but upon the conditions which pleases himself Which answer likewise serves for all Hospitals and such like pious Houses founded by the King The third example of the Abbot of Buries exemption by the King is Recorded without particular circumstances and so must stand for an example of the Kings execution or command to the secular Magistrate to proceed accordingly but proves nothing That the King did it without consent of the Bishop under whom it was These are all the cases of secular exemptions produced by that learned Lawyer which you see are pure examples of the Kings exempting either with the Bishops consent or by title of asking what conditions he thought fit to annex to his own Liberalities as every private person may or at most alleaged so abstractedly that any of these or many other causes may justly be supposed to have intervened But I mistake there is yet one more to which the Doctor thought good to give a particular efficacy by citing the very words of the Charter which are these Hoc regali authoritate Episcoporum ac Baronum attestatione constituo I appoint this by my royal Authority with the attestation of my Bishops and Barons But had the Doctor remembred he had named this King before William the Conqueror he would have understood that Regali Authoritate signified as much as in the first of Kings doth that famous phrase Ius Regis that is the power of the sword the power of taking away any mans goods and giving them to another the power of doing all wrong as is not onely known of the Conquerors other proceedings but even out of this fact taking the goods of a Bishop and the provision ordained for Souls and attributing them to an Abbey And this by the very words of the Charter without any course of Law or consent of any Justice or power in the Commonwealth So that our Doctor has brought us in a very special example for Henry the Eighth the worst of his Successors to imitate and justifie his Spiritual Authority by To that which he affirms of the Chatholick German Emperors the Kings of France and England that they claimed to be founders of all Bishopricks in their Dominions and Patrons of them to bestow them by investiture I answer they did very well to found as many as they pleased that is to enrich and enlarge the Church with Episcopal Revenues by their pious Donations and when they have done to claim deservedly the Advowsons and present whom they please to be invested by the Church whom yet if they be found unworthy the Church rejects notwithstanding the Kings presentation and authority and consequently this is done by the consent of the Church Neither is this annexed to the Kingly dignity onely as a particular badg of his Authority over the Church but even private Subjects when either themselves or their Ancestors have founded some Ecclesiastical Benefice challenge to themselves the Advowsons without any prejudice to the Church who allows it reasonable that the Friends of the Donors should rather enjoy that benefit then others Unless perhaps the persons be found unfit which in that case obliges the Church to use her Authority by interposing her resusal This therefore private persons can do as well as Kings and yet I hope the Doctor will not say That all those are Lords and Heads of the Church Lastly he might as well have made mention of the Pope and Clergies ressistance to Kings that usurped the investitures as of the others claiming of them both being equally notorious in History and the Princes in the end having yeelded that their pretence was unjust Next he tells us the Kings of France and England claimed a just right that no Legate from Rome could use Iurisdiction here without their leave What a terrible business is this Or what follows hence None can imagine but the Dr. himself who certainly had some meaning in it or other They did so indeed and so do Catholick Kings sometimes to this day who yet communicate with the Church and are accounted obedient sons as long as they proceed with due moderation But that they did it in disacknowledgment of the Popes Supremacy or that the Legate brought not his Jurisdiction with him from Rome but was glad to receive it of the King ere he could use it this the Doctor will never be able to make good Nay they were so far from denying the Popes Authority even in this kinde That our Kings of England procured of the Pope that the Archbishop of Canterbury should be Legatus Natus But now the Doctor hath resolved me of my former doubt which was with what art possible he could make these imperfect Testimonies serve his purpose adding here immediately these words All these put together are a foundation for this power of the Princes to erect or translate a Patriarchate As if he should have said Though there be not one word in any single Testimony expresly manifesting That it is principally the Kings power or excluding the Churches yet I have produced many things little to the purpose if considered in their single selves which notwithstanding I would intreat you to believe that ALL THESE PUT TOGETHER ARE A FOUNDATION c. Where note that here again also he observes his former invincible method of reserving his strongest Arguments till the last putting immediately before his Conclusion That the Legates were often not admitted in England so as out of the very non-admission of the Legates the Doctor infers an absolute power in Princes to erect and translate Patriarchates Besides were all this granted what is it to your or our purpose since we accuse you not of Schism for breaking from the Popes subjection as a private Patriarch but as the chief Pastor and Head of the Church But because the Doctor could not handsomly transfer this Primacy from Rome to Canterbury to secure him from the subjection to Antichrist therefore he was pleased to mistake it all along this Chapter for a Patriarchate and then undertakes to shew from some few Testimonies de facto That it was not the Churches but the Kings Authority to erect and translate them Whereas besides the answers in particular already given no prudent man can doubt but in the process of fifteen or sixteen hundred years and in such a vast extent as the Christian world there may be found twenty or thirty matters of Fact if one will take Histories to collect them either out of ambition ignorance rebellion or tyranny against the most inviolable right that can be imagined Besides many things might often be mentioned by Historiographers as done without particularizing the Authority by which they were done Especially in our case where by reason of the connexion between the Soul and Body of the politick world the Ecclesiastical and Secular State they seem to act as one thing The Temporal Authority most commonly putting in execution the intentions of the Church And this also makes them appear more visibly
