by our Saviour and his Apostles must affirm that going out from the Communion of a Church determined to such a place or succession is not always a going out of the Church for that Church may happily usurp a Jurisdiction and require an unlawful subjection and pervert the Doctrine of Faith and that a Church continuing the same for place and succession may yet go out from it self i. e. from what it was anciently by taking to it self a new unwarrantable power of Jurisdiction and forsaking the Doctrine it anciently professed 12. For a Church to go out of it self and return to it self needs not seem any strange thing or phrase it is what we see in every Penitent Sinner and read of that unthrifty Son S. Luk. 15.17 that he came to himself he was gone out of himself before But to clear it in regard of the Church by instances When the Arrians possessed all the Bishops Sees and ruled the whole Church as to the more Visible state of it the true Catholicks driven into corners and so few or so little seen that the Emperour Constantius thought he had cause to say the whole Christian World was against Athanasius What could be judged of Heresie Schism then according to this Argument without taking in the Doctrine of Faith For first Champny will not say that they which were Baptised in the Communion of the Arrian Church were bound to continue in it nor will he judg them Hereticks or Schismaticks for going out of it If he say they could shew the Arrian Church gone out of a more Antient it is very true but they could not shew this by local succession but by forsaking of antient Doctrine For the same Bishops for the most part which before was Catholic did with their flocks turn Arrian and so the place and persons were the same only the Doctrine or Faith was changed by reason of which they might truly be said to go out of the more Antient Church not by change of place and persons in regard of which the face and visible Communion of the Arrian Churches was stil the same but of Christian Faith and Doctrine It was elegantly said of Nazianzen Orat. 21. in the case of Athanasius that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agreeing both in Seat and Doctrine with the Catholic Bishops that went before him but not so with the Arrian Bishops who though no intruders as those that of Catholicks turn'd Arrian held the same Seats with those that sat before them but not the same Doctrine 13. Of our going out of the Church of Rome This premised it is easie to answer I. That although we received Baptism and Christianity at first from the Church of Rome in the time of Gregory the Great which we thankfully acknowledg yet are we not therefore bound to receive or continue in the accrewing errors of that Church and although Cranmer and those of his time were Baptized in the Communion of that Church yet not bound therefore to continue in it as neither were they whom the Arrians Eutychians or Monothelites converted and Baptized bound to continue in those prevailing Heresies when once brought to a knowledg of them II. That our going out from the Church of Rome was a going out in regard of the Papal Jurisdiction from under a yoke and Tyranny which that Church had usurped over this Nation greater and heavier then any of the former Hereticks laid upon Christian people over whom they prevailed in regard of the Doctrine it was a going out of that Church no otherwise then we went out of our selves i.e. out of our errors in which we were before a going out of that Church so far as it had gone out from it self what antiently it was by Errors and Superstition in the Belief and Worship which it required of all within her Communion 14. And thus Cranmer shewed that the Church of Rome was so gone out when for three dayes together he boldly and learnedly argued before the whole Parliament against the six Articles to the admiration but grief of his Adversaries shewing plainly how the Church of Rome in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Half Communion Priests Marriage Image-Worship was departed or gone out of it self Which also as to the main point of Papal Jurisdiction or Supremacie Gardiner Tunstal Stokesly and the most learned of that party did demonstrate by Scripture Fathers Councels Reasons Here is all the difference that when the Arrian or Eutychian Heresie prevailed it was more clear and notorious because it was a change of Doctrine by one singular Heresie whereas the Romish change of Doctrine was not by one or so immediat to the foundation or at once comming in but by many errors creeping in successively and by degrees also the continuance of the other Heresies in their prevailing condition was not so long but Men could remember it had been otherwise whereas the Errors of the Church of Rome have had the happiness or unluckiness rather in these Western parts to continue longer and to be upheld and propagated with more Policy and force though complained of and professed against more or less in all Ages since they became Notorious But this continuance of Time is only the Pharisees Dictum Antiquis it was said by them of old S. Mat. 25. No prescription against Truth that was before the Error or against our Saviours caution Non sic ab initio it was not so from the beginning 15. He adds a fourth Argument He that joyns himself to that Society which cannot shew it self Christian but by the Tradition and Succession of that Church which he hath forsaken and Opposed is an Heretick But Cranmer joyned himself to that Society or Congregation which cannot shew it self to be Christian but by c. Answer How we may prove our Christianity by the Romish Church how not For a Man or Nation to prove their Christianity by another Church for example the Roman may be taken in several respects either because such a Man or Nation were converted to the Christian faith or received Baptism or Ordination in and by that Church In all these respects we grant the Assumption that Cranmer the first Reformed English could not prove they received the Christian Faith or Baptism or Ordination in any other Church then the Roman but we say the Proposition is false and doth not make them Hereticks in forsaking a Church wherein they have received these or joyning themselves to those that have had them from thence also For instance If of two Gottish Nations which the Arrians by their Bishop Vlfilas and others converted from Heathenisme to Christianity and Baptized them and ordained them Pastors but infected with their Heresie one of them renouncing the Heresie and forsaking the Communion of them that they were made Christians by the other Nation also should see and forsake the Error and joyn with the former were then the Argument good against this latter Nation to prove
the Reason of the things themselves Now the belief upon this Autority is but previous and preparatory as I call'd it in order to that which S. Augustine calls Reason or evident knowledg of the truth For he tels us this Autority viz. of the Church proposing the Catholick Faith stands upon Miracles confirming that Faith and Multitude of believers that have embraced it and this indeed is the first motive to induce a Man to seek and believe he may have the true Faith and Religion in such a Church such a company of Relievers Again he pleads for belief due to the Autority of Pastors and Teachers of the Church whom he cals Antistites Dei whom God hath set in his Church as Governours and Teachers cap. 10. de Vtil Cred. and this is but according to the Rule common to the teaching of other Sciences Oportet discentem credere He that is taught must give credit to him that teacher him Lastly we find him every where speaking the end of that Autority and teaching in the Church it is praecolere procurare animum or idoneum facere percipiendae veritati to mould and fit the mind for perceiving and embracing the Truth and preparare illuminaturo Deo to prepare it for the enlightning of Gods Spirit which he calls sometimes the punging of the mind viz. from Natures ignorance self-conceit love of Worldly pleasures that it may be fit to behold the clear Truth and this is it which he calls Reason and gives it the chiefest Authority Summa est ipsius veritatis jam cognitae perspicuae Autoritas cap. 14. de verâ Relig. this was calld Evidence above or Demonstration of Truth and cap. 25. of the same book Purgatioris animae rationi quae ad veritatem pervenit nullo modo preponitur humana Autoritas Humane Autority must give way to Reason and Evident truth which a Soul purified by Faith knows and believes Thus much in reference to that which had been spoken above of preparatory conditional belief due to and beginning from Autority but finally resting in the Evidence and Demonstration of Truth Like as the belief of the Samaritans given first to the Testimony of the Woman that had been with Christ brought them out unto him but stayed at last upon Aâ—divimus ipsi we have heard him our selves S. John 4.42 22. Pride makes men pass the bounds of peaceable subjection Now in reference to that which was spoken of Submission of privat Judgment keeping within bounds of peaceable subjection hear what S. Augustine subjoyns immediately upon the former words cap. 25. de Verâ Rel. ad hanc nulla humana suPerbia producit To this viz. the reason and belief of a purified minde pride brings no man quae si non esset nec Haeretici nec Schismatici essent but for this Pride and self-conceit the cause why privat Judgments do not keep within bounds there would be no Hereticks or Schismaticks for it comes not to this but when nimiâ levitate as he speaks sometimes through too much lightness of judgment they are driven tanquam palea vento Superbiae as chaff by the puff of their own pride from the Lords floor or Visible Church 23. Vnjust excommunication and want of the Communion of the Church upon it But what if Privat Men for a peaceable dissenting in judgment or practice from the Visible Church of which they were Members in points of high concernment for Belief or Worship be censured and driven from the communion of it They are not for all that driven from the Communion of the Catholick Church but their condition is not unlike the case of those good men which S. Augustine speaks of cap. 6. de verâ Rel. Divine Providence saith he suffers sometimes Viros bonos per turbulentas sed tiones carnalium hominum expelli de Congregatione Christianâ Good men to be cast out of the Communion of the Visible Church through the turbulent Seditions of carnal Men How such if private men must behave themselves declaring also how they ought to behave themselves in that condition patiently constantly by charity to those to whose Violence they gave way and perseverance in the Faith of the Catholike Church sine Conventiculorum segregratione without making Conventicles apart testimonio suo juvantes eam fidem quam in Ecclesiâ and by their witness and profession helping that Faith which they know is still taught in the Church These saith he thus serving God in secret Pater viaens in occulto coronat their Father which sees in secret crowns and rewards Observe he speaks here of privat Men and so do we hitherto but he supposes them cast out of the Church in which the Catholick Faith is truly professed with due Christian Worship and therefore saith Examples of such expelled good men are rare Whereas we supose such to be cast out from the Visible Communion upon the cause of Faith and Worship and those turbulent persons to be the chief Rulers casting them out upon that account and therefore with more advantage may conclude it is well with such in the sight of God that sees in secret Indeed the condition of the Catholick Church being such as it was in S. Augustine his dayes it could not but be rare to find such examples but if he had seen these latter Ages and the corruption of Faith and Worship upheld by pride and Tyranny of the chief Rulers especially within the Communion of the Romish Church he might have seen examples great store of good men and pious for peaceable dissenting or desiring Reformation cast out and persecuted 24. Now in the last place Submission of National Churches to the Vniversal of the respect which National Churches have and ought to have to the Universal as to this point of submission we need not say much 1. Several National Churches being parts as it were and Members making one whole Church called the Catholic in some proportion ought to bear like respect to the Definitions and practises of the Catholick Church as Inferior or privat persons to the particular National Church of which they are Members in some proportion I say as also it was said Sect. 9. of the former book but with advantage to a National Church in this point of Judgment above what is allowed proportionable to privat persons for they have only Judgment of discretion in order to their own believing whereas a National Church hath publick Judgment both in receiving the Decrees of the Universall Church or in making some her self and in proposing them to others whom she is to guide and answer for and so can make publick reformation when there is cause for it and constitute a Visible Church in depending in point of Government of any other Visible Church or rather can continue a Visible Church as it was before but with this difference from what it was before that now it stands reformed or purged from many errors and freed from the Tyranny of forrein
CERTAIN CONSIDERATIONS Of present Concernment TOUCHING THIS REFORMED Church of ENGLAND WITH A particular Examination of AN CHAMPNY Doctor of the Sorbon his exceptions against the Lawful Calling and Ordination of the Protestant Bishops and Pastors of this Church By H FERNE D.D. LONDON Printed by J.G. for R. ROYSTON at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1653. THE PREFACE HOw the several points handled in this Treatise concern this Reformed Church will be declared below when first we have taken notice of the causeless Aspersions and Reproaches which the Romanists cease not to cast upon is and against which these Considerations are purposely intended and opposed They think they have now a fitter oportunity by reason of the confusions of these Times to deal that way by Reproaches then as formerly by Arguments And it is no new thing for the enemies of Gods Truth to scoff at the afflicted condition of the professors of it The Ammonite is challenged for it Ezek. 25.3 Thou saidst Aha against my Sanctuary when it was profaned and so is Tyrus Ezek. 26.2 Thou saidst against Jerusalem Aha she is broken and laid wast I shall be replenished and so the Romanists looking now upon our disturbances say with those in the Psal 35.21 Aha we have seen it with our eyes and so would we have it Endeavouring by mocks and scoffs against the English Church to prevaile with ungrounded Protestants and all unwary ones that will be jeered out of their Religion One of their Pamphlets set out by a late Romish Convert the Reader must give me leave by the way to instance in for it gives us proof and example of what I said both wayes It shewes us a giddy unwary Protestant foolishly carryed away by the reproachful allegations of our Adversaries and having been a while among them presently instructed in this their way of scoffing at that Church and Religion he had forsaken Some of his wit he spends in a few Cursory animadversions as he calls them upon my former Treatise Those I let pass as inconsiderable and not fit to trouble the Reader with But the designe of his book was against that Learned and Solid piece of the University of Oxford set out by Act of Convocation 1647. against admitting of the Covenant He tells us there He is W. R. sometimes of Exeter Colledge but now a Convert of Rome and is not ashamed to profess that we may know his weaknes he had his impulsive cause of conjunction with Rome from that Act of the University pleading Tradition and the necessity of it as for Episcopacy so for other chief points of Faith But alas poor man he did not understand either what those Learned men said or what our Church allowes in the point of Tradition For however he pretend to Wit in reproving our Reformation and Religion yet in arguing when be ventures on it he behaves himself as a manforsaken of his Reason By his Titles prefixed to his book one may read what strein he meant to follow hold throughout his whole discourse for being not content to have at first entitled it An Examination of the Oxford Act he gives it two scoffing Titles more The Obit of Praelatick Protestancie and again The last dying words of Episcopacy faintly delivered in the Convocation at Oxford So he of the Modest and Sober Defence of those Learned Men against the then prevailing force And so might any Heathen Julian or Prophyry have derived the Apologies of the Ancients in the behalf of Christianity then under persecution and might have called them The last dying Words of Christian Religion So might the Arrians have termed the Defenses which Athanasius and others made The last dying Words of the Catholick cause and because Saint Hierom expresseth it dolefully with a Miratus ingemuit Orbis the whole Christian world wondred and sighed to see her selfe made Arrian Such a Reasoner as this might conclude the true Christian Faith was then groaning her last Now albeit there is nothing in this Pamphlet considerable either against our Church or against Episcopacy reteined in it yet did it give me occasion of further thoughts concerning them both and in order to the lawful Calling and Ordination of our Protestant Bishops to examine what Champny who professedly wrote against them hath alleged In the next place that I may give the Reader a better account of what was intended in the former and now pursued in this following Treatise He may please to take notice how the Romanists charge us with Schism in departing from their Communion upon our Reformation and reproach us with the Confusions of these Times as wrought under the like pretence of Reformation and defensible by the like principles upon which we stood in the work of our Reforming and to which we must hold in the defense of it To demonstrate the falshood of both Either that We who are now of a divided Communion from Rome are therefore guilty of Schism or that They who made the rupture in the Scottish first and then in the English Church can say justly for themselves against the former Doctrine and Government of those Churches what we can for our selves against the Church of Rome it was part of the work and purpose of the former book And it was demonstrable upon these grounds 1. There was a necessity of Reformation and we had just Cause for it by reason of the over-grown Papall power and the intolerable abuses in Doctrine and Worship 2. It was Warrantably done not only for the Cause of it but also for the Autority by which it was done whether we consider the Vote of the Clergy and the Iudgment of a Nationall Synod or the assent and command of the supreme and Sovereign power In which regard we see the Vanity of all that the Romanists allege from the Ancients concluding Schism Affirmatively or Negatively by Communion with the Church of Rome for however that Argument might be good when that Church stood right and held the Catholick Faith undefiled yet was it no more then they might and did conclude by Communion with other famous Churches confessedly Catholick No such conclusion can now be made upon holding or not holding Communion with the Romish Church since it gave such Cause of Reformation as abovesaid We see also the Vanity of their Reproaches that we leave every man to his privat Iudgment and Reason that we open a gap to all Sectaries to work confusion when they get force in any Church For however we leave men the use of their Reason and Iudgment in order to their own believing yet in order to Reformation we require not only just cause in regard of intolerable Error or Superstition but also due Autority for the carrying it on in the way of the Church These particulars were spoken to more or less in the first part of the former book Now for the further clearing of this point of the English Reformation and defending it so against the reproaches of Papists that no Sectaries
Authority It is true submission as above was insinuated extends it self so far even to a suffering for our judgment and belief and such submission is due to the Pastors and Governors of the Church by vertue of their publick Autority but the consideration of submission in the several extent of it much depends upon the several condition of the Maiter in which we submit unto Autority of which presently here we are upon the submission of judgment due unto Autority as to the unward belief which submission we affirm to be not absolute but limited and may conclude it upon the Apostles warrant who in one place gives us the precept of it and the reason of it Obey Submit Why they have the rule over you that is their Commission and Autority for teaching and guiding you and they watch for your souls and must give account Heb. 13.17 there 's the high concernment But this Obedience and submission cannot be absolute unless they alone were concerned to give account for our souls if we must also then are we also concerned to watch over our own souls to see and judg what we do and therefore the Apostle as he tels us in this place they have the rule over us so in another place adds the limitation Not as having dominion over your faith 2 Cor. 1.24 and Not as Lords over Gods heritage saith S. Peter 1.5.3 how then as Ministers by whom ye believe 1 Cor. 3.9 as helpers of your joy 2 Cor. 1.24 Ministers Helpers Guides they are in the way of Salvation but as it is one thing for a Man to follow a Guide til he see apparent danger another thing to be led by him blindfold So is it one thing to follow our spiritual Guides with a conditional belief or reservation to Gods-Word yea and to follow them to a mistrust of our own judgment or knowledge we have of the way another thing to resign up judgment and belief to them and put out that light of reason which God hath put in us in order to our receiving direction for the way of Salvation The first we allow and require the other let the Church of Rome exact and gain where she can Thus far from the consideration of Autority to which Submission is due We may receive more particular directions for the extent and manner of performing this Submission if we now add the Consideration of the Matter or things in which Submission is yeilded 12. Several conditions of the matter in which The matters or things wherein the Church declares her judgment and requires Submission are of divers condition as was above insinuated some are matters of Opinion or belief only and these as they are of different condition from matters of Practise and outward exercise so are they to be distinguished one from the other in the Declarations of the Church for it is considerable in our yeilding of Submission to know what things are Credenda or matters of belief strictly taken for Catholick Faith such as the prime Articles Christ God and Man and the like or their immediat and apparent consequences Two wills in Christ Natures distinct and unconfounded and what things again are Credibilia Credible Truths or Matters of Opinion or belief largely taken Also it is considerable What the Church hath declared as Articles of Faith and what she hath shewed her judgement in as Credible Truths but not imposing them as Articles of Catholick Faith for in case she should mistake in these the danger in conforming our judgment to hers is the less as if a Church upon mistake should as many of the Ancients thought judg it Credible That the souls of just men are not admitted into the glorious presence of God til the Resurrection or that there may be some kind of purgatory after this life turning S. Augustines Non incredibile into a Credibile but not imposing it as an Article of Faith as the Church of Rome hath boldly done So likewise Matters of Practice are of divers forts and of greater or less concernment Some of Worship and Adoration some of Discipline Rites Cercmony Under matters of Discipline the observing of set Times for Fasting works and performances of publick Penance single life of Priests and the like are considerable in the Canons or Declarations of the Church concerning them In matters of Belief or Opinion our subjection to a publick judgment stands in a conformity of our judgment and belief to the publick and in the publishing or not publishing of our judgment In Matters of practice our Submission stands in the conformity of judgment if we judge of Worship and other matters determined as the Church judges or in the outward exercise if we do in these things as the Church does and practises 13. Having premised thus much Submission of Judgment answerable come we now to more particular directions for the extent or manner of performing Submission to the judgment of the Church when she hath declared it in Matters of Belief or Practise As for the Submission of Private judgment to the publick 1. To all the determinations of the Church we ow Submission by assent and belief conditional and preparatory at the least which being given with reservation for evidence out of Gods Word does both acknowledg the Autority of our Pastors and Teachers and withall reserve unto God his due 2. In matters of Faith and Religious Worship we cannot submit to any company of Men by resignation of our judgment and belief or standing bound to receive for Faith and Worship all that they shal define and impose for such for such resignation gives to Man what is due to God and stands excluded by the condition as above shewn of the Autority which is not Infallible and also by the condition of the Matter Faith and Worship of high concernment to our own Souls and to be accounted for by our selves who therefore stand bound to make present and diligent search for that evidence and demonstration from Gods Word upon which we may finally and securely stay our judgments and belief in such matters 3. In other Matters of Opinion and Credibility or of Discipline and Rites which the Church determins and proposes for such as there is more cause for ready conformity of judgment so is there more security or less danger in it for such Matters are either not determined by Scripture in particular or not determinable but by several consequences Only this conformity is yeilded stil with a reservation for any sufficient evidence or demonstration of Truth to the contrary else til that come our conformity remains secure for here 's the difference of conforming in the former points of Catholique faith or worship and these later of Opinion Discipline Rites that when the former are proposed to our belief and practice we rest not secure til we have demonstation or evidence that they are so but in the other we submit with security til we have evidence that they are not so as Autority
