assenting to the erecting of it And I aske how it was not legally established which was established by soveraign authority according to the direction of the Convocation with the confirmation of the Parliament What other legall establishment can there be in England By the Lawes of England a Bishop had but his single vote either in Parliament or Convocation Some Bishops were imprisoned indeed but neither the most nor the best of the English Bishops whether for not assenting or for other reasons will require further proof than his bare assertion This is certain that every one of them had freely renounced the Pope and Papacy in the reign of Henry the eighth He saith I should have added that Church which was suppressed by the last Parliament under King Charles Why should I add a notorious untruth as contrary to my conscience as to my affections I might have said oppressed I could not say suppressed The externall splendor was abated when the Baronies of the Bishops and their votes in Parliament were taken away but the Order was not extinguished So far from it that King Charles himself suffered as a Martyr for the English Church If his meaning be that it was suppressed by an ordinance of one or both Houses without authority royall he cannot be so great a stranger in England as not to know that it is without the sphere of their activity Yet he is pleased to stile it a dead Church and me the Advocate of a dead Church even as the Trees are dead in Winter when they want their leaves or as the Sun is set when it is behinde a Cloud or as the Gold is destroyed when it is melting in the Furnace When I see a seed cast into the ground I doe not aske where is the greeness of the leaves where is the beauty of the flowers where is the sweetnes of the fruit but I expect all these in their due season Stay a while and behold the Catastrophe The rain is fallen the wind hath blown and the floods have beaton upon their Church but it is not fallen for it is founded upon a Rock The light is under a Bushell but it is not extinguished And if God in justice should think fit to remove our Candlestick yet the Church of England is not dead whilest the Catholick Church survives Lastly he denies that the English Church is under persecution And though some of the Church doe suffer yet it is not for Religion but matters of State What can a man expect in knotty questions from them who are so much transported with prejudice as to deny those things which are obvious to every eie If it be but some that have suffered it is such a some as their Church could never shew wherein he that desires to be more particularly informed may read the Martyrology of London or the List of the Universities and from that paw guess at the proportion of the Lion But perhaps all this was for matters of State No our Churches were not demolished upon pretence of matters of State nor our Ecclesiasticall Revenues exposed to sale for matters of State The refusall of a schismaticall Covenant is no matter of State How many of the orthodox Clergy without pretence of any other delinquency have been beggered how many necessitated to turn Mechanicks or day-Laborers how many starved how many have had their hearts broken how many have been imprisoned how many banished from their native Soil and driven as Vagabonds into the merciless World No man is so blinde as he that will not see His tenth Section is a summary or repetition of what he hath already said wherein I finde nothing of weight that is new but onely one authority out of St. Austin That Catholicks are every where and Hereticks every where but Catholicks are the same every where and Hereticks different every where If by Catholicks he understand Roman Catholicks they are not every where not in Russia nor in Aethiopia and excepting some hand-fulls for the most part upon toleration not in any of the Eastern Churches The words of Saint Austin are these Vbicunque sunt isti illic Catholica sicut in Africa ubi vos non autem ubicunque Catholica est aut vos istis aut Heresis quaelibet earum Wheresoever they are there is the Catholick Church as in Africa where you are but wheresoever the Catholick Church is you are not nor any of those Heresies St. Austins scope is to shew that the Catholick Church is more diffused or rather universall than any Sect or all Sects put together If you please let this be the Touchstone between you and us But you will say that you are united every where and we are different every where Nothing less You are united in one pretended head which some of you acknowledge more some less We are united in the same Creed the same Sacraments and for the most part the same discipline Besides of whom doth St. Austin speak in that place of the Novatians Arrians Patripassians Valentinians Patricians Apellites Marcionites Ophites all which condemned all others but themselves and thereby did separate themselves Schismatically from the Catholick Church as it is to be feared that you doe Our case is quite contrary we reform our selves but condemn no others CHAP. 3. Whether Protestants were Authors of the separation from Rome WE are now come from stating the Question to proofs where we shall soon see how R. C. will acquit himself of the province which he hath undertaken To shew that Protestants were not the Authors of the Separation from Rome but Roman Catholicks I produced first the solemn unanimous resolution of our Universities in the point that the Bishop of Rome had no greater Jurisdiction within England conferred upon him by God in the Scripture than any other forrein Bishop Secondly the decrees of two of our nationall Synods Thirdly six or seven Statutes or Acts of Parliament Fourthly the attestation of the prime Roman Catholick Bishops and Clergy in their printed Books in their Epistles in their Sermons in their Speeches in their Institution Fiftly the unanimous consent of the whole Kingdome of England testified by Bishop Gardiner and of the Kingdome of Ireland proved out of the Councell Book Lastly the Popes own Book wherein he interdicted and excommunicated the whole Church of England before the reformation made by Protestants So as apparently we were chased away from them Heare the judgement of a Stranger This year the Pope brake the wise patience or rather dissimulation which for four years together he had used towards England And sent against the King a terrible thundring Bull such as never was used by his Predecessors nor imitated by his Successors It will cost him some tugging to break such a six-fold cord as this is What doth he answer to all this Not one word And so I take my first ground pro confesse That Protestants were not Authors of the separation of the English
might even as well say that two or three common Soldiers of the Carthaginian Army and perhaps not one of them at the fight were the Authors of the Roman overthrow at Cannae It was the Universities that approved the separation unanimously It was the Synods that directed the separation It was the King that established the separation It was the Parliament that confirmed the separation How could two or three Privados without Negromancy have such an efficatious influence upon the Universities and Synods and Parliaments and the King himself Yet they might have an hand in it no nor so much as a little finger As much as the Flie that sate upon the Cart-wheel had in raising of the dust The two Houses of Parliament alone did consist of above 600. of the most able and eminent persons in the Kingdome what had these three been able to doe among them supposing they had been then Protestants and of the House Even as much as three drops of hony in a great vessell of vinegar or three drops of vinegar in a great vessell of hony But let us see what it is which he objects against Cranmer and the rest That Cranmer whom I will not deny to have been a friend and favourer of Protestants advised that the King should seek no more to the Court of Rome And that bidding adieu to the Court of Rome he should consult with the most learned in the Universities of Europe at home and abroad There was no hurt in all this There could be no suspicion that the most learned in all the Universities of Europe should be enemies to the just rights of the Roman Court But upon this saith he it was by Commission disputed by the Divines in both Universities And so he concludes triumphantly Behold Cranmer the first author of secession from the Pope I answer That this secession was no secession of the Church of England nor this disputation any disputation concerning the jurisdiction of the Roman Court over the English Church but only concerning a particular processe there depending between King Henâ—y and Queen Katherine about the validity or invalidity of their marriage and the Popes dispensation which Cranmer maintained to be determinable by Divine law not by Canon law The truth is this Doctor Stephens and Doctor Fox two great Ministers of King Henry and Doctor Cranmer chanced to meet without any designe at Waltham where discourse being offered concerning this processe Cranmer freely declared his judgement that the marriage of a Brother with his Brothers Wife was unlawfull by the Law of God and that the Pope could not dispense with it And that it was more expedient and more proper to seek to have this cause determined by the best Divines and Universities of Europe then by the dilatory proceeding of the Roman Court This was related to the King The King sent for Cranmer He offered freely to justifie it before the Pope And to demonstrate both that this was no separation from Rome and that Cranmer himself was no Protestant at that time it is acknowledged by all our Historiographers that after this Cranmer with others was sent as an Ambassador or Envoy to Rome and returned home in the Popes good Grace not without a mark of his favour being made his penitentiary Likewise saith another Cranmer that unworthy Archbishop of Canterbury was his the Earl of Hartfords right hand and chief assistant in the work although but a few moneths before he was of King Harries Religion yea a great Patron and Prosecutor of the six Articles That is as much as to say no friend no favourer of Protestants So this victorious argument failes on both sides Some other places he citeth concerning Cranmer That he freed the Kings conscience from the yoke of Papall dominion that is to say in that processe That by his counsell destruction was provided divinely to the Court of Rome that is occasionally and by the just disposition of Almighty God That the King was brought by Cranmers singular virtue to defend the cause of the Gospell that is in that particular case that the Pope cannot dispense contrary to the Law of God And lastly That the Papall power being discovered by King Henries authority and Cranmers did easily fall down I much doubt if I had the Book whether I should finde these testimonies such as they are cited Howsoever it may be true distinguendo tempora and referendo singula singulis They could not be spoken of the first separation when Cranmer had no more authority then a private Doctor but of the following times King Henry suppressed the Papall tyranny in England by his Legislative Power and Cranmer by his discovery of their usurpations and care to see the Lawes executed Against Crumwell he produceth but one testimony That it was generally conceived and truly as never thought That the politick waies for taking away the Popes authority in England and the suppression of Religious Houses were principally devised by Crumwell First this is but an argument from vulgar opinion Secondly when Archbishop Warham and the Synod did first give to King Henry the Supremacy and the Title of Head of the English Church Crumwell was no Protestant he had lately been Cardinall Wolsies Soliciter and was then Master of the Jewel House of no such power to doe any great good or hurt to the Protestants And at his death he professed that he was no Sacramentary and that he died in the Catholick Faith Lord Cherbury in H. 8. anno 1540. Holl. an 32. H. 8. fol. 242. But for the suppression of Religious Houses it is not improbable He might well have learned that way under Cardinall Wolsy when he procured the suppression of fourty Monasteries of good note for the founding of his two Colleges at Oxford and Ipswich In which businesse our historians say the Pope licked his own Fingers to the value of twelve Barrels full of Gold and Silver Lastly for Doctor Barnes poor man he was neither Courtier nor Councelor nor Convocation man nor Parliament man All the grace which ever he received from King Henry was an honourable death for his Religion He said That he and such other wretches as he had made the King a whole King by their Sermons If they did so it was well done The meaning of a whole King is an Head of the Church saith R. C. It may be so but the consequence is naught Perhaps he meant a Soveraign independant King not feudatory to the Pope which he that is is but half a King Not only of old but in later times the Popes did challenge a power Paramount over the Kings of England within their own dominions as appeareth by the Popes Bull sent to Iames the fifth King of Scotland wherein he declareth that he had deprived King Henry of his Kingdome as an Heretick a Schismatick an Adulterer a Murtherer a Sacrilegious person and lastly a Rebell and convict of laesae Majestatis for that he had risen
