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A29205 Schisme garded and beaten back upon the right owners shewing that our great controversy about Papall power is not a quaestion of faith but of interest and profit, not with the Church of Rome, but with the Court of Rome : wherein the true controversy doth consist, who were the first innovators, when and where these Papall innovations first began in England : with the opposition that was made against them / by John Bramhall. Bramhall, John, 1594-1663. 1658 (1658) Wing B4232; ESTC R24144 211,258 494

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affirm That neither the King of England nor the Church of England neither Convocation nor Parliament did breake his two Necessary Bonds of Christian Vnity or either of them or any part of either of them But that the Very Breakers and Violaters of these Rules were the Pope and Court of Rome They did breake his Rule of Faith by adding new points to the Necessary Doctrin of saving Truth which were not the Legaceyes of Christ and his Apostles nor delivered unto us by Universall and perpetuall Tradition The Pope and Court of Rome did breake his second Rule of Vnity in Discipline by obtruding their excessive and intolerable usurpations vpon the Christian world and particularly upon the Church of England as necessary Conditions of their Communion It appeareth plainly by comparing that which hath been said with his positiō of the case that after all his Bragges of undeniable evidence and unquestionable certeinty he hath quite missed the question We joine with him in his rule of Faith Wee oppose not St. Peters Primacy of Order and he him self dare not say that St. Peter had a larger or more extended power then the rest of his Fellow Apostles And though wee cannot force our understandings to assent that after the death of S. Peter Linus or Cletus or Clemens or Anacle●us were Superiours to S. Iohn and had actuall Iurisdiction over him who had as large a commission immediatly from Christ as S. Peter himselfe and larger then any succeeding Romane Bishop ever had Yet to shew him how little wee are concerned in it and for his clearer conviction wee are willing to suppose that they were his Superiours and give him leave to make all the advantage of his second Rule which he can in this cause And here if I regarded not the satisfaction of my self and the Reader more then his opposition I might withdraw my hand from the Table But I am so great a Friend of Ingenuity that I will for once discharge his Office and shew the World demonstratively and distinctly what Branches of Papall power were cast out of England by Henry the eighth upon which consideration the weight of the whole Controversy doth lye For it is agreed between us that if it appeare by rigorous Evidence that all those Branches of Papall power which were renounced and cast out of England by Henry the eight were grosse Vsurpattons then his renouncing was no eriminall Breach but a lawfull self enfranchisement And by undeniable consequence the Guilt of ●chism resteth upon them who made the Vsurpations that is the Pope and Court of Rome I adde further upon the equity of my second Ground that although Henry the eight had cast out something more then be ought yet if wee hold not out more then wee ought and be ready to admitt all which ought to be admitted by us then we are innocent and free from the Guilt of Schism and it resteth soly upon them who either will have more then their due or nothing Wheresoever the fault is there the Guilt of Schisme is If the fault be single the Guilt is single if the fault be mutuall the Guilt is mutuall And for rigorous Evidence There cannot possibly be any Evidence more demonstrative what Papall power was cast out of England then the very Acts of Parliaments themselves by which it was cast out Let us view them all The first Act made in the Reign of Henry the eight which hath any referente to Rome is the Act for holding Plurality of Benefices against the lawes of the land by dispensation from the Court of Rome making licenses for non Residence from the Court of Rome to be voide and the party who procureth such Licenses for Pluralityes or Non-residence to forfeyt twenty pounds and to lose the profits of that Benefice which he holdeth by such dispensation It were a pretty thing indeed if the Church and Kingdome should make necessary lawes and the Pope might give them liberty to break them at his pleasure The second Act is that No person shall be cited out of t●e diocesse where he dwelleth except in certain cases Which though it may seem to reflect upon the Court of Rome yet I do not find that it is concerned in it but the Arches Audience and other Archiepiscopall Courts within the Realm The third Act is meerly declarative of the law of the land as well the Common lawes as the Statute lawes and grounded wholy upon them as by the View of the Statute it self doth appeare So it casteth out no forraine power but what the lawes had cast out before The summe of it is this That all Causes Matrimoniall Testamentary or about Tithes c. shall be heard and finally judged in England by the proper Iudges Ecclesiasticall and Civill respectively and not elswhere notwithstanding any forrein Inhibitions Appeales Sentences citations suppensions or Excommunications And that if any English Subject procure a Processe Inhibition Appeale c. From or to the Court of Rome or execute them to the hinderance of any processe here he shall incurre the Penalties ordained by the Statute of provision or premunire made in the sixteenth yeare of King Richard the second against such as make provision to the See of Rome This law was e●larged afterwards to all causes of Ecclesiasticall cognisance and all appeales to Rome forbidden The fourth Act is an Act for punishing of Heresy Wherein there are three clauses that concern the Bishop of Rome The First is this And that there be many Heresies and paines and punishments for Heresies Declared and ordained in and by the Canonicall Sanctions and by the Lawes and Ordinations made by the Popes or Bishops of Rome and by their Authorities for holding doing preaching of things contrary to the said Canonicall Sanctions Lawes and Ordinances which be but humane being meer repugnant and contrarious to the royall Prerogative Regall Iurisdiction Lawes Statutes and Ordinances of this Realm The second Clause is that No License be obtained of the Bishop of Rome to Preach in any part of this Realm or to doe any thing contrary to the Lawes and Statutes of this Realm or the Kings Prerogative Royall The third Clause followeth That the Decrees of the Bishops of Rome not confirmed by Holy Scriptures were never commonly attested to be any Law of God or man within this Realme And that it should not be deemed Heresy to speak or doe contrary to the pretended power or Authority of the Bishop of Rome made or given by Humane Lawes and not by Scriptures nor to speake or Act contrary to the Lawes of the Bishop of Rome being contrary to the Lawes of this Realm The Fifth Act is an Act concerning the Submission of the Clergy to the Kings Majesty The scope of it is this that the Clergy shall not assemble in Convocation nor make or proniulge any new Canons without the Kings License Hitherto there is nothing new in point of Law Then that the King should have
Surrejoinder together in this one short Section and give sentence readily who is the Mountebanke and Prevaricatour And first I challenge this great Champion of downright Cowardise as great as ever his Predecessour Thraso shewed in the Comedy in smothering and concealing palpably and shamefully his Adversaries reasons and declining the heat of the assault The maine subject of this Section was to shew that the ancient Kings of England did assume as much power in Ecclesiasticall affaires as Henry the eighth did that the Lawes of Henry the eighth were no new Lawes but onely renovations and Confirmations of the ancient Lawes of England which had never bene repealed or abrogated in the dayes of his Predecessors but were of force in England at that very time when he made his Lawes As the Statutes of Clarendon The Statute of Carlile The Articles of the Clergy The Statutes of Provisors and other old Lawes made in the time of Henry the first Henry the third Edward the first and Edward the third Richard the second Henry the Fourth all of them dead and gone many ages before Henry the eighth was born I shewed particularly that they suffered not the Pope to send for any English Subject out of England to Rome without leave nor to send any Legate into England without leave nor to receive any Appeale out of England without leave They made it death or at least the forfeiture of all a mans estate to bring any Papall Bulls or Excommunications into England They called Ecclesiasticall Councells made Ecclesiasticall Lawes punished Ecclesiasticall persons prohibited Ecclesiasticall Iudges received Ecclesiasticall Appeales made Ecclesiasticall Corporations appropriated Ecclesiasticall Benifices rejected the Popes Lawes at their pleasure with a Nolumus wee will not have the Lawes of England to be Changed or gave Legislative Interpretations of them as they thought fit All this I have made evidēt out of our ancient Lawes our Records our Historiographers in my Vindication in my Reply and in this Treatise And therefore I might well retort upon him his own Confident bragge that it is as cleare as the suns shining at noone day or that the same thing cannot be and not be at once that our Ancestours who did all this and much more then this did acknowledge no Monarchicall power of the Pope in the Exteriour Court by Christs own Ordination as Mr. Serjeant asserteth and that they did exercise as much power in the externall Regiment of the Church as Henry the eighth did and that Henry the eighths lawes were no new lawes devised by himself but were the lawes of these ancient Kings renewed by him or rather the Fundamentall Lawes and Liberties of England exposed by these ancient Kings as a Buckler against the Encroachments of the Roman Court. Now to all this cleare evidence what answer doth Mr. Serjeant make Iust Thraso-like when the matter comes to push of pike he sneaketh away post principia into the securest place he can find Speak the truth in earnest did Pyrrhus use to doe thus It is not possible to squeese one word of particular answer out of him onely in generall he saith I bring divers allegations wherein the Popes pretenses were not admitted c. And so proceedeth doe we professe the Pope can pretend to no more then his right c. Lawes and Records are but bare Allegations with him and prohibiting under pain of Death or Confiscation of Goods is no more but not admitted Speake out man and shame the devill whether did the Pope pretend more then is right or not whether were the anciēt English Lawes just Lawes or not This is certain his Pretensions and these Lawes cannot both be just The very substance of his Monarchicall power in the exteriour Court is prohibited by these Lawes his Soveraign power or Patronage of the English Church his Iudiciary Power his Legislative Power his dispensative Power all are lost if these Lawes stand All which Mr. Serjeant blancheth over with this generall expression such and such things Will the Court of Rome thank such and such an Advocate who forsakes them at a dead lift I trow no. And although I called upon him in my reply for a fuller and more satisfactory answer to these Lawes yet he giveth none in his Rejoinder but shuffleth up the matter in Generalls As for his particularities entrenching on or pretended to entrench on the Popes Authority whether they were lawfully done or no how far they extended in what Circumstances or cases they held in what not how the Letter of those Lawes are to be understood c. all which the Bishop Omitts though he expresse the bare words it belongs to Canon and Secular Lawiers to scuffle about them not me I hold my self to the Lists of the Question and the limits of a Controvertist Yes even as Thrasoheld himself to the Lists when he stole behind the second wards This is neither more nor lesse but flat running away and crying to the Canonists for help If the subject be improper for him why did he undertake it and not try first Quid ferre recusent Quid valeant humeri Why did he undertake it with so much youthfull Confidence and insulting scorn and petulance to accuse his adversary of impudence And as if impudence were too moderate a Character for him as a profest and sworn enemy of truth shame and honesty making him worse then a mad man or born foole And all this for pretending that Henry the eighth did no more against the Papacy then his Ancestour Kings had done before him and now when his Cavills are thrust down his own throat when the impudence is brought home to him and laid at his own doore when the very Lawes of his Ancestours are produced wherein they provided the same remedies for the Roman Court that Henry the eighth did he would with draw his own neck o●t of the Collar and leave the defence of his cause to the Canō and Secular Lawiers to scuffle about the sense of these anciēt Lawes and whether they were law fully done or no and how far they extended and in what cases they hold in what not And this is all the answer which he vouchsafeth to these ancient English Lawes that is as much as to say he knoweth not what to answer or it doth not belong to him to answer and this he calleth holding himself to the Lists of the Question but all other men call it leaping out of the Lists of the Question and a shamefull deserting the cause he had u●dertaken to defend I ever acknowledged that Henry the eighth made sundry new Sta●utes against the Vsurpations of the Court of Rome but I adde that these Statutes were declarative of old Law not Enactive of new Law This is as cleare as his noone day-light And I proved it by the Authority of two of our greatest Lawiers Fitz Herbert and my Lord Cooke persons sufficient to know the difference between a Statute declarative of old Law and a Statute Enactive of new
deposited at Rome as a stock for defence against the Turk and no otherwise But the time is effluxed since and the Princes have learned by Experience that the moneys have not been imployed agains● the Turkes but converted to other Vses c. The Emperour Charles the fifth was not of the same mind as appeareth by his Letter to Pope Adrian the sixth where in he reciteth the same fraud and requireth that the Tenths may be detained in Germany for that Vse for which they were first intended Lastly Henry the eighth and the Church and Kingdome of England were not of that mind nor intended to indure such an egregious cheat any longer so extremely contrary to the Fundamentall Lawes of the Kingdome and destructive to them By which Lawes the King himself who onely hath Legislative power in England may not compell his Subjects to pay any such Pensions without the Good will and Assent of the Arch-Bishops Bishops Earls Barons Knights Burgesses and other Freemen of the land Much lesse can a forrain Prince or Praelate whatsoever he be impose any such payments by his own Authority This is that which is so often Condemned in our Statutes of Provisors Namely the imposing Pensions and exporting the Treasure of the Realme The Court of Rome is so far from any Pretense of Reparation that if their Predecessors were living they were obliged to make restitution These are all the Differences that are between us concerning the Patronage of the Church of Englād Yet now least he should urge that these Lawes alledged by mee are singular obsolete Lawes not Consonant to the Lawes of other Christian Kingdomes I will Paralell them with the Lawes and Liberties of France which he him self acknowledgeth to be a Catholick Country as they are recorded in two Authentick Bookes One of the Rights and Libertyes of the Gallican Church The Other The Defence of the Court of Paris for the Liberty of the Gallican Church against the Roman Court both printed by Authority First for the Patronage of the Church The fourth Liberty is The King hath power to Assemble or cause to be Assembled Synods Provinciall or Nationall and therein to treat of such things as concern Ecclesiasticall Order The seventh Liberty is The Prelates of the French Church although commanded by the Pope for what cause so ever it be may not depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings Commandement a●d License The eleventh Liberty is The Pope cannot impose Pensions in France upon any Benifices having Cure of Soules Nor upon any other but according to the Canons c. The Fourteenth Liberty is Ecclesiasticall persons may be Convented Iudged and sentenced before a secular Iudge for the First enormious Crime or for lesser offences after a relapse The fifteenth Liberty is All the Prelatest of France are obliged to swear Fealty to the King and to receive from him their Investitures for their Fees and Manours The nineteenth Liberty is Provisions Reserva●iōs expectative graces have no place in Frāce This is the brief summe of those Liberties which concern the Patronage of the Gallican Church agreeing perfectly with our old English Customes I shall shew him the same perfect Harmony between their Church Liberties and our English Customes the Assise of Clarendon the Statutes of Provisors and Premunire through out Either Mr. Serjeant must make the Gallican Church Schismaticall which he dare not doe and if I conjecture rightly hath no mind to doe or he must acknowledge our English Lawes to be good Catholick Lawes for Company Sect. I. Cap. VI. The next Vsurpation which offereth it self to our Consideration is the Popes Legislative power ouer the Church and Kingdome of England either in his person or by his Legates For the clearer understanding whereof the Reader in the first place may be pleased to take notice that we receive the ancient Canons of the Catholick church and honour them more then the Romanists themselves as being selected ou● of the Canons of Primitive Councells before the Roman Bishops did challenge any plenitude of Legislative power in the Church And especially of the first four General Councells of which King Iames said most truly that Publica Ordinum nostrorum Sanctione rec●pta sunt They are received into our Lawes We acknowledge that just Canons of Councells lawfully Congregated and lawfully proceeding have power to bind the Conscience of Subjects as much as Politicall Lawes in themselves not from themselves as being humane lawes but from the Ordinance of God who commandeth Obedience of Subjects to all sorts of Superiours We receive the Canons of other Primitive Councells but not with the same degree of Reverence as wee doe the first four generall Councells No more