will thank me for this exactness, I hope the Writer won't. But to make amends to 'em both, I promise in what follows not to be so punctual, but skip over sometimes 4 or 5 pages together, without saying one word to 'em. This Weapon formed against us, if it had any sharpness, yet by this time I'm sure 'tis quite blunted: a Child may now be trusted with it, for the Tool has not Edge enough to hurt him. For what are the mighty Considerations with which we are now to be entertained? The first is that—  
Luther was so bold, as to think and say he was certain 
§. 21. n. 1.  of what he taught: a crime of so high a nature, that the Considerer has taken pains to prove it by a Passage as 
§ 24. n. 1. 2.  long almost as from hence to the beginning of the Reformation. Now he might have spared his labour, for all well-grounded Protestants are in this point as bold as Lr. himself. We have a certainty, whose Evidence we find, and under whose guidance we think ourselves secure, without the pretended boast of Infallibility: a word, which sound's bigger indeed, and fills the mouth better, but is not so satisfactory at the bottom, as a late Author has (tho' not infallibly, yet) certainly proved 
a Disc. about Judge in Controu. . But we'll allow the Considerer to decry this Protestant Certainty, which he never understood: if he had, our charity tells us, he would never have changed it for the gawdiest pretences on t'other side.  
But Lr. maintained this certainty of his against other 
§. 24. n. 3. §. 21. n. 2.  Reformed, which were equally certain; and in contradiction to himself too: for in the point of Consubstantiation, towered the latter end of his life he changed his mind, say the papers; and quote for it Melchior adam's, and Hospinian. I suppose my author is sure of Ls. instability in this point, because he averr's it so confidently: Now I am as sure, that from the authorities mentioned not such thing can be inferred, as shall presently be made out. Here is certainty against certainty, and one of us must be in the wrong. Yet neither of Us is obliged to think his own sentiments ere the less right, merely because the other opposes 'em: Why then might not Lr. maintain his certainty against those of the Reformation that maintained the contrary? The conviction of his understanding lay within itself, and could not be weakened by another man's not being convinced. The reason of my certainty in the case is, because I am very well satisfied that what adam's and Hospinian have here said, does not at all infer a change in Luther's Opinion. The story they tell is this— Lr. some days before his death, owned that he had written a little too warmly in the Sacramentary-Controversy: upon this Melancthon desires him, [ut leni edito scripto se explicaret] that he would explain himself in some milder treatise. The heat of dispute had forced out from him Expressions, that seemed to make his doctrine run higher than really it did. 'Twas his friend's advice therefore, that he should in some just discourse, calmly and without reflection state the point; and (not correct, but) explain his first notions. [ut leni edito scripto se explicaret] Now whatever sense explaining may now bear▪ yet in those days it did not signify changing: for the Bishop of Condom had not then writ his Exposition. I am further convinced, that this story relates not to any change of Ls. opinion, but only to an hot word or two, that aught to have been softened, from the Preface, with which Hospinian usher's it in. Multi (says He) verba Lutheri urgent, quae calor disputationis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exprimere solet, dissimulantes aut nescientes illa, quae valedicturus Collegio Philosophico, dixit: and then comes the Relation▪ Haddit his Adversary acted up to this Remark of Hospinian's, the bulky book we have now before us would have lain within a very little compass. But to go farther, and yield him what he does not ask— What if Hospinian should have said in other places that Lr. wavered in the point of the Sacrament? does it follow, that he really did so, because one of differing sentiments, and that would any ways have drawn Lr. over to his party, has said it? or can we conclude upon Ls. instability (as our Author has done) because in a single notion, no ways fundamental, an Enemy writes that he had some doubtings? This is such a way of reasoning as is answered only by being despised. However 'tis pretty odd to see instability and fluctuation in opinion so earnestly charged upon Lr. by such as have lived half their days in a poise between two Churches; and writ even now, when the Scales are turned, with so much waryness and reserve, that a body would not think 'em hearty of any.  
But Lr. condemned his Brethren of the Reformation 
§ 22. 25. 26.  too; not without their returning the Censure— There was eagerness I confess on both sides, but this is far from laying a blot upon Lr. It argues him a very honest man, who had such a zeal against Error, as not to suffer it in a Friend: and is an undeniable evidence, that he took not upon him the character of a Reformer, in opposition to a Party, (as has been falsely suggested) since, where truth was concerned, he equally oppos▪ d All. The debate Perhaps between him and the Sacramentarians (as they are called) was managed with a fierceness not exactly warrantable: but it must be considered, that the best men of antiquity have been guilty of such excesses. Have we forgotten the feud of Hierome, and Ruffinus? of Epiphanius, and chrysostom? of Victor, and the Greek Bishops, whom he excommunicated for a trifle? Or to go higher, did not Paul and Barnabas, when sent out together by the Holy Ghost, dispute with that vehemence, about a very little point of conveniency, that they were forced to break company? These infirmities are such as Christians of the first rank have fallen into; and the proving Lr. guilty of 'em, is the proving him a Man, and no Angel. How far either he; or any other Reformer might go in this quarrel, out of a Love of victory and the shame of being baffled, it concerns not me to determine. I am satisfied with what the Apostle has told me, that— some preach Christ out of Contention, and strife: yet so they preach, and so we believe. But what will my Author leave unobjected against Lr. when (p. 67.) he makes it his crime, that he defied and abused even the Devil? whereas Saints (he says) are usually more modest and go no farther than a bare imperet tibi Dominus. A pretty way of calling himself Saint! for 'tis his own familiar phrase. But upon the same principle we must deny him to be one, for Saints are usually more modest then to call themselves so.  
