A confession of faith made by common consent of divers reformed churches beyond the…A confession of fayth made by common consent of diuers reformed churches beyonde the…

To those slanderous reports I need not to answer particularly, because they be confuted by this work it self, as by reading thou mayest understand. But two points, I cannot omit untouched, which are often urged and never proved: that we falsify the Scriptures, and agree not among our selves; in the weightiest matters of Religion. Touching the first, we gather the true meaning of the Scriptures ¹by the circumstances of the text, by reconciling it with other places of God his word, to the confirmation of the truth, and not to the establishing of our own devises: as some wrest them & rack them, to maintain their fond phantasies, invented of their foolish brains. We allege not the ²saying of Christ to Peter, Ego oravi pro te &c. I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, to prove that the Pope cannot err: Nor, Nemo accendit candela, & ponit eam sub modio: No man lighteth a candle, and hideth ⟨image 6⟩it under a bushel, to show that candles should be set at none days on the Altar: nor, Lumen ad revelationem gentium, a light to lighten the Gentiles, for carrying of candles on Candlemas daye: nor, Deus creavit hominem ad imaginem sui, God created man according to his own image, for erecting of images in Churches: nor Abraham's circumcising, for sole and chaste life: nor, Omnia munda mundis: nor, Qui in carne sunt Deo placere non possunt, Al thinges are clean to the clean, They that are in the flesh cannot please God, to prove that Priests may not marry: Nor, Nisi abundaverit Justitia vestra plus quam scribarum & pharisaeorū, non intrabitis in regnum coelorum, Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven, to declare, that a Bishop must have more garments at his mass, than Aaron had at his sacrifice. After such a fantastical childish sort, we violently wrest not the holy Scriptures, to that sense which the holy Ghost ⟨image 6⟩never meant. Now touching our disagreement among our selves in the ³weightest matters of Religion. Surely, if we agree no better then Papists do, then were we at a great Jar: wherefore, I counsel them to pluck the beam out of their own eyes, and then endeavour to remove the mote from their brothers sight: