is made of the Corruption of the Foreign Universities 1. It is true all the World believed that the first Marriage was consummated as appears by what Cajetan saies upon it But 2. since our Author cites Lord Herbert's History of King Henry 8th he must needs have seen in him as clear Proofs of a Consummation as a thing of that nature is capable of 3. Prince Arthur's early Death was generally imputed to his too early Marriage and the care that was had of the Princess after his Death the delay of giving the Title of Prince of Wales to the younger Brother and the mention made of the Consummation of that Marriage dubiously indeed in the Bull for the second Marriage but more positively in the suspected Brief are all as strong Presumptions as could be brought for proving a thing of that nature 4. Tonstal concurred with the King in the Divorce and in all that followed upon it so that our Author had need find better Proofs of this than Sander's Word otherwise he 'l hardly gain Credit 5. The Learned Men he mentions come within a very small compass For as Cajetan was the first Author of that Opinion so he had very few followers in that Age tho the consequences of this Dispute hath drawn the current of the Authors of the Roman Communion since that time to follow his Opinion 6. An Act of Parliament made by Gardner and others in the beginning of Queen Maries Reign who were the chief managers of the Suit against her Mother and who by this Act intended to make their Peace and their Court with her is indeed a very venerable Authority and may very fitly come into the same Paragraph with Sanders V. He pretends that Cranmer and Cromwell were the Authors of the Advice of the King 's obliging the Clergy in their Submission to own him for the Supreme Head of the Church It is true he cites Antiqui Britt for this and for another thing that whereas the Clergy desired to have qualified that Title with these Words In so far as it is lawful by the Law of Christ the King refused this and the Clergy granted it without that Restriction Here an Author is pretended but if the Writer of this Treatise had examined these matters exactly he would have found by a Letter of King Henry's to the Convocation of York that the King had accepted of this Limitation and indeed the nature of things puts it in whether it had been set down in so many express Words or not and as for what is said here of Cranmer it is without ground for he was then beyond Sea imployed in disputing concerning the Divorce VI. He says Warham Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was a favourer of Queen Katherines Cause This agrees ill with his owning that he saw the Lord Herbert's History in which he might have found Warham's Deposition upon Oath in which he acknowledges that he thought the Marriage was neither honourable nor well-pleasing to God that therefore he had opposed it much And Warham did set forward the Divorce with so much zeal that he procured a Writing to be signed by all the Bishops of his Province declaring that they thought that the Kings Marriage was Vnlawful and in this he was so earnest that when Fisher refused to Sign it he pressed him vehemently unto it but the other said still that it was against his Conscience so he made another Person subscribe in Fisher's name and set to his Seal to the Paper and pretended that he had Fisher's leave to do it which he affirmed before the Legates when the matter came to be examined So false is it that Warham favoured the Marriage VII He pretends that the next step of the Reformation was the Submission of the Clergy by which they bound themselves not to Assemble without the Kings Writ nor to make or execute any Canons unless the King should by his Royal Grant Command them to make or to execute them But the Proof he cites for this discovers his Prevarication evidently It seems he thought a careless Reader seeing an Assertion and a Citation following after it would without reading the long Citation take it for granted that it agreed with the Assertion and without being at the pains to read it would run on to new matter The Clergy did not bind themselves never to meet without the Kings Writ They only said That the Convocation had ever been and ought always to be assembled by the Kings Writ which only shews what is the regular Method of their Assembling themselves But tho this obliges them to meet always when they are required to do it by the Kings Writ yet it doth not bind them up from meeting in ease the necessities of the Church do require it and that the King refuses his Writ for then they are reduced to these prudential Considerations in the managing of their matters in a case of Persecution Nor did they bind themselves up from executing the old Canons but only from the enacting of new ones which is very different from the view that our Author gives of it as was made out in the first Part of these Reflections VIII He fastens a very strange Inference on some Words of an Act of Parliament as if they had amounted to this That no Laws of the Land nor the Prerogative assumed by the King had any thing of Heresy in them If by this is only meant that the Laws then in being were not Heretical there is nothing extraordinary in such a Pretention For a Body in which the Legislative power resides will very naturally after its own Orthodoxy and the bare asserting it will hardly be thought a Criminal Attempt But if our Author meant as probably he did that by this a Declaration was made for all time coming that the Laws of the Land should be for ever the Standard of Heresy or sound Doctrine then this Conclusion will hardly be found in the Authority that he gives us for it which is an Act declaring That the speaking against those Laws made by the Authority of the See of Rome by the Policy of Man which were repugnant to the Laws of the Realm or the King's Prerogative should not be judged Heresy This is an Inference worthy of the Sincerity of its Author In the Body of the Canon-Law there are many Laws made that destroy all Civil-Government whatsoever and that subject Princes wholly to the Pope There are also many Laws made relating to Civil matters in Ordine ad Spiritualia but all to be sure for advancing the Interests of that Court from which they came Now the Civil Courts in England were already in Possession of giving a check to the Spiritual Courts and of granting Prohibitions upon their Judgments even in Cases of Heresy when the Spiritual Courts had judged men Hereticks for Articles that were not Heresy as Appeals lie for the like cases in France so that the Parliament made only a Regulation in this
