life free from contumelies and slanders-we know there were certain in times past which said, and commonly preached, that the old ancient Jews (of whom we make no doubt but they were the worshippers of the only true GOD) did worship either a sow, or an ass, in God's stead;" and that all the same religion was nothing else but sacrilege, and a plain contempt of all godliness. We know also, that the Son of GOD, our Saviour JESUS CHRIST, when he taught the truth, was counted a sorcerer, an enchanter, a Samaritan, Beelzebub,' a deceiver of the people," and a glutton." Again, who woteth [knoweth] not, what words were spoken against St. Paul, the most earnest and vehement preacher and maintainer of the truth? Sometimes, that he was a seditious and busy man, a raiser of tumults, a causer of rebellion: sometimes, again, that he was a heretic :P sometimes, that he was mad : sometimes, that only upon strife and stomach [anger] he was both a blasphemer of God's law, and a

k

[The word is here used in the sense of declaring, affirming. This is worth observing, as it has a bearing on the sense of the old, or Prayer Book version of Psalm lx. 11, where 'preachers' is put for a Hebrew word which is of the feminine gender; a circumstance which has been forced into the debate with the Quakers and others, whether females ought to preach.]

h CORNELII TACITI Hist. lib. v. [cap. 4. "Effigiem animalis, quo monstrante errorem sitimque depulerant, penetrali sacravêre." (Judæi,sc.) Yet the same historian elsewhere says, (ibid. cap. 5.) "Judæi mente solâ (venerantur) unumque numen intelligunt." "The Jews worship only in the mind, [an assertion equally untrue with the foregoing] and believe in one GOD." And again he furnishes the means of confuting his own misstatement, by informing us that Pompey, when he entered the temple, found in it no image or statue of any kind: "nulla intus deum, effigie vacuam sedem, et inania arcana." cap. 9. So inconsistent and self contradictory can even an intelligent and usually accurate writer become, when loosely speaking from hearsay, on the information of prejudiced and careless witnesses!]

i TERTULL. in Apologetico. c. 16. [TERTULLIAN there takes notice of Tacitus' slander on the Jews, and confutes it by adducing the contradictory passages already given. He is led to remark on it by the popular extension of the calumny to the Christians, who were reported to worship "caput asininum"-the head of an ass.]

John viii. 48.

1 Matt. x. 25. xii. 24. ss.

m John vii. 12, 47. Matt. xxvii. 63.

a Luke vii. 34.

• Acts xvi. 20. s. xvii. 6. ss,

P Acts xviii. 13.

4 Acts. xxvi. 24,

despiser of the fathers' ordinances. Further, who knoweth not, how St. Stephen, after he had thoroughly and sincerely embraced the truth, and began frankly and stoutly to preach and set forth the same, as he ought to do, was immediately called to answer for his life, as one that had wickedly uttered disdainful and heinous words against the law, against Moses, against the temple, and against GOD? Or who is ignorant, that in times past there were some which reproved the holy Scriptures of falsehood, saying, they contained things both contrary, and quite one against another: and how that the Apostles of CHRIST did severally disagree between themselves," and that St. Paul did vary from them all? And not to make rehearsal of all—for that were an endless labour-who knoweth not after what sort our fathers were railed upon in times past, which first began to acknowledge and profess the name of CHRIST? how they made private conspiracies, devised secret counsels against the commonwealth, and to that end made early and privy meetings in the dark, killed young babes, fed themselves with men's flesh, and, like savage and brute beasts, did drink their blood;-in conclusion, that after they had put out the candles, they committed adultery between themselves, and without regard, wrought incest one with another; that brethren lay with their sisters, sons with their mothers, without any reverence of nature or kin, without shame, without difference; and that they were wicked men, without all care of religion, and without any opinion of God, being

W

[JEWELL'S margin cites "EPIPHANIUS" in proof. He probably refers to that writer's book On Heresies, chap. xxx. where it is said of the Ebionites, an early heretical sect, that they held the memory of Paul in aversion, as a contemner of the Mosaic law, which they esteemed to be of perpetual obligation. IRENEUS also affirms of them, that "Apostolum Paulum recusant, apostatam eum legis dicentes"-" they reject the apostle Paul, calling him an apostate from the law."—Hæres. lib. I. c. xxvi. p. 105.]

Acts vi. 11, 13. s.

HIERONYMUs in Proamio in Epist. ad Galat.

■ HIERONYMUS in Matthæum, lib. I. cap. i.

▾ TERTULLIANUS Contra Marcion. Lib. I. [cap. xx.] Lib. IV. [cap. iii.] Lib. V. cap. ii. [where Marcion the heretic is spoken of as making this assertion.] LACTANTIUS [who relates the same of Ælius.]