not from the Tribunal of the Jews much less their Synagogue representing their Church as the Doctor would perswade us but from the Tribunal of Portius Festus a Roman Governor under Caesar to Caesar himself I will onely put down the words as I finde them in their own Translation and so leave the Doctor to the Readers Judgement either to be accused for willfully abusing or ignorantly mistaking them But Festus willing to do the Iews a pleasure answered Paul and said wilt thou go up to Ierusalem and there be judged of these things before me Then said Paul I stand at Caesars judgement-seat where I ought to be judged c. Act. 25. 9 10 c. And now is not this Doctor think you the fittest man among all the sons of the Church of England to have a Pension for writing Annotations in folio on the Bible His last proof is that Iustinians third Book is made up of Constitutions de Episcopis Clericis Laicis Bishops Priests Laymen First we answer and the same may be said of the Theodosian Code that all the Laws found there must not necessarily be Iustinians since the Keepers of the Laws use not onely to put in their Law-books those Constitutions themselves made but also those they are to see observed among which are the Canons and Laws of the Church made before by Councils and other Ecclesiastical Powers Secondly We grant Iustinian may make Constitutions of his own concerning Bishops and Clergymen in what relates to temporal affairs or as they are parts of the civil Commonwealth And lastly If he shall be found to have made any Laws concerning them and without the Authority of the Church entrenching upon Ecclesiastical businesses let the Doctor prove he had power to make such and he will in so doing clear him in that part from that note of Tyranny which is objected against him What you say concerning the Canons of Councils that they have been mostly set out by the Emperors It is very certain you might if you had pleased instead of your Mostly have put Always the causing them to be promulgated belonging to the Office of the supreme secular Powers whose obligation it is to see that the Churches decrees be received and put in execution What you clap in within a Parenthesis as your custom is to intermingle truth with falshood that Canons of Councils received their Authority by the Emperor In the sence you take it is a great error For never was it heard that an Emperor claimed a negative voice in making a Canon of a Council valid which concerned matters purely Spiritual nay nor disaccepted them decreed unanimously by the Fathers but all the world lookt upon him as an unjust and tyrannical incroacher They receive indeed Authority from the Emperor in this sense that his subscription and command to proclaim them makes them have a more powerful reception and secures them from the obstacles of turbulent and rebellious spirits But this will not content you your aym is that they should not have the Authority or validity of a Canon without the last-life-giving-hand of the Emperors vote which is onely a strain of your own liberality to him or rather of your envy towards the Church without any ground of his rightful claim to any such Jurisdiction over Councils SECT 7. Other empty Proofs of this pretended Right confuted THese rubs being removed it will be our next sport to address an answer to his nineteenth Section it self where omitting his ten Parenthesisses which contain nothing but either sayings of his own or Greek out of Strabo's Geography That the Romans kept their assizes at divers places or Testimonies from the Council of Chalcedon already answered omitting these I say I will briefly resume the whole sence of the Paragraph as well as I can gather it out of the some-thing-more Lucid intervals of his mad Parenthesisses And this I take to be the sum of it That Kings should according to emergent conveniences change their Seats of Iudicature and that the same reasons may require a removal of Ecclesiastical Seats wherefore there being nothing to the contrary constituted either by Christ or his Apostles it follows That Kings may when they please erect and consequently remove Primacies and Metropolitans I answer That Secular Courts may be removed upon good occasions is so evident to every Fool that it needs neither Greek nor Strabo to prove it That Ecclesiastical Seats for greater conveniences of the Church be also subject to removal is likewise evident and constituted by the Council of Chalcedon Can. 17. But his inference That it belongs to the right of Kings to erect and transfer them is weaker then water nor has the Doctor infused into it the least grain of Reason to strengthen it Yet first to prove it he says Nothing is found either by Christ or his Apostles ordered to the contrary Which is a most pitiful Negative proof as indeed the greatest part of his Book iâ— and supposes to make it good That neither Christ nor his Apostles said did or ordered any thing but what is exprest in Scripture which is both expresly contrary to Scripture it self and to common reason also Besides this wise proof is both most unjust towards us and silly in him to expect unjust towards us ingaging us to prove out of Scripture That Kings cannot erect Primacies and Patriarchates whereas there is no such word there as either Primate or Patriarchate which he would have us shew thence not subject to Kings Nor is it less silly in him to expect That the Scripture should make mention of the erection or not erection of Primacies and Patriarchates by Secular Powers since the Secular Powers when the Scripture was written being most bloody Tyrants and Persecutors of the Church were more likely to hang up all Primates and Patriarchs then either erect or remove their Seats to a more convenient place Yet if you would see something to the contrary why Kings should not use Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction I can produce you the sence of the Catholick Church the best Testimony that can be alleaged for the meaning of Gods Spirit but because this weighs little with you I shew you next the Testimony of common sence and reason which tells you Faber fabrilia tractet and that those whose education institute of life particular designment to and total dependence on any course of life makes them more strongly addict all their thoughts to perfect themselves knowingly and magisterially in that their proper profession are fitter by far for such an employment then those whose diversly-distracted studies render them half-knowing or half-careful in such performances How much then is it more convenient that Ecclesiastical persons should manage the affairs of the Church then Secular Princes whom partly their necessary Temporal occasions partly voluntary Recreations Court attendances and entertainments so quite take up that they can have but saint and weak reflections either of knowledge or care in comparison of the others upon