still the Priviledges of such a See when all those Reasons which at first procured to it those Priviledges come to cease As for the Third which are more perpetual we pay them all respect and have never changed them but the Dispensations of the Church of Rome hath so destroyed them all that it is a peculiar degree of Confidence for any that are in Communion with that Church to assert such an immutability in the Ancient Canons that a National Synod may not be suffered to alter any of them and yet that one single Bishop whom all Antiquity considered but as a Collegue and Fellow-Bishop to all the rest of the Order should be alloweed an Authority to break and dissolve them all This may serve to shew how weak all those Foundations are upon which our Author builds I come in the next place to examine his Defective and False Account of the Matters of Fact which will engage me into a tedious opening of many Particulars that will be little for our Author's Honour but no Discoveries will affect a Man that could stifle his Conscience for 25 Years and that now hath the Impudence to own it FINIS REFLECTIONS ON THE Oxford Theses Relating to the ENGLISH REFORMATION PART II. Amsterdam Printed for J. S. 1688. REFLECTIONS ON THE Oxford Theses Relating to the ENGLISH REFORMATION IN the former part of these Reflections the general grounds on which our Reformation was attacked were examined the matters of Fact come now to be considered but before I enter upon these alledged by our Author I thought it fitting to begin with an Enquiry into a very important matter relating to that time that hath been lately objected to our Church by one of the Church of Rome which as it is New so it is likewise of great Consequence A Sheet has appeared that was well and decently writ and with a very specious appearance of Reason to prove that Q Elizabeth was a Bastard not upon the common pretence of the Nullity of K. Henry the Eighth's Marriage with her Mother because his former Marriage with Q. Katherine was still in force but upon a Precontract in which Ann Bullen was engaged before her Marriage to K. Henry which being confessed by her self the Marriage was null of it self and was judged to be so by Arch-Bishop Cranmer whose Sentence was confirmed by the Subsequent Parliament So that here is a Nullity and by consequence a Bastardy It is true this Assertion is new so tho it may raise the Credit of him that hath discovered it since it must be confessed that it looks very like good reasoning yet on the other hand it is some prejudice against it that it doth not appear it was ever objected to us before now and no mention being made of it while the whole matter was fresh in Mens memories and while that Queen reigned whose Title this seems to weaken much more than all the other things that were alledged to shake it is a great Presumption that the Men of that time knew there was no force in it So that tho the Novelty of it may please yet it is really a strong prejudice against it But after all it must be confessed the thing is specious and it is of great consequence not only with Relation to the Credit of our Church and of its first Reformation but with Relation to our present Establishment For tho the Writer of that Sheet makes no other use of it but to blemish our Church as guilty of Sedition and Disloyalty for owning a Bastard against the Queen of Scots who was the next lawful Heir yet it will bear another Consequence that is more important in our present Circumstances For as a Precontract infers a Nullity of the Marriage and disables all the issue of it so an ill Title in a Queen infers a Nullity upon all her Laws all her Acts of Government as flowing from an Usurper and therefore this strikes not only at the Honour of our Church in the last Age but at its Settlement in the present and I believe this last is chiefly aimed at For as to the former it may serve in a great measure to justifie our Church that Q. Elizabeth was put in Possession of the Crown by the Nation while it was yet Popish and by the Body of the Clergy that were of that Religion so that all that those of our Church did was to maintain her in that Possession in which we found her and in which our Enemies had put Her. And it must be acknowledged that an anxious weighing of Titles is not so necessary after one is in a legal and peaceable Possession acknowledged by all Parties within the Kingdom as well as by all Princes without it I do not pretend to say That a Possession will justify a bad Title tho there is older Law relating to the Possession of the Crown of England passed by King Henry the VII but an undisputed Possession does certainly very much excuse those who acknowledge and submit to one that is bonoe fidei Possessor Which was plainly Q. Elizabeth's Case But because it may be with great colour of Reason alledged that Right is Right still and that Possession or Prescription are only pretences of Law which may have perhaps weight before a Judg yet these are not sufficient to extinguish a just Title when matters are examined in themselves and abstracted from those Pleadings that may perhaps be legal yet as some will alledg are scarce rational So I will examine this matter as fairly as I must confess it is stated by that Gentleman and will first propose the matter of Fact as Dr. Burnet hath put it who is the only Author that is cited and therefore he must be