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A31348
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Catholicism without popery an essay to render the Church of England a means and a pattern of union to the Christian world.
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Hooke, John, 1655-1712.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing C1497; ESTC R8878
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84,579
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258
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be hereafter accounted for in this Discourse And however the Epistles of St. Ignatius stand Irrefragably defended from the charge of being Spurious I cannot see but that allowing the Bishop to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sufficient to comply with the full Sense of those Epistles especially if it be consider'd that the Bishops of which he speaks were made so by the Apostles themselves and no doubt were chosen by infallible Direction and must therefore deserve a most singular Respect But allowing Men to think as they see Evidence concerning this Difference of Order certainly the Practice of the Church may be such as may allow of Different Apprehensions without occasioning either Tyranny or Schism the Method whereof is attempted in this Discourse However it is plain that both our Saviour and his Disciples did wholly reject all Temporal Jurisdiction and applied themselves entirely to their Spiritual Administrations and that there was no Distinction Causes into of Spiritual or Ecclesiastical and Temporal or Civil in the Christian World for above Three Hundred Years after Christ Indeed while the Emperors were Heathens and the Judges too throughout the Empire the Christians according to the Advice of St. Paul forbare to go to Law 1 Cor. 6.5 6. and referred all their Differences usually to the Bishops or Pastors of the Congregations of which they were Members And when Constantine came to the Empire his mistaken Zeal confirm'd the Custom though the Apostle's Reason for it ceased And whereas the Civil Power ought to have been reassum'd by the Christian Magistrate and the Clergy eased of Secular Business his Edict set up the Clergy's Domination and from Arbitrators they became Judges and Christian Magistrates might not Judge unwilling Christians This Corruption grew so fast Socrat. lib. 7. cap. 11. that about the Year 430. in the Popedom of Celestine the Patriarchs of Rome and Alexandria did Degenerate from an Ecclesiastical to a Secular Ruling and Dominion And when I consider how positively that Degeneracy is forbidden by our Saviour Matth. 20.26 Luke 22.25 Mark 10.43 who upon all Occasions reprov'd it in his own Disciples When I consider what Miserie 's the Clergy Domination has caused more than Twelve Hundred and Sixty Years since that Degeneracy how it has turn'd the Church into a meer Worldly Kingdom and the Laws thereof into Humane Politicks I cannot but rejoice that by the Laws of England this Degeneracy is or might be cured were the Laws put in Execution and the Supremacy restor'd to the Civil Power And whether the Pope of Rome by this Degeneracy did commence the Apocalyptick Beast entring into the Seat of Daniel's 4th Beast and so the time of his Reign be expired may be worth the Consideration of those that study the Apocalypse But certain it is that in England the Bishop of Rome before the Norman Conquest had no allow'd Jurisdiction but the Conqueror coming in under the Pope's Banner gave him leave to send Legates into England From William Rufus he attempted to gain Appeals to Rome which occasion'd the Banishment of Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury during the Reign of that King Upon Henry the First he Usurp'd the Donation of Bishopricks On King Stephen Appeals to Rome On Henry the Second the Exemption of Clerks from the Secular Power And from King John he got the whole Kingdom I shall not trace the Steps by which the Kingdom recover'd it self out of the Hands of the Clergy but notwithstanding the Pope held our Ancestors Consciences in Slavery till the Reign of Henry the Eighth many Acts of Parliament were made to uphold and maintain the Sovereignty of the King the Liberty of the People the Common Law and the Commonweal as appears by the Statutes of Edward the Third and and Richard the Second Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth being Laws of Premunire and Provision by which the Civil Power was preserv'd and the Body secured against the monstrous pretended Foreign Head And upon the whole the Civil Power of England kept it self out of the Hands of the Priests in all Matters and Causes except Causes Testamentary and of Matrimony Divorce Rights of Tythes Oblations and Obventions for as the Emperors out of a Zeal and desire to Grace