Page:The New Testament of Iesvs Christ faithfvlly translated into English, ovt of the authentical Latin, diligently conferred with the Greek, & other Editions in diuers languages.pdf/23

 unto you: and therefore beleeving them, I must needs not beleeve thee. If thou say; Beleeve not the Catholikes: it is not the right way, by the Ghospel to drive me to the faith of Manichæus, because I beleeved the Ghospel it-self by the preaching of Catholikes.

I see that concerning Christ himself, I have beleeved none, but the confirmed and assured opinion of Peoples and Nations: and that these Peoples have on every side possessed the Mysteries of the Catholike Church. Why should I not therfore most diligently require, specially among them, what Christ commanded, by whose authoritie I was moved to beleeve, that Christ did command some profitable thing? Wilt thou (O Heretike) tel me better what he said, whom I would not thinke to have been at al, or to be, if I must beleeve, because thou sayest it? What grosse madnes is this, to say, Beleeve the Catholikes that Christ is to be beleeved: and learne of us, what he said.

Thou seest then in this matter what force the authoritie of the Catholike Church hath, which even from the most grounded and founded Seats of the Apostles, is established until this day, by the line of Bishops succeeding one another, and by the consent of so many peoples. Wheras thou sayest, This is Scripture, or, this is such as Apostles, that is not; because this soundeth for me, and the other against me. Thou then art the rule of truth. Whatsoever is against thee, is not true.

''3. No heretikes have right to the Scriptures, but are usurpers: the Catholike Church being the true owner and faithful keeper of them. Heretikes abuse them, corrupt them, and utterly seeke to abolish them, though they pretend the contrarie.''

Who are you, when, and from whence came you? What doe you in my possession, that are none of mine? By what right (Marcion) doest thou cut downe my wood? Who gave thee licence (O Valentine a) to turne the course of my fountaines? By what authoritie (Apelles) doest thou remove my bounds? And * you the rest, why doe you sow and seed for these companions at your pleasure? It is my possession, I possesse it of old, I have assured origins therof, even from those Authours whose the thing was. I am the heire of the Apostles. As they provided by their Testament, as they committed it to my credit, they adjured me, so doe I hold it. You surely they disherited alwayes and have cast you off as forainers, as enemies.

Encountering with such by Scriptures, availeth nothing, but to overturne a man’s stomake or his braine. This heresie receiveth not certaine Scriptures: and if it doe receive some, yet by adding and taking away, it perverteth the same to serve their purpose: and if it receive any, it doth not receive them wholy: and if after a sort it receive them wholy, nevertheles by divising divers expositions, it turneth them cleane another way, &c.

''4. Yet do they vant themselves of Scriptures exceedingly, but they are never the more to be trusted for that.''

Let them not flatter themselves, if they seeme in their owne conceit to affirme that which they say, out of the chapters of Scripture, wheras the Divel also spake some things out of the Scriptures: and the Scriptures consist not in the reading, but in the understanding.

Here perhaps some man may aske, whether Heretikes also use not the testimonies of divine Scripture. Yet indeed do they, and that vehemently. For thou shalt see them flie through every one of the Sacred books of the Law, through Moyses, the books of the Kings, the Psalmes, the Apostles, the Ghospels, the Prophets. For whether among their owne fellowes, or strangers: whether privatly, or publikely: whether in talke, or in their books: whether in bankets, or in the streets: they (I say) alleage nothing of their owne, which they endeavour not to shadow with the words of Scripture also. Read the workes of Paulus Samosatenus, of Priscillian, of Eunomian, of Jovinian, * of the other plagues and pestilences: thou shalt find an infinit heap of examples, no page in a manner omitted Rh