We are now to have a taste of the male dicency of Ls. Spirit 
§. 33.  from his book against Henry the 8th: a fault, which I cannot but wonder to find objected by such men, who every day make bolder with the names of both him, and his Royal Issue. I shall not wholly defend his carriage here, since he himself has condemned it. All the Truth in the world on one's side can never justify an unmannerly expression. But it must be considered, when a King of such repute for learning entered the Lists against him what a noise this action made, and how some weaker Protestant's must needs be startled by it. Lr. therefore, that he might fix his followers, thought himself concerned to take up a brisker air of assurance; and show a particular undauntedness in the cause of Truth, when it had so mighty an Opposer. But here he overacted his part: his passions, when once let lose, were too impetuous to be managed; the native plainness of his Country, and the privacy of his own Education, which had not been much acquainted with greatness, carried him beyond the respects due to a Crowned Head; and brought out such blunt Truths from him as neither Friends, nor Enemies could tell well how to approve. But the party was even with him. Sr. Tho. More took up the quarrel, a man (as they tell us) much a Christian, much a Gentleman, and naturally of great mildness and candour: who yet forgot himself so far in this Answer to Lr. that he has there thrown out the greatest heap of nasty Language that perhaps ever was put together. The book throughout is nothing but downright Ribaldry, without a grain of reasoning to support it; and gave the Author no other reputation, but that of having the best knack of any man in Europe, at calling bad names in good Latin. Tho' his passion is sometimes so strong upon him, that he sacrifices even his beloved purity to it— Haec est (he says) Domini Doctoris Posterioristice; qui quum sibi jam prius fas esse scripserit Coronam Regiam conspergere & conspurcare stercoribus, an non nobis fas erit posterius hujus posterioristicae, linguam stercoratam pronuntiare dignissimam, ut vel mejentis mulae posteriora lingat suis prioribus etc. p. 72. I forbear to instance any farther: if the Reader has a mind to see railing in its perfection, let him open any one page of his book, and he'll have a glut of it. But perhaps the bad treatment, which Lr. had before received from one Sovereign Prince, might urge him to talk the more disrespectfully of another. The style of Edicts, we know, is generally calm and majestic: yet Charles the 5th after the Diet of Worms put out such a blustering one againg Lr. as even modest Papists have condemned.— Constat (says he) hunc unicum non hominem, sed daemonem potius figura & specie humana cuculloque Monastico indutum etc. Ulemberg confesses that this decree was by some thought too sharply penned: but these were only the ignorant (he says:) for others very well knew, that Maximilian once saw a Devil sitting upon his Cowl 
a Rain. ad An. 1521. . As for the heat, with which he treated his other adversaries, 'twas sometimes strained a little too far, but in the general was extremely well fitted by the Providence of God to rouse up a people, the most phlegmatic of any in Christendom. Europe lay then under a deep Lethargy, and was not otherwise to be rescued from it, but by One, that would cry mightily, and lift up his voice with strength. Besides Printing, and Letters had just then peeped abroad in the world; and the restorers of Learning in Italy, taking the advantage of the Press, wrote very eagerly against one another, so that Invectives were in those days the fashionable way of writing. If Lr. therefore mingled a little Gall with his Ink in his books of Controversy, he followed but the humour of the Age; and considering the stupidity, the malice, and the obstinacy of his Readers, cannot but be thought excusable. I have seen at the end of Theodoret's Ecclesiastical History, a Catalogue of Caesar's, Bishops, Haeretics &c, where Chrysostom is set down as guilty of too great sharpness, and liberty of speech: but 'tis added— Profecto illorum temporum vitia secari atque uri, non levibus medelis curari voluere. And this is the Plea, we would make for Luther. In the mean time 'tis base in his Adversaries thus to dwell upon the excesses of a passion, of which they themselves were in a great measure the occasion. When they could not coolly convince him 
a Tot sunt millia Rabbinorum, tot sunt qui sibi Pii videntur: nullus exstitit qui Luthero sobrie docteque responderet, si ve inscitia fuit in causa, sive ignavia, sive metus, quorum nihil competit in bonos Theologos. Erasm. Epist. ad Godesch. Anno 1520. , they railed, and called him an Heretic: thus they wound up his temper to a pitch, and then treacherously made use of that infirmity. And 'tis the same ungenerous method they take in reproaching us with Schisms, when alas! none thinks better than they, how the Panther (for under that name it seems we must be baited) came by her Spots.  
To what purpose then are Erasmus and Calvin's testimonies 
§. 31. n▪ 2, 3.  urged upon a confessed point? 'Tis owned Lr. had a vehemence of speech, and if he offended that way, yet 'twas an useful (not to say a necessary) failure. There was but this single fault that Erasmus, tho' an Enemy, could object to him; the other part of the character speaks as high as we could wish. For his Life and Manners, thus— Hominis vita magno omnium consensu probatur▪ jam id non leve praejudicium est, tantam esse morum integritatem, ut nec hostes reperiant, quod calumnientur 
a Ep. ad Tho. Card. p. 543. Ed. Lond. 1642. . And as to his doctrine, Compertum est a Theologis quibusdam damnari ut Haeretica in libris Lutheri, quae in Bernardi Augustinique libris, ut Orthodoxa, imo ut pia leguntur 
b Ep. ad Archiep. Mog p 586. . So that Erasmus is perversely brought in to blacken Ls. reputation: what he says of him would not disparage the best of Saints: for it amounts to no more than this, that he had many great virtues, and amongst them one small infirmity. So that if the Standard Comines has given us of a good King be accepted, that he is then to be accounted so, when his Virtues exceed his Vices, how good a Man must we conclude Lr. to have been? Guicciardine I'm sure, has taken a much greater latitude for Popes, who, he says 
c Guicc. L. 16.  are now adays to be praised for their goodness, when they exceed not the wickedness of other men. But further, Schooling Luther, 
§. 31. n. 3.  is an undervaluing term, and would make one think that Erasmus had a mean opinion of him. Whereas I do not know any one even of the Reformed that speaks more respectfully of Luther, than he. When Aleander, and Caracciolus were sent from Rome to Colen in 1520. to tempt Erasmus with a Bishopric, to write against Luther, hear the return he made 'em. Major est Lutherus, quam ut in illum ego scribam. Major est Lutherus quam ut a me intelligatur. Plane Lutherus tantus est, ut plus erudiar & proficiam ex lectione unius pagellae Lutheranae, quam ex toto Thoma. If this be Schooling, 'tis well for the Considerer: I'll engage that no adversary of his shall in this sense ever school him.  
There is a little occasional Remark of the Author's, p. 45. which slipped me. He is there angry with Lr. for saying— That Peter taught otherwise than he should by the word of God, and therefore Erred: whereas his Example only, he says, and not his Doctrine was false. But this is trifling: for are there no Errors in matter of Practice? and does not He who so errs, if he be in a conspicuous station, teach as much by his Example, as he could by his doctrine; since every action is supposed always to be bottomed upon some principle? But besides 'tis highly probable that Peter asserted an opinion agreeable to this practice: for else how could St. Paul withstand him to the face? Withstanding by words on one side implies an opposition in the same kind on tother. When Elymas is said to have withstood Paul and Barnabas; and when Paul says of Alexander, he hath greatly withstood our words, do we think the withstanding there was without speaking?  
He steps out of his way (p. 59) to make a remark upon Calvin: but because the Scene of our affairs now lies at Wirtenberg, and Geneva is many miles off, he must pardon me, if I don't step out of my way to confute it.  