supposed to have some Credit here Queen Ann Bullen was attainted of Treason upon some pretended Proofs of Adultery and so Judgment was given That she should be either Burnt which is the Death that the Law prescribes for the Traitors of that Sex or Beheaded Two days after the Sentence she is prevail'd on to confess a Precontract before Arch-Bishop Cranmer and so her Marriage with the King is declared void and null and in consequence of that the Issue is illegitimated yet this was so secretly carried that one of the Iudges of that time writes of it as a thing that was only reported and in the subsequent Act of Parliament no mention is made of a Precontract tho no doubt she had confessed it with the circumstances of Time and Person Yet in the Act of Parliament it is only said that she had confessed some just and lawful Impediments by which it was evident that her Marriage with the King was not valid It cannot be now known how this matter was expressed in the Sentence given by Cranmer all these Records being burnt But it is most probable that the matter was more distinctly specified Now the only Reason we can give of those general Words in the Act of Parliament is that this pretended
Precontract being with the Earl of Northumberland he had by a solemn Oath and by his receiving the Sacrament upon it in the Presence of the Duke of Norfolk and some others of the Privy Council denied any such Precontract Of which Dr. Burnet assures us he saw the Original Attestation under that Earl's own hand This had so far invalidated the Queens Confesssion that it seems the Parliament would not descend into the specifying of her Confession Dr. Burnet hath also given several Evidences of her being at that time so much disordered by Vapours that this doth in a great measure weaken the Credit of her Testimony even against her self Upon this whole matter then there are three important Considerations which arises out of the Fact and any one of these seems strong enough to overthrow all the Inferences that can be drawn from that part of our Story 1. She was a Person condemned now all the Examinations of Persons condemned are by the Laws of all Nations only Presumptions but not Proofs the Terrors of Death and the Hardiships of a Prison are such just abatements that Confessions so made can never have that Credit given them as to found any Sentence upon them but in that Queens Case there are two things which give this General Consideration yet more force as to her particular The one is That it being in the King's Power to order her either to be Burnt or Beheaded the Terror of the former might carry her to say any thing that might procure her the softer Death But the other was yet stronger it was a natural-enough Temptation to her to lead her to confess a Pre-contract since by that Confession she might hope so far to extinguish the Crime for which she was condemned as to obtain her Life by that means She was condemned for Adultery now the Confession of a Pre-contract might be drawn from her as a thing that dissolved the Marriage and by consequence acquitted her of the Adultery for which she was condemned since if she was never the Kings true Wife she could not be guilty towards him So that this matter was perhaps represented to her as that which must certainly save her Life And thus this Confession being grounded on the fears of Death and carrying in it the hopes of Life can be of no force in Law. 2. The bare Confession of a Pre-contract without any other Adminiele or Evidence to confirm it cannot be supposed a just ground to dissolve a Marriage otherwise Married Persons when they grow weary of one another may dissolve their Marriage by taking a false Oath It 's true in other cases the Parties own Confession is strong enough in Law against themselves but in this case both the married Persons being equally concerned in the Tie that follows upon it the Confession of the one cannot dissolve the Right that accrued to the other upon the Marriage and since two Witnesses are necessary in all such Cases the Confession of one of the Parties is at most but the single Evidence of one Witness and therefore Ann Bullens Confession could not make the Marriage void This is further confirmed by the Denial of the Person with whom the Pre-contract was preteneded to be made if her Confession gave such a Credit to the matter as to annul her subsequent Marriage with the King it ought likewise to have annulled the Earl of Northumberland's Marriage therefore it could not be received in Law. The other circumstances of it do also concur to weaken its credit it was so secretly carried that one of the Judges of that time tells us only that it was reported that she had confessed a Pre-contract so that it was not managed with the necessary Forms of Justice and it being probable that some General Promise of Marriage had passed between her and the Earl of Northumberland it is not likely that she understood the difference between a Promise and a Contract so she might especially in such a Hurry and under so much disorder mistake the one for the other 3. But in the last place it is to be considered that here was an Innocent Child in the case whose Legitimacy and Right could not be cut off by her Mothers extorted Confession Infants are more particularly under the protection of the Law and therefore Acts passed against them in that state of Feebleness have such flaws in them that they have always a right to reverse them so a single Witness in such Circumstances as her Mothers were could not be sufficient to disgrace and disinherit her and the Confirmation of the Act of Parliament that followed afterwards might have been a forcible bar in Law to her but could be no just one for as a Bastard is still a Bastard even tho he were Legitimated by Act of Parliament so a lawful Child is still what 't is notwithstanding a Sentence of Bastardy confirmed in Parliament and this is so true and was so evidently the Practice of that time that even King Henry in his suit