An apology, or answer in defence of the Church of England concerning the state…An apologie, or aunswer in defence of the Church of England concerninge the state…

And surely it had been altogether against reason, to begin at these bloody and cruel reasons, if they could have found any gentler and milder arguments. But if they have in deed such trust in Antiquity, without any manner of counterfeiting: why did John Clement a Country man of ours, not many years paste, in the sight of certain honest men and men of good credit, tear and cast into the fire certain leaves, out of a most ancient Father and a Greek Bishop called Theodoret, in the which he did evidently and expressly teach, that in the Sacrament the nature of bread was not taken away? And that at such time as he thought no other example could be found in any place,¹ why doth Albert Pighius deny that Saint Augustine that old Father did hold a right opinion of Original sin? or of such marriages as are contracted after a vow professed?² And where as Augustine affirmeth it to be perfect Matrimony and can not be revoked, why saith he, that he doth err and is deceived, & that he useth no good Logic? Why did they now of late, in the printing of yt ancient father Origene upon the Gospel of John,³ leave out the whole sixth chapter, wherein it is very credible or rather certain, that he taught many things touching the Sacrament contrary to their doctrine: & so had rather set forth the book in manner maimed, than being perfect it should reprove their errors? Is this to trust to antiquity, to tear, to suppress, to mangle, ⟨image 43⟩to burn the books of the ancient fathers? It is a world to behold, how well these men do agree in Religion with those fathers, of whom they are wont to brag to be on their side.⁴ The old Council, called Eliberinum, decreed, that nothing that the people worshipped, should be painted in Temples. An ancient father Epiphanius saith, that it is an horrible wickedness and an offence untolerable, If any man should set up so much as a painted Image, though it were of Christ himself, in the Churches of Christian men. These men, as though there were no Religion without them, have filled their Church and every corner of them with painted and graven Images. The old fathers Origen and Chrysostom do exhort the people to the reading of the holy Scriptures,