hath determined Indeed in matters of Discipline and Ceremony though in themselves of small concernment great opposition hath often been made to the judgment and determination of Autority of which I shal speak a litle below under the conformity of Practice in such matters and in the mean let us see what Cautions may be given in case of Privat Judgment justly dissenting from the Publike 14. Of concealing a dissent of Judgment in peaceable subjection If therfore it come to that as possibly it may yet for preserving of due submission take care 1. That our dissenting be not upon any comparing or equalling our privat judgment to the publique and autoritative judgment of the Church for this wil be absolutely against that conditional preparatory belief or assent with which we are to receive all her determinations but upon the evidence of a greater Autority on our side viz. the demonstration of Truth from Gods Word or primitive consent of the Catholique Church either of which is of more Autority then the present Governours of the Church 2. That the dissenting of privat judgment be only in order to a mans own believing and delivering of his own soul for which he is to give account not to any inconsiderate publishing of it to others for the light of Reason though it may not be put out yet may and often ought to be concealed and a mans privat judgment silenced in submission to the publique 3. If he publish or make known his dissenting it ought to be by modest proposal to his Superiours not by clamours against the Church to a disturbance of the peace of it much less by force or tumult as the manner of Sectaries hath usually been for if he cannot internally acquiesce in the judgment of the Church yet ought he to submit as far as possible externally and to suffer for it if need be 15. Whether in al Matters or Cases But here a question may be made about these matters in which we were said to have evidence of Scripture and Primitive consent if a Church should so far err as to judg contrary to these as for the error of Monothelites or Eutychians or for the worshiping of Images or any Creature with Religious worship must a man submit with silence in such a case I answer The Ministers of the Word being by that Church according to Gods Ordinance called to publish the Gospel and Counsels of God for salvation ought to propose their contrary judgment and belief to their Superiors so erring if they reform it is wel if not the other ought to declare these Counsels of God for in this case they have greater Autority as was said on their side and may say to the Governours of the Visible Church as the Apostles did to the great Councel Whether it be more right to hearken to you or to God c. Acts 4. And to this case I refer that other erroneous principle of belief the mother of Error and Apostacie that al the Members of the Church are bound to receive for Catholike Faith and Christian Worship all that the Church whereof they are Members proposes to them for such herein we had and all that are stil of the Roman Communion have cause to complain of that Church and to declare dissent of judgment from it which not only imposes Purgatory Transubstantiation and such novel errors for Articles of the Catholike faith and commands Image-worship as lawful and pleasing to God but also holds all the Members thereof bound to that former principle of mis-belief in a blind receiving all for faith and worship that shal be so proposed to them 16. The submiitting of Doctrine and Writings to the censure of the Church And this which hath been said will also speak the meaning of that submission which we profess to yeild when we usually say and not without cause We submit our Judgment Doctrine or Writings to the censure of the Church for 1. this is not a resignation of judgment in regard of believing but a submission in regard of the publishing it a putting it to the permission of the Church whether such Doctrine or Writings shall stand published or be silenced 2. And this not in all things simply for no Man can submit his Judgment and Doctrine to any Company of Men when he believeth and teacheth the prime Articles of Catholick Faith into which all Christians are baptized or the immediat consequences of them which are evident to all that can use Reason and Judgment or the express commands of God concerning Religious Worship but it is in things more questionable not plainly determined in Scripture and though deducible from some confessed Article or express Command yet by divers Consequences As in the first kind the Church hath power to silence and censure any that teach contrary to such Articles or Commandments but cannot forbid to teach them So in the second she hath power to silence any that teach contrary to her declared Judgment in them For it cannot be denyed that the Church hath power to over-rule and restrain the exercise of any mans Ministry in order to the common peace and safety she being answerable for others as wel as for him whom she restrains in publishing his private judgment or belief to others 17. Submission of Practise or Conformity in doing Thus much of Submission of Judgment in matters of Belief or Practice either in conforming to the Judgment and determination of the Church therein declared or in a fair and peaceable dissenting Now come we to Submission of Practice in a conformity of doing what the Church does and practises The Judgment we have of Matters either of belief or practice need not happily discover it self may for peace sake be silenced but in matters of practice determined by the Church and commanded to be done by us our conformity both in Judgment and Practice must needs then appear It was wel and peaceably said of Jo Frith a yong Man but Learned and Moderate in his Reply to Sir Thomas Moor concerning Transubstantiation Let it not saith he be Worshiped and think what you will for then is the Peril past Difference of judgment may be in a Church without disturbance In matter of worship but difference of practice because apparent endangers the peace of it And let me here add Notwithstanding the difference of judgment in the Protestant Churches de modo presentiae yet may they wel communicate together in the Sacrament because neither of them allow or practice that Adoration directed to the Sacramental Symbols which the Church of Rome practises and requires of all her Communicants or Spectators rather Now for Submission or Conformity in matters of practice we must remember such matters were of different sorts and concernments Worship Adoration Discipline Order Ceremony and then we have a double Caution 1. According to the indifferencie of the matter or the greater but evident concernment of it either to yeeld conformity for Peace sake
or forbear for Conscience sake 2. That such forbearance of any practice be an Act of simple and bare Omission without clamour and contempt of Autority without tumult or resistance with a readines to suffer rather then is there peaceable subjection when private judgment keeps within these bounds For such conscionable forbearance of many practices in the Church of Rome of high concernment and very evident they have good cause that are within her Communion Such practice is the exercise of Religious Worship many wayes applyed in that Church to the Creature such also are some superstitious Rites and Ceremonies having a kind of Sacramental vertue and real holiness affixed to them 18. In Matters of Ceremony or Discipline But as for Rites and Ceremonies in themselves indifferent and by the Church enjoyned only with respect to Order and Discipline there is no cause of inconformity or forbearance yet in these hath there been great opposition from privat Judgments that could not keep within their bounds and those places of Rom. 14. He that doubteth is damned if he eat and what is not of Faith is sin have been abused to maintain a dissenting from the Judgment of the Church and a forbearance of the Practice We say therefore those places are misapplyed to matters determined by publick Autority against which it is not doubting or want of Faith i.e. perswasion of the Lawfulness or indifferency of the thing so determined that can take place or bear out disobedience but evident demonstration of the thing out of Gods Word to the contrary and the Reason is plain the command of Gods Word for Obedience and Submission to them that are over us is evident and therefore against them we must have evidence from Gods Word to shew they are mistaken in their Judgment or determination of that particular Now when a Church professes the thing determined by her to be indifferent in it self or of a middle Nature neither commanded by God nor forbidden and that she neither affixes any Sacramental or Spiritual vertue or hollness to it nor enjoyns it as Worship but only out of respect to Order and Discipline no man can have any evident demonstration but only a doubting or mixt perswasion of the unlawfulness of such a thing and although a Man of doubting of a thing in it self indifferent but not determined or enjoyned by Authority may by reason of his doubting have cause to forbeare it yet not in this case of the supposed determination and injunction of Autority for he that will then urge He that doubteth is damned must remember that he that disobeyeth is damned too that former place of doubting having many exceptions of which this predetermination of Autority is one but this disobeying of Autority hath only one viz. when there is sufficient evidence of L. vine Autority against the thing determined by humane and so it becomes an Obeying of God rather then Man 19. Of Priests Celebacie enjoyned by the Church and how But it may be expected because I referred the injunction of Priests single life to matter of Discipline that I should speak particularly to the conformity of Judgment and Practice to it I referr'd it to Discipline because antiently enjoyned not in a disparagement to Marriage which the Apostle concludes Honourable in all men but in Order to their better discharge of their Duty and Priestlie or Ministerial function and I do not now dispute the difference of that antient injunction from the now Roman exaction of single life nor question with what fulness of Autority it was enjoyned or how far or how long binding which I shall have more fit occasion to touch a little Num. 25.26 below and more largly against Champny in the sixth Chapter but only speak to the point of Submission and conformity to such judgment or determination of the Church supposing it fully concluded and binding Therefore I cannot but say while it was so binding every Clergy-man had cause to Judge the Governors of the Church saw reason to enjoyn it was bound to endeavour conformity in Practice i.e. to use such means by Temperance Fasting Prayer as conduce to preserve that continency of Single life but if after due use he found himself not answerable to that state but in the condition to which S. Paul prescribes the use of that remedy which God had ordained Marriage against Burning he was bound notwithstanding the Church-Ordinance to take to it and this as it hath direct Warrant from Gods Word so is it not a direct opposition to the Church Ordinance which was but conditional as in the prohibition of Marriage to Fellows of Colleges under the pain of loss of their Fellowships Only in this point of Priests Marriage the condition is of greater concernment the loss of Clergy or quitting the Ministerial function which if happened to him that hath dealt conscionably as above in the business the Church must answer for it 20. Thus have I endeavoured as neer as I can to discover and fixe the bounds of Submission of Privat Judgment and Practice according to the several condition of the matter wherein it is shewn and according to the divers extent and manner of performing or shewing it either to a direct conformity and compliance with the publick or if dissenting yet to a yeilding of all possible peaceable Subjection and that if need be to a suffering under Autority If Privat Judgment keep it self within the former bounds of Submission there can be no harm to the Church 21. I should now speak the respect Passages out of 8. Augustine touching Autority and Reason which every National or particular Church ought to bear to the Universal in this point of Submission but before we go farther it wil be worth our pains to take a short view of some passages of S. Aug. appliable to the business in hand concerning Autority and Reason I calld them Autority and Evidence or demonstration of Truth in his Books de verâ Relig. and de Vtil tate credend It is his purpose there to shew how Autority goes before Reason in our believing or receiving the Christian Faith which by the Romanists is sometimes misapplyed to the purpose of that Church requiring belief to rest upon her Autority We may therefore take notice that the writing of those books was occasioned by the Manichees who reproached the Catholiques for requiring belief of their Scholars or Auditors before they shewed them reason and boasted Se terribili Autoritate separatâ c. that laying aside all supercilious Autority they would by simple and plain reason bring Men to God cap. 1. de util cred Had this Romish Infallible Autority which exacts belief simply and finally been then pretended to in the Church they might well have call'd it terrible Autority and S. Augustine could not but have spoken to it Whereas it is his only work in both books to shew that Men are first moved by Autority to a belief of things before they see
power under which it was before and so it was with the Church of England Reforming And all this a National Church may so much the rather do when the Universal stands so divided and distracted as it hath for these latter Ages that a free General Councel cannot be expected as was insinuated Sect. 4. of the former book 2. But the Church Universal hath heretofore declared her Judgment in General Councels free and unquestionable doth not every National Church by name this of England ow submission of Judgment to them I answer as for matters of Faith and Worship there is no need that any National Church should dissent from any definition concerning that matter made or declared by any of the undoubted General Councels of the Church such as have not been justly excepted against and let any Romanist shew that the Church of England hath receded from the Judgment of such Councels either in matters of Faith or Worship 25. In Canons of Discipline Prudentiall Motives considerable As for Matters of Practice and Discipline under which I named Priests single life because they clamor against us as receding therein from the Catholick Church I may say generally of such points that the Church in them went upon prudential Motives and Reasons with respect to conveniences and inconveniences in those Times considerable and therefore we find it sometimes letting loose the Reins of Discipline sometimes drawing them streiter according to the Exigency of Times or condition of Persons As in those that enjoyn Priests single life Neither could they that made those Canons intend to bind the Church for ever which in after-Ages might have like cause upon experience of inconveniences to loosen that which they held stricter as we finde in the point of Penances and also in this very point of Single life if we look into the practise of it in several Ages and Countreys Nor was it necessary that this Remission or relaxation should alwayes expect the like Autority of Councels to decree it but it might be lawfully done by any National Church within it self upon long experience of the inconveniences and that especially when a free General Councel cannot be expected 26. As to this point of Priests single life I shall have occasion to speak more below against Champny cap. 6. here only I will hint these particulars I. It was conformable to the former Reason that Aeneas Sylvius afterwards Pope acknowledged often As at first they saw cause to forbid Priests Marriage so now there was greater cause to leave it free to them again Plat. in Pio. 2. II. The sixt General Councel