A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Vi Part 9

CARDINAL.

What, Master Hypocrisy, I have stayed for you long.

HYPOCRISY [_Aside_].

You were best crowd in, and play us among.

CARDINAL.

Where have you been from me so long absent?

I appointed to have been here three hours ago, In my consistory to have sat in judgment Of that wretched schismatic that doth trouble us so.

HYPOCRISY.

What, have you caught but one, and no mo?

In faith, father Avarice, you have plied your chaps well.

AVARICE.

I must needs confess that I am paid for my travail.

TYRANNY.

Room for the prisoner! what, room on each hand, Or I shall make some out of the way for to stand.

Lo, here, my lord, is that seditious schismatic, That we have laid wait for, an arrant heretic.

[_Enter_ PHILOLOGUS.]

CARDINAL.

Sit down, Master Hypocrisy, to yield me a.s.sistance.

HYPOCRISY.

I thank your lordship for your courteous benevolence.

I will be the noddy--I should say the notary, To write before my Lord Legate, which is commissary.

CARDINAL.

Ah, sirrah! be you he that doth thus disturb The whole estate of our faith catholic?

Art thou so expert in G.o.d's laws and word, That no man may learn thee, thou arrant heretic?

But this is the nature of every schismatic: Be his errors never so false doctrine, He will say by G.o.d's word he dare it examine.

PHILOLOGUS.

With humble submission to your authority, I pardon crave, if ought amiss I say; For being thus set in peril and extremity, To me unacquainted, my tongue soon trip may: Wherefore excuse me, I do your lordship pray, And I will answer to every demand, According to my conscience, G.o.d's word being my warrant.

CARDINAL.

To begin therefore orderly: how say'st thou, Philologus, Have I authority to call thee me before?

Or, to be short, I will object it thus: Whether hath the Pope, which is Peter's successor, Than all other bishops preheminence more?

If not, then it follow that neither he, Nor I which am his legate, to accompts may call thee.

PHILOLOGUS.

The question is perilous for me to determine, Chiefly when the party is judge in the cause; Yet, if the whole course of Scripture ye examine, And will be tried by G.o.d's holy laws, Small help shall you find to defend the same cause, But the contrary may be proved manifestly, As I in short words will prove to you briefly.

The surest ground, whereon your Pope doth stand, Is of Peter's being at Rome a strong imagination, And the same Peter, you do understand, Of all the disciples had the gubernation, Surmising both without good approbation, Unless you will by the name of Babylon, From whence Peter wrote, is understanded Rome.

As indeed divers of your writers have affirmed, Reciting Jerome, Austin, Primatius, and Ambrose, Who by their several writings have confirmed That Rome is New Babylon: I may it not glose.

But it were better for you they were dumb, I suppose, For they labour to prove Rome by that acception The wh.o.r.e of Babylon, spoke of in the Revelation.

But grant that Peter in Rome settled was, Yet that he was chief it remains you to prove; For in my judgment it is a plain case, That if any amongst them to rule it did behove, He should be the chief, whom Christ most did love; To whom he bequeathed his mother most dear, To whom in revelation Christ did also appear.

I mean John Evangelist (by birth) cousin-german To our Saviour Christ, as stories do us tell: From whose succession if that you should claim Superiority, you should mend your cause well, For then of some likelihood of truth it should smell, Where none so often as Peter was reproved, Nor from steadfast faith so oftentimes removed.

But grant all were true herein you do feign, Mark one proper lesson of a Greek orator: As a good child of his father's wealth is inheritor, So of his father's virtues he must be possessor.

Now Peter follows Christ, and all worldly goods forsakes; But the Pope leaveth Christ, and himself to glory takes.

And to be short, Christ himself refused to be a king, And the servant above the master may not be; Which being both true, it is a strange thing, How the Pope can receive this pomp and dignity, And yet profess himself Christ's servant to be.

Christ will be no king, the Pope will be more: The Pope is Christ's master, not his servant, therefore.

CARDINAL.

Ah, thou arrant heretic! I will thee remember.

I am glad I know so much as I do: I have weighed thy reasons, and have found them so slender, That I think them not worthy to be answered [to].[48]

How say you, Master Hypocrisy?

HYPOCRISY.

I also think so; But let him go forward and utter his conscience, And we will a while longer hear him with patience.

CARDINAL.

Say on, thou heretic: of the holy Sacrament; Of the body and blood of Christ, what is thine opinion?

PHILOLOGUS.

I have not yet finished my former argument.

CARDINAL.

Say on, as I bid thee: thou art a stout minion.

PHILOLOGUS.

I shall then gladly: it is a sign of union, The which should remain us Christians among, That one should love another all our life long.

For as the bread is of many cornels compounded, And the wine from the juice of many grapes do descend, So we, which into Christ our Rock are ingrounded, As into one temple, should cease to contend, Lest by our contention the Church we offend.

This was not the least cause, among many more, Which are now omitted, that this Sacrament was given for.

The chiefest cause why this Sacrament was ordained, Was the infirmity of our outward man; Whereas salvation to all men was proclaimed, That with true faith apprehend the same can, By the death of Jesus Christ, that immaculate Lamb; That the same might the rather of all men be believed, To the word to add a Sacrament it Christ nothing grieved.

And as we the sooner believe that thing true, For the trial whereof more witnesses we find, So by the means of the Sacrament many grew Believing creatures, where before they were blind; For our senses some savour of our faith now do find, Because in the Sacrament there is this a.n.a.logy, That Christ feeds our souls, as the bread doth our body.

CARDINAL.

Ah, thou foul heretic! is there bread in the Sacrament?

Where is Christ's body, then, which he did us give?

PHILOLOGUS.

I know to the faithful receiver it is there present, But yet the bread remaineth still, I steadfastly believe.

CARDINAL.

To hear these his errors it doth me greatly grieve: But that we may shortly to some issue come, In what sense said Christ, _Hoc est corpus meum_?

PHILOLOGUS.

Even in the same sense that he said before: _Vos estis sal terrae, Vos estis lux mundi, Ego sum ostium_, and a hundred such more, If time would permit to allege them severally; But that I may the simple sort edify, You ask me in what sense these words I verify, Where Christ of the bread said, "This is my body."

For answer herein I ask you this question: Were Christ's disciples into salt transformed When he said, "Ye are the salt of the earth every one,"

Or when the light of the world he them affirmed?

Or himself to be a door when he confirmed?

Or to be a vine, did his body then change?

If not then, why now? this to me seemeth strange.

CARDINAL.

Why, dost thou doubt of Christ his omnipotency, But what so he willeth doth so come to pa.s.s?