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tin's should not have been allowed, for avoiding rebuke, that might redound to her Grace hereafter. And whereas the title of Martin's book was, A Treatise, Confutes declaring, and plainly proving, that the pretended mar- priests'* riage of' priests and professed persons is no marriage, but marriage no altogether unlawful, &c. Ponet first confuted the asscr- 526 MEMORIALS ECCLESIASTICAL CHAP, tion, that it was no marriage. And here he called him to XL " answer him by his law, if he had any, to this reason : where Anno 1556. there is no marriage there needs no divorce; but the pro- ceedings of the Queen and the bishops, and of all the law- yers in England, declared, that a divorce is needful of priests'* marriage, before they be again admitted to the mi- nistry, or that the wife may marry again. Ergo, the Queen, the bishops, and all the lawyers in England, conclude the priests 1 marriage is a marriage. My reason, said he, stands upon this ground, Privatio ante requirit habitum. The taking away of a thing presupposeth that such a thing there was. And the breaking of a knot proveth that there was a knot, in all men's judgments. And that such a di- vorce was needful, the lawyers themselves declare, granting that such a solemn act as matrimony is, cannot, without another solemn act, be undone again : whereof the learned 323 lawyers were not ignorant. Secondly, If the marriage of the priests in England were no marriage, then is their di- vorce no divorce : for divorce supposeth a marriage, and if it be a marriage and a divorce, it followeth, that they be all God's enemies who either move or suffer in England priests'* wives to marry again other husbands, seeing the divorce is not for adultery. Thirdly, " If popish heretics say, that " marriage is a sacrament of the New Testament, (though " indeed it were instituted in Paradise before Adam's trans- " gression,) and therewith also you maintain and defend, " that sacranienta conferunt gratiam ex opere operato, the " sacraments confer grace by virtue of the work wrought: " and upon that ground ye christen bells and churches, &c. " But if this, being, as ye term it, a sacrament of the New " Testament, and ministered by a minister to a priest and " a maiden, be not able to make a marriage, then should " not sacraments confer grace ex opcre operato ; which " among the Papists is a great absurdity and inconveni- " ence. And Optatus, the great, learned, ancient, and holy ' " writer, whom ye allege as one that maketh for your pur- " pose, (and therefore can you not with honesty refuse " him,) saith in his sixth book against the Donatists, Si sit
UNDER QUEEN MARY I. 527 " invocatio nominis Dei, sanctificat ct quod pallidum esse chap. " videbatur. Which words of Optatus, by you (though in XL * " other matters) approved, shew plainly, that if the mar- Anno 1556. " riage of priests were a thing unclean, yet is the same, by " means of the invocation of God's holy name, made clean, " pure, and holy. And Clemens Alexandrinus writes, 'Ay toe- n ^ ; s-r^. u £sTa» yap ovv xa) yufx.og kutu Koyov Ts\ovy.svog . Marriage is l( made holy, that is concluded by the ministry of God's word. " Fourthly, It appears by the Pope's own decrees, that Pope " Syricius, being our extreme enemy, and one of the first " that forbad the marriage of priests, speaking against the Di. 82. c. " same marriages as much as he might, calleth the priests 1 plunmos ' " wives, suas uxores, their own wives. 1 '' Which thing he would not have done, being their adversary, if he had taken their marriages to be no marriage. And secondly, Whereas Martin, in the title of his book, And that had charged these marriages to be unlawful, Ponet meets * n ^^[ e with him here by confronting him with councils, fathers, and acts of Parliament. He shewed him, how one of the first and most ancient councils after the apostles, viz. the Nicene Council, called the marriages of priests legates nup- tias, lawful marriages. When suggestion was made, that priests should not sleep with their wives, they determined, saying, Legates nuptias a modo valere voluntas: We will that lawful marriages from henceforth shall stand in force. And Epiphanius, speaking of them that had made a vow, and afterwards turned to marriage, said, Melius est lapsum, Contr. Ca- &c. " It is better for him that is fallen in his course," h*™^. (meaning them that cannot continue the thing that they have vowed,) " to take a wife openly according to the law, " and so to be restored to the Church again, as one that " before hath done evil, as one that hath fallen, and hath " been broken, and hath now need to be bound ; and not " daily to be inwardly wounded by secret darts, wherewith " the Devil continually doth assault diem."" " Lo ! here " Epiphanius, r ' saith Ponet, " doth not only allow marriage " of priests, and votaries before priesthood and vowing, but " also after priesthood and vowing ; and nameth the mar-