EUSEBIUS Eccles, Hist Lib. V. c. i.

the very enemies of mankind, unworthy to be suffered in the world, and unworthy of life?*

Sect. 3. All these things were spoken in those days against the people of God; against CHRIST JESUS; against Paul; against Stephen; and against all them, whosoever they were, which at the first beginning embraced the truth of the gospel, and were contented to be called by the name of Christians, which was then a hateful name among the common people." And although the things which they said were not true, yet the devil thought it should be sufficient for him, if at least he could bring it so to pass, as they might be believed for true; and that the Christians might be brought into a common hatred of every body, and have their death and destruction sought of all sorts. Hereupon kings and princes, being led then by such persuasions, killed all the prophets of GOD, letting none escape: Isaiah with a saw; Jeremiah with stones; Daniel with lions; Amos with an iron bar; Paul with the sword; and CHRIST upon the cross: and condemned all Christians to imprisonments, to torments, to the pikes, to be thrown down headlong from rocks and steep places, to be cast to wild beasts, and to be burned, and made great fires of their quick [living] bodies, for the only purpose to give light by night, and for a very scorn and mocking-stock ;" and did count them no better than the vilest filth, the off-scourings and laughing games of the whole world.

Thus, as ye see, have the authors and professors of the truth ever been entreated.

* TERTULLIAN. Apologetico, c. i. ii. iii. vii. viii. ix.

▾ TERTULLIAN. Apologetico, c. iii. "Christianus si nullius criminis reus est."-" Ita plerique clausis oculis in odium ejus impingunt, ut bonum alicui testimonium ferentes admisceant nominis exprobrationem, Bonus vir Caius Seius, tantum Christianus."-" A Christian is a criminal, though guilty of no crime.-The multitude are so blindly prejudiced against it, (Christianity,) that if they give a good character of one of us, they insert their censure of the name: Such an one is a good man, if he were not a Christian."

2 SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS in Nerone. [c. xvi. The satyrist JUVENAL, Sat. I. v. 155-158, alludes to the cruel torments thus inflicted on the Christians.]

CHAPTER II.

The Calumnies uttered against the true Religion, as professed in the Church of England.

Sect. 1. Wherefore we ought to bear it the more quietly, which have taken upon us to profess the Gospel of CHRIST, if we for the same cause be handled after the same sort and if we, as our forefathers were long ago, be likewise at this day tormented, and baited with railings, with spiteful dealings, and with lies: and that for no desert of our own, but because we teach and acknowledge the truth.

b

Sect. 2. They cry out upon us at this present, every where, that we are all heretics, and have forsaken the faith, and have with new persuasions and wicked learning utterly dissolved the concord of the Church.

Sect 3. That we renew, and as it were fetch again from hell, the old and many-a-day condemned heresies : that we sow abroad new sects, and such broils as never erst [before] were heard of: also, that we are already

[Gospellers was one of the nicknames given to the reformers by their Romish antagonists. In imitation of Paul, they had professed to be "set in defence of the gospel;" like him, they boldly declared themselves "not ashamed of the gospel of CHRIST;" and their whole lives were a commentary upon his energetic declaration, "Wo is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!" To these principles, and to the sarcastic recognition of them in the name Gospeller, JEWELL particularly alludes.]

b 1 Tim. iv. 10.

с

[It cannot be denied that the bold measures of the reformers were destructive of a certain 'concord' which had previously pervaded a great portion of the Christian Church. But it was that 'concord' of which Paul speaks, when he asks "what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath CHRIST with Belial?" Of other concord-agreement in opinion, and "godly quietness," there was, it may be fearlessly asserted, as little before the Reformation as there has been since. Of the "unity of the spirit, in the bond of peace," surely the great principles of Protestantism cannot diminish the amount !]

divided into contrary parts and opinions, and could yet by no means agree well among ourselves.d

Sect. 4. That we be accursed creatures; and, like the giants, do war against God himself, and live clean without any regard or worshipping of God.

Sect. 5. That we despise all good deeds: that we use no discipline of virtue, no laws, no customs: that we esteem neither right, nor order, nor equity, nor justice that we give the bridle to all naughtiness, and provoke the people to all licentiousness and lust.

Sect. 6. That we labour and seek to overthrow the state of monarchies and kingdoms, and to bring all things under the rule of the rash inconstant people, and unlearned multitude.

Sect. 7. That we have seditiously fallen from the Catholic Church, and by a wicked schism and division have shaken the whole world, and troubled the common peace and universal quiet of the Church: and that, as Dathan and Abiram conspired in times past against Moses and Aaron, even so we at this day have renounced the Bishop of Rome, without any cause reasonable.

d ["A variety of opinions has indeed sprung up since the Reformation. But the schism arising hence cannot be justly charged upon the Reformation itself. The knowledge of the Scriptures, which was then laid open, might afterwards be abused by men of warm imaginations and unsettled judgments; yet this is no argument against the sober and steady use of Scripture, any more than the sun can be blamed for shining with equal lustre upon the froward and the wise. Surely, the bounty of Heaven is not to be arraigned, if weak or wicked men abuse it! The sobriety and caution with which our first reformers in England proceeded in drawing up the [form of] doctrines of their Church, afford an admirable instance of men actuated not by a love of novelty and change, but by a desire of restoring the pure faith, as it was delivered to the saints,' and following the apostolic injunction, that all things in the Church should be done 'decently and in order.'"-A. C. Campbell, p. 11.]

[To this, JEWELL answers: "Before the time that God's holy will was that Doctor Luther should begin, after so long time of ignorance, to publish the gospel of CHRIST, there was a general quietness, I grant: such as in the night season, when folk be asleep. Yet, I think, to continue such quietness, no man would wish to sleep still."-Defence, p. 18.] f Numbers xvi.

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