Hitherto the Considerer has been attacking Lr. in his Doctrines and Positions: and now and then a Work or two has crept in to keep his first design in Countenance: he's now making his last efforts upon his reputation by showing us what Company he kept. He would persuade 
§. 32.  us that Lr. had frequent intercourses and Dialogues with the Devil. He proves it first by the story Lr. tells of himself in his book de Missa privata etc. 'Tis true, he does there say, that waking once at midnight, Satan began this disputation with him: but how began it? In animo instituit, say the words of the Relation: by suggesting bad thoughts to him, not by any personal conference, as the Pamphlet all along would insinuate. To fix this Idea upon the mind of the Reader there is an account here given of Satan's way in disputation: Diabolus sua argumenta fortiter figere, & urgere novit: voce quoque gravi & forti utitur &c, All which is wanting in the first Wirtenberg-Edition, but was requisite to support the fiction of a real appearance, which my Author had raised. If Lr. relates these suggestions in the way of a formal and set Dialogue, it is only a contrivance of his to make the story more divertive in the telling; and was perfectly the style of the Convent in those days: I desire therefore the Reader to remember the excuse, Lr. has made for himself— Pium Lectoremoro, ut ista legat cum judicio, & sciat me fuisse aliquando Monachum 
a Luth. Pref. in Op. .  
He goes on with 2 or 3 Quotations from Melancthon, and Melchior Adamus, which in their utmost stretch can signify no more than that Lr. lay under severe agonies of mind. Oh! but adam's says the Devil appeared to him in 
p. 52.  his own Garden in the shape of a black Boar. And the Colloquia Mensalia relate, how when Lr. was at his chamber in the Castle at Wartsburg, the Devel cracked some nuts, he had in a box upon the Bedpost, tumbled empty barrels down stairs &c, What pretty stories these are for a man of my Author's seriousness to sport himself with all! He knows adam's is a Collector, and took every thing upon trust, without ever being famed for any exactness of judgement: and as for his Table-talk he would do well to vent it there, where 'twas first spoken, for we have told him more than once, that it is not like to bear the force of an argument with us: it may serve to divert a Reader, but is not fit to convince him. But Lr. himself confesses (Lib. de Vot. Monast.) that the Devil used all methods to hinder and annoy 
p. 62.  him. No doubt on't, 'twas his interest, so to stop the progress of the Gospel: and since Ls. death, the same design has been carrying on by him and his Agents against his reputation. But this is so far from giving us a prejudice against Luther, that we think it a very good character of him, that the Devil and he were at enmity, and no very bad one, that the Considerer is not his Friend. I have strictly examined particulars here, and letting every tittle, he has brought, go in his own sense, can discover, after all, none of those frequent intercourses and negotiations, we were told of. Unless it be proper to say that Lr. negotiated with a Black-boar, and had an intercourse with the Devil about Nut-cracking. stories so silly, that they are fit to be the Objects of a stronger and more resigning Faith, than we Protestant's can pretend to.  
Pass we on then to the next Paragraphs. And there I found my Author pretty well disengaged from Quotations. I was in hopes upon this to see a fair naked piece of reasoning, and was resolved▪ to give it as fair an Answer. But I quickly saw there was no need for it; sheer argument is not the talon of the man, I have to deal with: Little wrested sentences of authors are the Bladders, which bear him up, and he sinks downright, when he once pretends to swim without 'em. He discourses us here very largely upon the Craft and Wilyness of the Devil; and proves how sly and double-faced his designs commonly are, for 4 or 5 pages together: all which we in one Line answer, by granting it. But what inference does he make from these Premises? that a man beset with Temptations cannot possibly know, with what design the Devil attacq's him? No: that Luther did not? Nor that neither: but only that 'twas pretty difficult for him to do it. Perhaps it was, but if fastings, prayers, and a serious application in order to a discovery of truth won't call in God almighty's assistance, what shall we say of that Text where 'tis promised, that we shall not be tempted above what we are able? These means Lr. used, and these we question not but God accepted of, and led him into Truth. Now for our Author's saying that this might be a Satanical Illusion, so say I too: but the quaestion is, not what it might be, but what it really was. And to this there's not a syllable of proof offered. He has only busily been proving how ready Satan is to get an advantage over us: 'tis owned; and he has been formerly told, that we are not ignorant of his devices.  
But the Arrow is now drawn to the head. There seems 
§. 39  great evidence, he says, that the whole platform of the Reformation proceeded Originally from the Devil. A gross calumny! which we could not easily pardon, if he did not kindly wipe it off, by the reasons that follow. His very next words are— For many of these very arguments against the former Church, which the Devil now openly owned and urged to Lr. in this disputation held A. D. 1522. were the very same that had been urged by Lr. some years before. That is, because Lr. urged these arguments first, and the Devil afterwards, therefore Lr. copied from the Devil. 'Tis amazing to consider how this inference should come into the head of any thing that thinks. The truth of the story is this. Lr. had published several Treatises against the Mass long before this dispute: one in High Dutch in 1520; and the same year had writ against it in his Captivitas Babylonica: another in Latin, entitled de abroganda Missa privata Aᵒ. 1521. and some months before this, in his book against Ambrose Catharinus, and his Wormes-Articles. In 1522. the Devil (that is, Luther's Conscience, by his instigations) turns these very reasonings upon him; and taking advantage of 'em as of confessed principles, infers, that then Lr. must have been unpardonably wicked in using Masses for 15 year together. Audisne, inquit, excellentissime Doctor? num ignoras Te per annos quindecim privatas Missas quotidie fere celebrasse? etc. How comes the Pamphlet to conclude then from this account, that whilst Lr. was in the bosom of the Church, the Devil by his arguments disputed him into a Reformation? Will he pretend that these reasonings must needs be received from Satan at first by Lr. because used by him afterwards against Luther? This is so precarious a consequence, and yet establishes so unchristian a reflection, that it deserves only one of his own Deus tibi imperets for an Answer. Let the case be put home to him, and he must own the foolishness of it. He has left the Communion of the Church of England for some time; upon good grounds, I suppose, he'll tell us— and convincing reasons: should the Devil now employ these very reasons against him, by the force of them to set out how heinous his sin was in continuing so long in our Communion, would it follow that the Devil was the Author of his Conversion? Or rather would he not think us that made this inference, neither good Christians, nor good Arguers? And yet he, who would pass for both, has not, we see, given Lr. fairer play. But the Old Serpent, he says, was very silly, if his design upon Lr. in this conference was as we have represented it: for he might have considered in the discovery of so much new truth, what might have happened, if instead of despair he should prove a Reformer. What does he 