of Divorce with Queen Catherine was willing to have his Daughter Mary declared Legitimate because Children begat in a Marriage are begotten bona fide and so they ought not to suffer because of the secret fault of their Parents And if this was yielded in a Marriage where both Parents were according to the Kings Pretensions guilty of Incest it was much more just in this Case of Ann Bullen even supposing her Precontract true for her secret fault ought not to blemish nor ruin her innocent Child Another Instance that fell out at this time in the Royal Family is very considerable and because it is little known I fancy the Reader will not be displeased to have it particularly opened to him Henry the 8th's Sister that was Queen of Scotland did after her Husband King Iames the 4th's Death marry the Earl of Angus and by that Marriage she had a Daughter Lady Margaret Douglas Some time after her Marriage she fell to be in ill terms with her Husband and discovered a Pre-contract he had given to another and upon this she sued him in the Spiritual Court and it being proved the Marriage was annulled but her Daughter was still held to be Legitimated and was entertained by King Henry as his Niece and given by him in Marriage to the Earl of Lenox of whom descended the Lord Darnly that was King Iames the 1st of England's Father and since he was considered to be the Second Person in the Succession to the Crown of England after the Queen of Scots this shews that by the Practice of that Time a Pre-contract even legally proved yet did not illegitimate the Issue that were begotten bona Fide by one of the Parents And thus I hope enough is said to overthrow the Objection that is made to the first Constitution of our Church under Q Eliz it was strangely put and decently and weightily writ and therefore I have answered it with the like Decency of Stile so that if I treat the
matter which is at this day practiced in most of all the States of Christendom Otherwise Civil Government were a very feeble thing if it could not preserve its Members from the arbitrary Proceedings of Ecclesiastical Courts And indeed if the Canons and Rules made by the Popes and such Synods as were absolutely at their disposal were the measures of Heresy so that Judgments ought to pass upon them and that States might not cover themselves from them by Laws we know where this must carry us and how many Bonfires must be quickly made in England But God be thanked it is not come to that I must also add one thing That if the Judgment of Heresy had carried with it nothing but the Ecclesiastical Censures of Excommunications and Anathema's the Church might have pretended that the State ought not to meddle too much in it But since Heresy not only drew after it an Infamy in Law but likewise a Writ de Heretico Comburendo according to another Canon acknowledged to be in force by our Author then a State ought to have made such Regulations in this matter as were necessary to protect its Members from such a Butchery For since the Civil Government is bound to secure the Subjects while they continue Innocent and Obedient from the Rage of all their Enemies our Legislators had betrayed their Trust if they had not put an effectual Stop to the Tyranny of the Clergy And thus it is plain That this Declaration made by the Parliament was nothing but a securing to the Subjects their Lives and Fortunes to which they had formerly a very doubtful Tenure since they held them only at the Discretion and Mercy of the Clergy IX But because our Writers have often alledged the Laws made in former times Chiefly the Statute of Premunire made by Richard the 2d against all Bulls and Provisions from the See of Rome Our Author answers this very weightily as he thinks by shewing us That those Laws related only to some special matters that were temporal Things such as the Titles to Benefices or the Translation of Bishops out of England without the Kings consent by which both the King might be deprived of their Counsel and the Treasure of the Kingdom carried away out of it But all this is trifling For a Contest being raised concerning the extent of the Popes Power the Pope claims a degree of Authority to be committed to him by Christ and that the whole Pastoral Work belonged to him Upon this the King and Parliament set bounds to it Now the Question arises out of this Whether the same Authority that warranted them to determine against the Pretensions of that Court in that one Point did not warrant them likewise to do it in other Points To a man of a clear understanding the Matter will appear to be past dispute For if in one Point a Parliament may contradict the Popes Declarations and Canons sure it may do it in another and the only Question then to be examined will be concerning the matter of such Laws For if the matter of those Laws is good the Authority is certainly good and if the matter is not good it is confessed that an Act of Parliament cannot change the nature of things But because this matter is better understood by some Breves printed by Dr. Burnet it will be worth the while to examine it a little more fully That vigorous Act of Parliament came out indeed in the Reign of a feeble Prince but the Popedom at that time was in a more feeble State and the adherence of England to the Pope who sat at Rome was in that time of Schism so valuable a support that those at Rome it seems thought it fit to take no notice of it But the Council of Constance had no sooner heal'd that Wound then the Popes were resolved to have that Law repealed and England falling again under a new Feebleness in Henry 6th Minority and Factions at Home and Losses in France having sunk the Reputation of the Government extreamly the Pope laid hold of that Conjuncture and in his Letters both to the Arch-Bishops and Clergy and to the King and Parliament he Annuls the Statute and requires the Clergy to give it no Obedience declaring all Persons that obey it to be ipso facto Excommunicated and they should not be relaxed