Independence upon any other superior Sees which was past Prescription We had likewise superior Councils justifying us in many of the Branches of our Reformation If we must seek the Sense of the Universal Church in her publick Liturgies then we have the Liturgies of the Greek Church for us in many other Points and the Corruptions of the Liturgies of the Roman Church were so gross that they themselves have been ashamed of a great many of them and have thrown them out tho a great many more remain still to be reformed And if the publick Liturgies are to be considered as the Standards of the Sense of the present Church as no doubt they are then all those Expositions and Representings that are now obtruded on us are to be thrown out of Doors and we must seek the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in her publick Liturgies The 5th Thesis That a Synod wanting part of a National Clergy unjustly deposed or restrained and consisting partly of Persons unjustly introduced and partly of Persons who have been first threatned with Fines Imprisonments and Deprivation in case of their Non-conformity to the Prince's Injunctions in matters merely Spiritual is not to be accounted a lawful National Synod nor the Acts thereof free and valid All this falls to the ground if the Reasons upon which such Persons were turned out were just And in that case such Vacancies may be justly filled But it is an impudent thing to found much on this when the number of those who were turned out was so very inconsiderable as it was in K. Henry's and K. Edward's time and if such a small terror as the loss of a Benefice is thought by our Author so dreadful a thing as it may be well judged by the operation it had upon himself for 25 years so that this derogates from the freedom of an Assembly then there never was any free even that at Nice not excepted For it is the same fear whether one is threatned with it before such a decision is made or if they knew that it must follow upon it Now this formidable business of losing a Benefice and a banishment upon the back of it was really the case of the Council of Nice since this was the condition of those who refused to subscribe their Definition So the Principle laid down by our Author taken from fear must either be false or this will annul all the Ecclesiastical Meetings that ever were The Sixth Thesis is That the Iudgment of the smaller part of the Clergy even tho the Metropolitan were of that number cannot be called the Iudgment of the Clergy of that Province and a Prince that follows the Directions of a few of his Clergy cannot be said to be guided by his Clergy but to go against it This is very true but yet Theodosius thought fit to give his Sanction to the Faith of two Bishops upon which all the Arrian Party might have as justly said that he acted against his Clergy for they were then by far the more numerous The Civil Power is bound to follow those whom they think are in the right and tho in common matters and in setled times it is fit to leave things to the majority yet if it is visible that the greater number is both ignorant and corrupt and that the matters under dispute are chiefly such things that are of great advantage to the Clergy both for encreasing their Wealth and for advancing their credit then the Secular Power hath just reason to be jealous of the greater number of the Clergy since Interest gives a mighty byass and their following the lesser number in such a case is very justifiable for humanely speaking it were impossible to find the greater number willing to go into such a change The Seventh Thesis is That tho Secular Princes had a decisive Power in such matters of Faith as are no ways formally determined yet in such Points as have been formerly determined no Secular Prince can define any such things contrary to those Councils or contrary to a National Synod It is not so much as pretended that a Secular Prince hath any Power to decide in matters of Faith whether they are already determined or not but as for the giving the Sanction of a Law and all secular encouragements a Prince must have a Judgment of Discretion by which he ought to determine himself for when he hath given his Sanction he hath made no sort of Decision in the matter which is neither more nor less to be believed than it was before but it is now become legal and all Princes must proceed in this matter according to the conviction of their Consciences It is not long since some of this Gentleman's Friends thought to have carried the King of the Abyssens to change the Doctrines and Rites of that Church upon the private suggestion of a few Missionaries against the whole Body of his Clergy upon which that Kingdom became a Scene of Rebellion and Bloodshed till the King himself grew to conceive a horror against those who had push'd him on so violently to overthrow the Laws and Establish'd Customs of that Church So that a Reformation effected by the King's Authority tho managed with ever so much fury and violence is yet driven on by these men when it is on their side and for their advantage The Eighth Thesis is That neither National Synod nor Secular Power can make any new Canons concerning the Government of the Church contrary to the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of former superior Councils nor reverse those formerly made by them This is such a crude Assertion that one would think that he who made it knew neither the History of Councils nor the nature of Canons and Constitutions which are all variable and are made upon such particular occasions as required them to be put in practice and another Scene of Affairs may make it as necessary to reverse them as ever it was to establish them The main subject of the Ancient Canons are Penitentiary Rules relating to the Censure of Offenders the Subordination of Churches founded on the division of the Roman Empire and the Duty and Behaviour of Church-men Of these the first is quite laid aside in the Church of Rome and by their means we were so accustomed to be without that Yoke that we have not been able to bring the World to it But we have never repealed these only we let them sleep too long The Second relating to the Constitution and the Subordination of Churches is quite sunk with the fall of the Empire for if a Town that was the Center of a Province to which it was easie to have recourse by Letters and to which the Road and Carriages were regularly laid and where the Civil Government was also exercised should after many ages either be separated from the rest of the Province falling under another Master or should become a poor and neglected Town it is a needless adhering to Ancient Custom to affert
Judgment of all these positions which are laid down as the Foundation of this Work. The First is That the two principal Offices which the Clergy have received from Christ are 1. To determine Controversies in pure matters of Religion and to judg what is Truth and what are Errors in Faith and Worship 2. To teach and promulgate this Truth and to execute Church-censures on those who receive it not All this is true but since our Author doth not prove that the Clergy are infallible in their Decisions which is not so much as pretended by any with relation to National Churches this only proves that it is the duty of the Clergy to declare and publish the truth but as the Body of a National Clergy may err so in case it should actually err can it be supposed that the People and the Prince are bound to err with it Synods are of great use for the Unity of the Church and a vast respect is due to their Decisions but since our Author names the Synods of the Arrians the many Synods that they had which were very numerous and were gathered from all parts gave them all the advantages from this Authority that could be desired so that if the Council of Nice had not had truth of its side I do not see why the Visible Authority should not rather be thought to lye on the Arrian side The Princes Authorizing a Synod or his Opposing it is to be justified or condemned from the Decisions that are made by it if they are good he ought to support them and if they are bad he ought to oppose them and in this he must judg for himself as every other man must do the best he can as knowing that he must be