p. 85.  mean here? Can the Devil fear a discovery of Truths, which (as he himself own's p. 71.) Lr. had preached up 5 years before? Can he dread a future Reformation, which had then been a good while afoot? These are such inadvertencies, that a body would think, even our Author with all his drowsy reasoning could never have been capable of 'em. No, his design was to stop a Reformation already begun, by involving in despair one of the chief supports of it. He gave no new light to Lr. but only accidentally added new strength to his Faith, inasmuch as the assault was in vain. False therefore is that Assertion of the Pamphlet's, that Lr. yielded the field to the Devil in this Combat as Conqueror: All he yielded to in the dispute, was the conviction of those arguments, which he himself had before reformed upon. The objections the Tempter raised from hence to discourage his Faith, and shake his constancy, those he withstood and baffled. What is there then in this Encounter that can be laid hold of to Ls. disadvantage? Is it, that he conversed with the Devil? He did not, we see; the dispute was managed in animo atque in cord, by suggestions within, not without by any personal appearance. But had he really entered into Dialogue, yet the Precedent, our Saviour has given, would have been his warrant. And would one ransack the Lifes of their Pope's [Sylvester the 2d, Gregory 7, Benedict. 8, Hildebrand etc.] 'twere easy to retaliate, and show how much greater intimacies have been maintained between Satan and some of them. Is it, that his Doctrine of the Mass was struck out in this Conflict? or that it gave him any occasion of Reforming in this point? We have evidently made out the contrary by an elder date of some works of his, which establish these very opinions. Yet should it have been so, the actions of their own Saints would justify Ls. management. For their admired Dominic reformed the Religious of his Covent upon just such another rancounter with the Devil 
a Vid Antonin Chron. 3. Part. Tit. 23. Cap. 4. 6. ; and made use of his accusation, tho' contrary to the intention of the accuser. Is it that Lr. complied with the Tempter's arguments? no such matter! The supposition he allowed, because 'twas his own; but denied the Sequel, which his disputant would have fastened upon him. Yet should what he yielded to, have been Satan's own proposition, it does not follow that he was therefore in the wrong: for Lying is not the indelible Character even of the Father of Lies; sometimes a Truth serves his turn better. He quoted Texts right upon our Saviour, tho' he expounded 'em wrong: and surely he told no lie, when he confessed Christ-Jesus to be the Son of the living God. Does this story carry such scandalous impressions along with it, that even Chillingworth himself own's it as one of his motives for deserting our Communion? But pray take in the other part of the account too; and consider how he laughed at it when he returned. So that after a search into particulars, all we find true in this affair is, that the Devil once made a solemn onset upon Lr. as before he had done on his Redeemer. A Calumny, which we are so far from disowning, that we are proud on't! The Devil had great reason to employ all his Engines against a Man, who had made such ravage in his Kingdom: and he took a good time to make his attacqs, when Lr. was in his solitudes at the Castle of Wartsburg: for there it was, I think, that the scene of the Temptation lay. Upon the whole then, our Author's modesty seems to be unexampled, who upon so slight grounds, nay upon no grounds at all, could be bold enough to say, that— the whole Platform of 
p. 71.  the Reformation proceeded originally from the Devil. and again that— the Devil is the Original Founder and Abetter of the 
p. 72.  Reformation. These are such saucy expressions upon a Religion established by Law, as deserve rather to be burnt, then confuted.  
The manage and address of my author has been spent to no purpose in tricking up this story: for after all, we see, it has no hideous appearance. He's resolved now (in contradiction still to the method laid down of considering works only and not disputing) to baffle the arguments the Opponent urges in the dispute, and show how slight the propositions were, which Lr. let go for good. So that 
p. 72.  the Tables are turned, and whereas the Scene before lay betwixt Lr. and Satan, 'tis now betwixt the Devil and the Considerer. And for my part, to give every one his due, I think the Devil has much the best on't. I shall pass by the little skirmishings on either side, and touch only on what's material. The Devil argues against private Masses, 
§. 40. n. 3.  from the nature of Christ's institution, when he distributed it about to his disciples, and said— Do this etc. From St. Paul's Comment on these words 1 Cor. 11. from the usage of the Primitive Church 
a See Annot. in Conc. Trid. Sess. 22. Cap. 6. Where this usage is confessed. ; and from the term Communion, which she always expressed it by. Here the Answerer has nothing to say, but that the Priest in these Masses is ready to communicate the Sacrament to all that offer themselves. But this is not enough: for the Devil's quaestion is, whether it be not against the notion of a Sacrament, that the Consecrater alone should partake of it? He urges farther, that neither have they any intention of communicating it, because the words of Consecration are pronounced, according to the Canon of the Mass, with a Whisper, and so not defigned for the people's Ears. And to all this there's not a word replied. The Devil goes on to object, that as Lr. had withheld all the Sacrament in private Masses, so neither did he give it entire in public ones. To 
§. 40. n. 4.  this the answerer returns nothing, but that the practice of the primitive Church is sufficient warrant, that the words of institution are not so to be expounded as if both kinds were necessary. But this bold assertion has been so fully vanquished in a late Reply to the Bishop of Meauxes treatise on this subject, that I shall not stop here to expose it. The Reader will there find, that not a single instance of Communion in one kind is to be found in all the Records of antiquity. At least, if our word will not be taken, that of the Council's will, which decreed it with a non-obstante to the custom of the Primitive Church. Satan argues 
§. 40. n. 5.  against their form of ordination, which seems rather to give the power of offering a Sacrifice, then distributing a Sacrament. For the words, he says, of the Suffragan, when he deliver's the Chalice into the Priest's hands, are— Take thou Power of consecrating, and Sacrificing for the Quick and the Dead. What says the Replyer? Why, that Sacrificare in the Church's sense takes in the distributing part too. But we know this is not the Church-sense, and refer ourselves to the Trent-Catechism to expound it. There 