528 MEMORIALS ECCLESIASTICAL CHAP. " riage done in such case lazvful; and that marriage, after " their vow so broken, is a mean to restore them again to Anno 1556." the Church, if they were fallen from it by breaking of 324 " their vow. And this place of Epiphanius answereth fully " all other places of him, which by Martin and other Pa- " pists be writhed to the contrary." To which he added a De bono testimony out of St. Austin, who, he said, made a plain re- solution in this matter, as well against Martin, as against all the rest of the popish rout in Christendom : where, speak- ing of them that marry after they have vowed, he saith in plain words, Non ipsa nuptice vel talium damnandce judi- cantur ; that is, The marriage even of such as marry after they have vowed are not to be condemned. And he
tin was falsified by Pighius : where, for vel talium, he had corruptly put in velut malum, whereupon the whole mat- ter standeth. And a little after he bringeth in St. Austin, speaking thus : Proinde qui talium nuptias dicunt non esse nuptias, sed potius adulteria, non mihi videntur satis ac- curate et diligenter considerate, quid dicunt, &c. That is, " Moreover, they who call such marriages no marriages, " but rather adulteries, seem to me not closely and care- " fully enough to consider what they say. For by means " of this inconsiderate opinion, whereby they think the mar- " riage of such professed women as have forsaken their vow " is no marriage ; if they marry, there cometh no small incon- " venience : which inconvenience is this, wives be separate " from their husbands, as though they were whores, and " not wives. And when they will restore the divorced to " sole life, their husbands are compelled to be very adul- " terers, when their own wives, being alive, marry other " husbands."
" What needed an act of Parliament, in the first year of the " Queen's reign, to repeal the statute made for priests 1 mar- " riages, if priests 1 marriage were no marriage ? And why " doth that act name it the marriage of priests, and not a " pretensed marriage, as Martin did ? And last of all, If UNDER QUEEN MARY I. 529 priest marriage be no marriage, what cause, I pray you, CHAP, had the Queen and the bishops to deprive the married XL " " bishops and priests of England from their benefices? they Anno 1556. " were not deprived for ignorance in God's word, neither " for not doing their duty, nor for glut toning nor swearing, " nor diceing nor hunting, nor buggery nor whoredom, " (for these be common faults among all your priests now- " adays.) Other fault there was none known, but only " that they were married : though for the lawfulness of *' their marriage, besides God's plain word, and godly ca- " nons and doctors, they had the consent of the King, and " supreme head, under Christ, of the Church, and of this " Parliament and realm ; and that joined with the consent " of the congregations assembled where they were mar- " ried. 11 Ponet also exposed these sanctimonious pretenders to aTbe fiithi- single life, by the horrible uncleannesses they were guilty pretender of. " When a strait life, 11 said he, "is joined with a false- to the sin- " hood, as it is in all the Pope's creatures, and other secta- f* ries and heretics, the members of Antichrist, there is no- " thing more perilous than straitness of life. What a le- " cherous life led the holy maid of Lymster, pretending " her food to be nothing else but the mass-cake; as Sir '* Thomas More witnesseth in his dialogue. What bawdry 325 " practised the holy, nay, the devilish maid of Kent, with " monks, friars, and priests, under colour of strait nunnish " life, as appeareth partly by the act of Parliament, but " more largely in the book of her life. And within this " eight years, [that is, about the year 1548,] was there not " a holy man, named Master Doctor Boord, a physician, Dr. Bdord. " that thrice in the week would drink nothing but water, " such a proctor for the Papists then, as Martin the lawyer " is now, who, under the colour of virginity, and wearing " a shirt of hair, and hanging his shroud and socking, or " burial sheet, at his bedsfeet, and mortifying his body, " and straitness of life, kept three whores at once in his " chamber at Winchester, to serve not only himself, but " to help his virgin-priests about in the country, as it was