did S. Gregory of old No more doth the Pope now in his solemne Profession of his Faith at his election to the Papacy according to the decree of the Councell of Constance That which restrained them restraineth us I am more troubled to thinke how the Pope should take himself to be an Ecclesiasticall Monarch and yet take such a solemne Oath In the Name of the Holy and undivided Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost to keep the Fait● of the Councell of Chalcedon to the least Tittle What the faith of the Fathers of Chalcedon was in this greate Controversy about the Papacy may appeare by the six teenth Session and the Acclamation of the Fathers to the Sentence of the Iudges Haec justa Sententia haec omnes dicimus haec omnibus placent c. This is a just Sentence These things wee all say These things please us all c Secondly we acknowledge that Bishops were alwayes esteemed the proper judges of the Canons both for composing of them and for executing of them but with this caution that to make them Lawes the confirmation of the Prince was required and to give the Bishop a coactive power to execute them the Princes grant or concession was needfull The former part of this caution is evident in Iustinians confirmation of the fifth Generall Synod Haec pro communi Pace Ecclesiarum Sanctissimarum statuimus haec sententiavimus sequentes Sanctorum Patrū dogmata c. These things wee ordaine these things wee have sentenced following the opinion of the Holy Fathers c. Quae Sacerdotio visa sunt ab Imperio confirmata Which were approved by the Clergy and confirmed by the Emperour The second part of the caution is evident out of the Lawes of William the conquerour Qui decimam de●inuerit per justitiā Episcopi Regis si necesse fueri● ad soluttionē arguatur c. Who shall detain his Tythe Let him be convinced to pay it by the justice of the Bishop and if it be needfull of the King For these things S. Austin preached and taught and these things that is both Tythes and jurisdictiō were granted frō the King the Barons and the People So hitherto there is no difference betweē us they acknowledge that the King
erroneous tenets as necessary points of faith and Schismaticall Practises meerly by the authority and to uphold the interest and ambitions or a●aricious courses of the Roman Court. My second ground is this God almighty doth● not approve of that unequall proverb The Fathers have eaten sowre Grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge Posterity is not guilty of their Ancestours transgressions further then they doe either imitate them or maintain them Suppose these calumnies had been truths which some have belched forth against our Reformers that they had Sacrilegious or other sinister ends it signifieth nothing to us so long as wee neither justify them nor imitate them Iehues heart was not over upright and yet God himself approved his Reformation Suppose any of our Reformers have run into any excesses or extremes either in their expressions or perhaps in their actions it is a difficult thing in great changes to observe a just meane it may be out of humane frailty as Lycurgus out of hatred to drunkennes●e cut down all the Vines about Sparia or it may be out of Policy as men use to bend a crooked Rod as much the contrary way to make it streight or as expert Masters in Musick doe sometimes draw up their Scholars a note too high to bring them to a just tone What is that to us so long as we practise the meane and maintain the mean and guide our selves by the certain line and Levell of Apostolicall and primitive Tradition Charity commands us to thinke well of our Predecessors and Theology to look well to our selves Thirdly that difference which divines doe make between affirmative and negative precepts that affirmative bind alwayes but not to all times semper but not ad semper A man is bound alwayes to pray but is not hound to the actuall exercise of praier at all timts but neganegative precepts bind both semper and ad semper The same I say of affirmative aud negative presidents affirmative presidents prove alwayes that such a fact was done and it may be that it was justly done at that time in that case but they prove not a right ad semper to doe it at all times The reason is evident Particular Acts may be done by Connivence or by speciall License but a Generall Prohibition implyeth a perpetual right As for instance I produce Negative Presidents both Generall Lawes against all appeales to Rome that no man may appeale to the Pope without the Kings License and Particular Prohibitions out of the Kings Courts by form of ordinary Iustice against such and such Appeales or such and such Sentences upon Appeales This argueth a perpetuall Right to forbid Appeales whensoever it is Iudged expedient On the otherside he preduceth Presidents of Particular Appeales to Rome which he may doe of later Dayes but for the First eleven hundred years it was not so This Proveth onely the Kings License or Connivence in such cases it doth not prove a perpetuall Right because two perpetuall Rights contradictory one to another can not be My fourth and last ground is that neither King Henry the eighth nor any of our Legislators did ever endeavour to deprive the Bishop of Rome of the power of the Keys or any part thereof either the Key Order or the Key of Iurisdiction I mean jurisdictiō purel● spiritual which hath place onely in the Inner court of conscience and over such persons as submit willing●y Nor did ever challenge or endeavour to assume unto them selves either the Key of order or the key of jurisdiction purely Spirituall All which they deprived the Pope of all which they assumed to themselves was the externall Regiment of the Church by Coactive power to be excercised by persons capable of the respective Branches of it This Power the Bishops of Rome never had ot could have justly over their Subjects but under them whose subjects they were And there fore when wee meet with these words or the like that no forrein Prelate shall exercise any manner of power Iurisdiction Superiority Preheminence or Privilege Ecclesias●icall or Spirituall within this Realme It is not to be understood of internall or purely Spiritual power in the court of conscience or the power of the Keys Wee see the Contrary practised every day but of external and coactive power in Ecclesiasticall causes in foro conten●ioso And that it is and ought to be so understood I prove clearly by a Proviso in one main Act of Parliament and a Canon of the English Church First the Proviso is conteined in the Act for the Exoneration of the Kings Subjects from all Exactions and Impositions paid to the See of Rome Provided alwayes this Act nor any thing therein conteined shall be here after interpre●ed or expounded that your Grace your nobles and Subjects intend by the same to decline and Vary from the Congregation of Christs Church in any things concerning the very Articles of the Catholick Faith of Christendome or any other things declared by the Scripture and the Word of God necessary for your and their Salvations but onely to make an Ordinance by Pollicies necessary and convenient to represse Vice aud for good Conservation of this Realm in Peace Vnity and Tranquility from ravine and Spoile insueing much the old ancient Customes of this Realme in that behalfe They profes●e their Ordinance is meerly Politicall What hath a Politicall Ordinance to doe with power purely Spirituall They seek onely to preserve the kingdome from ravine and Spoile Power purely spirituall can commit no Ravin or Spoile ●he● follow ancient Customes of the Realm There was no ancient Custome of the Realm for abolition or translation of power purely spirituall They professe all Conformity to Holy Scriptures but the power of the keys was evidently given by Christ in Scripture to his Apostles and their Successors not to Soveraign Princes If any thing had been conteined in this Law for the Abolition or Translation of power meerly and purely Spirituall it had been retracted by this Proviso at the same time it was enacted The Canon is the 37. Canon where we give the Kings Majesty the Supreme Government Wee doe not give our Kings either the Administration of Gods word or Sacraments which the Injunctions published lately by Queen Elisabeth doe most evidently declare but onely that Prerogative which wee see to have been alwayes attributed to all Godly Princes by him self in holy Scripture That is to preserve or contein all Estates and Orders committed to their trust by God whether they be Ecclesiasticall or Civill in their Dutyes and restrein contumacious Offenders with the Civill Sword You see the Power is Politicall the Sword is Politicall all is Politicall Our Kings leave the power of the keys and Iurisdiction purely Spirituall to those to whom Christ hath lest it Sect. I. Cap. IV. And now having dispatched the Circumstances out of my way and laid down some Necessary grounds I come directly to the Substance of his Assumption and