against him the Pope who was his Lord. But now supposing all R. C. his suggestions had been true That Cranmer and Crumwell had been Protestants at that time and had been in as much grace and had had the like opportunity of addresse to the King as they had afterwards that Cranmer had perswaded the King as a Divine and Crumwell as a Polititian to separate from the Court of Rome And that Barnes had preached against the Popes Supremacy Yet this is farre from the authoritative separation of the whole Church and Kingdome from the Court of Rome Morall perswasions may incline but cannot necessitate the will Therefore not confiding to these broken Reeds at length he admits that Roman Catholicks were the Authors of the saparation Be it so that Roman Catholicks were the authors of the division that is worse for Protestants because then Protestants continue a wicked Schism wicked begun against conscience against known truth and consequently a sin against the holy Ghost And to make his assertion good he produceth the authority of Optatus It appeareth evidently that you are the heirs of Schismaticks He who reads this would believe that Optatus spake positively of Protestants when he speaks only of Donatists cum haec itâ— gesta esse manifestissime constet vos haeredes esse traditorum Schismaticorum evidenter appareat Seeing it is most evident that these things did fall out thus that is that Majorinus whose Chair Parmenianus did now possesse did divide himself from the communion of Caecilianus and set up a Chair against a Chair in the same Church or a new Chair quae ante ipsum Majorinum originem non habebat and seeing Majorianus was a traditor and a Schismatick it appears evidently that Parmenian was the heire of a Schismatick Now what doth this concern us The Donatists set up a new Chair against an old Chair in the same Church we have done no such thing God make us able to keep up tha old Secondly the Donatists separated themselves from all other Churches we separate our selves from no Churches neither from the Chair of Caecilian nor of Peter nor of Cyprian But if we would know not only who are the heirs of the Donatists but who are their heirs in their Schism we may finde them easily It is the Roman Catholicks themselves first in their uncharitablenesse in breaking the bond of brotherly unity The Catholicks owned the Donatists for their brethren but the Donatists refused to own the Catholicks for their brethren quamvie illi non negent omnibus not um sit c. Although they deny it not and it is known to all men that they hate us and accurse us and will not be called our brethren yet c. without doubt they are our brethren And a little after And because they will not have the Episcopall College common with us let them not be our fellow Collegians if they will not yet as I said before they are our brethren This is just the case between them and us we offer them the right hand of brotherhood as the Catholicks did to the Donatists but they refuse it as the Donatists did to the Catholicks Secondly the Donatists separated the whole Catholick Church from their communion and substituted themselves being but a small part of the Christian World in the place of the Catholick Church Just as the Romanists doe at this day Optatus speaks home unto them both the old and new Donatists Se pro voluntate vestra inangustum coarctatis Ecclesiam c. If ye for your pleasure doe thrust the Church into a streit if ye substract all Nations where is that which the Son of God hath merited where is that which the Father hath given him I will give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession Why doe you infringe this promise Or imprison this universall Kingdome c. Suffer the Son to possesse his Fathers gift Suffer the Father to fulfill his promise Why doe you set bounds and limits And still ye endeavour to perswade men that the Church is only with you Let the Reader judge who are the right heirs of the Donatists The rest of his discourse is a groundlesse asking of the question First those Roman Catholicks did make no separation from the Roman Church but from the Roman Court. Secondly they separated from the Roman Court only in its innovations without criminous Schism Thirdly we cannot we dare not be so uncharitable as to judge that the whole Kingdome and all the Pastors of the Church did sinne against their conscience but we believe firmly that it was the clear light and evidence of truth that made them so unanimous in their separation Fourthly though they had sinned against the known truth not being done of malice it was not the sinne against the holy Ghost St. Peter did not sinne against the holy Ghost when he denied Christ. Fiftly though they had sinned against conscience in separating yet the fault being not in the thing done but in the conscience of the doer we being better informed may with a good conscience hold what they with a bad conscience did take away Lastly though they had sinned not only in separating against conscience but also in the very act of separation Yet we who found the separation made to our hands who never did any act either to oblige us to Rome or to disoblige us from Rome holding what we received from our Ancestors and endeavoring to finde out the truth and ready to receive it whensoever God shall reveal it unto us are not censurable as Schismaticks as I proved out of Saint Austine though R. C. be pleased to take no notice of it Here he makes a short double and will needs have Henry the eight to have been a substantiall Protestant If he was a Protestant doubtlesse he was a substantiall Protestant But why a Protestant Doctor Barnes and many more who were burned by him for Protestants would hardly have believed it But he saith Henry the eight was an Antipapist and that is sufficient to make a Protestant If that be sufficient to make a Protestant it is well otherwise one of his friends tels us We had a King who by his Lawes abolished the authority of the Pope although in all other things he would follow the Faith of his Ancestors Lately he tould us that the essence and life and soul and definition of a Protestant was to hold justification by Faith alone then Henry the eight was no Protestant for he did not hold justification by Faith alone Now he makes the essence of a Protestant to be impugning the Popes Supremacy I had not thought essences or definitions had been so mutable but for my part I am glad of the change If all Antipapists be Protestants then all the Grecian Armenian Abyssen Russian Christians are Protestants then we shall not want Protestants to bear us company in
Church from Rome Yet something he saith upon the by which is to be examined first That they who made the King head of the Church were so far from being Zelots of the Roman Religion that they were not then of the Roman Religion but Schismaticks and Hereticks outwardly whatsoever they were inwardly What a change is here Even now when they opposed the Reformation they were the best Bishops and now when they oppose the Popes Supremacy they are Schismaticks and Hereticks Let them be what they were or whatsoever he would have them to be certainly they were no Protestants And if they were not Roman Catholicks they were of no Christian Communion They professed to live Roman Catholicks and they died Roman Catholicks The six bloody Articles contrived by them and executed by them in the reign of King Henry and the Bonefires which they made of poor Protestants in the dayes of Queen Mary doe demonstrate both that they were no Protestants and that they were Zelots of the Roman Religion But saith he the essence of the Roman Religion doth consist in the primacy of the Pope If it be so then whereas the Christian Religion hath twelve Articles the Roman Religion hath but one Article and that none of the twelve namely the supremacy of the Pope But this needs makes no difference between us For they denyed not the Popes Primacy that is of order but his Supremacy of power Neither is his Supremacy either the essence or so essentiall a part of the Roman Catholick Beleef but that many of the Roman Catholick Communion have denyed it of old as the Councells of Constance and Basile and many doe deny it and more doubt of it at this day But let that be as it will In all other Controversies they were pure Romanists and the denomination is from the greater part Certainly they were no Protestants which is enough for my purpose He tels us from Bishop Gardiner that the Parliament was with much cruelty constrained to abolish the Primacy he means Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome A likely thing indeed that a whole Parliament and among them above fifty Bishops and Abbets should be forced without any noise against their conscience to forswear themselves to deny the essence of their faith and to use his own words to turn Schismaticks and Hereticks How many of them lost their lives first Not one not one changed his Soil not one suffered imprisonment about it For howsoever the matter hath been misconstrued by some of our Historiographeâ—s Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas Moore were imprisoned before this Act of the Supremacy was made for denying the Kings Mariage and opposing a former Act of Parliament touching the succession of his Children to the Crown Thus much is confessed by Sanders in his Book de Schismate p. 73. b. concerning Fisher and p. 81. concerning Sir Thomas Moor. Quae Lex post Mori apprehensionem constituta erat The Law of Supremacy was made after the apprehension of Sir Thomas Moore Of this much cruelty I doe not finde so much as a threatning word or a footstep except the fear of a Premunire And is it credible that the whole representative of the Church and Kingdome should value their Goods above their Souls Or that two successive Synods and both our Universities nemine dissentiente should be so easily constrained But who constrained the most learned of the Bishopâ— and the greatest Divines in the Kingdome to tell the King that it was his right to publish Catechisms or Institutions and other Books and to preach Sermons at St. Pauls Cross and elswhere for maintenance of the Kings Supremacy These Acts were unconstrained Heare the Testimony of Queen Eizabeth given in their life time to their faces before the most eminent Ambassadors of the greatest Persons in the World when Bishop Gardiner might have contradicted it if he could When the Emperour and other Roman Catholick Princes interceded with her for the displaced Bishops she returned this answer That they did now obstinately reject that Doctrine which most part of themselves under Henry the eighth and Edward the sixth had of their own accord with heart and hand publickly in their Sermons and Writings taught unto others when they themselves were not private Persons but publick Magistrates The charge is so particular that it leaves no place for any answer First of their own accord Secondly not only under Henry the eighth but Edward the sixth Thirdly when they themselves were publick Magistrates Fourthly with heart and hand not only in their Sermons but also in their printed Writings Against Subscriptions and printed Writings there can be no defence But upon whose credit is this constraint charged upon King Henry upon Bishop Gardiners In good time he produceth a Witness in his own cause He had an hard heart of his own if he would not have favored himself and helped to conceal his own shame after King Henry was dead Mortui non mordent Is not this that Stephen Gardiner that writ the book de vera obedientia to justifie the Kings Supremacy Is not this that Stephen Gardiner that tels us That no forrein Bishop hath authority among us that all sorts of people are agreed with us upon this point with most steadfast consent that no manner of person bred or brought up in England hath ought to doe with Rome Is not this he that had so great an hand in framing the oath of Supremacy and in all the great transactions in the later dayes of King Henry was not he one of them who tickled the Kings eares with Sermons against the Popes Supremacy who was a Contriver of the six bloody Articles against the Protestants and was able by his power with the King to bring the great Favorite of those times to the Scaffold for Heresie and Treason To conclude if any thing did constrain him it was either the Bishoprick of London or Winchester or which I doe the rather beleeve out of charity the very power of conscience So much himself confesseth in the conclusion of his book de vera obedientia where he proposeth this objection against himself that as a Bishop he had sworn to maintain the Supremacy of the Pope To which he answers That what was holily sworn is more holily omitted then to make an oath the bond of iniquity He confesseth himself to have been married to the Church of Rome bona fide as to his second Wife but after the return of his first Wife that is the Truth to which he was espoused in his Baptisme being convicted with undenyable evidence he was necessitated out of conscience to forsake the Church of Rome in this particular question of Supremacy and to adhere to his first Wife the Truth and after her to his Prince the supreme head of the English Church upon earth His next attempt is to prove that the Protestants were the Authors of the separation from Rome And he names three Cranmer Crumwell and Barnes He
Popes but for many of the rest and especially for that which did virtually include them all that is the Legâ—slative power in ecclesiasticall causes wherein the whole body of the Kingdome did claim a neerer interest in respect of that receptive Power which they have ever injoyed to admit or not admit such new Laws whereby they were to be governed it had been folly and madness in the Popes to have attempted upon it One doubt still remains How ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction could be said to be derived from the Crown For they might be apt enough in those dayes to use such improper expressions First with the Romanists themselves I distinguish between habituall and actuall Jurisdiction Habituall Jurisdiction is derived only by ordination Actuall Jurisdiction is a right to exercise that habit arising from the lawfull application of the matter or subject In this later the Lay Patron and much more the Soveraign Prince have their respective Interests and concurrence Diocesses and Parishes were not of divine but humane institution And the same persons were born Subjects before they were made Christians The ordinary gives a School master a license or habituall power to teach but it is the Parents of the Children who apply or substract the matter and furnish him with Scholars or afford him a fit subject whereupon to exercise this habituall power Secondly we must also distinguish between the interior and exterior Court between the Court of Conscience and the Court of the Church For in both these Courts the power of the Keies hath place but not in both after the same manner That power which is exercised in the Court of Conscience for binding and loosing of sinnes is soly from Ordination But that power which is exercised in the Court of the Church is partly from the Soveraign Magistrate especially in England where Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction is enlarged and fortified with a coercive power and the bounds thereof have been much dilated by the favour and piety of Christian Princes by whom many causes have been made of Ecclesiasticall cognisance which formerly were not from whom the coercive or compulsory power of summoning the Kings Subjects by processes and citations was derived It is not then the power of the Keies or any part or branch thereof in the exercise of Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction even in the exterior Court of the Church which is derived from the Crown But it is coercive and compulsory and coroboratory power it is the application of the matter it is the regulating of the exercise of actuall Ecclesiasticall Jurisdicton in the Court of the Church to prevent the oppressions of their Subjects and to provide for the tranquillity of the Common-wealth which belongs to Sovereign Princes As to his corollary that never any King of England before Henry the eighth did challenge an exemption from all Iurisdiction under Christ it is as gross a mistake as all the rest For neither did Henry the eighth challenge any such exemption in the Court of Conscience Among the six bloody Articles established by himself that of auricular confession was one Nor in the Court of the Church seeing the direct contrary is expressly provided for in the Statute it self The Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being and his Successors shall have power and authority from time to time by their discretions to give grant and dispose by an