in Trullo held in the seventh Century was the first General Councel that forbad Bishops to have or retein their Wives Can. 12. Where they excuse themselves for varying from the 5. Canon of the Apostles which forbad Bishops to put them away by a pretence conformable stil to the former reason viz. because stricter Discipline was fitter for their times then it was for the beginnings of Christianity III. That General Councel doth permit Priests and Deacons to keep their Wives decreeing those to be deposed that cause them to forsake their Wives after ordination Can. 13. where the Councel expresly by name sets a black note upon the Roman Church for doing so and Can. 55. censures that Church again for their custom of Fasting on Saturdayes For this cause some Romanists quarrel at and make exceptions against this Councel as not General or Lawful yet the more reasonable among them admit of it and so we leave them to answer for their dissenting from a General Councel upon a double score as appears by the 13. and 55. Canons 27 But what tell we them of answering it to any Councel VVhat submission the Church of Rome exacts that will have the whole Catholick Church bound to submit to the decrees of their Church Let us see then what Submission the Church of Rome requires of all within her Communion and indeed of all Christians under pain of Damnation We may deliver it in general thus In all that she defines she requires or exacts rather absolute Submission of belief and judgment but then we say she cannot make good the ground on which she requires it viz. Infallible guidance In other things not Defined she requires submission of silence which she imposes on both parties as the heat of the controversie between them seems to require And this Submission we acknowledg due to Autority in every Church not only to the Autority of the chief Pastors in that Church but also of the Supreme Civil power this imposing of silence being not a Definitive sentence for determination of Doctrine but a suspending sentence for ceasing of the debate and providing for publick peace 28. In all things defined What strict submission of belief the Church of Rome requires to all her Definitions we may see by the Oath set out by Pius 4. to be taken by every Bishop wherein after the recital of the whole Romish Faith as it is patched up with the Tridentine Articles follows that very clause which we find in the Athanasian Creed subjoyned to the Catholick Faith there expressed Haec est fides Catholica extra quam this is the Catholick Faith without which none can be saved So that they which joyn themselves to that Church stand bound to believe all which that Church at present doth or shall hereafter propose to be believed Let them place the judgment of that Church where they will in the Pope or Councel 29. And absolute Submission Card. Bel. who according to the Divinity professed at Rome and more generally obtaining in that Church reduces all to the judgment of the Pope is very strict in exacting this submission of belief In his fourth book de Pontif Rom. he disputes of the Popes Infallibility and there c. 3. and 5. We find Non esse subditorum de hac re dubitare sed simpliciter obâ—dirâ— It is not for Subjects or Inferiours to doubt of this matter viz. Whether the Pope can or doth erre but simply to obey And to shew the strength of this obligation the inconvenience that would fall upon the Church if the Pope be subject to erre in defining or commanding any thing to the Church he lets not to express it thus Si papa erraret praecipiendo c. If the Pope should erre in commanding Vice and forbidding Vertue the Church were bound to believe Vitia esse bona Virtutes malas nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare that Vice was good Vertue evill unlesse it would sin against conscience To mollifie the harshnesse of this he inserts presently in rebus dubiis as if this Submission belonged only to his Commands and Definitions in doubtfull Matters which as it is not all they say so is it to little purpose for if he please to judg the most apparent thing to be doubtful as whether our Saviour appointed the Cup to be received by the people
and define against it then are all in the Church bound to believe so or sin against Conscience 30. And indeed it necessarily follows upon their ground and reason of believing all things viz. the Papal Infallibility Now considering what Popes have been and may be how readily may all of that perswasion be brought under the Wo denounced by the Prophet Isa 5.20 against those that call Good Evill Light Darkness Truth Errour Vertue Vice Thus have the people been put off with half-Communion contrary to our Saviours institution and made to believe it is not so thus brought to bow down to graven Images and to Worship them contrary to the express words of Gods command and yet bound to believe it is not so thus have they been raised here into Rebellions and Treasons against their Natural Prince upon Pope Pius 5. his Bulls and thereupon to believe Rebellion was good service to God and his Church thus Princes themselves have been brought to incestuous Marriages and to believe them not sinful upon the Popes dispensation as our Hen. 8. many yeers believed till upon better examination he saw how vain and ungrounded the Judgment and Sentence of the Pope was 31. Not all agreed about the chief ground of their belief But they are not all agreed about this ground of Belief Papal infallibility for though it be publickly professed and maintained in their Schools especially where the Jesuits are in the Chaire and none within the Popes reach dare openly gainsay it yet is it not every where believed within the Romish Communion A fair pretence it carries to advance the work of that Church or Court of Rome rather and the Romish Emissaries make good advantage of it when they have to deal with the unwary and more simple sort of Christians but when it falls under conscionable examination what submission of belief it gains from those of that Communion we may see by these examples Clement the 7. was resolute in his sentence for the incestuous marriage of Henry the 8. yet both Universities of this Land with many abroad some of Italy it self declared against it Pope Paul 5. was as peremptory in his definitive sentence against the Venetians yet was resisted by that whole State and their Subjects and in the end forced to recall it And many now living can remember what difference there was among the Romish Catholikes here upon the same Popes Breves sent out against the Oath of Allegiance some urging obedience to them some refusing and shewing their Reasons for their dissenting which may be seen drawn up in a book set out by Mr. William Howard one of the Romish Communion and do speak the reasonableness of what is said by us for the judgment of discretion allowed to private persons or Inferiours 32. When there comes shame upon any Papal sentence as in the former examples they have excuses from the condition of the Matter defined or the concernment of it to the Church or the intention of the Pope in defining it with a distinction of in and out of his Chair to play fast and loose by for they can shift him into it or out of it according to the event and success of his definitive Judgment But those examples will not admit of such exceptions for though in Hypothesi they were in and about particular Actions and Persons yet in Thesi they were of general concernment as may be easily made to appear and whether the Pope was in his chair or no when he sent forth such definitive sentence I know not but me thinks in business of such concernment to the Church and Christian people it should have beseemed him to give his judgment not car elesly as a private Doctor but as the Pastor General of the Church and it had been worth his pains to go up to his chair for infallible determination and if he did it not then when so much cause so much time to do it when shall any man ever know certainly that the Pope defined or spake such or such a thing in his chair that there may be sure ground for belief and obedience 33. Bel. in the place above cited Difference about Papal Infallibility treating of the Popes Infallibility sets down severall opinions about it of which this is one That the Pope may be an Heretick and teach Heresie This opinion he will not say is fully Heretical because they are tolerated in the Church that hold it but Haeresi proxima at next door to Heresie Yet as neer as it is to Heresie it is the sentence generally of the Popish Church in France and other places too and see their agreement This may not be taught at Rome nor the contrary of it at Paris Now albeit this Party hath unanswerable reasons and arguments for rejecting the Infallibility of the Papal judgment and setting up a General Councel above him which would be good out of the mouth of a Protestant Yet they also when they have to deal with Protestants tell of the Infallible guidance of the Roman Church of the Pope as Vicar of Christ and the visible Head of his Church and boast of their Church as built upon the Rock in all which they thwart themselves for what privilege of Infallibility or other can the Roman Church pretend to above other but by S. Peter and then must it be derived by his supposed successors the Bishops of that Church or how can they affirm the Pope to be Head and deny him the Supremacy or say a Councel is above him or how apply that promise of the Rock to their Church but by allowing S. Peter and so his successors to be that Rock and consequently to give the stability and infallibility to their Church if that place prove any to be in it This Party indeed will say they make the Pope but a Ministerial Head to the Church Which how it reconciles the premises or saves all they pretend to by the Pope I see not but surely it sets them at a wide difference with their fellow Catholicks who are of a contrary perswasion Let them agree it among themselves yet note we their disagreement in points of such high concernment as touch the very ground-work of their Faith and consequently their uncertainty where to state the infallibility and thereupon their unreasonableness in exacting upon that pretence of infallible guidance absolute submission of belief to all things defined and propounded by that Church and lastly their vanity in thinking to satisfie us with saying They all agree in yeilding submission to all that is defined by General Councels and that the Differences we object to them about Pope and Councel are not defined 34. For first they must not here put us off with Submission of Silence or external peaceable subjection which requires not that infallible guidance the Church of Rome boasts of but an Autoritative judgment or unappealeable Autority which we quarrel not if well stated as will appear presently but they must speak that
kinds and by taking clean away the Worship of Images And all this was done by the advice and travel of Bishops and chief Pastors of the Church under a Pious King What exception then can there be It may perchance be said that in the close of that Decree this power of reforming is allowed to the Bishops of the place ut Delegatis sedis Apostolicae as to the Delegates of the Apostolic See Yea there is stil the mischief and hinderance of all good Reformation in the Christian Church Deus non erit Deus c. God shall not be God except man please as Tertul. said in his Apol. and Truth shall not be Truth except the Pope please nor God Worshipped after his own Will unless the Pope will too 14. The warrantableness of K. Edwards Reformation To conclude Lay now the Premisses together and see the Warrantableness of the Reformation under King Edward both for the Thing done and the Autority by which it was done The Thing done was for the general what the Councel of Trent thought fit to be done the removing of some things which were crept in by the corruption of the Times by the carelesness and iniquity of Men Things which Covetousness and Superstition the two Breeders of all Popish abuses had brought in Things for the particular so evident by Scripture and usage of Primative Church the warrantable Rule of Reformation which they went by as above noted in the statute of Parliament Num. 12. that nothing can be more So for the Autority by which this was done It was begun by a good and gracious King upon the advice and direction of sundry learned and discreet Bishops was carried on and managed by divers Bishops and other learned Men of this Realm as was also said in the forementioned Statute and generally received by all the Estates of the Land and accordingly confirmed and Established by King and Parliament Such was the Condition and Warrant of that Reformation which as no Romanist can justly reprove Sectaries cannot pretend to the like so no Sectaries can pretend to the like whether we consider the evidence of the Things or Abuses reformed according to Scripture and usage of Antiquity or the Autority by which that Reformation was begun carried on and managed and lastly confirmed and established Of all which there is a great failing in the pretended Reformations of Sectaries yea in that which the Presbyterians undertook who of all other pretend most to regularity and Order 15. Reformation under Q Eliz. We are at last come down to Queen Elizabeths reign under whom we said the Reformation was perfected And here we are to enquire too of the Imprisoning of Bishops and look after a National Synod We acknowledge that divers Bishops were Imprisoned and which is more deprived too and justly both as will appeare hereafter upon consideration of their offence Here we must first note that there was no design in the Imprisoning or depriving them to make way for the holding of a Synod nor any necessity was there of it in order to that end for if we reckon that on the one part there were six Bishops remaining to whom the Queens Letters for the consecration of Matthew Parker were directed and many Bishopricks actually void at Queen Maries death which being supplied there was no fear that the Popish Bishops who were very suddenly reduced to Nine by death or quitting the Land should make the Major part had the business of Reformation been put at first to a Synodical Vote 16. Her Injunctions As for the Injunctions sent out before it came to a Synod they were the