judged by God. The Second is That the Clergy cannot make over this Authority to the Secular Governour being charged by Christ to execute it to the end of the World. Upon which he arraigns Two things 1. The Clergies binding themselves never to make any Decisions in matters of Faith or Worship till they had first obtained the consent of the Secular Governour 2. The Clergies Authorizing the Secular Governour or those whom he should nominate to determine those matters in their stead It is certain no Clergy in the World can make any such Deputation and if any have done it it was a Personal Act of theirs which was null of it self and did not indeed bind those who made it it being of its own nature unlawful but much less can it bind their Successors but if the Church of England never did neither the one nor the other what a Prevaricator and False Accuser is he who as he lied long to God and Man when he pretended to be of this Church so resolves now to lye concerning this Church as much as ever he did to it The submission of the Clergy related only to New Canons and Constitutions as the other Act empowering a select number to be nominated by the King to form a Body of a Canon-Law related only to the matters of the Government of the Church the Religion and Worship had no relation to it so a compromise as to matters of Government is very unjustly stretched when this is made a surrender of the Authority of determining and declaring matters relating to Doctrine and Worship which no Church-man without breach of the most sacred of all Trusts can deliver up but in the matters of Ecclesiastical Policy all States in the World have felt enough from the Yoke of the Papacy to give them just reason to assure themselves against any more of such Ecclesiastical Tyranny besides that in all the engagements tho made in Terms that are general such as are all Oaths of Obedience and in particular those that are made by Prelates to the Popes exceptions are still understood even when they are not expressed As long then as the Church enjoys a Protection from the Civil Authority she is bound to make returns of all engagements not only of Submission but of Obedience But tho the one is perpetual the other has its limits and when the Church finds its oppressions from the Civil Power really to over-ballance the Protection that she receives from it in that case she must resolve to fall into a state of Persecution and all the engagements that any body of the Clergy have made relating only to the maintaining a peacable Correspondence with the Civil Powers they do not at all bind up Church-men from doing their Duty in case the Civil Authority sets it self to overthrow Religion Besides when both Religion and the Worship and the Constitution of a Church is once established the adding new Canons may perhaps be of great use to a Church but yet it cannot be supposed to be so indispensably necessary but that rather than give any distaste to the Soveraign they may content themselves with what they have without asking new Canons and a Church under a Body of Canons may likewise resign up the compiling of these into a new System and the leaving out such as are found inconsistent with the Publick Peace to such persons as shall be nominated by the Prince but all this how general soever the words may be hath still a tacit exception in it which all that know the Principles of Law will grant The Third Thesis is That the Prince cannot depose any of his Clergy without the consent of the major part of the Clergy or their Ecclesiastical Superiors and in particular of the Patriarch In this the matter must still be reduced to the former Point Either the Grounds of such a Deposition are in themselves just or not if they are just the Prince may as lawfully hinder any Church-man from corrupting his Subjects while he is supported by a Publick Authority or a setled Revenue as he may hinder a man that hath the Plague on him from going about to infect his People for his deposing such a one is only the taking the Civil Encouragement from him but when this is done unjustly it is without doubt an act of high Oppression in the Prince and as for the Person Deposed and those over whom he was set they are to consider according to the Rules of Prudence whether the present Case is of such importance that it will ballance the inconveniences of their throwing themselves into a state of Persecution for it is to be confessed that Church-men have by their office an indefinite Authority of feeding the Flock which cannot be dissolved by any act of the Princes but the appropriating this to such a Precinct and the supporting it by Civil Encouragements is a humane thing and is therefore subject to the Soveraign Power The Princes of Iudah notwithstanding an express Law of God which appropriated the Priesthood and the High-Priesthood to such a Family and Race of men did turn them oft out and Iehosaphat sent to his Princes to teach in the cities of Iudah and with them he sent about also Priests and Levites
been extremely arrogant and obstinate and zealous beyond knowledg and tho they had suffered for a good Cause yet suffering for it on good or reasonable grounds as neither themselves being any way learned nor pretending the Authority of any Church nor relying on any present Teachers but on the certainty of their own private Judgment interpreting Scripture as you may see And here some Instances are given but if this Period will close it self it may for our Author who seldom takes care of such small matters leaves it in this unfinished condition I will not examine the truth of this Maxim but will only take notice that since all Protestants agree in this that the Ground of our Faith is that which appears to us to be the Sense of the Scripture our Author hath by this Limitation of his former gentleness towards us delivered us all over to the Secular Arm and so God have Mercy on our Souls for it is plain he will have none upon our Bodies XI He quarrels with the Privy-Council for imprisoning of Bonner because he said he would observe the Injunctions that were sent him if they were not contrary and repugnant to Gods Law and to the Statute and Ordinance of the Church the fault imputed here to him I suppose being that he refused to obey any Injunctions of the King when repugnant to the Statute and Ordinance of the Church But since he had a mind to blacken that time he might have as well said that they found fault with him because he promised to obey the Injunctions if they were not contrary to Gods Law and that thereby it appeared that they preferred their Injunctions to the Laws of God as well as to the Laws of the Church and by our Author 's taking no notice of the first Branch of Bonner's Exception it may be inferred That all his Concern is about the Laws of the Church and so they be secured he troubles himself little what becomes of the Law of God But if he had weighed this matter as he ought to do he would have found that this Exception is very ill grounded When a Form of a Subscription is demanded there is no Government in the World that will accept of one that indeed signifies nothing at all for it is visible that a Subscription made with those Reserves signifies nothing therefore if Bonner had acted as became his Character he should have directly refused the Subscription of such Injunctions as he found to be contrary to the Laws of God or to such Laws of the Church as he thought bound his Conscience But the Protestation he made gave a very just ground to the Government to proceed against him according to Law. XII Our Author intending to aggravate the Proceedings against Gardiner shews his great Judgment in setting down the Article relating to the Kings Supremacy at full length whereas he had only named the others for he could have invented nothing that must needs render all his Exceptions to the King's Supremacy more visibly unjust than this doth which is in these Words That his Majesty as Supreme Head of the Church of England hath full Power and Authority to make and set forth Laws Injunctions and Ordinances concerning Religion and Orders in the said Church for repressing all Errors and Heresies and other Enormities and Abuses so that the same Alteration be not contrary or repugnant to the Scriptures or Law