The Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Divided into three parts, dialogue wiseThe Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Deuided into three partes, dialogue wise

Theophilus. Thou mayst now understand Eusebius how the Church is fallen from degree to degree, sithens the time of the Apostles, until the same of l•ertulian, afterwards of Cyprian, afterwards of Augustin and from him unto Gregory, and consequently unto our time: and how the superstition is so increased and augmented, that by the means of the Purgatory and of the Mass the merit of the death and passion of Jesus Christ was altogether abolished. You must not then compare the time present & the estate of your Churches, unto the same of S. Augustin. For there is to much difference between them. It is •• evil likelihood, that the thing in those days was so much advanced. And doubt not, that if y• holy man had thought, that it would have fallen out so, but that he would have resisted it more strongly then we do at this day. For he could not have suffered, that the grace of Jesus Christ, of which he was so great a defender against the Pelagians, should have been so altogether destroyed. But the good man was overcome, because that then, the purity of the doctrine of the gospel & the estate of the church was already very much decayed & corrupted, as we may easily judge, by that which Saint Hierome witnesseth of the life of Malchus. For he was not ashamed to write that the time ¹and age in which he lived, and Saint Augustin in like manner, who was of the same time, was but filthiness & stinking in comparison of the same of the Apostles. Thou hast already heard the plaint ye Saint Augustin made of mans traditions, with which the Church was overcharged. ²Amongst which he touched the Jewishness and superstition ⟨p. 192⟩which was yet kept in Africa. We must not then be abashed, if in those days, there came up new opinions, touching the estate of the dead, the which the ancient Church was ignorant off. We must not in like manner marvel although some great learned men have been wrapped in them. For it happeneth commonly, that when men have dreamed and invented some new opinion, they will also induce others, and are angry against those that do resist them, insomuch that they will condemn them, and if they be the most wisest and of greatest countenance, they carry away the matter. After that sort was Aerius condemned, chiefly because he said, that it was