same for substance with those of King Edward upon the Evidence and Warrant as we heard above Yet such was her tender care that all Persons doubtful should have satisfaction and be brought to some good and charitable agreement as in her Declaration set down in Stow that for this very purpose before any thing of Religion should be established by Parliament she appointed a Conference to be held publickly at Westminster between learned Persons of both sides as more amply will be shewn below against Champny cap. 9. Again those Injunctions were but provisional Orders as I may call them for the present exercise of Religion the whole Doctrine being after concluded and drawn up in a just and Lawful Synod 17. A Synod A Lawful National Synod it was in and by which whatever belongs to the Uniformity of Doctrine and Religion was defined drawn up and published in 39. Articles The great difference twixt this Synod and the Presbyterian Assembly however the reproaching Romanists rank them together wil appear upon these considerations Presbyterians cannot pretend to the like I. They that took upon them to exclude or remove our Bishops had not power either to call a Synod or to deprive a Bishop and that is the first irregularity viz. Usurpation of Power II. The cause pretended for the removing of our Bishops was not any offence against their Duty as Subjects or against their Office as Bishops but meerly for their very Office because they were Bishops and that was purely Schismatical III. The Persons taken in to make up their Assembly did not pretend to succeed our Bishops so removed in their Power and Office and so it was a Synod clean out of the way of the Church sitting and concluding by a power taken to themselves and therefore also plainly Schismatical Every one of these irregularities nulls the lawfulness of an Ecclesiastical Synod But none of these can be charged upon us for the Popish Bishops that remained obstinate were removed by due Autority upon just cause viz. their offence against the duty of Subjects and of their own Office as will appear below where their deprivation shall be examined against Champny c. 9. Lastly the places void either by deprivation of these or death of others were supplyed by Bishops lawfully ordained as is also maintained against Champny who together with the old Bishops remaining after King Edwards dayes and the rest of the Clergy of the Land made up a due and Lawful Ecclesiastical Synod 18. Of Regal Supremacy in order to Reformation and Church affairs Having thus far spoken of the care and travel of our Kings and Queen in this work of reforming Religion and Gods Worship within this Land it might seem convenient to say something more of the Supremacy or of the power which by vertue of their Supremacy Princes have and to shew how in this business of Reformation and Church-affairs it may be so bounded that it intrench not upon or infringe the power and office of the Bishops and chief Pastors of the Church But seeing we found the Power and Office of the one and the other severed and distinct throughout the Reformations spoken of in this Chapter for we found Bishops advising counselling and the Prince commanding appointing convocating them to the work then again Bishops with other learned Men so appointed and
a power wholly superadded or as the restraint of a power diffused it is clear that the exercise of that power the performance of Ordination was setled upon certain and speciall persons who were properly Bishops and Chief Pastors by Apostolical appointment and practice Of which there are so clear footsteps in Scripture suchapparent Monuments and Records in Antiquity that it is no less then a wonder any Learned Judicious Man should think it could be otherwise or conceive as the Presbyterians generally that this Order was afterwards set in the Church as an humane though prudent invention to avoid Schism and preserve Unity and not withall conceive it reasonable to think the Apostles did foresee that Reason and provide against it when as we hear Saint Paul complaining of it 1 Cor. 1. and Saint Hierom refers that Order of setting Bishops over Presbyters to that very cause pointing out that very time when some said I am of Paul I of Cephas 22. If therefor Doctor Field when he answered that Ordinations without Bishops were void according to the rigor of the ancient Canons did mean that such Ordinations offended only against Ecclesiastical Constitutions we grant that Champny duly proves it otherwise and do acknowledg them transgressions not only of Ecclesiastical but Apostolical Constitution and Practice but we are not therefore bound to yeild an utter nullity of them in all cases ex naturâ rei as he contends unless he can clearly demonstrat this faculty or office of ordaining to stand in a distinct power wholly superadded and not in the extension of the Priestly Order or limiting of the exercise of that power conceiv'd to be radically diffus'd with it Thus indeed Doctor Field as I said seems to conceive it and thereupon to deny such Ordination to be Null in themselves ex naturâ rei yet withal to hold as may be gathered out of his 5. book cap. 27. that this Order or limiting of the Power in the exercise of it to certain special persons was by Apostolical appointment 23. And no question the antient Church had respect to that Apostolical constitution when she pronounced such Ordinations without Bishops to be void and Null as repugnant to that constitution not defining whether they were void ex naturâ rei but declaring she had good cause to account them void and not to admit any to officiate that did so wilfully transgress against Apostolical order and practice and could have there being Bishops then at hand in every Nation where Christian Faith was professed no pretence of necessity or of loosing the band by which the Apostles had restrained the exercise of that power to certain persons thereunto consecrated And if any Presbyter should have heretofore presumed to ordain within the Church of England their Ordinations had deserved to be accounted of no otherwise then as void And so within every Church completed and regularly formed according to Apostolical Order ought they to be accounted 24. Now that I may draw to a Conclusion and freely speak what I think of the two forementioned wayes of conceiving the Ordaining power to be estated by the Apostles upon special and select men properly called Bishops or chief Pastors I suppose the first way which conceives it superadded as a distinct power to their Priestly function to be the clearer for securing the Episcopal function and distinguishing it from the other but the second way which conceives that power radically diffused and communicated in the very order of the Priestly function and restrained to such select persons in the exercise of it the faculty or immediate power whereof they received by consecration I suppose to be more easie and expedient for a peaceable accord of the difference in hand and yet safe enough for Episcopal Ordination 25. The first way conceives the Apostles who had the whole power given them by Christ both the extraordinary Apostolical power and that which was ordinary and to continue in the Church did communicate this power severally That which belonged to the office of Deacons to persons chosen for that purpose That which belonged to the Ministery of reconciliation to all Pastors or Presbyters So likewise That power of sending and ordaining others to these Offices was communicated entirely unto special persons appointed and consecrated to that work This as I said is more clear in the distinguishing of the several Functions of holy Order But the second way which estates the power or faculty of Ordaining upon special persons by restraining the exercise of it to them seems as above said to be more fair and easie for the making up this business of the Reformed Churches which have Ordination without Bishops and yet to afford safety enough to Episcopal function and Ordination For it first supposes that to be established and secured by Apostolical Order which none can transgress wilfully without Sacrilege and consequently it acknowledges such Ordinations without Bishops to be irregular and deficient in regard of Apostolical order and constitution and that they ought to receive a supply completion and confirmation by the imposing of Bishops hands before the persons so Ordained can be admitted to officiat in a Church completed and regularly formed Lastly by this way whatsoever is spoken by S. Hierom in appearance favourable to the Presbyterian pretence may be cleared and reconciled to Truth and by it may be answered also whatever is brought by Champny or others to prove such Ordinations utterly or ex naturâ rei null and void in all cases 26. I will not trouble the Reader to hear any long Scholastick contest with Champny in the business only I shal shew by one instance how well he hath acquitted himself in the defense of his assertion against the former argument of a Bishop ordained per saltum and therefore not having power to ordain others or consecrate the Sacrament because he wants the Priestly Order That which he replies to it returns more forcibly upon himself A Bishop per saltum cannot ordain and why Sicut ex eo c. Even as saith he because the Priestly function is exercised both about the Mystical body of Christ in absolving and binding and also about the Natural body of Christ in consecrating of it it doth not therefore follow there is a diverse Order but a diverse power of the same Order So the power of Ordaining though it make not a distinct Order from that of the Priestly Function yet is it a distinct power of Order To this purpose he cap. 7. pag. 183 184. But this comes not home to Ordination per saltum where it is supposed that the power of Ordaining is not given at all because the Priestly Order is wanting This also returns more forcibly upon him by applying it thus according to his reasoning Even as the Powers of absolving and consecrating are distinct yet both conteined within one Order of the Priestly function so may the power of Ordaining though distinct from the other be formally and immediately conteined
by our own judgment for Orders cannot lawfully be received from Hereticks c. 9. 326. c. 11. That we may more fairly proceed in the clearing of this difficulty we must premise that we admit the distinction here between Legitimum and Legitimè between Lawful or valid Orders and Orders Lawfully given or received the first implyes the power of given which Romanists acknowledg to remain in Hereticks and Schismaticks the other speaks the due and lawful use of that power which is denyed to be in those that are in Heresie or Schisme The reason is because Hereticks and Schismaticks being actually divided from the Unity of the Church must needs lose the lawful use of that power and all other Ecclesiastical ministration but not the power it self which follows a Character that is indelible as the Romanists express it We admit though not a Sacramental character stampt upon the Soul of the Ordained as they wil have it yet such a disposition or power cleaving to his person for the doing of that he is ordained to that it is not lost by Heresie or Schism nor to be reiterated upon the return or restoring of that Person 12. This premised we have two points to speak to First how the charge of Heresies laid on those of the Church of Rome then how the lawful use of Orders may be supplyed by the restoring of the Person though at first they were not lawfully given and so by both these we shall have a double answer to the Argument above For the first we must note that Heresie is considered in regard of the Matter VVhat sort of Heresie takes away lawful use of Ordination or of the Declaration of the Church and this according to the Apostles speech to Tit. c. 3.10 A man that is an Heretick is so first before he be rejected or declared so Heresies also much differ in regard of the Matter by which some may be so immediatly fundamental as the Heresie of the Arrians and some other that it doth ipso facto before any sentence or declaration of the Church cut off or divide the Person so Heretical from the Union of the true Catholic Church because it divides him from the Foundation from being actual Member of the Visible Church upon the Notoriety of such Heresie so contrary to the Foundation and also long since declared against by the Ancient Church in the four first General Councels and therefore the lawful exercise of that power he had to administer Sacraments or Orders in the Church ceases upon such discovery or as I may say Self-condemnation We need not stand here to dispute when or how soon it ceases upon such Heresie for we do not charge such Heresie upon those of Rome i.e. Heresie immediatly Fundamental or those main Heresies declared against by the first General Councels but then we must say that many of their New Articles of Belief and Practise are in themselves Heretical and as much or more then were many Tenets of former Hereticks declared against by the Ancient Church whether we consider the matter and concernment of those Romish Articles or the Obstinacy and Tyranny with which they asserted and imposed so that if there could be a full General Councel of the whole Catholic Church they would undoubtedly be declared many of them Heretical 13. From whence it follows that Heresie thus lying upon them might give us just cause to renounce their Errors and quit their Communion so far as it was necessitated by renouncing their Errors though not just cause to condemn or renounce the Orders given by them or received from them This may give answer to all the Places alleged by Doctor Champny in his ninth cap. pag. 335 336. out of the Fathers against Orders given by Hereticks for they concern either Hereticks in fundamentals or such as were declared so and actually separated from the Unity of the Church 14. It is to be noted farther that when our first reformed Bishops were ordained by them the grand Heresie and mother of their other Errors as to the obstinate an heretical defending of them I mean the Papal Power and Autority was abjured and therefore their Ordainers however yet in Romish Errors could not be properly heretical or peremptorily engaged to defend the same as afterward they were especially since the