Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/506

 in the chair of Moses the law of God: ergo, God teacheth by them. But if they will teach you any of their own inventions, do not give ear unto them, neither do as they command you' Also, in the saying of Christ, 'He that heareth you, heareth me,' all lawful and honest things be comprehended, in which we ought to be obedient, according to Christ's saying, 'It is not you which do speak, but the Spirit of my Father which speaketh in you.' Let therefore my adversaries and slanderers learn, that there be not only twelve counsels in the gospel, in which subjects ought to obey Christ and his appointed ministers, but that there are as many counsels and determinations of God, as there be lawful and honest things joined with precepts and commandments of God, binding us thereunto under the pain of deadly sin: for every such thing doth the Lord command us to fulfil in time and place, with other circumstances, at the will and pleasure of their minister.

The twelfth article: 'It is lawful for the clergy and laity, by their power and jurisdiction, to judge and determine of all things pertaining to salvation, and also of the works of prelates.' Answer: I have thus written in my book; 'That it is lawful for the clergy and laity to judge and determine of the works of their heads and rulers;' it appeareth by this: that the judgment of the secret counsels of God in the court of conscience is one thing, and the judgment of the authority and power of the church is another. Wherefore subjects first ought principally to judge and examine themselves [1 Cor. xi.] Secondly, they ought to examine all things which pertain unto their salvation, for a spiritual man judgeth and examineth all things. And this is alleged as touching the first judgment, and not the second; as the enemy doth impute it unto me. Whereupon in the same place I do say that the layman ought to judge and examine the works of his prelate, like as Paul doth judge the doings of Peter in blaming him. Secondly, to avoid them, according to this saying, 'Beware of false prophets,' &c. Thirdly, to ride over the ministry: for the subject ought by reason to judge and examine the works of the prelates. And if they be good, to praise God therefore and rejoice: but if they be evil, they ought with patience to suffer them, and to be sorry for them, but not to do the like, lest they be damned with them, according to this saying: 'If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch.'

The thirteenth article: 'God doth suspend, of himself, every wicked prelate from his ministry, while he is actually in sin; for by that means that he is in deadly sin, he doth offend and sin whatsoever he do, and consequently is forbidden so to do; therefore also is he suspended from his ministry.' Answer: This is proved as touching suspension from dignity, by Hosea iv., and Isaiah, and Malachi i. And Paul, in 1 Cor. xi., suspendeth all such as be sinful, or in any grievous crime or offence, from the eating of the body of the Lord, and the drinking of his blood; and consequently suspendeth all sinful prelates from the ministration of the reverend sacrament. And God doth suspend the wicked and sinful from the declaration of his righteousness [Psalm xlix.] Forasmuch then as to suspend, in effect, is to prohibit the ministry, or any other good thing for the offence' sake; or, as the new laws do determine or call it, to interdict or forbid, it is manifest by the Scriptures before rehearsed, that God doth prohibit the sinful, being in sin, to exercise or use their ministry or office, which, by God's commandment, ought to be exercised without offence. Whereupon he saith by Isaiah the prophet, 'Ye that carry the vessels of the Lord, be ye cleansed and made clean;' and to the Corinthians it is said, 'Let all things be done with love and charity,' &c. The same thing also is commanded by divers and sundry canons, which I have alleged in my treatise.

The fourteenth article. (The answer which he made to the twenty-fifth article, in prison, sufficeth for this; that is to say, that the clergy, for their own preferment and exaltation, do supplant and undermine the lay-people, do increase and multiply their covetousness, cloke and defend their malice and wickedness, and prepare a way for Antichrist. The first part he proveth by experience, by the example of Peter de Luna, who named himself 'Benedict,' by the example of Angelus Coriarius, who named himself 'Gregory XII.;' and also by the example of John XXIII.; likewise by Ezekiel xiii. and xxiv., and out of Gregory, who saith, 'What shall become of the flock, when the shepherds themselves are become wolves,' &c.; also out of Hosea, Micah, and other of the prophets, and many places of St. Bernard.^ The second part is proved by Jeremiah viii., Gregory,