instrument under the Seal of the said Archbishop unto your Majesty and to your Heirs and Successors Kings of this Realm as well all manner of such Licences Dispensations Compositions Faculties Grants Rescripts Delegacies Instruments and all other Writings for causes not being contrary or repugnant to holy Scriptures and Lawes of God as heretofore hatâ— been used and accustomed to be had and obtained by your Highnes or any of your most noble Progenitors or any of yours or their Subjects at the See of Rome So vain a suggestion it is That King Henry the eighth did free himself not only from Papall Authority but also and as well from Episcopall Archiepiscopall and all Spirituall Authority either abroad or in England And his Argument which he presseth so seriously to prove it is as vain That the Head of a Company is under none of that Company The Pope himself is under his Confessor who hath power to binde him or loose him in the Court of Conscience The Master of a Family is under his own Chaplain for the regiment of his Soul and under his Physitian for the government of his Body What should hinder it that a Politicall Head may not be under an Ecclesiasticall Pastor The Kings of England are not only under the forrein Jurisdiction of a generall Councell but also under their Ecclesiasticall Pastors though their own Subjects Only they are exempted from all coercive and compulsory power Let us trie whether he be more fortunate in opposing then he hath been in answering The Kings of England saith he permitted Appeales to Rome in ecclesiasticall causes as is evident in St. Wilfrides case who was never reproved nor disliked for appealing twice to Rome not so but the clear contrary appeareth evidently in Saint Wilfrides case Though he was an Archbishop and if an Appeal had been proper in any case it had been in that case This pretended Appeal was not only much disliked but rejected by two Kings successively by the other Archbishop and by the body of the English Clergy as appeareth by the event For Wilfride had no benefit of the Popes sentences but was forced after all his strugling to quit the two Monasteries which were in question whether he would or not and to sit down with his Archbishoprick which he might allwnies have held peaceably if he would This agrees with his supposed Vision in France that at his return into his Country he should receive the greatest part of his possessions that had been taken from him that is praesulatum Ecclesiae suae his Archbishoprick but not his two Monasteries But this is much more plain by the very words of King Alfride cited by me in the Vindication to which R. C. hath offered no answer That he honored the Popes Nuncios for their grave lives and honorable lookes Here is not a word of their credentiall Letters O how would a Nuncio storm at this and take it as an affront The King told them further That he could not give any assent to their legation So that which R. C. calles permitting was in truth downright dissenting and rejecting The reason followes because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councel of the English should be restored upon the Popes Letter Is not this disliking What could the King say more incivillity then to tell the Popes Nuncios that their Masters demands were unreasonable or what could be more to the purpose and to the utter ruin of R. C. his cause then that the Decrees of the pope were impugned not once but twice not by a few
factious persons but by two or three Kings successively and by Theodore the Archbishop of Canterbury a Roman with the flower of the Clergy and the whole Councel of the English He proceedeth they never disliked that Profession of Saint Austins Fellowes that the See Apostolick had sent them to preach in Britanny as she is accustomed to doe in all the World First why should they dislike it they had no reason for it No good Christian can dislike the Husbandmans sowing of Wheat but every good Christian doth dislike the envious mans supersemination or sowing of Tares above the Wheat Or if there had been reason how could they dislike that which in probability they did not know The Letter out of which these words are cited was not written to the English Kings but to the Scotish Bishops by Laurentius Successor to Austin in the See of Canterbury and Melitus of London and Iustus of Rotchester which three were all the Bishâ—ps of the Roman Communion that were at that day in Britain But if perchance he imagine that the Popes sending Preachers into Britain doth either argue an ancient or acquire a subsequent Jurisdiction over Britain he erres doubly first they did nothing without the Kings licence for matter of fact they produced no Papall mandates which had been in vain to a Pagan King At their first arrivall the King commanded them to abide in the Isle of Thanet untill his further pleasure was known They did so Afterwards they were called in by his command he gave them an express licence to preach to his Subjects and after his own conversion majorem praedicandi licentiam a further and larger licence So the conversion of Kent was by the Popes endeavoures and the Kings authority Secondly for matter of right Conversion gives no just title to Jurisdiction How many Countries have been converted to the Christian Faith by the Britans and English over which they never pretended any authority It followeth they never disliked That Saint Gregory should subject all the Priests of Britain under Saint Austin and give him power to erect two Archiepiscopall Sees and twelve Episcopall Sees under each of them Whom could Ethelbert being himself a Novice in Christianity better trust with the disposing of Ecclesiasticall Affaires in his Kingdome then those who had been his Converters But either Saint Gregory in his projects or rather Austin in his informations did mightily over-shoot themselves for the twentieth part of Britain was not in Ethelberts power And all the other Saxon Kings were Pagans at that time We have seen that after the death of Austin and Gregory there were still but one Archbishop and two Bishops of the Roman Communion throughout the Britannick Islands The British and Scotish Bishops were many but they renounced all Communion with Rome The British Bishops professed plainly to Austin himself in their Synod that they would not acknowledge him for their Archbishop And the Scotish Bishops did so much abhorre from the Communion of the Bishops of the Roman Communion that as themselves complained Dagamus one of the Scotish Bishops refused to eat with them or to lodge with them in the same Inne And yet he tells us in great earnest that they never disliked it He addeth they never disliked that Saint Melit should bring the Decrees of the Roman Synod to be observed of the Church of England It may be so But whether it was so or not whether they liked them or disliked them whether they received them or rejected them Venerable Bede who is his Author speaketh not a word This is not proving but presuming And why might they not receive them if they found them to be equall and beneficiall non propter authoritatem Legislatoris sed propter aequitatem Legis not for the authority of the Roman Synod but for the equity of their Decrees And what were their Decrees Ordinationes de vita quiete Monachorum Orders for the good conversation and quiet of Monks A matter of no great importance but great or small the Decrees of the Roman Synod were of no force in England unless they were received by the King and Kingdome and if they were received by the King and Kingdome then they were naturalised and made the Lawes of England not of Pope Boniface an usurping and if we may trust Saint Gregory his Predecessors an Antichristian Prelate They willingly admitted a Bishop of Canterbury sent to them and chosen by the Pope Why should they not admit him seeing it was their own desire and request to the Bishop of Rome in respect of the great scarcity of Scholars then in England to send them one as appeareth by the very letter of Vitalianus hominem denique docibilem in omnibus ornatum Antistitem secundum vestrorum scriptorum tenorem minime valuimus nunc reperire We could not finde for the present such a complete Prelate as your letters require and by the reception of the King quâ—d cum Nuncii certò narrassent Regi Egberto adesse Episcopum quem petierant a Romano Antistite when King Egbert had certain notice that the Bishop Theodore was come whom they had desired of the Roman Prelate So he was not obtruded upon them against their wills which was the case of patronage between us and them They acknowledged that Saint Peter was the speciall Porter of Heaven whom they would obey in all things I understand not why he urgeth this except it be to expose the simplicity of those times to dirision The case was this there was a disputation between Coleman and Wilfrid about the observation of Easter Coleman pleaded a tradition from Saint Iohn upon whose bosom Christ leaned delivered to them by Columba their first Converter Wilfrid pleaded a different tradition from St. Peter to whom Christ gave the Keies of the Kingdome of Heaven The King demanded whether that which was said of Saint Peter was true They acknowledged it was And whether any thing of like nature was said to Saint Columb They said no. Thereupon the King concluded Hic est Ostiarius ille cui ego contradicere nolo c. ne forte me adveniente ad fores Regni Coelorum non sit quireseret averso illo qui Claves tenere probatur This is the Porter whom I will not contradict least peradventure when I come to the gates of Heaven there be none to open unto me having made him averse to me who is proved to keepe the Keies No man can be so simple as to beleeve that there are Gates and Keies and Porters in Heaven It were but a poor office for Saint Peter to sit Porter at the Gate whilest the rest were feasting within at the Supper of the Lamb. The Keies were given to Saint Iohn as much as to Saint Peter They publickly engraved in the front of their Churches that Saint Peter was higher in degree then Saint Paul Let them place St. Peter as high as they please
if it had been a solemn interdict in those dayes And this nameless Author calls it but an Epistle Moreover he tells us of honourable presents sent to the Pope but not a word of any absolution which had been more to his purpose if this had been an excommunication It could be nothing but a threatning That unless this abuse were reformed he would hold no communion with them As Victor a much better Pope and in much better times dealt with the Asiaticks over whom he had no Jurisdiction There is a vast difference between formall excommunication and withholding of communion as also between imposing ecclesiasticall punishment and only representing what is incurred by the Canons Where observe with me two things First R. C. his great mistake that here was a command to erect new Bishopricks to which the Canons of the Fathers oblige not and therefore it must proceed from soveraign Authority whereas here was only a filling or supplying of the empty Sees The Authors words are de renovandis Episcopatibus of renewing not erecting Bishopricks and per septem annos destituta Episcopis they had wanted Bishops for seven years Lastly the names of the Sees supplyed which were all ancient episcopall Sees from the first conversion of the West-Saxons doe evince this Winchester Schireborne or Salessbâ—ry Wells Credinton now Exceter and the Bishoprick of Cornwall called anciently St. Germans Secondly observe that whatsoever was done in this business was done by the Kings Authority congregavit Rex Edwardus Synodum King Edward assembled a Synod saith the same Author in the place cited And he calls the sentence of the Synod Decretum Regis the Kings Decree This is more to prove the Kings politicall headship in convocating Synods and confirming Synods then all his conjectures and surmises to the contrary They with all humility admitted Legates of the Pope in the time of Kinulphus and Offâ— and admitted the erection of a new Archbishoprick in England Why should they not admit Legates What are Legates but Messenges and Ambassadors The office of an Ambassador is sacred though from the Great Turk But did they admit them to hold Legantine Courts and swallow up the whole ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction of the Kingdome King Offa desired to have a new Archbishoprick established at Lichfeild within his own Dominions and before he had the concurrence of Pope Adrian had excluded the Archbishop of Canterbury out of the Mercian Kingdome by royall Authority On the other side Kenulphus desired to have the Archbishoprick setled as it was formerly at Canterbury This is nothing to enforced Jurisdiction England alwaies admitted the Popes Legates and his Bulls with consent of the King but not otherwise Here again he cites no Authority but his own They professed that it belonged to Bishops to punish Priests and religious men and not to Kings No man doubts of it in their sense but they who leave nothing certain in the World Here is nothing but a heape of confused generalities In some cases the punishment of Clergy men doth not belong to Kings but Archbishops that is cases of Ecclesiasticall cognisance tryable by the Cannon Law in the first instance In other cases it belongs not to Archbishops but to Kings to be their Judges as in cases of civill cognisance or upon the last appeale Not that the King is bound to determine them in his own person but by fit Deputies or Delegates Plato makes all Regiment to consist of these three parts knowing commanding and executing The first belongs to the King and his Councell The second to the King in hâ—s person The third to the King by his Deputies So the King governs in the Church but not as a Church-man in the Army but not as a Souldier In the City but not as a Merchant in the Country but not as an Husbandman Our Kings did never use to determine Spirituall or Ecclesiasticall causes in their own persons but by meete selected Delegates Persons of great maturity of judgement of known dexterity in the Cannon Laws of approved integrity And lastly such at least some of the number as were qualified by their callings to exercise the power of the Keyes and to act by excommunication or absolution according to the exigence of the cause and who more proper to be such Delegates in questions of moment then Archbishops and Bishops This is so evident in our Laws and Histories that it is not only lost labour but shame to oppose it King Edgars words in the place alleged were these Meae solicitudinis est c. It belongs to my care to provide necessaries for the Ministers of Churches c. and to take order for their peace and quiet the examination of whose manners belongs to you whether they live continently and behave themselves honestly to them that are without whether they be solicitous in performing divine offices diligent to instruct the People sober in their conversations modest in their habits discreet in their judgments No man doubts of this But for all this Edgar did not forget his Kingly office and duty See the conclusion of the same oration to the Clergy contempta sunt verba veniendum est ad verbera c. words are dispised it must come to blows Thou hast with thee there the venerable father Edelwald Bishop of Winchester and Oswald the most reverend Bishop of Worcester I commit that busines to you that persons of bad conversation may be cast out of the Churches and persons of good life brought in by your episcopall censure and my royall Authority So Edgar did not forget his politicall headship What King Withred said was spoken in the Councell of Becancelde where he himself fate as a civill president and where the Decrees of the Councell issud in his name and by his Authority firmiter decernimus c. His words are these It belongs to him the King to make Earls Dukes Noble men Princes Presidents and secular Iudges but it belongs to the Metropolitan or Archbishop to govern the Churches to choose Bishops Abbats and other Prelates c. If King Withred had said It belongs to the Pope to govern the Churches it had made for his purpose indeed But saying as he doth it belongs to the Metropolitan it cuts the throat of his cause and shews clearly what we say that our Metropolitans are not subordinate to any single ecclesiasticall Superior As for the bounds between the King and the Archbishop we know them well enough he needed not trouble his head about it They suffered their Subjects to professe that qui non communicat Ecclesiae Romanae Hereticus est quicquid ipsa statuerit suscipio quod damnaverit damno He is an Heretick that holds not communion with the Church of Rome what she determines I receive what she condemns I condemn Supposing these to be the very words of Ealred though I have no reason to trust his citations further then I see them and supposing them to have