of God. This was no other than what Gardiner had over and over again both by his Oaths and his Writings advanced and the restriction set on it was so just that one would think there lay no possible Exception to it Here there is no claim to the declaring what were Errors and Heresies but only to the repressing them and this is done by the Secular Arm even where men are burnt for Heresie Besides the Power that according to our Author belongs to the Pastors of the Church is either founded on the Scriptures or it is not if it is not founded on the Scriptures there is no great regard to be had to it but if it is founded on it then it it clearly excepted by the words of this Article so it is hard to see of what use this is to our Author unless it be to shew him his Injustice XIII He tells us That all that which had been done under King Henry and King Edward was Annulled by an equal Authority under Queen Mary But tho I acknowledg he was both the Soveraign and the Parliament yet there was neither Justice nor Moderation in the Charge now made equal to what had been done before A great deal might be said concerning the Election of the Members of Parliament and the Practices upon them and of the turning out a Multitude of the Clergy before the Laws were changed The Disorders and Irregularities in the Disputes had nothing of that fair Dealing in them that had appeared in King Edward's time and whereas all the Severity of King Edward's days was the Imprisoning of three or four Bishops and the turning out some of the other Clergy he knows well how matters went under Queen Mary So that we cannot be denied this Glory that a Spirit of Justice and Moderation appear'd at every time that the Reformation prevail'd Whereas things went much otherwise in this sad Revolution in which our Author Glories so much So that if the good or ill Behaviours of the several Parties as they had their turns in the Administration of Affairs furnishes a just Prejudice even in favour of the Cause it self we have this on our side as fully as we can wish for XIV He tells us That the Bishoprick of Durham was first kept void in King Edward's days and last of all it was by Act of Parliament dissolved to increase the Kings Revenue If our Author had examined the Records of Parliament he would have found that the Act that related to the Bishoprick of Durham did not at all propose the Increase of the Kings Revenue but the dividing of one Bishoprick into two and the raising and endowing of a new Cathedral Church all which must have risen to about Four thousand Marks of old Rents which considering how long Lands were let near the Borders did certainly very near exhaust the whole Revenue of that See. This is indeed of no great Importance to the main Cause For if sacrilegious Men went into the Reformation hoping to enrich themselves by it this is nothing but what falls out in all great Revolutions And it is plain our Author took up general Reports very easily that so he might make a Clamour with them against our Church But if some that gave an outward compliance to the Doctrine of our Church were really a Reproach to it he of all Men for a certain Reason ought not to insist on it Since we are no more accountable for the Duke of Northumberland's Actions than we are for his own XV. He tells us That the Bishops turned out
a present Interest is the motive but it is a degree of impiety of which one would hope there are few men capable to lye so long and so solemnly both to God and man. But I come now to look a little more narrowly into the matter of this Treatise I will not at all engage my self to examine a great many Passages that are cited in it out of some of our Authors and in particular out of Dr. Heylin and Mr. Thorndike When we object to those of the Church of Rome some things out of Erasmus or Cassander or for Historical Matters when we cite P. Paul or Thuanus we know with how much neglect they put by these Authorities as if they were not concerned in them tho these Persons lived and dyed in the Visible Communion of their Church And I do not see why we may not take the same liberty with such Writers that tho they have been in Communion with our Church yet have it seems continued in it with some difficulty And it will not appear very strange if at the end of our civil Wars those Persons who saw the ill effects of some ill Principles very apparently were carried by the impressions which those Confusions made upon them to oppose those disorders by an over-bending of their notions to the other Extream For this is an excess to which the humane nature is so liable that it were a wonder if all Writers especially men of warm Tempers that had been sower'd by ill usage had been preserved from it so that I will wholly wave all that he cites from these or any others of our Authors and will come to the matters themselves CHAP. I. Of the Importance of those Matters Objected to the Reformation supposing them all true THE Disputes that we had with the Church of Rome were at first managed with more sincerity by our Adversaries than they have been of late They justified their Church in those Points for which we accused her and objected the strongest things they could to ours but when they felt their Cause too weak to be maintained by fair methods then they betook themselves to others that were indeed less sincere but yet were more apt to make impressions on weak minds In France and among us Three new Methods have appeared of late Years The First was to take off men from entring into the merits of the Cause and to prepossess them with such prejudices against the Reformation as might lead them to condemn it without examining To a discerning mind this method furnishes the strongest of all prejudices against those who use it this shews such a distrust of the Cause it self and it discovers it self so plainly to be a trick that it gives every man a just ground of indignation against those who fly to it Besides that it affords a good Plea to all men to continue in the Religion in which they were born and bred without hearkning to any new discoveries for if the Grounds upon which the Reformation was made were good it signifies little to an Enquirer into Truth whether this Work was set on foot and managed with all the exactness and regularity that might have been desired or not Truth is always Truth from what hand soever it comes and the right way to find it out is to free our minds from all prejudices that so we may examine matters with unprepossessed understandings A Second Method is to perswade the World that we have not yet understood one another that Popery hath only appeared odious because it was Misrepresented to the world in false colours but that it will be found to be quite another thing if it is truly represented The Bishop of Meaux had the honour to begin this piece of Legerdemain our men of the Mission here have too slender a stock of their own and therefore they give us the French Mode in Controversie as well as our Gallants do it in Cloaths so they have thought to do wondrous feats with this method of Representing but the want of sincerity of that Prelate in this as well as in other things hath been so evidently made out that if some men had not a secret that makes them proof against all discoveries he would be a little out of Countenance and our Representers here are so exposed that nothing is wanting for their conviction but a sense of that shame with which they have been covered it is indeed a strange piece of confidence in men to come and offer to convince the World That after Disputes of 150 years continuance neither side hath understood the state of the Controversie and tho the same Decrees of Councils and the same Forms of Worship are still received yet all these things must of a sudden so change their nature that in defiance of all that which upon other occasions they say in behalf of Tradition a new discovery should be made giving us new senses of all those things but whatsoever success that Book may have had where a plundering Army managed the Argument yet it is become now as ridiculous here as it is pretended to have been successful beyond Sea. A Third Method is the setting up the Credit of Oral Tradition not upon the Authority of some passages of Scripture but upon this