by any but himself unless it were at the point of Death and he ordered the Clergy to Preach this Doctrine to all the People He required the Parliament under pain of Damnation to repeal it and he founds his right in the Commission that Christ gave to St. Peter to feed the Flock Here sure if ever the Pope speaks Ex Cathedra yet for all this the Parliament would neither repeal nor explain the former Statute By all which it is plain that our Parliament did not think themselves bound to be born down by big Words and high Pretensions In this Dispute then between the Spiritual and Temporal Power we see the Parliament judged the matter and by the same right that they judged one Point they may judg other Points and if the matter of their Judgment was good their Judgment was as valid under Henry the Eighth as under Richard the Second or Henry the Sixth For the Point being once yeilded that the Civil Authority may examine the Decisions of the Church then this may be certainly carried to other particulars or applied to a greater extent of matter as further discoveries of Truth and new Provocations may arise X. The Affinity of the matter leads me here to make a leap over several Particulars which I will afterwards review and to examine that which our Author hath thought fit to say concerning the burning of Hereticks only by the way I must take notice of the unfaithful Recital that he makes of the two Statutes made against Hereticks under Henry 4th and Henry 5th which he represents as if they had merely left the Judgment of Hereticks to the Ordinary or Diocesan without any thing else by which the Repeal of them must appear to be the taking away that Judgment from the Spiritual Courts but there were other and more important Clauses in those Acts which gave the Parliament just Reason to repeal them In the former the Civil Magistrates are required to be personally present at the giving of Sentence against Hereticks and after the Sentence was passed they were to receive them and there before the People in a high place to be brent Here was the poysonous Sting in that Act which our Author was not faithful enough to mention and in that past by Henry 5th all Magistrates were required to take an Oath when they entred upon their employments That they should use their whole Power and Diligence to destroy all Heresies and Errors called Lollards and to assist the Ordinaries and the Commissaries in their Proceedings against them and all convict of Lollardy were to forfeit all the Lands that they held in Fee-simple as
who went about and taught the People He did also set up in Ierusalem a Court made up of Levites Priests and the chief of the Fathers of Israel for the iudgment of the Lord and for the controversies among the people and appointed Amariah the Chief-Priest to be over them in the matters of the Lord Hezekiah when he came to Reign commanded the Priests and the Levites to sanctifie themselves in order to the reforming the Worship in which he went on tho a great many of the Priests were not very forward in doing it but he made use of those who had sanctified themselves and as he bore with those that did this slowly so no doubt he would have turned out any that had been refractory and finding that the Priests could not be ready to keep the Passover in the first Month he with his Princes and the whole Congregation put off the Feast from the 1st to the 2d Month. Now the distinction of days and the observance of those Festivities being so great a part of that Religion and it having been so expresly regulated by the Law of God that it should be kept on the first Month a Provision being made only for such as were unclean or such as were on a Iourney that they might keep it on the 2d Month yet here the Civil Authority makes a Law appointing the Passover to be entirely cast over to the 2d Month because of the Uncleanness of some of the Priests Ezra took a Commission from Artaxerxes impowering him to set up Magistrates and Iudges who might judg them that knew the Laws of his God and teach them who knew them not and one of the Punishments on the Disobedient is Separation from the Congregation to which our Excommunication answers And we see what a Reformation Ezra made in the virtue of this Commission Nehemiah by virtue of such another Commission turned out a Priest for having married a strange Woman These were all as high stretches of the Civil Power as any that can be objected to our Reformation But in the next place it ought to be consider'd that suppose this turning out of the Clergy had been an illegal and unjustifiable thing yet that doth not strike at the Constitution of our Church The High-Priesthood among the Iews by the Law of God was setled on the eldest Branch of the Family of Aaron and it went so during the first Temple and likewise for some considerable time under the second Temple and yet tho afterwards this sacred Function came to be set to Sale so that Dr. Lightfoot hath reckoned up fifty three that purchased it for Money by which prophane Merchandize one might infer that those Mercenary High-Priests were no more to be acknowledged yet our Saviour and after him St. Paul owned them to be High-Priests Our Saviour answered to Caiaphas when he adjured him upon Oath and it is said by St Iohn that Caiaphas as High-Priest for that year prophesied From all which it is clear that tho these wretched men were guilty of the highest Profanation and Sacrilege possible yet that was a personal Sin in them but since they were in Possession of the Dignity and adhered still to the Law of Moses and performed the Offices of their Function according to his Institution the solemn yearly Expiation was still made by them which was the highest Act of the whose Jewish Worship and they were to be submitted to and acknowledged as High Priests by the People for which our Saviour's practice is an undisputed warrant Now if all this was lawful under the Old Testament in which all the smallest parts of that Religion were marked and