render his Judgment infallible nor his Jurisdiction universal What can the new election doe Only apply the new matter that is make him Bishop of that See whereunto he is elected They who elect him are the Bishops of the Roman Province and the Presbyters and Deacons of the Church of Rome Fit persons indeed to chuse a Bishop of Rome but no fit persons to chuse an universall Bishop for the whole Church It were too much honor for one Nation to have the perpetuall Regiment of Christs Church throughout all ages And whom doe the Conclave chuse An universall Pastor No but expressely a Bishop of Rome They have a third novelty as ill as either of these which I touched even now that the Regiment of the Church being monarchicall as in a Kingdome all Civill authority is derived from the King so in the Church all ordinary jurisdiction of Bishops descends immediately from the Pope If all Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction be derived from the Pope as all Civil Authority is from the King then as Civill Magistrates doe exercise their Civil authority in the name of the King so Bishops ought to exercise their Spirituall jurisdiction in the name of the Pope But this they doe not this they never did Again if Spirituall jurisdiction be derived to Bishops from the Pope by what way by what means by what channell doth it descend Either it must be by Commission or by Ordination But it is not by Commission No Bishops did ever need or expect any Commission from Rome for the exercise of Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction within his Diocesse Neither is it by Ordination they are very few indeed that receive Ordination from the Pope How many thousand Bishops have been and are still in the World that never received any Ordination from any Pope either mediately or immediately But derive the line of their Succession from the other Apostles If Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction be conveied by Ordination then it is a part of the character or Grace conferred which is Divine and Sacramentall I hope the Pope will be wiser then to challenge to himself the conferring of Sacramentall Grace I made a question how the Bishop of Rome came to be Saint Peters Heir ex asse to the exclusion of his eldest Brother the Bâ—shop of Antioch where Saint Peter was first Bishop where Christians had their first denomination I had reason for I never read that the Church was governed by the Law of Gavellkind that the youngest must inherite I said moreover that they produced nothing that I had seen but a blinde Legend out of a counterfeit Hegesippus I spake not this to the disparagement of that venerable Saint but to discredit that supposititious treatise He saith If I had read Bellarmine I should have found the same testified by Saint Marcellus the Pope by Saint Ambrose and Sainâ— Athanasius I have read Bellarmine and I finde no such thing testified by Marcellus more then this That Peter came to Rome by the commandement of the Lord. Nor by Athanasius more then this That when Peter heard that he must undergoe Martyrdome at Rome he did not lay aside his voyage but came to Rome with joy What conclusion can any man make from these premisses Saint Ambrose indeed saith more but as little to his purpose That Saint Peter being about to goe without the Walls in the night did see Christ meet him in the gate and enter into the City to whom Peter said Lord whether goest thou Christ answered I come to Rome to be crucified again And that Peter understood that the answer of Christ had relation to his own Martyrdome I have likewise read what Bellarmine citeth out of Saint Gregory elsewhere that Christ said to Saint Peter I come to Rome to be crucified again For he who had been crucified long before in his own person said that he was to be erucified again in the person of Saint Peter Though these things be altogether impertinent yet I rehearse them the more willingly to let the Reader see upon what silly grounds they build conclusions of great weight We receive the Fathers as competent Witnesses of the faith and practise and tradition of the Church in their respective ages we attribute much to their expositions of the holy Text but in those things which they had upon the credit of a supposititious Author the conclusion alwaies followes the weaker part How common a thing hath it been for credulous piety to beleeve and to record rumors and uncertain relations If they see no hurt in them and if they tended to piety But in a case of this moment to give an infallible Judge to the Church and a spirituall Prince to the Christian World to whom all are bound to submit under pain of damnation we ought to have had better Authority then such a blinde History Yet this is all the plea they have in the World for the divine right of their succession How came Saint Ambroâ—e or Saint Gregory to know a matter of fact done some centuries of years before they were born They had it not by Revelation nor other Authority for it then this of a counterfeit Hegesippus in the judgement both of Baronius and Bellarmine except only the borrowed name not much ancienter then themselves Supposing that Saint Peter had had such a spirituall monarchy as they fancy and supposing that this Apocryphall Relation was as true as the Gospell yet it makes nothing in the World for the Popes succession to Saint Peter therein but rather the contrary That Saint Peter sub finem vitae just upon the point of his death was leaving of Rome sheweth probably that he had no intention to die there or to fix his See there That Christ did premonish him of his Martyrdome in Rome and that he asâ—ented to it with joy hath nothing in it to prove or so much as to insinuate either the Act of Christ or the Act of St. Peter to invest the Bishop of Rome with the Sovereignty of Ecclesiasticall Power Had they urged this history only to shew how Christ fore-armes his Servants against impendent dangers or how he reputes their sufferings for his sake to be his own it had been to the purpose But they might even as well prove the Popes Supremacie out of our Saviours words in the Gospell to Saint Peter When thou art old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall girde thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not For our Saviour did signifie by these words by what death St. Peter should glorifie God These words have authority thâ—â—gh they be nothing to the purpose but those they cite have neither authority nor any thing that comes neer the purpose They see this well enough themselves what a weake unjoynted and unnecessary consequence this is wherefore they suppose that Christ said something to Saint Peter which is not recorded to command him to fixe his Chair at Rome Non est improbabile Dominum etiam aperte
nothing of Jurisdiction From St. Ninian he proceeds to Palladius and St. Patrick Pope Caelestine consecrated Palladius and sent him into Scotland And not forgetfull of Ireland sent thither S. Patrick In all the instances which he hath brought hitherto we finde nothing but Preaching and Converting and Christening not one syllable of any Jurisdiction Will the British Records afford us so many instances of this kinde and not so much as one of any legislative or judiciary act Then certainly there were none in those dayes Whether Palladius was sent to the British or Irish Scots is disputable But this is certain that whithersoever he was sent he was rejected and shortly after died In whose place succeeded St. Patrick Therefore his Disciples hearing of the death of Palladius the Archdeacon c. came to St. Patrick and declared it who having received the Episcopall degree from a Prelate called Arator straightway took ship c. Here is nothing of Caelestinus but of Arator nor of a Mandate but St. Patricks free devotion He saith The same Pope sent thither St. German and Lupus to confute the Pelagian Heresie and both Britans Scots Picts and Irish willingly accepted these Legates of the Popes nor denyed that they had any authoritie over them I am wearie of so many impertinencies Still here is not one word of any Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishops over the British Church but of their charity and devotion which we wish their Successors would imitate I confesse that Prosper saith that Peladius was sent by Caelestinus If it were so it concernes not this cause But Constantius and venerable Bede and almost all other Authors doe affirm positively that they were both sent by a French Synod to assist the Britans their neighbours against the Pelagians And it is most probable for they were both French Bishops St. German of Anxewe Lupus of Troyes Baronius labours to reconcile these two different relations thus It may be the Pope did approve the choyse of the Synod or it may be that Caelestine left it to the election of the Synod to send whom they pleased Admit either of these suppositions was true it will bring no advantage to his cause but much disadvantage If the Bishop of Rome had been reputed to be Patriarch of Britain and much more if he had been acknowledged to be a spirituall Monarch it is not credible that the Britannick Church should have applyed it self for assistance altogether to their neighbours and not at all to their Superior He addeth that they willingly accepted these Legates of the Popes He is still dreaming of Legates if they were Legates they were the Synods Legates not the Popes As much Legates and no more then the Messengers of the Brittish Church which they sent to help them were Legates eodem tempore ex Britanniâ directa Legatio Gallicanis Episcopis nunciavit c. at the same time the British Legates shewed their condition to the French Bishops what need the Catholick Faith did stand of their present assistance Had they not reason to wellcome them whom themselves had invited who were come only upon their occasion Or what occasion had they to deny their authority who neither did usurpe any authority nor pretend to any authority They came to dispute not to judge Aderat populus Spectator futurus ac Iudex I know Constantius and venerable Bede doe call them Apostolicus Sacerdotes Apostolical Bishops not from their mission but most plainly for their Apostolical Endowments erat in illis Apostolorum instar gloria authoritas c. That Saint Gregory did send Austin into England to convert the Saxons is most true that the British Churches did suffer him to exercise any Authority or Jurisdiction over them is most untrue Touching the precise time of his coming Historiographers doe not agree exactly All accord that it was about the six hundreth year of Christ a little more or less Before this time Cyprus could not be more free from forrein Jurisdiction then Britain was After this time we confess that the Bishops of Rome by the consent or connivence of the Saxon Kings as they came to be converted by degrees did pretend to some formalities of right or authority over the English Church at first in matters of no great consequence as bestowing the Pall or the like But without the consent or against the good pleasure of the King they had no more power at all Jeoffry of Monmouth saith that Dubritius primate of Britain was Legate of the See Apostolick I should sooner have beleeved it if he had proved it out of Gildas who lived in or about the age of Dubritius then upon the credit of Ieoffry of Monmouth who lived so many hundred years after his death whose Writings have been censured as too full of Fables It were over supine credulity to give more credit to him then to the most eminent Persons and Synods of the same and the ensuing age Dubritius was Primate of Wales in the dayes of King Arthur and resigned his Archbishoprick of Caer Leon to St. David who removed his Archiepiscopall See from thence to Minevia now called St. Davids by the licence of King Arthur not of the Pope King Arthur began his reign as it is commonly computed about the year 516. perhaps something sooner or later according to different accounts But certainly after the Councell of Ephesus from whence we demonstrate our exemption And so it can neither advantage his cause nor prejudice ours We are told of store of Roman Legats yet not so much as any one act of Jurisdiction pretended to be done by any of them Certainly either they were no Papall Legates or Papall Legates in those daies were but ordinary Messengers and pretended not to any legantine Court or legantine Power such as is exercised now a dayes St. Samson saith he had a Pall from Rome wherefore untruly saith L. D. that the Pall was first introduced in the reign of the Saxon Kings after six hundred years of Christ. He mistakes my meaning altogether and my words also I said not that the first use of the Pall began after the six hundreth year of Christ but the abuse of it that is the arbitrary imposition thereof by the Popes upon the British Churches When they would not suffer an Archbishop duely ellected and invested to exercise his function untill he had bought a Pall from Rome I know the contrary that they were in use formerly But whether they were originally Ensignes of honour conferred by Christian Emperours upon the Church namely Constantine and Valentinian as is most probable or assumed by Patriarches is a disputable point This is certain other Patriarches and Archbishops under them had their Palls in the primative times which they received not from Rome This Samson was Archbishop of Wales and had his Pall But it appeareth not at all that he had it from Rome It may be that they had