general Topic that one Age must needs have delivered the same Faith to the succeeding Age that it had received from that which went before it and by consequence that we must have in the present Age the same Doctrine which the Apostles delivered at first 17 Ages ago It was found That the Authority of the Church could not well be founded on passages of Scripture for then we must be allowed first to believe the Scripture and its Authority and Genuineness and then to inquire into the meaning of those Passages and to examine to which of all the different Churches that are in the world they do belong Now it was apparent That if it were once allowed that we may carry our enquiries so far as to be able to settle our selves in these points then this Infallible Authority is not so necessary to us as they would make us believe since we are supposed to have found good Proofs for believing the Scriptures and for discovering the true meaning of the hardest passages in them without its help Now this would spoil all and throw out those Arguments that perswade us of the necessity of an infallible Judg both for our finding out and for our expounding the Scriptures they are now sensible of all this and see that it is a very false Method of arguing to prove the Scriptures by the Church when the Church must be first proved by the Scriptures and therefore they do betake themselves to the Infallibility of Oral Tradition founding it upon this General Topic That all the men of one Age must needs have instructed the following Age in the same Faith that they had received from the former Age and upon this a great many imaginary Impossibilities are
reckoned up to shew that this could not fail and so they infer the certainty of this method of conveyance Now this is so extravagantly ridiculous and so contrary to the common experience of all mankind that all that can possibly be said to support it signifies no more but to shew how many fine things a man of wit can say to prove the impossibility of a thing which yet every man of sense knows is not only possible but is so certain an effect of such an Oral Conveyance that it is rather impossible it should not fail How was the first Oral Tradition of the Religion delivered to Adam corrupted Tho the long lives of the first Patriarchs is a much stronger Argument for proving the impossibility of such a corruption than any that these Gentlemen can alledg How was the Jewish Religion corrupted in our Saviour's time tho the only Scene of their Solemn Worship being at Ierusalem and the assembling of their whole Nation in their Temple three times a year are much stronger inducements to make us conclude that it was impossible for an Oral Conveyance to miscarry among them than any that can be pretended to amongst Christians Do we not see that the most common Transactions are so diversified after they have passed through a few hands that Truth is very soon lost when it hath no better Standard than Fame and Chat Do not all Languages change so much in a course of some ages that those who lived here 500 years ago would be no more understood if they were now among us and yet it were easie to point out the Infallibility of the conveyance of a Language with much livelier colours than these men can lay on here If Oral Tradition hath any pretension to certainty it must be chiefly with relation to such things as are sensible and visible and that fall under the observation of all men for in matters that are speculative it is natural for every man to dress them according to those explications with which he cloaths them and if his Reputation either for Piety Learming or a true understanding of matters is established it is so probable that these will be so well received that what was believed in one age in some general words will be believed in another with the addition of those new explications that it were indeed a wonder if it were otherwise especially in Ages of Ignorance and Superstition If it is found that in things which are sensible this Oral Tradition is so certainly changed that we are as sure of it as we ean possibly be of any matter of History then it is a vain thing to go about to perswade us that this is an infallible conveyance in matters of Doctrine since it is plain that the one is much more like to be sure than the other can ever be supposed to be if in the Worship of God the Adoration of Images and Saints and an infinity of new Rites are brought in if in the Sacrament the Adoration of it the denying the Cup to all except the Priest the denying the Sacrament to Infants if in the Government of the Church the Popes have not only brought the other Bishops to become subject to them but have broke through the Authority of Metropolitans and the Equality that was setled between themselves and the other Patriarchs tho these things were enacted by the first General Councils if Popes have got possession of an Authority over Princes when they were either Hereticks or were favourers of Hereticks and have maintained this Possession these last 600 years if I say all these things which are not only sensible but are very contrary to those Inclinations and Interests that are the powerful Springs of human nature have yet been brought into the world so manifestly is it any wonder if in dark ages in which a blind Obedience and an unreserved Submission to Church-men were looked on as the chief Branches of Catholick Religion a great many new Doctrines that were infinitely for the advantage of a corrupt and designing Clergy were introduced and received Instead of wondring at the success of all these Innovations we should have had much more reason to wonder if they had not prevailed But upon the whole matter all these new Methods shew us that those who manage them see the weakness of the old ones and that their Cause cannot be maintained on that bottom on which the Writers of Controversy had at first put it and that therefore they must a little change their way and this being an age in which Wit and fine Thoughts are highly valued those who fancied they were Masters in those hoped to raise a sunk Cause which how successful soever it may be when it is managed by Dragoons yet hath never appeared more naked and despicable than it hath done of late years Therefore they have given this new Air and Turn to the common Subjects of the Authority of the Church and of Tradition and have betaken themselves to the certainty of Oral Tradition as their last retrenchment and after all those Declamations that have been made of late against those who pretended not to carry the assurance of our Religion beyond a moral certainty they now fly to a Plea which if it were true is but at most a moral certainty but is so far from being true that we have as much certainty as we can have for a negative Proposition that it is and ever must be false The Author of this Treatise offers us a new Essay of one of these late Methods for instead of attacking our Reformation in any of its essential Parts he goes about only to prove that it was not Canonical and all this when it were granted to be true amounts to no more than this that the Corruptions of the Church of Rome having been extreamly advantageous to the Clergy the greater part of them were too much locked up in Ignorance and too much addicted to their Interests to admit of any change and that therefore the lesser part was forced to make use of the Civil-power to support them in reforming those Abuses But this must be acknowledged to be lawful otherwise all National-Reformations from received Errors are no more to be thought on For suppose an Error hath overspread a National Church which is a Supposition that none can deny since how infallible soever the Catholick Church may be supposed to be it is past dispute that every particular Church may be so over-run with Errors that the greater part may be infected and if this falls to be in a Conjuncture in which a General Council cannot be called and if the Heresy is new such as for instance the Pelagian was when it first appeared so that it had spread far before it had been condemned by a General Council what must be done in such a case if the Prince may not support the Sounder tho the Lesser Part So that according to this Supposition if those Doctrines and Forms of Worship that