Councel of Trent hath made them Errors established and sworn to But after that we went not to them for Orders yet do acknowledg they have Ordination still substantially valid and therefore we do not re-ordain Priests that return from them to us because the substance or Evangelical institution is by those words Receive the holy Ghost whose sins ye remit c. reteined still in the Roman Ordination though clogged and depressed by additional corruptions but cause them to renounce those additionals and other Romish Errors So then the summ of our first answer is We do account them to be in Heresie and deeper then when we received Ordination from them yet so as not actually and wholly cut off from the Catholic Church either by the nature of the Heresie it self casting off from the foundation or by declaration of the Catholic Church casting them out of the Unity of it and therefore it doth not follow upon our accounting them Hereticks that we could not lawfully receive Orders from them 15. A supply of defect in Ordination through Heresie Our second answer is from the supply of any defect in our Ordination received from them that supposing them Hereticks in such a condition as made them forfeit their Union which the Catholic Church and consequently the due and lawful use of the power of Ordaining yet doth it not follow that we cannot have it but on the contrary that we recover it by leaving them in that which hindred the due and lawful use of it in them And so the Romanists answer for the Bishops which they own and yet were ordained by Cranmer in the time of the Schism as they call it saying they recovered the lawful use by returning from Schism and Heresie in Queen Maries time when they were reconciled to the Church of Rome So if upon our charging them with Heresie we must suppose they could not lawfully ordain nor we lawfully receive Orders from them then must it conformably be supposed that we having deposed their Heresie and left their Communion and by no other Heresie forfeiting our Union with the Catholic Church do recover the due and lawful use of Orders and may lawfully administer them to others and now do it in the Unity of the Church 16. Champny did foresee this might be answered by us and therefore seeks to cut us off from this plea by replying That defect of lawful Ordination and Vocation which was in Cranmer by supposed Heresie in his Ordainers could not be supplyed but by his reunion to the true Church and Pastors thereof but besides the Church of Rome there was no other Church or Lawful Pastors by reconciliation to which he
as against the Married Man Marriage in their Priests or Bishops causeth deprivation indispensably but if a Priest that is accused of having a wife plead she is his Concubine i. e. his Whore doth he not escape deposing by it it was the plea of the Priest of Placentia as P. Moulin tells it for a known story in his book of Purgatory And seeing in most Ages since Marriage was restrained we meet with sad complaints of the frequent incontinency of their Clergy let them tell us how many in so many Ages have been deposed or made irregular for it If we look into the constitutions of Otho the Popes Legat in England which are as severe against Concubines as any they have yet see much difference in the proceeding against the Concubinary and the Married Clergy The constitution against the Married runs Si clam vel palam Matrimonium contraxerint omnino sunt amovendi if contracted Marriage secretly or openly they are by all means to be removed that 's peremptory and though the Marriage be secretly carried but the Constitution against the Concubinary si publicè Concubinas detinent if they keep Concubines publickly they are to be admonisht and after a Month to put them away or els to be suspended And in the comment or gloss upon it ob simplicem Fornicationem de Canonicâ benignitate Clericus non debet deponi licèt secùs fortè de Canonis rigore for simple Fornication a Clergy-man is not deposeable through the Courteste but Rigor of the Canons Thus have they extended the Courtesie of the Canons to Concubinage and Fornication but reserved the Rigor of them for Marriage As for Penances which their Canons adjudge Concubinaries to who knows not how easily that may be satisfied and in extremity it is no other censure then a Lay-man incurs upon the like offence doth not imply or carry with it Deposition or such an irregularity as they charge upon Marriage or Digamy Nor will it boot to say as they will be ready to reply that if the Married Clergy put away their Wives they are not deposed and accordingly it is required of Concubinaries that they put away their Concubines for as Marriage and Fornication stand not upon equal terms in themselves the first being an indissoluble Conjunction so neither are they with equal severity entertained by the Romanists as appears by their practice hinted in the premisses 5. Lastly we can answer to those Canons in behalf of Marriage or Digamy what they cannot say in regard of Concubinage or Harloâ—ry that in respect of the first those Canons were only disciplinary as was said above grounded on prudential motives that seemed reasonable in those times and therefore in time might through the exigencie of contrary experience cease to binde which cannot be said of them as they forbid and censure Harlotry And accordingly we find that however those prudential motives of the restraint of Marriage for the advancement of Discipline and stricter attendance upon the holy Function seemed reasonable to Them that made the Canons yet did they not to all or most in the Church which was to receive them for if we look to the reception of the Catholic Church which is very considerable in the approbation of such Canons we meet with a general dislike of them and reluctancy against them So that where they did obtain they were rather forcibly imposed then willingly received as is apparent in the passages of History which concerns the Western Church in which those Canons were violently prosecuted After-ages still found less cause to receive or continue them where received and now long experience of many and great inconveniences and mischiefs by the exacting of them perswades and enforces the restoring of the Clergy to that liberty of Marriage which is left them by the Law of God yea to the use of that Remedy which is prescribed them by that Law when need requires it If we look into the History of this Church and Kingdom we find that before the times of Lanfrank and Anselm the Clergy were free and enjoyed the liberty of Marriage but when they were compelled by those hot Italians to forgo that freedome what success had it but the begetting of a licentious uncleanness even unto Sodomy which in few years grew so notorious that the same Anselm who by Synod in London had severely forbidden Marriage and caused those that had wives to put them away was forced to call another Synod before he dyed for the repressing of that filthy uncleanness as it is observed in story 6. The Councels therefore that made those Canons anciently be they General or National could not in reason intend to bind the Church for all Ages at least could not in justice do it when experience found those Canons served not to the end for which they were intended but occasioned far more mischiefs and inconveniences and that this is no pretended plea which is not fit to be made against Ecclesiastical Canons the complaint and sad trial of many Ages doth sufficiently prove To conclude seeing those of the Roman Church think they have reason to be favourable to Concubinage and connive at it and plead such excuse for it as we finde in the Glosses of their Canon Law Such Canons are not exacted quia onerosi sunt because they are burthensome and quia corpora hodie fragiliora sunt because our bodies now more frail and as the Gloss upon the forementioned Constitution of Otho which it seems appeared too quick in putting the Concubinary to give satisfaction saith quod nimis esset rigorosum attentâ fragilitate nostri Temporis it is too rigorous considering the frailty of our times If they I say can think it reasonable thus to plead against the Rigor of the Canons in behalf of Harlotry how much more have we cause to plead for the necessity of using that Remedy of Honest Marriage which God hath allowed and prescribed 7. Of Heresie charged upon Cranmer and the Reformers We now proceed to the next Defect wherewith he charges our Archbishop Cranmer and concludes him not lawfully ordained or to have received the Lawful use of his Order and that is Heresie and Schisme Master Mason in reference to the breach with Rome in Hen. 8 his dayes spent one chapter upon the proof of this Truth That to renounce the Pope is not Schisme or Heresie All this is neglected by Champny who sets himself to prove that Heresie deprives a Bishop of the lawfull use of his power because the lawfull use of it requires union with the Catholic Church which is but what he insisted upon in his 9. Chap. as we heard above and yeilded it to him But now for the application of it to Crunmer 8. His first Argument to prove him Heretick is from his own recantation and renouncing the Protestant Doctrine as Heretical But this Champny stands not much upon knowing it was not the confession of Cranmers Faith but of his Frailty and that recantation made
definition of any General Councel that they are most clearly according to the judgment of the Ancient Church Or look we at the End or purpose of the dispute which with us was public satisfaction to all persons doubting and to bring about a good and charitable agreement and this upon the command of the Prince the desire and expectation of the whole Kingdom but no such good purpose intent or expectation in the dispute or alteration unto which Saint Ambrose was provoked 8. His other Example relates to their not Crowning of the Queen Euphemius saith he Patriarch of Constantinople refused to acknowledg Anastasius for Emperour but repell'd him as an Heretick till he promised to admit the Councel of Chalcedon Here again is another fundamental point and the Declaration of an undoubted General Councel which notwithstanding could not give Euphemius warrant to do any more then express his judgment of the unworthiness of the Emperour But what is this to their refusal of Crowning the Queen whose right they had acknowledged whose faith they could not question as contrary to any approved Councel For what are the Novel Articles of Romish faith to the Fundamental Christian Faith declared in the Ancient Councels And yet must Princes by the judgment it seems of Romanists not have their Crowns if they will not first admit that faith or else lose them if after by due Reformation they cast it off Thus far of the offence of those Bishops as to the business of Crowning and Conference of which offence the Queen might well be a competent judg it being so apparant for the fact and against so known a duty 9. Their refusal of the Oath of Supremacy Now to the other offence charged on them the Refusal of the Oath of Supremacy the chief cause of their deprivation Upon this Doctor Champny spends his 15. and 16. chap. and that he may prove that Deprivation unjust states the question thus Whether Queen Elizabeth with her Councel or Parliament could deprive those Bishops because they refused to swear that she was the Supreme Head of the Church of England pag. 536. and thereupon makes his Argument thus That Judgment is unjust which is given by an incompetent Judg. Now to prove the Queen and Parliament were not competent Judges he supposes it as clear that this was a Cause ad fidem Religionem directe pertinentem directly perteining to Faith and Religion and then assumes that neither the Queen nor any Lay-persons could be competent Judges of Bishops in such a Cause This he largely pursues by places of Scripture which shew that Bishops and Pastors are set in the Church to teach all others of what degree and rank soever in matters of Faith and Religion and therefore cannot be judged by them in such matters Luke 16.16 He that heareth you heareth me and Heb. 13.17 Obey those that have the rule over you and submit and the like Also by the Testimony of Emperours Constantine Valentinian Theodosius professing the judgment of such matters did not belong to them Also of Bishops Athanasius Hosius Ambrose plainly telling other Emperors as much Yea calls King James himself to witness citing out of his Declaration against Card. Perrouns Oration these words It is true that Emperours did not bear themselves as Supreme Judges in matters of Faith and Doctrine Lastly adds the testimony of Calvin Kemnitius and the Centurists against that title of Supreme Head Then in his 16. Chapter undertakes to answer what Master Mason had brought for Regal Supremacy in Ecclesiastical things and Causes 10. The Title of Supreme Head of the Church But to his whole Argument in his 15. Chapter we may return this general answer There are thus many failings in it I. The question wrong stated for those Bishops were not put to swear the Q. was Supreme Head of the Church of England there are no such words in the Oath of Supremacy but that the Q. was Supreme Governor of the Realm of England and all other her Majesties Dominions in spiritual and ecclesiastical things and Causes For upon notice of offence taken at the title of Supreme Head of the Church which her Father and Brother had used the Queen was graciously pleased to wave it and put it as above said Supreme Governour of the Realm c. But Champny wittingly reteins the former Title as obnoxious to more reproach and Envy II. His Argument touches not the whole cause or the main part of it which concerned the renouncing of forrein Jurisdiction III. The cause rightly stated is not a matter directly perteining to faith and religion as he takes for granted IV. Albeit such a Judgment of matters perteining to Faith and Religion as those Emperors denyed doth not indeed belong unto them or any Lay-Persons yet may Kings and Emperors have such a judgment as is necessary for the due exercising their supreme power in and about matters and causes of Faith and Religion 11. Two things considerable in the Oath and accordingly two mistakeâ— That all this may the better appear We must observe there are two things considerable in the Oath of Supremacy What is attributed to the Sovereign Prince and then what is denyed to the Pope or any forrein Potentate and accordingly there is commonly a double mistake which the Adversaries and reproachers of this Oath this Docter Champny in particular do run upon The First is the overlooking of the main thing aimed at in this Oath which is not so much the affirming or attributing a Supremacy to the Prince as the denying and renouncing of the Papal Supremacy and Jurisdiction and the excluding it out of this Land For it is security which the Prince seeks here and that stands not so much in receiving acknowledgments of Titles and bare assertions from Subjects as in their renouncing of all adverse power and promising not to obey it In special that known usurped power of the Bishop of Rome mentioned and branded as unsufferable in all the Statutes that concern the Supremacy of the Crown and so indeed it deserved to be both for the intolerable burdens and exactions it laid upon the Subjects of this Land and for the dangerous positions and Doctrines it draws after it to the unsufferable prejudice of the Prince his Crown and dignity as The exemption of all Ecclesiastical Persons which in effect makes them none or but half Subjects The deposing of Kings and disposing of their Kingdoms upon Excommunication which makes them no Kings or but at the Popes pleasure and according to the same Doctrine the Oath of Allegeance is pronounced by Pope Paul V. in his first Breve to contein many things flat contrary to the Catholic Faith and to the salvation of Souls and therefore by no means to be taken by any of his Catholicks And have not Princes good cause to look to themselves upon this point of Supremacy to the excluding of such forrein Jurisdiction so dangerous so injurious 12. Now that Security from this
