The Saints' Everlasting Rest

And yet it increaseth my wondering, that these Divines have not forgotten the late arrogancy of the prelates in the same kind; ⟨p. 523⟩under which some few of themselves did suffer! Nor yet how constantly our Divines that write against the Papists, do disclaim any such living, final, decisive Judge of controversies, but make Scripture the only Judg▪ O what mischief hath the Church of Christ suffered by the enlarging of her Creed! While it contained but twelve Articles, believers were plain and peaceable and honest. But a Christian now is not the sam• thing as then: Our heads shall swell so big (like children that have the rickets) that all the body fares the worse for it. Every new Article that was added to the Creed, was a new engine to stretch the brains of believers, and in the issue to •end out the bowels of the Church. It never went so well with the Church▪ since it begun (as Erasmus saith of the times of the Nicene counsel) re• ing•niosam fore Christianum esse, to be a matter of so much wit and cunning to be a Christian. Not but that all our wit should be here employed, and controversies of difficulty may be debated; but when the decision of these must be put into our Creed, and a man must be of the faith that the Church is of, it goes hard. Me thinks I could read Aquinas, or Scotus, or Bellarmine with profit, ut Philosophiam, et Theologiam liberam; but when I most make them all parts of my Creed, and subscribe to all they say, or else be no Catholic, this is hard dealing. I know now we have no Spanish inquisition to fire us from the truth: But as Cryn•us was wont to say, Fontifici Romano Erasmum plus, nocuiss• […], quam Lutherum stomachando; so some mens reproaches may do more then other mens persecutions.

And yet it increaseth my wondering, that these Divines have not forgotten the late arrogancy of the prelates in the same kinde; ⟨p. 523⟩under which some few of themselves did suffer! Nor yet how constantly our Divines that write against the Papists, do disclaim any such living, final, decisive Judge of controvesies, but make Scripture the only Judg O what mischief hath the Church of Christ suffered by the enlarging of her Creed! While it contained but twelve Articles, believers were plain and peaceable and honest. But a Christian now is not the sam thing as then: Our heads shall swell so big (like children that have the rickets) that all the body fares the worse for it. Every new Article that was added to the Creed, was a new engine to stretch the brains of believers, and in the issue to end out the bowels of the Church. It never went so well with the Church since it begun (as Erasmus saith of the times of the Nicene counsel) re ingniosam fore Christianum esse, to be a matter of so much wit and cunning to be a Christian. Not but that all our wit should be here imployed, and controversies of difficulty may be debated; but when the decision of these must be put into our Creed, and a man must be of the faith that the Church is of, it goes hard. Me thinks I could read Aquinas, or Scotus, or Bellarmine with profit, ut Philosophiam, et Theologiam liberam; but when I most make them all parts of my Creed, and subscribe to all they say, or else be no Catholick, this is hard dealing. I know now we have no Spanish inquisition to fire us from the truth: But as Crynus was wont to say, Fontifici Romano Erasmum plus, nocuiss , quam Lutherum stomachando; so some mens reproaches may do more then other mens persecutions.