were reformed in the last Age were Erroneous or Idolatrous than any supposed Irregularities that might be in the way of managing it can never blemish that Work. It is certain that all Rules are only for quiet times in the days of Peace and Order the transgressing of established Rules is without doubt a very censurable thing but this must not be applied to all times For tho in a setled time we know how much respect we owe to Judges and Ministers of State yet if these very Persons will go to set on a Rebellion and authorize it all that respect ought presently to be thrown off CHAP. II. Some general Considerations upon what is alledged of the uncanonical Proceedings in the Progress of our Reformation IT hath a very ill Grace to see a man of the Roman Communion talk so highly of the Obligation to obey the Canons of the Church so as almost to Vnchurch us upon some supposed Irregularities in our Reformation For what is the whole Constitution of the Papacy but one continued Contradiction to all the Ancient Cannons And what is the whole modern Canon Law but the Exaltation of the Papal Authority above all the Canons of the Church Is there any thing clearer in the Primitive times than the establishing the Authority of Metropolitans that was confirmed by the Council of Nice the equalling the Bishops of Constantinople to the Bishops of Rome which was done by the 2d and 4th General Council the establishing the Independency of those Churches that were in Possession of it and so freeing them from all Subordination to other Sees which was done by the 3d General Council And yet tho here we see the four first General Councils all concurring to establish this form of Government the Papal-power is no other than a breaking in upon all these Canons What is more uncanonical than the establishing Legatine Courts the receiving of Appeals the obliging of Bishops to sue for their Bulls in the Court of Rome the dispensing with all the Canons of the Church the exempting all the Regulars from Obedience to their Bishops which is not only contrary to the express Canon of the Council of Chalcedon but is plainly contrary to that Authority that Bishops derive from Christ to govern the Flocks committed to their care In short the whole System of the Church and Court of Rome is so direct a revolt from all the Primitive Canons that it is a degree of Confidence which I do not envy in our Author for him to talk of uncanonical Proceedings Canons are Rules established either by Provincial Synods or more General Councils which import no more but that they ought to be commonly observed for it is plain that there is no Church in the World that hath looked on the Canons of the former times as things so sacred and unalterable that they could never be dispensed with The Schism of the two Popes at Rome and Avignon and all that was done in consequence of it was uncanonical with a Witness and yet how was all that buried by the Council of Constanâ—â— And tho one of the two Obediences was certainly in a state of Schism yet all that was passed over and without any Submission of either side all was healed up The whole Constiution of Metropolitans with their Provincial Synods which was the ancientest and clearest of all the Primitive Rules arises only out of the several Divisions of the Provinces of the Roman Empire when then the Civil Constitution of all Europe is so much altered from what it was then all that Fabrick subsists now rather upon a respect to ancient Rules than from the Authority of those Canons which can no more remain the ground upon which they were built being now removed And one may as well pretend that we are bound to obey the old Roman Law or the Feudal Law because those Laws were once received amongst us as to tell us that we are bound to obey all the ancient Canons especially those that had a visible Relation to the Constitution of the Roman Empire Therefore the Subordination of Churches of Synods and Metropolitans and Patriarchs that was only the knitting into one Body and under several degrees of Subordination a Church that was all under one Civil Society and Empire hath sunk with the Roman Empire So that the tearing that Empire in pieces hath quite put an end to all that Ecclesiastical Subordination And if there is any thing of that yet kept up amongst us it is rather for the preserving of Order than that we are under any Obligation of Conscience to submit to such Constitutions And therefore as oft as a great Conjuncture of Affairs carries along with it considerations that are of more weight than the adhering to ancient Forms then all these may be well superseded For all Rules are temporary things and made according to several Emergences and Occasions which altering frequently it were a very unreasonable thing to expect that every Church should at all times conform it self to them And tho we condemn that Dissolution of all the Canons which the Church and Court of Rome hath brought into the World yet on the other hand we cannot acknowledg any such binding Authority in them that they can never be dispensed with The methods of those men with whom we deal are wonderful Now they reproach our Church with a Violation of ancient Canons and yet when we lay to their charge some of the Canons that their Councils have made in these later Ages such as those of the Lateran for the Extirpation of Hereticks and for the Pope's power of deposing Heretical Princes they tell us that great difference is to be made between the Decisions of the Church in the Points of Faith and the Decrees that are made in matter of Discipline since tho they assert an Infallibility in the one yet the other are transient things in which we ought not to admit of so absolute an Authority This is false with relation to Decrees that declare a Christians Duty or a Rule of Morality For Decrees in such matter do import an Article of Faith or Doctrine upon which they are founded And therefore a Church may indeed even in the Opinion of those who believe her Infallible err in a particular Judgment against such or such a Heretical Prince for that being founded on a matter of Fact she may be Infallible still even tho she were surprised in matters of Fact. But she cannot be Infallible if in declaring the Duty of Subjects towards Heretical Princes or of the Popes Authority in those cases she hath set Rules contrary to the Word of God. In such matters as these are I do acknowledg the Decrees of the Church are for ever Obligatory upon all those who believe her Infallible Therefore since our Author urges so much the Authority of the Canons I would gladly know what he thinks of these which are not I confess Ancient yet they were enacted by the Supream Authority of that Body
to have troubled him much The Explanation made by Q. Eliz. is so express that even our Author cannot find any advantage against the Words themselves but acknowledges that they are such general Terms that the Article it self may be subscribed by all sides Since then the declared Sense of those general and extended expressions that are in some Acts of Parliament is such that there lies no just Exception against it and since this Sense was not only given by Q Eliz. who allowed such as took the Oath to declare that they took it in that sense but it was afterwards enacted both in Convocation and in Parliament and put into the Body of our Confession of Faith. This Explanation must be considered as the true measure of the Kings Supremacy and the wide expressions in the former Laws must be understood to be restrained by this since posterior Laws derogate from those that were at first made So that according to all this the Kings Supremacy doth not give to our Princes the ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments But that only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself that is That they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and the evil-doers This is all that Supremacy which we are bound in conscience to own and if the Letter of the Law or the stretches of that in the Administration of it have carried this further we are not at all concerned in it But in case any such thing were made out it could amount to no more than this That the Civil Power had made some Encroachments on Ecclesiastical