usurped power and jurisdiction is chiefly sought and aimed at in this Oath appears by the Oaths which all the Bishops under King Henr. 8. and King Edw 6. made in which the first main thing is their renouncing of the Papal Jurisdiction and their swearing never to admit it again within this Land and by the Statutes under Queen Eliz. inforcing this Oath in which the end is expressed wherefore the Oath is required and former Acts concerning the Supremacy revived For repressing the said usurped power 1. Eliz 1. For preservation of the Queens Highness and dignity of this imperial Crown and for avoiding such Hurts Perils dishonours and inconveniences as have befaln to the Queens Noble Progenitors the Kings and Queens of this Realm and to the whole estate thereof by meanes of the Jurisdiction and power of the See of Rome unjustly claimed and usurped within this Land 5. Eliz. 1. 13. Papal Supremacy no cause or point of Faith This therefore being the main point of the Oath as that wherein the Prince is mainly concerned it tels us how their offence arises and what they deserve that by denying this Oath refuse to renounce such forrein Jurisdiction and how the Kings and Queens of this Realm if they could well understand their own power and right and properly judge of it might also understand and judg of what was so contrary to it and be competent judges in this cause of all those that offended against such their known right and power Therefore Champny bending all his forces against the Title of Supremacy attributed to the Queen Princes are competent Iudges in the cause and nothing against the renouncing of Papal jurisdiction hath not by this mistake once touched the main point of the Oath or of their offence who were deprived which if he had considered he would not have taken it for granted as he doth that this cause directly pertained to Faith and Religion Neither can he or any Romanist ever prove that Princes are bound to receive for points of faith what ever Popish Bishops or Priests according to their own and the Popes Interests shall tell them are Points of Faith however prejudicial to their Crowns and Dignities such as is the Papal Jurisdiction with all the branches of Hildebrandine doctrine depending thereupon 14. All those sayings of Emperors and Bishops cited before by Champny were well and piously spoken and may well stand with that knowledg judgment or Supremacy which we attribute to the Prince in and about matters of Faith and Religion as we shall see presently but as to this Papal Supremacy and Jurisdiction which we renounce they speak nothing that may confirm it For had there risen up a Bishop in the dayes of those Pious and Moderat Emperors and made such an Oration as Card Perroun did before all the Estates of France which King James declared against and refuted for the Papal Supremacy or told those Emperors that it belonged not to them to convocate Synods and command Bishops to assemble or to confirm their Decrees but all this and much more belonged to the Bishop of Rome to do to whom their Crowns in order to Spiritual things were subject and Bishops exempt from their Judicature those Emperors would have told such Bishops another tale and not suffered such spiritual persons under pretence of preaching Heaven to win upon them in the Earth as the Pope hath done for divers Ages upon Christian Princes or under shew of teaching the Faith to disoblige their Subjects from their fidelity as Pope Paul V. did by his Breve against the Oath of Allegiance 15. Second mistake is of what we attribute to the Prince The second mistake is in that which by this Oath of Supremacy is attributed to the Prince as if by this Supreme power in Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall things He were made Supreme Judg of Faith decider of all controversies thereunto belonging and might ordain what he thought fit in matters of Religion This mistaken sense of the Kings Supremacy was first broached in Germany by the cunning of Stephen Gardiner who being there among the Protestants and chalenged by them for the Six Articles to decline the Odium of them from himself upon the Regal Supremacy told them the King might Ordain so and what he thought fit being Supreme Head of the Church Calvin speaks of this upon Amos 7. as Bishop Bilson in his book of Subjection hath noted and it is clear that all which he or Kemnitius or others cited above by Champny spoke against that Title of Supreme Head they spoke it against that mistaken sense 16. Expressions of the Supremacy attributed at first very large But that we may better understand what is indeed attributed to the Soveraign Prince look we first to the Statutes which declare this Supremacy where we finde the expressions very large and general Seeing all Autority and Jurisdiction is derived from the Kings Highness as Supreme Head and so acknowledged by the Clergy of this Realm 1. Edw. 6. cap. 2. Also Jurisdiction for Visitation of the Ecclesiastical State and Persons and for Reformation and correction of the same and of all manner of errors Heresies Schismes 1. Eliz. 1. Now see what hath been declared for the explaining and bounding this Supremacy The Queen upon knowledge of offence taken at the Title of Supreme Head of the Church waved it Explication of the former Attributions as was said above and declared in Her Admonition annexed to her Injunctions that nothing else was challenged by that Supremacy but to have a Soveraignty and Rule under God over all Persons born within her Realms of what Estate soever Ecclesiastical or Temporal so as no other forrein power shall or ought to have Superiority over them and that nothing else was is or shall be intended by the Oath So Article 37. of our Church is thus declared We give to our Princes that Prerogative which we see in Scripture alwayes given to all godly Princes by God himself to rule all states and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and to restrain with the Sword all stubborn and evil doers So then we see by these Declarations what is meant by this Supremacy viz. a Soveraignty over all persons estates though Ecclesiastical to rule them c. If it be said the Supremacy is not only over all Persons but also in all Causes and Things Ecclesiastical we bound this latter by the former saying that Kings have and necessarily must have a Supreme power in and about Causes and things Ecclesiastical so far as is necessary to the ruling all Persons of what estate soever moving and commanding them to act according to their several stations and offices for the service of God and his Church keeping them to their known duty and as occasion may require punishing them for transgressing against it 17. In Causes Ecclesiastical In causes Ecclesiastical which are of suit and instance and
all other of judicial process the Regal Supremacy or Jurisdiction is more apparent It was therefore declared 24. Hen. 8. cap. 12. That in the Kings Highness there was full power to render justice and finall Determination in all Debates Contentions c. and upon this ground were made many and sundry Lawes before Hen. 8. in the time of Edw. 1. Edw. 3. Rich. 2. Hen. 4. and of other Kings for the entire and sure conservation of the prerogatives and preeminencies of the Imperial Crown of this Realm and of the Jurisdiction Spiritual and Temporal of the same to keep it from the annoyance of the See of Rome ibid. Accordingly King James in his Premonition to Christian Princes against the Usurped power of the Pope gives us many examples of former Kings punishing Clergy-men for citing others to Rome in Ecclesiastical causes Yea we have stories of Ecclesiastical causes wherein the Bishops of Rome have been Parties judged and determined by Emperors and Kings In that great contention twixt Symmachus and Laurence about the Place which made the fourth Schism in the Roman Church King Theodorick who then ruled in Italy took the cause into his own cognizance and judged it for Symmachus Afterward in that contention twixt John of Constantinople and Gregory the first of Rome about the Title of Universal Bishop Gregory himself refers the cause to the Emperour as appears in his Epistle to Mauritius to put end to it by repressing the ambition of John and nothing more known in History then the Elections of the Bishops of Rome frequently ordered judged and determined by the Emperours 18. Furthermore all that Judicial process of the Outward Court with which Bishops were enabled for the better and more powerful exercise of their spiritual Censures was derived from the Supremacy of the Regal power and to this sense was it said All Autority and Jurisdiction is derived from the Kings Highness Edw. 6. cap. 2. that is All external Jurisdiction or Coactive which indeed is properly Jurisdiction when there is not only a power and ability to declare what is Law and just but force also to procure execution and therefore in that very Statute and as an acknowledgment of all such Jurisdiction derived from the King All process Ecclesiastical is ordained to go forth in the Kings Name and the Teste in the Bishops name also the Kings Arms to be graven upon the Seal of the Bishops Office 19. In things Ecclesiastical pertaining to Doctrine But in Things Ecclesiastical pertaining to Doctrine or correction of Error and Heresie the bounds of this Supremacy of Princes are not so apparent Yet may they be so set as the power and judgment we yeild to Princes in and about such Things do not entrench upon but fortifie the Power and Office of Bishops and chief Pastors of the Church For we acknowledg the Power and Office of Bishops to be both Directive in defining and declaring what the Lawes of Christ be for Doctrine Discipline of which things they are the immediat proper and ordinary Judges and also Coercive in a spiritual restraint of those that obstinatly gainsay and that as far as the power of the Keys put into their hands by Christ for spiritual binding and loosing will reach VVhat also proper to Bishops Pastors of the Church This power is Coercive or binding upon all such as are willing to be Christian and continue in the Society of the Church but not coactive or forcing for all such Jurisdiction together with all judicial process of the outward Court is as I said derived to them for the more forcible effect of their spiritual censures from the Jurisdiction of the Sovereign Priner His Powea we acknowledg to be Imperative in commanding by Laws the public establishment of that which is evidenced to him by the Pastors of the Church to be the Law of Christ and also Coactive in restreining and correcting by temporal pains those that are disobedient yea in punishing and correcting Ecclesiastical persons for not doing their known duty according to their forementioned Office To this purpose it is declared 24. Hen. 8. cap. 12. that it belongs to Spiritual Prelats Pastors and Curats to Minister do or cause to be done all Sacraments Sacramentals and divine services to the people that for their Office but if for any censure from Rome or any such cause they refuse to Minister as before they are liable to Fine and Imprisonment during the Kings pleasure that for his Supremacy over all Estates to rule them and cause them to do their duty and punish them when there is cause for not doing it 20. If we consider the Defining of Matters of Doctrine we said the Pastors of the Church are the proper and ordinary judges there though called to the work by the Prince and accountable to him how they do it and therefore the judging of Heresie is restrained to the Declaration of the first General Councels for Heresies past and for such as shall arise to the Assent of the Clergy in their â—onvocation 1. Eliz. 1. The defining of Doctrine demonstration of Truth and the Evidencing of it is the Office and work of the Pastors of the Church but the Autority which at first commands them to the work and after gives public establishment to it when so done and evidenced is of the Sovereign Prince Which establishment is not in order to our believing as the Romanists use fondly to reproach us in saying our belief follows the State and our Religion is Parliamentary but to our secure and free profession and exercise of Religion For Kings and Princes are not Ministers by whom we believe as the Pastors of the Church are 1 Cor. 3.9 but Ministers of God for good or evill Rom. 13.4 i.e. for reward or punishment according to our doing or not doing duty and therefore they bear the Sword Iurisdiction of Princes is extrinsic Wherefore their jurisdiction is wholly Extrinsick as is their Sword not intrinsick or spiritual as is the power of the Keys or the Sword of the Spirit in the hand of Ecclesiastical Governors or Pastors Princes have not the conduct of Souls but government of men as making a Visible Society to be kept in order for Gods service and glory and for the good of the whole Community 21. But Princes and Sovereign Powers are not meer Executioners as the Romanists would have them of the Determinations and Decrees of the Church Pastors nor bound blindly or peremptorily to receive and establish as matter of Faith and Religion what ever they define and propound for such For the Power of the Sovereign is not Ministerial but Autoritative commanding and calling together the Clergy to the work of Religion or Reformation which command it is their duty to execute by meeting and doing the work so as it may by the demonstration of Truth be evidenced to the Sovereign power and receive again the Autority of the same power for public establishment Princes