which ought to have been done in a Legall Appeale But the successe was so contrary to the Popes Interest and the Resolution of the King Church and Kingdome of England so unanimous That they could not assent to the Popes Legation because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councell of the English should be restored upon the Popes Letter that England was never troubled with any more appeales to Rome untill after the Conquest Neither Durst the Pope send any Bulls or Mandates then but a plain Letter The next Appellant was Anselm a Stranger who knew not the liberties of England in the Dayes of Henry the first as succeslesse as Wilfrid had bene Will you trust the Testimony of a King And I know not why a King should not be trusted for the Customes of his own Kingdome Hear King Henry the First the Sonne of the Conquerour It is a Custome of my Kingdome instituted by my Father instituted indeed but not first instituted for it was an old Saxon Custome that no Pope be appealed to without the License of the King Another Law of the same King was By all meanes wee discharge forrain Iudgements If you will not trust the King trust the whole Kingdome upon their Oaths in the Dayes of Henry his Grandchild The First English Custom recited in the Assise of Clarendon is this That all Appeales in England must proceed regularly frō the Archdeacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Arch Bishop and if the Arch Bishop failed to doe Iustice the last cōplaint must be to the King to give order for redresse If wee will not trust the King and Kingdome Yet l●t us trust the Pope him self thus Paschal the secōd writeth to our Henry the first The Popes Nuncioes and Letters doe find no reception within thy Iurisdiction There are no Complaints from those parts no Appeales are destined to the Apostolick See The Abbat of Thorney found this true by experience who lay long in prison notwithstanding his Appeale to Rome The Case is so plaine that I shall not cite one Authority more in it but onely one of our Statute Lawes made not onely by the Assent as is usnall but upon the prayer and grievous and clamorous Complaints of the Peers and Commons That because People are Drawn out of the Realm to answer things the Cognisance whereof belongeth to the Kings Courts and the Iudgements of the Kings Courts are impeached in another Court the Court of Rome to the disinheriting of the king and his Crown and the undoing ●and destruction of the Common Law of the Land Therefore it is ordeined that whosoever shall draw a man out of the Realm in Plea if he doe not appeare upon Summons and conform to the sentence of the kings Court he shall forfeit Lands and Goods be outlawed and imprisoned Against such Fortifications grounded upon Prescription and Imperiall Lawes the Canon of the Councell of Sardica will make no great Battery Take the Councell of Sardica at the best waving all exceptions yet certainly it was no generall Councell If it were it had been one of the four first If it had been a generall Councell it self three succeeding Popes were much to blame to Father the Canons of it upon the first Generall Councell of Nice The Canons of the Councell of Sardica did not bind the Africans of old much lesse bind us now Secondly the Canon of Sardica doth onely give way to Appeales to Rome in cases between two Bishops but the Court of Rome admitteth Appeales from inferiour Clergy men from Lay men from all sorts of men in all sorts of Causes that are of Ecclesiasticall Cognisance Thirdly the Canon of Sardica is a meer permission no precept what may be done in discretion not what ought to be done of necessity it was proposed with a Si vobis placet If it please you and the ground of it is a Complement Let us honour the Memory of S. Peter Fourthly There is one great Circumstance in our Case which varieth it quite from that proposed by Osius to the Sardican Fathers that is that our King and the Lawes of the Realm do forbid Appeales to Rome If there had been such an Imperiall Law then doe wee thinke that the Fathers of Sardica would have been so disloyall or so simple to thinke to abrogate the Imperiall Lawes by their Canons which are no Lawes but by the Emperours Confirmation No the Fathers of that Age did know their duty too well to their Emperour and if they could have foreseen what avaricious practises and what grosse Oppressions would have sprung in time from this little seed of their Indulgence they would have abhominated them Lastly supposing the Sardican Councell had been of more Authority and the Canon thereof of more Extent then it was and more peremptory and that there had been no such intervening impediment why English Subjects could not make use of that Remedy yet the Councell of Sardica can give but humane right And a contrary Prescription for a thousand years is a sufficient Enfranchisement from all pretence of humane right The second branch of this Vsurpation is as cleare as the former concerning Papall Bulls and Excommunications That by our ancient Lawes they cannot be executed in England without the Kings Leave In the Assise of Clarendon this is found to be one of the ancient Customes of England That none of the Kings Servants or Tenents that held of him in Capite might be excommunicated or their Lands interdicted before the King was made acquainted There was a severe Lawe made in the Reign of the same King If any man be found bringing in the Popes Letter or Mandate Let him be apprehended and let justice passe upon him without delay as a Traitour to the King and Kingdome It seemeth that the first and second Henryes were no more propitious to Rome then Henry the eighth Take one Statute more it was enacted in full Parliament by Richard the secōd that if any did procure or pursue any such Processes●or excommunications in the Court of Rome as are there mētioned that is concerning presentatiōs to benefices or dignities Ecclesiasticall and they who bring them into the realm or receive them or execute them shall be put out of the Kings protection their Lands Goods and Chattells be confiscated to the King and their Bodies attached They had the same respect for the Popes Bulls as often as they did not like them in Henry the fourths time as wee see by the Statute made against those who brought or prosecuted the Popes Bulls granted in favour of the Cystercians By the Law of England if any man denounced the Popes Excommunication without the assent of the King he forfeited al his Goods And it is recorded in particular how the Kings writ issued out against the Bishops of London and Norwich as being at the Kings Mercy because contrary to the Statute of
Matrimony of Cloysterers from their Vowes of Celibate of all sorts of persons from all Obligations Civill or sacred And whereas no Dispensation ought to be granted without just cause now there is no cause at all inquired after in the Court of Rome but onely the Price This is that which the nine choise Cardinalls laid so close to the conscience of Paul the third How Sacred and Venerable the Authority of the Lawes ought to be how unlawfull and pernicious it is to reape any gaine from the exercise of the Keys They inveigh sadly throughout against dispēsatiōs and among other things that Simoniacall persons were not affraid at Rome first to commit Simony and presently to goe buy an Absolutiō and so reteine their Benefice Bina Venena juvant Two grosse Simonies make a title at Rome Thankes to the Popes dispensations But I must contract my discourse to those Dispensations which are intended in the Lawes of Henry the eight that is the power to dispense with English Lawes in the Exteriour Court Let him bindor loose inwardly whom he will whether his Key erre or not we are not concerned Secondly as he is a Prince in his own Territories he that hath power to bind hath power to loose He that hath power to make Lawes hath power to dispense with his own Lawes Lawes are made of Common Events Those benigne Circumstances which happen rarely are left to the dispensative Grace of the Prince Thirdly as he is a Bishop whatsoever dispensative power the ancient Ecclesiasticall Canons or Edicts of Christian Emperours give to the Bishop of Rome within those Territories which were subject to his Iurisdiction by Humane right we do not envy him So he suffer us to enjoy our ancient Privileges and Immunities freed from his encroachments and Vsurpations The Chief ground of the Ancient Ecclesiasticall Canon was Let the Old Customes prevaile A Possession or Prescription of eleven h●ndred yeares is a good ward both in Law and Conscience against humane Right and much more against a new pretense of divine right For eleven hundred yeares our Kings and Bishops enjoyed the ●ole dispensative power with all English Lawes Civill and Ecclesiasticall In all which time he is not able to give one Instance of a Papall Dispensation in England nor any shadow of it when the Church was formed Where the Bishops of Rome had no Legislative power no Iudiciary power in the Exteriour Court by necessary consequence they could have no Dispensative power The first reservation of any Case in England to the Censure and absolution of the Pope is supposed to have been that of Albericus the Popes Legate in an English Synod in the yeare 1138. Neque quisquam ei praeter Romanum Pontificem nisi mortis urgente periculo modum paenitenttae finalis injungat Let no man injoyn him the manner of finall Pennance but the Bishop of Rome except in danger of death But long before this indeed from the beginning our own Bishops as the most proper Iudges who lived upon the place and see the nature of the Crime and the degree of the Delinquents Penitence or Impenitence did according to equity relaxe the rigour of Ecclesiasticall Canons as they did all over the Christian