Authority but the submitting to an Oppression and the bearing it till some better times may deliver us from it is no Argument against our Church on the contrary it is a proof of our Temper and Patience and of that Respect we pay to that Civil Authority which God hath set over us even when we think that it passeth its bounds But all that we are bound to acknowledg in the Kings Supremacy is so well limited that our Author hath nothing to object to it Our men of the Mission have always made a great noise of the Kings Supremacy as if it were the most absurd thing that can be imagined without considering that as the Supremacy is explained by the Article of our Church it is practiced by almost all the States and Princes of Europe It hath been clearly made out by many of our Writers that the Kings of England before the Reformation were in possession of his Supremacy and that they really exercised it even before they pretended so formally to it I will not enter into this Enquiry which is so well laid open by Sir Roger Twisden that a man must have a great stock of Confidence to deny it after he hath read him In France all Ecclesiastical Causes are carried before the Courts of Parliament by Appeals from the Ecclesiastical Courts and are finally judged there Now the Supremacy is always where the last Appeal lies and we may see both in Godeau and many other modern Writers how much they complain of this as a servitude under which their Church is brought and as an infraction of all the Ancient Canons The Court of Parliament at Paris examines all the Bulls that come from Rome and condemns and tears them as oft as they see cause So that tho all the Bishops of France are bound by Oath to obey all the Popes Decrees and Ordinances yet this can take no effect till the Parliament hath confirmed them How easie were it to carry this matter far and to shew that by this the Popes Power either as he is St. Peter's Successor and thereby vested with a Universal Authority over the Flock of Christ or as he is the Patriarch of the West and the Center of the Catholick Unity is subjected to the Judgment of a Secular Court who will not suffer the Sheep to hear his voice till they have first examined it And what is the whole Concordat but a bargain made between the Popes and the Crown of France to divide the spoils of that Church and its Liberties between them for whereas the Pragmatick Sanction had established the Clergy in the Possession of its Ancient Rites Lewis the 11th and after him Francis the 1st saw well how much this lessened that unbounded degree to which they intended to carry their Authority and therefore they consented to give the Popes their share so they would warrant their enslaving that Church It is known what Complaints and what opposition the French Clergy have made upon this matter yet at last they bear it and submit to it so that here the last Appeal the Check upon the Papal Authority and the nomination of all the Bishops and Abbots of France are wholly in the Civil Courts and in the King. If it is said that in some particulars the Supremacy of our Kings goes further tho that were acknowledged to be true yet since the more or the less does not alter the nature of things it must be confessed that according to our Author's Principles the whole Gallican Church is in an Uncanonical State as well as we are But tho they do not stick to confess that they are in a state of oppression by reason of the Concordat and of the unbounded Authority of their Parliaments yet they do not think that this makes them irregular or uncanonical as to the Constitution of their Church I might upon this likewise shew how not only the Republick of Venice but even the Crown of Spain notwithstanding all its Bigotry exercises still so great a Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters that there is only some difference of degrees between that which belongs to the Crown of England by Law and that which is practiced elsewhere The Court of the Monarchy in Cicily is well known in which by virtue of a forged Bull which is made out to be a Forgery beyond all contradiction that declares the Kings of Cicily the Popes Vicars there is a Lay-man that is the Kings Vicar-General who is the Judg of that Court and to whom all Spiritual Causes are brought and who judges them all as a spiritual Person and that hath the Titles and outward Respect that is given to the Pope likewise paid to him This is the carrying an Imposture very far yet since it is done in the Virtue of a pretended Bull which the Crown of Spain will still maintain to be a true one none hath ever opposed this to such a degree as to pretend that the whole Clergy of Sicily are become irregular because they submit to this Court and appear before it So that upon the whole matter If the great and unmeasured Extent of the Papal Authority made our Princes judg it necessary to secure themselves from those Invasions by
stretching their Jurisdiction a little too much on the other hand those who have submitted so tamely to the one have no reason to reproach us for bearing the other Servitude even supposing that we granted that to be the Case And if in the time of our Reformation some of our Bishops or other Writers have carried the Royal Supremacy too far either in Acts of Convocation or in their Writings as those things are personal Matters in which we are not at all concerned who do not pretend to assert an Infallibility in our Church so their excess in this was a thing so natural that we have all possible reason to excuse it or at least to censure it very gently For as all Parties and Persons are carried by a Bias very common to Mankind to magnify that Authority which favours and supports them so the extreams of the Papal Tyranny and the Ecclesiastical Power that had formerly prevailed might have carried them a little too far into the opposite Extream of raising the Civil Power too high But after all we find that when Theodosius came to the Empire he saw the Eastern half of it over-run with Arrianism and as the Arrians were in Possession and were the more numerous so they had Synods of Bishops that had met oft and in vast numbers and had judged in their favours Their Synods were both more numerous than that of Nice and were a more just Representative of the Catholick Church since there were very few of the Western Bishops in that which was held at Nice And as for the Frauds and Violences that were put in practice to carry Matters in those Synods it is very like the Arrians both denied them and were not wanting to recriminate on the Orthodox So when there was a pretence of General Councils on both hands here was a very perplexed Case But Theodosius found a short way to get out of it and therefore instead of calling a new General Council or of examining the History of the several pretended Councils which ought to have been done according to our Authors System he pass'd a Law which is the first Law in Iustinians Code by which he required all Persons to profess that Faith which was profess'd by Damasus Bishop of Rome and Peter Bishop of Alexandria and yet this Law which was a higher Invasion on the Ecclesiastical Authority than any that was committed in our Reformation was never so much as censured on the contrary Theodosius was highly magnified for it There is no reason to imagine that he paid any particular Respect to the See of Rome in this for his joining Peter of Alexandria with Damasus shews that he made the Faith of these Bishops the measures of that Doctrine which he resolved to protect not because of the Authority of their Sees but because he believed their Faith was Orthodox The Case was almost the same in England in which it was pretended that the Independent Authority of our Metropolitans ought to be asserted which was established by the Council of Nice and that many Corruptions in the Worship as for instance the Worship of Images that was condemned by two very numerous General Councils one in the East at Constantinople and another in the West at Francfort ought to be reformed If upon all this the Supreme Civil Authority of this Nation had enacted such a Law as Theodosius had done commanding all to follow the Doctrine profess'd by the two Arch-Bishops of this Church it had been no other but a copying