hath authorized a Vicarious Soveraign Prelacy before he can believe that there is a Christ that had any Authority himself 2. And he must be so good a Casuist as to know what maketh a true Bishop 3. And so well acquainted with all the World as to know what parts of the Earth have true Bishops and what they hold And is this the way of making Christians Perhaps you will say That Parents Tutors and Priests tell them what all the Bishops of the World hold as a Soveraign Judicature I answer 1. If they did Holden confesseth that the Certainty of Faith can be no greater than our Certainty of the Medium And the Child or Hearer that knoweth not that his Parent and Teacher therein saith true can no more know that the Creed or Scripture is true on that account 2. The generality of Protestants believe not an Universal-Governing Soveraign under Christ but deny it Therefore they never Preach any such Medium of Faith And can you prove that those that are brought to Christianity by Protestant Parents Tutors or Preachers are all yet Unchristened or have no true Faith 7. Why should we make Impossibilities necessary while surer and easier Means are obvious It is impossible to Children to the Vulgar to almost all the Priests themselves to know certainly what the Major Vote of Bishops in the whole World now think of this or that Text or Article save only consequently when we first believe the Articles of Faith we next know that he is no true Bishop that denieth them And it is impossible to know that Christ hath authorized a Soveraign Colledge before we believe Christs own Authority and Word But the Protestant Method is obvious viz. To hear Parents Tutors and Preachers as humble Learners To believe them Fide humana first while they teach us to know the Divine Evidence of Certain Credibility in the Creed and Scriptures and when they have taught us that to believe Fide Divinâ by the Light of that Divine Evidence which they have taught us What that is I have opened as aforecited and also in a small Treatise against the Papists called The Certainty of Christianity without Popery in which also I have confuted your way Besides what I have said in the Second Part of The Saints Rest and my More Reasons for the Christian Religion 8. I cannot by all your Words understand how you can have any Faith on your Grounds 1. You that renounce Popery I suppose take not the Popish Prelates for any part of the Soveraign Colledge 2. I perceive that you take not the Southern and Eastern Christians for a part who are called Nestorians Eutychians or Jacobites 3. I find that you take not the Protestant Churches that have no Bishops for any part for the Soveraignty is only in Bishops 4. I find that you take not the Lutheran Churches or any other for a part whose Bishops Succession from the Apostles hath not a Continuance uninterrupted which Rome hath not 5. And me thinks you should not think better of the Greeks than of such Protestants on many accounts which I pass by Where then is that Universal Colledge on whose Judging-Authority you are a Christian Sure you take not our little Island for the Universal Church I would I knew which you take for the Universal Church and how you prove the Inclusion and Exclusion 9. I find not that the Universal Church hath so agreed as you suppose of the Canon of Scripture and the Readings Translations c. Four or five Books were long questioned by many General Councils have not agreed of the Canon Bishop Cousins hath given us the best account of the Reception of the true Canon Provincial Councils have said most of this Even the fullest at Laodicea hath left out the Revâ—lations The Romanists take in the Apocrypha Many Churches have less or more than others What Grotius himself thought of Job and the Canticles I need not tell you Nor how Augustine and most others strove for the Septuagint against Jerome And if the Universal Judicature have decided the many Hundred Doubts about the Various Lections I would you would tell us where to find it for I know not § II. Your second Use of the Soveraign Power is to judge of the Sense of Fundamental Articles of Faith because the Words may be taken in a false Sense 1. This is very cautelously spoken Is it only Fundamentals that they are to expound by Soveraign Judgment How then shall we know the Sense of all the rest of the S. Scriptures And how will this end a Thousand Controversies 2. And why may not the same Means satisfie us about Fundamentals which satisfieth us about the Integrals of Religion Yea we have here far better help The first Christians Catechized and taught the Sense of Baptism before they were Baptized They and their Tutors and Preachers taught the same to their Children and so on Baptism and the Fundamentals have been constantly repeated in all the Churches of the World There are as many Witnesses or Teachers of these as there are Understanding Christians And yet must all needs hear from the Antipodes or know the Sense of a Humane Soveraign of the World before they receive them 3. Can this Supreme Colledge speak the Fundamentals plainlier than God hath done and than the Parish Priest can do Are they necessary to tell us that Christ died rose ascended because Scripture speaketh it not plain enough We know that no Words of Creed or Scripture falsly understood make a true Believer But is not that as true of a Councils Words as of the Creed And are there any Words that Men cannot misunderstand Why hath Filioque continued such a Distraction in the Churches and Councils yet end it not To say nothing of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and other such Have we a necessity of a Soveraign Judicature to be to all Men in stead of a Schoolmaster to tell them what is the meaning of Greek and Hebrew Words And could not one Origen or Jerom tell that better than a General Council of Men that understand not those Tongues I must confess that what understanding of the Words of Creed or Scripture I have received was more from Parents Tutors Teachers and Books than from Soveraign Councils or Colledge of Bishops though Dr. Holden say he is no true Believer and Catholick that believeth an Article of Faith because his Reason findeth it in Scripture and not rather because all the Christian World believeth it There is more skill in Cosmography Arithmetick and History necessary to such a Faith than I have attained or can attain I can tell E. g. by Lexicons and other Books what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth in the Creed better than how all the Bishops in the World interpret it by an Authoritative Sentence § III. Your third Work of this Soveraign Power is Authoritatively to declare what Government of the Church was delivered by the Apostles 1. As I said of Scripture we
the King to be a Heretick But Protestants deny that any Council hath a Judicial Power so to judge him though all Men have a Discerning Power to judge with whom they should hold Communion But if our Defenders of a Forreign Power say true then the Universal Judge Pope or Prelates may Judge and Excommunicate Kings who they think deserve it And if so not only Justice but Humanity requireth that such Kings be first heard speak for themselves and answer their Accusers Face to Face And this can seldom be well done by proxy as the Prelates will not Excommunicate the Proxies or Advocates only And must all Emperors and Kings travel no Man knows whither or how far to answer every such accusation and that at the Bar of a Priest that 's Subject to another Prince perhaps his Enemy And if it be at an Universal Council the King of England may be Summoned to America or Constantinople at nearest if they must be indifferently called together XVIII The Church of England is not for Popery but against it But the Doctrine of an Universal Church Soveraign under Christ is Popery by the Confession of Protestants and Papists I. Protestants ordinarily rank the Papists into these sorts differing from each other 1. Those that place the Universal Supream Power in the Pope alone which are most of the Italians that dwell near him 2. Those that place it in a Pope and General Council agreeing which are the greatest number 3. Those that place it in a General Council as above the Pope especially if they disagree 4. Those that place it in the Universal Church real or diffusive See Dr. Challoner in his Crede Ecclesiam Catholicam describing these four sorts of Papists II. And the Papists themselves number all the same differences as you may see in Bellarmine at large Of the first Opinion is Valentia in Thom. To. 3. Disp. 1. p. 7. § 45. and divers others both Jesuits Friars and Seculars And Albert. Pighius hath written an unanswerable Book against the Supremacy of Councils But Bellarmine himself saith of this way Vsque ad hanc diem quaestio superest etiam inter Catholicos Lib. 2. de Concil c. 13. And they that have different Soveraigns have different Churches Of the second Opinion are the greatest number of their Doctors Of the third Opinion for a Councils Supremacy above and against the Pope in case of disagreement were the Councils of Constance and Basil And saith Bellarmine Joh. Gerson Petr. de Alliaco Card. Cameracensis Jacobus Almanius Card. Nicol Cusanus Card. Florentinus Panormitanus Toslatus Abulensis and multitudes more with Oviedo Okam c. and the Parisians and French Church And the Pope and Jesuits will not say that all these are Protestants or none of the Roman Church And the Church of England never took them for any other than Papists XIX The small Book called Deus Rex which is approved by the Church of England may give the Reader satisfaction herein XX. The common strain of the most approved Doctors of the Church in their Licensed Books against the Papists disclaimeth all Forreign Jurisdiction of Pope or Prelates 1. Bishop Jewel I before cited 2. Bishop Bilson is too large to be recited Of Christian Subj p. 229. To Councils saith he such as the Church of Christ was wont by the help of her Religious Princes to call we owe Communion and brotherly Concord so long as they make no breach in Faith and Christian Charity Subjection and Servitude we owe them none See more p. 270 271 272 273 c. of the Errours and Contradictions of General Councils and how the major Vote obligeth us not to follow them And pag. 233. The Title and Authority of A. Bishops and Patriarchs was not ordained by the Commandment of Christ or his Apostles but the Bishops long after when the Church began to be troubled with Dissentions were contented to link themselves together in every Province to suffer one to assemble the rest Pag. 261. The Bishops speaking the Word of God Princes as well as others must yield Obedience But if Bishops pass their Commission and speak beside the Word of God what they list both Prince and People may despise them 3. Dr. Fulke on Eph. 1. § 5. sheweth that the Church hath no Head but Christ and no man can be so much as a Ministerial Head 4. Dr. Reynolds against Hart proveth that none but Christ can be the Head of Government any more than the Head of Influence 5. Dr. Whitaker against Stapleton de sacra Script pag. 128. He sheweth his Ignorance as worthy to sit among the Catechumens that instead of Believing that there is a Catholick Church puts believing what the Catholick saith and believeth sic tu ut novam tuam fidem defendas nâ—vos articulos condis etiam non haeresis sed perfidiae Magisteres I believe that there is a holy Catholick Church but that I must believe all that it believeth and teacheth I believe not Augustine appealed from the Nicene Council to the Scripture We receive not the Baptism of Infants from the Authority of the Church but from the Scripture And pag. 103. he sheweth that Councils have erred and corrected one another and are more uncertain than the Scripture And pag. 50. The Peace of the Church is better secured by referring all to the Scripture than to the Church Pag. 501. The Catholick Church in the Creed is invisible and known only by Faith 6. See Bishop Hall's No Peace with Rome and his Letter to Laud. It is tedious to cite all in Willet Slater Prideaux Abbot Marton Crakenthorp Challoner White and the rest to this purpose It is most notorious that the Church of England was against all Forreign Jurisdiction of Pope or Prelates as over this Land To cite a multitude of such Testimonies would but needlesly swell the Book and weary the Reader Chap. II. The whole Kingdom and Church is sworn against all Forreign Jurisdiction and all alteration of Government in Church and State And ought not to be stigmatized with PERJURY § 1. THat the whole Church and Kingdom is under such Oaths is visible I. The Oath of Supremacy before cited against All Forreign Jurisdiction is put upon all the Land II. The Oath called Et caetera 1640. is against Change of Government and was taken by many III. The Act of Uniformity obligeth the whole Ministry to subscribe against all endeavours to alter the Government IV. The Oxford Act of Confinement sweareth all Nonconformists and more never to endeavour any Alteration of Government in Church or State V. The Vestry Act sweareth all the Parish Vestries to the same VI. The Corporation Act sweareth all the Cities and Corporations of England to the same that is All in Power and Trust as to Government VII The Militia Act sweareth all the Souldiers of the Land to the same So that it is undeniable that all the Kingdom is sworn never to endeavour any Alteration of Government in Church or
the Quini Sextum at Trull forbid Adoring by genuflexion on any Lords Day c. And no General Council hath revoked it but above a Thousand Years after it wore out by degrees in most Churches And yet Thousands of Christians are here to be denied Sacramental Communion if they keep these Canons even in the reception of the Eucharist and Hundreds yea Thousands of Christ's Ministers shall be silenced ejected and ruined if they will not Assent and Consent so to use them How many Canons in the Six Councils can I name which do not now bind us § 13. As to the work of Councils and Bishops named by you I. As to our receiving the true Scripture from an Universal Church-Governing Authority 1. Paul's Epistles were received otherwise Yea there is no mention of any part of the New Testament that was not received till such Universal Government required it 2. If I must first know the said Church Authority before I receive the Scripture how shall I know it Not by the Scriptures for that is supposed yet not received If by the Assertors Authority that is to know they have it because they have it which is the Question If by some fore-known Character of Infallibility what is it unless with Knot you come to the Miracles of the present Church I know not what can be said 3. But is not the common Protestant way which you call Chillingworth's much surer 1. VVe first receive the Matter of Fact Historically that such Persons were and wrote such Books and did such Deeds from the Concurrent Testimony of all Credible VVitnesses some Enemies some Hereticks the generality of Lay-Christians Presbyters that in all Churches received and used them and Bishops also as credible entrusted Keepers of these Records As we know the Laws of the Land by Judges Lawyers People and all that make up a full Historical Certainty and not from some fore-known Universal Governing Bishops Judicial Sentence 2. And the Matter of Fact being known by certain Historical Evidence I have so largely shewed how the rest is known in my Reasons of Christian Religion and Life of Faith c. that I will not repeat it Do you think that most or any Christians before they received the Scriptures did first otherwise know that all the Bishops on Earth are by God authorized to be a Supreme Collective Sovereign to the Church and to judge infallibly which are the true Scriptures for all the People and that they are now most of them true Bishops c. Which way are all these things to be known We deny not that Ministers are by Office entrusted to keep expound and preach the S. Scriptures But we use against the Papists herein to distinguish the Authority of a Teacher or Embassador from the Authority of a Judge and the Authority of an Official limited Judge in proprio foro from that of an Universal Judge to all the World Indeed it is commonly granted that it is proper to the Law-makers to judge of the sense of their own Law so as Universally to oblige the Subjects For it is part of Legislation it self the sense of the Law being the very Law Else Judges might make us what Law they please by expounding the Words as they please But the Power of Judicatures is limitedly to expound and apply the Law only to the decision of particular Cases that come before them If the Question be Whether our Statutes were really made by those Kings and Parliaments whose Names they bear And are not altered or corrupted since How shall we be sure By a Natural Certainty from such Concurrent Testimonies as cannot be false viz. 1. The Judges have still judged by them and 2. The Councellors plead them 3. Justices and all Officers execute them 4. All the People hold their Estates and Lives by them and stand to the Determination made according to them 5. The Records attest them And it is not possible were they forged or corrupt but that the Interests of Multitudes would have led them to plead that and appeal from the Corruption And yet none of these named are Supreme Governours of all the Kingdom who thus Historically assure us 4. It may be questioned What is the Law of Nature And it is known much by the Agreement of all Mankind and that is known Historically But neither of them is known by any Humane Soveraign-Authority appointed to Govern all the World And so it is in the present Case The Agreement of all Christians Ministers and People Friends and Adversaries of contrary Opinions and Interests contending against each other about the Rule of their Expositions is a full Historical Evidence of Fact when no considerable Contradiction even of Jews or Heathens is made against it 5. It is notorious 1. That regularly our first Reception both of Creed and Scripture is by Gods appointment to be by Children from their Parents before ever they hear a Preacher Deut. 6. and 11. Thou shalt teach them thy Children lying down and rising up c. And God will bless his appointed Means Timothy learned the Scripture when he was a Child If you say Parents received it first from the Church I answer Our Parents regularly were to receive it as we did even from their Parents and they from theirs and so on to those that had it from the Apostles or first Preachers And all Parents are not a Colledge of Sovereign Rulers of all the World 2. And private Christians by Conference convert many 3. And those that have not their Faith either of these ways usually have it by the teaching of particular Presbyters where they dwell And yet none of these are the Collective-Soveraign to all the Christian World any more than Tutors in Law Physick or Theology are Three and twenty Years ago I read most that you say in a Paris Doctor H. Holden's Analys S. fid who yet though mixt with injurious passages against the S. Scripture acknowledgeth that it is by such an Universal Consent of all Christians Lay and Clergy that we receive the Scriptures that it is a Natural Historical Evidence that the Matter of Fact is resolved into and not of Supernatural Infallibility by Authority 4. And when Vinc-Lirinensis turneth us to quod ab omnibus ubique semper receptum est and the Papists that go with Holden lay most on the Consent of all Christians they never thought that the Laity through all the Christian World are one Universal Collective Soveraign Nor do you think so of all the Consenting Priests while you appropriate this Collective-Soveraignty to the Bishops 6. I would know whether it be only the Scripture or also our Christianity and Creed which must be received as from a Soveraign Church-Power If you say it 's only Scripture why may we not receive the Scripture otherwise if we may otherwise receive our Christianity Creed and Baptism But I doubt not but you will say It is both If so then a Child or Man must know and believe that Christ
prove a more probable Succession than the Roman whose frequent interruptions hath been oft proved 47. If we must imitate the Jewish High Priesthood not every City must have one but every Nation and so England hath none or else all the World 48. Judea being a small Country all the People at their great Anniversaries might go up to Jerusalem which in great Kingdoms and Empires is impossible 49. It is false that we are united to Christ only by the Sacrifice of the Eucharist Baptism which is no Sacrifice first uniteth us to him publickly as Faith and the Spirit do before secretly 50. It is a frivolous thing of Mr. D. to write a Book for one chief Altar and Bishop when the Question is of what Church that one must be I have proved that Ignatius appropriated them to Churches no bigger than our Parishes and Mr. Clerkson hath proved more and the Man confuteth none of this proof 51. Seeing he disowneth one Universal High Priest and would have one in every City or Nation at most who knoweth not that the City Bishops of the World are now and have been 1200 Years in so great dissention disowning each others Communion that it 's hard to know Catholicism by his way of Communion 52. And who shall Govern these several Bishops if each one be a Supreme Have they not as much need of Government as Presbyters 53. The Eucharist is no otherwise a Sacrifice than as it is an instituted Symbolical Commemoration of Christ's Sacrifice 54. The validity of the Sacrament depends not on the uninterrupted Succession of the Priest nor his Subjection to the Bishop 55. There are many Cases in which it is a Duty to be ordained and officiate without the Bishops consent As in all the Popish Countries where they will admit none without consent to Sin 56. To make Bishops and all their Curates the absolute disposers of Heaven and Hell is to set up the highest Papal Tyranny over Kings and Kingdoms by vile Presumption 57. His words that the People can better judge of their visible Union with the High Priest and Christ than of any invisible one is a pernicious intimation that this visible Church Union will save them that have not the invisible Grace of sound Faith Repentance and the Spirit of Love and Holiness I intended to have proceeded to a distinct Answer to Mr. Dodwell's whole Book because I take him to be the most injurious and gross Adversary to the true Unity of the Church on pretence of Pleading for Unity of any that calls himself a Protestant and find him not only extreamly self-conceited loquacious and magisterial in a lowly Garb but grosly unsincere intimating his denial of that in Print which he often owned to me in Private Conference viz. for the Nullity of the Protestant Churches that have not his false Character for the verity of the French Church and for the uninterrupted Succession of the Papal Seat when I undertook to prove it he told me It was not for the interest of Christianity to say so And yet it is for the interest of Christianity for him to Unchurch more Churches I think than the Papists ordinarily do But when I had gone thus far I was stopt by the Persecutions of his Church-Rulers and then by Sickness and after by near two Years Imprisonment for my Paraphrase on the New Testament by a Judicature as admirably agreeing to his Principles as if he had been his Disciple Chancellor Jeffreys lately Dead and such others Therefore not to tire the Reader with more words to so wordy a Man I again and again though I suppose in vain provoke him and his dividing Brethren to answer my Treatise of Episcopacy my first Plea for Peace my Sacrilegious desertion of the Ministry rebuked my Apology for the Nonconformists Preaching my English Nonconformity and Mr. David Clerkson's Posthumous Book for the Primitive Episcopacy against his Fiction of the present Diocesane Episcopacy as having no Bishops under them But fraudulent Disputers will dissemble and silently pass by that which they cannot answer But will that be Peace to Conscience in the End Having said as much as I think needful to satisfie intelligent impartial Readers against his Schismatical Writings in my Book of Church-Concord and here before I take my self discharged from any Obligation further to detect or confute his Fallacies The rather because he can say and unsay as he finds his Interest lead him And his Leviathan Church Vicegod which he feigns to be God's Proxy to us from whom there is no appeal to Scripture or to God will to Men that believe in Christ I think by his own Description appear as frightful as Hob's his Leviathan Some of this I wrote long after the most of the Book Chap. XX. Dr. Thomas Pierce now Dean of Salisbury's Judgment and Dr. Hamonds § 1. I Think Dean Pierce is the only Man surviving who was Commissioned by King Ch. 2. to Treat with us for Concord as being of the Bishops part in 1661 And who hath lived to see by near 30 years Experience whether his Zeal against the terms of Concord which we as humble Supplicants offered hath done more Good and prevented more Evil than a Concord on those offered terms would have done What it hath done on him I know not but with others Experience hath had as little Success as Reason and Petitioning had § 2. He hath written against me more Book 's than one which no Man hath excelled in insulting and in command of words His work is to prove Grotius to have been no Papist Few Men living think highlier of Grotius than I as to what he wrote before his change Especially his Book De Satisfactione Christi and that De Imperio Sum. Pot. de Jure Belli and his Annot. on the Evangelists Valesius and Petavius took him to be of their Religion and Church as did Vincentius and Saravius But 1. It is not the Name Papist that I regard but the Thing 2. Therefore the doubt between Dr. Pierce and me is What is Popery He thinks that it is not a proof that he is a Papist to be for an Universal Church Jurisdiction the Church of Rome being taken for the Mistris of all Churches and the Pope as Primate and Patriarch of the West governing according to the Canons of Councils and not Arbitrarily And taking the Articles of Pope Pius his Creed and Oath added at Trent which contain the Body of that which Protestants call Popery to be such as may be Sworn and bear a fair sense Though Dr. P. himself cannot subscribe them This with all the rest cited by me out of Grotius he taketh to be no proof of a Papist Let him call it how he please The French Church Government or the Protestant or the Catholick it is the Thing a Foreign Jurisdiction and specially an Universal that I deny § 3. And this he himself owneth for the proof of which I refer the Reader to his Books particularly his
and then I said May it Please Your Majesty This reverend Dr. Guning just now accused us as if we would let in Socinians and Papists We suppose that this is not intended as our deed The King answered There be many Laws against the Papists I replyed We understand this to be for a dispensation with those Laws There was no more said and that was the Conclusion of the day III. In 1662. came out a Declaration for Liberty of Religion naming the Papists to have their part in it but not a Toleration I was desired to get the City Ministers to Subscribe a Thanksgiving for it I told them that it was the King's Work and not to be done by us But I knew it was the Bishops design to cast the Odium of a Toleration of Popery on the Nonconformists while they would gratifie the King by forcing us to Consent But they should never do it They should do it themselves or it should not be done And it presently died IV. The Lord Bridgman called Dr. Wilkins and his Chaplain Dr. Hez Burton and Dr. Manton and me and Dr. Bates after as by the King's Order to attempt an Agreement for a Comprehension to the Presbyterians and a Toleration for the Independents We agreed of the Comprehension in terminis and Judge Hale drew it up into the form of an Act But when we came to the other part the form proposed was for a Toleration of all not excepting the Papists I told the Lord Keeper that we could not meddle in measuring out all other mens Liberty but only to declare what we desired our selves Others must be consulted about their own concerns we were not for severity against any But it was the King's Work and we unmeet to be his Counsellors in it And so all was cast off by the Parliament by that means and the Act forbidden to be offered § 8. At last the King himself broke the Ice and Published a Declaration for Licensing a Toleration The Cruelty of the Prosecution of the Nonconformists being still the seeming Necessity for all But the Parliament broke it and it did the Papists much more harm than good for the Nonconformists continued to Preach though Persecuted § 9. The Clergy now would lay all the Severities on the Parliament and wash their own hands as guiltless of all But 1. It was they even their chief Bishops and Drs. that when the King Commissioned them to Agree on such Alterations as were necessary to tender Consciences after all importunity concluded that no Alteration was so necessary 2. And it was the Bishops and Convocation that altered the Book for the worse and put in new matter harder than before 3. And the Bishops in Parliament were the Chief Agents in all the Laws by which we are undone 4. And it is known that it was the Interest of the Bishops and their Church way that engaged the Long Parliament in all their terrible Acts against us Viz. The Act of Uniformity the Acts for Banishment the Five mile Act the Corporation Act the Militia Act the Vestry Act and others 5. And who knoweth not that it is they and their Disciples that make the great stir against our Healing in jealousie of their Interests which nothing but their own over-doing is like to overthrow 6. And when did they ever once Petition any Parliament to reverse the dividing wicked Laws or to restore the Silenced Ministers or to free them from dying with Rogues in Jails or to prefer the Ministers of Jesus before Barabbas or to request that the Eminent Ministers of Christ might have no greater Punishment for Preaching Christ than debaucht Whoremongers Drunkards Swearers and Blasphemers usually have in England 7. Yea if a Godly Conformist do but write against their Cruelty to the Nonconformists such as are Mr. Pierce Mr. Jones Mr. Bold they have for it Persecuted him as if he were a Nonconformist himself And that you may know that it is not the old Church-men nor yet a few single Persons when Dr. Whitby Prebend of Salisbury who had wrote against Popery did write an excellent Treatise for Peace and Reconciliation the Oxford University Decreed the Publick burning of it together with my Holy Common-wealth The Lord Convert and Pardon them that they prove not the burned fewel when Reconciliation and a Holy Common-wealth are prosperous c. God shall judge at last § 10. All this time from Laud till now it is a hard Controversie which of the two Parties is to be called The Church of England Both Parties pretend to it and some call both of them the same Church But the Infamous Roger L'Estrange set the Name of Trimmers on the old and reconciling Party pretending that the other were the Genuine Members of the Church And was imployed by his Genius and the Court and the Papists and the New Clergy-men to do a work so truly Diabolical as I never read of the like in History even for many Years together to Write and Publish twice a Week a Dialogue called Observations mainly levelled against Love Peace and Piety to perswade all men to hate their Brethren and to provoke men to destroy them whom he Nick-named Whigs and to render odious all save the Wolves whom he called Tories as if he owned the Irish Robbers so that a Trimmer with him was the same as a Peace-maker Blessed by Christ and Cursed by L'Estrange § 11. But whether the New Clergy or the Old be the Church of England and whether both be of one Church remaineth still doubtful But whoever hath the Name that one Name is equivocal when applied to Parties contrary and inconsistent 1. That Church which owneth a Foreign Government and Jurisdiction cannot be one and the same with that Church which renounceth and abhorreth it and owneth only Christ's Universal Government and a Foreign Concord and Communion But this is the difference between the Old Reformed Church of England and the New that call themselves the Church Two Kings make two Kingdoms For the Form denominateth And the Relative Vnion of the pars Imperans and Subdita is the Form That Church which hath a Human Head above National must have a Form and Name above National that is Above a Church of England which makes them all talk so much of The Universal Church in this false humane Form An Universal Church hath an Universal Soveraign Power which is only Christ. If the Pope be Antichrist it is his claim of this that maketh him so because it is Christ's Prerogative which no mortal Man or Council or College is capable of And if so is it not a Papal or Antichristian Church that these Foreign Subjects own and are of whether it be of the French or Italian Form if one be Antichristian both are so when the Claim of Universal Jurisdiction is the Cause I have voluminously detected the mistake of these deceived Men who are deluded by the Name Oecumenical Catholick and Universal which they find in the Councils and Fathers and