a Cap. de Euch. §. 75.  the Eucharist is said to be instituted upon a double account: the one that it might be a Spiritual food for our Souls, the other that it might be a Sacrifice for our Sins. So that whatever belongs to it as it is the food of our Souls, belongs to it as a Sacrament: and certainly the ministering of it to the people belongs to it, as it is the food of our Souls, and therefore as a Sacrament not a Sacrifice. Besides the notion of Sacrificing has nothing in it of distribution. 'Tis offering something slain by the hands of a Priest, to God. Now this is all done, before it comes to be distributed to the People, as they who allow private Masses must needs acknowledge. It avails not the Considerer here to urge another part of the office, where the Priest is said to be ordained in totum Presbyteratus officium: for if in the most solemn clause of it, where the power is specified; and conveyed, no mention be made of a power of imparting the Sacrament, why should not the totum officium be rather reduced to this, than this to that? Nor does this prejudice. Ls. Orders at all: for since no set form of words is prescribed by God as essential to Ordination, we doubt not, but that, where the Church intends to convey this, it is actually conveyed, though the form of doing it should be a little defective: which is all the Devil here pretends to make out; and which yet I don't see how his Adversary has answered. Satan proceeds to another objection against his using the Mass as a Sacrifice propitiatory for sins, contrary to Christ's institution. Our Author says, 'tis a propitiatory Sacrifice, only as those under the Law are said to be so, with respect to that on the Cross. But by his leave, we deny the Parallel: for the quaestion we would put, isn't whether the Sacrament of the Mass be as truly propitiatory, as those under the Law? but whether it be as truly a Sacrifice? If so, then 'tis a true proper Sacrifice, without relation to that of the Cross; (for such the Jewish Sacrifices were) and is not only commemorative, or representative, as we are told at a push: Even as the annual offering of the Paschal Lamb was not only commemorative of that first Paschal Lamb, but also in itself, exclusively to that respect, an entire proper sacrifice. But if he shall say, 'tis not of its self a true proper sacrifice, 'twill follow, that neither can it be so, with respect to that on the Cross; for whatever is not in its own nature a true proper sacrifice, can never be made so by a relation to some other that is. The Parallel than is wide. For the immolations under the law, were first in their own nature Sacrifices, and then propitiatory in virtue of that last offering upon the Cross: whereas the Sacrament of the Eucharist has not that first ground of a real Sacrifice; and so nothing to support its propitiatory virtue upon. But learned Protestants he says have long▪ since yielded up▪ 
§. 45.  this argument, and quotes Mede and Perkins for it. They say indeed that the Eucharist is a sacrifice in representation, and who ever said otherwise? but deny expressly that 'tis really and properly such. Our Author wonders they should relieve themselves with this distinction, and yet own the Legal Sacrifices (tho' representative) to be proper and real. But I hope his wonder will abate a little, now I have showed him the difference between 'em. St. Paul's authority brought from 1 Cor. 10. 18. is beside the purpose. The Apostle is there arguing against the Gnostics, who joined in the Idol-Feasts, and whom he therefore accuses of participating of the Idol-God: even as those (he says) who join in the Christian-Feast, participate of jesus Chris.— Therefore the one is as much a Sacrifice as the other! No! But therefore the one is as much an act of Religious worship as the other, and a confederating with him to whom the Sacrifice is offered: for upon that the Apostles argument runs. Satan had therefore reason to say, that Christ instituted not the Sacrament to be either a Sacrifice, or singly received: for look upon the words of institution— Do this— Do what? no doubt on't, what I did; that is, bless the bread and wine, and distribute it. So that, where this is not done, there is no Sacrament; and where it is done, no sacrifice. For nothing is done but what Christ did. Now he did not offer up himself: for then what need of the oblation of the Cross afterwards? as 'twas well urged by near half the Divines and Fathers of Trent 
a Counc. of Trent. pag. 545. . Who asserted also that neither Scripture, Fathers, Canon of the Mass, or any Council, ever said that Christ offered up himself in the last supper. But I▪ am weary of saying what has been so often said, and shall therefore leave Satan and my Author to dispute it out, as not being much concerned which way the victory▪ goes: for the strength of the cause, I suppose, does not depend upon either of their talking. Indeed since the main of the argument has proved good, 'tis a needless task to vindicate particulars. If what is said in the lump be supposed of force enough to ground Ls. aversion against the Mass, 'tis all we desire. So that had I leisure to pursue the minutes of the discourse, yet the argument would be but where it was: for one demonstration upon a subject is as good as a thousand. The disputing part might have been spared here, because 'tis foreign to the first design of proposing bare Works, and by them making an estimate of doctrines. But I must be content to follow my Guide in his own way. Should I have set aside every thing that was▪ impertinent, my Answer must have lain within the room of one of his paragraphs. But this hadn't been deference enough to an Author of his bulk; and the dwarf had looked too despicably little, to encounter the Giant.  
He comes now to make his reflections upon this dry 
§ 41. 42▪  tedious story. He guesses it probable that the Devil intended by this Dialogue to fix Luther's notions of the Mass more strongly upon him: and I guests otherwise. His only way to confute me will be, to show, that those notions are bad: till that's done, we are not to be moved by conjectures.  
Here is a digression about Zuinglius §. 44. which yet 
§. 44.  contrary to the rule of Episode, has nothing in it surprising. Zuinglius dreamt it seems, one night of a Text, which upon recollection he found very pat to his Doctrine of the Eucharist: and what thoughtful man is there, that has not met with such lucky hints sometime or other, without thinking himself obliged to the Devil for the discovery?  
The next▪ Paragraph recapitulates, and has been Answered 
§. 45. §. 46.  already. He begins then to make his Concessions. Luther, he thinks, discovered not these wiles of Satan; but infers, that he was therefore the more dangerous 
§. 47.  instrument: and so takes occasion to tell us the story of Vaninus, and lay out bigotry, and false confidence in all its colours. Some people have died by suspension at Tyburn, he says, some by fire at Smithfield, with an equal resolution for two contradictories. This is a darling Point, and he's every weary where full of it: you'll find him at it, in muchwhat the same words. Church-Gov. part. 5. p. 260. But what does he mean by it? would he argue that because both thought themselves certainly in the right, therefore he of the two that was in the right, was not sure of it? Does Truth know herself 'ere the less to be truth, because Error stands up, and pretends boldly to know the contrary? This strikes at all certainty, as well as Luther's: and my Author must be a Sceptic, and no Roman-Catholic if he believes it.  
He own's there were several specious pretences for a 
§. 48, 49, 50, 51.  Reformation, and allows Lr. not to have been destitute of many personal virtues; but then he says they did not balance his vices: and to prove this, instances in his sensuality and disobedience; two crimes, which he has dealt with, as Varillas does with Charles the 5th; and, to make the more solemn show, split 'em into twenty. For he accuses him of Pride and Contention, of Licentiousness, and Rebellion; of Anger, and Impatiency: he accuses him of self admiration, and contempt of others; of railing, and blasphemiug against the Catholic Church— and of a great many other Synonyma's. All which have been sufficiently confuted in what goes before; and shall receive here no other Answer, than one of his own, [— Words.] I shall give one instance of my Author's integrity, and so dismiss this point. He cannot but own, that Lr. dissuaded the Protestants from taking up arms in the Cause of Religion, but (according to his usual way of guessing at people's thoughts) imputes it to his being conscious of their weakness. All that I shall say to this kind censure is, that the passive obedience of the primitive Christians has been used at the same rate by a late Author▪ whose face I have since seen through a pillory.  