after that Pattern which Theodosius had set us with the Approbation of all Antiquity and yet it cannot be pretended that our Kings and Parliament acted in so summary a way For they went much more slowly and maturely to Work. Upon the whole matter the Civil Authority hath a Power to command every thing that is just and lawful and in that Case the Laws that flow from it ought to be obeyed And if the matter of the Laws is sinful we must not indeed obey in that case but we must submit and bear what we do not like and suffer where we cannot obey So that lawful or unlawful seem to be the only measures that ought to govern our Obedience And as in the matters of natural Religion and Morality no Body can deny that the Civil Authority hath a full Scope tho that is still limitted by this that there ought to be no Injustice Immorality or Turpitude in the Actions that are commanded but where this is not we are bound to obey all the Laws that relate to those matters and where it is we are bound to submit and to bear our burden without giving our selves the trouble to enquire how far the Civil Authority ought to be carried in such matters We set the same measures to our Obedience in matters of revealed Religion If the King passes Laws contrary to Scripture we cannot indeed obey them because of that higher Authority to which we are subject and in Obedience to which we pay all Submission to those who God hath set over us but if they are lawful and conform to the Scripture we ought to obey them without examining whether the King hath proceeded in the passing such Laws by the Rules that become quiet and regular Times And if a Hezekiah or a Iosias should rise up and finding the greater part of his Subjects the Priests as well as the People engaged in Idolatry if he should reform them and suppress that corrupt way of Worship we ought instead of examining critically the method or steps by which he had brought about that change rather to rejoyce in the goodness of God for blessing us with such a Prince So that let men men write and dispute as long as they will on these matters the whole Cause must be brought to this short Issue Either the things that our Princes and Legislators enacted at the Reformation were in themselves just and good and necessary or not if they were then they having an Authority over us in all lawful things as they did well to enact these Laws so we do well to obey them But if they were neither just nor good nor necessary then we acknowledg that as it was a Sin in them to enact them so it were a Sin in us to obey them And all other reasonings upon this Subject are but Illusions by which weak minds may perhaps be wrought upon but they will appear to be such evident Fallacies to men of Sense that without entring into a strict enquiry of what may be alledged for them they will easily shake them off In short if the Reformation appears to be a good thing in it self then all arguing against the manner of it is but meer trifling and looks like men who lie in wait to deceive and to mislead People by false Colours of Truth CHAP. IV. Reflection on the eight Theses laid down by our Author UPon the Grounds that have hitherto been opened it will not be hard to make a very clear
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
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
well as their Goods and Chattels to the King. These were the true Motives of repealing those Bloody Laws which our Author ought to have mentioned if he had not designed to deceive his Reader but when he comes to examine the matter of Burning Hereticks he does it so softly that it is plain he would rather lay us asleep than quiet us First he begins with that trifling Answer That the Secular Laws and not the Ecclesiastical do both appoint and execute it but if the Secular Arm is threatned by the Ecclesiastical not only with lower Censures but even with Deposition and that by a Council which he acknowledges to be General in case they do not extirpate Hereticks then this Extirpation is still the Act of the Church enforced upon the Civil Power with a dreadful Sanction which the Church was Able to execute in those Ages of Superstition and thus the Guilt of all the Blood-shed upon the account of Heresie lies at the Door of that Church In the next place he reckons up several Instances of severe Executions against Hereticks both in England and elsewhere which were practiced not only in Henry the Eighth's time but also under Edward the Sixth's and were carried on chiefly by Cranmer's Authority Executions made under Queen Elizabeth and King Iames are also mentioned to which is added a Law made by King Iames adjudging men Traytors for being reconciled to the Pope or See of Rome which is putting men to Death for pretended Heresie and to a Death worse than Burning But to all this I will only say That the Reformation being a work of time as men did not all at once throw off all the Corruptions of the Church of Rome so this being the received Doctrine of the Western Church for many Ages that all Hereticks ought to be extirpated if our Reformers did not so soon as were to be wished throw of this Remnant of Popery it is rather to be excused and pitied in them than to be justified their Practice Cranmer did also soften the Notion of Heresie as much as he could by reducing it to a plain and wilful Opposition to some of the Articles of the Apostles Creed and if the constant Clamours that the men of the Church of Rome raised against the Reformation as a Subversion of the Christian Religion because some that had been among the Reformers advanced some monstrous Opinions if these I say carried our Reformers to such a way of justifying themselves of this Imputation by some publick Executions they who gave the occasion to this severity which I do not pretend to justifie ought not to reproach us for that to which they drove our Ancestors As for King Iames's Law I will not examine whether the Death of Traitors or the Burning of Hereticks is the more dreadful it is certain Fire especially when it is slow is the most terrible of all deaths and that which gives the most formidable Impression but if the Provocation given to the King and Parliament at that time by the Gun-powder Treason be considered it will not appear strange if the King and Parliament after they had escaped so narrowly the greatest of all dangers took a little more than ordinary Care to secure themselves against the like Attempts in time coming And if the severe Canons of the Council of Lateran against Hereticks had lain as so many dead Letters in the Body of the Laws of their Church as that Law hath done in our Book of Statutes they had had much less Blood to answer for and less guilt than lies upon them at present After these softnings our Author comes to pass his own Censure on the Burning of Hereticks but the common Rules of Prudence should have led him in the present juncture of Affairs to have condemned it roundly and so to have laid our apprehensions a little yet he saw so plainly that this was a practise so clearly authorized both by Law and Custom in their Church that he durst not disown it in express words and indeed he understands so little how a tender point ought to be touch'd that by all the Rules of Prudence he ought not to have medled with it His Discourse in this is an Original and because I 'le do him no wrong in the manner of Representing it I will set it down in his own Words But whether this Law in it self be just and again if just whether it may be justly extended to all those simple People put to death in Queen Maries days such as St. Austin calls Hereticis Credentes because they had so much Obstinacy as not to recant their Errors for which they saw their former Teachers sacrifice their Lives especially when they were prejudiced by the most common contrary Doctrine and Practice in the precedent Times of Edward the 6th and had lived in such a condition of Life as neither had means nor leasure nor capacity to examine the Churches Authority Councils or Fathers ordinarily such Persons being only to be reduced as they were perverted by the contrary fashion and course of the times and by Example and not by Argument either from Reason or from Authority and the same that I say of these Laity may perhaps also