530 MEMORIALS ECCLESIASTICAL CHAP. " proved; that they might with more ease, and less pain, . " keep their blessed virginity ? This thing is so true, and Anno 1 556. a was so notoriously known, that the matter came to exa- " mination of the justices of peace ; of whom divers be yet " living, as Sir John Kingsmill, Sir Henry Semar, &c. and " was before them confessed ; and his shroud and shirt of " hair openly shewed; and his harlots, openly in the streets " and great church of Winchester, punished. These be " known stories, which Martin and his Papists cannot deny ; " and they know well enough themselves, that there be of " the like thousands, which I omit for briefness." Martin re- And therefore our author rebuketh Martin for his ill his ill words words so often flung out against the holy state of matri- of marriage, m ony, that he could give it no praise or commendation in any kind of people, but termed it sometimes carnal liberty; sometimes the basest state of life in the Church of God ; sometimes, that it is a let for a man to give himself wholly to God ; sometimes a colour of bawdry ; sometimes, that it is a doubling, rather than a taking away the desire of the flesh ; making himself therein wiser than God, who gave it for a remedy against the lasciviousness of the flesh, as God witnessed, when he said, Faciamus ei adjutorium, Let us make Adam a helper. And in the leaves 121 and 122 of his book, he went about to prove by St. Paul, that all men should avoid marriage ; whereby he confirmed the opi- nion of Montanus, Tatianus, and such other abominable heretics. And for his Ponet took notice of those false charges and accusations *! ande 5.'" s Martin laid upon the ministers of King Edward. " The ward's " new superintendency, 11 said Martin, [meaning the gospel- wieaciets, i)j sn0 p S an( j preachers,] " in blessed King Edward the " Sixth's days, taught all one doctrine with Jovinian : " which was, 11 as Martin alleged, " Fast seldom, but marry " often : for ye cannot consummate the zoork of matrimony, " unless ye eat and drink delicately.'''' But Ponet told him, that hence his ignorance appeared ; for those were none of Jovinians words, but feigned by St. Hierom, and only iro- nically objected to him, as agreeable to his doctrine. And
UNDER QUEEN MARY I. 531 then, for the vindication of the ministers and doctrine under CHAP. King Edward, thus did he bespeak his antagonist: " I "pray thee, Martin, how canst thou justify this was the Anno1556 - " doctrine of the preachers in England, whom thou contu- " meliously callest superintendents? Our whole doctrine, " wherein we consented, touching fasting, prayer, and mar- " riage, is plainly and fully set forth in the Book of Coin- 3 26 " mon Prayers, the Homilies, the Catechisms, and the Arti- " cles, whereupon the whole realm concluded : if thou canst " find in these books any such doctrine, then thou mayest *' say, that we agree with Jovinian. If thou canst not find " this doctrine, then we may boldly say, that thou behest " us. Our doctrine was not kept so secret, but that it was " not only preached, but also printed ; and so printed, that " it hath the testimony of the whole realm, and is safely " enough preserved out of the hands of the proudest of " you. And touching your lies, that ye charge us, as " teachers of carnal liberty, there were sundry special ho- " milies, which shall be a witness that thou and thy fellows " be liars, as long as thy book shall continue ; yea, as long " as the world shall continue, though ye slander, rail, and " rage, until your bellies burst in pieces: yea, and burn " that book as fast as ye will, [and burn them they did, as " many as they could get,] there will be copies enough left " to print a thousand in a month." Besides all this, Ponet vindicated Martin Luther against And Lu- a common falsehood raised of him, and which Martin thrust into his book ; namely, that Luther had writ in his book, De Captivitate Babylonica, Si uxor non possit, aut non vult, ancilla venito ; that is, If the wife cannot, or will not, let the maid come. Whereupon thus our author accosts Martin : " Speak again, Martin, where saith Luther these " words ? Thou sayest, In his book De Captiv. Babylonica. Controver. " The selfsame lie maketh Pighius of Luther. Take that " book in thy hand, good reader, and read it over, and " when thou findest there as Martin doth report, let it be " said, that I have slandered Martin : if not, conclude with " me, that he is a lying witness, and one of those doctors
532 MEMORIALS ECCLESIASTICAL CHAP. " whom St. Paul calleth pscudo-prophetas m popido, et _ "Julsos doctores, qui clam inducent sectas perniciosas. I Anno 1556. « aS sure thee, good reader, that this is a foul lie, that Mar- " tin the liar, and Pighius, his fellow, maketh of Luther : " for that saying, which they allege in Latin, as though it " had been so by Luther penned, is not in all that book, " where Martin most shamefully avoucheth the same to be. « 1 will not hide from thee, good reader, Luther's " judgment in that book concerning that matter. In one " place there, speaking of the impediments of matrimony, " he saith, that if the man be such an one by nature, that " it is impossible for him to do the duty of an husband, " then his contract with a woman shall not bind her to be " his wife. And this is the reason, Quia error et ignoran- " tia virilis impotent'ue hie impedit matrimonium. Which " saying, if you Papists condemn, ye condemn the doctrine " of your own father, the Pope himself. For Gregory, " bishop of Rome, writing to the Bishop of Ravenna, saith " on this wise ; Vir et mulier si se conjunxerint, &c. If a " man and a woman be married together, and the woman " afterwards say, that the man can have no carnal know- " ledge of her, and can bring forth lawful proof thereof, " let her take another. And the selfsame doctrine is largely