Persecuting Snares and against the Coalition of English Protestants on any possible healing Terms as ever and as fiercely seek the Continuance of our Slavery and Silence Chap. XXII How they have been stopt and in â—hat Danger we are yet of those that are for a Forreign Jurisdiction § 1. THe continual Endeavours of Parliaments to Suppress all the Relicts and Advantages of Popery in Queen Elizabeths and King James Days long kept this Papal inclination from appearing And when Laud raised it up and King James and Buckingham Countenanced it to promote first the Spanish and after the French Marriage the Articles of Liberty for Popery Consented to by King James and after Ratified by King Charles greatly Distasted the Nobility and Gentry and the People much more so that the Kings and Parliaments were never after easy to each other till King Charles II. got a Parliament fitted to his turn § 2. The new raised Impositions of King Charles I. and Laud first Exasperated the old conformable Clergy by â—uspending and vexing them for not reading the Book for Sports on the Lords Days and for Preaching twice a Day and by Altars and Bowing and other Innovations And the Severities against Burton Prin and Bastwick made a murmuring noise And the driving many hundred Families of Godly Men out of the Land much more And the newly Altered and Imposed Liturgy Exasperated the Scots who were Encouraged by the English Discontents Yet all this had done the less had not the same Church-Innovaters been against Parliaments and kept them out because Parliaments were against them And had they not Preached for and promoted the Kings power to Raise Taxes without a Parliament But this leavened the Nation with an Averseness to the Frenchified Reconcilers And the Scots knowing all this began Resistance which proceeded to a Mutual diffidence of King and People which brought forth after a Civil-War § 3. While the King and Parliament were Labouring under the Mortal Disease of mutual distrust the Irish by an Insurrection Murdered most Barbarously two hundred thousand Protestants just the day Twelmonth before Edghil Fight Dublin escaped And this Horrid Cruelty hastened the War in England and made Popery more odious than ever it was before and rendered the French Conciliators more distasted § 4. The Conciliators having the chief Ecclesiastical Power under King Charles I. and having too much Modelled the Churches and Universities to their Minds the Parliament began a Reformation before the War and carryed it on after and cast out many Hundred for Insufficiency through gross ignorance and for Drunkenness and Vicious Lives And some for being against the Parliament and prospering till Cromwell cast them out and Cromwell going much further against Prelatical Tyranny and an ignorant Vicious Ministry than they thirteen or fourteen or fifteen years time not only stopt the French design of Coalition but also wore out the chief designers and promoters of it To which the Death of Laud with all the Accusations against him struck deep of which see Prins Introductions and his Canterburies Tryal And many old Conformists which was all the Westminster Assembly of Divines saving eight were the Men that chose rather to put down the English Prelacy than to run the hazard of the change of Civil Government and Introduction of Popery So that both Popery and the favorers of it seemed quite cast out in England But Cromwell and his Armies Usurpation and Treasons so Exasperated the two Kingdoms both Episcopal and Presbyterians that after his Death his Army having cast themselves and the Land into Confusion they brought in King Charles II. who by his Declaration from Breda and his Treaty in 61 with the Nonconformists and his Declaration 1662. called Bristols and by his Treaty with us by the Lord Keeper Bridgman and by his Declaration for Toleration still laboured so Strenuously to give Popery a Toleration that discerning Men were satisfied that he was then of the Religion that he dyed in if he had any or at least had engaged himself to introduce it To which ends 1. The dividing of the Protestants 2. The Ejecting Silencing Ruining Imprisoning or Banishing those of them that were most unreconcileable to Popery 3. The keeping such out by new Impositions of Oaths Subscriptions Professions and Practices were found to be the fittest means 4. To which was added the Exasperating the long Parliament of Men before Exasperated against them 5. And the Declaring and Swearing the People against the Lawfulness of any Military Defence of Parliament or Kingdom against any Commissioned by the King 6. And to bring all those that scrupled such Oaths under the odious Name of Nonconforming Rebels Though they were all against Defensive War by any private Men or Faction or for any Cause less than the saving of the Kingdom from apparent Ruine Subversion or Alienation 7. To which was added the taking away of all Legislative Power from Parliaments and appropriating it only to the King the strenuous Endeavour of Bishop Morley's last Book against me and of many others 8. Which were all thought an unresistible force while the King of whatever Religion had the choice of all the Bishops Deans and Dignitaries and consequently of that called The Church of England 9. And also the choice of Judges and the making of Lords 10. And the changing of Corporation Charters § 5. To these uses that we may not accuse the Innocent it was comparatively but a few men that were the visible prime Instruments besides the non-appearing Jesuits or other Papists That is Chancellor Hide Dr. Sheldon Dr. Morley Dr. Guning whom not only Dr. Hinchman Dr. Cousins Dr. Lany Dr. Sterne and several others followed ex animo but also most of the worldly sequacious part of the Clergy and Laity for Interest and Preferment sake when they saw that the Interest of Sheldon and Morley with the Chancellor was a great and necessary means of obtaining their desires § 6. But the bringing us to French Popery by the Grotian way proved so slow by many stops that it hath by God's Mercy been hitherto much frustrate and prevented For the King must not make professed Papists to be Bishops Deans and Convocation Men lest the notoriety of the Design should raise unconquerable Offence and Opposition The Name of Popery was to be renounced even by those that were for a Foreign Jurisdiction And a Government like that of the French Church must be said to be no Popery but only that which made the Pope Arbitrary or Supereminent above Councils And the very retaining of the Name of Popery in their Renunciation spoil'd their Game And specially being necessitated to avoid Suspicion to make divers firm Protestants Bishops Deans and Judges Yet the slow way of K. Ch. II. was like to have been the surest could their Patience have held out § 7. But God used K. James II. as the great Instrument of frustrating all the Plot till now by his and his Instigaters Impatience of this delay and confidence
are oft equal in Argumentation Greatly dishonouring Christ as if so near the end of the World the Albigenses and Waldenses and some Papists that found fault with the Papal Miscarriages had been all the known Church for Eleven hundred Years To tell the Mahometans that the Kingdom of Jesus after so long endeavours was scarce bigger than Wales is not the way to honour Protestants or Christ. And then they think to repair the dishonour by their Prophecy of the Millennial Kingdom which tieth the knot harder than before § X. Running from them into Errours on the other extream and spotting the Reformation with many such Errours hath greatly hardened and increased Papists Especially those Antinomian or Libertine Opinions that overthrow both Christianity and Morality and that which inferreth these which too many have promoted such are the wrong Opinions about Reprobation and the Cause of Sin and the extent of Redemption and the false sence of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness and of Justifying Faith and of the meaning of Works that justifie not and that to Believe we are justified and elected is to believe God's Word or is Fides Divina and that the Covenant of Grace hath no Condition and is made only with Christ and that both obeyed and suffered in our Person in Law sence so that we did in Law sence suffer in and by him and yet fulfil all righteousness by him and were reputatively sinless from first to last that therefore we are justified by the Law of Innocency or Works that condemneth us having perfectly kept it by Christ that our works being not meritorious are not rewardable Too many such Doctrines are Published here and abroad by such as Maccovius Cluto Cocceius and some before them And when Papists find one gross falshood they think all our Religion is such § XI It greatly confirmeth Papists when they find our Writers falsly to accuse them of any Doctrine which they hold not which is very ordinarily done by those that never read them on the meer credit of some Reverend Ministers that so accused them before For instance of the Point of Merit when men read their Books of Self-abnegation Annihilation Self-abasing and Nothingness renouncing Merit even in distributive Justice c. Some have wondered and said How much further are the Papists from trusting to or boasting of their Merits Works and Holiness than we are § XII But Protestants have no way promoted Popery more than by their manifold Divisions and Sects and their mutual enmity and miscarriages I need not name them God hath made Unity and Concord so necessary and amiable to Man that Nature and Grace abhor the contrary Satan is the Divider of Christ's Kingdom and a Kingdom divided cannot stand Multitudes turn and continue Papists not knowing where among so many Sects to fix their choice especially when they see and hear us Revile Censure Silence Imprison and Persecute one another as intolerable they think they may do so by us all and judge of us as we do by one another And to vilifie us is to value themselves Which Sect say they would you have me turn to if I turn § XIII Specially if we fall into odious Scandals as well as Sects the Crimes of Men seem the fault of our Religion When they have recited the Miscarriages here from 1642 till 1660. they think they have decided all the Controversies And also when they can recite the Munster Madness and others such § XIV Hath the Silencing of Two thousand such Ministers and shutting the Church Doors against desired Unity and Concord and keeping out Candidates and giving advantage to Papist Rulers to give full liberty for Popery done nothing to its increase What hath done more to advantage Popery by disabling Protestants and disgracing their Ministers of each Party and keeping up the hopes of Foreign and Domestick Enemies than casting the Nation into a kind of Intestine Hostility and keeping it so by the Dividing Laws and Canons which though it was principally the effects of secret Popish Projects yet had no Anti-Papists by false Prejudice Malice Revenge and worldly Interest had a hand in the effecting and since in defending it they had been more innocent And I would the Provocation had not driven many Nonconformists into harder thoughts of Bishops and Liturgy than they deserve or than they had before the experience of their usage But it 's hard when for Innocency and Duty men must lye and many die in common Jails and have all they have taken from them and be left to Beggary or Charity to keep up as great an esteem of the Authors or Abettors of such Hostility as if they were men of Love and Peace When they see men Hang'd for taking away a small part by Stealth or Robbery it must be more than ordinary Patience and Love that shall cause men to think and say no harm even by honourable and Right Reverend men that even by Law and Judgment said to be just shall take away all and much more than all We had not procured hatred by our importunity in 1660 and 1661. in Pleading and Petitioning to prevent all this if the certain foresight of it in its Causes had not seemed very dreadful to us And yet we do not see the End The Hostility continueth if not increaseth even while the Blood and Flames of Germany Hungary Transilvania Savoy Flanders and Ireland and partly Scotland loudly cry to us Fire Fire and instead of avoiding the like we are as busie as ever to bring more fewel and increase the flame And O dreadful odious Case All is as for God and Religion and the Church that is thus done against God Religion the Church and the whole Land our Posterity § XV. And by our several ways of Unjust and Causeless Impositions we have hardened the Papists in defending their more numerous Snares They say If an Independent Church may bind its Members to take their Covenants to submit to thei◠popular Examinations and Discipline to avoid Communion with the Parish Churches and not to forsake their Church but by tryed Reason or Consent And if a Convocation may impose what is done in England on terms so sharp why may not the Pastors and Councils that have greater Charge and Power do as much and more § XVI The Sectarian weak-headed part of Protestants have greatly advantaged Popery by their ignorant calling every Ceremony and Form and Opinion that they distaste by the Name of Antichristian and saying O this is Popish or taken out of the mass-Mass-Book when some of them know not what Antichristianity is saving as every Sin against Christ is Antichristian nor know they what the mass-Mass-Book is nor what Popery is And it s well if some knew better what Christianity is When men hear that a Bishop a Surplice a sumptuous Church Edifice a Ceremony the Liturgies a Holy-day and it 's well if not the use of the Creed and Lord's Prayer be Antichristian they are tempted to think
that there is no way to Unity and Peace but in Popery uniting under one Humane Head § XVI We must own Christian Communion Indefinite and as Universal as Capacity alloweth while we disown Universal Humane Jurisdiction But we must understand well the difference We are ex Authoritate Imperantis bound to obey Jurisdiction But to hold Agreements nothing binds us but God's general Commands for Peace and Concord and our own Contract and the common good So that if Councils agree on any thing contrary to these Ends no Church is bound by such their Canons nor to consent Just as a Diet of Kings and States are free to consent or dissent to a Major Vote as the reason of the thing requireth and no further for the common advantage of Christianity But have no one King Universal to whom they are all Subjects § XVII Yet if any King and People will be so slavish as to subject themselves to a foreign King or Jurisdiction their own consent may oblige them as far as Self-enslaving may do § XVIII We must not deny what good use God hath made of Rome's Grandure Unity and Concord It 's like else Christianity had not kept up such advantages of strength wealth and concord against the great Power of the Mahometan and Heathen Enemies § XIX We must not by the Scandals of some Persons or Fraternities be drawn to think the rest are like them nor to deny but such men as Bernard Gerson and abundance of Fryars and Nuns though zealous for the Roman Concord were godly excellent Persons Even in the dark Ages of their Church what abundance of most learned School Doctors had they in which much Piety also appeared as in Bonaventure Aquinas Henricus ab Hassia and many such As also in many of their Bishops as Borornaeus Sales c. And in the Oratorians and many most Learned Jesuits All this we must candidly confess and honour § XX. The common Interest of Humanity Christianity and God's foresaid fundamental Precepts oblige Protestant and Papist Princes to Confederate how to live peaceably among themselves and to unite against the Common Enemies while they cannot yet agree in the Points of Difference That so far as they are agreed they may walk by the same rule § XXI I think we should hurt no Papist in Body or Goods any further than is necessary to our own Defence and the Defence of the Truth and Souls of Men and the Kingdoms safety But win them by Love § XXII Because a factious Sollicitation of the ignorant to submit to their foreign Jurisdiction is enmity to Kings and States and Churches as against their Essential Rights the unpeaceable managing of Disputes and Endeavours to such Treason and Slavery may be as much restrained by Law as Men may be restrained from teaching that Wives must forsake their Husbands lie with other Men and Children forsake their Parents and Soldiers their Kings and Captains and all obey the Pope against them § XXIII Yet because they will say that we dare not hear the truth I think it not amiss if they be allowed some time when the Rulers think fit not to challenge weak Ministers at pleasure to Dispute but in a fit Assembly to say what they can so be it they will withal there hear what can be said against them by some able Divine chosen by the King Bishop or Ministers who also should choose the time and place These terms are better than the unreconcileable Hostility kept up by the terms of Antichrist and Heretick § XXIV And though the unlearned have safer and better Books enough to read I think it will do much to rectifie mens Judgments that are inclined to extreams and to mellow and sweeten their hearts into Christian Love if the Learned would read the Devotional Pious Writings of Papists such as Bernaud Gerson Gerhardus Zutphaniensis Sales Kempis Thauleros Benedictus de Benedictis Regula Vitae Barbanson Ferus the Oratorians and in English The Interior Christian Parsons of Resolution Baker the Life of Nerius and of Mr. de Renti and other such They would find there so much of God as would win their affections to a Brotherly Kindness while they find so much of that which is in themselves Holy breathings after God are savory to those that have the like I know those that have read or heard such books as these that have said How have we misunderstood the Papists If an esteemed Minister should Preach part of The Interior Christian. or such another book and not tell his hearers whose it was I doubt not but many godly people would cry it up for a most excellent Sermon When as if they before knew that it was a Papists they would run away I do not by any of this encourage any raw ungrounded Protestants to cast themselves on the Temptation of Popish Company or Books But that you may see that I write not this rashly and without just cause I will instance in one Book called Bunnys Resolution It was written by Parsons one accounted a most traiterous Jesuite and Edmund Bunny Corrected and Published it and Parsons Reprinted it with more Popery reviling Bunny for being so bold with his Book as to spunge out the Popish Errours I have met with several eminent Christians that magnified the good they had received by that Book When I was 21 years of Age the Bishops severity against Private Meeting caused many excellent Christians in Shrewsbury to meet secretly for mutual Edification At one of these where was of Ministers Mr. Cradock Mr. Rich. Simonds and Mr. Fawler cast out at Bridewell Church since Mr. Simonds said that there were some godly women in great doubt of the sincerity of their Conversion because they knew not the Time Means and Manner of it and desired all that were willing to open the case of their own to satisfie such I remember but one that could tell just the Time Means and Manner but with most it began early and was brought on by slow degrees but so as some One Time and Means made a more observable change than any other Among these three spake their own case that after many Convictions and a love to Piety the first lively motion that awakened their Souls to a serious resolved care of their Salvation was the reading of Bunnys Book of Resolution These three were Mr. Fawler Mr. Michael Old for Zeal known through much of England and my self And having since heard of the same success with others when yet now there be many Books that I had rather read I have reason to think that God notified his will that we should instead of rash hatred profit by each other and love his Word whoever writeth it § XXV And we are the more obliged to behave our selves with all due tenderness to Papists and all other exasperated parties in the Consciousness of the aforesaid guilt that we have fallen under to their hardening and hurt Weakning the Protestants is strengthening the Papists Repentance
Against the Revolt to A Foreign Jurisdiction Which would be to England its PERJURY CHVRCH-RVINE and SLAVERY In Two Parts I. The History of Mens Endeavors to introduce it II. The Confutation of all Pretences for it Fully stating the Controversie and Proving That there is no Soveraign Power of Legislation Judgment and Execution over the whole Church on Earth Aristocratical or Monarchical but only Christ Especially against the Aristocratists who place it in a Council or College By RICHARD BAXTER an Earnest Desirer of the Churches Concord and therefore an Enemy to all false Terms and Dividing Engines and Self-exalting Sects and a Defender of Christ's own assigned Terms which take in all the true Christians in the World and are Injurious or Cruel to none To be offered to the next Convocation beseeching them to own the Doctrine of Foreign Communion but to note with Renunciation the Doctrine of Foreign Jurisdiction and to Vindicate the Reformed Church of England from the Guilt and Suspition which the French and Innovators injuriously seek to fasten on them Luk. 22.24 25 26. And there was a strife among them which of them should be accounted the Greatest And he said to them The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise Authority upon them are called Benefactors But ye shall not be so but he that is greatest among you let him be as the Younger and he that is chief as he that doth serve 1 Thess. 5.12 We beseech you Brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you 13. And to esteem them very highly in love for their work sake and be at Peace among your selves London Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and 〈◊〉 Crowâ—â— at the lower end of Cheapfiâ—â— near Mercers Chapel 1691. To the Reverend and deservedly Honoured Dr. JOHN TILLOTSON Dean of St. Paul's Church Reverend Sir THE Message on which this Epistle cometh to you is to intreat you to Present this Treatise to the next Convocation and to endeavour their publick renunciation of Foreign Jurisdiction and their censure of the Books that are written here for it The Reasons of my request are I. The Canons condemn them that deny the Convocation to be the Church of England Representative And they that have written for and promoted this Doctrine and Design have not only been Chief Men in the Church but have laboured to fasten their Doctrine on the Church which yet before the time of Bishop Laud the Church disclaimed and openly condemned and took Foreign Bishops and Councils for Brethren and a laudable means of Communion while they did their proper work but not by Jurisdiction to be the Governours of us and all Christian Kings and Kingdoms as their Subjects And who can be Ignorant that when at the present the Papist Bishops are very Many to One Protestant Bishop they will accordingly carry it by their Votes in Councils And if the Major Vote be the Collegium Pastorum that have the Chief Government in the Interval of Councils we are now Subjects to the Bishops and Church of Rome And if 〈◊〉 Roman Petrus Primus must call the next Council or there must be none till all Christian Kings agree to call it the present College is like to be long the Universal Aristocracy The Representative Church of England is so nearly concerned in this great Matter both for the moment of it and the imputation of this Design unto it that we cannot think they will lightly pass it by without their censure Which will be the more expected because of the Owning of Dr. Beveridge's Sermon to them which I have here examined Dr. Whitby's Reconciler of Protestants escaped not the Oxford censure and we hope the Representative Church of England will not be more favourable to Subjection which is more than Reconciling to the Foreign Papists Lest they cherish the Suspicion that the desire of so much Concord with France in Church Constitution and Government will intimate a preparation to another Relation to them which England cannot bear with ease And we are loth to be disabled to confute the Separatists that will never be reconciled to the Church of England if they can say that it is revolted to a Subjection to the Papists But why should we doubt whether the Convocation will renounce that which both themselves and all the Church and Kingdom are Sworn against even all Ecclesiastical Foreign Jurisdiction II. The Reasons why I presume to desire you to be the Man that shall present this Book and Motion to them Are 1. Because it is said that Custom maketh the Dean of Pauls usually to be chosen the Prolocutor to the Lower House I speak but by hearsay having never been one of them For the Clergy of London choosing Mr. Calamy and Me for their Clerks of that Convocation that made the Materials of the late differencing Impositions Bishop Sheldon by Prerogative excluded us to our great Ease and so the City of London consented not by their Clerks to any of those Acts. 2. And you are the Man that Published that Excellent Book of Dr. Isaac Barrow which unanswerably against Mr. Thorndike and such others confuted the Pretences to a Foreign Jurisdiction 3. And you are known to be so firm a Friend to Love Concord and Peace like your Father in Law Bishop Wilkins who once by appointment treated and agreed with us in a Vniting Form of Concord that I may confidently expect your best Assistance If any should be so adverse to this Necessary Work as to turn it off by diverting to Accusation against me or the Nonconformists I pray tell them how impertinent that is to the present Business And if it be needful shew them my Treatise for National Churches and that of Episcopacy and my English Nonconformity stated and argued And whereas I am said to have refused a Bishoprick because I was against Episâ—opacy be it known that in 1661 â—he Pacificators never offered any â—hing lower than Archbishop Vsher's Model of the Primitive Episcopacy â—nd when the King's Declaration â—anted us less we Published a â—hankful Acceptance And I gave 〈◊〉 Writing the Reasons of my Refusal to the Lord Chancellor Hyde That If that Declaration were Confirmed by a Law I would be no Bishop because I would not disable my self to perswade as many as I could to Conformity by drawing them to say that I did it for my own Ends. Which Answer satisfied the Lord Chancellor I think every Bishoprick in England hath Buried many of its Bishops since my refusal who am now near Dying in the 76th Year of a Painful Life and intreat you though I be Dead to do this Office for the Endangered Church of England and for your truly honouring Brother Ri. Baxter TO THE READER THis Book being Written at several times most of it many Years ago and some lately and answering many Persons who use the same Arguments it hath one blemish which I am ashamed of in