enacted much more expresly than they are under the New then it will be a hard performance for any to perswade us that the Civil Authority may not make such Reformations in the Christian Church as the Kings of Iudah did in the Jewish In this matter I have not so much as mentioned the Orders and Regulations made by David and Solomon tho they are very clear Precedents for justifying all that Supremacy to which our Kings have pretended But since I know some have endeavoured to set all this aside by saying that they being assisted by immediate Inspirations acted in those matters not as Kings but as Prophets Tho it were easy to shew the falshood of this Allegation yet since I would shorten matters all I can I will not digress into a controverted Point Under the Protection that the Christian Church received from the Emperors that became Christians we see that they appointed Triers to examine the Matters that were objected to Bishops and these under Constantine judged in Cicilian's Matter upon an Appeal made by the Donatists after it had been already judged in several Synods Constantine did likewise by his own Authority put Eustathius out of Antioch Athanasius out of Alexandria and Paul out of Constantinople It is true these Matters were much complained of as unjust and as flowing from the false Suggestions of the Arrians But it is as true that it was not so much as pretended that the Emperor had no just Authority to do it For the disputing the Justice of the Exercise of an Authority is very different from their disputing the Authority it self It was afterwards a common Practice of the Christian Emperors to have a Court of some selected Bishops who waited on them and to whose Cognizance most Causes relating to Bishops were left who acted only by Commission from the Emperor I have enlarged a little upon this Point because it seemed necessary to dissipate many of those Prejudices which arise out of it The 4th Thesis is That a Provincial or National Synod cannot lawfully make Definitions in Matters of Faith and concerning Heresies or Abuses in Gods Service contrary to the Decrees of former superior Synods or to the Iudgment of the Vniversal Church in the present Age shewed in her publick Liturgies This is founded on the Supposion of the Infallibility of the Church so if that is not true then this falls to the ground and that is not pretended to be proved by our Author who seems only to proceed upon the Subordination that is in the Ecclesiastical Body But if the majority of this Body is not Infallible then that Obligation to submit to it must be only a matter of Order and by consequence it hath its limits If this had been the Rule of the Church in Theodosius's time how could the several Provinces have reformed themselves from Arrianism after so many General Councils had declared for it or at least had rejected the word Consubstantial but in our condemning the Papal Authority over us we had both the Council of Nice for us that had established the Independent Authority of the Metropolitans with the Bishops of their Province for all Matters relating to their Province and the Decree of the Council of Ephesus which appointed all Churches to continue in the Possession of that
by Queen Mary were Ejected because the greater part of them were Married upon which he gives some grounds to justifie that Sentence I will not here examine the Point of the Unlawfulness of the Marriage of the Clergy It is not so much as pretended to be founded on Scripture and the Discipline of the Church hath been and is to this day very various in that Matter But this is certain that a Law being made in King Edward's days allowing the Marriage of the Clergy the Queen upon the repeal of that Law granted a Commission to some Bishops to examine four of King Edward's Bishops and to try if they were Married and upon that to deprive them This was an Act of the Queen Civil Power so that the Deprivation according to our Author 's own Principles was done by Virtue of that Commission and was by consequence void It was also most unjust with Relation to the Civil Power For these Bishops having been married under the Protection of a Law that warranted it that Law must still justifie them for what was passed and the repeal of it tho it might Impower the Queen to proceed for the future against those of the Clergy that should contract Marriage yet it was against all the Rules of Justice to deprive them by Virtue of a Commission from the Queen for an Action that was warranted by a Law then in being But there was another more extravagant Commission by which three other Bishops are represented as not having behaved themselves well and that as the Queen credibly understood they had both Preach'd erroneous Doctrines and had carried themselves contrary to the Laws of God and the practice of the Universal Church And therefore She orders these Persons to proceed against them either according to the Ecclesiastical Canons or the Laws of the Land and declare their Bishopricks void as they were indeed already void Now our Author will shew his great reading in an instance that cannot be disputed if he can find a President for such a Commission as this is in all History or a Warrant for it among all those Canons for which he pretends so much Respect and Zeal And thus he hath A Deprivation of seven Bishops done by the Civil Authority and without so much as the Colour of Justice XVI The second Reason he gives for their Deprivation was their not acknowledging of any Supremacy in the Roman-Patriarch and here as elsewhere he seems to plead for no higher Authority to the Pope but that of a Patriarch But not to repeat what was said upon this in the general Considerations the acknowledging of that Power in the Pope would not have served turn It was never demanded of the Clergy and would certainly not have been accepted XVII Another Reason was their refusing to officiate according to the Liturgies received and used by the whole Catholick Church for near a 1000 years