world before the Court of Rome had usurped this gainfull Monopoly of Dispensations In the Lawes of Alured alone and in the conjoint Lawes of Alured and Gu●thrun we see how many sortes of Ecclesiasticall crimes were dispēsed withall by the sole authority of the King and Church of England and satisfaction made at home to the King and to the Church and to the Party grieved or the Poore without any manner of reference at all to the Court of Rome or to any forrein Dispensation The like we find in the the lawes of some other Saxon Kings There needed no other paenitentiary taxe Dunstan the Arch-Bishop had Excommunicated a great Count He made his Peace at Rome and obteined the Popes Commaund for his restitution to the bosome of the Church Dunstan answered I will obey the Pope willingly when I see him paenitent But it is not Gods will that he should lie in his sinne free from Ecclesiasticall discipline to insu●t over us God forbid that I should relinquish the law of Christ for the cause of any mortall man Roman dispensations were not in such Request in those daies The Church of England dispensed with those Nunnes who had fled to their Nunneries not for the love of religiō but had takē the veile upon them meerly for feare of the French and this with the counseile of the King in the daies of Lanfranke and with Queene Maud the wyfe of Hēry the First in the like case in the daies of Anselme without any suite to Rome for a forreine dispensatiō There can be nothing more pernicious then where the sacred Name of Law is prostituted to avaricious ends Where Statutes or Canons are made like Pitfals or Traps to catch the Subjects by their purses where profitable faults are cherished for private Advantage by Mercinary Iudges as beggers doe their sores The Roman Rota doth acknowledge such ordinary avaricious Dispensations to be Odious things The Delected Cardinalls make them to be sacrilegious things an unlawfull selling of the power of the Keys Commonly they are called Vulnera Legum The wo●nds of the Lawes And our Statutes of Provisers doe stile them expresly the undoing and Destruction of the Common Law of the Land The King the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and the whole Common wealth of England complained of this abuse as a mighty Grievance Of the frequent comming among them of this infamous Messenger the Popes Non Obstante that is his Dispensations by which Oaths Customes Writings Grants Statutes Rights Privileges were not onely weakened but exinanited Sometimes these Dispensative Bulls came to legall Tryalls and were condemned By the Law of the Land the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was Visiter of the Vniversity of Oxford Boniface the eyght by his Bull dispēsed with this law and exēpted the Vniversity from the Iurisdiction of the Arch-Bishop Whereupon there grew a Controversy and the Bull was decreed voide in Parliament by two succeding Kings as being obtained to the Prejudice of the Crown the weakning of the Lawes and Customes of the Kingdome in favour of Lollards and hereticks and the probable Ruine of the said Vniversity How the Liberties of France and the Lawes and Customes of England doe accord in condemning this Vsurpation wee have seen formerly The power of the Pope is not absolute in France but limit●ed and restrained by the Canons of Ancient Councells If it be Limitted and restrained by Ancient Canons then it is not Paramount above the Canons then it is not dispensative to give Non Obstante's to the Canons And the Popes Legate may not execute his Commission before he have promised under his Oath upon his holy Orders that he will not attempt any thing in the exercise of his Legantine power to
our Church witnesse the Professions of King Iames witnesse all our Statutes themselves wherein all the parts of Papall power are enumerated which are taken away His Entroachments his Vsurpations his Oaths his Collations Provisions Pensions Tenths First fruits Reservations Palls Vnions Commendams Exemptions Dispensations of all kinds Confirmations Licenses Faculties Suspensions Appeales and God knoweth how many pecuniary Artifices more but of them all there is not one that concerneth Iurisdiction purely Spirituall or which is an essentiall right of the power of the Keys They are all Branches of the Externall Regiment of the Church the greater part of them usurped from the Crowne sundry of them from Bishops and some found out by the Popes themselves as the payment for Palls which was nothing in S. Gregoryes time but a free gift or liberality or bounty free from imposition and exaction Lastly consider the grounds of all our grievances expressed frequently in our Lawes and in other writers The disinheriting of the Prince and Peers The destruction and Anullation of the Lawes and the Prerogative Royall The Vexation of the King Liege people The impoverishing of the Subjects the draining the Kingdome of its treasure The decay of Hospitality The disservice of God And filling the Churches of England with Forreiners The excluding Temporall Kings and Princes out of their Dominions The Subjecting of the Realm to spoil and ravine grosse Simoniacall contracts Sacrilege Grievous and intolerable oppressiōs and extortions Iurisdiction purely Spirituall doth neither disinherit the Prince nor the Peers nor destroy and anull the Lawes and Prerogative royall nor vex the Kings Liege people nor impoverish the Subject nor draine the Kingdome of its Treasures nor fill the Churches with Forreiners nor exclude Temporall Kings out of their Dominions nor subject the Realm to spoile and Ravine Authority purely spirituall is not guilty of the decay of Hospitality or disservice of Almighty God or Simony or Sacrilege or oppressions and extortions No No it is the externall regiment of the Church by new Roman Lawes and Mandates by new Roman Sentences and Iudgements by new Roman Pardons and dispensations by new Roman Synods and Oaths of Fidelity by new Roman Bishops and Clerkes It is your new Roman Tenths and First fruits and Provisions and Reservations and Pardons and Indulgences and the rest of those horrible mischiefs and damnable Customs that are apparently guilty of all these evills These Papall Innovations we have taken away indeed and deservedly having shewed the expresse time and place and person when and where and by whom every one of them was first introduced into England And we have restored to every Bird his own Feather To the King his Politicall Supremacy to the Peers their Patronages to the Bishops that Iurisdiction which was due to them either by Divine right or Humane right More then these Innovations we have taken nothing away that I know of Or rather it is not wee nor Henry the eighth who did take these Innovations away but our Ancesters by their Lawes three foure five hundred yeares old so soone as they began to sprout out or indeed before they were well formed as their Statutes yet extant doe evidence to the world But that filth which they swept out at the Fore doore the Romā Emissaryes brought in again at the back doore All our part or share of this worke was to confirm what our ancesters had done I see no reason why I might not conclude my discourse upon this Subject Mutatis Mutandis with as much Confidence as Sanders did his visible Monarchy Quisquis jurabit per Viventem in aeternum c. Whosoever shall sweare by him that liveth for ever that the Church of England is not Schismaticall in respect of any Branches of Papall power which shee hath cast out at the Reformation he shall not forswear himself But Wagers and Oaths and Protestations are commonly the Arguments of such as have got the wrong end of the staffe I will shut up this long Discourse concerning Henry the eighths Reformation with a short Apostrophe to my Countrymen of the Roman Communion in England They have been ta●ght that it is we who Apostate from the Faith of our Ancesters in this point of the Papacy that it is we who renounce the Vniversall and perpetual Tradition of the Christian world Whereas it is we who maintain ancient Apostolicall Tradition against their upstart Innovations whereas it is we who doe propugne the Cause of our Ancesters against the Court of Rome If our Ancesters were Catholick in this Cause we cannot be Schismaticall Let them take heed least whilst they fly o●t of a Panicall Feare from a supposed Schisme they doe not plunge themselves over head and eares into reall Schisme Let thē choose whether they will joine with their Ancesters in this cause or with the Court of Rome for with both they cannot joine If true English blood run in their veins they cannot be long deliberating about that which their Ancesters even all the Orders of the Kingdome voted unanimously That they would stand by their King and maintaine the rights of his Imperiall Crown against the Vsurpations of the Roman Court. I have represented clearly to you the true Controversy betweē the Church and Kingdome of England and the Court of Rome concerning Papall power not as it is stated by private writers but in our English Lawes a glasse that cannot deceive us for so farre as to let us see the right Difference Let them quit these grosse Vsurpations Why should they be more ashamed to restore our lust rights then they were to plunder us of them Let them distinguish between Iurisdiction purely Spirituall and Iurisdiction in the exteriour Court which for the much greatest part of it is Politicall between the power of the Sword which be longeth to the Civill Soveraign and not to the Church further then he hath been graciously pleased to communicate it between that Obedience with procedeth from feare of wrath or from feare of Gods Revenger to execute wrath that is the Soveraign Prince and that Obedience which proceedeth meerly from conscience And then there is hope we may come to understand one another better It is true there are other Differences between us but this is the main Difference which giveth Denomination to the Parties And when they come to presse those Differences they may come to have such another account as they have now The wider the hole groweth in the middle of the Milstone Men see clearer through it Dies Diei eructat verbum nox nocti indica● Scientiam The latter day is the Schollar of the former Sect. I. Cap. X. BY this time wee see that Mr. Serjeants great Dispatch will prove but a sleevelesse Errand and that his First Movership in the Church which he thought should have born down all before it is an unsignificant expression and altogether impertinent to the true Controversy between them and us Vnlesse as Dido did encompasse the