the true Charge the only way for a Protestant to clear his Church from Schism is to shew it not guilty of doing this either by disproving the former to be the necessary Rule of Unity in Faith or the latter the necessary Bond of Government both which though they somtimes say yet because in these Books professedly composed for their Vindication from the guilt of Schism they directly and of set purpose handle neither it is clear they intend to shuffle not speak pithily The first Principle which also includes the truth of the second wee hold by this manifest Evidence that still the latter Age could not bee ignorant of what the former beleev'd and as long as it adhered to that method nothing could bee alter'd in it which way of assurance carries with it the Testimony of all that are truly called Christians and this by so ample a memory and succession as is stronger than the stock of human Government and action no right of Law or human Ordinances being able to offer so ample clear and continued a Title They must remember how their Forefathers who began that which they call the Reformation were themselves of this profession before their pretended reform They ought to weigh what reasons their Ancestors should have had to introduce such an alteration They must confesse themselves guilty in continuing the breach unless they can alledge causes sufficient to have begun it had the same ancient Religion descended to these daies For the constant beleefe of the Catholike world both was at the time of your division and still is that these Principles are Christs own ordination recorded in Scripture derived to us by the strongest Evidences that our nature is capable of to attain assurance what was done in Antiquity Evidences inviolable by any humane either power or proof except perfect and rigorous demonstration to which our Adversaries doe not so much as pretend and therefore without further dispute remain unanswerably convicted of Schism And though after this it bee superfluous to say any thing to any Book which does not so much as attempt to demonstrate either of these Points false yet I shall bestow a few thoughts to declare the quality of the Lord of Derry's Arguments not examining them any further than to shew how litle they are to the purpose In his two first Chapters though there bee many things false and more taken up without proof yet I will not touch them because hee onely pretends to settle the Question which is already done for my part And so I will begin my Animadversions where he begins his Arguments in the third Chapter His first proof is because not Protestants but Roman Catholikes themselves made the first separation 1. If it were so how does that acquit you since continuance in a Breach of this nature which cannot be sodered by time is as guilty as the very beginning Now these two Bonds of Unity being of Christs own institution no time can sear the bleeding wound And this because we hold by the fore-declared strength they now must have demonstrations to contradict it as well as the first Separaters 2. How does he prove they were not Protestants because they persecuted Protestants what then did not Luther persecute Carolstadius and Zuinglius doe they not now in Germany and other Countries Lutherans permit no Calvinists Calvinists no Lutherans Did not you persecute Puritans and Brownists Doe you not now complain to bee persecuted by others will you make all these Papists or why are not they Reformers as well as you you will say many of these first breakers died Catholikes True but upon Repeutance Of Gardiner whom you presse so particularly it is recorded that upon his death bed he said Peccavi cum Petro exivi cum Petro sed nondum flevi cum Petro and so fell on a bitter weeping for that offence But in a word is not this renouncing the Pope the most essential point of your Reformation All the rest your good natur'd Religion can either embrace or censure and as occasion serves admit or refuse Communion with the deniers of any other Article never so fundamental this only is indispensable Then be sure wee never hear you again deny but that they who made this first Breach had in them the quintessence of your Reformation and were far less consistent with Catholicism than your modern younger brother Sectaries are with your kind of Protestancy since your selves confess the admittance of the Popes Authority more destructive to you than the denial of Prelacy His second Argument is because in the separation of England from Rome there was no new Law made but onely their ancient Liberties vindicated The first part is so notoriously false that I wonder any one can have the face to pronounce it a Law was made in Henry the 8ths time an Oath invented and exacted by which was given to the King to be Head of the Church and to have all the power the Pope did at that time possess in England That this was a new Law none but impudence it self can deny As for the second part let us see how hee proves it Hee brings divers allegations wherein the Popes pretences were not admitted as being in the prejudice to the State or Church of England What is this man about that hee so forgets the question Doe wee professe the Pope can pretend no more than his right or is the question of this or that particular action of the Popes or does he think a legitimate Authority in common is rejected when the particular faults of them who are in Authority are resisted Is Magistracy or Royalty rejected when Pleas are commenced against Kings or Commonwealths as going beyond their true Jurisdiction Yes but the Pope is expresly deny'd the Power to doe such or such things Why then even by this fact hee is acknowledged to have power in other things since to limit an Authority implyes an admittance of it in cases to which the restraints extend not But hee presses Lawes anciently receiv'd in our Kingdome What is his meaning were not those Lawes in force in the beginning of Henry the eighths Reign or was his breach but the conservation of these Lawes and wee began our Religion there Are there any of these laws which are not equivalently in France Spain Germany Nay Italy it selfe Are none of these therefore Catholikes are they in as little communication with the Pope as Henry the eighth after his breach or the Protestants in Q Elizabeths times How ridiculous how impudent a manner of speaking and arguing is this to force his Readers to renounce their eyes and ears and all evidence In this fifth Chapter hee argues out of the Liberties of the Britannick Churches But first I would know what this belongs to us unless it bee prov'd that their practicks were an obliging precedent to us have wee any Title from the Britannick Churches otherwise than by the Saxon Christians who onely were our Ancestors and by whose conquests and lawes