There is some Modesty in this Pretension which carries up the Abuses no higher than a 1000 years Tho as to the greater part of them and the greatest of them all which is the Adoration of the Host there is no just claim to the half of that Antiquity Yet if the Church of Rome will give us the first 500 years we will not be much concerned in the 1000 that comes next Our Author spake too wide when he named the whole Catholick Church he should have said the Western-Church if he would have spoke exactly And for this Pretension to a 1000 years any that will compare the Missals that have been printed by Card. Bona and F. Mabillon with the present Roman Missals will soon find that the Roman Missal of the last Age was far different from what it had been or a 1000 years before There is one Particular in which indeed they seem both to agree and yet by which the change of the Doctrine of the Church is very conspicuous in the so much disputed Point concerning the Presence in the Sacrament After the 5th Century that a sort of an Invocation of Saints was received by which tho they were not immediately prayed to yet Prayers were put up to God to hear us upon the account of their Intercession There are some Prayers in some Ancient Missals that mention the offering up of that Sacrifice to their Honour and that pray God to accept of it on the account of their Intercession Now in the Opinion of the Church of England that considers the Communion as a commemorative Sacrifice of the Death of Christ and as a Sacrifice of Praise that is offered up to God upon it these Words bear a good Sense which is that to honour the Memory of such Saints their Holy-days were days of Communion and this Action is prayed to be accepted of God on the account of their Intercession In which there is nothing to be blamed but the Superstition of praying to God with regard to their Intercession But one sees a good Sense in those Collects Yet these very Collects are Nonsense or down-right Blasphemous in the present State of the Roman Church in which the Sacrifice of the Mass is believed to be the very Body and Blood of Christ which are there offered up so as to be a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead and the Living Now to say That this is offered up to the Honour of a Saint or to Pray that it may be accepted by Virtue of their Intercession is the most extravagant and impious thing that can be imagined So that this change of Doctrine hath rendred the Canon of the Mass even in those things for which they can pretend to some Antiquity both Impious and Blasphemous in the Opinion and Sense which is now generally received in that Church XVIII Our Author censures a Clause in an Act passed in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign in which it is declared That in all time coming Doctrines are to be judged and determined to be Heresies by the High Court of Parliament with the Assent of the Clergy in their Convocation as if by this the Clergy could not pass a Judgment of Heresy without the Concurrence of the Parliament But Heresy being declared a Crime that inferred a Civil Punishment the Parliament had all possible Reason to make their own Concurrence necessary to a Judgment upon which many Civil Effects were to follow If the Judgment of Heresy went no further than Spritual Censures then this Limitation upon the Clergy might be blamed a little What is this but what is practiced at present in France in which the Censure that the present Pope passed in May 1679. condemning some of the impious Opinions of the modern Casuists was declared to be of no force because it flowed from the Pope with the Court of the Inquisition which is not received in that Kingdom And neither the Bulls of Popes nor the Decrees of Council are of any force there but as they are verified in Parliament tho their Parliaments come far short of the Authority
here while he is in England he will condemn these treasonable Doctrines The ground upon which he condemns them is also suitable to the Condemnation it self For he says that this is the Opinion of several Catholicks This was modestly expressed For tho it is true that several of those he calls Catholicks are of this mind yet all Catholicks are not of it So that the Doctrine of murdering Kings is at least a probable one and since the Decrees of the Church of Rome for the deposing of Princes fall not only on those that are Hereticks themselves but even on the Fautors and Favourers of Hereticks I do not see how his Majesty's Life is secured For besides the Protection and Liberty that he grants to Hereticks of his own Dominions he hath received and encouraged the Refuges of another Prince which is to be a Favourer of Heresy of the worst sort So that if Innuendoes were in fashion I do not see how our Author could defend himself against an Indictment of Treason or at least against an Information Our Author to let us see how wary he is in his Concessions as he calls them ends the Paragraph with another It shall be granted here For it is plain he will not loose an inch of all the Papal Pretensions but will preserve them entire to a better time XXXIX Our Author pretends that Q. Elizabeth's Supremacy was carried much higher than had been granted by the former Clergy under K. Henry the 8th The Allegation is false for the Supremacy was carried much higher under King Henry than it was under Queen Elizabeth who as she would not accept of the Title of Head of the Church so she explained her Supremacy both in her own Injunctions and in the Acts of Convocation and Parliament that followed in so unexceptionable a manner that our Author himself hath nothing to object to it He seems also to infinuate as if the King's Supremacy were asserted by us as a Grant of the Clergy whereas we pretend to no such thing The Civil Supremacy that we ascribe to our Princes is founded on the Laws of God on the Rules of Humane Society on the Laws of England and on the Practice of the Church for many Ages and King Henry receiv'd