He gives a finishing stroke to his reasonings now 
§. 52.  towards parting, by a Parallel drawn between Luther and Mahomet. A man is tempted here to return the kindness, and give him another between some body, that He knows, and judas. But we understand with what design this odious comparison was made, and shall therefore (to mortify him) not be provoked. Only he'll give us leave to revive an old observation, that Mahomet, and Pope Boniface were cotemporaries. Indeed Boniface got the start of him a little, and set up his kingdom about 15 years before him: but Mahomet having the advantage of so good a pattern, tho' he began something later, has thrived better. There is an author too of ours that has writ a book, called Turco-Papismus, which I would desire him to read, before he ventures at capping Characters. These, he has given us, are very childish, and have no other property of parallels, but that, draw 'em out o'both sides, as far as you please, they'll never meet. I am too weary now to allow myself any excursion from the main design; else here's a fair opportunity to show how great a bungler my Author is in hitting features. And after all, let the likenesses be never so true, yet a Parallel in a writer of Controversy, is no more than a Simile from a pleader at the Bar: it may glitter a little, and look prettily, but will never convince the Jury. What is said upon this occasion then, I shall suppose within a Parenthesis, and so go on.  
He resumes his first method afresh, and after this long 
§. 57  account, would now at last try his doctrine by his works, according to that Text— Ye shall know them by their fruits, which he here repeats again, and expounds as formerly. But I have showed him from the natural drift of the words, from the joint authorities of our and their own Expositors, that this Text must have another meaning. Yet we have complied even with this sense too; and expected, after we had condescendingly made Ls. works Umpires in the Controversy, that the gross of his book should have been taken up in setting them out: but find contrarily that two thirds of it have been employed against his doctrines. We may hope at least that he will be more pertinent in the close. Here then after some little flourishes about the 
§. 61.  Connexion of Truth and Holiness, Error and Vice (which kindly destroy one another) he summ's up the Evidence; that is he sets out what bad consequences Luther's doctrine had; instancing in Variety of Sects, Dissoluteness of Life etc. which (he says) attended the Reformation. So that by Works, it seems, he did not mean Ls. Works, as we were foolishly made to believe for above an 100 pages together; (for on this Topic not one word here is said) but the works of those that followed Luther; and when His failings are too light to carry any weight, other men's Vices are thrown into the Scale. What a strange thoughtlessness is this to write a book, and then balk the whole design of it, just when 'tis to be shut up? The Deserter, it seems, is resolved to maintain his character, by running from every thing, and leaving his own very methods in the lurch. But how does he prove this Dissoluteness of manners upon the Reformed? why, as he does other things, he says it. Now whether there were at that time any such bad things, as he talks of, among Protestants, or no; yet we are sure these fruits could not spring naturally from Ls. doctrine: they might perhaps arise from it, as Vermin from the power of the Sun, by Equivocal production; but that they were its direct genuine issue, is a proposition in vain asserted, unless it be proved. To show this, would be to his purpose: till he does, we are left at a gaze; and have nothing (for all his fine promises at first) to try Ls. doctrines by, but the very doctrines themselves. But men had reason to suspect 'em (he says) because they came into the world 
§. 58.  neither with miracles, nor (if we consider all said) with the signs of a good Spirit, nor yet owned or defended (nay also rejected and condemned by the Church.) For the first of these, Miracles, Luther, we own, came without 'em, but neither had he any need of 'em. Their use is to establish some new doctrine, not to restore an old one, which was his case. And▪ therefore he no where pretends to any extraordinary immediate vocation, but only to that ordinary call of the Presbytery, and the commission then given him to preach the truth of the Gospel, and confound Error. As to the signs of a good Spirit, I have considered all said, and cannot find that he had the signs of a bad one. He had a zeal for God's glory, which hurried him sometimes beyond what was decent in his expressions: but this imperfection was, we doubt not, easily pardoned by that God, who in some measure accepted Iehu's zeal, though stained with gross hypocrify. In other things I hope I may by this time boldly pronounce him blameless. As for the Churches rejecting and condemning his Doctrine, 'tis the old figure of the Church of Rome for the Catholic Church; and is too trite a subject to be here insisted on.  
But Truth and Holiness, Error and Vice have a necessary Connexion: 
§. 59  What then? Luther we have proved an holy man▪ and therefore this does not touch us in the sense he would have it. Yet truth and holiness, Error and▪ Vice are not, it seems, so necessarily linked together, but that a Teacher of something false may bring forth the fruits of a good life; and contrary, the Teacher of Truth the fruits of a bad: for these are his words in this very paragraph. So that Necessary and Contingent are the same in this man's Logic.  
Again he proves, that where more corrupt Doctrines are 
§. 60.  believed, and taught, there for the general are more corrupt lives. Agreed! but are Luther's Doctrines of such a stamp? Indeed in his gross way of delivering 'em, they may have such an appearance. The 4 main heads are, he says, 1. The 
§. 61.  Nullity and Antichristianism of the former Clergy and the non-obligation of their Laws. But I have made out from the Smalcald Articles, that Luther held no nullity in this case: & tho' in points fundamental he allowed not the Authority of councils, as depending merely on revelation for them▪ yet in things indifferent I have showed that he was as willing to be concluded by their sanctions as any man. 2. The inutility of works, penance, mortifications etc. This is all a slander: he decried not the use▪ but the merit of them. 3. The servitude of Man's will, and inability to do good even in the regenerate. Ls. Doctrine of free will is, when fairly expounded, the same with the Church of England's: as such, we own it, and shall defend it. 4. The sole sufficiency of Faith in us for our justification. We have told him that Luther held good works as necessary to Salvation as any Papist of 'em all, tho' he did not think they were the cause of justification. That they followed upon it, as heat attends the light of the Sun, he owned: but then as heat does not enlighten, however close joined with that which does, so neither do they justify. If then ' 'twas out of these three latter points, that a great dissoluteness of Life, Covetousness, Oppression etc. grew; 'tis to be hoped the crimes imputed are but a fiction, and that the Reformed are not so bad as they are represented, since those three points, when truly stated, have a quite different air, we see, from what he has bestowed upon 'em. The Parragraph referred to, I'm sure, proves no such thing: 
§ 7.  there are two or three expressions from Erasmus, Calvin, and Musculus, which represent some of the Reformed as worse than while they were Papists. And will he take the advantage of this, so far as to say, that the Reformation does of itself make men worse? If he will, 'tis plain, he's resolved to make all the spiteful inferences he can, without troubling himself whether they are just or no.  
He proceeds to reflect on the many Sects that sprung 
§ 62.  up after the Reformation. But a late Apologetical Vindicator of the Church of England has so fully cleared this objection, that the most partial must be satisfied. I can add nothing to what that worthy Author has done, and shall therefore spare myself the trouble of transcribing. I shall only take notice of something the Considerer relates on this occasion. By reason of these Sects, he says, following the Reformation so close at the heels &c,— Lr. often foretold that the true Religion should not long continue after his death. He bring's not a Letter from Lr. to confirm this report, which is an evident sign that he cannot: for upon lesser occasions▪ he does not spare his Latin. Indeed Luther was so far from any diffidence of this nature, that his Adversaries have blamed him for a too great presumption on t'other side: particularly Bellarmin in his 12th. Note urges against him a prophecy of his, that in two years the Papal Kingdom should be destroyed. Tho' this too be a falsity, and was broached by Cochleus, a venomous writer; and one so careless of truth or falsehood, that Sanders himself is not more. But my Author has a great knack at Remarks: i'the end of this Paragraph, he makes another about our refining in the points of Controversy, and coming nearer and nearer still to the Church of Rome. Now let any man compare Bellarmin's bold truths, with the softenings of the Bishop of Condom, and the Representer, and then tell me, on which side this imputation lies. 'Twill appear, I believe, upon this search, that Old Popery, and New Popery agree no more, than the two styles.  