Heraclea to be equall in dignitie power and all sorts of priviledges to the Bishop of Rome And this very ground is assigned by the Fathers because that Citie Constantinople was become the seat of the Empire So great a desire had the Fathers to conform the Ecclesiasticall Regiment to the Politicall Or without a Councell as Iustinian the Emperour by his sole Legislative Power erected the Patriarchate of Iustiniana prima and endowed it with a new Province substracted from other Bishops freeing it from all Appeals The like prerogatives he gave to the Bishop of Carthage notwithstanding the pretensions of the Bishop of Rome And this was not done in a corner but inserted into the publick Laws of the Empire for all the world to take notice of it So unquestionable was the power of Sovereign Princes in things concerning the Order and externall Regiment of the Church in those dayes that neither the Bishop of Rome nor any other Patriarch or Bishop did ever complain against it Shall the presence of an Exarch or Lieutenant be able to dignifie the Citie or place of his residence with Patriarchall Rites and shall not the presence and authority of the Sovereign himself be much more able to doe it Is so much respect due to the Servants and is not more due to the Master That the British and the English Kings had the same Imperiall Authority to alter Patriarchates within their own Dominions to exempt their Subjects from the Jurisdiction of one Primate and transferre them to another I shewed in the vindication by the examples of King Arthur who translated the Primacy from Caer-Leon to St. Davids above eleven hundred years since And Henry the first who subjected St. Davids to Canterbury above five hundred years since for the benefit of his Subjects Neither did any man then complain that they usurped more Power then of right did belong unto them This is not to alter the Institutions of the universall Church or of generall Councells supposing they had made any such particular establishment but on the contrarie to tread in their stepps and to pursue their grounds and to doe that with all due submission to their authority which they would have done themselves in this present exigence of Affairs Make all things the same they were and we are the same To persist in an old observation when the grounds of it are quite chaâ—ged and the end for which the observation was made calleth upon us for an alteration is not obedience but obstinacie Generall Councells did never so fixe Patriarchall Power to particular Churches as that their establishment should be like a Law of the Medes and Persians never to be altered upon any change of the Christian world whatsoever But to be changed by themselves as we see they did establish first three Protopatriarchates then four then five Or when generall Councells cannot be had which is the miserable condition of these times by such as have the Supreme Authority Civill and Ecclesiasticall in those places where the change is to be made Suppose a Patriarchall See should be utterly ruined and destroyed by warre or other accidents as some have been or should change the Bible into the Alchoran and turn Turks as others have done suppose a succession of Patriarchs should quit or resigne their Patriarchall power explicitly or implicitly or forfeit it by disufe or abuse Or should obtrude hereticall errors and Idolatrous practises upon the Churches under their Jurisdiction so as to leave no hope of remedy from their Successors Oâ— should goe about to enforce them by new Laws and Oaths to maintain their usurpations over generall Councells to which all Christians are more obliged then to any Patriarch Lastly suppose a Patriarchall Citie shall lie in the Dominions of one Prince and the Province in the Dominions of another who are in continuall warre and hostility the one with the other so as the Subjects can neither have licence nor security to make use of their Patriarch ought notthe respective Provinces in all these cases to provide for themselves Put the case that a King going to warre in the holy Land should commit the Regencie to his Councell and they constitute a Governor of a principall Citie who failes in his trust and makes the Citizens swear allegiance to himself and to maintain him against the Councell all men will judge that the Citizens should doe well if he were incorrigible to turne him out of their Gates Christ was this King who ascending into the holy of holies left the Regiment of his Church with the Apostolicall College and their Successors a generall Councell They made the Bishop of Rome a principall Governor and he rebells against them There needs no further application Now to close up this point the end is more excellent then the means The end of the primitive Fathers in establishing the externall Regiment of the Church in a conformity to the civill Government was salus Populi Christiani the ease and advantage of Christians the avoyding of confusion and the clashing of Jurisdictions We pursue the same ends with them we approve of their means in particular as most excellent for those times and in generall for all times that is the conforming of the one Regiment to the other But God alone is without any shadow of turning by change It is not in our power to prevent the conversion of sublunarie things Empires and Cities have their diseases and their deaths as well as men One is another was a third shall be Mother Cities become Villages and poor Villages become Mother Cities The places of the residence of the greatest Kings and Emperors are turned to desarts for Owles to screech in and Satyrs to dance in Then as a good Pilate must move his rudder according to the variable face of the heavens So if we will pursue the prudent grounds of the primitive Fathers we must change our externall Regiment according to the change of the Empire This is better then by adhering too strictly to the private interest of particular places to destroy that publick end for which externall Regiment at first was so established I confesse that this is most proper for a generall Councell to redress Every thing is best loosed by the same authority by which it was bound But in case of necessity where there can be no recourse to a generall Councell every Sovereign Prince within his own Dominions with the advise and concurrence of his Clergy and due submission to a future oecumenicall Councell is obliged to provide remedies for growing inconveniences and to take order that externall Discipline be so administred as may most conduce to the glorie of God and the benefit of his Christian Subjects I made three conditions of a lawfull reformation just grounds due moderation and sufficient authority He faith Henry the eight had none of these First no just ground because his ground was that the Pope would not give him leave to forsake his lawfull wife and
take another Perhaps the Popes in justice might by Gods just disposition be an occasion but it was no ground of the Reformation And if it had yet neither this nor his other exceptions doe concern the cause at all There is a great difference between bonum and bene between a good action and an action well done An action may be good and lawfull in it self and yet the ground of him that acteth it sinister and his manner of proceeding indirect as we see in Iehu's reformation This concerned King Henries person but it concerns not us at all King Henrie protested that it was his conscience they will not beleeve him Queen Katherine accused Cardinall Wolsey as the Author of it she never accused Anne Bolen who was in France when that business began The Bishop of Lincoln was imployed to Oxford Bishop Gardiner and Dr. Fox to Cambridge to see the cause debated Besides our own Universities the Universities of Paris Orleans Angew Burges Bononia Padua Tholouse and I know not how many of the most learned Doctors of that age did all subscribe to the unlawfullness of that Marriage which he calleth lawfull The Bishop of Worcester prosecuted the divorce The Bishops of York Duresme Chester were sent unto Queen Katherine to perswade her to lay aside the title of Queen The Bishops of Canterbury London Winchester Bath Lincoln did give sentence against the Marriage Bishop Bonner made the appeal from the Pope The greatest sticklers were most zealous Roman Catholicks And if wise men were not mistaken that business was long plotted between Rome and France and Cardinall Wolsey to breake the league with the Emperour and to make way for a new Marriage with the Duchess of Alenson sister to the King of France and a stricter league with that Crown But God did take the wife in their own crastiness Yea even Clement the seventh had once given out a Bull privately to declare the Marriage unlawfull and invalid if his Legate Campegius could have brought the King to comply with the Popes desires I will conclude this point with two testimonies the one of Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester Quid aliud debuit aut potuit c. What else ought the King or could the King doe then with the full consent of his People and judgment of his Church to be loosed from an unlawfull contract and to enjoy one that was lawfull and allowed and leaving her whom neither Law nor Equity did permit him to hold to apply himselfe to a chaste and lawfull marriage In which cause whereas the sentence of the Word of God alone had been sufficient to which all ought to submit without delay yet his Majestie disdained not to use the censures of the gravest men and most famous Universities The second is the testimonie of two Archbishops two Dukes three Marquesses thirteen Earls five Bishops six and twenty Barons two and twenty Abbats with many Knights and Doctors in their Letter to the Pope Causae ipsius justitia c. The justice of the cause it self being approved every where by the judgments of most learned men determined by the suffrages of most famous Universities being pronounced and defined by English French Italians as every one among them doth excell the rest in learning c. Though he call it a lawfull Marriage yet it is but one Doctors opinion And if it had been lawfull the Pope and the Clergy were more blame worthy then King Henry Secondly he faith he wanted due moderation because he forced the Parliament by fear to consent to his proceedings I have shewed sufficiently that they were not forced by their Letter to the Pope by their Sermons preached at St. Pauls Crosse by their perswasions to the King by their pointed looks to which I may add their Declaration called the Bishops Book signed by two Archbishops and nineteen Bishops Nor doe I remember to have read of any of note that opposed it but two who were prisoners and no Parliament men at that time Sir Thomas More yet when King Henry writ against Luther he advised him to take heed how he advanced the Popes authority too much left he diminished his own And Bishop Fisher who had consented in convocation to the Kings title of the Supreme Head of the English Church quantum per Christi legem licet But because Bishop Gardiner is the only witness whom he produceth for proof of this allegation I will shew him out of Stephen Gardiner himself who was the Tyrant that did compell him Quin potius orbirationem neddeâ—e volui c. I desired rather to give an account to the World what changed my opinion and compelled me to dissent from my former words and deeds That compelled me to speak it in good time which compelleth all men when God thinketh fit the force of truth to which all things at length doe obey Behold the Tyrant not Henry the eight but the force of truth which compelled the Parliament Take one testimonie more out of the same Treatise But I fortified my self so that as if I required the judgment of all my senses I would not submit nor captivate my understanding to the known and evident truth nor take it to be sufficiently proved unless I first heard it with mine eares and smelt it with my nose and see it with mine eyes and felt it with my hands Here was more of obstinacie then tyranny in the case Either Stephen Gardiner did write according to his conscience and then he was not compelled or else he dissembled and then his second testimonie is of no value It is not my judgment but the judgment of the Law it self Semel falsus semper presumitur falsus To the third condition he faith only that Henry the eight had not sufficient authority to reforme first because it was the power of a small part of the Church against the whole I have shewed the contrarie that our Reformation was not made in opposition but in pursuance of the acts of generall Councells neither did our Reformers meddle without their own spheres And secondly because the Papacy is of divine right Yet before he told us that it was doubtfull and very courteously he would put it upon me to prove that the Regiment of the Church by the Pope is of humane institution But I have learned better that the proof rests upon his side both because he maintains an affirmative and because we are in possession It were an hard condition to put me to prove against my conscience that the universall Regency of the Pope is of humane right who doe absolutely deny both his divine right and his humane right His next exception is that it is no sufficient warrant for Princes to meddle in spirituall matters because some Princes have done so If he think the externall Regiment of the Church to be a matter meerly spirituall he is much mistaken I cite not the exorbitant acts of some single