what was to be done for Councils and Popular Humours would never know where to stop but would break down all the Churches strength and glory 2. Luther's Party after their riper thoughts were for such a Reformation as consisted in a nullifying of the Papal Church and Separation from it as no True Church but the Seat of Antichrist 3. A moderate sort of Papists were for reforming of many things in the Roman Church but not for nullifying it They were for reconciling the two Parties and for submissive Conformity but not for Separation Such were Julius Pslug Sidonius and Agricola who drew up the Interim and also Erasmus Cassander Ar. Baldwin Wicelius c. And in France the great Chancellor Michael Hospitalias Thuanus and many of their most excellent Lawyers and Parliament-men and some Bishops and Divines These men being offended at the Separating part of the Reformation were taken with the notion of Unity and Government but understood not the true state of the Controversie and were of two minds among themselves 1. Some had long had an untryed notion by Tradition that the Church throughout the World was One Body Politick under one Humane Government 2. Others never thought of that but having seen a submission of all the Western Churches to the Pope thought a Separation unlawful § X. But the case of the Separation which they understood not who blamed it was this The Reformers took the Universal Church in all the Earth to have no Head King or Soveraign Governour but Christ none else having the least shew of true capacity or right and therefore that none had an Universal Legislative Judicial or Executive Power And a Church-Soveraignty was a more irrational conceit than a Civil Soveraignty over all the Earth And an Aristocracy of Bishops more irrational than a Papal Monarchy Therefore they professed not to separate from Papists as Christians or from any of their Societies as parts of Christ's Church but to renounce deny and separate from their new Vsurped Church-Species or Form as it is feigned to be an Vniversal Humane Soveraign with his Subjects Had they never corrupted other Doctrine or Worship this Church-Species of Universal Soveraignty is to be separated from 2. And with all the Reformers found that though they could have submitted to Patriarchs as a Humane Power set up by Princes had they Governed according to the Laws of Christ yet 1. It being but a Humane Power 2. And one Prince having no right to set up a Patriarch over another Princes Subjects 3. And the Roman Patriarch claiming also the Universal Soveraignty or part of it in Councils 4. And having corrupted Doctrine Worship and Discipline they took it to be their duty to renounce also the Pope's Patriarchal Government and for all Christians to obey Christ's Universal Laws alone and the Local Laws circa sacra left to man's Legislation of the particular Princes and States where they live And not to place Universal Unity or Concord in any Usurping Humane Soveraign or their Laws or mutable circumstances And had those excellent moderate Papists before-named well studied this point of Universal Soveraignty it 's like they had forsaken Rome § XI When the Pope thought to satisfie the World and confound the Reformation by the Council of Trent the Cardinal of Lorain and the French consented not to much that they there did but stuck to the Councils of Constance and Basil lest they should lose the Liberties of the Gallican Church So that it was long e're that Nation seemed to own the Council of Trent and never did it heartily and universally but continued at some further distance from the Absoluteness of the Pope than Italy or Spain And to this day they continue to maintain 1. That the Pope hath no Power over the King in Temporals 2. That he hath no Power to Depose Kings 3. That General Councils are so far above him as to reform him and his disorders 4. That he is not Infallible alone but in conjunction with the Church or Councils And though some have spoken and written against the first and second Barclay and many others have confuted them and the Parliaments have burnt their Books And this is the Moderate Popery of France Well may I call them Papists still for 1. They renounce not a Humane Universal Church Soveraignty 2. They allow the Pope to call Councils and Preside and to be the principium Vnitatis and Patriarch of the West 3. They know that when no Church-Parliaments are in being the Universal Executive Power must be continued or the Universal Policy be dissolved Therefore they allow the Pope a Right of Universal Government according to the Canons but not Arbitrary and therefore not above Councils So that if those that are for the King Ruling by Law and making Laws only in and by Parliaments be yet for Monarchy then Concil Constan. Basil and the French are yet for Popery As to our Reformation it is so fully recorded by many and newly by that excellent and moderate Historian Dr. Burnet that for the time he writes I shall only transcribe a few Notes out of his Abridgment Page 87. The Oaths which the Bishops swore to the Pope and the King were found so inconsistent as it appeared both could not be kept which caused the Popes to be dismist Page 113. An Act was made for Election and Consecration of Bishops in short The King to name one and the Dean and Chapter in twelve days to return an Election of the person named by the King Page 138. Cranmer Tonstall Clark and Goodrik Bishops being called to give their Opinion of the Emperors Power to call Councils said That though ancient Councils were called by the Roman Emperors yet that was done by reason of the extent of their Monarchy that was now ceased But since other Princes had an entire Monarchy within their Dominions Yet if one or more of those Princes should agree to call a Council to a good intent and desire the concurrence of the rest they were bound by the rule of CHARITY to agree to it Page 139. Cranmer said that this Authority of General Councils flowed not from the Number of Bishops but from the Matter of their decisions which were received with an Universal Consent for there were many more Bishops at Arimini than at Nice or Constantinople c. Christ had named no Head of the whole Church as God had named no Head of the World In Queen Elizabeth's Reign 1559. the Divines appointed to dispute against the Papist Bishops in their second paper maintain That every Church had power to reform it self This they founded on the Epistles of Paul to the particular Churches and St. John to the Angels of the Seven Churches In the first three Ages there were no General Councils but every Bishop in his Diocess or such few Bishops as could assemble together condemned Heresies determined Matters that were contested so did also the Orthodox after Arrianisme had so overspread the World that even
the See of Rome was defiled with it Page 358. A Bill that came to nothing was for empowering thirty two Persons to revise the Ecclesiastical Laws But as this last was then let fall so to the great prejudice of this Church it hath slept ever since For before this p. 129 130. l. 2. In King Edward's Reign Bucer's Opinion was asked about the review of the Common Prayer Book He wished there might not be only a denunciation against scandalous Persons that came to the Sacrament but a Discipline to exclude them That the Habits might be laid aside c. At the same time he understood that the King expected a New Years Gift from him of a Book written particularly for his own use So he made a Book for him concerning the Kingdom of Christ He prest much the setting up a strict Discipline the Sanctification of the Lords day the appointing many days of Fasting and that Pluralities and Non-residence might be effectually condemned that Children might be Catechized that the reverence due to Churches might be preserved that the Pastoral Function might be restored to what it ought to be that Bishops might throw off Secular Affairs and take care of their Diocesses and Govern them by the advice of their Presbyters that there might be Rural Bishops over twenty or thirty Parishes and that Provincial Councils might meet twice a year that Church Lands be restored and a fourth part assigned to the poor that care be taken for Education of Youth and for repressing Luxury that the Law be reformed and no Office sold but given to the most deserving that none be put in Prison upon slight offences The young King was much pleased with these advices And upon that began himself to form a Scheme for amending many things c. It appears by it that he intended to set up a Church Discipline and settle a Method for breeding Youth Page 361 362 li. 4. To return to Queen Elizabeth the Changes are recited and he addeth The liberty given to explain in what sence the Oath of Supremacy was taken gave a great evidence of the Moderation of the Queens Government that she would not lay snares for her people which is always a sign of a Wicked and Tyrannical Prince But the Queen reckoned that if such comprehensive Methods could be found out as would once bring her people under any Vnion though perhaps there might remain a great diversity of Opinion that would wear off with the present Age and in the next Generation all would be of one mind Page 363. The Empowering Lay men to deprive Church-men or Excommunicate could not be easily excused but was as justifiable as the Commissions to Lay-Chancellors for those things were There are 9400 Benefices in England but of all these the Number of those viz. Papists who chose to resign rather than take the Oath was very inconsiderable Fourteen Bishops Six Abbots Twelve Deans Twelve Archdeacons Fifteen Heads of Colledges Fifty Prebendaries and Eighty Rectors was the whole number of those that were turned out But it was believed that the greatest part complied against their Consciences and would have been ready for another turn if the Queen had died while that Race of Incumbents lived and the next Successor had been of another Religion Read what he saith of Mr. Parker's great unwillingness to be A. Bishop and the threatning else to Imprison him p. 363 364 c. I conclude with that honest Note p. 369. There was one thing yet wanting to compleat the Reformation of this Church which was the restoring a Primitive Discipline against scandalous Persons the stablishing the Government of the Church in Ecclesiastical hands and taking it out of Lay hands who have so long profaned it So that the dreadfullest of all Censures is now become most scorned and despised See the rest The Papists in Queen Elizabeth's days sometime strove by Treasons the recovery of their Power and secretly strove by Policy to divide the Protestants and to root out those that were most against them The Ministers unhappily fell into these Parties 1. Some were for the Grandeur of the Bishops and for strict observance of Liturgy and Ceremonies and against Parochial Discipline and these prevailed with the Queen 2. Some were against Diocesan Bishops and Ceremonies and some things in the Liturgy and were for Parish Discipline And these were called Nonconformists and Puritans 3. Melancthon and Bucer had prevailed with some others who were indifferent as to Bishops and most of the Ceremonies and Forms but Zealous for Parish Discipline and a godly Life and for using things indifferent only indifferently to Edification and not to the hinderance of the Ministry of refusers And Bucer's Scripta Anglicana written for K. Edward which urged this Parish Discipline with great Zeal and Judgment prevailed with a great part of the Queens Council and of the Protestant Nobility and Gentry but most of the Clergy were of the two first mentioned Opinions called Extreams by others § 4. All the Parliaments that were called in Queen Elizabeth's time were still suspicious that Popery would keep too much strength by the peoples Ignorance and Impiety for want of good Preaching and godly Living in the Ministry And therefore were usually complaining of the Bishops especially Whitguift for silencing so many Nonconforming Preachers and keeping up so many Pluralists and so many meer Readers And they were oft attempting a Reformation of this and to have restored the Nonconformists and united the godly Protestants But by the Bishops Counsel the Queen still restrained them and charged them not to meddle with Ecclesiastical Matters as belonging to her In Sir Simond Dewes Journals you may see the many attempts and her constant prohibition and restraint And Parliaments were loth to offend her or make any breach remembering how great a deliverance they had by her from Queen Mary's Persecutions Though they grudged at the Imprisonment of Mr. Strickland and others that had spoke earnestly for Reformation of Bishops Affairs and the Ministry yet they bore it patiently because of what they did enjoy One of their strongest attempts you may read in their Petition of Sixteen Articles in Sir Sim. Dewes An. 1584 and 1585. page 357. which is well worth the reading But it was not endured But she long endured the Popish Bishops in their Seats though in Parliament the A Bishop of York the Bishop of London the Bishops of Worcester Landaff Coventree Oxford Chester the Abbot of Westminster were against the Bill for the Supremacy and abolishing Popery See Sir S. Dewes p. 28. and p. 23. also the Bishops of Winchester Carlile Exceter Which patience of hers mentioned put Sir S. D. the Historian on the recital of so large a Catalogue of Records for the Kings Power against the Pope and Usurping Bishops as is worth the reading page 24. § 5. Also for many years the Papists came to our Temples till the Pope forbad them But the Parliament men much differed about this Some would
French Papists than the Italians For the Italian Party are at so visible a distance that they can design no way for their advantage but a Toleration unless they could get the Government And their Toleration would a while but make the Nation better know them and more dislike them But the French Party cry down Toleration and trust wholly to a Coalition and to force They hope to do their work before it s known what they are doing They will cry down Popery meaning only the Pope's absolute Power above Councils It is but abating the Latine Service Transubstantiation Priests Marriage granting the Cup to the Laity and two or three more such things and crying up nothing but the Name of the Church of England though changed by Subjection to a Forreign Jurisdiction and then crying up Obedience and Conformity to it and crying down Schism as an intolerable thing and the Papists shall seem to turn to us and not we to them and then no Dissenter shall be suffered Mr. Thorndikes Book of forbearance of Penalties tells us of no other hope of sufferance but on supposition that we all agree in subjection to the thing called The Vniversal Political Church And a Learned Tribe by Interest and Opinion engaged in the Cause may be ready by confident triumphant Writings and Disputes to make good all this and scorn and tread down Gainsayers as Schismaticks And the Coalition will take in the parts and labours of those that now are called Papists who are trained up in Militant Arts. XX. But as long as God and the King are against them we need not much fear the Success of their Endeavours Such a Care hath the King had to secure the Land against all suspicion of Popery in himself that a severe penalty is to be inflicted on any that shall so defame him Yea he hath passed Acts for the Clergy Corporations Vestries the Militia Nonconformists in which they are all obliged by Promise or Oath never to Endeavour any Alteration of the Government of Church and State And again I say what sober Man can be so sottish as to think that to subject the King Clergy and whole Kingdom to the Forreign Jurisdiction of a pretended Universal Sovereignty Monarchical Aristocratical or Mixt is no alteration of the Government of the Church yea of the Church-specifying Form XXI This is a great secondary reason why we cannot be for such a change because we cannot Consent that Church Vestries Corporations Militia c. should be all perfidious or perjured Yea all the Land that have taken the Oath of Supremacy against all Forreign Jurisdiction We accuse not others but excuse our selves Yea what Crime is it against King and Kingdom to make them the Subjects of a Forreign Power I leave to other men to enquire XXII God seemeth purposely to have confounded them in their Design by leaving them no Materials for their Fabrick I can imagine no pretences of possibility but in some of these following ways 1. That it is the Colledge of Bishops diffused over the Earth that must exercise Legislation and Judgment by Consent or by Majority of Votes And I shall never fear the prevalency of this Opinion till an Epidemical Madness turneth us into a Bedlam 2. That it must be a true General Council that must Govern us And this is no more to be expected than that all the World fall under one Monarch or that all Christians save one Kingdom Apostatize which God prevent 3. That Patriarchs with such Metropolitans as they will call be taken for the Governing Representers of all the Bishops and Churches on Earth But there is no possibility left us of this way For it must be either by the five old Patriarchs or by new ones 1. If the old ones Gods Judgments have made that way unpracticable 1. The Cities of Antioch and Alexandria are destroyed where two of the Patriarchs should be Bishops 2. The Turk is Lord of four of the old Patriarchal Seats and none can be chosen rule or come to Councils without his Consent And he can get almost whom he will Chosen and so the Turk should be our Chief Church Governour And the Places are bought with Money and the Possessors answerable Ludolphus tells us that the Patriarch of Alexandria is some unlearned ignorant Person that scarce knoweth Letters and that Men are made Clergy-men there against their wills all Men shunning the Office because of the Sufferings from the Turk which they must undergo They have no just Qualification Election or Power There are three nominal Patriarchs of Antioch chosen by three several Parties besides the Popes They are utterly uncertain which of them is right or rather certain that none of them are or can be such All the four Nominal Patriarchs are against the Romans and several against each other And many of the chief Christian Churches own none of them as their Governours and none own them all as such And must our Kings and Kingdoms be Subjects of ignorant Subjects of the Turk because once Men were advanced to high Titles over Towns now destroyed in one Christian Empire now dissolved or turned Mahometans 4. There is therefore but one way left which is for the Pope and his Privy Council of Cardinals to be the standing Governour by Judgment and Execution and to call when Princes force him to it such European Councils as he can and as he doth to make four Nominal Patriarchs of Const. Alex. Antioch and Jerusalem as Men make Kings Queens and Bishops on a Chess-board and to call these General Councils as he did that at Trent and to keep the people ignorant enough to believe it As for the making of a sort of new Patriarchs there must go so much to agree who they shall be among all Christian Princes and Nations and then to prove that they are the true Representers of all others and that the Representers or represented have any Universal Legislative Power that I am in no Expectations of any such Sovereignty I have proved against Mr. Hooker that the Body of the people as such are not the Givers of the Power of their Govern ours nd therefore cannot give power to an Universal Supream XXIII When I had seen all Mr. Thorndikes Books and Dr. Heylins and some other such and A. Bishop Bramhall's Book against me with a long and vehement reproving Preface I purposed to have again detected the design and have answered that Book But my Bookseller Nevill Simons told me that Mr. Roger Lestrange then Overseer of the Press came to him and vehemently protested that he would ruine him if he printed my Answer to it And when it might not be Printed I forbore to Write it Since then among others Mr. Dodwell hath appeared with most Voluminous confidence whom I have answered who I doubt not will want neither Ink Paper Words or Face for a reply My Conference with Bishop Guning I thought it against the Rules of Converse to publish But his Chaplain Dr. Saywell
sheweth that Councils have been against Councils and the Arrian Hereticks had more Councils than the Christians and sheweth their uncertainty Pag. 19. As to the Authority of Councils Augustine saith Ipsa plenaria Concilia saepe Priora ◠posterioribus emandantur And of the Succession and Ordination of Bishops he saith Pag. 131. If there were not one of them that turned from Popery or of us left alive yet would not therefore the whole Church of England fly to Lovaine Tertullian saith Nonne Laici sacerdotes sumus Ubi Ecclesiastici Ordinis non est Consessus offert tingit sacerdos qui est solus Sed ubi tres sunt Ecclesia est licet Laici And frequently he saith The Church is found among few as well as among many And he was for Lay Mens Baptizing X. The first Canon commandeth Preachers Four times a Year to declare That All usurped foreign Power forasmuch as the same hath no Establishment nor Ground by the Law of God is for most just Causes taken away and abolished And that therefore No manner of Obedience or Subjection within His Majesties Realms and Dominions is due to any such foreign Power The 12th Canon Excommunicateth ipso facto any that shall affirm That it is lawful for any 〈◊〉 of Ministers to joyn together and make 〈◊〉 Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical without the King's Authority and shall submit themselves to be ruled and governed by them Therefore none may go beyond Sea to Councils without his Authority And the Canons of Foreigners are not to be made a Rule without his Authority And is not other Princes Authority as necessary in their Dominions The Canon which bids Prayer 55th describeth Christ's holy Catholick Church to be the whole Congregation of Christian People dispersed throughout the whole World But such a Church hath no Legislative or Judicial Power XI The Controversie is about an Article of Faith I believe the holy Catholick Church The Humanists say It is an universal Political Society Governed by one humane Supream Monarch Aristocracy or mixt under Christ. Protestants say It hath no universal supream Ruler but Christ. Now the Generality of Protestant English and transmarine who write on the Creed expound this Article accordingly in the Protestant sence as he that will peruse their Books may find which sheweth what is the sence of the Church of England XII Though King Edw. VI. was but a Youth when he wrote his sharp Book against Popery lately printed It sheweth what his Tutors and the Clergy of his time who were called the Church then thought of these Matters XIII If the Parliaments of England all the days of Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles I. and II. knew what was the Doctrine of the Church of England about a Forreign Jurisdiction it is easie to gather it in their Votes and Acts. Let him that would know whether they were for a Coalition with the French on such terms read Sir Simon Dewes Journals Rushworths Collections or Prins Introduction ad annum 1621. or any other true Historian and he will see how far they were from owning any Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction But the contrary minded would make the World believe that all these Parliaments were of some Sect differing from the Church of England But what call they the Church of England but that part of the Clergy who conform to the Laws And did not the Law-makers understand the Laws Or if they more regard the sence of the Clergy let them read A. Bishop Abbot's very plain and bold Letter to the King in Prin's Introduct pag. 39 40. and Dr. Hackwell's c. and they may know what was then the sence of the Clergy With whom concurred the Bishops of Ireland Insomuch that Bishop Downame expressing his sense of the Papists there and his contrary desires presumed to add And let all the people say Amen at which the Church rang with the Amen And though he was questioned in England for it he came safe off His Neighbour Bishops also declaring Popery to be Idolatry and the Pope Antichrist XIV The Bishops and chief Writers of England have taken the Pope to be the Antichrist Cranmer Whitguift Parker Grindall Abbot all A. Bishops of Canterbury Vsher Downame Jewel Andrews Bilson Latimer Hooper Farrar Ridley Robert Abbot Hall Allig and abundance more Bishops The Martyrs Sutcliffe Fulke Sharp Whittaker Willet Crakenthorp and most of our Writers against Popery Sure then they were for none of his Jurisdiction here XV. The Prayers have been and are to this day added in the end both to our Bibles and Common Prayer Books which shew how far the Church of England was from desiring a Coalition with the Papists by submitting to any Forreign Jurisdiction They say to God Confound Satan and Antichrist with all Hirelings whom thou hast already cast off into a reprobate sense that they may not by Sects Schisms Heresies and Errors disquiet thy little Flock And because O Lord we be fallen into the latter days and dangerous times wherein Ignorance hath got the upper hand and Satan by his Ministers seeketh by all means to quench the light of thy Gospel we beseech thee to maintain thy Cause against those ravening Wolves and strengthen all thy Servants whom they keep in Prison and Bondage Let not thy long-suffering be an occasion either to increase their tyranny or to discourage thy Children c. Though A. Bishop Laud put out all these Prayers from the Scots new Liturgy we had never had them still bound with ours to this day if the Church of England had not at first approved them There is also a Confession of Faith found with them describing the Catholick Church as we do XVI The Oath called Et Caetera of 1640. saith that The Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England containeth all things necessary to Salvation Therefore Obedience to any Forreign Jurisdiction is not necessary to Salvation And therefore not necessary to the avoiding of Schism or any Damning Sin XVII The Church of England holdeth that no Forreigners Pope or Prelates have Judicial Power to pronounce the King of England a Heretick Or Excommunicate though as Bishop Andrews saith in Tortura Torti even a Deacon may refuse to deliver him the Sacrament if uncapable much more that Pastor whom he chuseth to deliver it him For it 's known by sad experience how dismal the Consequences are exposing the lives of the Excommunicate to danger among them that believe the Pope and his Councils and rendering them dishonoured and contemned by their Subjects We know how many Emperors have been deposed as Excommunicate and what Queen Elizabeth's Excommunication tended to And if our Laws make it Treason to publish such an Excommunication sure the Law-makers believed not that either Pope or Prelates had a Judicial Power to do it In Prin's Introduct p. 121. the Papists that were unwilling to be the Executioners had no better plea than That no Council had yet judged
by my silence I have neglected the Duty of the place it hath pleased God to call me to and your Majesty to place me in But now I humbly crave leave I may discharge my Conscience toward God and my Duty to your Majesty And therefore I beseech you freely to give me leave to deliver my self and then let your Majesty do with me what you please Your Majesty hath propounded a Toleration of Religion I beseech you take into consideration what your Act is what the consequence may be By your Act you labour to set up the most and Heretical Doctrine of the Church of Rome the Whore of Babylon How hateful it will be to God and grievous to your good Subjects the Professors of the Gospel that your Majesty who hath often Disputed and Learnedly Written against those Hereticks should now shew your self a Patron of those wicked Doctrines which your Pen hath told the World and your Conscience tells your self are Superstitious Idolatrous and Detestable And hereunto I add what you have done in sending the Prince into Spain without the consent of your Council and Privity and Approbation of your People And though you have a Charge and Interest in the Prince as Son of your Flesh yet have the people a greater as Son of the Kingdom upon whom next after your Majesty are their Eyes fixed and their welfare depends And so tenderly is his going apprehended as believe it however his return may be safe yet the Drawers of him into this Action so dangerous to himself so desperate to the Kingdom will not pass away unquestioned unpunished Besides this Toleration which you endeavour to set up by your Proclamation cannot be done without a Parliament unless your Majesty will let your Subjects see that you will take to your self ability to throw down the Laws of your Land at your pleasure What dreadful consequents these things may draw afterward I beseech your Majesty to consider And above all lest by this Toleration discountenancing the true Profession of the Gospel wherewith God hath blessed us and this Kingdom hath so long flourished under it your Majesty do not draw upon this Kingdom in General and your self in particular Gods heavy wrath and indignation Thus in discharge of my Duty towards God and your Majesty and the place of my Calling I have taken humble leave to deliver my Conscience Now Sir do what you please with me Thus you see what difficulties the King went through to avoid all shew of Cruelty to the Roman Sect when at the same time the Canons Excommunicated Protestants that affirmed any thing to be unlawful in the Liturgy Ceremonies or Church Government and the Laws were in force against them Chap. IV. Of the Papists Endeavours in the time of King Charles the First and the great wrong they did him § 1. THE same method they still continued 1. In vain they subtilly laboured to have perverted the King 2. And then pretended their great sufferings to procure Indulgence 3. And secretly gave out that the King was for them to draw on others that they thought would be still of the Kings Religion § 2. When he was in Spain the Bishop of Couchen a Trained Veterane and Head of the Inquisition was chosen to take the charge of labouring his Conversion and Carolus Boverius wrote to him that Book for Church Monarchy which is now extant And the Pope wrote to him an insinuating Letter to which this answer as returned by the Prince is recorded by Prin as out of Mr. De Chesne the King of France his Geographer and by the Caballa of Letters and by Rushworth who saith the Latine Copy was preserved by some then in Spain at the Treaty and this following in the Caballa is but an ill Translation of it Most Holy Father I received the dispatch from your Holiness with great content and with that respect which the Piety and Care wherewith your Holiness writes doth require It was an unspeakable pleasure to me to read the generous Exploits of the Kings my Predecessors in whose Memory Posterity hath not given those Praises and Elogies of Honour as were due to them I believe that your Holiness hath set their Examples before my Eyes to the end I might imitate them in all my Actions For in truth they have often exposed their Estates and Lives for the Exaltation of the Holy Chair And the Courage wherewith they have assaulted the Enemies of the Cross of Jesus Christ hath not been less than the Care and Thought which I have to the End that the Peace and Intelligence which hath hitherto been wanting in Christendom might be bound with a true and strong Concord For as the common Enemy of Peace still watcheth to put hatred and dissention among Christian Princes so I believe that the Glory of God requires that we should endeavour to unite them And I do not esteem it a greater honour to be descended from so great Princes than to imitate them in the Zeal of their Piety In which it helps me very much to have known the mind and will of our thrice honoured Lord and Father and the Holy Intentions of his Catholick Majesty to give a happy concurrence to so laudable a Design For it grieveth him exceedingly to see the great evils that grow from the Divisions of Christian Princes which the Wisdom of your Holiness foresaw when it judged the Marriage which you pleased to design between the Infanta of Spain and my self to be necessary to procure so great a good For it is very certain I shall never be so extreamly affectionate to any thing in the World as to endeavour alliance with a Prince that hath the same apprehension of the true Religion with my self Therefore I intreat your Holiness to believe that I have been always very far from Novelties or to be a partizan of any Faction against the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion But on the contrary I have sought all occasions to take away the suspicion that might rest upon me And that I will employ my self for the time to come to have but one Religion and one Faith seeing we all believe in one Jesus Christ Having resolved in my self to spare nothing that I have in the World and to suffer all manner of discommodities even to the hazarding of my Estate and Life for a thing so well pleasing to God It rests only that I thank your Holiness for the permission you have pleased to afford me And I pray God to give you a Blessed Health and his Glory after so much pains which your Holiness takes in his Church Signed Charles Steward § 3. Read Rushworth's Copy p. 82 83. whether is most current I know not but this much shews that the Papists complaint of cruel usage here is unjust And lest any believe them that say King Charles was at the Heart a Papist let them note 1. How many and strong temptations he frustrated 2. That when he wrote this he was in their power 3. That