his First Governourship are but generall unsignificant Termes which may agree as well to a beginning of Vnity or Primacy of Order as to an absolute Monarchy or plenitude of power If he will say any thing to purpose he must say it particularly particulars began the breach particulars must stop rhe breach I have given him an account what particular Differences we have with him concerning St. Peter what particular Differences we have with him concerning the Pope let him apply him self to those aud not make continuall Excursions as he doth out of the Lists When I acknowledged an Authority due to the Roman Bishop in the Church as a Bishop in his Diocesse as a Metropolitan in his Province as the Bishop of an Apostolicall See and Successour of St. Peter I expected thākes there are many that will not yield him one inch of all these steps without a new conflict But behold the evill natures or evill manners of this Age I am accused for this of frivolousnesse and insincerity Yet I will make bold to tell this Apprentice in Theology that whensoever the case commeth to be solidly discussed it will be found that the principall grounds if I had said the onely grounds I had not said much amisse of the Popes pretended Monarchy are the just rights and Privileges of his Patriarchateship his Protopatriarchateship and his Apostolicall Chaire mistaken for Royalties for want of good Distinction I know the Court of Rome who have been accustomed in these latter times to milke the purses of their Clients doe not love such a dry Primacy as he phraseth it but where they have no more right and other Churches have a care to preserve their own Privileges they must have patience perforce His Parallel between the King of England and the Pope will be then to some purpose when he hath first proved that the Pope hath a Monarchy untill then it is a mere begging of the Question what a grosse Solecisme that is in Logick he cannot chuse but know But since he is favourably pleased to dispense with all men for the extent of Papall power so they believe the Substance of it and yet he himself either cannot or dare not determin what the Substance of Papall power is he might out of his Charity have compassion and not stile us Mountebankes who know no difference between Roman Catholiks and our selves about the Papacy but onely about the extent of Papall power Although he stile us hereticks now yet he was lately one of us himself and would have continued so longer if he had understood himself better or the times bene less Clowdy Let him call it Substance let him call it extent let him call it what he will I have given him our Exceptions to their Papacy let him satisfy them as well as he ●an and let truth prevaile We have not ●enounced the substance of the Papacy ex●ept the substance the Papacy doe consist ●n Coactive power I side with no parties ●ut honour the Church of England and welcome truth wheresoever I meet it Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine habetur He telleth his Reader that I grant the whole question where I affirm that the Bishop of Rome had Authority all over as the Bishop of ●n Apostolicall Church or Successor of St. Peter Much good may it doe him As if every Bishop of an Apostolicall Church were straight way an universall Monarch or as if Authority did alwaies necessarily imply jurisdiction or every Arbitrator or Depositary were a legall judge I had reasō to place a Bishop of an Apostolicall Church in my Climax after a Patriarch for the larger extension of his Authority every where not for the higher intension of his jurisdiction any where I urged that if the Bishop of Rome did succeed St. Peter by the ordinance of Christ in this Privilege to be the Prince and Soveraign of the Church endowed with a single Soveraignty of power that the Great Councell of Chalcedon was much to be blamed to give equall Privileges to the Patriarch af Constantinople with the Patriarch of Rome and to esteem the Imperiall City more then the Ordination of Christ. To the second part of this Argument that the great Councell of Chalcedon did ground the Advancement both of Rome and Constantinople upon the Imperiall Dignity of those two Cities and to much more which is urged there against him he is as mute as a Fish but to the former part he answereth that for any thing I know to the Contrary Rome might remain superiour in Iurisdiction though they had equall Privileges Very pretty indeed He would have his Readers to believe that a Soveraign and his Subjects have equall Privileges Equalls have no power one over another there may be a Primacy of Order among Equalls but Supremacy of power taketh away Equality Doth not he himself make it to be S. Peters Privilege to be Prince of the Apostles And doth not he tell us that this Privilege descended from S. Peter upon the Bishop of Rome Then if the Bishop of Constantinople have equall Privileges with the Bishop of Rome he is equall to him in this Privilege which descended frō S. Peter Let him listen to the eight and twentieth Canon of that Councell where having repeated and confirmed the decree of the Generall Councell of Constantinople to the same purpose they conclude thus for the Nicene Fathers did justly give Privileges to the See of old Rome because it was the Imperiall City And the hundred and fifty Godly Bishops in the Councell of Constantinople moved with the same consideration did give equall Privileges to the See of new Rome Rightly judging that that City which was the Seat of the Empire and the Senate should enjoy equall Privileges with the ancient Imperiall City of Rome and be extolled and magnified in Ecclesiasticall affaires as well as it being the second in Order from it And in the last sentence of the Iudges upon the Review of of the Cause The Archbishop of the Imperiall City of Constantinople or new Rome must enjoy the same Privileges of honour and have the same power out of his own Authority to ordain Metropolitās in the Asiatick Pontick and Thracian Diocesses That is as much in Law as to say have equall Iurisdiction for all other rights doe follow the right of Ordination But he knoweth right well that this will not serve his turn his last refuge is to deny the Authority of the Canon telling us that it was no free Act but voted tumultuously after most of the Fathers were departed And miscalling it a Bastard issue pinned to the end of the Councell Which is altogether as false as any thing can be imagined to be It was done before the Bishops had their License to depart It had a sec●nd hearing and was debated by the Popes own Legates on his behalf before the most glorious judges and maturely sentenced by them in the name of the Councell This was one of those four
the Lawes and histories of his native Country If he had perused them diligently he might have observed how the Court of Rome and Crown of England were long upon their Gards watching one another and the one or the other gained or lost mutually according to the Vigour of their present Kings or Popes or according to the exigence of the times His seventh Objection that the like Lawes to ours in England were made in the Papacy it self but those could not be against the Popes Headship of the Church and his tenth Objection that then there never was a Papist Country in the world because equivalēt Lawes to ours were made in France Spaine Italy Sicily Gormany Poland c and his answer to my demand what law full Iur●sdiction could remaine to the Pope in England where such and such Lawes had force The same that remaines still to him in France Spaine Italy where the like lawes are in force in his last paragraph are a dish of unsavoury mushromes all sprung up from his own negligent mistake or wilfull Falsification let him chuse whether he will in confounding the Lawes of Mortmain with the other Lawes against the Popes Vsurpations Which I distinguished exactly both at the beginning of that discourse the Statute of Mortmain justified and at the Conclusion But to leave this Digression But besydes this grosse errour there want not other inconsequences and fallacies in his discourse as in his seventh Objection from the Popes particular Headship of his own