Prince or Princes but a whole succession of Kings with their convocations and Parliaments proceeding according to the fundamentall Laws of the Kingdome So he might have spared his instances of Saul and Uzziah But he faith that what King Henry did in such matters was plainly against his own conscience as appeareth by his frequent and earnest desires to be reunited to the Pope It is a bold presumption in him to take upon him to judge of another mans conscience God alone knows the secret turnings and windings of the heart of man Though he had desired a reconciliation with Rome yet charity requires that we should rather judge that he had changed his minde then that he violated his conscience Neither will this uncharitable censure if it were true advantage his cause the black of a bean His conscience might make the reformation sinfull in him but not unlawfull in it self The lawfullness or unlawfullness of the Action within it self depends not upon the conscience of the doer but the merit of the thing done His witnesses are Bishop Gardiner and Nicholas Sanders The former a great Counsellor of King Henry a contriver of the oath a propugner of the Kings Supremacy both in print and in his Sermons and a persecutor of them who opposed it For a Preacher to preach against his own conscience comes neer the sin against the holy Ghost He had reason to say he was constrained both to hide his own shame and to flatter the Pope after his revolt whom he had so much opposed especially in the dayes of Queen Marie Otherwise he had missed the Chancellership of England and it may be had suffered as a Schismatick Yet let us hear what he faith that King Henry had a purpose to resigne the Supremacy when the tumult was in the North And that he was imployed to the Emperor to desire him to be a mediator to the Pope about it All this might have been and yet no intention of reconciliation Great Princes many times look one way and row another And if an overture or an empty pretence will serve to quash a Rebellion or prevent a forrein warre will make no scruple to use it But upon Bishop Gardiners credit in this cause we cannot beleeve it This was one of them who writ that menacing Letter to the Pope just before the reformation that if he did not hear them certe interpretabimur nostri nobis curam esse relictam ut aliunde nobis remedia conquiramus they would certainly interpret it that they were left to themselves to take care of themselves to seeke their remedy from elsewhere This was a faire intimation and they were as good as their words This was the man who writ the book de vera obedientia downright for the Kings Supremacie against the Pope Lastly this is who published to the world that all sorts of People with us were agreed upon this point with most sted fast consent that no manner of person bred or brought up in England hath ought to doe with Rome It had been strange indeed that all sorts of People should be unanimous in the point and the King alone goe against his conscience His later witness Nicholas Sanders is just such another whose Book de schismate is brim full of virulent slanders and prodigious fictions against King Henry He feineth that when his death did draw nigh he began to deal privately with some Bishops of the way how he might be reconciled to the See Apostolick Testimony he produceth none but his own Authority They who will not beleeve it may chuse But that which followeth spoileth the credit of his relation That one of the Bishops being doubtfull whether this might not be a trap to catch him answered that the King was wiser then all men that he had cast off the Popes Supremacy by divine inspiration and had nothing now to fear That a King should be laying snares to catch his Bâ—shops apprepinquante hora mortis when the very hour of his death was drawing near and that a Bishop should flatter a dying man so abhominably against his conscience as he makes this to be is not credible But there is a third Author alleged by others who deserved more credit That it was but the coming two dayes short of a Post to Rome which hindred that the reconcilement was not actually made But here is a double mistake first in the time this was in the year 1533. before the separation was made currente Rota Some intimations had been given of what was intended but the Bell was not then rung out Certainly the breach must goe before the reconcilement in order of time Secondly in the Subject this treaty was not about the Jurisdiction of the Court of Rome over the English Church but about the divorce of King Henry and Queen Katherine The words are these That if the Pope would supersede from executing his sentence untill he the King had indifferent Judges who might hear the business he would also supersede of what he was deliberated to doe in withdrawing his obedience from the Roman See The Bishop of Paris procured this proposition from the King and delivered it at Rome It was not accepted The Kings answer came not within the time limited Thereupon the Pope published his Sentence and the Separation followed So this was about the change of a Wife not of Religion before either King Henrys substraction of obedience or the Popes fulmination In the next place he distinguisheth between the Pope and the Papacy acknowledging That it may be lawfull in some cases to substract obedience from the Pope but in no case from the Papacy which he presumeth but doth not prove to be of divine institution whereas Protestants saith he for the faults of some Popes have separated themselves both from Pope Papacy and Roman Church And here again he falls upon his former needless Theme That personall faults are no sufficient ground of a revolt from a good institution If he had been pleased to observe it I took away this distinction before it was made shewing that the personall faults of Popes or their Ministers ought not to reflect upon any but the persons guilty but faulty principles in Doctrine or Discipline doe warrant a more permanent separation even untill they be reformed I doe acknowledge the distinction of Pope Papacy and Church of Rome but I deny that we have separated from any one of them for the faults of another As the Pope may have his proper faults so may the Papacy so may the Church of Rome We have separated our selves from the Church of Rome only in those things wherein she had first separated her self from the ancient Roman Church In all other things we maintain communion with her We are ready to yeeld the Pope all that respect which is due to the Bishop of an Apostolicall Church and whatsoever externall honor the Fathers did think fit to cast upon that See if he
determine causes of Religion The Emperor did not trouble himself much at it But the Pope having created three Spanish Cardinals he forbad them to accept the armes or use the name or habit And not long after published a Reformation of the Clergy conteining twenty three points First of Ordination and Election of Ministers Secondly of the Office of Ecclesiasticall Orders Thirdly of the Office of Deans and Canons Fourthly of Canonicall hours Fifthly of Monasteries Sixtly of Schools and Universities Seventhly of Hospitals Eighthly of the Office of a Preacher Ninthly of the Administration of the Sacraments Tenthly of the Administration of Baptism Eleventhly of the Administration of Confirmation Twelfthly of Ceremonies Thirteenthly of the Masse Fourteenthâ—y of the Administration of Penitence Fifteenthly of the Administration of extreme Unction Sixteenthly of the Administration of Matrimomy Seventeenthly of Ecclesiasticall Ceremonies Eighteenthly of the Discipline of the Clergy and People Nineteenthly of plurality of Benefices Twentithly of the Discipline of the People One and twentithly of Visitations Two and twentithly of Councels Three and twentithly of Excommunication Charles the fifth and the German Dyet did assume to themselves a Legislative power in Ecclesiasticall causes None of our Princes was ever more devoted to Rome then Queen Mary yet when Paul the 4 th revoked Cardinall Poolos Legantine power in England and designed one Petus a Franciscan to come Legate in his place She shut all the Ports of England against all messengers from Rome and commanded all the Briefs and Bulls to be taken from the bearers and delivered unto her So well was she satisfied that no Roman Legate hath any thing to doe in England without the Princes licence But I have brought instances enough untill he be pleased to take notice of them To all which he returns no answer but these generall words Seeing L. D. hath alleged diverse facts of Catholick Princes in disobeying Papall Authority and thence inferreth that they did as much as King Henry who not only disobeyed but denied Papall Authority let us allege both more ancient and greater Emperors who have professed that they had no Authority in Ecclesiasticall causes and avowed Papall Authority After this rate he may survey the whole World in a few minutes Let the Reader judge whether I have not just cause to call upon him for an answer Are they only diverse facts of Catholick Princes By his leave they are both facts and decrees and constitutions and Laws and Canons of the most famous Emperors and Princes of Christendome with their Dyets and Parliaments and Synods and Councels and Universities Or doth it seem to him that they only disobeyed Papall Authority When he reads them over more attentively he will finde that they have not only disobeyed Papall Authority but denied it as he saith Henry the 8 th did in all the principall parts and branches of it which are in controversie between them and us Nay they have not only denied to the Pope that which he cals Papall Authority to Convocate Synods to confirm Synods to make Ecclesiasticall Laws to dispose of Ecclesiasticall preferments to receive the last Appeals in Ecclesiasticall causes but they have exercised it themselves They have disposed of the Papacy they have deposed the Popes they have shut out his Legates they have Appealed from his sentences they have not suffered their Subjects to goe upon his Summons they have caused his Decrees to be torn in pieces most disgracefully and made Edicts and Statutes and pragmaticall sanctions against his usurpations they have regulated the Clergy and reformed the Churches within their Dominions And when they thought fit during their pleasures they have stopped all entercouse with Rome The Kings of Spain suffer no more Appeals from Sicily to the Court of Rome then our Princes from England and exercise all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdction by Delegates which certainly neither they nor other Princes would doe if they did at all believe that the Papacy was an universall Spirituall Monarchy instituted by Christ. But it seemeth that he delighteth more in the use of his sword then of his buckler and in stead of repelling my arguments he busieth himself in making new knots for me to untie He knows well that this is no logicall proceeding And I might justly serve him with the same sauce But I seek only the clear discovery of truth and will pursue his steppes throughout his oppositions The first thing that he objecteth to me is the oath of Supremacy made by King Henry and his Church in which oath saith he are sworn five things First that the King of England is not only Governor but only and supreme Governor Secondly not only in some but in all ecclesiasticall things and causes Thirdly as well in all ecclesiasticall causes as temporall Fourthly that no forrein Prelate hath any spirituall Iurisdiction in England Fifthly all forrein Iurisdiction is renounced This he is pleased to call the first new Creed of the English Protestant Church by which it is become both hereticall and schismaticall Before I give a distinct answer to this objection it will be needfull in the first place to put him in minde of some things which I have formerly demonstrated to him touching this particular which he hath been pleased to pass by in silence First who it was that first presented this Title to King Henry Archbishop Warrham whom Sanders calleth an excellent man and a Popish Convocation Secondly who confirmed this Title unto him Four and twenty Bishops and nine and twenty Abbats in Parliament none dissenting There was not one Protestant among them all Thirdly who were the flatterers of King Henry that preached up his Supremacy and printed books in defence of this Supremacy and set forth Catachismâ—s to instruct the Subjects and teach them what the Supremacy was who contrived and penned this very Oath and were the first that took it themselves and incited all others to take it even Bishop Gardiner Tonstall Heath Bonner Stokesley Thurelby c. all R. C. his Friends the greatest Opposers of the reformation and the roughest Persecuters of Protestants Lastly consider what I cited out of Cardinall Poole That God the Father hath assigned this Office to Christian Emperors that they should act the part of Christ the Son of God And again the Pope as a Priestly Head doth execute the Office of Christ the true Head but we may also truly say that the Emperour doth execute the Office of Christ as a Kingly Head These things being premised to dull the edge of his argument now I proceed to a direct answer and first I charge him with chopping and changing the words of the Oath The words of the Oath are these That the Kings Highness is the only supreme Governor in this Realm But in paraphrasing upon them and pressing them he renders them thus not only Governor but only and supreme Governor There is a vast difference between these two to say the King is the only
prescribed to the Bishops those things which did pertain to the profit of the Churches He referred the cause of Caecilianus an Ecclesiasticall cause to Miltiades Bishop of Rome and Marcus and Rhetecius and Maternus and Marinus as his Delegates or Commissioners visum est mihi it hath seemed good to me c. He accepted Appeals from the judgment of the Bishops He commanded Caecilianus to repair to Anilinus the Proconsul and Patritius Vicar of the Prefects as deputed and authorised by him as Judges to doe justice upon Ecclesiasticall Delinquents He sent for the Bishops assembled by his commandement at a Councell first at Tyrus then at Hierusalem that they should repaire with speed to Constantinople evestigio ad castra nostra maturetis to give an account to him of their actions and to shew how sincerely they had behaved themselves in their judgments In a word he medled so much in Ecclesiasticall affaires that he made himself as a common Bishop constituted by God I will conclude with his own profession in an Epistle to the Nicomedians If we have chaste and orthodox Bishops and endowed with humanitie we rejoyce but if any one shall audaciously and unadvisedly be vehemently affected to the memory and praise of those pests Eusebius and other Bishops he shall straight be repressed by my execution as the Minister of God And accordingly they were spoyled of their dignities and cast out of the Cities His second witness is Valentinian in an Epistle to Theodosius but which Valentinian which Theodosius where this Epistle is to be found he is silent and leaveth us if it were worth the labour to seek for a needle in a bottle of hay But the truth is there is nothing in it which concerneth this question nothing which we deny The words as they be alleged by him are these All antiquity hath given the Principality of Priesthood over all to the Bishop of the City of Rome Our question is concerning the Politicall Principality of Kings and Emperours and his answer is concerning the Principality of Priesthood Let them retain their Principality of Priesthood so they leave to Sovereign Princes their just Principality of Power We are ready to give them a principality of Priesthood if that would content them And neither all antiquity nor any antiquity did ever give them a principality of Power Or at least such a Supremacy of single sovereign monarchichall Power as they require about which our controversie now is A Lord chief Justice hath a principality of Order among his brother Judges of the same Coyfe and Bench and in some circumstantiall respects a kinde of eminency or principality of Power but no single supremacy so as to be able to crosse their votes with a non obstante Such a supremacy of sovereing single universall power of Priesthood the Church of God did never know either at Rome or elsewhere The Bishops of Rome were so farre from having power over generall Councells that they had no single power over their fellow Patriarchs So farre from