animo supplex veneror ut illi spiritum suum mentemque meliorem det And in another Epistle to Salmasius p. 196. he saith being ask'd his Judgment of his last Books Tantum abest ut omnia probem ut vix aliquid in co reperiocui sine conditione calculum apponam meum Verissimè dixit ille qui dixit Grotium papizare Vix tamen in isto scripto aliquid legi quod mirarer quodve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 occurreret Nunquid enim omnes istiusmodi authoris lucubrationes erga Papistarum errores perpetuam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 erga Jesuitas amorem erga nos plusquam vatinianum odium produnt clamant In voto quod ejus nomen praeferebat an veritus est haec 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 profiteri And how far he was familiar with Grotius he â—ells us p. 248. Ad Vincent Fabrit Cum eo nempe Communicaveram vel solebam mea fere omnia c. And what Salmasius thought of him these words of Saravius ad Salmas intimate Ex quo à vera orbita in religionis negotio deflexit captasti occasionem toto biennio antequam sato fungeretur eum illudendi certe irritandi I have formerly said that worthy Mr. Ereskin yet living since dead told me that Petavius told him that Grotius was resolved to have declared himself for the Church of Rome and joyned with them if he had returned safe from the Journey he died in Henr. Valesius in his Funeral Oration on Petavius saith p. 684. Batesâ—i Collect. Quid non praestitit ut clarissimum Virum Hugonem Grotium ad Catholicaâ— Communionem adduceret Erat ille quidem minimè à nobis alienus poene noster quippe qui doctrinan Tridentim Concilii in omnibus sese amplecti palam profiteretur Id unum supererat ut Ecclesiae Sacrariâ—m ingressus Communionem nostram Sociaretur Quod ille nescio quas ob causas dum ad Catholicae fidei umtatem plurimos secum sperat adducere Consultò differebat But I make no other mens but his own words the Index of his Faith Chap. VII Of the several sorts of Conciliators or Peace-makers about our Controversies with the Papists § 1. IF any shall think that I who have spent so much time and labour for the Churches peace am now against it or would raise dishonourable suspicions on any just endeavours to that end they will utterly mistake me There are divers sorts of Endeavours for peace with the Papists by real Protestants § 2. I. The old Conformists that prevailed against the Dissenters in Queen Elizabeth's days were for going no further from the Papists than they needs must lest they gave them occasion of accusation II. Since then many Men have taken notice that many of our Doctrinal Controversies consist more in ambiguous words and misunderstanding of each other than most on either side imagine And they have endeavoured the lessening of such Controversies by better Explications and stating of the Case In this kind Spalatensis and Bishop W. Forbes have done very Learnedly but in some things yielded a great deal too far Camero Amiraldus Capellus Testardus the Theses Salmurienses and Sedâ—nenses have done much But no Man so much as Lude Le Blank in his Theses which he sent me his desire here to publish To these I adjoin my self as among many other Writings in my Catholick Theology and Methodus Theologiae I have openly and largely shewed the World And no Censures have deterred me from this honest and necessary way of pacification III. But there are others that would on pretence of Peace take in many of their Errors in Doctrine Government and Worship But yet are for no Foreign Jurisdiction IV. But those that I now write against go further and some under the Name of a Prince Patriarch and the Principium Vnitatis Catholicae would come under the Pope some by pretence of the power of General Councils or an Universal Colledge of all Bishops and some by these and Patriarchs conjunct would bring us under a Foreign Jurisdiction and contrive an Union on some French terms And would to this end let in abundance of corruptions in Discipline and Worship on pretence of Obedience to the Canons of Councils Yea some condemn those as Schismaticks yea as in a state of Damnation who are not in these matters of their mind It is these that I am against § 3. While I oppose these I still own my foresaid reconciling Books and no reproach of those that run into a contrary extream shall ever drive me from the true terms of Peace nor to desire any cruelty against them or any of their Sufferings but what necessary defence of Soul and Body require And though my Exposition of the Revelation have offended many upon far closer study of it since I am not less but more perswaded that Pagan Rome was Babylon and that John Fox Martyrol Vol. I. p. III. who took his Oath of a Divine Revelation to him which brought him to take the Pagan Empire for the Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns and to expound the Times and Thousand years accordingly is much to be regarded But if I be uncertain of such points I will rather suspend my Judgment than in uncertainty venture on any thing that is against Christian Love and Peace I hold Communion with the Romans in Christianity though not in Popery I take all true Christians among them for Part of the Catholick Church of Christ though I take their pretended Catholick Church as Headed by the Pope for no Church of Christ at all nor as Headed by any Usurping Humane Head whatsoever Chap. VIII The Doctrine of Archbishop Bromhall in defence of Grotius in his Book called His Vindication of himself and the Episcopal Clergy from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery as managed by Mr. Baxter in his Treatise of the Grotian Religion I fiercely Prefaced by a Dignitary of the Church Parker § 1. I mean to give you his own words and pass by his mistakes against my self Only saying That it was not fairly done to affirm that I numbered him with the Papists or those that designed to bring in Popery when I had no such words yea and praising him excepted him from that number only dissenting from his too near approach But whether he except himself his words will best shew § 2. Page 20 21. he saith I will endeavour to give some light what was the Religion of Grotius He was in affection a Friend and in desire a true Son of the Church of England And on his Death bed recomended that Church as it was Legally Established to his Wife and such other of his Family as were then about him obliging them by his Authority to adhere firmly to it so far as they had opportunity Page 81. I know no Member of the Greek Church that give them the Popes either more or less than I do Page 82. To wave their last four hundred years
determinations is implicitely to renounce all the necessary Causes of this great Schism And to rest satisfied with their old Patriarchal Power and Dignity and Primacy of Order which is another part of my Proposition is to quit the Modern Papacy both Name and Thing Page 84. In the first place if the Bishop of Rome were reduced from his Universality of Sovereign Jurisdiction Jure Divino to his Principium Vnitatis and his Court regulated by the Canons of the Fathers which was the sence of the Councils of Constance and Basil and is desired by many Roman Catholicks as well as we 2. If the Creed or necessary Points of Faith were reduced to what they were in the time of the four first Oecumenical Councils according to the Decree of the third General Council admitting no additional Articles but only necessary Explications and those to be made by the Authority of a General Council or one so General as can be Convocated And lastly Supposing that some things from whence offence hath been either given or taken I say in case these three things were accorded whether Christians might not live in an Holy Communion and come in the same publick Worship of God free from all Schismatical Separation of themselves one from another c. We have no Controversie with the Church of Rome about a Primacy of Order but a Supremacy of Power I shall declare my sence in four Conclusions 1. That St. Peter had a fixed Chair at Antioch and after at Rome is a truth which no Man who giveth any credit to the Ancient Fathers and Councils can either deny or well doubt of 2. That St. Peter had a Primacy of Order among the Apostles is the unanimous voice c. 3. Some Fathers and School-men who were no Sworn Vassals to the Roman Bishops affirm that this Primacy of Order is affixed to the Chair of St. Peters Successors for ever c. Page 107. They who made the Bishop of Rome a Patriarch were the Primitive Fathers not excluding the Apostles and Christian Emperors and Oecumenical Councils What Laws they made in this case we are bound to obey for Conscience sake till they be repealed lawfully by virtue of the Law of Christ. Page 104. To my Objection that all Protestants must then pass for Schismaticks that take not the Pope for Principium Vnitatis and Patriarch c. he answereth still weaker and weaker Must a Man quit his just right because some dislike it Their dislike is scandal taken but the quitting of that which is right for their satisfaction should be the scandal given Whether is the worse 1. How are they forced to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks If they be forced any way it is by their own wilful Humours or erroneous Conscience Others force them not 2. I would have him consider which is worse and the more dangerous condition for Christians to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks or to fall into Schism it self Whosoever shall oppose the just Power of a Lawful Patriarch lawfully proceeding is a material Schismatick Reader I forbear confuting these things by the way being now but on the Historical relation of their Judgments You see how great necessity to avoid Schism they place in our subjection to a Forreign Jurisdiction The Confutation you shall have of all together Chap. IX The Judgment of Archbishop Laud as delivered by Dr. Heylin and by himself § 1. IN the Life of Archbishop Laud Pag. 414 415 416 412. Touching the Design of working a Reconciliation betwixt us and Rome I find it charged on him by another Writer Fuller Ch. Hist. lib. 11. p. 217. who holds it as unlawful to be undertaken as it was impossible to be effected Answ. If it be a Crime it 's Novum Crimen of a New stamp never coined before As to the Impossibility many Men of Eminence for Parts and Piety have thought otherwise Spalatensis and Sancta Clara are named as Reconcilers And if without prejudice to the Truth the Controversies might have been composed it is most probable that other Protestant Churches would have sued by their Agents to be included in the Peace If not the Church of England had lost nothing by it as being hated by the Calvinists and not loved by the Lutherans Admitting then that such a Reconciliation was endeavoured betwixt the Agents of both Churches Let us next see what our great Statesmen have discoursed upon that particular on what terms the Agreement was to have been made and how far they proceeded in it And first the Book entituled The Pope's Nuntio affirmed to have been written by the Venetian Embassador at his being in England doth discourse thus As to a Reconciliation saith he between the Churches of England and Rome there were made some general Propositions and Overtures by the Archbishop's Agents they assuring that his Grace was very much disposed thereto and that if it was not accomplished in his Life-time it would prove a work of more difficulty after his Death that in very truth for the last three Years the Archbishop had introduced some Innovations approaching nearer the Rites and Forms of Rome That the Bishop of Chichester a great Confident of his Grace the Lord Treasurer and Eight other Bishops of his Grace's Party did most passionately desire a Reconciliation with the Church of Rome That they did day by day recede from their ancient Tenets to accommodate with the Church of Rome That therefore the Pope on his part ought to make some Steps to meet them and the Court of Rome remit something of its rigour in Doctrine or otherwise no accord would be The Composition on both Sides in so good a forwardness before Pauzani left the Kingdom that the Archbishop and the Bishop of Chichester had often said that there were but two sorts of People like to hinder the Reconciliation the Puritans among the Protestants and the Jesuits among the Catholicks Let us see the Judgment and Relation of another Author in a Gloss or Comment on the former entituled The English Pope Printed at London the same Year 1643. And he will tell us that after Con had undertook the managing of Affairs the Matter began to grow towards some Agreement The King required saith he such a Dispensation from the Pope as his Catholick Subjects might resort to the Protestant Church and take the Oaths of Supremacy and Fidelity and that the Pope's Jurisdiction should be declared to be but of Human Right And so far had the Pope consented that whatsoever did concern the King should have been really performed so far as other Catholick Princes do usually enjoy and expect as their due and so far as the Bishops were to be Independent both from King and Pope There was no fear of breach on the Pope's part So that upon the Point the Pope was to content himself with us in England with a Priority instead of a Superiority over other Bishops and with a Primacy instead of a
and that by virtue of Christ's Law for Peace and Concord Obedience hath no formal Object but Authoritatem Imperantis But Assemblies for Concord have no Imperium 4. No Clergyman as such hath any but Pastoral and Teaching Power and as a Tutor to order his own School The Power of the Keys is no other 5. Mens holding and renouncing of Communion with other Persons or Churches may be without Governing Power I am not Governor of all that I hold or renounce Communion with No Bishops have power Judicially to determine of Individuals who shall have Communion with every Parish Church on Earth If they have they must hear them all speak for themselves before they judge them in or out They are not Governors of foreign Kings and Kingdoms though in their Government of their particular Churches they must all agree to observe one Rule that is Christ's Laws 6. There never was an Universal Council of all the Churches but only of one Empire a part of that nor ever will be till the Church be so destroyed as to be brought into a narrow space which God forbid As to Dr. Stillingfleet's Defence of all this I take him not to approve of all that he blameth not And if he did I believe on second thoughts he will more retract this than he did his Irenicon Chap. X. Dr. Peter Heylin's own Judgment § 1. BEcause we come newly from repeating Dr. Heylin's words of Archbishop Laud though they fully shew his own Judgment I will â—â—ere annex some more 1. There is a Book written by a Papist called Historical Collections of the Reformation gathered most out of Dr. Heylin's own words and some â—ut of others describing the Reformers and Reformation so odiously as greatly serveth the Priests to turn Protestants to their Church And â—s the Jesuit Maymbourgh maketh Dr. Heylin's Writings to have Converted the late Dutchess of York it 's like it was this Collection out of him 2. In his Book on the Creed speaking of the Catholick Church he saith Pag. 407. Such is the Ambition of the Pope of Rome that unless he may be taken for the Catholick Church he passeth not for being reckoned a Church at all And yet this is of the two the Lovelier Error Better the Church be all Head than no Head at all And such a Church that is all Body and no Head at all have some of our Reformers modelled in their late Platforms Answ. Is Christ no Head at all Or is any other Person or Court capable of Governing all Christians on Earth All Protestants hold that the whole Church hath no Head but Christ. Pag. 408. Speaking still of the Catholick Church he saith The Government of the Church not being Monarchical as our Masters of the Church of Rome would have it nor Democratical as the Fathers of the Presbytery and Brethren of the Independency have given it out both in their Practice and their Platform it must be Aristocratical Answ. This is a gross Slander of the Presbyterians and Independents Did ever the Presbyterians or Independents say that All Christians on Earth must Govern the whole Church in one Meeting or by Delegates where be the Laws that any of them pretend all Christians made Or the Judgments they past on any Persons after exploration The Presbyterians are for an Aristocratical Government of National Churches and some few Independents are for popular Government in single Congregations but no further 2. Is the Church now Governed by One Aristocracy that is per Optimates that are One Persona Politica by Vote ruling all the Christian World Where is their Meeting What be their Laws Whom do they so try and judge An Universal Governing Aristocracy is more impossible and irrational than an Universal Monarchy Civil or Ecclesiastical Every Bishop and Presbytery Governing his own Church and these keeping Concord by just Correspondency is no liker an Universal Aristocracy than an Assembly of Princes for Concordant Government of their Dominions or than all the Mayors and Justices ruling their several Corporations and Provinces make the Government of England Aristocratical Pag. 409. Saith he Every Bishop where-ever he be fixt and resident hath like St. Paul an universal Care over all the Churches which since they could not exercise by personal Conferences they did it in the Primitive times before they had the benefit of General Councils by Letters Messengers and Agents for the Communicating of their Counsel and imparting their Advice one to another as the emergent Occasions of the Church did require the same These Letters they called Literas formatas Communicatorias Answ. Thus Bishop Gunning and others But 1. St. Paul's Apostolick Power enabled him to do the Work of an Apostle which is to plant Churches in as much of the World as they could and deliver them Christ's Doctrine and Laws infallibly as receiving them by sight and hearing or miraculous revelation And this Power each Apostle could exercise singly and not only by Voting as part of a College the Spirit of Christ teaching them all the same Doctrine But Bishops have no such Office or Power 2. There are several ways of expressing a Care of all the Churches Every Christian must do it by private Endeavours Every Official Preacher by Preaching where he is called Every Pastor by guiding his Flock in Concord with all true Christians in the things which Christ hath made necessary to their Concord And if Archbishops have right to a larger Province they must do it in their proper Province per partes not as one Aristocracy 3. It is granted that as all Christians and Bishops must have a Love to all the Churches and a Care to do them good in their several Places so Concord in things necessary is a great means of that good and the ancient Pastors endeavoured it by Messages Letters and Synods and so must we But what Universal Laws were made by Literae formatae What formal Judgments were past by them Where did the Writers meet first to hear the Accused and examine Witnesses Or must all believe the report of every single Pastor And was it all the Bishops on Earth or a major part that wrote these Legislative and Judicial Letters What strange things can some Men gather from meer Communion and Concord Bishops had then a Necessity of getting the common consent of as many of their Order as they could to make their Government of force to the People that were all Volunteers and not constrained by any Magistrate And it 's useful still to the same end 4. And we grant them that every Bishop and Presbyter that giveth counsel to other Churches doth not do it as a meer private Man but as a Bishop that is One that by Office is authorized to give such Pastoral advice to such as he is called to give it to But not as one that hath the charge of Governing other Mens Flocks or is a Member of an Aristocratical Supream Senate Parliament Court or Voting States Suppose each Hospital
have its allowed Physitian who in doubtful Cases consulteth with many others Their counsel is the counsel of Physitians that is of Men licensed for that Work and Care But it proveth them not to have any proper Governing Power over his Hospital or Patients 5. If every Bishop be a Governor not only in but of the whole World or Church it is either Singly or Collectively as part of a Governing Company If singly it 's a monstrous Body that hath so many thousand Universal Heads If collectively then no one is a Supream Governor but a part of that Body which is such And no one on Earth can act as such a part of One Aristocracy without presence with the rest hearing what they say and what Actors and Witnesses say and gathering Votes Pag. 411. He confesseth out of Socrates about the Emperors Power in Church Matters that from the time in which Emperors received the Faith Ecclesiae negotia ex eorum nutu pendere vis◠sunt Socr. l. 5. Proem And if so why is Mr. Morice angry with me for saying That Bishops used in Councils much to follow the Emperors minds 2. And then it will be but an odd Universal Legislative and Judicial Soveraign Power over all the World which dependeth on the consent of so many Princes Protestants Papists Mahometans Heathens Jacobites Nestorians c. as a General Council must be called by or depend on And it will be an endless Controversie what Princes have or have not a Power to consent or dissent that their Subjects shall go to such Councils But also Consultation is not Government Chap. XI The Judgment of Mr. Herbert Thorndike a late Eminent Divine of the Church of England § 1. MR. Thorndike hath written so much on this Subject that I need no more than refer the Reader to his Books for the discovery of his mind The sum of his late Writings these thirty years past is to call us all into one visible Catholick Church which is unified by one Humane Government of all out of which nothing will excuse us from Schism or make our failing tolerable His arguments for an Universal Aristocracy answered by Dr. Izaak Barrow in the end of his Treatise of Supremacy I will not here recite because they are there so fully and learnedly confuted § 2. In his Just Weights and Measures he tells us that the Church of Rome being a true Church Reformation lyeth in Restoration and not in Separation Page 5. he saith Who will take upon him to shew us that the Worship of the Host in the Papists is Idolatry Page 6 7. They that separate from the Church of Rome as Idolaters are thereby Schismaticks before God For in plain terms we make our selves Schismaticks by grounding our Reformation on this pretence Should this Church declare that the Change which we call Reformation is grounded on this supposition I must then acknowledge that we are Schismaticks Ch. 2. Is to disprove them that make the Pope Antichrist and Papists Idolaters and shew that the supposition of one Catholick Visible Church is the ground of all Communion and supposed to Reformation And Ch. 3. Nothing to be changed but on that Ground of such Visible Unity Ch. 5. If our Lord trust his Disciples and their Successors with the Rule of his Church he trusteth them also to make Laws for the Ruling of it These Laws are as Visible as the Laws of any Kingdom or Common-wealth that is or ever was are Visible I maintain the Popes Canon Law and the same is to be said of the Canon Law by which the Patriarch of Constantinople now Governs the Eastern Church to be derived from those Rules whereby the Disciples of our Lord and their Successors governed the Primitive Church in Unity The power of Giving Laws to the Church the power of Dispensing the Exchequer which God hath provided for the Church are in the Governors of the Church and the power of admitting into and excluding out It 's a Visible Society founded by God under the Name of the Catholick Church on the command of holding Communion with it Page 41. The Church in the form which I state it is a standing Synod able by the consent of the Chief Churches containing the consent of their resorts to conclude the whole Page 48. The Church of Rome hath and ought to have when it shall please to hear reason a Regular pre-eminence over the rest of Christendom in these Western parts And he that is able to judge and willing to consider shall find that Pre eminence the Only Reasonable means to preserve so great a Body in Unity And therefore I am not my self tyed to justifie Henry the Eighth in disclaiming all such pre-eminence Page 48. That the difference may be visible between the Infinite and the Regular Power of the Pope Page 91. The perpetual Rule of the Church makes them Hereticks to the Church that Communicate with Hereticks and Schismaticks that Communicate with Schismaticks Page 94. The Flesh and Blood of Christ by Incarnation the Elements by Consecration being united to the Spirit that is the Godhead of Christ become both One Sacramentally by being both One with the Spirit or Godhead to the conveying of Gods Spirit to a Christian. Page 125. The worshipping the Host in the Papacy is not Idolatry Page 132. He saith that the Oath of Supremacy is but to exclude the Popes Temporal power But because the words seem to exclude the power of General Councils of which the Pope is and ought to be the chief Member of necessity the Law gives great offence And that offence is the sin of the Kingdom and calls for Gods Vengeance on it which though all are involved in the account in the other World will lye on them which may change it and will not Page 134. But the authority of those Divines of this Church who have declared the sence of the Oath of Supremacy with publick allowance are now alledged by the Papists themselves to infer that the matter of it is lawful as excluding only the Popes Civil Power Page 141. We receive the Body and Blood of Christ and by consequence his Spirit Hypostatically united to the same to inable us to perform Page 149. The Church of Rome cannot be charged with Idolatry The Pope cannot be Antichrist Ch. 22. The Reformation pretended is abominable and Apostasie and the usual Preaching a hinderance to Salvation and new Homilies to be formed to restrain Preaching Page 146. I confess I can hope for no good end of any dispute without supposing the sence of the Articles of One Catholick Church which hath carried us through this discourse for the Principle on which all matter in debate is to be tryed P. 214. And oft he professeth that Presbyters not ordained by Bishops baptize and give the Eucharist void of the Effect of a Sacrament and only by Sacriledge speaketh against killing and and banishing But this will require the like Moderation to be extended to the
Recusants of the Church of Rome p. 234. The Recusants being for the most part of the Good Families of the Nation will take it for a part of their Nobility freely to profess themselves in their Religion if they understand themselves Whereas the Sectaries being people of mean quality for the most part cannot be presumed to stand on their reputation so much In his Book called The Forbearance of Penalties c. 3. p. 12 13. he makes the foundation of all Union to be the Government and Laws of the Church as visibly Catholick which Laws must be one and the same the violating whereof is the forfeiture of the same Communion And here I crave leave to call All Canons All Customs of the Church whether concerning the Rites of God's Service or other Observations by one and the same name of Laws of the Church P. 23. As for the Canons of the Church it was never necessary to the maintenance of Commumunion that the same Customs should be held in all parts of the Church It was only necessary the several Customs should be held by the same Authority That the same Authority instituted several Customs for so they might be changed by the same Authority and yet Unity remain Whereas questioning the Authority by questioning whether the acts of it be agreeable to ☞ God 's Law or not how should Unity be maintained It is manifest that they the Fathers could not have agreed in the Laws of the Church if any had excepted against any thing used in any part of the Church as if God's Law had been infringed by it It followeth of necessity that nothing can be disowned by this Church as contrary to God's Law which holdeth by the Primitive Church Page 27. He saith as Mr. Dodwell It is agreed on by the whole Church that Baptism in Heresie or Schism that is when a man gives up himself to the Communion of Hereticks or Schismaticks by receiving Baptism from them though it may be true Baptism and not to be repeated yet it is not available to Salvation making him accessory to Heresie or Schism that is so Baptized Pag. 28. The promise of Baptism is not available unless it be deposited with the true Church nor to him that continueth not in the true Church that may exact the promise deposited with it Page 33. It is out of love to the Reformation that I insist on such a Principle as may serve to reunite us with the Church of Rome being well assured that we can never be well reunited with our selves otherwise Yet not only the Reformation but the common Christianity must needs be lost in the divisions which will never have an end otherwise Pag. 111. If it be said that it is not visible where those Usurpations took place I shall allow all the time which the Code of the Canons contains which Pope Adrian sent to Charles the Great pag. 128. which I would have this Church to own In Mr. Thorndike's large folio Book there is yet much more for his Universal Legislative Aristocracy mixt with Regular Papacy The sum of all is The Pope Governing at least in the West by the Canons in the intervals of General Councils that is alwaies and as the chief Member with Councils making Laws for all the World Thus the French and Italian Papists differ whether the Pope shall Govern the World as the King of Poland doth his Land or say some as the Duke of Venice or rather as the King of France But Protestants know no such thing as an Universal Legislative Church nor owns any Universal Laws but Gods unless you mean Nationally Vniversal as in the Empire Councils and Laws were called I refer you again to Dr. Barrows Confutation of the rest of Mr. Thorndikes Chap. XII The Judgment of Dr. Sparrow Bishop of Norwich and divers others BIshop Sparrow Pref. to Collect. As my Father sent me so send I you Here committing the Government of the Church to his Apostles our Lord Commissions them with the same Power that was committed to him for that purpose when he was on Earth with the same necessary standing Power that he had exercised as Man for the good of the Church Less cannot in reason be thought to be granted than all Power necessary for the well and peaceable Government of the Church And such a power is this of Making Laws This is a Commission in general for making Laws Then in particular for making Articles and Decisions of Doctrines controverted the power is more explicite and express Mat. 28. All power is given me Go therefore and teach all Nations that is with authority and by virtue of the power given me And what is it to teach the Truth with authority but to command and oblige all people to receive the Truth so taught And this power was not given to the Apostles persons only for Christ then promised to be with them in that Office to the end of the World that is to them and their Successors in the Pastoral Office To the Apostles or Bishops that should succeed them to the end of the World To this One holy Church our Lord committed in trust the most holy Faith c. commanding under penalties and censures all her Children to receive that sence and to profess it in such expressive words and forms as may directly determine the doubt Thus she did in the great Nicene Council This authority in determining Doubts and Controversies the Church hath practised in ALL AGES and her constant practice is the best Interpreter of her right I shall not tire the Reader with the needless recitation of many more late Divines that lived since 1630. enough are known Those that have defended Grotius of late I pass no judgment on you may read their own Books and judge as you see cause viz. Dr. Thomas Pierce now Dean of Salisbury and the famous Preface to Archbishop Bromhall's Book against me c. I fear all this History is needless Men now laugh at me for proving by Mens writings their endeavours to subject the King and Kingdom to a Foreign Jurisdiction when they say it is more sensibly and dreadfully proving it self Chap. XIII Dr. Parker's Judgment since Bishop of Oxford THE last mentioned Author Dr. Sam. Parker besides what he hath said against me in his large Preface before Archbishop Bromhall's Book hath since gone so far beyond all his Fellows that finding himself unable to answer this Argument otherwise The World must not have one Universal Humane Civil Governor King or Aristocracy ergo It must not have one Humane Priest or Church Governor desperately denieth the Antecedent and saith that though de facto the Kings of the Earth have not one Soveraign over them all that is meer Man they ought to have Audite Reges I cannot conjecture who he meaneth unless it be the Pope and he be of Cardinal Bertrand's mind that God had not been wise if he had not made one Man