and Honour the Bishops allow'd them Jurisdiction in Causes of Tythes because they were paid to Priests in Causes of Matrimony because Marriages were Solemniz'd in the Church in Causes Testamentary because Testaments were many times made in Extremis when Priests were present So the Kings of England before the Reformation did all along derive Jurisdiction in these Causes to the Bishops though the Right remain'd in them as the Fountain But herein England hath been more unhappy than the Empire for whereas the Bishops when Christian Emperors granted them this Jurisdiction proceeded in these Causes according to the Imperial Law as the Civil Magistrate did proceed in other Causes our Bishops introduced the Imperial Law and since it came into the World the Canon Law also into England and endeavoured all they could to destroy Caesar's Image and Superscription They call'd their Courts Courts Christian as if the Civil Courts were but Courts of Ethnicks and their Causes Spiritual as if Civil Causes were Carnal And yet if an Honest Man Examine the Matter he will probably find as much Christianity in Westminster-Hall as in Doctors Commons and Adultery a Crime no more Spiritual than Murder Since the Reformation began the Civil and Pretended Spiritual Authority have been wresting and they are not yet fully agreed It was Enacted by the Statute 24 Hen. VIII Cap. 12. That all these Spiritual Causes should be Judged within the King's Authority and not elsewhere By the 26 Hen. VIII Cap. 14. The Parliament took upon them even in those Popish Times to Create new Bishops Suffragans and to appoint their Sees And this multiplying of Bishopricks is no new thing for if you will believe Giraldus Cambrenses he tells us in a Writing which he presented to Pope Innocent the Third That in Britain there were in the time of the Romans Five Provinces and accordingly Five Arch-Bishopricks under each of which was Twelve Bishopricks so there were Threescore Bishopricks at a time when the Island was not wholly Christianized Nor is the Translation of Sees any Novelty for in the Year 604 Pope Gregory did for the sake of Austin the Monk procure the Translation of the Archiepiscopal Seat from London to Canterbury where it remains to this Day notwithstanding the endeavour of Gilbert Folioth Bishop of London in the time of Henry the Second and the endeavours of other Bishops of London since to recover the Archiepiscopal Dignity But to proceed by Statute 1. Edw. VI. Cap. 2. The Writ of Conge delire was ousted and it was Enacted That none but the King by his Letters Patents should collate to an Archbishoprick or Bishoprick That all Process Ecclesiastical should be in the King's Name and the Test in the Name of the Person having
Catholicism WITHOUT POPERY AN ESSAY To Render the Church of ENGLAND A Means and a Pattern of UNION TO THE Christian World LONDON Printed for I. Lawrence at the Angel in the Poultry 1699. Advertisement THE Reader is desired to take Notice of Two Things 1. That this Discourse is not Written by the Direction Assistance or Advice of any Person or Party whatsoever nor with the Privity of any in Authority but is the meer and only Result of the Author 's own Thoughts who makes it his Request that the Reader wou'd forget that it has an Author and take it as if it were produc'd by the casual falling together of the Letters of the Alphabet it being too common a thing for Men to slight Truth if they approve not of him that utters it and to indulge Error if recommended by the Author's Name And yet at the same time let the Reader be assur'd that the Author is not afraid that the World should know what he earnestly desires may be conceal'd for the Reason aforesaid 2. That for the same Reason divers Passages are made use of therein without referring to the Books whence they are taken there being in so learned an Age no great danger of Plagearism and in so divided and contentious an Age too much danger of the abovesaid Inconvenience THE PREFACE Christian Reader THE Substance of the following Discourse was Written above eight Years since and Presented in Manuscript to Her Late Majesty of ever Blessed Memory But Wars abroad made it unseasonable to attempt Peace in the Churches while the States of Europe were so hotly engag'd and had the Church of England render'd it self a Pattern of Peace yet the Nations about us were not at leisure to observe that Pattern The Divine Power Wisdom and Goodness assisting the Best of Kings hath Restor'd Peace to the Nations of Christendom among themselves And why may not Peace among the Churches of Christendom be expected by the same Means And because the Design of the following Discourse is to attempt it first at Home yet with an Eye to the Peace of the Christian World I will look back on the Past Age and consider the Cause of our Divisions