be said of some illiterate Clergy whether I say this Law may justly be extended to such and the highest suffering Death be inflicted especially where the Delinquents are so numerous rather than some lower Censures of pecuniary Mulcts or Imprisonment these things I meddle not with nor would be thought at all in this place to justifie Here is a long Period of 208 Words before the Verb comes to close it but there is small comfort in all this for even after our Author hath put the Case with all possible Abatements and as soft as may be of the ignorances the strong prejudices and the numbers of the Delinquents and intimated his merciful inclinations only towards the Laity and some of the illiterate Clergy and that only with relation to Death Fines and Imprisonments being left out of the Grace that he would shew us yet in conclusion he only tells us He will not meddle with this matter nor would he be thought at all to justifie it in this place for he is only concerned what we think of him and whether he justifies it or not he only tells us he would not be thought to do it and yet lest that seem too much he adds a further Qualification that he would not be thought to justifie it in this place So that he hath fully reserved all his Rights entire to a fitter opportunity and then he well may without the least Reproach justifie that in another place which he doth not think fit to do at present Yet it seems he hath a very narrow heart in matters of Grace for this same scanty measure of Favour that he had clogg'd with so many Reserves is yet retrenched considerably in the following Words Tho some among those unlearned Lay-people I confess to have
of ours XIX Our Author excepts to King Henry the Eighth's abrogating those Laws That were established by the Authority of the Bishops of Rome as if this included all those Laws that were passed by the Councils in which Popes presided since the Canon-Law is composed of Synodal as well as of Pontifical Laws In this we will freely own to him that since the time that the Popes have so far enslaved the Bishops as to make them swear Obedience to them we look upon all the Laws that have been made in Synods composed of men so pre-engaged as Papal Laws but this doth not at all touch those Laws that passed before that Authority was claimed And indeed there never was a grosser Abuse put on the World than the whole Canon Law. For as for the first and soundest part of it which is Gratian's Decree it was only a Common-place Book drawn up by a Man that was indeed considering the Age in which he lived of great Learning and good Judgment But he was at that time so ill furnished with all necessary helps to make him judg a right of his Matter that it is an impudent thing in the Ages of more Knowledg to pretend to keep up the Credit of a Book that was compiled in so dark and so corrupt a Time. The rest is yet worst made up of Papal Constitutions or the Decrees of those ignorant and packt Assemblies that had met for the three Ages preceding the Reformation If King Henry had abrogated the Ancient Canons our Author might have had some Colour for his Complaints But the total abrogating of that course Compilation of the Canon-Laws which never was founded on any good Authority was so just a thing that there are very few Learned Men in the Roman Communion at present that will not say it were well for the Church if it were quite laid aside since now all men but such as our Author are ashamed of it XX. Our Author writes as if he intended to do Honour to the Memory of King Henry For he cites these Words out of his Preface to his Injunctions Which Agreement of the Clergy for as much as we think to have proceeded of a good right and true Iudgment and to be agreeable to the Laws and Ordinances of God He thereupon ordered it to be published An ordinary man would be upon this induced to approve mightily of the King's method First to Authorize the Clergy to examine those Matters and after that to review their Determinations himself before he gave his Civil Sanction to them Would our Author have a Prince rely blindly on a National Clergy which is subject to Error as is acknowledged by all the World What Judgment then can he follow but his own The Civil Power must be applied in matters of Religion as is acknowledged on all hands upon the Judgment of the Prince For he can follow no other even in the Principles of the Church of Rome except when he is determined by an Infallible Court which is only in a General Council XXI Among the other Exorbitances of the King's Supremacy one reckoned up by our Author is his taking away the Pope's Authority as Patriarch in confirming the Metropolitan and his requiring his Clergy under the pains of Premunire to consecrate into Bishopricks any that he shall nominate It is great Ignorance or somewhat worse in our Author if he will pretend that the Authority of the Patriarchs over Metropolitans was of Primitive Antiquity for by the Council of Nice every Province was an intire Body within it self if the Clergy is under some servitude as to the promoting those nominated by the King the Pope is under the same to the King of France by the Concordate and our subjection in this Point does not bind our Consciences but lies only on our Persons and Benefices and therefore when a case of Persecution comes we must resolve to venture on a Premunire and worse things too if we are pressed hard XXII He adds to this another gross mistake in History intimating that the Suppression of Monasteries was done by virtue of this Supremacy upon which he runs out into a long deduction of many Particulars relating to that Affair but this is all so false that the Supremacy was not so much as once pretended in it it went all upon Acts of Parliament and the surrenders of the Monks If the King acted violently and unjustly in this matter it doth not at all concern the Reformation and much less his Supremacy and as for all the Topicks of Sacriledg and Profanation and the alienation of Things and the violation of Persons Sacred these are general and dreadful words which lose their Horror when it is considered That the vast endowments of Monasteries were the effects of the Superstition of those Ages in which the belief of the Redemption out of Purgatory by the saying of so many Masses together with many false Miracles had prevailed so far on the Ignorance and Credulity of the World as to draw the best part of the Wealth of Europe into those Houses when I say not only the scandalous Lives of many Monks which were indeed but Personal Things but their false Miracles and Relicks and above all the falshood of redeeming men out of Purgatory by their means were discovered no doubt it was lawful to dissolve all those Endowments and to turn their Wealth to better uses and if the King did not enough that way it was so much the worse for him but that doth not at all blemish the Reformation So that all the long digression he makes upon this Head is impertinent to the business in hand which is the Supremacy XXIII He says That the Pope pretends no such Power as to alienate the Church-Revenues for to spend them himself or to dispose of them in what manner or to what Persons he pleases but only for some just Cause that is in a prudential Arbitration for an equal or greater benefit accruing to the Church or Christianity I do not know if the D's of Parma or a great many other Princes that have been raised out of the Patrimony of the Church would judg this to be good Doctrine and if the Church is always a minor so that the Bargains made in her name may be ever recalled it would be hard to find what Benefit hath arisen to the Church or Christianity out of the Robberies that Popes have made to raise their Families and it is a strange piece of Impudence in these men who are always reproaching us with what some of our Princes did in the time of the Reformation when all that put together doth not amount to the Injustices that have been committed in one single Pontificate of those whom they would have us look on as God's Trustees and as Christ's Vicars if they are not concerned in those who are the Spiritual Heads of their Church much less are we bound to justifie all the Actions of those who are only
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.