have no right to Salvation presently on their Baptism then it is not lawful to say that the contrary is undoubtedly certain by the Word of God But I confess Mr. D's Proposition is false as I have formerly proved to him And perhaps necessity will force himself to deny it as to Baptism though it overthrow his assertion about Ordination Specially if he be for Laymen and Womens Baptizing as the Papists are in case of danger But the Name of the Church will warrant such Lords to prove all such Declarations Subscriptions Oaths not only sinless but necessary to Order Peace Obedience Ministry and I think to Salvation For they make Schism Damning and such Obedience necessary to escape Schism But he hath one cleanly shift Though the Corporation Declaration be that there is no Obligation from the Covenant on me or any other person and a Man think that some are obliged by it against Schism Popery and Prophaneness and to repent of Sin He saith no Man is forced to take these Declarations Vestry Oaths c. For he may chuse and none constraineth him to be in Corporation trust or a Vestry-man and so a Minister so the Act was to appropriate this sweet Morsel of so Swearing declaring c. to themselves And to themselves let it be appropriated for me And yet when all the Corporations Vestries and Ministry are constituted as they are this is the necessary Unity But Obedience to the Church solveth all I once askt a Convocation man what were the Words of God by which this Article was proved and past in the Convocation and he could not name me any Text that perswaded the Convocation to pass it but told me Dr. P. Guning urged it so hard that they yielded to him without much contradiction I was not willing to believe that the Church of England would pass an Article of Faith against their Judgments to avoid striving with one man when in imposing it they must strive against and silence thousands and condemn most of the Reformed Churches but rather that really they contradicted him not because they thought as he And yet I was loth to think them so uncharitable as to put all Ministers to declare such a thing to be in the Word of God and never tell them where to find it Between both what to think I know not But if really Dr. G. was the Church the reverence of his Name Church shall never make me add to the Word of God or corrupt his Ordinance nor subscribe to his Book or to a Foreign Jurisdiction if he Father it on the Church The main strength of all his condemnations of us and justifications of himself is that They are the Church and our lawful Rulers and we must obey and be Sworn never to endeavour any alteration of Church Government not excepting Church depopulation by large Dioceses nor the use of the Keys by Lay Chancellors And if you ask for the proof of all this and that they are not Vsurpers nor Church-destroyers nor Subverters of Episcopacy it self nor grand Schismaticks you must be content with 1. Ipse dixit and 2. Episcopacy is ancient 3. And the people have neither an Electing or necessary Consenting Vote and yet when not only Mr. Clerkson and I but also Dr. Burnet have fully proved that for twelve hundred or thirteen hundred years the peoples Consent was requisite these great dependents on Antiquity and the Church can wash all off with a torrent of words If the Letters in the Caballa and other History be credible how great a hand had G. Duke of Buckingham in making the Church of England in his days Read but what Heylin saith of Bishop Laud's preferment and the Letters of some Bishops to Buckingham in the Caballa and judge what made the Church of England How basely do they sneak and beg of him for Preferment◠e. g. Theophilus Bishop of Landaffe is a most miserable Man if his Grace help him not to a better Bishoprick Mountagues place at Norwich was of little worth since Henry the Eighth stole the Sheep and scarce for God's sake gave the trotters as he saith in his Letter to Laud. And this was the way So the Church of England is Jure Divino made by the Civil Powers But yet a few words can prove just as he proveth all the rest that the Dean and Chapiter chuse the Bishops and not the King As Heathens made Images of the Gods and thought the Gods did actuate them so men make the Images of Bishops and Councils and some Spirits actuate them whatever they be whether those Noble Lords Knights and Gentlemen that at their death lamented that they lived Atheists and Infidels repented that as Patrons they chose Parish Church men I know not But while these Drs know that many Great Councils have decreed the nullity of those Bishops that got in by Secular help and favour and Damned the Seekers and Accepters of it and yet would perswade the Church that all Gods Word is insufficient for Universal Laws without the addition of Soveraign Councils I will regard them as they deserve and not as they expect Why answer they not my late Book of English Nonconformity The True Sum. Popery is I. The turning a National Univerglity or Catholicism of Councils Church Power into a Terrestrial Universality II. Turning Confederacy and Communion into Political Regency III. Deponing Kings and States from their Sacred office of Supream Government and sole forcible Government of the Church or Persons and things Ecclesiastical the Clergy having only the Power of the Keys Word and Sacraments to work on Conscience without corporal face Chap. XV. The first Letter to Bishop Peter Guning upon his sending me Dr. Saywell's Book My Lord I Thankfully received from you by Dr. Crowther Dr. Saywell's Book and a motion for Conference with him which I yet more thankfully accept I read over the Book presently and think it meet to give you this account of the Success I. 1. I perceive that it doth not concern me nor many if any that I converse with For it is Presbyterians Separatists Quakers and Fanaticks that he accuseth and I am conversant with few such 2. And yet the strein of his Book is such as will make Readers undoubtedly think that by Presbyterians and Nonconformists or Conventiclers he meaneth the same Persons and speaketh of the common Case of the present ejected silenced Ministers Of whom I must again and again say 1. That I have had opportunity by Acquaintance and Report of knowing a great part of the silenced Ministers of England and I know but of few of them that are Presbyterians and Judge most of them to be Episcopal Lawyers and Gentlemen indeed incline to place all the Government in the King and Magistrates 2. That in 1661. when we were Commissioned to endeavour Concord with you not only those named in the Commission but all the Ministers of London were invited by Mr. Calamy and Dr. Reinolds and Mr. 〈◊〉 and Dr. Wallis
c. to come to us in Consultation and let us know their Sence and many came And I remember not one Man that dissented from what we offered you first which was Archbishop Vsher's Primitive Form which took not down Archbishops Bishops or a farthing of their Estates or any of their Lordships or Parliamentary Power or Honour unless the Advice of their Presbyters and the taking the Church Keys out of the hands of Lay Chancellors cast you down 3. That when the King's Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs 1660. granted yet much less Power to Presbyters and left it almost alone in the Bishops we did not only acquiesce in this but all the London Ministers were invited to meet to give the King our joyful Thanks for it And of all that met I remember but two now both dead who refused to subscribe the Common Thanksgiving which with many Hands is yet to be seen in Print And those two exprest their Thankfulness but only said That because some things agreed not to their Judgments they dursâ— not so subscribe lest it signified Approbation but they should thankfully accept that Frame and peaceably submit to it All this being so I appeal with some sense of the Case of England to your self and common reason whether it be just and beseeming a Pastor or Christian or a Man to make the Nation believe 1. That we are Presbyterians 2. And against Bishops 3. And therefore that we are Schismaticks 4. And therefore that we must be Imprisoned or Banished as those that would destroy the Church and Land Would a Turk own such dealing with his Neighbour Is this the way of Peace Will this bring us to Conformity Was it Anti-Episcopal Presbytery which the King's Declaration 1660 determined of Nothing will Serve God and the Churches Peace but Truth and Honesty or at least that which hath some appearance of it II. I find that almost all the Strength of his Book as against Presbyterians who are his Fanaticks is his bare word saying that they are Schismaticks and that they forsake the Judgment and Practice of the Universal Church by forsaking Episcopacy And will this convince me who am certain that I am for that Episcopacy which Ignatius Tertullian Cyprian c. were for and am past doubt that the Episcopacy which I am against is contrary to the Practice of the whole Church for 200 Years and of all save two Cities Alexandria and Rome for a much longer time If I prove this true which I undertake must I then take his turn and desire the Banishment of the Contrary-minded Bishops as dangerous Schismaticks for forsaking the Practice of the Church III. I understand not in his Platform of the Rule which denominateth Dissenters Schismaticks Pag. 353. what he meaneth by the very highest Power most necessary to be understood in these words The Laws and Orders of the Church Vniversal to which every Provincial Church must submit What the Scots mean by a General Assembly I know and what the old Emperors and Councils meant by an Vniversal Council Viz. Universal as to that one Empire But I know no Vniversal Law-givers to the whole Church on Earth but Jesus Christ neither Pope nor Council If I am mistaken in this I should be glad to be convinced for it is of great moment And is the hinge of our Controversie with Rome IV. He doth to me after all give up the whole Cause and absolve me and all that I plead from the guilt of Schism and lay it on your Lordship and such as you if I can understand him when he saith Pag. 363. It is clear that in the Church of England there is no sinful Condition of Communion required nor nothing imposed but what is according to the Order and Practice of the Catholick Church there can be no pretence for any Toleration c. And Pag. 360. There is no Question to be made but where there is an interruption in the Churches Communion there is caused a Schism and it must be charged on them that make the breach which will lye at their Doors who by making their Communion unlawful do unjustly drive away good Christians from it neither doth such a Person that is driven away at present from the external Communion cease to be a Member of that Church but is a much truer Member thereof than that Pastor that doth unjustly drive him from his Communion This fully satisfieth me and if you will read my late small Book called The Nonconformists Plea for Peace you will see what it is that I think unlawful in the Impositions And if you will read a new small Book of your old troubled Neighbour Mr. Jo. Corbet called The Kingdom of God among Men I have so great an Opinion that by it you will better understand us and become more moderate and charitable towards us that I will take your reading it for a very obliging Kindness to Your Servant Ri. Baxter December 11. 1679. Add. V. His terms of Communion are not right as I have proved VI. He speaketh against Toleration so generally without distinction as if no one that dissented but in a word were tolerable which is intolerable Doctrine in a pretended Peace-maker VII He inferreth Toleration while he denieth it in that he is against putting us to Death How then will he hinder Toleration Mulcts will not do it as you see by the Law that imposeth 40 l. a Sermon For when Men devoted to the Sacred Ministry have no Money they will Preach and Beg Imprisonment must be perpetual or uneffectual for when they come out they will Preach again And it contradicteth himself for it will kill many Students being mostly weak as it kill'd by bringing mortal Sickness on them those Learned Holy Peaceable and Excellent Men Mr. Jos. Allen of Taunton Mr. Hughes of Plimouth and some have died in Prison And he that killeth them by Imprisonment killeth them as well as he that burneth them or hangeth them And the Prisons will be so full as will render the Causers of it odious to many and make such as St. Martin was separate from the Bishops the same I say of Banishment Dr. Saywell's Principles infer as followeth I. Schismaticks are not to be Tolerated They that are for the sort of Diocesane Prelacy which we disown are Schismaticks Ergo not to be Tolerated The Major is Dr. S's The Minor is proved thus They that are against that Episcopacy which the Primitive Universal Church was for and used are Schismaticks The foresaid Diocesane Party are against that Episcopacy which the Primitive Universal Church was for and used Ergo they are Schismaticks The Major is Dr. S's The Minor is thus proved I. They that are for the deposing of the Bishops that were over every single Church that had one Altar and those that were over every City Church and instead of them setting up only one Bishop over a Diocess which hath a Thousand or many Hundred Altars and many Cities are against the Episcopacy
Nice 1. Const. 1. Eph. 1. Chalced. Const. 2. de tribus Capitulis Const. 3. against the Monothelites III. You say that These six things are the Governing Acts of this Chief Power 1. To judge which are the true Books of Scripture and the true Copies and Readings 2. To judge what is the sence of the Fundamentals Baptism Creed whose words misunderstood will not save any 3. To judge and declare what is the true Church Government instituted by Christ and his Apostles or delivered by them 4. To judge and declare what are the instituted Ordinances e. g. Confirmation as it is a giving of the Holy Ghost by Imposition of Hands and not only an owning of our Baptismal Covenant which we do in every Sacrament and so of other Ordinances 5. A Judicial Power not of all individual Cases but that those e. g. that hold or do this or that be Excommunicate 6. A Legislative Power to make alterable Canons or Orders of the Church Vniversal This is the sum of all your Explicatory Discourses To which I answer § I. To your proofs that such a Universal Governing Church there is instituted 1. To Isai. 60.12 I say 1. It is not safe stretching dark Prophetical Texts farther than we can prove they are intended The New Testament plainlier tells us the Church State and Power than the Old 2. The Universal Church hath not expounded the Text whether it speak of the state of the Jews after the Captivity or of the State of the Catholick Church now or of the more Blessed State of it at the last when it is more perfected Therefore how are you sure that you have the true sence of it without the Churches Exposition 3. The words indeed are nothing for a Vicarious Soveraign Power Every Political Body is essentiated by the Pars imperans and the Pars subdita Christ is the only essentiating Pars imperans in Supream Power Christ then is the Prime part of the Church The word Church then is not put for Christ alone but for the Society consisting of King and Subjects and sometimes for the Subjects alone It 's oft said that many Nations served the Israelites we say many Countreys were subject to the Romans the Medes Persians Greeks Turks and we do not mean that either the Turkish Roman Persian c. Common Subjects did govern all these Nations nor that their Bashaws Judges Magistrates c. as one Persona Politica in summa potestate ruled them by a Major Vote If the King will say that all the Corporations in Middlesex shall be under London or obey or serve it Who would feign such a sense of it as to say that there must be therefore some Power to rule them by a Vicarious Supremacy beside the ordinary Government or that all the City must Govern by a Major Vote The sense is plain As we all 1. Obey the King as the Universal Constitutive Head 2. And the Judges Justices Mayors as ruling under him per partes in their several Places 3. And we serve all the Kingdom as we serve its common good which is the finis regiminis So other Countries served the Romans Greeks Turks c. And so all Kingdoms should serve the Church or Kingdom of Christ that is 1. Christ as the only Head and Universal Governour 2. All his Officers as particular Governours in their several Limits and Places but none as Rulers of the whole 3. And the bonum Commune or all the Church as the End of Government And how can we feign another sence § 2. To your second Proof I answer 1. The 70 Disciples were Christ's constant Attendants as his Family with whom he was to Eat the Passover 2. We all grant that none have Power to Celebrate the Eucharist or Govern the Church but the Apostles and those to whom the Spirit of Christ in them did Communicate it But we say that they Communicated it to the Order of Presbyters as I thought all had Confessed as some Councils do 3. The Apostles were not appointed as one Supream ruling College to give the Sacrament by their Votes to all the World but each one had Power to do it in his place Nor did they Ordain only as a College by such Vote as Vna persona Politica but each one had Power to do it alone Nor did they write the Scriptures as one Collective Person by Vote but each one had the Spirit and Power to do it as Paul did c. nor did they sit on one Throne or had the promise so to do to Judge the Tribes of Israel as one College by Vote but to sit on twelve Thrones Judging the twelve Tribes as under Christ the only Universal Head and Governour § 3. To your third I answer 1. I answered to that Act. 15. in my last to you 2. Paul and Barnabas had the same Infallible Spirit and had before said the same against the keeping of Moses Law But 1. Recipitur ad modum recipientis No wonder if among those that quarrelled with Paul the Consent of those that had received Christ's Mind from his own Mouth and Spirit did better satisfie the doubtful than one Man's word alone 2. And Christ's Work was to be done in Unity § 4. II. As to the Seat of this Power I answer 1. All the true Bishops of the World Govern the particular Churches as Kings Govern all the Kingdoms of the World under God one Universal Monarch But there is neither one Universal Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical Soveraign Civil or Ecclesiastical under Christ But each hath his own part § 5. 2. I have shewed the impossibility of our judging of the Major Votes at our distances in most controverted Cases § 6. 3. And I have where I told you proved that there never were must or will be true Universal Councils much less are such the standing Governours of the Church But in Cases of need such as can well do it should come to help each other by Council and Concord without pretending to Universal Governing Power § 7. 4. 1. Who called them to Nice Ephesus Chalcedon Constantinople c. out of the Extra-Imperial Countries 2. Who shall call them now out of the Empire of the Turk Abassia the Mogul Tartary and the rest 3. If calling Men make the Council Universal though they come not is it a Council if none come or how many must it be to ascertain us that it is Universal Hath the Pope the Calling Power or who is it and how proved that they that obey it not may be unexcuseable § 8. 5. I have told you how unable I am to know what the Major part of all Christians or Bishops in the World receive save only by uncertain fame saving that while I know otherwise what is necessary truth I know that they are not the Church that receive it not whoever they be I am a Stranger to Abassia Armenia Georgia India Russia Mexico c. And what if I never knew that there are such
in whom the Church is relatively called One as Venice is one Common-wealth with relation to one Supream Senate which ruleth the whole 1. Shew me any Literas formatas of all Bishops in the World before the Council of Nice yea or ever since to this day 2. What need the Council meet if all Bishops could know each others Mind and Consent without it e. g. Did they all agree about Easter-Day before Or about the extent of Patriarchs Jurisdictions 3. There was never a General Council in the World It was called General only as to one Empire The Emperors that called them had no Power elsewhere The Subscriptions shew you that none other came yea and but a part of the Empire Few out of the West were at any great Councils 4. Heticks have had as great Councils as ever had the Orthodox and as much Consenting And the disallowed have been as great as the approved Sola navicula Petri as I said out of Binnius escaped Drowning at Eph. 2. 5. There never must nor will be an Universal Council of all the Church hereafter as I have elsewhere proved And is the Universal Regent Ministerial Church extinct these Thousand Years How can we obey a Power that is not 6. But you say I confess that the Roman Empire was seven Parts of the Church Answ. Your haste overlooked my exception of the Empire of Abassia which Brierwood saith is now as great as Italy Germany France and Spain and was incomparably greater heretofore And you may gather from Damianus a Goes Alvarez and especially Godignuus de rebus Abassinorum that they had Christianity from the Eunuch mentioned Act. 8. And it 's certain that their case was much unknown to Rome it self till the Portugals and Oviedo's late access And though now they give some Preeminence to the Patriarch of Alexandria that is but since the Banishment of Nestorius and Dioscorus who thereupon carried the Interest of their Parties without the Empire into other Lands Of Abassia see more in Ludolphus since come out 7. Either this Vnum Collegium Omnium Episcoporum must rule the Church Universal by a Major Vote or by Consent of all Bishops in the World If the former where shall they meet to Vote who shall gather them how many Years or Ages will it be doing How shall all Christians know that they are truly gathered Shall we till we know the Major Vote of all Bishops on Earth suspend our Obedience and have no Faith no Concord till then If all must Consent or almost all the case will be still harder how to procure and how to know it May the Heretick keep his Heresie till all the Bishops on Earth condemn him per literas formatas or otherwise When e. g. the Nestorians or Eutychians or Monothelites have the greater number of Bishops one Year or Age and the lesser the next Is Bishops Consent the determining ruling Power 8. Either this One ruling Church is necessary in all Ages or only in some or at least the exercise of their Power If in all the Church is extinct or ungoverned either these 1500 Years except during your Six Councils or all the time that we have had no Universal Government by them If but in some Ages why not in the rest as well And is not the Church still the same thing in specie and for the same use and ends VIII You say all Heresies are Condemned already Answ. 1. Yes Virtually by God's Word Rectum est index sui Obliqui 2. But if you say Actually in their form How great is your Mistake The Devil could invent a Thousand more yet My long Catalogue of Errors to be forbidden in my Book of the Churches Concord will tell you of enow that are too possible 2. If the use of your Ruling Church ended so long ago why doth not the Church end or how are we to be Governed by it when it doth not Govern I never heard from it since I was born by any Literae formatae To say I must obey the old Canons is to say I must obey a Government that was and not one that now is and Governeth The Pope I could possibly send to Old Councils I can read But how to hear from a College of all the Bishops on Earth that never see or hear of one another or me and that are broken into so many Sects I know not I have my self with some Wise and Able Divines Pleaded the Cause that you Plead for to try what they could say to me And they answer me with Laughter as if I were Distracted for talking of all being Governed by all the Bishops on Earth as one ruling College by Consent or Vote IX You lay much stress on the Church being our Mother And Solomon saying Obey the Law of thy Mother Answ. 1. You may possibly believe that Solomon by Mother meant an universally Governing College of Bishops but when will you prove it 2. You cannot name one Text that I know of that calleth the Church our Mother except Gal. 4.26 And there 1. You suppose that by Hierusalem which is above is meant the Church which is on Earth which I know many others think But it is uncertain 2. And when will you prove that by Hierusalem is meant your Ruling College 3. Or that it speaketh of any one Universal Government The word Mother is a Metaphor And Similitudes prove nothing but the Point of Assimilation The Text expresly saith that It is called our Mother because she hath many Children But these Children are not begotten by All the Bishops in One Voting College as Universal Rulers but by particular Pastours And so that one Church of Christ hath many begotten and ruled per partes X. You still lay much on The Nation that will not serve thee shall Perish And you bring three or four Fathers to prove that spoken of the Christian Church And you say still the Church is no where taken for Christ. I answer 1. As the Kingdom includeth the King and Magistrates as the only Governours so doth the Church include Christ and his Ministers 2. I believe that it is meant of the Universal Church But three Fathers Interpretation or threescore is a Private one compared to your College 3. All Power is given to Christ Princes are his Ministers Infidels that are Converted to serve the Church must serve Christian Magistrates as well as Bishops And it 's as likely to be specially meant of Magistrates For Bishops destroy not the Disobedient nor so much as Excommunicate the Infidel World What have we to do to Judge them that are without But Princes conquer and destroy resisting Enemies So that this Text will no more prove One ruling College of Bishops over all than one Monarch or College of Kings to rule all the World nor so probably 4. The Nations serve the Church 1. When they Obey the King of all the Church 2. and his Universal Laws 3. And his Officers ruling per partes in their several Provinces by
specially Universal in a College or a Council or a Pope or a Council and College under the Pope as President their Subscription to our Articles and their usage of Oaths would be no invitation to Dissenters to imitate them or Conform Chap. XIX Mr. Henry Dodwell's Leviathan further Anatomized § 1. I Have already elsewhere in two Books detected the Schismatical and Tyrannical Doctrine of Mr. Dodwell in his tedious voluminous Accusation of the Reformed Churches as damnable Schismaticks that Sin against the Holy Ghost and have No right to Salvation by Christ. I recite now a few Passages that shew the Constitution of the Church he Pleads for Pag. 73. The Essential work of the Ministry according to my Principles is to transact between God and Man to Seal Covenants on behalf of God and to accept of those which are made by Men and to oblige them to perform their part of the Covenant by otherwise authoritatively excluding them from God's part Hence results the whole Power of Ecclesiastical Government And for this No great Gifts and Abilities are Essential All the Skill that is requisite essentially is only in general to know the Benefits to be performed on God's part and the Duties to be performed on Mans and the Nature and Obligation of Covenants in general and the particular Solemnities of Ecclesiastical Covenants And of this how any Man can be uncapable who is but capable of understanding the common Dealings of the World Pag. 72. He sheweth that Immoralities of Life are not sufficient to deprive them of this High Power And of the Power it self he saith Pag. 80 81. It is not stated in Scripture but to be measured by the Intention of the Ordainers and that the Hypothesis of God's setling in Scripture is irreconcileable with Government in this Life by permitting Men to appeal to Writings against all the visible Authority of this Life On the contrary saith he Our Hypothesis obliging inferiour Governours to prove their Title to their office and the extent of it from the intention of their Superiour Governours doth oblige all to a strict dependance on the Supreme visible Power so as to leave no place for Appeals concerning the Practice of such Government which as it lasts only for this life so it ought not to admit of Disputes more lasting than its Practice from them and that upon rational and consciencious Principles for how fallible soever they may be conceived to be in expounding Scripture yet none can deny them to be the most certain as well as the most competent Judges of their own Intentions As certainly therefore as God made his Church a visible Society and constituted a visible Government in it so certain their Hypothesis is false P. 83. How can Subjects preserve their due Subordination to their Superiours if they practice differently They may possibly do it notwithstanding Practices of Humane Infirmity and disavowed by themselves But how can they do it while they defend their Practices and pretend Divine Authority for it Yea and pretend to Authority and Offices unaccountable to them which must justifie a whole course of different Practices P. 84. If their Authority be immediately received from God and the Rule of their Practices be taken from the Scriptures as understood by themselves what reason can there be of subjection to any humane Superiours I Must intreat the Reader that he will not call any of these men Papists till they are willing to be so called You are not their Godfathers Do not then make Names for them But I must confess that once I thought the stablished French Religion had been Popery and I see no reason to recant it But if Brierwood's Epistles mis-describe them not Mr. Dodwell is not so much of their Mind for the Supremacy of a General Council as I thought he had been Will you know my Evidence It shall be only in his own words I. Separation of Churches c. Pag. 102. The Church with whom this Covenant is made is a Body Politick as formerly though not a Civil one and God hath designed all Persons to enter into this Society Pag. 98. Faith and Repentance themselves on which they so much insist are not available to Salvation at least not pleadable in a Legal way without our being of the Church And the Church of which we are obliged to be is an external Body Politick So that it 's clear it is the Universal Church and a visible Humane Politie which he meaneth Pag. 107. The design of God in erecting the Church a Body Politick thus to oblige men to enter into it and to submit to its Rules of Discipline however the secular State should stand affected It is more easie for the vulgar Capacity whatsoever to prove their interest in a visible Church than in in an invisible one consisting only of elect Persons In these and many places of both his Books he tells us that the Catholick Church is One Body Politick and hath on Earth a Supreme humane Government which I have noted in his words in my Answer to him II. Pag. 488. Only the Supreme Power is that which can never be presumed to have been confined Of which more in his words which I have confuted III. That the Intention of the Ordainers is the true measure of the Power of the Ordained he copiously urgeth and proveth as much as the Ringing a Bell will prove it by loudness and length Pag. 542. Therefore the Power actually received by them must not be measured by the true sence of the Scripture but that wherein the Ordainers understood them Now the Ordainers of the first Protestants never intended them Power to abrogate the Mass or Latin Service or Image-worship or to renounce the Pope or gave them any Power but what was in Subordination to the Pope but bound them to him and his Canons and to the Mass and the other parts of Popery To prove this he saith Pag. 489. It is very notorious that at least a little before the Reformation Aerius and the Waldenses and Marsilius of Padua and Wickliff were Condemned for Hereticks for asserting the Parity of Bishops and Presbyters And it is as notorious that every Bishop was then obliged to Condemn all Heresies that is all those Doctrines which were then censured for Heretical by that Church by which they were Ordained to be Bishops Our Protestants themselves do not pretend to any Succession in these Western Parts where themselves received their Orders but what was conveyed to them even by such Bishops as these were And Pag. 484 485 486. he sheweth at large That All the Authority which can be pretended in any Communion at the present must be derived from the Episcopal especially of that Age wherein the several Parties began Within less than Two Hundred Years since there was no Church in the World wherein a Visible Succession was maintained from the Apostles which was not Episcopally Governed And the first Inventers of the several