of Direction which it supposes to be received from the Pastors of the Church not Secundary in consideration of Autority which commands them first to the work requires an account of it and confirms publicly what is evidenced by them to be according to Christs law 24. We should now see what he answers to Masons instances of Emperours and Kings dealing in Ecclesiastical matters but first examine we a reasoning of his in the latter part of his 16. Chapter which he falls upon by occasion of an objection that Mason had made to himself and improves so far in his own conceit that he challenges any Protestant to return him an answer which notwithstanding may well be answered out of that which hath been said already Out of the Objection which Mason had made Supremacie makes not the Princes will the Rule of our Faith he frames his first reasoning thus If Princes be Supreme in spirituall things then are their Subjects bound to obey their command in all matters of Faith and Religion for as S. Paul saith every soul must be subject to the higher or Supreme Powers and bound to obey in all things in which they are supreme who sees not the absurdity that would follow But it is easie to answer by distinguishing active and passive obedience for should we make them as supreme in Ecclesiastical things which we do not as they are and as Champny will acknowledg them to be in civil matters we could no more be bound to obey them in all their commands about matters of Religion then we are in all their commands in and about Civil things but in these if they should command a Subject to bear false witness that Subject is not bound to obey actively but to subject passively 25. Much to this purpose had Master Mason solved the like Objection and Champny goes on to improve his Reasoning and replyes So to answer is altogether impertinent because the Protestants cannot give any certain Rule whereby Subjects may know whether the Prince in rebus Controversis in controverted points of Religion command according to Truth or no. For example The King of England forbids the Mass c. The King of France commands it How shall the Subjects of either know whether of the two commands for the Truth and how could the Protestants know that Hen. 8. commanded against Truth when he enjoyned the Six Articles If they say as usually his Commands are according to Truth that are conformable to the holy Seriptures they stil stick in the same dirt as not able to give any certain Rule whereby to know which Commands are conformable to Scripture Answer Rule of our Faith◠All this proceeds upon the former mistake of that Supremacy which we attribute to the Sovereign Prince in matters of Faith and Religion as if we gave him what properly belongs to the Pastors of the Church Whereas in asserting his Supremacy we suppose it their office to evidence what is Truth and what is conformable to Scripture and that in Order both to our and his believing And the Means of it But more particularly We acknowledg a certain Rule more certain then the Papists can or will do and that is Scripture Now if still we be asked for a Rule whereby to know what is conformable to Scripture We say that having a certain Rule as before there remains no more to do but to have evidence of it and for that we have not so much a Rule as Means The same that the Church alwayes had the Doctrine of foregoing Ages and of our present Teachers The same that the Jews had the Teaching and direction of those that sat in Moses Chair S. Mat. 23. those whose Lips were to preserve knowledg and at whose Mouth they were to seek the Law Mal. c. 7. The same that our Saviour left in his Church for that purpose Pastors and Teachers that we should not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 3.4 The same that Champny the Romanists pretend to contend for in this business These we say are not the Rule but the Means or Ministers by which we believe Cor. 3.9 according to the demonstration of Truth commending themselves to every mans Conscience 2 Cor. 4.2 26. Now seeing our Saviour bids them do what those which sate in Moses Chair said unto them S. Mat. 23. and it is certain they did not teach infallibly or truly in all things for which Stella and Maldonate on the Gospel and Espensaeus once a Docter of the Sorbon on Mal. 2.7 give us this limitation Eatenuus audiendi quatenus legem Mosis docent They were so far to be heard and obeyed as they taught what indeed was the Law of Moses I would ask of Champny what Rule then had men to know whether the Scribes and Pharisees taught that or their own Traditions but the evidence they made of the thing taught out of the Law He must answer according to the Romish way The Doctrine of the Church was their Rule But then the forementioned Authors should have said quatenus docent secundùm doctrinam Ecclesiae so far forth as they teach according to the Doctrine of the Church and not have limited the matter as we Protestants do quatenus legem Mosis docent so far forth as they teach according to the Law of Moses Also those teachers Scribes Pharisees could say they taught according to the Doctrine then obteining in the Church yea and could say Dictum Antiquis it was so said by them of old S. Mat. 5. as well as any Romanist can yet our Saviour did not admit that Rule but refuted their corrupt Doctrines by Evidencing the true meaning of the Law S. Mat. 5. 27. VVhat certain Rule the Romanists can pretend to Again Champny tells us not what certain Rule they have but it must be such as I insinuated the Judgment or Doctrine of their Church Now seeing their Church must speak her Judgment by her Pastors and supremely by Pope or Councel We ask in which they place this certain Rule He and his fellow Sorbonists are for a general Councel which they set above the Pope with power to judg and depose him we leave them to answer this to the Jesuites and other more devoted Creatures of the Pope but let him answer us how he and his Sorbonists can attribute that to a Councel and yet with the Jesuites make the Pope Supreme Head of the Church as he often insinuates in this discourse which should imply the Supreme judgment in him according to Champney's arguing against that Title here attributed to the Kings of this Realm Let them place their supposed certain Rule where they please we finde those of the Romish Communion following the evidence they had of Truth against the Popes judgment or any pretended Hildebrandine Doctrine or determination of their Church The Venetians stood out resolutely against the Interdict of Pope Paul 5. maintaining their right in that cause though Ecclesiastical which was a branch
of the Supremacy belonging to Sovereign Princes and States And what Rule had they to go by in disobeying the Pope or their Subjects in obeying them but the Evidence of the Truth of the thing manifested to them by learned men Bishops and Pastors among them So when the same Pope by his several Breves forbad the taking of the Oath of Allegiance as contrary to the Catholic faith and many Priests notwithstanding with most of the Romish Catholicks in this Land held it Lawful and accordingly took it What Rule had they to go by in obeying their Prince against the Pope but the evidence of the thing or duty they naturally owed to their Sovereign which evidence with all the reasons of it is drawn up by Master William Howard an English Catholic as he stiles himself and published An. 1634. 28. Now for a general Councel when it can be had indeed we grant it to be the greatest and highest means of direction which Kings or any other can have in matters of Religion but still the limitation afore mentioned Quatonus docent c. takes hold of the Pastors of the Church gathered in Councel it being possible the major part should be swayed by factious or worldly interests as above in the first Chapter n. 9. and so give Kings and Emperours upon evidence of things unduly carried cause to use their Supreme power not for the confirming but forbidding of the Decrees as we shall presently see done by Theodosius against the second Councel of Ephesus and as Champny could not but know the Kings of France did against the Conventicle of Trent so Hen. call'd it forbidding the Decrees of it to be received for the space of 40. years For Anno 1598. we finde the Clergy assembled at Paris as the French History relates and the Archbishop of Tours in their name petitioning the King Hen. 4. to reform several disorders in the Church and that he would be pleased the Councel of Trent might be received and published in France with certain qualifications This was not at that time granted the King answering them in brief to this purpose that by the help of God he would settle the Church admonishing them in the mean time to look to their duty and he would study his In all this we have an evident demonstration of Regal Supremacy and that allowed by the French Clergy and this done upon no other Rule then the evidence of the thing that packing and faction which was apparent in that Councel There may be then Exceptions against the Romanists certain Rule And much was spoken tending to this pupose above cap. 1. Of Submission due to the Church 29. How Emperours shewed their Supremacy in matters of the Church and of Religion In the last place let us see what is answered to Master Masons Instances of godly Emperours making Lawes and taking Order in matters of Religion and of the Church To these Champny answers in his 16. Chapter First None of them ever excluded the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome out of their Realms as this Oath doth pag. 557. True that none of them denyed him his Patriarchal Primacy known and bounded by the first general Councels neither would it have been denyed him in this Realm could he have conteined himself within the due bounds thereof but such a Papal Jurisdiction as was usurped by the Bishop of Rome for some Ages past those good Emperors never knew never would have endured If he can shew us they admitted such Jurisdiction or that the General Councels acknowledged it we will also acknowledg the Popish Bishops were unjustly deprived as to that point Secondly Those Emperors by their Laws did but confirm and in their doings about Church-affairs did but follow the Canons and judgment of former Councels This is the summe of his second answer And this is true of many of them but derogats nothing from their Supremacy for it only implyes Direction received which we acknowledg Kings and Emperours ought in Ecclesiastical matters to receive from the Pastors of the Church in or out of Councel It doth not infringe the Autority which they have both in commanding the Pastors of the Church to meet in Councel in taking an account of what is done and how and lastly in confirming their decrees and Canons as was before insinuated 30. Again That answer is not true of all the Laws and Actions of pious and good Emperors in and about matters of Religion or the Church as may appear by that which is cited by Mr. Mason by Bishop Bilson in his book of true subjection by Bishop Andrews against Tortus and by other Writers To instance in one which being urged by Mason Champny thought himself concerned to labour in the solving it The second Councel of Ephesus had by the prevalency of a stirring faction in it passed judgment for deposing the good Bishop Flavianus and advanced the Eutychian Error Hereupon Leo Bishop of Rome with other Bishops humbly supplicated the Emperour Theodosius that all things might stand in the same condition in which they were before any of those judgments till a greater number of Bishops could be gathered out of the whole World Ep. 43. and in another Epistle he thus bespeaks the Emperor The second Councel of Ephesus which cannot be called a Councel because held to the subversion of the Faith You most glorious Emperour aliud statuendo cassabis will make void or null by a contrary Decree for the love you bear the Truth c. In all this Three things are evident I. That a King or Emperour may and ought as he tenders the Truth of God reform or extirpate an Error or Heresie prevailing when it is made manifest to him by the information and advice of godly Bishops as here by Leo Bishop of Rome and other his fellow-Bishops who as he said joyned with him in the supplication although there be no foregoing Synodical judgment against the same Error as there had not yet been against the Eutychian Heresie II. That He may Null and make void the Judgment or Decree i. e. forbid it to be received of a Synod when manifested to him that it was carryed by faction to the subversion of the Faith as this of Ephesus was upon which reason the Kings of France as was said refused to receive the Decrees of Trent III. That the Emperour might and ought to call a greater number of Bishops together for the confirmation of the Truth and so the Councel of Calcedon was gathered by the Emperour Martianus Now see we how Champny bestirs himself to get through the passages of this story Leo saith he did Paternè hortari fatherly exhort the Emperor to defend the Truth as every good Prince should pag. 568. This though short of an humble supplication made to the Emperour is fair and we desire no more then that it be granted Princes may and should do so much within their Realms as the Emperour is here supplicated or exhorted to do And