his own private interpretation of Scripture nor the Church he is in is infallible or secured from Error by any promise of Christ. The denying this Infallibility therefore Mr. Doctor is the greatest crime we charge you with but you free of your Suppositions suppose it your chief virtue and put it for the ground of all your excuse In this Infallibility is founded all the power of the Church obliging to belief the inviolableness of her Government the unjustifiableness of any Schism the firm security that Faith is certain and lastly whatever in the Church is sacred The Doctor therefore in clearing himself by denying the Infallibility of the Church does the self-same as if some discontented subject having first out-lawed himself by denying the Laws and rejecting the Government of England and afterwards becoming obnoxious to those Laws by Robbing Murthering c. should endeavot to plead Not guilty by alledging That though indeed the English Subjects who accept the Laws and allow the Government of England are liable to punishment if they offend against them Yet I saith he who suppose this Government Tyrannical and these Laws unjust especially having a present perswasion and thinking in my Conscience they are so cannot be obliged to keep them and therefore must not be accounted a factious man nor be liable to punishment if I break them What will become of this malefactor Master Doctor your Logick clears him But the Reader and I am perswaded wiser judgments will think him more highly deserving the Gallows for refusing subjection to the Laws and Government and you more deeply meriting Excommunication for rejecting the Churches Infallibility the onely ground of her Authority then for all the rest of your particular faults which issue from that false principle But it is pretty to observe how the Doctor never clears himself from Schism upon any other grounds then those which if admitted would prove all the Malefactors in the World innocent and make it lawful nay an obligation in Conscience to dissolve the whole Fabrick of the Worlds Government So true it is That the very position of a Fallibility of Faith first lays and in time hatches the Cockatrice Eggs of both Atheism and Anarchy SECT 5. Containing some Observations upon Mr. Hammonds third Chapter of the Division of Schism WHen I had perused his third Chapter with intent to see what it might contain worth the answering finding scarce any thing which made either against us or for him I thought I had mistaken the Title of his Book but looking back I found it to have indeed this Inscription OF SCHISM A DEFENCE OF THE CHVRCH OF ENGLAND AGAINST THE EXCEPTIONS OF THE ROMANISTS BY H. HAMMOND D. D. So that now I remain'd satisfied what was the Title but much more unsatisfied to find my expectation so totally deluded and that in a large Chapter containing thirty six pages almost a full quarter of the Book not five words were found which touched the question directly nor could in any way be a preparative to it So as we have here 66 pages of 182. well towards half the Book premised by the Doctor to introduce the Question like the Mindian Gate too large an entrance for so narrow a Corporation Frivolous then had been the long Preamble of this Chapter had it been to the purpose and tended to the Question but if it be found nothing at all to the Question but to wave and conceal the main and indeed sole matter which concerns it nay more to have prevaricated from the very scope for which he would seem to intend it then I will leave it to the Reader to imagin what commendations this Chapter and its Author doth deserve Our Question is of Schism In this Chapter he undertakes to shew the several sorts of it which therefore he divides into Schism against Fraternal Charity and Schism against some one particular Governor as in the People against a Priest or Deacon in those against a Bishop in Bishops against their Arch-Bishops in Arch-Bishops against their Primate or Patriarch and there he stops lest if he had ascended a step higher to the Authority of the Pope he should have said more truth then will serve his turn For you must know he has a deep design against Antichrist and is resolved that half a score odd stories or some few words and unwarrantable practices of discontented persons especially being cited in Greek shall utterly overthrow him in despite of manifest practice of Antiquity clouds of testimonies from Fathers and the Doctrine of the Catholick Church of whose fallibility he is far from even pretending to any infallible Evidence But that we may manifest what we laid to his charge that all this long Chapter is but waste-paper the Reader may please to take notice that the Schism we charge the Protestants with is not of the peoples Schism against a Deacon or Presbyter nor of a Deacon or Presbyters Schism against a Bishop nor any link in that chain of Schisms which he there enumerates but we accuse them and their Fore-Fathers the first Reformers First of a Breach or Schism from the whole Catholick Church This is without controversie the Schism of Schisms and which in the first hearing of the word Schism objects it self to our understanding as being simply properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such whereas the other are nothing but particular refractory disoâ—â—diences in comparison of this and may well consist with your obedience to the Universal Church This this I say is the chief and main Schism we impute to his fellow Protestants yet the Doctor in his present Book entituled Their Defence from Schism takes no notice of the chief thing he ought to clear them of will not have it come into play nor allow it a place in his Division as if it were either none at all or else such a slight one as was not worth taking notice of Strange that he could use such prolixity in trifling Schisms impertinent to the present discourse and not afford the least mention to the greatest Schism of all when the scope and aim of his Chapter necessarily required it and the Question forcibly exacted it Strange that he could remember even the peoples Schism against a Deacon or Presbyter and forget that which breaks from the whole body of the Universal Church But the Doctor is more carefull to preserve his own Copy-hold then the Churches Free hold for according to his division and Doctrine in this Chapter his Parishoners would be Schismaticks for disobeying him or a puny Deacon but neither he nor the Deacon Schismaticks at all for disobeying the whole Church And thus the Dr. has established his own Authority to be more inviolable then the Popes and by this one Division has quite conquered and got the upper-hand of Antichrist Secondly What is become of General Councils all this while Have not they as great an Authority as any private Patriarch Primate Arch-Bishop Bishop Dr. Hammond or a Deacon Far grâ—â—ter
