A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Ver. 18. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, &c.] Heretics, then, and heterodoxes are not good honest men, as the common people counts them, for all their pretended holiness and counterfeit humility, Colossians 2:18. Were they humble men indeed, they would soon yield to the truth discovered unto them, and relinquish their erroneous opinions. Swenckfeldius could not be a good man, as Bucholcerus judged him, as long as he held fast his heresies, though he were much in the commendation of a new life, and detestation of an evil; though himself prayed much, and lived soberly. He bewitched many with those magnificent words and stately terms that he had much in his mouth, of illumination, revelation, deification, the inward and spiritual man, &c., but in the mean while he denied the human nature of Christ to be a creature, and called those that thought otherwise creaturists. He affirmed the Scripture to be but a dead letter; which they that held not, he called them scripturists. Faith, he said, was nothing but God dwelling in us, as Osiander after him. In a word, he was a leper in his head, and is therefore pronounced utterly unclean,Leviticus 14:44. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit. That Popish inquisitor was quite out that said the Waldensian heretics may be discerned by their manners and words; for they are modest, true, grave, and full of brotherly love one towards another, but rank heretics. a This was somewhat like Pliny's description of the Christians in that province where he was governor. And here I cannot omit, that when the Bishop of Worcester exhorted M. Philpot the martyr (being brought to his answer), before be began to speak, to pray to God for grace: "Nay, my Lord of Worcester," said Bonner, "you do not well to exhort him to make any prayer; for this is the thing they have a singular pride in. For in this point they are much like to certain arrant heretics, of whom Pliny maketh mention, that they sang antelucanos, hymns, psalms of praise, to God before break of day." But had Bonner and his fellow buzzards but observed the burning zeal, sweet assemblies, watchings, prayings, holiness of life, patience in death, &c., of those that served God after the way that they called heresy, they might well have seen and said as much as the centurion did of our Saviour, Matthew 27:54, and they might have replied, as our Saviour did of himself, "I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me." "If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me, of whom ye say, that he is your God," John 8:49; John 8:54. Cenalis, Bishop of Auranches, wrote against the congregation of Paris, defending impudently that their assemblies were to maintain whoredom. How much better and with more ingenuity the Bishop of Aliff, who preaching at Trent in the time of that Council, A.D. 1563, spake of the faith and manners of the Catholics and heretics; and said, that as the faith of the Catholics was better, so the heretics exceeded them in good life; which gave much distaste, saith the historian. But Bellarmine (had he been then and there present) would not likely have been much offended: "For we," saith he, "although we believe that all the virtues are to be found in the Church, yet that any man may be absolutely said to be a member of the true Church described in the Scriptures, we do not think that any internal virtue is required of him; but only an internal profession of the faith, and such a partaking of the sacraments, as is perceived by the outward senses." b A pretty description and picture of a Papist; among whom if any be virtuous, it is by accident, and not as they are members of that Church. A Cicero wittily said of the Epicures, that if any of that sect proved good it was merely by the benefit of a better nature; for they taught all manner of looseness and libertinism. But for the most part, such as their doctrine is, such is also their practice. The friars (saith one that had seen it, and so could well avouch it) are a race of people always praying, but seldom with sign of devotion; vowing obedience, but still contentious; chastity, yet most luxurious; poverty, yet ever scraping and covetous. And generally the devotions of Papists, saith he, are prized more by tale than by weight of zeal; placed more in the weighty materiality of the outward work, than purity of the heart, from which they proceed. They hold integrity for little better than silliness and abjectness about Italy, and abuse the most honourable name of Christian, usually, to signify a fool, or a dolt, as is before noted out of Doctor Fulke. Are not these the fruits of a rotten religion, of trees specious without, but putrefied and worm eaten within (as the word our Saviour here useth properly signifieth), which appears at length by their rotten fruits? c The true Christian will not cease to bear good fruit, what weather soever come, Jeremiah 17:7. The hypocrite will either bear only leaves, as the cypress tree, or apples of Sodom, grapes of Gomorrah. Of such we may say, as of Mount Gilboa, no good fruit grows on them; or as Stratonicus saith of the hill Haemus, that for eight months in the year it was very cold, and for the other four it was winter; or as the poet said of his country, that it was bad in winter, hard in summer, good at no time of the year. d Campian of St John's in Oxford, Proctor of the University, A.D. 1568, dissembled the Protestants' religion. So did Parsons in Baliol college, until he was for his dishonesty expelled with disgrace, and fled to the Papists; where coelum mutavit non animium, heaven changed no soul neither good egg nor good bird, as they say.
a Sunt in moribua compositi et modesti, superbiam in vestibus non habeat-sed fides eorum est incorrigibilis et pessima.
b Nos etiamsi credimus-tamen ut aliquis absolute dici posset pars verae ecclesiae non putamas requiri ullam internara virtutem, sed tantum externam professionem fidei, et sacramentorum communionem quae sensu ipso percipitur.
c σαπρος, of σηπω, to putrefy. Suidas. Pulchra ac sublimis est, sed fructu caret. It is beautiful and exulted but withoiut fruit. Plutarch.
d ' Ασκρη χειμα κακη, θερος αργαλεη, ουδεποτ ' εσθλη. Hesiod.