Italian Papists 2. Nor with the moderate Papists that are for the Councils of Constance and Basil For he takes them for Papists with whom he hath no Communion 3. Nor with the Church of France because they have Communion with Papists Though many of them are no Papists in their Principles 4. He hath no Communion with any Protestant Churches that have not Bishops 5. Nor with any Protestants that have Bishops not Ordained by Canonical uninterrupted Succession from the Apostles at lest presumptively 6. With none of the Greek Church that have Communion with the Church of Rome or with any Schismaticks or that want such Succession or refuse the Laws of the Church which is all 7. With none of the remote Nations called Jacobites Nestorians c. Because they are judged Hereticks or Schismaticks or Communicate with such or have a notorious interruption of Succession 8. Not with the Maronites or any Sect that Communicate with Papists 9. Not with the Nonconformists of the Church of England whom he endeavoureth to prove Damnable Schismaticks 10. Not with the true and old Church of England who professed to hold Communion with those Foreign Protestants whom he calleth Schismaticks Nor with any of the present Bishops and Conformists who profess the same Communion For his Rule is that they are Schismaticks who Communicate with Schismaticks Who then hath he Communion with It seems none but those few new Men in England of his own Mind who perhaps may call themselves the Church of England 11. Nay not with those among them who profess Communion with the Church of Rome except with the Jesuited part 12. And with those of them who are for one Supreme Universal Aristocracy or Legislative College Council and Judicature over the Universal Church And now can you tell which is the Church that he is of Or is there a more notorious Separatist or Schismatick than he § 6. And now can any Man tell which is that Church which he speaketh such wonderful things of as the One Body Politick of Christ with one visible human Government Which be the Bishops and Church that have all that Leviathan-like Power of Heaven and Hell which he describeth and asserteth Is it only the uncertain relicts of all these § 7. Mr. D. hopeth justly that none or few of his friendly Readers will read what I write against him and therefore when I detect his Fraud and putid Errors he puts it off with saying I do but put many new Questions and answer nothing accurately But for the sake of them that will read I will ask him 1. Whether his little invisible Church be a Body meet for the Glorious Elogies which he giveth the Church of Christ I profess I know not one Bishop that is of his professed Principles Archbishop Laud was not that took a General Council to be a Court of Pretorian Power to be externally obeyed by all the Church Bishop Guning is not as the foresaid Evidence sheweth 2. And I would ask him whether his Church have all the Power of Heaven and Hell which he describeth over those that are without the Church or only over those within Paul saith What have we to do to judge them that are without And if so how narrow is the Power of his magnified little Church Let their own Subjects escape their Damning Power how they can it seems none of all the people on Earth whom he counteth Schismaticks or Hereticks are within their reach For these with him are all without If it be said They were within when they were Baptized I answer 1. What they were and what they are is not all one 2. But he saith that the Sacraments are but Sacrilegious Acts and Nullities that are done by such And if so they were never Baptized and so never in the Church § 8. But let us come to his new Book and Method And first I will tell him once more what our different Church Principles are that he may not accuse he knows not what 1. Christ is the only Head Prophet Priest and King to the whole Church on Earth both of Influence and Government Constitutive Specifying and Unifying and hath no Deputy or Vicar under him Aristocratical or Monarchical that hath any such Capacity Power or Obligation 2. Therefore the Church though Compaginated in all its parts is only one Politick Body of Christ and not of Man and hath no other Soveraign 3. Therefore neither Pope Council or College of Bishops have any Legislative or Judicial Power over the whole Church Collective but only the several Pastors are such to their several Churches 4. Yet are they obliged to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and Love and to do all in Concordant Observation of Christs Laws And all Churches and Christians to help others to their Power 5. And when they afford such Counsel or help for Concord to other Churches they do it not as Lay-men but as Pastors in the Universal Church though not as Pastors to other Mens Flocks As Physicians of several Hospitals and Judges of several Courts or Mayors of several Corporations or Kings of several Kingdoms may advise for Concord without Usurping each others Government 6. As God only by Moses made the Jewish Law and the Priests were not to make more but only to Rule by it it being a Prophetical and Mediatorial Work So Christ only by himself and his Spirit of Infallibility and Miracles in the Apostles made the Christian Universal Law and no Men are to make more such but to Rule by that so made 7. As Gerson truely told the Pope Christs own Law is sufficient for the Government of the Church Universal else Christ had not been a perfect Law-giver And they that pretend by Supplements or Emendations to add or do better are not his Ministers but Accusers 8. Therefore those Popes and Councils that have presumed to make Laws for the whole Church have Usurped Christs Prerogative and are false Prophets or Traytors against Christ. 9. Therefore none should own them as such nor is it Schism but Duty so far to disown them 10. Nor should any own these Bishops as such who own this their Usurpation As no Soldiers of the Kings Army should follow those Captains who subject themselves to and take Commissions from an Enemy Usurper or Foreign Princes 11. The Power of Bishops under Christ as to Laws is only to keep and teach Christs Laws and Rule by them and determine themselves of undetermined circumstances or accidents which vary as time and emergent occasions vary and are unfit for Universal Obligation and this Power they have only over their single Flocks though by contract they may join in such things with others for Concords sake 12. When the case of many Churches is alike and their common good requireth Concord in any such accidents all are bound to observe such Concordant Agreements by virtue of Christs command for Concord 13. But if on this pretence Pastors will turn Agreements for Concord
New Discoverer Append. P. 206 207 208 where he is for one Government of the whole Church Not in specie only for so we are as well as he each Governing per partes in his own Province as Kings in their several Kingdoms but numerically by one Aristocracy the Pope being Principium Vnitatis And Aristocracy is a Government formed and unified in unâ Personâ Politicâ consisting ex pluribus Personis naturalibus Else it would not make one Soveraignty nor one Political Church or Society Therefore his saying P. 206. that the Pope's Primacy as Universal and his Western Patriarchate is no Monarchy but exactly reconcileable with an Aristocratick Government of the Church reconcileth not me at all to his Model who am past doubt that 1. One Aristocratical College is far more uncapable of Universal Government of the Christian World than a Pope If inter impossibilia daretur Magis Minus 2. And that a College of the Subjects of Foreign Kings e. g. France Spain Portugal Armenians Abassines Turks Moscovites c. are unfitter for Foreign Jurisdiction and particularly to Govern Britain than a Pope is The Confutation of Dr. Pierce is sufficiently done before and after I now only recite his Opinion And am sorry that he is sure that Dr. Hammond was of the same Religion with Grotius and for such a Jurisdiction But if any be for the French Church form of Government call them Papists or Protestants as they shall themselves desire It is the Thing and not the Name that I oppose The French know by feeling what that is God grant we feel it not Chap. XXI That this New sort of Prelatists who were for a Coalition with the French or Roman Church have been the great Agents of all the Dividing Silencing Persecuting Laws which have brought and kept us these Twenty seven Years in our dangerous lacerated State § 1. THat the Church of England before the days of Buckingham and Laud were quite of another Mind I have before fully proved And no reasonable Man can doubt of it who hath read the Apology of the Church of England and Jewel's Defence of it and the Writings of Whitaker Fulk Humphrey Field Willet Airy Bernard Crakenthorpe Sutliffe G. Abbot Rob. Abbot I. Reignolds Morton Vsher Downame John White Birkbeck Cook Perkins Bilson Andrews Hall Davenant and many such Bishops Dignitaries and other Conformists besides Cranmer Ridley Latimer Hooker Farrar Bradford Philpot and the rest of the Martyrs Besides the Nonconformists § 2. And that the true Church of England even in Laud's time and since have never consented to this Coalition is evident 1. In that Heylin confesseth that Laud prevailed but with four or five more Bishops to be so much as Arminians viz. Neale Howson Corbet Buckeridge and Mountague And he that readeth Buckeridge his Book for Kings and Mountague's Works will think that even they were against this Coalition 2. And he confesseth that Laud durst not put his Cause to a Convocation because so small a Number there were for him 3. And to this day the Church or Parliament have not revoked the Homilies Articles Liturgy Apology or any of the Writings of the Bishops and Doctors aforesaid who have written against Popery 4. And excellent Writings have all along to this day been Published by the Church Doctors against all such Confederacies with Papists such as Dr. Stillingfleet who though to please his Superiors he defended Laud yet defended not all that he said or did Dr. More Dr. Tillotson Dr. Tennison Bishop Th. Barlow Mr. Wake yea even Henry Fowlis and many more But above all Dr. Isaac Barrow of the Supremacy unanswerably though S. Parker had Confidence enough to pretend a Confutation § 3. The Endeavours for a Coalition that were publickly attempted in Scotland Ireland and England by Laud and his Agents have been so voluminously written of Accused and Condemned in Parliaments and his own Death and the long Wars and all the Fractures that have followed were so much of the Consequents that to say more of this is Vain Dr. Pet. Heylin's Life of Laud doth acknowledge and justifie all And Prin's History of Laud's Tryal largely openeth it § 4. When the Parliaments and Scots Opposition and the ensuing Civil War had broken this Design and the Bloody Massacre in Ireland had rendred Popery more odious and dreadful than all Arguments could do before our War here the Parliament that had before the War begun to Purge the Church Ministry of Drunkards Scandalous and ignorant incompetent Men proceeded too far on Civil Accounts and ejected some for adhering to the King and being against them in the War though some of us disswaded them from all such severity Cromwell first rebelled against the Parliament and usurped the Government and shortly died and his distracted incoherent Army striving against the Democratical Relicts of the Parliament dissolved their usurped Government which Dissolution brought in King Charles II. by Monk and the Presbyterians as the Dissolution of the Parliament had brought in Cromwell And with the King return many of the ejected exasperated Clergy full of the Desires of Revenge and of preventing all Danger to their Dignities and Promotions for the time to come But at first they were diffident of their present Strength and thought they must execute their Revenge and Mutation by degrees The Lords Knights and Gentlemen that had suffered for Fighting against the Parliament for the King Published many Protestations to draw in the Presbyterians to restore the King that they would be for Love and Concord and seek no revenge Dr. Morley was sent before the King to Cajole the Ministers to believe that the King was a Protestant and inclined to Moderation And thereupon a moderate Party of Episcopal Men met with some called Presbyterians and declared their desires of Concord on sober terms viz. Dr. Bernard Dr. Gulston Dr. Allen and others such But Dr. Morley used them to his Ends and shifted off all discovery of his Designs still quieting them by general pretences of Moderation and Treaties He had the Chief Power over Chancellor Hyde who ruled the Land And Sheldon was next him and Hinchman the third But under them truckled many of the same Mind The King published a Declaration of Liberty for tender Consciences at Breda expounded since by 27 Years barbarous Persecution laying all on the Protestant Prelatists that would not make a Law for it I was past doubt in 1660. that the King was as he Died or had engaged himself to promote it here first by giving them Liberty of their Religion and afterwards the Power of the Land in Magistracy Militia and the Church Knowing Men said that Morley Sheldon Guning and the other Chief Agitators knew this and thought they had no other way to oblige him to keep up the English Prelacy but to engage that they would be firmer to his Absolute Power and sole Legislation and for Passive Obedience and for the Extirpation of Puritans and Parliament Power than the Jesuites
fully proved to them that it signified no Councils above the Imperial or National But distinguished those that were Universal in that one Empire from the Provincial 2. The Reformed Church of England taketh the Parish Communicants to be true Churches and the Pastors to have as much of the Oversight as is necessary to the Constitution of a true Political Church Though their Canons sinfully fetter them in the Exercise But the Foreigners hold the Diocesses to be the least or lowest Churches and the Parishes to be no true Churches for want of Bishops in them but only Parts of a Church that hath a Bishop over them all 3. The Old Church of England owned the Foreign Protestant Churches as true Churches and their Ministers as true Pastors and own Communion with them But the Innovators say that they have no true Bishops because they have not Diocesans and are no true Pastors if they have not an uninterrupted Succession of Diocesane Ordination from the Apostles whereas for some Hundred Years after the Apostles there was no such Bishops known in the World as were not either Congregational Parochial Bishops or Apostolick Overseers of such and no Diocesans over many Hundred or Score Parish Churches that had no Bishops under them § 12. When you consider what Power the New Foreigners had at Court and with the Parliament that made the Act of Uniformity and required Re-ordination and that made all the other persecuting Acts and with the Justices that executed them And when we see how they promoted the Roman Interest and when we see how potently and obstinately they frustrated all attempts of the Protestant Union here and read how they reviled the old Reforming Bishops from Parker to Abbots and the Parliaments as going too far from Rome And when we consider that we have not one Bishop but who was chosen by K. Charles II. and K. James and what Men they may be supposed to choose we Contradict not these Men when they call themselves the Church of England But when we consider that the old Homilies Apology Articles Liturgy Canons c. were never yet repealed and that they are all Sworn to Endeavour no Alteration of Government of Church or State we have cause to think that the old Party have more right to be called The Church the altering Endeavours having not changed its Essentials By this much the Reader may Expound whom I speak of in my Treatise of Episcopacy § 13. The Church is nothing but the Men that constitute the Church If 1. It be denominated by their Numbers no man can tell which Party hath the greater Number till they are further put upon the tryal 2. If they are denominated by Laws the better part are rather to be called the Church because the Old Laws against Popery are not yet Repealed Though yet some late Laws are to the Old as poyson to a living Man So if they be Denominated by Power the Innovators have been the Church at least these 31 Years For that Party Ruled and had the Countenance of the Kings who chose them And indeed in the Days of the differing Emperors Constantine Constantinus Valens Theodosius Arcadius Marcian Leo Zeno and the rest that usually went for the Church or Orthodox party which the Emperor owned The uppermost will have the Name § 14. Though the French and English aforesaid designed a Coalition the long possession of their different ways unavoidably hindered them from an immediate Union But they were forced to approach by leisurely Degrees England would not suddenly turn the Liturgy to a mass-Mass-Book nor France suddenly turn the mass-Mass-Book Corrected into French But what fair Approaches were made and what further intended Grotius his Counsel Magnified by both Churches and the present practices of the French declare The Council of Grotius was to bring down the Pope to Moderation that he might Rule but by the Canons and not be above Councils nor deprive Kings nor Bishops of their Rights and that the Lives of the Clergy be Reformed and School Niceties left indifferent and the Lutheranes as Reconcileable Courted to a Concord and the unreconcileable Calvinists brought down by force But the Lutheranes are not so Reconcileable as they imagined Princes that are once free are loth to become Subjects to a Foreign Priesthood § 15. And how much the French meant to bring down the Pope their late Transactions shew a little but their Doctrines much more Mr. Jurieu himself in his Posteral Letters Engl. p. 216.217 thus Describeth them 1. That the Church of Rome is no more than a Particular Church as other Churches are 2. That St. Peter had nothing but a Primacy of Order and Presidence above the Apostles 3. That St. Peter could give to his Successor over other Bishops no more but that Primacy which he had over the Apostles 4. That the Bishop of Rome Originally and by Divine Right had no Power over the Universal Church 5. That he did not receive Appeals in the first Age of the Church 6. That he had no Right to Assemble General Councils 7. That he could take Cognizance of the Affairs of no other Provinces but his own no not by Appeals 8. That he had no Right to take Knowledge of Matters of Faith to make Decisions therein which should oblige the whole Church 9. That before the Council of Nice and after he had no inspection over other Churches but those which were in the Neighbourhood of Rome 10. That he could not Excommunicate other Bishops otherwise than the other Bishops could Excommunicate him 11. That a Man might separate himself from the Bishop of Rome without being a Schismatick and out of the Church 12. That the Pope had no Right over other Bishops 13. That the Council of Sardica is the Fountain of that Right of receiving Appeals which the Pope claimeth 14. That the Rights which the Pope hath at this Day excepting his Primacy are by Human Laws and because he hath assumed them to himself and because they have bin conceded to him 15. To which they add he is not Infallible nor Superior to Councils nor Master to the Temporalities of Kings This is the French Religion and who would think that this is Popery No wonder if the Pope be more hearty for other Friends than for France § 15. Lay all this together and it 's Notorious that though Whetgift and some other Calvinists were too much guilty of the Persecutions to keep up the Dominion and Preferments which they were jealous of yet it was the French Reconcilers that have set and to this Day kept on foot our present increased Divisions and Dangers Since Le Strange new-named them the old Church Protestants are called Trimmers and are Men that love not Division or Persecution and would fain see a Coalition of Protestants though they have not zeal enough save too few to put it on openly lest they provoke the opposites But the Laudians called Tories are still as much against the Removal of the Dividing
of a more speedy way of Success So that he resolved to put it to a speedy upshot and would have all or none which brought the Changes which we have since seen § 8. But is the Church of England yet delivered from all the Inclination to a Foreign Jurisdiction and the French Government The Oath of Supremacy made it seem hard to perjure the whole Land that had renounced all foreign Jurisdiction But many devised an Expository Evasion that only a Civil Jurisdiction was meant though the Ecclesiastick also was named Should there be but a new attempt by such as the former Rulers probably made is it not like that Men of the French or Grotian Principles will promote it yea and be glad of French assistance I doubt they that would Perjure the Kingdom by a foreign Jurisdiction will debate this odd Question Qu. Whether all that Profess or Swear that it is Vnlawful on any Pretence whatever to resist the King or any Commissioned by him in the Execution of that Commission may resist a French Army if they Invade the Land by K. J 's Commission Or will they turn Nonconformists Chap. XXIII Postscript to the Reverend Dr. Beveridge SIR § 1. THough you were Bishop Guning's Witness with Dr. Saywell his Chaplain when he conferred with me I was not willing to believe that you were of his mind for a Foreign Jurisdiction either Aristocratical or Democratical or Monarchical but to my grief am now convinced of it by your published Convocation Sermon Having too copiously here and elsewhere confuted it specially in my two Books against William Johnson alias Terret the Papist I shall go on the supposition that you will there take notice of it Especially of these two Reasons against it 1. That the Kingdom and Church is sworn against it 2. That a pretended Universal Humane Soveraignty or Legislative and Judicial Power over the whole Church on Earth is the Grand Usurpation of Christs Prerogative which no Mortal Men are capable of And if this be not Popery there is no such thing as Popery And if the Pope be justly called Antichrist or at least a Trayterous Usurper against the Right of Christ and Kings it is by this And if such a Power be really given to any the Pope cannot be excluded at least from the Universal Primacy § 2. I doubt not but the Love of Unity and the sense of the woful case of the Church by Sects and sad Dissentions engaged Bishop Guning and you in the Opinions you took up And no doubt but the Consciencious part of the Learned and Religious Papists are fixed by the same Motives in their way I may say fixed and very confident or else they durst not carry it on as they have done in France and all other Popish Countreys And I can say that I have not fixed on the denial of a Humane Universal Jurisdiction without thinking seriously Forty years of what I could find said for it as well as against it nor out of an inclination to any contrary extreme Could I have found but any Humane capacity in One or Many for such a Soveraignty Legislative and Judicial and but a possibility of such a thing and any probability that it was of Christs Institution the Love of Unity and Hatred of Unruliness and Divisions and their Effects had long ago made me a hot defender of it But the contrary Truth had contrary Effects § 3. That you may not think that I differ from you more than I do I here premise I. That I doubt not but that the Universal Church visible is One Body or Society of professed Christians As the Universal Church as Regenerate and Spiritual is One Body of sincere Christians II. That the Unity and Concord of it as Professors and as sincere must be maintained to the utmost of our power by all due lawful means III. That a wise Correspondency between all those Churches which by nearness are capable of Acquaintance and Communication is a due means to preserve their Love and Concord IV. That seasonable and duly chosen Synods of many conjunct that live within the reach of such Acquaintance and Communication may in case of true need be a fit means of such Concord V. That where such Synods cannot be had with due equality Letters and Messengers from the several Nations or Provinces or Churches may be used to that end VI. That the General Law of Christ commanding Love Concord and Edification maketh it a sin for any to affect causless singularity and to chuse any way which tendeth to Division And that where there is an Equality and no Regent power yet just Contracts for Concord ought to be observed VII That if in National Churches that is Christian Kingdoms or Commonwealths the Soveraign Power give one Seat or Bishop a Primacy or peculiar Priviledge in the Circa Sacra the Circumstantials of Sacred Offices which are within the Magistrates Power it ought to be obeyed VIII If I had lived in the Christian Empire when it sometime gave the Bishop of Rome and sometime the Bishop of Constantinople this preheminence of degree and the other Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch and Jerusalem their several Priviledges and Powers not contrary to the Word of God I would have obeyed that which the Emperor by his Law preferred IX The Roman Empire was so great a part of the known Civilized World and so Potent that I quarrel not with the Titles of Orbis Romanus and Ecclesia Vniversalis given to that Dominion and Church which was meerly National or Imperial so be it we understand the true meaning X. Had the Empire continued one Polity and had made the Bishop of Rome the Primate as to his Seat in Councils and the said Bishop had been a capable Person and had not Challenged the Government or Primacy in order of Regiment over the whole Christian World but in the Empire only as the Archbishop of Canterbury doth in England I would have been none of his opposers All this I grant you § 4. But premising for the Explication of Terms that we take the words Regiment Laws Authority c. in the proper political sense and not equivocally for meer advice or consent I add as followeth 1. That as the Universal Church on Earth hath but one Soveraign Jesus Christ so it is one Body Politick in relation to no one Vnifying Head but Christ and hath no one Substitute Vicarious Christ or Substitute Soveraign Government Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical or Mixt. II. The Soveraignty of one Christian King Emperor or Senate in Aristocracy over an United or Confederate Christian Clergy and Laity as Subjects each keeping to their own Place and Work is the Unifying Headship of a National Church which is nothing but such a Christian Kingdom or Republick And that Christ hath owned such National Church Power and hath instituted and owned no Power of Humane Government over it on Earth And therefore as pretending to Universal Jurisdiction is Treason against Christ so the claim