having power over Emperours that they have been delegated by Emperours as their Commissioners in Ecclesiasticall causes have been convened before Emperors and deposed by Emperors Primitive Bishops use to stile Popes their brethren their collegues their fellows but never Ecclesiasticall Princes If he mean the second Valentinian his authority weighs nothing he was a young Novice mis-led by his Arrian Mother a wilfull ill-advised woman If he mean another Valentinian I shall shew him that he exercised this politicall Supremacy in Ecclesiasticall affaies it may be to the questioning of his Prince of Priests His third witness is Theodosius the younger in his Epistle to the Synod of Ephesus his words are these It is not lawfull for him that is not a Bishop to meddle with Ecclesiasticall matters Yet he did meddle with Ecclesticall matters This is that Theodosius that argued with the Bishops upon the holy Scriptures as if himself had been a Bishop This is that Theodosius which made this following Law We decree that who follow the ungodly faith of Nestorius or obey his wicked Doctrine if they be Bishops be cast out of the holy Churches but if Lay men anathematized This is that Theodosius that convocated the generall Councell of Ephesus by his Authority Royall and sent Candidianus thither to be his Deputy among other things set diligenter inspiceret c. to look diligently to the behaviours of the Bishops so see that no dissensions did arise among them to disturbe the consultations of Synods and to represse them likewise otherwise he might as well have staid at home Among the instructions of Theodosius given to Candidianus are the words alleged Candidianum ad banc sacram Synodum abire jussimus sed eae lege c. We command Candidianus to goe to this holy Synod but upon this condition that he should have nothing to doe with questions and controversies which concern Doctrines of faith for it is unlawfull for one not registred in the catalogue of Bishops to thrust himself into ecclesiasticall affairs and consultations This is as much as to say that Candidianus was not sent by the Emperour to dispute in the Councell about Theologicall questions which it is probable he did not understanding nor to overawe the Bishops or controlle their votes We are of the same minde with Theodosius and say as much as he that it is not fit for every man promiscuously to dispute of Theologicall questions And though we give the severeign Regiment of the Church in some sense to Princes within their own Dominions yet we would not have them to govern it upon their own heads but upon mature advise of free Synods of Ecclesiasticall persons who are their proper Counsellors in Church affairs All men know that Candidianus could have no decisive voice in a generall Councell So we would not have Princes meddle with the Keyes of the Church either the Key of Knowledge or the Key of Order We confesse that some causes in the first instance belong properly to Bishops yet the last Appeal may be to the King We say there are many things which Kings cannot doe in their own persons and yet may be done by fit Delegates by their Royall authority His fourth witness is Valentinian the elder It is not lawfull for me who am of the People to search curiously such matters let Priests who have care of these things meet where they please The case was this Valentinian had associated his Brother Valens with him in the Empire Valens was an Arrian Valentinian an orthodox Christian yet so as he troubled not those who were of a contrary Opinion He being at this time in his voyage through Thracia towards Rome the orthodox Bishops about the Hellespont and in Bythinia sent their Depuities unto him to request him to give them leave to assemble together in Councell for the establishment of the right Faith wherein they acknowledged him
land when soever these were infringed or an attempt made to destroy them as the liberties of the Crowne and Church of England had then been invaded by the Pope it was the manner to restore them or to declare them by a statute which was not operative to make or create new law but declarative to manifest or to restore ancient law This I told him expressely in the vindication and cited the judgement of our greatest Lawyers Fitz Herbirt and my Lord Cook to prove that this very statute was not operative to create new law but declarative to restore ancient law This appeareth undeniably by the statute it self That England is an Empire and that the King as head of the body politicke consisting of the spirituality and temporality hath plenary power to render finall Iustice for all matters Here he seeth expressely that the dolitcall supremacy or headship of the King over the spirituality as well as temporality which is all that we assert at this day was the an e nt fundamentall law of England And lest hâ—e should accuse this Parliament of partialiâ—y I produced another that was more ancient The Crowne of England hath been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately subjected to God in all things touching it's Regality and to no other and ought not to be submitted to the Pope Here the Kings politicall Supremacy under God is declared to be the fundamentall Law of the Land Let him not say that this was intended onely in temporall matters for all the grievances mentioned in that statute are expressely Ecclesiasticall What was his meaning to conceal all this and much more and to accuse me of impudence Secondly he saith that I bring diverse allegations wherein the Popes pretences were not admitted or where the Pope is expressely denied the power to do such and such things Do we professe the Pope can pretend no more then his right Doth he think a legitimate authority is rejected when the particular faults of them that are in authority are resisted He stileth the Authorities by me produced meer Allegations yet they are as authentick Records as England doth afford But though he be willing to blanch over the matter in generall expressions of the Popes pretences and such or such things as if the controversy had been onely about an handfull of goats wool I will make bold to represent some of the Popes pretences and their declarations against them And if he be of the same mind with his Ancestours in those particulars he and I shall be in a probable way of reconciliation as to this question They declared that it was the custom or common law of the land ut nullus praeter licentiam Regis appelletur Papa that no Pope might be appealed unto without the Kings licence They made a law that if any one were found bringing in the Popes letters or mandates into the kingdome let him be apprehended and let justice passe upon him without delay as a Traitor to the King and kingdome They exercised a legislative power in all ecclesiasticall causes concerning the external subsistence Regiment and regulating of the Church over all Ecclesiastical persons in all ages as well of the Saxon as of the Norman Kings They permitted not the Pope to endow Vicars nor make spiritual corporations nor exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary nor appropriate Churches nor to dispose Benefices by lapse nor to receive the revenues in the vacancy but the King did all these things as I shewed at large in the vindication They permitted not the Popes canon law to have any place in England further then they pleased to receive it They gave the king the last appeal of all his subjects they ascribed to him the patronage of Bishopricks and investitures of Bishops They suffered no subject to be cited to Rome without the Kings license They admitted no Legates from the Pope but meerly upon courtesy and if any was admitted he was to take his oath to doe nothing derogatory to the King or his Crowne If any man did denounce the Popes excommunication in England without the Kings consent or bring over the Popes bull he forfeited all his goods So the laws of England did not allow the Pope to cite or excommunicate an English Subject nor dispose of an English Benefice nor send a Legate a latere orso much as an authoritative bul into England nor to reâ—eive an appeal out of England without the kings license But saith he To limit an authority implies an admittance of it in cases to which the rsstraints extend not This was not meerly to limit an authority but to deny it VVhat lawfull Jurisdiction could remain to him in England who was not permitted by law to receive any appeal thence nor to send any Citation or sentence thither nor execute any authority over an English Subject either at Rome by himself or in England by his deputies without licence That he exercised all these acts at sometimes there is no doubt of it But he could not exercise them lawfully without consent Give us the same limitation which our Ancestours alwayes claimed that no forraign authority shall be exercised in England withour leave and then give the Pope as much authority as you please volenti non fit injuria consent takes away error He is not wronged who gives leave to another to wrong him He demandeth first were not those bawes in force in the beginning of Henry the eighths raign Yes but it is no strange matter to explaine or confirm or renew ancient laws upon emergent and subsequent abuses as we see in magna Charta the statute of proviso's and many other Statutes Secondly he asketh whether we began our Religion there that is at that time when these ancient lawes were made no I have told him formerly that these statutes were onely declarative what was the ancient common law of the kingdome VVe began our Religion from Joseph of Arimathea's time before they had a Church at Rome But it is their constant use to make the least reformation to be a new Religion Lastly he enquireth whether there be not equivolent laws to these in France Spaine Germany and Italy it self and yet they are Catholicks and hold communication with the Pope Yes there are some such laws in all these places by him mentioned perhaps not so many but the liberties of the French Church are much the same with the English as I have shewed in the vindication And therefore the Popes friends do exclude France out of the number of these Countries which they term Pays d' obedience loyall Countries VVhat â—use some other Countries can make of the Papacy more then we in England concerns not me nor this present discourse And here to make his conclusion answerable to his preface in this section he cries out How ridiculous how impudent a manner of speaking is this to force his Readers to renounce their eyes and
Beatissimus et Apostolicus vir Papa hoc nobis praecipit Nec additur Leo aut Romanus aut nobis Romae aut aliquid aliud When the word Pope is put alone the Bishop of Rome onely is to be understood as appeareth out of the Councel of Chalcedon The most blessed and Apostolical man the Pope doth command us this Neither is there added Pope Leo or the Pope of Rome or the Pope of the City of Rome or any other thing His second exception hath no more weight then the former That there was no such Bishoprick as Caerleon in those dayes the See being translated 50. years before that to St. Davids Where is the contradiction The name of the old Diocess is Caerleon The new See or Throne was the new Abby Church erected aâ— Menevia which place posterity called St. Davids But St. Davids could not be called St. Davids whilst he himself lived nor afterward until custome and tract of time had confirmed such an appellation Some would make us believe that St. David and St. Gregâ—ry dyed upon the same day and then he was still living when Dinoth gave this answer But let that be as it will for it is not much material St. David after the Translation of his See dyed Archbishop of Caerleon Tunc obiâ—t sanctissimus urbis Legionum Archiepiscopus David in Meneviae Civitate c. Then dyed the most holy Archbishop of Caerleon St. David in the City of Menevia And long after his death it still reteined the name of Caerleon even after it was commonly called St. Davids So much Sr. Henry Spilman might have put him in mind of Discesserat ante haec dignitas a Caerlegione ad Landâ—viam sub Dubrâ—tio et mox â— Landavia ad Meneviam cum sancto Davide c. Sed retento pariter Caerlegionis titulo And least he should account Sr. Henry Spilman partial Let him hear Giraldus Cambrensis Habuimus apud Meneviam Vrbis legionum Archiepiscopos successive viginti quinque quorum primus fuit sanctus David c. We had at Menevia five and twenty Archbishops of Caerleon whereof St. David was the first What can be more plain should a man condemn every Author forcounterfeit wherein St. Albans is called Verolam presently after St. Albans death It is an ordinary thing for the same City to have two names and much more the same Bishoprick one from the old See another from the new or one from the Diocess another from the See as the Bishop of Ossory or Kilkenny indifferently His third exception is so slight that I cannot find the edge of it because Sr. Henry Spilman found no other antiquity in it worth the mention which shrewdly implyes that the Book was made for this alone And how doth he know that Sr. Henry Spilman found no other antiquities in it There might be many other British Antiquities in it And yet not proper for a collection of Ecclesiastical Councels Or if there had been no other Antiquity in it Would he condemn his Creed for a counterfeit because it is not hudled together confusedly with some other Treatises in one volume But to demonstrate evidently to him how vain all his trifling is against the testimony of Dionothus Why doth he not answer the coroberatory proof which I brought out of venerable Bede and others of two Brittish Synods held at the same time wherein all the Brittish Clergy did renounce all obedience to the Bishop of Rome of which all our hystoriographers do bear witness Why doth he not answer this but pass by it in so great silence He might as well accuse this of forgery as the other since it is so well attested that Dionothus was a great actor and disputer in that business Sect. 5. In my sixth Chapter I proved three things First that the King and Church of England had sufficient authority to withdraw their obedience from the Roman Patriarch Secondly that they had just grounds to do it And thirdly that they did it with due moderation Concerning the first point he chargeth me the second time for insisting upon a wrong Plea that is their Patriarchal Authority which he confesseth to be humane and mutable I have formerly intimated why they are so loath to entertaine any discourse concerning the Popes Patriarchate because they know not how to reconcile a Monarchy of divine institution with an Aristocracy of humane Institution When I first undertook this subject I conceived that the great strength of the Roman Sampson did lye in his Patriarchate But since this Refuter quitteth it as the Pope himself hath done not for six hundred years onely he speaks too sparingly but for a thousand years ever since Phocas made Boniface universal Bishop I am well contented to give over that subject upon these two conditions First that he do not presume that the Pope is a spiritual Monarch without proving it Secondly that he do not attempt to make Patriarchal Priviledges to be Royal Prerogatives Yet he will not leave this humane Right before we have resolved him three questions First saith he suppose the Christian world had chosen to themselves one head for the preservation of unity in Religion What wrongs must that head do to be sufficient grounds both for the deposition of the person and abolition of the Government Nay put the case right Suppose the Christian World should chuse one for order sake to be their President or Prolocuter in their General Assembly and he should endeavour to make himself their Prince upon some fained Title Did not he deserve to be turned out of his employment if they found it expedient to have another chosen in his place Secondly He supposeth that this alteration should be made by some one party of the Christian Commonwealth which must separate it self from the communion of the rest of Christianity Ought not far weightier causes then these to be expected One mistake begets another as one circle in the water doth produce anotherâ— We have made no such separation from any just Authority instituted by the Catholick Church We nourish a more Catholick Communion then themselves But if our Steward will forsake us because we will not give him leave to become our Master who can help it Thirdly He supposeth that by setting aside this Supreme Head eternal dissentions will inevitably follow in the whole Church of Christ and then demandeth Whether the refusal to comply with the humours of a lustful Prince be ground enough to renounce so necessary an Authority How should the refusal to comply be any such ground Certainly he means the compliance with the humors of a lustful Prince I pass by the extravagancy of the expression Whatsoever they have said or can say concerning Henry the eighth so far as it may reflect upon the Church of England is cleared in my reply to R.C. First He begs the question Christ never instituted the Apostles never constituted the Catholicke Church never acknowledged any such Supreme Head of Power and