both in Church and State Two Controversies have miserably divided this Nation for more than one Century I mean the Controversie between the Prerogative of the King and the Liberty of the Subject and the Controversie between a Strict Vniformity in Matters of Religion and a Lawless Liberty of Conscience And our Enemies of the Roman Communion have ever since the Reformation industriously kept alive both these Controversies in order to reduce us to our former Bondage to Rome They took the side of Prerogative and Strict Conformity till they had set these Kingdoms in a flame and broke in pieces the English Government both in Church and State They us'd the Pretence of Loyalty to Murder the Poor Protestants of Ireland and of Vniformity to drive many excellent Men out of the Church And when they had ruin'd Prerogative and the English Church by appearing for them They then fell in for Anarchy in the State and an extravagant Liberty of Conscience in the Church and broke us into Numberless Parties and Sects And while their Emissaries wrought diligently to build a sort of Babel among us they cast the Reproach thereof on the Protestant Religion Again when the Nation grew weary of Anarchy of changing Governments every Moon and springing new Churches almost as often and found a necessity of Restoring the English Constitution they returned to their old Methods of straining the Prerogative and destroying both our Civil and Religious Liberties by Arbitrary Power and on that side of the Controversie they continued till the late Happy Revolution They knew though we were forbid to say that both the late Kings were in their Interest and that the Prerogative would be certainly on their side that the Dispensing Power render'd all Laws already made against them useless and would consequently restore Popery by our Celebrated Magna Charta They knew that Modelling Corporations wou'd destroy Legislation for the time to come by making Parliaments like those in France Tools and Vassals to the Crown as the Council of Trent was to the Pope Thus Humane Wisdom seem'd to Promise them all Imaginable Success for the Church-Party being secur'd by the Doctrines of Passive-Obedience and Non-Resistance misunderstood the Dissenters Caress'd with an Illegal Toleration and the Papists among us Vnited to destroy us we were like Isaac bound and laid on the Altar had not our good Angel in the very Act of Sacrificing staid the Knife I do but touch these things as being Foreign to the Design of the Following Discourse yet I can't pass them without observing that Solid and Lasting Settlement both of Religion and Civil Liberty which we owe to His Majesty Two things the Nation had learn'd by sad Experience 1. By the Confusions and Distractions of the late Times they learn'd that a Common-Wealth would never do in England for though for a season that Government made a Figure in the World it soon dwindled into a single Person under another Name and at his Death consum'd away in Anarchy 2. By the late Reigns the Nation had learn'd that Arbitrary Power would never do in England though affected and attempted with all possible Application in both those Reigns What then could Humane Wisdom think fit to be done upon the Late Revolution but to settle and establish the English Government on its Ancient and Solid Foundations The most Renowned Politician observes That those Kingdoms and Governments stand longest that are oft renewed and brought back to their first Beginnings And though in the last Age we could not attain it we are now blest with the Old English Constitution The English Government exceeds all others in the World being a just Mixture of the Three Forms of Government Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy Monarchy justly boasts its Vnion Aristocracy its Grandeur and Democracy its Liberty Now the English Government has all the Advantages of these Governments without the Disadvantages of any it has Monarchy without Arbitrary Power Aristocracy without Faction and Democracy without Anarchy and hence we are blest with King Lords and Commons The Just Prerogative is Establish d the Invaded Liberties of the Kingdom are restor'd and the Incroachments of the Late Reigns condemn'd by Act of Parliament So that there is an end of the Controversie between the Prerogative of the King and the Liberty of the Subject and nothing but the most incurable Infidelity can be Proof against that Evidence of His Majesty's Love to the English Liberty which He hath given by permitting an Election for Parliament during his Absence and passing the Bill for Disbanding the Army The Controversie between a strict Settlement and a Boundless Liberty in Matters of Religion is also in some good measure compromised we have now no Spanish Inquisition to force Mens Faith and Consciences into the same Mould which is