repetition is not unnecessary If you will read Mr. Th. Beverley's whole Duty of Nations you may see more of my Judgment Supposing your Book to be in the hands of the Reader I shall forbear transcribing and only tell you what I dissent from and the pages where it is contained I. I dissent from your Opinion of a Humane Soveraignty as over the Universal Church on Earth whether you feign it to be Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical or Mixt I matter not II. Consequently I deny your Doctrine of such an Universal Legislative power in Man and of any Humane Universal Laws III. And I deny all Foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction that is That the Clergy of any one or many Foreign Kingdoms have a Legislative Regent power over any other King and Nation which give them not that power by a voluntary Subjection All these denied Doctrines you own pag. 28. l. 7 8 c. p. 24 25 26 21 23 19 13 14 15. My Reasons against the first are so many before repeated that I must not again do that which is so oft done Prove you a Universal Humane Polity by Kings or Clergy and I will easily prove that Aristocratical is worse than Monarchical and less practicable And if you think Popery an unfit Name for it I will prove it Antichristian as the Treasonable claim of Christs Prerogative may be so called The Second Error falls with the first For Legislation is the most Essential part of Soveraign power Your Third denied Opinion I hope all Protestant Kings and Kingdoms will continue to renounce And seeing you know that this whole Kingdom is Sworn against it even all Foreign Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions as well as Civil in the Oath of Supremacy besides the many Oaths against alteration of Church and State Government I hope you would not have the Nation stigmatized with the brand of PERJURY If the Law for taking the Oath of Supremacy be repealed the Law of God against Perjury is not repealed And whether it be Treason in it self against King and Kingdom to set up the claim of a Foreign power over them without their consent the Judges know better than I. But I know that there be some wise men that cannot yet prove K. James his Self-deposing if this will not prove it that he openly endeavoured to settle the Kingdom under a Foreign Jurisdiction against the Laws and against their Wills and so to alienate the prime part of Soveraignty And should a Foreign Jurisdiction be asserted we should all be confounded by the Impossibility of knowing where to find it or how to use it if it be Aristocratical Where the Pope is may be known But where to find a General Council of all the Christian World or an Ecclesiastical Parliament or College or the Major Vote of all the Churches we know not And seeing Bishops are all save one the Subjects of other Princes blame not Kings to be unwilling to be their Subjects when thereby they will be subjected to those Princes that Rule them or can sway them by Preferments IV. And I believe not your Doctrine that the Major part must go for this Governing Church For 1. It will never be agreed who be the Nations or Persons that are to be accounted Parts all will claim a Right that are called Christians And can all Christians or Ministers judge of their pretensions 2. It is certain that the Greater part have often erred in Counsels and out of them The Case of the Arrians proveth it And the Greater part of the Bishops have been sometime on one side and sometimes of another and have turned and returned in the same Age as is notorious in the Cases of the Nestorians Eutychians Monothelites the Council of Chalcedon owned and disowned the Tria Capitula the Case of Images and others 3. It is known that most of the Christian World at this day have no small number of Errors the Greeks Moscovites Armenians Abassins Coptis Syrians Jacobites Nestorians Maronites Georgians c. 4. It is to be expected that the Countries nearest the Councils and that have most numerous Bishopricks will have the Major Vote when those far off and that have large and few Bishopricks will have few Votes 5. It is known that three of the five old Patriarchates have many Errors yea four of them differ from all the Western Churches Papists and Protestants 5. And it 's certain that as we cannot be sure of the Major Vote all over-the World so God never gave the Major part the Soveraignty V. And your Foundation for all this in Politicks is intolerably false viz. pag. 13. In omnibus hujusmodi Societatibus pars omnis toti suo congrua pars minor majori consentanea esse debet Hoc ratio suadet Hoc jus naturale edicit Hoc Communis hominum Consensus necessarium esse statuit Adeo ut si quid à majori multo magis quod à maxim◠cujusvis Societatis parte constituitur eodem pars reliqua constringatur illudque observare necesse habeat si membrum manere privilegiis illius Societatis gaudere velit Quod cum in omnibus cujuscunque generis Societatibus valet multo magis in Ecclesia valere debet quam omnium ornatissimam esse decet I am loth to English it 1. I confess I find the like in Archbishop Laud and R. Hooker So Nonconformable to each other is the Conforming Clergy But it 's downright Popularity or Democracy of the worst sort And can such men cry down Republicans yea and raise a suspicion of Nonconformists as Republicans O what a vafricious sort of men do sometime appropriate the Name of the Church 2. It is true of no sort of Political Society in the World but only of ungoverned Communities or Confederacies except those by Contract turned a meer Community into the worst sort of Popular Politie And in Aristocracies it is not the Major Vote of the whole Society that Ruleth but of those few who make up One Political Person or Power And yet could you appeal to Reason Nature and common Consent 3. It is against the Essence of the Government of this Kingdom Shall Kings Parliament and Magistrates be bound to obey the Major part of the Kingdom No nor King and Lords to obey the Major part of the House of Commons Nor Mayors and Bailiffs be bound to obey the Major part of the Cities and Corporations 4. It is contrary to God's Law of Nature and Scripture God hath anticipated humane popular pretences of being either naturally Rulers or the Fountain of Governing Power For God hath instituted in Nature the Genus of this Power and so much of the Species as is to execute God's Laws He hath made the Fifth Commandment and as he alloweth not the Major part of the Children to govern Father and Mother or of Scholars to rule their Masters so neither of Subjects to rule the Soveraign or the Minor part 5. It is contrary to Oaths that are taken by the Subjects of
this Land 6. It is contrary to the subscribed 39 Articles that tell us of the Errors and Fallibility of Councils 7. It is contrary to the Canons especially those of 1640. that determined Kingly Power to be of God's Institution 8. It is contrary to all the Writers and Fighters that were against Parliaments resisting the King Michael Hudson hath most strongly wrote against it Dr. Hammond against John Goodwin hath proved that the People have neither ruling Authority to Vse nor to Give How far then were Bishop Morley and such others from your Mind who write that the Parliament themselves have no Essential part in Legislation but only to prepare Matter which the King only maketh to be a Law All the Clergy have subscribed to the King 's unresistible Power and a Law made to that purpose by the Parliament that setled your Conformity and Church 9. Do you take the Major part of your Congregation to be your Governours Or the Major part of the Diocess to Rule the Diocesane Or are these no Societies 10. Is it not contrary to the Oath of Canonical Obedience 11. Are our Universities of this Mind when Oxford burnt my Political Aphorisms and Dr. Whitbye's Book and Mr. I. Humfrey's as derogating from the Regal Power when yet I abhord such a derogation as your Majority of the Society 12. In a word it is destructive of all Government For the truth is that Democracy in a large Kingdom is an Impossibility The People cannot all meet to try who hath the Major Vote They can but choose their Governours though called Representatives And that is an Aristocracy For to choose Governours is not to Govern Even Rome was not a true Democracy For the People had but a Negative part in Legislation S. P. Q. R. conjunct having the Supremacy And what were the People of one City to the whole Empire which was the Politick Body But how shall we know who constitute this Voting Society which you call the Church I know that the Papists appropriate that title to the Clergy But when it cometh to Practice in Councils or out how small a part have any but the Bishops Our Canons condemn those who deny the Convocation to be the Representative Church Who are the real Church which they represent Do they represent the Laity Or are they none of the Church How can they represent those that never choose them Patrons choose the Incumbents and the People choose neither Bishops Deans Arch-deacons or Proctors Is it the King and Parliament that they represent I confess the King that chooseth Bishops may most plausibly be pretended to be represented by them But are they indeed his Rulers and Lawgivers and he their Subject Was Moses so to Aaron or Solomon to Abiathar The King chooseth Justices and Constables mediately but not to be his Governours but his Ministers Or is the King and Parliament no Part of the Church of England Say so then that we may understand you But if indeed you confess the Laity 〈◊〉 be of this Voting Church whose Major part by Nature Reason and the Consent of all the World must Govern us I beseech you help us at last after all our lost importunity to know which of the Laity it is Is it all that are in the Parishes I doubt then that the Atheists Papists Sadduces Deists Hobbists Ignorant Irreligious Debauchees and Lads will be our Rulers Is it only Communicants Then the Parish Priest of one place will have a Church of one sort and another of another sort And how knoweth he in great Parishes who are his Communicants when he knoweth not who or what they are or whence they come nor whether ever they came before The Law is the likest test which obligeth all to Communicate that will have a License to sell Ale or Wine or that will not lie in Jail a place that few Love and many would avoid at so cheap a rate as eating a bit of Bread and drinking a little Wine And shall the Majority of these be Rulers of Kings Bishops and Pastors But what if you mean but the Major Vote of Bishops which it seems our Lower House of Convocation mean not Verily Sir you must not too sharply blame the King of England Sweden Denmark c. if they be loth to be Subjects in so great a Matter as their Religion to the Clergy of Italy France Spain Poland Germany Moscovy Constantinople and Asia Africa c. while we know what Power their own Princes have over them And do not we know that there is no one common Language which they can use to understand one another as a College Even of our great Learned Schoolmen few understood Greek And few of the Greeks understand Latin or true Greek either And few Abassines Armenians Syrians Moscovites c. understand either If Christ hath been so defective a Legislator as to leave us to a necessity of Universal Humane Legislation O let us not have them made by such Babel Builders Let us have those that can meet together in less than an Age whether their Princes will or no and can learn in an Age to speak to one another Or if you first prove that Mortal Men are capable of such an Universal Government try it first on Kings and settle one King or Senate of Kings to Rule all the World by Legislation and Judgment For verily more of Sword-Government may be done per alios than of Priestly Government else you may appoint Presbyters to Ordain and Lay-men to celebrate the Sacraments And if we must have a Vice-Christ let him be a Monarch that we may know where to find him and not a Chimera called a Collective Person or College of Bishops Or at least if it must be Patriarchs let us know who shall make them and where they are and what we shall now do when of five so called Four are called Schismaticks and are under the Turk Christ hath instituted National Church Politie Prove more if you can VI. And I should rejoyce if you could prove what you affirm that the Major part of the Church even in Rites and Discipline is guided by the Spirit of God 1. It was not so in necessary Doctrine in the Arians reign 2. If it be so at this day England is Schismatical 3. If it be not always so in General Councils as the Articles of our Church say how much less in the diffusive Body of People or Clergy 4. It is not so in any one Kingdom or National Church yet known in the World no not the World And what is the whole but the Parts Conjunct Dr. Dillingham in a late Book against Popery concludeth that there was never yet any Kingdom known where the tenth part were truly Godly And I think you take the Church of England to be the best in the World And how many Thousands would rejoyce if you could prove that the Major part even of their Teachers were guided by the Spirit of God And is it better with
the Papists or Greeks or Moscovites that cannot Preach at all O how happy a Church do you Dream of VII And it is yet more incredible that this popular Majority should be so right in such small Matters as Rites and Ceremonies and Discipline as that their Practice should be a Law to all the rest of the Christian World And that the Unity or Concord of the Universal Church must be built on such Sand as cannot so much as be gathered into one Heap And all must be Schismaticks and so far separate from the Church that obey them not I remember when Dr. Hammond proceeded Dr. I heard Dr. Prideaux in the Chair argue against the Churches Infallibility that John and Thomas and so every Individual was fallible Ergo a company of fallibles were not infallible Especially in such Matters as a Ceremony Those that Paul wrote to Rom. 14. 15. were not taken for infallible or Legislators by him VIII And you no where prove that Paul meaneth by the Churches have no such Customs that none in the World had any other nor must have any other but only that what Garb and Habit the Custom of all those Countries had placed Decency in the general Rule of Decency would oblige all to in the solemn Assemblies as it obligeth us to be uncovered You must needs know that by your Exposition and Inference you Condemn your own Church that hath the contrary Custom Especially your noble Patrons that wear Periwigs IX And how impossible a work do you set us all as a Law to know what these Ceremonies are without which we separate as Schismaticks 1. Must all good Christians be so great Historians as to know what Ceremonies have been used in all Ages by the Major part 2. Must they be so Skill'd in Cosmography as to know what Countries make the Major part 3. Must they have so good intelligence of former Affairs as to know who have now the greater Vote in Councils and out of them 4. But you say It must be of such Rites as ab omnibus ubique semper have been used we like Vincentius Liri's rule well as to things necessary that may aliunde be so proved But how shall any man know that ab omnibus ubique without more Knowledge of the World than Drake or Candish had or any Traveller Except Negatively that we must not affect causeless Singularity from the most of the Godly as far as we can know them And how shall we understand the semper Must it respect all time to come Then none can know his Duty till the End of the World If it be only as to time past then how knew they that lived in the first Age how long their Customs would continue And then all the after Changes which were many were Schismatical X. Do you not too hardly censure the Church of England as Schismatical You know Epiphanius hath a peculiar Treatise to tell us what then were the Customs and Ceremonies of the Universal Church And how many of these are forsaken by us yea and by almost all the Churches Do you now clothe the Baptized anew in White Do you dip them over head in Water Do you anoint them as they did and cross them with the Ointment Do you give them to taste Milk and Honey Do you exorcise them Do your Bishops only make that Chrysme Do all here and in other Churches worship only versus Orientem Do you all forbear and forbid Adoration Kneeling on any Lord's Day or any Week Day between Easter and Whitsunday What! when you cast out of the Church those that will not Kneel at the Sacrament You know that the Council of Nice and that at Trull and the Fathers commonly make this a Rite of the Universal Church And Dr. Heylin saith that Rome it self kept it for a Thousand Years and it was never reversed by any other General Council Do you keep the Memorial of Martyrs at their Graves as then they did Do you use their Bones and relicts as they did Twenty more you may see in Epiphanius and others O condemn not the Church of England as separated from the Universal Church And our Reformers too XI What a case would you bring this Church and Kingdom to by your Law of the Custom of the Major part Must we have all the Opinions Rites or Ceremonies which the Greeks Moscovites Armenians and Papists have many Hundred Years in their Ignorance and Superstition agreed in as to the Major part Must we be able to confute their pretensions of Antiquity and Custom as to all these He that readeth the Description of their Customs methinks should be loth that we should be such XII And your Doctrine of Traditions as certainly received from the Apostles when the Majority use them is so much against the Church of England's Judgment and so copiously confuted by the whole stream of Protestant Bishops and Drs. and foreign Divines that I will not stay now to repeat that work were all the Traditions forementioned since laid by received from the Apostles About Genuflexions Milk and Honey Chrysme the white Garment You instance in Synods meeting and making Laws To meet for worship or necessary consultation and Concord is no unwritten ceremonial Tradition but the obeying of Christ's written Law which requireth such mutual help and that we do all to Edification Concord and Peace But Communion of many Nations is one thing and a Government over all is another thing It was the Emperor's Commission and Power that made Canons to be Laws And do you not here write against the King's Commission by which you sit which declareth from that Act of H. 8. that your Canons are no Laws till King and Parliament make them so Ask the Lawyers Were not the Canons of 1640. cast out even by your own long Parliament XIII But the worst is that while you set us a new Universal Church Legislative and Judicial Soveraignty you deny the sufficiency of Scripture if not the Soveraignty of Christ himself while you feign unwritten Universal Laws as part of Christ's Law a supplement to the Scripture give Christ's Prerogative to a Usurping Soveraignty utterly uncapable of that Office Scripture we know where to find but where to find your Universal Additional Laws and your Church Senate or College they must know more than I that know But so much is written against the Papists as aforesaid for Scripture sufficiency that I refer you thither and to the Articles Homilies and Ordination Books which this Church subscribeth to Alas Sir is not the whole Bible big enough to make us a Religion XIV As to your definition of the Church P. 12. It is tolerable if you make no Head but Christ and set up no Vicarious Head Monarchical or Aristocratical and instead of Provincial parts put National and Congregational or confess that you describe but the Imperial-National Church which was made up of Roman Provinces And gratifie not the Fanaticks by making the Holy Ghost
the Universal Church And so it is not only Bishops that have every one a Charge in his Place to promote the Universal welfare but every Presbyter and every Christian in his Place Therefore that Bishops are related to the whole Church no more proveth that they have as a Senate a summa potestas or any Universal Government over it as one College than it will prove it in all other Christians who are all related to the whole Nor no more than the Members of the Body do make one natural Governing Part by Consent XXX This Communion of Christians in the Church as Catholick is essentiated by the Essentials of Christianity and Ministry for Christians as Christians with Christ the Head do constitute the Catholick Church in its first being as in fieri And Christians as Christian Ministers of Christ and private Disciples do constitute the organized Body which with Christ the Head make an organized Catholick Church XXXI The Integrals of Christianity Communion are not necessary to the Essence of the Church but to the Integrity Much less the Accidents XXXII The Christian Churches through the World have Communion in all these things following at this day 1. They are all Baptized with the same Baptism in Essence and so are all Christians Particularly they all profess to believe in God the Father one Jesus Christ our Redeemer and one Holy Ghost one in Essence with the Father and the Son They all profess the same Creed called the Apostles yea and the Nicene and the Lord's Prayer as the Rule of our Desires and the Decalogue as a summary Rule of Practice They all believe the same holy Canonical Scripture as to as many Books at least as are necessary to the being of Christianity and Salvation They all agree in the Essentials of the Sacred Ministry that such must teach the Infidels of the World and make them Disciples of Christ baptizing them and then must teach them Christ's Commands That they are under Christ's Teaching Priestly and Kingly office to be to the Churches the Peoples Teachers their Guides in Publick Worship and the Rulers of their Communion by the Power of the Keys They agree in the Essentials of the Lord's Supper save that the Papists have corrupted it by Transubstantiation and other foul Abuses The Protestants Greeks Armenians Abassines and all or near all the Parties of Christians in the World are agreed in all this and much more excepting the said Corruptions of Popery 2. Their Religion teacheth them all to Love one another as the Members of the same Body of Christ to do good to all especially to the Houshold of Faith and to Pray for one another and and relieve each other in want and to do to all as they would have others do to them In a word to Love God as God and Saints as Saints and Men as Men and all to seek one Heavenly Kingdom and all fight against the same Enemies the World the Flesh and the Devil And this is Catholick Communion XXXIII The greater Communion they have in all the Integral parts of Christian Faith Worship and Government the more strong and amiable the several Churches are and so is the whole by such Communion But it is not necessary to the Essence It is not the Papists trick of challenging us to name Fundamentals that will cheat men of understanding to confound Essentials and Integrals That which hath no Essence is nothing that whose Essentials are unknown is not knowable nor can be defined Christianity was once known by Baptism and it was once knowable who were to be Baptized and who to be received as Christians into Communion There are multitudes of Divine Truths revealed in Scripture and therefore to be believed which are not essential to a Christian or a Church And so there are Integral Parts of Worship and Discipline He that needs more proof of this is not one of those that I write for XXXIV The Accidents of Christianity and Churches are of two sorts some such as it is desireable that all Churches should agree in though it be necessary neither to their Essence or Integrity And some such in which an Universal Agreement is neither possible nor desireable As it is desireable to comeliness that all men have Hair and Nails c. but not that they all wear Cloaths of the same Stuff Shape or Price or all dwell in Houses of the same materials form or bigness nor all use the same Trade of Life nor be of one Age or Rank c. It is desireable that all the World spake one Language and were of one Judgment in all things of common concernment But it 's hopeless And he would play the hypocritical Devil that on pretence of seeking Unity would destroy or ruin all that agree not in these things so is it as to Church Communion It is desireable that all Christians understood and spake one Language and that we had but one perfect sort of Copy of the Bible without various readings or where Translations are necessary that they were all perfect and agreeable but it 's hopeless As the case is it is not desireable much less necessary that we all Worship God in one Language when all understand it not or that we all use the same Translations Liturgy or words of Prayer or Preaching or all wear the same sort of Garments and an hundred such like And to silence all that do not or reject them from Catholick Communion is the like hypocritical Diabolism and in that way the Devil and the Pope are the greatest Vniters that is Dividers and Destroyers in the World XXXV The Vniversal Church containeth many particular Churches throughout the World This none denieth As a Kingdom hath many Cities and Corporations XXXVI These particular Churches Parts of the Universal have a distinct constitutive Form That is Christ only is Soveraign of the Universal but his Officers are the particular constitutive ruling part of the particular though under Christ. King and Subjects only are Essential to a Kingdom But a Mayor Bailiff or other chief Officer and the common Citizens are Essential to a City And to call a man Chief or Head of a Family or City that is no King is no Treason but to claim the Royalty is XXXVII Therefore there is more necessary to Communion in a particular Church as a Member of it than to Catholick Communion Viz. He must consent to his Relation and Submission to the particular Pastors of that Church and to meet at the same time and place and joyn in all the necessary Parts of Publick Worship with them Else local Communion will be impossible Therefore it is injurious ignorance which maintaineth of late that he that separateth from or is justly cast out of one Church separateth from or is cast out of all For he that will not own the Pastor of that Church cannot have Communion with it as a Member of that Church who can come to School to a Schoolmaster that he consents not to
unlimited Monarch we will speak according to common use and let them speak as their Interest dictates to them but remember that the Controversie is but about the Name and not the Thing We take the French Church for Papists If they will call them Protestants they are free But if we are agreed what a Pope is the case is plain as followeth I. Mr. Dodwell their most Learned defender if number of words or greatest self-conceit be the chief strength tells you that if the Council be not lawfully called it obligeth you rather to bring them to Punishment as a Rout or Rebels than to obey them And that none but the President hath Power to call them And remember yet that this good Man is no Papist And indeed who else but the Pope should call Universal Councils The King in Scotland may call a Scotch General Assembly and in England a Convocation and Parliaâ—ent And 1. The Emperor of Rome or Constantinople might call such Councils in the Empire as were then called General and did so But who now shall call one out of France Spain Portugal Italy Germany Britain Denmark Sweden Poland Moscovie the Turkish Empire Armenia Georgia Mengrelia Tartary Abassia Mexico Peru China c. We are awake and therefore cannot Dream of Princes doing it by Agreement We are yet out of Bedlam and cannot conclude that all the Bishops in the World will come together by common consent or as the Atomists say the World was made by a fortuitous concourse of Atomes 2. How shall lawful Councils be known from unlawful if none have Authority to call approve and difference them If only ex factis by their good or bad Deeds half the World will Judge as they have done and do one Council to be spurious which another obeyeth 3. What order shall be kept among them if none have Authority to appoint the Place the Time to Preside and Moderate and to dissolve them and who pretends to this but the Pope 4. When Councils Contradict Condemn and Curse each other who shall tell us which of them to receive believe and obey II. And if we must have a visible Supreme Power we must have one that successively existeth that the Church be not dissolved And none pretendeth to this but the Pope III. And if all National Patriarchal Churches be but Parts of a visible Catholick Church with a Humane Supremacy then there must be some Power still existent to give Patriarchs and Metropolitans their Power Mr. Dodwell saith it overthrows all Government to appeal to Scripture as a Charter or Law of Christ None hath more than the Giver intended him None can give that which he hath not to give The Inferior hath not Power to give to the Superior Who then but a Pope can give Patriarchs and Metropolitans their Power If for want of Authoritative Collation of Power all the Presbyterian Ordinations Sacraments and Covenant-hopes of Salvation are Nullities and Sins against the Holy Ghost as Mr. Dodwell and his Tribe say what better are all the Bishops and Archbishops for want of a Superior conferring Power which none pretendeth to but the Pope IV. And who else shall judge Patriarchs Metropolitans and National Churches when they prove Hereticks or Schismaticks Their Heresie and Schism is far more heinous and dangerous than single Persons or Congregations And Councils are not extant And we cannot send all over the Earth to gather Bishops Votes against them unheard It must be a Pope or no body on Earth that must by Governing Authority Judge them V. And who else shall be the stated Judge of new started Controversies You say such there must be shall they be undecided till the World have a true general Council VI. And who shall an injured Person appeal to from a Tyrannical Metropolitan or National Church but to the Pope Many more clear Necessities there will be of a Pope on their Principles I blamed the Author of the Divine Hierarchy for naming such without an Antidote lest it should make men Papists But I understand he is a worthy Protestant But verily there is no avoiding a Pope by any that assert an Vniversal humane Church Supremacy VII And indeed I must not suppose them so immodest as to deny it For it is but the Pope's Absolute Power above the Councils and their Laws and not Simple Popery or the Pope's limited Power that they deny 1. They confess that they hold Rome for the Mistriss Church as Grotius calls it 2. And that the Pope is Patriarch of the West and the prime Patriarch 3. And that he is Principium Vnitatis to all the Church on Earth And if so they are out of the Church which is One that deny this 4. That he is authorized to call General Councils 5. And to be their President 6. And to be the chief Governor when there are no General Councils and that is indeed always 7. And that they are all Schismaticks that do not thus far submit to him And how much more Mr. Dodwell giveth the President I have shewed you in his own words VIII As Mr. Thorndike threateneth England with God's Judgments if they do not amend the Oath of Supremacy by making it acceptable to the Papists that renounce not a foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction so others labour to prove that the meaning of it is only to renounce the Pope's Jurisdiction here in Temporals which belongs to the King and not a Papal and Foreign Jurisdiction properly Ecclesiastical by the Keys As you may see partly in Mr. Hutchinson's alias Berry's Book who on that Supposition took the Oath as many do and publickly profest himself of the Church of England IX In the Description of the Reconciliation with the Pope endeavoured by Archbishop Laud in Heylin's History of his Life Pag. 414 415 c. All that the Pope was to abate was 1. That the Oaths of Supremacy and Fidelity may be taken I told you in what sense 2. And that the Pope's Jurisdiction here but no where else be declared to be of Humane Right that is say ours by the Fathers in General Councils not without the Apostles by whose Church-Laws we are all bound 3. That all should be really performed to the King so far as other Catholick Princes usually enjoy and expect as their due and so far as the Bishops were to be independent both from King and Pope but not from subjection to either This saith he no man of Learning and Sobriety would have grudged to grant him 4. Marriage permitted to Priests 5. The Communion in both kinds 6. The Liturgy in English I ask any sober man now Qu. 1. Whether the Pope did himself think that by this bargain he ceased to be Pope and all Papists to be Papists 2. Whether if the King had been thus far equalled with other Catholick Princes the Pope would not have supposed him and his Bishops and Church to be of the same Roman Catholick Church as they 3. Whether in all this here be any