That the Emperors did it by their own proper Power SECT 7. Of Doctor Hammond's advance towards the Question in the beginning of his Fourth Chapter THe Doctor having so wisely and securely laid his Grounds that is Having omited all Grounds that might either preiudice his Cause or touch the Question advances at length towards the Controversie it self but with the same reeling-pace as formerly In which he continues throughout the whole progress of this Chapter with such a rambling career as if what he had said hitherto were but preparatives to absurdness or but nonsence in jest which here being come to the point he more exactly performs in earnest Which if my Answer to this Chapter do not plainly demonstrate I will submit my self willingly to be branded by the Readers censure for a most unjust Calumniator But if it do then let him think of Mr. Hammonds manner of proceeding and his cause as they shall be found to deserve And first stumbling at the Threshold he expects that the Church should produce evidence for her own or her supreme Head's Authority in England Which since it is confessed by all sides That the Pope was in quiet possession of such a Primacy it no more belongs to us to prove just then it doth to the Emperor who had derived the succession of his right from a long train of Ancestors to evidence his title to the Kingdom ere he can punish a Rebel It is wonderful the Doctor should be ignorant of that which all the world knows and acknowledges to wit That a long-setled possession is of it self a proof until the contrary be evinced so as he who should deny the Authority of such an Emperor were truly and properly a seditious person and you for the same Reasons truly and properly Schismaticks unless he can produce sufficient that is evident Causes and Reasons why he refused obedience to that Emperor and you why you denied subjection to the Pope who as you were told before was not less found in a quiet and long-acknowledged possession of Primacy in England nay much more then any Emperor or King in Christendom was of his Crown to wit even by your own grants for the space of eight or nine hundred years Neither imagin that the Modern Protestants who finde the Pope outed from his Jurisdiction in England are therefore excusable from their Fore-fathers Schism For however changeableness of humane affairs and pretence that Temporal Laws were constituted and are disannulable by men may render such rights and titles obnoxious to alienation or alteration and so cause a deseazance of any obedience formerly due to a secular Governor Yet if Christ himself hath constituted any Authority and enjoyned obedience to it no length of time no vicissitude of secular Affairs nor intercession of humane Laws can ever disoblige from this duty So that it lies still as freshly as at the first breach encharg'd upon the Protestants under the penalty of Schism to manifest with most convincing and undeniable Arguments that the Pope could never claim any such Authority from Christ. Which claim of ours and as the Doctor will have it our first evidence he goes about to confute in this Chapter But first in big terms he layes out an ample Narration how King Henry the Eighth the Universities and Parliament not onely said but testified under their Hands and Seals nay more saith the Doctor took their Corporal Oaths on it that the Pope was not Head of the Church and All this saith Mr. Hammond is lookâ— on and condemned as an act of Schism in this Church and Nation What a piece of wit is here This is the very thing for which we accuse your Church and Nation of Schism and you by a bare Narration that it was done think it seems to have half proved it was lawfully done And all this said seal'd and sworn by a King Parliament and Universities is enough to amaze a vulgar-headed Reader into a belief That their Votes could not be other then true And I doubt not but the Doctor himself wonders That the whole Catholick Church should be so unreasonable as not to grant and think her self ever to have taught and the whole world ever to have believed a lie rather then to judge so uncharitably That a lustful and tyrannical King with some number of his Subjects partly out of flattery partly out of fear adhearing to him though these not a handful in comparison of the even-then-present Christian World should say seal and swear a falshood Especially the cause of the breach being most notorious to the whole world not to have been Conscience but vicious and unlawful pretences And on the other side multitudes of conscientious and learned men opposing it and many laying down their dearest lives in testimony of the contrary truth whose taking the Affirmative upon their deaths is more to be believed then the other true taking it upon their Corporal Oaths Among those who died in defence of the Popes Supremacy was our renowned and worthy Countryman Sir Thomas More whose esteem for Piety Learning and Prudence as the King professed was so eminent That his subscription alone if it could be procured was worth half the Realms Yet this so notorious acting and commencing of Schism though sprung from unlawful lust and managed with most cruel tyranny the Doctor seems to think so laudable that the very mentioning it will something conduce to justifie a Schismatick All this saith he is looked on and condemned as an act of Schism in this Church and Nation Next he proceeds to state the Question by branching the Objection into many parts which the Doctor will needs have belong to us to manifest ere the Objection will have any force So as possession beyond memory is of no force with him which yet is the basis of all the firm peace this poor world enjoys and the ground upon which every man remains quietly instated in his own When such a possession is once setled all Controversies are silenced when it is question'd a gap is open'd to all litigiousness Necessity therefore and evidence must both be pleaded ere any one can justly quarrel with this Nurse of Peace Yet the Church must plead her Evidence saith the Doctor that is Seem to bring in question her own longpossessed Title and at whose Bar think you must she plead it At no other then that of her quondam Sons and Subjects and now Rebels and Enemies But the Doctor most unfortunately accurate in his Divisions tells us That we must manifest first the matter of fact that thus it was in England Secondly The consequence of that fact that it were Schism supposing those Successors of Saint Peter were thus set over all Christians by Christ. As for the first The Reader I doubt not will smile at the Doctors folly in telling us we are to manifest that which no man living ever denied and which himself immediately before and far more largely hereafter relates and acknowledges For who
