A07146:52
The relics of Rome containing all such matters of religion, as have in times…The reliques of Rome contayning all such matters of religion, as haue in times…
The relics of Rome containing all such matters of religion, as have in times past been brought into the Church by the Pope and his adherents: faithfully gathered out of the most faithful writers of chronicles and histories, and now newly both diligently corrected & greatly augmented, to the singular profit of the readers, by Thomas Becon. 1563.The reliques of Rome contayning all such matters of religion, as haue in times past bene brought into the Church by the Pope and his adherentes: faithfully gathered out of the moste faithful writers of chronicles and histories, and nowe newly both diligently corrected & greatly augmented, to the singuler profit of the readers, by Thomas Becon. 1563.
London: printed by John Day, 1563London: printed by Iohn Day, 1563
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1Some also to defend their errors & heresies, & maintain their obstinate blindness and blind obstinacy, allege for their defence the ancient writers and Doctors of Christs Church, affirming that their doctrine dissenteth greatly from ours, & therefore worthy to be hissed out, hated, abhorred & detested of Gods Church. I answer: If they understand by the ancient writers & Doctors of Christs Church. Duns & Dorbel, Thomas & Tartaret, Biel & Brulefer, Barnard & Bonaventure, Petrus de Palude, & Petrus de Luna, Joannes Capredli, & Joannes Holkot, Albert Magnus, & Augustinus de Ancona, with Occam, Gerson, Durande, Petrus de Alico, Ala•us, Herugus, Auredlus, Ataxanus, Pelbertus. Car•esius, Michael Lochmeir, Jacobus de valentia, & to many such like: then we give them over and ⟨image 13⟩consent unto them. seeing that these & many h•• dreds moe were the popes sworn chaplains, making him with their sophistry a God, & his counterfeit Religion, true Godliness. But if they mean those ancient writers & Doctors of Christs Church, which were before the days of Gregorius Magnus bishop of Rome, then we freely confess, that whether they take the Doctors of the Greek, or Latin Church, they make very little or nothing for them, & for the maintenance of their popery, so altogether unknown to them was the superstition & Idolatry, which is now commonly used in the popish Churches: although I must needs confess, that there is none among the ancient writers, that hath not his errors, his oversights, his faults, that y• may be found true, which is written: God alone is true,2 but every man is a liar. But let it be granted, that there were found in the old writers (as who sometime slideth not? According to the common proverb, Aliquando bonus dormitat Homeru•. That might seem at the first blush to confirm & stablish, to prove & approve any part of the popes religious religion: is the matter therefore cock sure? But the old writers & Catholic Doctors require no such reverence to be showed, nor no such credit to be given to their writings, as though they could not err, which confess themselves to err, as their aū cestoures have done before them, & will that nothing should be credited as an undoubted verity, but only the sacred scriptures, whose authority to resist, & of whose verity to doubt, they always counted a great offence.