Charges from next to the Antipodes or from Abassia Mexico c. Must they be old Men fit for Council or Boys fit for Travel when the age of a Man will scarce serve for their coming together their business and their return and execution And what 's all this to do Is it to make new Universal Laws Hath not Christ in Nature and Scripture given us enow for the Practice of Christianity without all this ado of Congregating Bishops for Legislation all over the World Oh that these Law-makers would keep Christ's Laws And if it be for mutable Circumstances is not every Church or Countrey sufficient for such variable Determinations Must men come from the Antipodes Ethiopia or Turky to tell me here what Cloaths I must wear or what place or time I shall Preach in or what Tune to Sing in c. But if they must not meet what Messengers must be sent to them all over the World to gather their Votes How shall we be sure that they truly state all the Cases to them And that they truly bring us back their Judgments And that those Judgments were truly past without hearing what could be said against them And is every single Bishop infallible or the Majority only and how shall it be known what the Majority said And whither shall all their collected Votes be carried and to whom Is it to every Christian or to every Bishop And how many Ages will this require And if it be not for Legislation but Judgment if the Question be whether A. B. be a Heretick or C. D. be a Fornicator c. who shall bear the Messengers Charges that must go through the World to all the Bishops to decide it And shall the Cause be tryed without witnesses or hearing the defence of the accused And must the accused and witnesses go through all the World Reader is it not a shame to confute such Dreams Had not I tryed in with the Leading Men I should have taken him for a Slanderer that had said that any English Dr. and Bishop should maintain that the Collegium Pastorum through the World is that summa Potestas under Christ which hath the Chief Government of the Vniversal Church in Vnity per literas formatas and that our Concord lyeth only in obeying this Power and it's Schism not to unite in such Obedience § 3. II. Moreover the former Church of England and Parliaments thought that the Oath of Supremacy which excluded a Foreign Jurisdiction did mean as well the Foreign Jurisdiction of the Pope as President of a Council and that Council with him and of the Pope as Patriarch and Principium Vnitatis and of the Bishops of Italy Spain France Poland Mexico Turky c. as of a Pope above Councils And they were not willing again to Subject the King and Kingdom to Foreign Priests nor to be cheated into Slavery by the bare Name of the Catholick Church and the Ecclesiastical Government § 4. III. And they indeed took the Pope to be the Antichrist specially for his Usurping an Universal Kingdom or Governing Power proper to Christ And therefore were angry with Archbishop Laud and his Chaplains for leaving out all such words from the Liturgy to avoid the Pope's displeasure of which Dr. Heylin ubi sup giveth you an account See but Bishop Downame's large Latine Book to prove the Pope Antichrist who yet hath written the strongliest for Diocesan Bishops of any man in my Judgment that ever I read § 5. IV. And they thought that the Doctrinal differences were very many and very great and in divers Points I believe they thought them greater than they are see the huge Catalogue gathered by Bishop Downame in the End of the foresaid Book Morton White Whitaker Abbot Field Sutliffe Chaloner Bernard Crakenthorpe and abundance more chief Drs. of the old Church of England have opened them at large But how small the new Drs. made them to be Dr. Heylin fully tells you And Archbishop Bromhall saith ubi sup p. 72 73. when all these empty Names and Titles of Controversies are wiped out of the Roll the true Controversies between us may be quickly Mustered c. See the rest § 6. V. But none doubted but the Differences about Worship were unreconcileable till one Party much changed their Forms of Worship Their great Mass of superstitious Inventions if not Idolatry as the Church of England thought and Dr. Stillingfleet even of late hath charged on them Protestants could never be reconciled to But of A Bishop Laud's reconciling attempts in Worship See Heylin Vbi supra in his Life And Archbishop Bromhall saith P. 141. Speaking against Chillingworth's true way of Concord That Form which the Protestants would allow the Romanists cry out on as defective in Necessary Duties and particularly wanting five of their Sacraments Nay certainly to call the whole frame of the Liturgy into Dispute offers too large a Field for Contention and is nothing so likely a way for Peace as either for us to accept of their Form abating some such Parts of it as are Confessed to have been added since the Primitive times and are acknowledged not to be simply necessary but such as charitable Christians ought to give up and Sacrifice to an Vniversal Peace and would do it readily enough if it were not for mutual Animosities of both Parties and particular Interests of some Persons § 7. VI. And they thought it as unlawful to obey the Pope as Patriarch of the West or as President with his Council if he imposed on us the Mass or the Worship of Angels Dead Men or Images or any new Sacraments or unlawful things as if he did it as above General Councils § 8. VII And they made no doubt but if the Pope and his Foreign Councils and all his attendant Trumpery were once received as Principium Vnitatis Vniversalis and the President of Councils he would soon come in in the same Capacity that other Popish Countries do receive him § 9. VIII For they knew that it is that same Man that is more absolute in Popish Kingdoms who would submit to some restraint in this And that by Possession Agents and that foreign help he would easilier reduce this to the Case of others than the Case of any others to this § 10. IX They had not lost the Remembrance of the Spanish Invasion the Gunpowder Plot and the many Treasons of late by such committed and it made them fear both the Power and the Company of such a sort of men § 11. X. They remembred the heavy Taxes Oppressions and the Rebellions and Wars that had been in the times of Popery in England And they had felt the ease and sweetness of Deliverance and were loth to return to that Captivity again 12 XI They had not forgotten Queen Maries Days Fox's Book of Martyrs was in the hands of many Nor had they forgot the French Massacre or the greater Murders formerly committed by Wolves in Sheep-skins who were known by
all true Christians have still agreed Quod ab omnibus ubique semper receptum fuit as Vincent Lerinensis speaketh The Baptismal Profession and Covenant expounded in the Creed the Lord's Prayer as the Rule of our Desires and Hope the Decalogue as the sum of Duty with the History of Christ's Incarnation Life Death Resurrection and Doctrine in the Gospel-writers the practice of Baptism and the Lord's Supper with Church-Assemblies for Teaching and Learning Praying and Praising God and this under Elders called thus to Guide their Flocks with the belief of all the rest of the Sacred Scriptures which are brought to our knowledge This hath been ab omnibus ubique semper receptum All Christians agree herein And in the observation of the Lord's day as a separated time for Sacred Assemblies And some Ceremonies and other little things most of them agreed in but not as necessary to their Unity or Communion but such as some differed about without violation of Christian Love and Peace as Socrates and Sozomen shew in divers Instances and of divers Countreys At this day All the Churches agree in these And this much constituteth men true Christians And Christ hath commanded all Christians to Love one another and Live in Peace and the strong to receive the weak and not offend the least Believers nor to please themselves but others to their edification The Kingdom of God which is his Church is not meat and drink but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and he that in these things serveth Christ pleaseth God and is or should be approved of men I have proved all this so fully in my Book called The true and only Way of the Concord of all the Churches that I here dismiss it § 3. But when this pretended Universal Humane Jurisdiction was set up it quickly divided the Catholick Church by making new Laws and Constitutions as if Christ's Laws had not been sufficient for Universal Concord and as if he that made Ministers the Teachers and Expounders of his own Laws had given them his Prerogative of Universal Legislation and Judgment And ever since then the Church hath been torn into those fractions which continue our shame and grief to this day Those that were ready to receive any Law from Christ by his Apostles would never all agree in Humane pretended Universal Jurisdiction nor in the Laws which such pretenders make Mutable Local and Temporary determinations of useful Circumstances by their several Guides suited to the time and place for Edification they submit to But Universal Law-makers they will never all acknowledge and own And their Canons are swell'd to so great a bulk and are so confounded with contradictions and uncertainties that they are Racks and Engines to tear the Church but utterly uncapable of being the Rule of Unity and Universal Concord § 4. The thing which Paul feared hath been our Ruine The Serpent which beguiled Eve by pretence of advancement and greater knowledge hath turned us from the simplicity that is in Christ. The primitive Unity is overthrown by departing from the primitive Purity Simplicity and Love of all And they that will ever hope for Universal Concord must endeavour the restoration of the Universal Terms and Temper Nothing next to fleshly and worldly lusts hath done so much to cut the Church into all the Sects which now remain as in a Religious War as this same pretended Universal Jurisdiction which our new Church-men mistake for the only cure Which I have fully proved in my Breviate of the History of Bishops and Councils and in the Vindication of it against the Accusations of Mr. Morrice § 5. Obj. The Scripture giveth but general Rules that all be done to edification decently and in order but there must be Laws of Discipline to determine in Specie what is for edification decency and order Ans. There are three sorts of these determinations 1. Of things necessary or meet for all the Christian World to be obliged to 2. Things meet for some Countreys to be obliged to 3. Things variable which Congregations may use variously and also change as occasion changeth It grieveth us to read how some Learned men that write on this Subject abuse the World by confounding these The first Christ hath determined sufficiently in the Scripture and no mortal men have any power to make Laws Ecclesiastical or Civil to bind all the World The second of these the King may determine by the Counsel of fit men who understand the case e. g. what Translation of the Bible in the English Tongue is fittest to be commonly used in the Publick Churches And if the King determine it not the Pastors in Synods may do it by way of voluntary consent but not as having as a Major Vote the Regiment of the Minor and of the absent or dissenters The third belongeth to every Pastor over his own Flock and may be altered as there is occasion viz. At what hour to meet how long to Pray and Preach in what words and variable methods what person to admit to Baptism as fit and to Church-Communion and what individual to Reprove Exhort Catechize Excommunicate c. A General or Provincial Council need not be called for any such thing as these § 6. Saith Dr. Beveridge Proleg That which Right Reason gathers from Scripture is of God for Right Reason is of God Ans. True But to gather it as Governours of all the World or of other mens charges as if the Right Reason of the King of France would give Laws to the King of England is one thing and to gather it by a discerning Judgement to teach our Flocks as Expositors or to guide our own Practice is another thing § 7. The Instance which he addeth of the Trina Immersio in Baptism sheweth that such things were never made Laws for the Universal Church for the Church never used them universally nor continued them but quickly changed them § 8. Ibid. Saith Dr. Beveridge General Councils are those to which all the Bishops of the whole World were called It 's not necessary that they be all there but that all be called and may come if they will But the five Patriarchs must be there or send their Letters There was no General Council which was not called by the Emperors command Ans. 1. All the Bishops of the World were never called to any Council nor near all 2. What Authority had the Roman Emperors to call Bishops out of other Princes Dominions 3. There is no Historical proof that ever they did any such thing 4. The Subscriptions of the Councils shew that the Bishops were only out of the Roman Provinces except some odd person as Joannes Persidis at Nice which no man can give account of 5. Half the Bishops of the Empire were not at the Councils 6. If calling them make a Council General though they come not then calling a Congregation though they come not maketh it a Congregation What if none come What if few come
a Universal Soveraignty or Legislative and Judicial Power And therefore uncapable of our Coalition more than an Impenitent Murderer is of Church Communion § 2. And there are not a few nor small Matters that are above Four hundred Years old that found Protestants will never Unite with And though Mr. Thorndike give us so much quarter as to say that It is the Authority that must necessarily be owned and not the Canons if that Authority will change them 1. It is the usurped Authority that we most disown 2. And we have no assurance what Canons that Authority will change And Mr. Thorndike's Mr. Dodwell's and such Mens great rule of Unity is that none of us must question whether any of the Canons of that Authority are contrary to God's Word nor appeal to God and Scripture against them Multitudes of Papists themselves renounce such Doctrine § 3. I. And first All this is built on the Sand I have largely proved long ago in several Books that it is impossible for them to certifie us who have this Authority Who it is that we must hear as the Catholick Church and take Universal Laws from when there is no General Council Or what Councils we may be sure are General or what not Besides none were General but of One Empire When they condemn each other and when each call the other Heretical or Schismatical and when as Great a Number were at one as at the other and the same Authority chose and called both sorts How shall we know which we must obey Is it by Scripture Reason or Authority of Councils themselves that we must Judge They cannot tell us § 4. II. The Cause which I am pleading against is exprest by their Champion the Lord Primate of Ireland Archbishop Bromhall in the words forecited viz. To wave their last Four hundred years Determinations is implicitely to renounce all the necessary Causes of this great Schism And to rest satisfied with their Old Patriarchal Power and Dignity and Primacy of Order which is another part of my Proposition is to quit the Modern Papacy both Name and Thing By this we see what the Protestant Church of England must be or else be Schismaticks in the Judgment of these Learned Men. I will here tell you why this will never Unite us and why the old Church of English Protestants could not close with Rome on these mens terms § 5. I. Salmasius de Ecclesiis Suburbicariis circa finem granteth them that by their Imperial Constitutions the Bishop of Rome was not a meer Patriarch but more than a Patriarch a Caput Ecclesiae This was not Christ's Institution but the Emperours and their Clergies in one Empire But call it Patriarchal or what you will it contained such Power as Christ having not given and Dead men of another Kingdom being none of our Rulers we are not obliged to obey nor indeed lawfully can do 1. A Patriarch and Primate hath some degree of Governing Power or else wherein doth his Primacy consist He calleth Councils Precedeth c. And if he cannot command Archbishops how can they command Bishops And if they are not Commanders of Bishops why do our English Bishops in their Consecration Profess Promise and Swear all due Obedience to the Archbishops And 1. We cannot yield to bring England under the guilt and brand of Perjury by submitting to the Foreign Jurisdiction of a Roman Primate or Patriarch contrary to the Oath of Supremacy 2. We know already how many false Doctrines and Practices the Roman Church and Patriarch have espoused And we can no more receive all these Errours from a Patriarch than from a Pope § 6. II. But we will freely confess to you that we neither are nor can be such a sort of Protestants as the Regnant Church of France is which persecuteth the Protestants nor as these Men called the Church of England in such Proposals would have us be I will give you a Catalogue of some Determinations of above Four hundred Years old which the Church of England before Bishop Laud could not receive § 7. I. Mr. Thorndike also consenteth to rest in the Canons sent by Pope Adrian to Carol. M. about An. 773. And C. 23. ex Clem. is That Arch-Bishop Presbyter or Deacon taken in Fornication Perjury or Theft be deposed but not Excommunicate II. Can. 28. is That a Bishop who obtaineth a Church by Secular Power be deposed And yet we are called Schismaticks for not obeying alas I dare not name the things the Bishops that have many Score or Hundred Churches by Secular Power And must we Unite in this III. Can. 11. is Condemned Clerks shall never be restored if they go to the Emperour And must we Confederate against such Bishops in England IV. C. Laodic there recited 33. is that None Pray with Hereticks or Schismaticks When we knowing how the Roman Party are counted at the best Schismaticks by Greeks Syrians and Protestants and all these counted Schismaticks by them it will be but Schism to separate from almost all Christ's Church on Earth as Schismaticks V. Ex Can. Sard. 2. That a Bishop that by Ambition changeth his Seat shall not have so much as Lay Communion no not at the end VI. Ex C. Afric c. 15. That there be no Re-ordaining or Translation of Bishops VII No man must receive the witness of a Lay-man against a Clergy-man VIII The Second General Council at Nice setteth up the Adoration of Images cursing all from Christ with Anathema that are against it or doubt of it IX Even the contrary Council at Constantinople of 338 Bishops anathematizeth all that do not with a sincere Faith crave the Intercession of the Virgin Mary as the Parent of God and Superior to every Creature visible and invisible And all that confess not that all who from the beginning to this day before the Law and under the Law and in the Grace given of God being Saints are venerable in the Presence of God in Soul and BODY and seek not their Intercessions Yet they conclude with the Conc. Nice 2. That Christ's Body Glorified is not proper Flesh Def. 7. X. The said Second Council at Nice saith Every Election of a Bishop Priest or Deacon which is made by Magistrates shall remain void by the Canon which saith If any Bishop use the Secular Magistrate to obtain by them a Church let him be deposed and separated and all that Communicate with him Thus our English Bishops and Parish Ministers are deposed and all their Communicants to be Excommunicated XI Ibid. Can. 4. Those that for Gain or Affection of their own shut out any Ministers or shut the Temples forbidding the Divine Ministry are sharply condemned which would fall on Silencing Bishops XII Can. 15. Forbiddeth one man to have two Churches which would break our Clergy specially the Bishops that have Hundreds XIII Can. 7. Forbiddeth any Temple to be Consecrated without Relicts and ordereth Temples that have no Relicts to be put down XIV A Council
Clergy-man or may invest any XXXIX An. 1094. A Council at Constance decree against Married Priests XL. An. 1095. A Council at Clermont command that no Bishop or Priest make any Promise of Allegiance to a King or any Lay-man And that every Lay-labourer abate or pay the Tenth of his Wages to the Clergy XLI About 1100. a Council decreed that all Bishops of the Henrician Heresie for Loyalty be deposed and if dead dig'd up and burnt XLII An. 1108. A Council at Benevent decree that if any take a Benefice from a Lay-man's Presentation the Giver and Taker shall be Excommunicate XLIII An. 1180. A General Council as they call it at Laterane under Alexander the 3d called the Eleventh General Council condemning those whom they call Catharoi Puritans absolve Inferiours from all Duty and Fidelity to them and promise Indulgence to those that fight against them XLIV An. 1215. was the great Fourth Laterane General Council under Pope Innocent 3d. which obligeth Princes to exterminate all that are against Transubstantiation c. and else deposeth excommunicateth and damneth them Thus you see what must be the Protestant Religion when our present Church of England is United with the Roman Obj. Some of these were but Provincial Councils Ans. And are you not in England for obeying Provincial Councils I 'le then omit transcribing Spelman's Chap. IX Whether the Instance of the Apostles Church Government prove an Vniversal Soveraignty in the Bishops further considered § 1. THE pretence of all the Bishops in the World to the Government of all the Church on Earth as one Aristocratical Senate College or Court is so monstrous a fiction that were it not for that shadow of an Argument which they fetch from the instance of the Apostles and their pretended Succession I should think it would expose the pretenders to be taken for distracted men And therefore whether this instance will prove them in their wits let us further try § 2. The Apostles Commission is contained in Matth. 28.18 19 20. All power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and loe I am with you alwaies even unto the end of the World Here 1. Christ's proper Universal Power is both the cause of their Commission and the matter which they must Preach 2. Their appointed work is 1. To make Nations Christ's Disciples 1. By Teaching 2. By Baptizing them 2. To Teach them when they are Disciples That which they must teach them when they are Disciples is To observe all Christ's Commands These Laws or Commands are but what Christ himself commanded these Disciples To the performance of this Commission he promised them to give them the Holy Spirit to bring all things to their remembrance and to lead them into all Truth and to be with them even to the end The Spirit thus eminently given for this special work was Christ's promised Substitute or as Tertullian calls him his Vacarius and Agent so that what the Spirit so commanded Christ commanded Christ's Commission to them contained much proper to themselves viz. By this extraordinary help of the Spirit to Remember what Christ had commanded them and what they had seen him do and to deliver it with special Power and seal it with special Gifts and Miracles and to Record it Sufficiently and Infallibly as his History Doctrine and Law for the use of the whole World unto the end And so he was with them to the end of their Age and is with their recorded Word to the end of the World And his Commission contained much common to others that is To Preach the same Christ and gather Disciples and Baptize them and to teach the Disciples all those Commands which Christ had delivered to his Apostles by his Mouth or Spirit And with these also in this Work Christ will be to the end of the World § 3. Here we must first consider what was the Apostles Power and Work 2. And then whether all Bishops have the same 3. And what the extent of their Work was when they are sent to all Nations or all the World § 4. 1. It is plain that All Power is not theirs but Christs They are but his Ministers 2. They are not Authorized to be Legislators themselves so as to make any Universal Law as their own But only to be Teachers of the Laws of Christ even such only as they received from him Accordingly they never made any Universal Law as their own But only told the World what Christ Commanded by his Word and Spirit 3. They were not made an Aristocratical College to do this by the authority of a Major Vote For as the same Spirit of Truth was given to every one of them singly so singly they were herein as Infallible as altogether 4. Accordingly they Preached abroad the World the same Gospel by the same Infallible Spirit Paul did not so much as speak or consult with any Apostles before he Preached as receiving his Gospel not from Man but from God Gal. 1. and 2. 5. The Universal Laws Promulgate by them are the matter of the several Books of the New Testament And there is not one of all these written in the Name of the College or Senate of the Apostles but every one of them by that single person whose name they bear or imply If Christs Law had been to have been made or delivered by the authority of a College as such some one of the Gospels or Epistles would have been so written 6. Yet while they abode together at Jerusalem no doubt they lived in Concord and held the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and believed and spake the same things And so they did when they were dispersed abroad the World And no doubt but their consent was more useful to convince others that they spake Truth than themselves who otherwise knew it 7. In cases not revealed by the Spirit they had the same use for consulting and reasoning the case and learning of others as all other men In this case reasoning was to help them to know But in case of Inspiration Reasoning did but express and exercise their Knowledg 8. As that Act. 15. was no more a General Council than the other Sacred Converse of the Apostles till they dispersed themselves so in their determination they lay it upon the Holy Ghost And Paul and Barnabas had before by the same Spirit accordingly determined But because they were not of the men that had received their knowledge from Christs own works and mouth in converse with him on Earth no wonder if the Jewish Christians desired fuller satisfaction § 5. II. From hence it is apparent 1. That ordinary Pastors or Bishops who have not the same Commission nor the same Inspiration or promise of it nor the same gift of Tongues and Miracles to
all Children be taught to read and learn Catechisms and Scripture and use the Lords day in pious Exercises and submit to their Teachers and forbear profane contempt or abuse of Persons or Things I think the whole Matter is decided in these ten Particulars § 4. II. Now de nomine the question is what is to be called the FORM and what but the MATTER of the Church as National For of a Church as Congregational or as Diocesan or a Provincial we have no controversie No more than of a City or School And seeing every Politick Society consisteth of the Pars Imperans and Pars Subdita all grant that the Pars Imperans as related to the Pars Subdita is the Specifying or Unifying Form and Head it is then clear that all the Clergy being but the Pars Subdita under the Government of the summa potestas whether Kings alone or King and Parliament or an Aristocracy they can be but the Matter of the Church as National and not the Formal Head For a Body Politick of one Species can have but one Head of that Species So that to make a Primate or two Metropolitans or a Synod of Diocesans or a Convocation representing all the Clergy to be more than the Matter of a Church as National is to make them the summa potestas or Soveraign and to depose King and Parliament § 5. Obj. But the Regiment being of two Species so is the Policy Society and Supremacy Each is Supreme in sua specie Ans. 1. So then you would have two National Churches and Soveraigns If you 'll extend the Controversie but to the Name it may be the better born But then acknowledge the Equivocation and give us the definition of each Church and use not the Name of the Church of England for your own Form only 2. But a Subject Policy is not the Supreme and denominating Policy It 's private and subordinate as to National The Physicions the Soldiers the Marriners c. though they are in hoc fit to over-rule the King and Parliament are not therefore the Soveraign Power of the National Body Politick § 6. Obj. But their 's are matters of small moment but the Clergy are Rulers in matters of Salvation Ans. Unhappy dividing Rulers they have been here and in most of the Churches But 1. I have proved that Kings are Rulers also in matters of Salvation as great as theirs and over them 2. Was not Moses and David and Solomon and Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah and Josiah c. the Soveraign Rulers of Church and Priests though an Vzziah might not offer Sacrifice or Incense 3. The proper Governing power of Bishops is but over their own Flocks and they may not Rule in other Mens Diocesses much less over King Parliament and Kingdom further than the Soveraign giveth them Political Power § 7. Obj. They may command Kings and Kingdoms in Christs Name to obey God and forbear Sin Ans. True so did every Prophet so may any one Minister Yea a Foreigner a Salvian a Luther c. But this is Gods Government Nunciative and not Political And so if the Metropolitans Diocesans Convocation or a General Council command as in Christs Name and prove their Commission as Messengers from him we will obey Christ in them But if one Man bring better proof from Scripture that he speaketh from Christ he is to be obeyed before a Council that proveth no such thing This sort of Divine Authority lyeth in Evidence which most Bishops on Earth now have not of the truth of their Message and is but Nunciative and worketh only on voluntary Believers and Consenters And if the Controversie de nomine be whether a Christian Kingdom as such may be called A CHURCH what pretence have the deniers Not à notatione nominis The Church in the Wilderness is a Scripture Name And sure the Jews Church was not denominated from the Priests only Moses is ofter named as its Head than Aaron § 8. Obj. But are not Judges and Bishops a part of the Pars Imperans as well as the Soveraign Ans. Only subordinate in their Provinces They are but as the Kings Hands and Tongue They are Subjects themselves and have no Political Power but what he giveth them 2. If you might so far distinguish of them as Imperant under the King and as Subjects as to say that Judges and Bishops are as the Wife in the Family that hath a Governing power over Children and Servants that maketh her not the denominating Head of the Family but a Subject of the highest Rank § 9. Qu. What if a Christian Kingdom had no Pastors Ans. Then they were but an Embrio or half Christian and not materia disposita for a full formation The Matter and Privation that is Dispositio receptiva are Essential to the Body though they be not the Form 10. Qu. But what if under an Infidel King a Christian Nation be confederate under Bishops Ans. They are no Christian Kingdoms but a Christian Nation and are many confederate Churches and may be called One Church equivocally and secundum quid as confederate Kingdoms may be one Kingdom But they are but materia disposita sine forma as to a National Church properly so called and as such § 11. Qu. Are those of the Church of England that are not Conformists Yes if they conform to Christianity and are Subjects of the same King § 12. There is an odd Writer that hath lately published a book to prove that the Act of Toleration freeth not Nonconformists from the guilt of Schism Doleful is the case of such a Church and Land where the Learned men after near thirty years silencing imprisoning and ruining multitudes know not to this day what they are or what they hold and who it is that they do all this against How can such wink so hard as not to know that we took it for no Schism to assemble for Gods Worship before the Act of Toleration while they have done all this against us for so doing Could they think us so mad as to suffer Jails and Ruine and Scorn and Death to many for known Schism And if we took it for a duty before how can we take the Act of Toleration to be it that must justifie us But such men Englanâ— suffers by that cannot distinguish between Foâ—m Divinum and Humanum We believe that Goâ—s Command justifieth us in foro Divino for obeying it But the Law justifieth us in foro humano Gâ—ds Law and Judgment will keep us from Hell aâ—d at last silence our silencers But the Kings Laws bring us and keep us out of Jails and from thâ— Jaws of them that envy our Liberty and Lives § 13. It 's a question considerable whether England be a Protestant Church or not if it have a Papist King To which I say we must distinguish between a profest Papist and a concealed one 2. And between a King that hath the total Soveraignty and Legislative Power and one that hath but