be rendred that the Government was injust ' which as you see could not Irrational therefore was that present perswasion of theirs and if so not sprung from reason therefore from unreasonable passion that is from vice therefore sinful and obnoxious to punishment as all other like perswasions are which make men think and act against their duties and obligations Besides all the Logick we have hitherto heard assures us nothing can convince the understanding but evidence and therefore men take so much paines about the moods and figures that the discourse may prove evident wherefore whatsoever assent comes not out of Evidence must come from our will and wilfulnesse and by consequence cannot be free from desert of punishment if it happen to be wrong and wrongfull Neither availes it to pretend invincible ignorance since no man living if free from a proud spirit can be so sottish as not to know that it is his obligation to obey his Superiors so long setled in the possession of their command till most open and undeniable Evidences and not seeming ones onely should discover that Authority null And if the obligation be of belief he must condemn the Churches judgment in not seeing the falsity of her doctrine and prefer his own before millions more learned who liv'd and dy'd in that faith which savours too strong of a self-conceited pride or else imagin so little sincerity left in the Church that all see and wilfully adhere to a known falshood but himselfe which is a plain sign of a rash and Pharisaical presumption And are not those punishable yet the Doctor would stroke such a fellow on the head and give him sugar plums for following his present perswasion and self-conceit which he nicknames conscience Nay he highly applauds his first Reformers whose conscience no doubt was tainted with the same leaven The Material Schism then which was manifestly your fact is made formal by your want of evidence that the doctrine was erroneous and consequently her Government violable Both which joyn'd together give you in plain termes your own name of flat proper and formal Schismaticks and entitle you to all the bed-roll of vices and curses which you hoarded up for your self and your friends in your first Chapter SECT 11. The Doctors argument that the Popes power in England was deriv'd under the Kings Concession refuted BUt it is now high time to returne to overlook the work who after the declaration of the matter of fact confesses no great hold can be taken from the freeness of the Clergy's determination and therefore the whole difficulty devolves to this one enquiry whether the Bishop of Rome were Supreme Head or Governour of the Church of England in the reign of King Henry the eighth That is we are come about again to the beginning of the Book But I am mistaken he tells us he hath largely disproved in his Chap. 4 5 6. all pretensions from St. Peters Supremacy and from Englands Conversion to whose particular answers I refer the Reader for full satisfaction and he has now invented a new ground of the Popes Supremacy in England to wit the voluntary Concession of our Kings What the Doctor meanes I cannot imagine Some particular priviledges and as I may say pious curtesies have out of a special respect been granted by our Kings to that See to whom they owe their first knowledge of Christ and his Law but these are not the thing in debate The right of Supreme Authority is our question now who ever held this to come from the Concession of our Kings Yet this ayr-beating Champion of Schism first fancies this to be our tenet and then beats it all to dirt He is as valiant as Sir Iohn Falstaff let him tell his own story and hee 'l make you beleeve he has kill'd eleven Enemies when but one opposed him We onely found the Popes Primacy upon his Succession to St. Peter This is the onely adversary-point the Doctor is to combate which he hath most weakly opposed with grosse mistakes palpable contradictions to Scripture and pinning all the words that made for his purpose to every testimony as hath been shew'd But to counterfeit a triumph he makes every trivial thing done either by or about the Pope to be the very ground of his Primacy and then falls to work and impugnes them as really as if he thought we held them The Pope cannot doe any good action or convert a Nation but that must be the ground of his Universal Pastorship over us and be impugned accordingly A beggerly penny cannot be given to the Pope by our Kings for pious uses and out of a gratefull obligation but the poore Peter-pence and such like petty grants must presently be the Popes Universal Authority given him by the Concession of our Kings and that as such must be impugned The Kings of England France c. cannot be said by G de Heimburgh to be free from swearing obedience to the Pope at their instalment an obligation peculiar to the Empire of Germany but presently the Doctor concludes hence an absolute power in our Princes I suppose he means in Ecclesiastical matters for in temporal none denies it so as now the very ceremony of swearing obedience to the Pope is become the very granting of the formal universal Pastorship and they that doe it not are concluded to be free from the Popes Jurisdiction though he knows well enough that the King of France who as he confesses performes no such ceremonious courtesie towards him acknowledg'd notwithstanding himselfe subject to him as the Head of Gods Church Lastly which he touches here againe he cannot read in some Authors that Kings de facto executed the erecting and removing of Patriarchates though the testimony doe not exclude the Churches fore ordering it but presently the Popes Universal Power must be supposed to be transdignifi'd into a private Patriarchate and as a Patriarchate impugned Thus nothing can come amiss to the Doctor Every argument he undertakes to manage is equally strong and unresistable A pot gun will serve him to batter downe the walls of Rome He was borne a Controvertist and it is an even wager whether hee be better in the gift of Use and Applicatioon or in the Art of Dispute and Consutation Next comes another Dilemma or forked Argument which though proceeding on the former false supposition needs no answer yet for the Readers recreation we will afford a glance First it is observable that he never brings this bug-bear Argument upon the stage but when he has made a Prologue for it of some forg'd supposition of his own and then the Thing in vertue of that acts and talkes through the vizard of a mistake and yet ere it comes to a Conclusion the Doctors weak reason cracks to make both ends meet The summe of it is this that The Authority of the Pope was either originally in our Kings so as they could lawfully grant it to the Pope or not if not then the grant