We are come now to the last stage of the Pamphlet; 
§. 63.  where we may see how much art is requisite to manage circumstances well. Nothing is less obnoxious to censure then the story of Ls. death, when entirely told. Yet as passages are here picked out, and wrested it makes no good appearance. This we have the more reason to take ill of him, because he there quotes justus jonas his account, the most authentic extant; and yet takes but a single circumstance from him in the whole relation. The truth is, no other account bear's any credit with us: This was compiled by Eye-witnesses, jonas, Caelius, and Aurifaber: who solemnly invoke God to witness that they have related all things with exact fidelity; and who indeed durst not have done otherwise; since Count Mansfeld, and several other persons of Quality were present also, and could have confuted 'em, had they been faulty in any thing. Sleidan has contracted the story from them, and in his words I shall give it you. Vide marg. 
a Prius quam Islebium perveniret, quod erat sub exitum Januarii, valetudine utebatur tenuiori: sed tamen & causam agebat, propter quam erat vocatus, & aliquoties in templo docebat, percepta quoque caena Domini. 17. vero die Februarii coepit aegrotare gravius ex pectore. Erant cum eo filii tres, Joannes, Martinus, Paulus, & alii quidam familiares; in his etiam Justus Ionas, Ecclesiae Hallensis Minister▪ & quanquam erat imbecillus, prandit tamen cum reliquis atque coenavit: inter coenandum variis de rebus locutus, hoc etiam inter caetera rogavit- Num in illa sempiterna vita simus alter alterum recognituri? cumque illi ex ipso averent scire; quid, inquit accidit Adamo etc.— A coena quum divertisset precandi causa sicuti consuevit, coepit augeri dolor pectoris. Ibi monitu quorundam usus est cornu monocerotis, ex vino; post, in minori lectulo hypocausti per unam & alteram horam suaviter dormit. Cum evigilasset, in cubiculum ingreditur, & ad quietem iterum se componit, & salutatis amicis, qui aderant, orate, inquit, Deum, ut Evangelii doctrinam nobis conservet: Pontifex enim & Concilium Tridentinum dira moliuntur. Haec ubi dixit, facto silentio, dormit aliquandiu. Sed urgente vi morbi, post mediam noctem excitatus, queritur de pectoris angustia & praesentiens instare jam vitae finem, his omnino verbis Deum implorat. Mi pater coelestis, Deus, & ●…ater Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Deus omnis consolationis, ago tibi gratias, quod filium tuum mihi revelasti, cui credidi, quem sum professus, quem amavi, quem celebravi, quem Pontifex Romanus, & reliqua impiorum turba persequitur contumelia: rogo te, mi Domine Jesus Christ, suscipe animulam meam Mi pater coelestis etiamsi divellor ex hac vita, certo tamen sclo, me tecum esse permansurum in sempiternum, neque posse me tuis ex manibus à quoquam avelli. Non multo post hanc precationem, ubi spiritum suum in manus Domini commendasset semel atque iterum, tanquam dormiturus paulatim è vita decedit, nullo cum corporis, qui quidem animadverti posset, cruciatu. Sleid▪ add Ann. 1546. This account falls in exactly with Th●…anus's (Hist Lib 2.) a Writer of the other party and even Surius himself has given us (Comm. p. 474) a Copy of the Prayer. . Here is first of all no surprise, as the Pamphlet tell's us; Luther had early warnings given him by a lingering sickness, and was sensible of his death some time before its approach. Neither happened it amidst all the jollity that is pretended: He had discoursed all that day on divine subjects, had employed his latter days in preaching, and receiving the Sacrament, and his breath departed with a prayer. But this prayer had never a miserere mei in't, says the Objecter. What then? must all good men at their death be tied up to a particular phrase? yet nevertheless it had something equivalent: Rogo te, mi Domine, jesu Christe suscipe animam meam, was no assuming expression, but as much a request of mercy as the other. He died calmly too, and with all the easyness of a man falling asleep: not with the tortura oris, and dextrum latus totum infuscatum, which we are told of out of Cochleus. The Considerer might be ashamed, after he had professedly disowned that senseless writer through his whole book, to close it up at last with a little piece of borrowed malice from him. A thousand such particulars as these might be drawn from Lindanus, Pontacus, Thyrraeus and the rest of that rank Crew, who have taken care that neither Luther nor any other Reformer should go down to the Grave with honour. Luther had the luck to detect one of these shamms whilst living: for even Then a story was sent abroad of his Death, with all the hideous circumstances imaginable 
a Vide Lonicer. Theatr. p. 246. : But he himself confuted it in writing, and showed us in this one report what credit may be given to the rest. Yet Bellarmin was so taken with these fooleries, that he has, ridiculously enough, inserted into his Notes of the true Church, this for one— The bad ends of its opposers: and there with a great deal of formality tells this story of Ls. death, and twenty more not less extravagant. But let the Considerer 
p. 104.  rebuke him for it: his words are, that the chief authors of Sects and Heresies have, not unfrequently, nothing in their Life or Death exorbitant or monstrous: which also is a kind hint, that he himself has been committing an impertinence for above an 100 pages together; For 'tis an Observable very easily drawn I think from this Concession, that the Life and Death of a man can be no standard of his doctrine; which evidently undoes all he has been doing, and putt us in mind once again of the humble-bees, and the Tinderboxes.  
I have done with his Paragraphs; and shall now examine a little his design in writing 'em. It was, I suppose, to lay a blot upon the Reformation in general, and particularly that of the Church of England. But first, how comes the Church of England to be concerned in what Luther said, or did? Whilst he was pulling down the Papacy in Germany, she was carrying on the same design here at home. She had struggled and heaved at a Reformation; ever since Wicliffs days, for abont a 150 years together: her Lollards (as they were called) had all along spoken, written, and died for it: she could not nevertheless bring it to the birth till about this time, when the Eyes of all Europe began to be opened: than it was that she pushed it forward, and threw off the Pope's Yoke in concert with other Churches. Her proceed were regular, and by the joint Authorities of the state Civil and Ecclesiastical. If irregularities were done elsewhere, let them Answer for 'em, that did 'em. Whatever Luther's actions at that time might be, they concern us no more, than the Historian's flourish about Sultan Selim's Conquests does his History of Haeresys: they were cotemporary indeed, and that's all; for there's no other dependence between 'em.  