Alan Apol. c. 4. p. 59. Sond de Schism p 103 b. Denique nulla in re a side Catholica discessit nisi libidinis luxuâ—iâ— causa Sect. 4. A full justification of our penall Laws L 3. L. 1. de Orator Leg. 12. tal Aen Gaz. in Theo. phâ—asium Cont Aristâ—câ—aetem Timocratem Sand de Schis l. 1. Camd Annal Eliz. l. 2. p. 7. Id. l. 2. p. 98. Id l 4. p. 145 p. 150. p 164. Câ—md Annal l 3 p. 11 Ibid. l. 3. p. 44. l. 3. p. 74. Camd. An. l. 3. p. 132 Apol. Marc. p. 329. Camd. An. l 3. p. 11. Apr. 1. El. 23. ex Apol. Mart. Edm. Camp epist. ad Conc. R. Aug. pag. 127. Camb. Annal Eliz an 1581. Camb. Annal. Eliz an 1581. Sect. 1. The Kings of England alwaies politicall Heads of the English Church Not only acts of Papall Power but the Power it self contrary to our Laws Jurisdiction is from Ordination but Princes apply the matter Jurisdidiction enlarged and fortified with coercive power by Princes Henry the eighth not exempt from the power of the Keyes An. 25. H. 8. C. xxi Sect. 2. Saint Wilfrid Spel. conc An. 705. Bed l. 5. Ecc. hist c. 20. St. Austin and his â— Fellowes Bed l. 2. c 4. Bed l. 1. e. 25. See Speed l. 6 c. 9. 11.22 Fed. l. 1. c. 29. Bed l. 2. c. 2. Bed l. 2. c. 4. St. Melit L. 2. c. 4. Ibidem Bed l. 3. c 29. An Aâ—ch bâ—shop sent from Rome L. 4 c. 1. Bed l. 3. c 25. St. Peter Poâ—ter of Heaven Camd. Brit. p. 165. St Peter Superior to Saint Paul L. 2. Flor. c. 11. St. Peter a Monarch Bed l. 4 c. 18. John the precentor Malm. l 2â— Reg. c 9. Bishoprickâ— erâ—cted in England by the Pope answered Wil Malmes l. 1. Reg. c. 6. L. 2â— Floâ— c. 11. Edgar apud Ealred in orati ad Episcopos withred a pud Speim Conc p. 192 Clergy-men not exempted from seculaâ— Judges Plat. in politico Ibâ—dem 〈◊〉 Ser. 25 in 14 c 〈◊〉 Rome hath no certainâ—y of iâ—tallibilitiâ— Bell. de Ro. Pont. l. 4. â— 4. Aclred de vita Mirac Edw. Conf. superseriptions to Popes 2 Cor. 11. 28. Aclred ibidem Walsing Aâ— 133 How the Pope presideth above all Creatures Wâ—lsiâ—g â— An 1343. 25 E. 3. Wals. An. 1343. Wals. ibidem Aust. Ep. 50. Sect. 2. Patriarchs indâ—pâ—ndent upon a single Superior Socrat. l. 2. â— 11 Cypr. Epist. l. 1. Ep. 3. Conc. â—â—hâ—sia part 1. act 7. Bâ—itain enjoyed the Cyprian pâ—iviledge Math Paris in H 3. an 1238. Itineâ—az Caâ—â—b l 2. c 1. Bellarmine maâ—â—s the Apostles all equal in power I. 4 de Rom. Pont. c. 23. L. 4 de Ro. pont c. 16. L 1. de Ro Pont. c. 12. Cypr. de unit Ecclesiae Cont. Iovin l. 1. c. 14. How Peter head of the rest A superiority of Order is sufficient to prevent Schisme The rest Pastors as well as Peter De Rom. Pont. l. 4. c. 25. l. 1. c. 9. Sect. 2. Universality an incommunicable qualification of the Apostles 9 c. 8. s. 2. Bel l. 4. de Ro. Pont c â—4 All Episcopall jurisdiction is not derived from the Pope Sect. 3. The Chair of St. Peter not fixed to Rome by Divine right l. 2. de Pont. Ro. c. 12. Bel. de Pont. Ro. l. â—â— c. 23. Io 21.18 Bel de Râ— Poâ— 2. c. 12. Ibidem Nor by humane right Sect. 4. Gild. in Prol. Whether St. Peter converted Britain Onuph Of Eleutherius his sending into Engand And Victors into Scotland Ninian Bed l. 3â— c. 4. Palladius and S. Patrick Bed in viâ—a St. Patriâ— l. 1. Germanus and Lupus Prosp. in Chron. Constant de vita Germ. l. 1. Bed l 1. c. 17. Baron an 429. Constant l. c. 19. Idem c. 23 Austine Dubritius St. Samson Vind. p. 150. Pol. Virg. l 13 hist. Angl. Itiâ— Camb l. 1. c. 1. Râ—g â—â—ved An. anno 1â—99 King Iames. Matrix Ecclesia Sect. 5. Bed l. 2. c. 2. â—ed l. 3. c. 25. Vind. p. 115 116. Aqui. ◠〈◊〉 2.2 quaest 88. Art 2. 10. A King hath all power needfull for the preservation of his Kingdome A respective necessity is a sufficient ground of a Reformation Act. 15.28 Act. 21 20 Senec. Our Reformation was necessary Hall 24. Hen. 8. sol 205. The Regiment of the Church conformed to that of the Commonwealth conc chalc c. 11. vel 12. Dist. 99. In gain or losse all circumstances to be considered 1 Pet. 1.7 Our Reformation not contrary to the Decrees of generall Councels Novell 11 131. p. 127. But in pur suance of them King Henries Divorce lawfull but no ground of the Reformation Hall in Hen. 8. an 20. sol 180. b. an 21 f. 182. All the Cardinals of Rome opposed the Dispensation Hall An. 1. H. 8. Acworth emt Sand 1 2. c 13. 14 Hall An. 19. H 8. fâ—l 161. Sand de Schism p. 11. 12. Steph. Wint. de vera Obedientia apnd Gild. t. 1. p. 721. Ld. Cherb in Hen 8. An 1530. p. 303. Sufficere sant alioqui debuisset causae ipsius c. The Parliament not forced Idem p. 334. Anno. 1530. De vera Obedien tia Ibâ—dem p. 719. King Henry did not act against conscience c 3. s. 5. Ld. Cherb H. 8. an 1530. p. 305. Consilio divino Sand. de Sâ—hism p. 102. Lord Cherb fol. 398. P 128. Our separation from the Papacy was not for the faults of Popes but of the Papacy it self Luk. 13.7 whether Popes have done more good or hurt to England not materiall 2 King 18.4 Sect. 2. Conc. Turor Râ—sp ad Art 3. 48. It was lawfull to withdraw obedience from Papâ—ll Authority corrupted Princes the last Judges of the injuries done to their Subjâ—cts by Popes Bish. Epist. ad Reg. Iocob p. 11. Rom. 13.1 2. Prov. â— 15 Kingly Authority from God not Papal Sect. 3. The grounds of our sâ—paration An. 30. Sect. 4. The Popes new Articles of Faith a just cause of separation The deâ—â—ining of the Cup in the Sacrament a just cause of separation Odoardus Barlosa forma Celebrandi c. Papists right Heirs of the Donatists Optat. l. 2. Whether Protestants and Papists differ in Essentials Psal. 139.16 Sect. 5. Papists acknowledge possibility of our salvation as much as we of theirs Sect. 6. Our separation only from errors Math. 15.9 We arrogate to our selves no new Church c. Whether our Religion be the same with theirs or not we are no Schismaticks Quaest 14. de side Aâ—t 1. Justification by speciall faâ—â—h no Aâ—â—icle of our Church Probl. 22. Probl. 26. Our negatives no Articles of Faith Sect. 7. An implicite submission to the Catholick Church sufficient to salvation 〈…〉 Papists agree not what is their infallâ—ble proponent Aust. epist. 48. The name of Catholick from universall Communion not right beleefe c. 2 sect 6. More dangerous to exclude then to include others in our Communion The politick Supremacy of Princes in
make that proposition hereticall in it self which was not ever hereticall nor increase the necessary Articles of the Christian Faith either in number or substance What I said is undeniable true First in it self That is in its own nature without any reference to the authority of a Councel And necessary Articles of the Christian Faith that is absolutely and simply necessary for all Christians If the proposition were hereticall in it self then they that held it before the Councel were Hereticks as well as they who hold it after the Councel And that is a necessary Article of the Christian Faith without the actuall belief whereof Christians could never be saved This is sufficient to answer his objection But for the Readers satisfaction I adde moreover that the Romanists believe a generall Councel not only to be fallible without the concurrence and confirmation of the Pope whose priviledge and prerogative the most of them doe make the fole ground of the Churches infallibility but also without his concurrenee to have often erred actually But with the concurrence and confirmation of the Pope they make the determination of a generall Councel to be infallible On the other side we know no such infallibility of the Pope but the contrary After Stephen had taken up the body of Formosus his predecessor out of his grave spoiled him of his pontificall Attire cut off his two Fingers and cast his body into Tybur it became an usuall thing with the following Popes either to enfringe or abrogate the acts of their predecessors Neither was this act of Stephen an errour meerly in matter of fact but principally in matter of Faith that the Episcopall character is deleble We know no such confirmation neâ—dfull nor of any more force then the single Vote of a prime Bishop of an Apostolicall Church And therefore we give the same priviledges to a Councell unconfirmed which they acknowledge to be fallible and to a Councell confirmed by the Pope We have no assurance that all generall Councells were and ever shall be so prudently mesnaged and their proceedings allwaies so orderly and upright that we dare make all their sentences a sufficient conviction of all Christians which they are bound to beleeve under pain of damnation If R C. be not of my mind others of his own Church have been and are at this day When I forbear to cite because I presume it will not be denyed In summe I know no such virtuall Church as they fancy Antiquity never knew it I owe obedience at least of acquiescence to the representative Church and I resolve for ever to adhere to the best of my understanding to the united Communion of the whole essentiall Church which I beleeve to be so far infallable as is necessary for atteining that end for which Christ bestowed this priviledge that is salvation Neither let him think that I use this as an artifice or subterfuge to decline the authority of generall Councells I know none we need to fear And I doe freely promise to reject the authority of none that was truly generall which he shall produce in this question As for occidentall Councels they are farre from being generall My other supposed error is that I say That though a Christian cannot assent in his judgement to every decree of a generall Councell yet he ought to be silent and possess his soul in patience That is untill God give another opportunity and another Councell sit wherein he may lawfully with modesty and submission propose his reasons to the contrary This he saith is to binde men to be Hypocrites and Dissemblers in matter of Religion and by their silence to suppress and bury divine Truth and brings them within the compass of Saint Pauls Woe woe be unto me if I evangelise not Excellent Doctrine and may well serve for a part of the Rebells Catechism Because my Superior is not infallible if I cannot assent unto him must I needs oppose him publickly or otherwise be guilty of Hypocrisie and Dissimulation If he shall think fit in discretion to silence all dispute about some dangerous questions am I obliged to tell the world that this is to suppress or bury divine Truth If he shall by his authority suspend a particular Pastor from the exercise of his pastorall Office must he needs preach in defiance of him or else be guilty of St. Pauls Woe Woe be unto me because I preach not the Gospell I desire him to consult with Bellarmine All Catholicks doe agree that if the Pope alone or the Pope with a particular Councell doe determine any controversie in Religion whether he can erre or whether he can not erre he ought to be heard obediently of all Christians May not I observe that duty to a generall Councell which all Roman Catholicks doe pay to the Pope or is there a less degree of obedience than passive obedience Certainly these things were not well weighed Where I say that by the Church of England in this question I understand that Church which was derived by lineall succession from Brittish English Scotish Bishops by mixt ordination as it was legally established in the daies of Edward the sixth and flourished in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth King Iames and King Charles and now groans under the heavy Yoke of persecution to let us see what an habit of alteration is he excepts against every word of this First against the lineall succession because none of these ancient Bishops taught justification by faith alone This is an argument from the Staffe to the Corner I speak of a succession of holy Orders and he of a succession of Opinions And when the matters come to be searched to the bottom he will be found at a default here also Those ancient Bishops held the same justification by faith that we doe In the next place he excepts against mixt Ordination as partly Papisticall partly Protestanticall He erres the whole Heavens breadth from my meaning Before Austin preached to the Saxons there were in Britain ancient British Bishops and ancient Scotish Bishops who had their severall lines of succession to which Austin added English Bishops and so made a third succession These three were distinct at first but afterwards in tract of time they came to be mixed and united into one succession So as every English Bishop now derives his succession from British Scotish and English Bishops This is the great Bug-bear of mixt Ordination He tells us that King Edward the sixth was a Child He mistakes Kings are never Children nor Minors whilest they have good Tutors and good Councellers was he more a Child than King Iehoash and yet the Church was reformed during his minority This was no Childish Act thanks to Iehoiada a good Uncle and Protector He demands how that Church was legally established in King Edwards daies which was established contrary to the liking of the most and best of the Bishops whereof divers were cast in Prison for not