by his former words brought the matter at length to a finall decision The question is whether it be sitting the Pope should rule over the whole Church which none denies but a few schismatical Princes he comes to take up the controversie and tels us those very Princes for all Catholike Princes have already determined the contrary must decide the truth of the businesse As if an Umpire being to arbitrate a quarrel about the Authority of the Vice-chancellour of Oxford opposed by the Major his Competitor should take up the businesse by saying it was a politick probleme belonging to the Government of the University and so ought to bee decided by none but the Major SECT 2. Of Dr. Hammonds evasion in recurring to the first 300. yeares and concerning the humble and docible temper of his Church HAving thus cleared the Protestants for renouncing the Rules of Faith which was part of his well-divided Schism against mutual Charity as far as it concernes Faith he is come to treat next of the second part of that first species of mutual Charity which concernes Faith to wit of the particular doctrines in Faith in which he sayes he doubts not but to approve himselfe to any that will judge of the Apostolical Doctrines and Traditions by the Scriptures and consent of the first 300. years or the four General Councils c. which is a very plausible and pithy piece of shuffling expressing a plain tergiversation from approving himselfe willing to do any thing but to wave and shift the Question For first we must judge of Apostolical doctrines and Traditions by Scripture I ask are those doctrines clearer exprest in Scripture than they are in the depositories of the Churches by which he told us before they were brought down to us or no If they be clearer in Scripture what needed we those depositives at all and to what end does that Apostolical Providence serve If not how can we judge of them by Scripture which speakes more obscurely of them Again since we must judge of Apostolical doctrines by Scripture what rules does the Doctor give us to settle our judgement when things are cleare in Scripture and when not for we see many men who govern themselves by fancy think that evident which another judges to have no apparence of truth And for my part I even despair of bringing clearer proofes from Scripture than that S. Paul converted Iewes and S. Peter Gentiles which yet you saw could give the nice Doctor no satisfaction Another tergiversation is his standing onely to the first 300. yeares where the Authors being scarce by reason of the Churches obscure state under persecution and hardly any occasion to speak of the late risen controversies between us he hopes no great matter can be concluded against him thence where scarce any thing is found that concernes our quarrel As if being to fight a Duel with an Adversary he would stand to the appointment of no place and time but onely in a wildernesse and a dark night where they might be sure never to meet or being met never see one another No better is his standing to the four first Councils onely which were all call'd upon other occasions and so touch not any point of debate between us except onely on the by and therefore obscurely the best testimonies out of which have been already objected by him and solved by us But why onely foure since all Councils are of equal Authority there being nothing found to authorize the first foure but was found in the fifth sixth c. So that this challenge of the Drs. is all one as if an Arian Heretick would be judged by no place in Scripture whether Christ were God or no but out of the Proverbs of Solomon where nothing is found concerning that point dilating much upon the praises of Solomon and what a most pure and uncorrupted piece of Scripture that Book is but producing no Evidence in the world why the other Books of Scripture were not as pure and sacred as it But the Doctor escapes not so he has engag'd himselfe by this as he thought secure grant further than he imagines His allowing of foure Councils to examine his Faith by is an acknowledgement that he admits the Authority of Councils as sacred and binding He must either then shew EVIDENCE that the 5th Council erred or that the Church and her Pastors had declined from the faith of the foregoing Age or else he is obliged to accept it and so the rest under the penalty of forfeiting the title of a good Christian for no lesse blot will fall to his share who rejects an Authority held sacred by himselfe without most clear Evidence of a just exception As he who acknowledges the Authority of Parliament by admitting the Acts of some as valid Lawes is bound by the very acknowledgment of some to accept all the rest unless an open Evidence convince their Votes not to have been free or that there was some other known defect in the managing of them Onely in this latter a far lesse Evidence will serve the turn the Authority of Parliament being but humane whereas the other was held and acknowledged to bee sacred But indeed the truth is hee accepts not even of those four because he thinks Councils to be of Authority but because he thinks there is no doctrine in these against his Fancy or Faith or if any he hopes he can make a shift to shuffle it off In the mean time gaining a very great patronage and countenance to his cause in pleading it relies on such highly authoriz'd supports No candider than the former is his evasion of being judged by the purest Ages which in reality signifies onely such times wherein nothing was treated against those heresies which afterwards cling'd together to compound Protestantism This is manifest by his admitting 300. yeares next after Christ no more by which he excludes the fourth and fifth Ages yet at pleasure admits the fourth General Council held about the middle of the fifth Age. So that the whole Church must be imagin'd to be first pure then impure afterwards pure again according as the supposition of it suits best for the Doctors purpose If none of their particular heresies were rife and therefore not condemned in the first obsure 300. years presently the Dr. cries up those Ages for pure But the Church in the next Age having now got rid of persecution became pester'd with home-bred factions and heresies which made the Fathers of the Church take pen in hand vigorously confuting them and some of the Doctors tenets among the rest Hereupon the Doctor presently decries that Age as impure popish corrupted But then in the middle of the fifth age was call'd a Council which chanced to treat nothing professedly of the errours afterwards embraced by the Protestants nay more had a certain passage in it which I have before cleared serving them to blunder in against the Pope Immediately that Council was sacred and that age