But neither is the Reformation in general at all blasted by this method. For let Luther be as bad as he will, yet the Doctrine of the Apostles, and the primitive Church is, we hope, ne'er the worse for his preaching it. He pretended to no new Revelation; had he done so 'twould have been requisite, perhaps, that he should have lived up to it: he only pointed out some old Truths, that had lain hid a great while; and detected some Errors, which in the course of time had, like rust, overspread Christianity. Here have we nothing to do but to put ourselves upon the search, whether these pretences of his to antiquity be true or false: for if they be true, 'tis a confessed point that they must be listened to, whoever he be that makes 'em. Idolatry is agreed to be a sin on all sides: should a jew therefore object it to the Church of Rome, as an hindrance of his Conversion, she were bound to reform even on this admonition. But where a new Religion is revealed, the case I confess, is otherwise: there the doctrine itself is in dispute whether true or false; all aids therefore are to be called in, that may any ways assist us in the discovery; and the Lives of the Revealers may be justly enough set over against the Revelation, to find whether they agree. Thus should that bad man Lr. have been the first discoverer of Errors in the Church, yet his badness would in no wise have prejudiced his discovery. But what now if he were one of the latest protesters against Popery? and even then, but one among many, that set about the same work? The objection at this rate lessens very much, and comes to no more than this, t●… amongst a Cloud of Witnesses, there was One of no very good reputation. And that this is the case, has been proved upon 'em to a demonstration a hundred times over. Melchior adam's has afforded us the Lives of no less than 22 Divines, who immediately before, and together with Luther promoted all the same design. The Errors of the Church of Rome were never possessed quietly: we have told 'em when they came in, and who they were that risen up against 'em, in every age, from the 6th Century down to the 16th. If any man requires this Catalogue, he may find it in White's True way to the Church completely and learnedly set down 
a p. 387. Edit Lond. 1620. : not to mention Field, Ʋsher, Catalogus Testium Vt ritatis, and twenty more. Goldastus' three Volumes sufficiently explain the sense of all ages in this point; and Orthuinus Gratius' Collection of Complaints lets us know what people's thoughts were, when Luther appeared. He did not awaken the world with new surprising notions; for than they would have suspended their judgements a while: whereas thousands followed his standard, as soon as ever it was advanced; and Melitz the Apostolic Commissary owned that in 1518 (a year after Lr. first preached) he found in his journey from Rome to Saxony three on Luther's side to one that stood for the Pope 
b Vide Sleid. ad Ann. . Luther then was one of the latest asserters of truth, and even at that time not single: Oecolampadius, Zuinglius, Carlstad, and many more were even as early as he: tho' 'tis true he signalised himself above the rest by a peculiar bravery of mind, and an undauntedness in the cause of God, that was little less than miraculous. He laboured more than them all, yet still they were his Fellow-Labourers in the Gospel: and therefore, were the Reformation to be run down by Life-writing, yet to think this task is performed by considering the actions of Lr. alone, when there were so many both before and with him that embarked in the same cause, is the most senseless thing imaginable.  
But further, when the Considerer has managed this argument to the best advantage, he would do well to consider too, how it returns upon him. Luther, even in the colours he has laid upon him, does not look half so ill as some Popes of theirs who were his Cotemporaries. julius was of a cruel restless temper, and sacrificed the peace of all Italy to his ambition. Leo the 10th. is deservedly infamous for his base prostitution of Indulgences. Paul the 3d. kept a Whore openly, and owned it; and advanced a-Bastard of his to the Principality of Parma and Piacenza. Would we ascend higher to the known names of Hildebrand, Innocent, Boniface, and the rest of those lewd Popes, whom Bellarmin confesses to have gone in a long Train to the Devil, we should quickly find how advantageous Luther's character would appear: and what reason Castilios Painter had to reply upon the Cardinal, who blamed him for putting a little too much colour into St. Peter and Paul's faces, that 'twas true indeed, in their Life time they were pale mortified men, but that since they were grown ruddy, by blushing at the sins of their Successors. Now let any man tell me, why manners are not (as much, nay) more requisite to an Infallible Guide, than a fallible Reformer? since in the one, we accept the Doctrine merely for the man's sake, in the other the man for his Doctrine's sake: especially since the first involves always the latter's character; for Infallibility carries along with it the perpetual power of reforming Abuses. This holds good then against such as place the last appeal in the Pope: those who take refuge in a multitude, have an Arrian Council to Answer for; a Council, where the lives of the Fathers were as unorthodox as their Principles; and this in a much higher degree than is pretended upon Luther, if Athanasius' word may be set over against the Considerer's.  
The method then of the Pamphlet is every wa●… 〈◊〉 sufficient, and let the Spirit of Martin Luther be as 〈◊〉 'tis supposed to be, yet the proof of this would not bla●… one single truth of that Religion, he professed. But to ●…e off all seeming objections, and stop the mouths of the most unreasonable Gainsayers, I have examined even this little pretence too; and find, upon a faithful enquiry, that Luther's Life was led up to those Doctrines he preached, and his Death was the death of the Righteous. Were I not confined by the character of an Answerer merely to wipe off the Aspersions that are brought, I could swell this book to ' twice the bulk by setting out that best side of Lr. which our Author in the Picture, he has given us of him, has; contrary to the method of Painters, thrown into shade, that he might place a supposed deformity or two the more in view. He was a Man certainly of high endowments of mind, and great Virtues: he had a vast understanding▪ which raised him up to a pitch of learning unknown to the age he lived in: his knowledge in scriptures was admirable, his Elocution manly, and his way of reasoning with all the subtlety that those honest plain truths, he delivered, would bear: His thoughts were bend always on great designs, and he had a resolution fitted to go through with 'em: The assurance of his mind was not to be shaken, or surprised; and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his (for I know not what else to call it) before the Diet at Worms, was such as might have become the days of the Apostles. His Life was holy, and, when he had leisure for retirements, severe: his virtues active chief, and homilitical, not those lazy sullen ones of the Cloister. He had no ambition but in the service of God: for other things, neither his enjoyment, nor wishes ever went higher than the bare conveniencies of living. He was of a temper particularly averse to covetousness, or any base sin; and charitable even to a fault, without respect to his own occasions. If among this Crowd of Virtues a failing crept in, we must Remember that an Apostle himself 〈◊〉 not been irreprovable: If in the Body of his Doctrine 〈◊〉 Flaw is to be seen; yet the greatest Lights of the Church, and in the purest times of it, were, we know, not exact in all their Opinions. Upon the whole, we have certainly great reason to break out in the phrase of the Prophet, and say— How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth glad tidings?  
FINIS.