UNDER QUEEN MARY I. 533 And then that author wished, that the like had not been CHAP. practised elsewhere ; meaning King Henry, in divorcing his XL " queen Katharine, and marrying Ann Bolen. And that Anno 1 556. aforesaid story Martin pretended to have out of a Greek author. But Ponet shewed, that this could not be true of Martin's er- Michael Paleologus; for between the time of this Emperor tory and and Pope Nicolas was the space of above four hundred cur years. For as there were several emperors named Michael, so the seventh and last only was surnamed Paleologus. Mar- tin also, in this place, imputed the breach and contention between the Greek and Latin Church, and the overthrow both of the Grecian church and kingdom, to the lecherous life of the uncle of Michael Paleologus. But Ponet at large proved, that the Pope, the author of all mischief in the Church of God, was the only match that kindled this fire : for the Cardinal Bessarion, patriarch of Constantinople, and archbishop of Nicea, in his oration for the unity of the Greek and Latin Church, shewed that the Bishop of Rome, when he had called a general council, took upon him, upon his own private authority, to add this parcel, i. e. of the proceeding of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, to the common Creed, without the consent of the rest of the bishops there assembled. So that it was the rash and temerarious boldness of the Bishop of Rome that caused this dissension ; who of his own authority would do that tumultuously, which he might have done with the consent of others quietly. And that was it, saith our author, that caused all the dissension that ensued, and also the later ruin, mischief, and destruction of the Turkish captivity. This book ends with the names of a number of old here- The charge tics condemned in the Church of God; out of whose here- retorted* sies, opinions, and errors in doctrine, and strange behaviour u P on
thered their opinions and rules ; whereby they had framed and couched together the whole body of their popish and heretical learning : as it was sufficiently proved by the tes- timony of old doctors and ancient writers in a part of his book : where their sundry opinions and behaviour, and the m m 3 534 MEMORIALS ECCLESIASTICAL CHAP, opinions and behaviour of the popish sect, were so compared and joined together, that the reader might easily perceive Anno 1556. htm Popery is one most pestilent heresy, as the author said, mingled and made up of a multitude of other perilous and blasphemous heresies. This task Ponet undertook, because his adversary had been so liberal in calling the professors of the gospel heretics, and speaking much how heresy and le- chery went together : therefore had Ponet spent one long- chapter in his book, in joining with Martin and all the rest of his sect, for trial, as he said, whether of the two were 3 28 most worthy of the name of heretic. Having notably per- formed this, at the conclusion of his book, by way of a table, he sets down the names of some of the old heretics, of whom he charged the Papists to have gathered their opi- nions, and the years of our Lord when they lived ; and the references to the pages, where the reader might find their agreement with the Papists. The list of these heretics is as follows :
heretics ; reaching to the heretics in the fifth century, viz. to the year 449. And then this conclusion he sets down at the end : " That Church which the Papists say is of Catho- " lies, is proved by the doctors a flock of heretics.""
the relation of the contents of this book : but it will be for- given me by him that well considereth how very material the passages alleged are, to give some knowledge of this learned Bishop of King Edward's, and of the history of those times. And I hold it just, to retrieve such remarkable writings from utter oblivion, into which they are sinking, after such a revolution of years. UNDER QUEEN MARY 1. 535 CHAP. XLI. Boohs published. Abjurations. Avians. Readers at Frank- ford. John Knox sent for to Scotland. IN EAR about this time also, and this year, was another Anno i&56. book of the said Dr. Pone^s published, entitled, A Treatise Ponet'*_ of Political Power, and of the true obedience xvhich Subjects Politic owe to Kings, and other civil Governors ; being- an answer Power - to seven questions, viz.
dained, and the right use and duty of the same. II. Whether kings, princes, and other governors, have an absolute power and authority over their subjects. III. Whether kings, princes, and other politic governors, be subject to God's laws, and the positive laws of their country.
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