Church to an Vniversall Headship over the Catholick Church and from an Headship of order to a Monarchicall Headship of power and in his tenth Objection from like lawes to the same Lawes from Lawes made to Lawes duely observed We had Lawes made against Non-conformists in England will he conclude thence that we have no Non-conformists in England the Argument would hold better the Contrary way Ex malis moribus bonae leges And in his last Paragraph from Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court to Iurisdiction purely Spirituall in the Court of Conscience and from Coactive Iurisdiction with the leave of the Prince to the same without Leave Wee see all Roman Catholick Countries doe stint the Popes Coactive Iurisdiction over their Subjects more or lesse according to their severall Liberties which they could not doe at all if he held it by Christs own Ordination His eighth Objection that upon this new Law made by Henry the eighth England stood at another distance then formerly from Rome is a Fallacy non causae pro causa when a false cause is assigned for a true cause Our just Lawes are not the right cause of our distance from Rome but the Popes unjust Censures and that Character which some of our Countrimen give of us But this distance is greater among the Populacy then between the Estates who do not much regard the Popes Censures either in making or observing of Leagues To his ninth Objection in his order and his last in my order that this Posi●●on takes away the Question and makes all the Controvertists in England on both sides talke in the aire because it makes the Pope to have had no Authority there to be cast out I answer I wish it did but it doth not The Pope had Authority there and Authority usurped fit to be cast out notwithstanding our former good Lawes But yet I must confesse this Position doth much change the Question from spirituall Iurisdiction in the inner Court to Coactive Iurisdiction in the exteriour Court and makes him and many other such Controvertists talk in the aire who dispute onely about Headships and First Moverships when the true Controversy lieth in point of Interest and profit Sect. 4. That the Britannick Churches were ever exempted from forrein Iurisdiction for the first six hundred years and so ought to continue After I had shewed the Equality of the Apostles except onely a Priority of Order and that the Supremacy of power did not rest in any single Apostolicall College that Nationall Patriarchs were the highest Order constituted by the Apostles in the Church and how some Patriarchs came to be advanced above others with the true dignity or Preheminence of Apostolicall Churches the summe of all the rest of this Section might be reduced to a Syllogisme Those Churches which were exempted from all forrain Iurisdiction for the first 600 years cannot be subjected to any forrain Iurisdiction for the future against their own wills But all the Britannick Churches were ever exempted from forrain Iurisdiction for the first six hundred yeares The Major Proposition was proved by me undeuiably out of the first Generall Councell of Ephesus to which Mr. Serjeant hath objected nothing Next I proved the Minor First by Prescription Affirmanti incumbit probatio The burthen of the proofe in Law resteth upon the Affirmer but they are not able to shew so much as one single act of Iurisdiction which ever any Bishop of Rome did in Brittaign for the first six hundred yeares Secondly I proved it from the Antiquity of the Britannick Church which was ancienter then the Roman it self and therefore could not be subject to the Romā from the beginning Thirdly because the Britannick Churches sided with the Eastern Churches against the Roman and therefore were not subject to the Roman Fo●rthly because they had their Ordinations ordinarily at home which is an infallible sign of a free Church subject to no Forrein Iurisdiction Lastly because they renounced all Subjection to the Bishop of Rome I am forced to repeat thus much to let the Reader see the contexture of my discourse which Mr. Serjeant doth whatsoever he can to conceale or at least to confound and disjoint Out of this he picketh here and there what he pleaseth First he pleadeth that my Title is the Vindication of the Church of England but the Church of England can derive no title from the Britannick or Scottish Churches He never read or quite forgetteth the State of the Questiō I will help his memory Let him read the Vindication by the Church of England we understand not the English Nation alone but the English dominion including the British and Scotish or Irish Christians So at unawares he hath yielded the Bishopricks of Chester Hereford Worcester for all these were Suffragans to Carleon Wales Cornwall Ireland Scotland with all the adjacent Ilands that is to say two third parts of the English Dominion Secondly he pleadeth that for this many hundred yeares they acknowledged the Popes Authority as well as the Church of England I answer that this will doe him no good nor satisfy the Generall Councell of Ephesus at all which hath decreed expresly in the case of the Cyprian Prelates and they Command the same to be observed in all Provinces that no Bishop occupy another Province which formerly and from the beginning was not under the power of him or his Predecessors and if any doe occupy another Province that in this case let him restore it
hold out encroachments with the point of the sword without any medling with just right Other division then this which he himself hath allowed we believe our Ancestours intended none we hold none and so are accountable for none The main Question is whether the Britannick Churches were de facto subject to Rome or not I have demonstrated the contrary already that they were not and had alwaies their Ordinations at home But his Conclusion which he puts upon me that true complaints against Governours whether otherwise remediable or no are sufficient reasons to abolish that very Government is a vain assertion of his own no Cōclusion of mine He starteth a Question here little to his own Credit whether he that mainteineth the Negative or he that mainteineth the Affirmative ought to prove He saith according to his old Pueriles that a Negative may be proved in Logick No man doubteth of it or denieth it Quis e●im potest negare I said on the Contrary that in this case which commeth here in difference between us according to the strict rules of Law the burthen to proue resteth onely on his side who affirmeth As the Question is here between us whether we had other Remedies then to make such a Reformation as we did We say No. They say Yea. It is possible to ●rove there might be other Remedies ●ut it is impossible to prove there were no ●ther Remedies Galen or Hippocrates him●elf would not have undertaken such a Taske to prove that there were no other Remedies for a disease then that which they used It is not for want of Logicall Forms that Negatives are not to be proved ●n matter of Fact but for want of sufficient Mediums He saith he is no Bowler and so ●nexpert as not to understand what is the soaling of a Bowle It may be it is true but if I should put him to prove this Negative it is impossible But so farre as a Negative of that nature is capable of proofe I did prove it by our Addresses to Popes and Councells and long expectation in vain that we had no other Remedy then that which we used to thrust out their Vsurpations by the power of the sword which course he himself adviseth and we practised The division is not made by them who thrust out Vsurpations but by them who brought them in and defend them I said that not onely our Ancestors but all Catholick Countries did maintein their own privileges inviolated and make themselves the last Iudges of their Grievances from the Court of Rome Hence he concludeth with open Mouth therefore there were other Remedies there needed no Division Alas poore man how he troubleth himself about nothing They and we used the very same Remedies the same that he adviseth in this place The Pope would not ease them upon many addresses made What then had not the King the Sword in his own hands Did it not lie in his power to right himself as he listed and to admit those pretended encroachments onely so far as he thought just and fitting Yes the King had the sword in his hands and did right him self and cast out those Papall Usurpatious so far as he found Iust and now when we have followed your own advise you call us Schismaticks and Dividers Sr. we are no Dividers but we have done our Duties and if we prove those things which we cast out to be Vsurpations as we have done you are the Schismaticks by your own Confession He pleadeth If Papall Authority be of Christs Institution then no just cause can possibly be given for its Abolishment Right But those Branches of Papall power which we have cast out are neyther of Christs Institution nor of Mans Institution but meer Vsurpations Neither doe we seek to abolish Papall Authority but to reform it from Accidentall Abuses and reduce it to its first Institution The best Institutions Divine or Humane may sometimes need such Reformation Here is nothing like proofe but his World of Witnesses and his Immemoriall Tradition presumed not proved To shew that no Nation suffred so much as England under the Tyranny of the Roman Court he saith I produce nothing but the pleasant