all that is in the Britannick World belongs to us and is derived to us Yet is this also false For nothing in History is more evident than that the British Churches admitted appellations to Rome at the Council of Sardica And as much as we have Records in our Histories of the Pope Eleutherius so much appeares the Popes Authority in that time And out of St. Prosper contra Collatorem in Chron. Wee have that the Pope Celestinus by his care and sending St. German Vice sua in his own stead freed the Britans from Pelagianism and converted the Scots by Palladius though Venerable Bede as far as I remember does not touch that circumstance But that which is mainly to the purpose is that since the Priviledge wee pretend was one that descends upon the Pope in quality of Successor to St. Peter how far it was executed may be unknown but that it was due none can bee ignorant And here our late Bishop begins to shuffle from the priviledge of St. Peter to the Patriarchal Jurisdiction of the Pope which is another an historical a mutable power and so concernes not our present debate Two objections he makes seem to deserve an answer First That the Welsh or Britans sided with the Eastern Churches against the Roman in the observation of Easter To which I answer 't is true they observ'd not Easter right yet never so much as cited the Eastern Churches in abetment of their practise but onely the custome of their own Ancestors Neither was there any cause of siding wee not hearing it was ever pressed by the Church of Rome after Victor's time to any height The Council of Nice and the Emperour Constantine exhorted the Christian World to it but without any coercitive force And if the Britans resisted or rather neglected them I think wee ought not to say they sided against them but onely did not execute their desires St. Irenâ—us was of the French Church yet testifies this question was no matter of division so that it cannot bee guess'd by this what influence the Roman Church had or had not upon the British It seemes certain also that St. Lupus and Germanus neglected this Point that is thought it not necessary to be corrected however St. Austin seem'd more rigorous And though Palladius sent from Celestinus converted the Scots yet we find some of them in the same practise The second Objection is out of a piece of a worn Welsh Manuscript hoped by the Protestants to bee a Copy of some ancienter Original which though it has already been proved a manifest forgery counterfeited by all likelyhood in Q. Elizabeths time when the English Protestants sought to corrupt the Welsh by Catechisms and other Writings printed and not printed Yet if their great Antiquaries can shew that in St. Gregories time this name Papa or Pope taken by it self without other addition as Papa Urbis Romae c. was put as in later ages for the Bishop of Rome I shall confesse my selfe much surpriz'd If they cannot these very words sufficiently convince the Manuscript to bee a meer Imposture Another suspition against the legitimatnes of this paper naturally arises from this that Sr. Henry Spelman one so diligent in wiâ—ing off the dust from old writings found no other Antiquity in it worth the mention which shrewdly implies the Book was made for this alone And so this demonstrative proof of the Bishop is a conviction of the forgery of some counterfeit Knaue and the easiness of assent in Mr. Mosten and the Knight In his 6th Chapter he pretends three things 1. That the King and Church of England had sufficient Authority to withdraw their obedience from Rome 2ly That they had sufficient grounds for it and 3ly That they did it with due moderation I doubt not but the intelligent Reader understands by the first point that the Bishop meanes to shuffle away the true difficulty and whereas the Question is of the Priviledge given by Christ to Saint Peter and from him descended to the Popes his Successors spend his time about a Patriarchal Authority which wee also acknowledge to be of humane institution And here I must confesse that generally when no body opposes him his Lordship carries it clearly and gives his empty Reader full satisfaction Hee tells you out of Catholike Authors that Princes may resist the oppressions of Ecclesiasticks and themselves have priviledge to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction That Popes have been convented and deposed That Emperors have changed Patriarchs and that the Kings of England have as much power as Emperors And all this to handle the Question which is not in hand since our dispute is not what can be done in respect of the Popes Patriarchal Authority which the good Bishop himself professes the Pope has renounced these 600. years No doubt but th' other two points will follow the former in missing the Question For admitting the Popes Authority to bee derived from Christ what grounds can there bee for renouncing it or what moderation is the rejjecting it capable of Nay even if it were of humane institution many things there are which cannot bee rejected unless it appear the abuses are not otherwise remediable Suppose then the Christian World had chosen themselves one Head for the preservation oâ—â—o precious a Jewel as Unity in Religion how great absurdities must that Head commit what wrongâ— must it doe to cause it selfe to bee justly deposed and not onely the Person deposed but the very Government abolish't Suppose again that this alteration should â—ee made by some one party of the Christian Common-â—ealth which must separate it selfe from the assistance and communication of the â—â—st of Christianity ought not far weightier causes bee expected or greater abuses committed Suppose thirdly that by setting aside this Supreme Head eternal dissentions will inevibly follow in the whole Church of Christ to the utter ruine of faith and good life which our Saviour thought worth the comming down from Heaven to plant among us and then tell mee whether the refusal to comply with the humours of a lustful Prince be ground enough â—o renounce so necessary an Authority Let the Bishop bee now asked whether Kings deserve to bee deposed and Monarchy it selfâ— rejected for such abuses as hee gathers against the Pope or whether there may not easily bee made a collection of as many an I great misgovernments against the Court of England or any other Country Let him remember whether like abuses were not alledged against his own Parliamentary-Prelacy when it was put down Will hee justifie that if the mâ—â—demeanours pretended against them had been true the extirpation of Prelacy had been lawfull Surely hee would find out many remedies which hee would think necessary to bee first tryed and Sâ—â—ggin should as soon haue chosen a tree to bee hanged on as â—hee have ended the number of expedients to be â—â—yed before hee would give his assent to the extirpation of Episcopacy It is then of little concern to