no new strengthning of his Title by the Act of the Clergy which did not confer any new Authority on him but only declared that which was already inherent in him XL. Our Author enters into a long Discourse to prove the Invalidity of Orders granted in our Church which he doth so weakly and yet as he doth all other things so tediously and with so much Confusion that I have no mind to follow him in all his wandrings He seems to question the Authority of Suffragan Bishops who though they were limited as to their Iurisdiction yet as to their Order they were the same with the other Bishops The Proceedings in Queen Mary's Time were too full of Irregularity and Violence to be brought as Proofs that the Orders given by King Edward's Book were not valid In a word the Foundation of that false Opinion of some of the Church of Rome was that ever since the Time of the Council of Florence the Form in which Priests Orders were conferred was believed to be the delivering the Sacred Vessels with a power to offer Sacrifices for the Dead and Living So they reckoned that we had no true Priests since that Ceremony was struck out of our Ordinal But the folly of all this is apparent since Men began to examine the Ancient Rituals and those which have been published by Morinus shew that as this Rite is peculiar to the Roman Church so it was not received before the Ninth Century And since all Ordinations during the first Eight Centuries were done by the Imposition of Hands and Prayer then there can be no reason to question our Orders since we retain still all that the Ancient Church thought necessary As for the common Observation of our Ordinals not being enacted by Queen Elizabeth before the Eighth Year of her Reign it hath been so oft made and answered that I am 〈…〉 see our Author urge it any further Would he that hath disputed so much against the Civil Authorities medling in Matters Sacred annul our Orders because the Law was not so clearly worded with relation to that part of our Offices The most that can possibly be made out of this is that the Ordinations were not quite legal so that one might have disputed the paiment of the Fruits But this hath no relation to us as we are a Church in that the Book of Ordinations having been annexed to the Book of Common-Prayer in King Edward the Sixth's Time the reviving of the Book of Common-Prayer in Queen Elizabeth's Time was considered as including the Book of Ordinations Though it s not being expresly named this gave occasion to Bonner to question the validity of them in Law. Upon which the Explanatory Act passed declaring that it had been the Intention of the Parliament to include that in the Book of Common-Prayer So that this Act only declared the Law but did not create any new Right I have now gone over all that I judged most material in this tedious Book The darkness of the stile the many unfinished Periods the frequent Repetitions the many long Quotations to very little purpose above all the intricate way of Reasoning made it a very ungrateful thing to me to wrestle through it In it one may see how much a Man may labour and study to very little purpose For how unhappy soever the Author hath been in his pains it cannot be denied but he hath been at a great deal to compass it But a Man that neither sees things distinctly nor judges well of them the more he toils about them he entangles himself and his Reader so much the more So that never was so much pains taken to less purpose If our Author gives us many more Books of this size both as to Sincerity and good Reasoning he will quickly cure the World of the Mistake in which they were concerning him He passed once for a Learned Man and he had passed so still if he had not taken care to let the World see by so many repeated Essays how false a Title he hath to that Reputation which had fallen upon him But it seems his Sincerity and good Judgment are of a piece Otherwise as he could not obtrude on the World the falsehoods concerning latter times and the Ignorance of Antiquity that appears in all his Books so when so many have been at the pains to discover both his Mistakes and his Impostures He would either have confessed them or some way excused them But it is no wonder to see a Man that dissembled so long with God and that lied so oft to him serve the World now as he did his God for so many Years I pray God touch his Heart and give him a Repentance proportioned to the heinousness of his Sins by which he hath given so much Scandal to the Atheistical sort of Men who from him must be tempted to draw strange Consequences And he hath certainly brought a greater Reproach on that Church to which he hath gone over than all the Services he can ever render them in his useless and confounded Writings will be able to wipe off But to whom sovever he hath been a Reproach our Church hath no share in it since of him and of such as he is we must say They went out from us but they were not of us For if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that it might be made manifest that they were not all of us FINIS P. 82. ad finem From p. 140. Page 141. Adorat of the Euchar. p. 28. P. 139. Ephes. 5. 24. Col. 3. 20. Page 87 88. 2 Chron. 17. 7. 2 Chron 9. 5 8. V. 11. 2 Chron. 29. 5. V. 34. 2 Chron. 30. 23. Numb 9. 10. Ezra 7. 25. Nehem. 13. 28. Ludolph P. 20. lin 12. P. 21. Hist. Reform P. 1. Re◠Bo. 2. n. 10. Ibid n. 24. Nam qui Reginae odio vel speratae sec dum forsan notae futurae conjugis illecib◠titillatione Regem agi putant ij ex cordes plane toto quod aiunt coelo errare videntur Ibid. P. 22. Cott. Lib. Vit. B. 13. P. 23. ◠25. Printed in the Cabala P. 26. P. 28. P. 39. 25 Henry 8th n. 14. P. 41. Hist. Reform Rec. b. 2. n. 37 38 39. P. 51. P. 78 79. P. 57. P. 58. P. 64. P. 68. P. 71. P. ibid. P. 72. P. 84. P. 90. P. 93. P. 9◠P. ibid. P. 108. P. 110. P. 111. P. 119. P. 127. P. 134. P. 135. P. 142. P. 157. P. 160. Ibid. Tolet. can 10. §. 75. c. 13. 1040. Vita Gul. Abb. Dijon c. 4. P. 162. P. 176 273. P. 187. P. 208. P. 120. P. 2.