saying of a certain Pope Well would he have a better witnesse against the Pope then the Pope him self Habemus confitentem reū He was pleasant indeed but Ridentem dicere verum Quid vetat VVhat hindereth that a man may net tell the truth laughing He asketh whether those Testimonies which I produce be Demonstrative or rigorous Evidences I thinke he would have me like the unskilfull Painter to write over the Heads of my Arguments This is a Demonstration It would become him better to refute them and shew that they are not Demonstrative then to trifle away the time with such frivolous Questions I shewed that England is not alone in the Seperation so long as all the Eastern Southern Northern and so great a part of the Western Church have seperated themselves from the Court of Rome and are seperated by them from the Church of Rome as well as we In answer to this he bids me shew that those I call Christians have any infallible or certain Rule of Faith c. This is first to hang men up and then to examine their cause first to excommunicate four parts of five of the Christian world for their own Interests because they will not submit their necks to the Roman Yoke and embrace their upstart Vsurpations with as much Devotion as the genuine Legacies of Christ and his Apostles It behoved the Court of Rome to have weighed the case more maturely before they gave such a temerarious sentence against the much greater part of Christendome in so weighty a cause But for their rule of Faith they have a more certain and Authentick Rule then he himself by as much as the Apostles Creed is a more Authentick rule of Faith then Pius the fourths Creed and the Holy Scriptures a more infallible ground then particular supposititious Tradition which wanteth both Perpetuity and Vniversality I said that we desired to live in the peaceable Communion of the Catholick Church as well as our Ancestours as far as the Roman Court will give us leave He answereth that he knoweth very well we would be glad that the Church of Rome would own us for hers c That lack Straw or Wat Tiler after they had rebelled had no mind to be hanged That it is no Charity or Courtesy in us but a request of an unreasonable favour from them to admit us into their Communion and would be most absurd in Government c. Whether they hold us for theirs or not is not much materiall if they did it were the better for themselves if they doe not it is not the worse for us so as Christ own us for his it skilleth not much whether they say come ye blessed or goe ye cursed whether we be the wheat or Chaffe their tongues must not winnow us Although he snuffe at
receive Tenths and First fruits and Oaths of Fidelity and concerning the Supreme Legislative Dispensative and Iudiciary power in all things perteining to the Externall Regimeut of the Church To all this neither the Bishop of Chalcedon nor Mr. Serjeant either in his former Answer or in this rejoinder although provoked have offered one word of Answer This Plea doth utterly destroy their pretense of Divine right and of uninterrupted Tradition for all these Branches of Papall power Can any man be so stupid as to Imagin that to be of divine right which was first tacked into the Church with so much Opposition after eleven hundred yeares or that to be grounded upon perpetuall and Vniversall Tradition which hath been opposed in all Ages since it was devised in all places by all sorts of persons Kings and their Parliaments and Councells Synods and Vniversities Divines and Lawiers What shamefull Tergiversation is this which no ingenious Adversary could be guilty of but out of invincible necessity Thus he served me where I produced all our old English Lawes Thus he served me where I produced their own Authours to testify the intolerable extortions and Vsurpatiōs of the Romā Court Thus he serveth me here and in place of so many lawes and Proclamations and Placaets and Synodall Acts and Iudgements of Vniversities he shuffleth in so many of his fiddle-faddle Contradictions which are not all worth a deafe Nut. If it were not that I have proceeded so far already and Toto devorato Bove turpe est in Cauda deficere I would not Vouchsafe to answer them but with Contempt Thus he begins Nine or ten self Contradictions in one Section He speaketh modestly if there be one there are nine hundred This word in effect saith he deserves a Comment It hath a Comment wherein his feigned Contradictions were satisfyed before they were hatched by him the more uningenuous person he to take no notice of it He may find it in my reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon cap. 7. s. 2. pa. 243. Other Princes of the Roman Communion have made lawes as well as we to renounce and abrogate all those branches of Papall Authority which we cast out that is onely Papall Vsurpations but neither they nor we ever defined against Essentiall right We deny not to the Pope a Superiority of Order above the Archbishop of Canterbury but we deny him a Superiority of power in the Exteriour Court that is we deny him the supreme Iudiciary Power so did they King Henry the eighth abolished the Iurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome within his Dominions but the Emperours did not so If they did not so yet if they pleaded for it or justified it it is as much as I said And if they did it by parcells as I have shewed they did though they did it not in grosse it is the same thing in effect Our Ancestours threatned the Pope to make a wall of Separation between him and them not by making a new Law for it was the Common Law of England but by declaring the Law by executing the Law And though they had threatned him to make one generall Law against all his Vsurpations in grosse yet formerly having made single Lawes against the same in particular it was but the same in effect This sucking Contradiction hath been answered sufficiently in the last Section He saith our Controversy is not about the extent of Papall Power but about the right it self The just Contrary is true Our Controversy is onely about the extent of Papall Power or about those particular Branches of Papall power which we have cast out He loves to hover in Generalls but we shall bring him willingly or against his will to descend to particulars He taketh notice here of my complaining that they answer not particulars and I assure the Reader that if their cause would have born it they would have answered them Observe but how tame he is upon this Provocation that useth to be so fierce without any Provocation All the Answer it doth extort from him is Was ever man so ignorant of the common Lawes of Disputing Needs any more answer to be given to particulars which one yields to then to say he grants them If he be over much acquainted with the Lawes of disputing Reddat mihi Minam Diogenes Let him who tanght me Logick give me my Money again But it is well we have his Concedo omnia c We grant all his particular Instances of these Contests between Kings and Popes Yet not so very well neither for what he granteth with one hand he taketh away with the other Not entring into that dispute how farre they were done Iustly how farre unjustly which is little to our purpose since the Authority it self is acknowledged on both Sides It is little to their purpose indeed but it is much to ours Is the Papall Power acknowledged where the Popes Soveraign Power his Legisllative power his Iudiciary Power his dispensative power are all opposed Much good may his dry Papacy as he pleaseth to call it sometimes do him In every one of these Instances besides meer matter of Fact there is an Inference to matter of right The Common Lawes of Disputing require that he should have answered that as well as granted the other If his Dispatches be such as this he may dispatch more answers in a day then St. Austin could have made Oppositions in a yeare When I said what is the Ground of his Exception Nothing but a Contradiction he urgeth that I make account a Contradiction is a matter of nothing No but I meant that his vain Objecting of Imaginary Contradictions is a matter of nothing Twenty of them will not amount to one Fleabiting and I shewed him that this ridiculous Contradiction which he bringeth here is such an one The pretended Contradiction is this that their Doctrin concerning the Pope is injurious to Princes and prejudices their Crownes and yet that they hold and doe the same in effect against the Pope that Protestants doe A doughty Contradiction both parts are as true as can be referendo singula singulis referring what I said to the right Subject as I applied it The Doctrin of the Pope and Court of Rome is injurious to Princes of whom I speake expresly and no others and yet soveraign Princes and their Councells have held and done the same things against the Pope in effect that Protestants doe Iust such another Contradiction as this The Guelphes are for the Pope against the Emperour yet the Gibellines are for the Emperour against the Pope and both Factions Roman Catholicks Thus he changeth Subjects and Predicates and times and respects and all Rules to make a Contradiction But his defence is more ridiculous then his pretended Contradiction That the substance of the Popes Authority is the point which belongs to me to impugn So the Contradiction lieth not in what I did say but what I should have said or rather what he would have had me to have said