Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things or Causes as Temporal And that No Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have ANY JURISDICTION Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forreign Jurisdiction Priviledges Preheminence and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and Successors or united or annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Here all the Kingdom swears That none have or ought to have any Jurisdiction here who is Forreign Yet some Papists have been encouraged to take this Oath by this Evasion Obj. No Jurisdiction is here disclaimed of Forreigners but what belongs to the King But Spiritual Jurisdiction called the Power of the Keys belongs not to the King Ergo. Ans. For securing the King's Jurisdiction All Forreign Jurisdiction is renounced signifying that there is no such thing as a Jurisdiction over this Realm but the King 's and his Officers The Power of the Keys or Spiritual Power is not properly a Jurisdiction as that word includeth Legislation but only a Preaching of Christ's Laws and administring his Sacraments and judging of mens capacity for Communion according to those Laws of Christ And this under the Coercive Government of the King Much like that of a Tutor in a Colledge or a Physician in his Hospital What can be more expresly said than this here that No Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate have or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm Is that of Pope or Councils neither Ecclesiastical nor Spiritual Is not the word Prelate purposely put in to exclude that Power hence which Prelates claim Though the King claim not the Power of the Keys he knew that by the claim of that Power the Pope and Councils of Forreigners had been the disturbers of his Government And therefore all theirs here is excluded as a necessary means to secure his own 1. Popes and Councils have claimed a Legislative Power over us and all the Church But the Laws of this Land know no such but in Christ over all and in King and Parliament under him over this Land And therefore the Oath excludeth the Power claimed by Popes and Councils 2. As to Judicial Power these Forreigners claim a Power of Judging who in England shall be taken for a true Bishop and Minister who shall have Tythes Church-Lands and Temples whether the Kings Lords and all Subjects shall be judged capable of Church-Communion or be Excommunicate And our Laws declaring that all this Forreign Claim is Usurpation fully proveth that it was the sense of the Oath to exclude them They claim also a Power of Judging who shall pass here for Orthodox and who for Hereticks And in their Laws the consequence is who shall be burned for a Heretick or be exterminated or after Excommunication deposed from their Dominions and their Subjects absolved from their Allegiance But certainly the Oath excludeth them from all this The most of the Papists claim no Power directly due to their Pope but that which they call Ecclesiastical or Spiritual the rest is but by consequence and in ordine ad Spiritualia But if this be not excluded in the Oath then they intended not to exclude the Papacy And then what was the Oath made for or what sense hath it or what use And who can believe this If the meaning of the Oath be not to exclude the Pope's Ecclesiastical Power then they that take it may yet hold that the Pope is Head of all the Churches on Earth and hath the Authority to call and dissolve and approve or reprobate General Councils and may Ordain Bishops for England and his Ordinations and his Missionaries be here received and Appeals made to him and Obedience sworn to him his Excommunications Indulgences imposed Penances Silencings Absolutions Prohibitions here received All which our Statutes Articles Canons c. shew notoriously to be false It is evident therefore that this Oath renounceth all Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction II. The second proof is from many Acts of Parliament Those which prohibit all that receive Orders beyond Sea from the Pope or any Papists to come into England on pain of death Those that forbid the Doctrine Worship and Discipline both of Popes and Councils The words of 25 H. 8. c. 21. are these Whereas this Realm recognizing no Superiour under God but the King hath been and is free from Subjection to any man's Laws but only such as have been devised made and ordained within this Realm for the wealth thereof or to such other as the People of this Realm have taken at their free liberty by their own consent to be used among them and have bound themselves by long use and custom to the observance of the same not to the observance of the Laws of any Forreign Prince Potentate or Prelate but as to the accustomed and antient Laws of this Realm originally Established as Laws of the same by the said sufferance consent and custom and none otherwise It standeth therefore with natural equity and good reason c. that they may abrogate them c. Moreover the Laws of England determine that no Canons are here obligatory or are Laws unless made such by King and Parliament And if it be true which Heylin and some others say that the Pope's Canon-Laws are all here in force still except those that are contrary to some Laws of the Realm that is but as the Roman Civil Law is in force not as a Law of the Pope or old Romans but as made Laws to us by King and Parliament The Roman Senate and Emperor give us the Matter of the Civil Law and the Pope and Councils of the Canon-Law but the Soveraign Power here giveth them the Form of a Law as the King coineth Forreign Silver III. The Articles of Religion prove the same 1. The twenty first Article saith General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of Men whereof all be not governed by the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometime have erred even in things pertaining to God Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of the Holy Scriptures Here note 1. That General Councils so called in the Empire had no power to meet much less to Rule without the Commandment of Princes And so those called by the Emperor had no power over the Subjects of other Princes 2. And true Universal Councils will never be Lawfully called till either all the Earth have One Humane Monarch or all the Heathen Infidel Mahometan Papist Heretical and Protestant Princes agree to call them For one hath not Power over the Dominions of all the rest And so the Aristocratical Party put the
that was bound to Govern Then it was they only that were Authorized or had the Office and Power For Obligation to the Work though not ad hic nunc is Essential to the Office as well as Authority Or will the Performance of the Bishops of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries excuse all that succeed them to the end of the World from any Performance Why then not from all Pastoral Guidance And are they not then degraded XVIII We are against Singularity in Matters of Faith We believe that all Christs Church shall never err from any one Essential of Christianity or Communion else it would thereby cease to be a Church But we believe General Councils such as the Empire had have erred so far as to condemn each other of Heresie We perswade all Men to believe as the Church believeth that is to receive that from the Apostles quod ab omnibus ubique semper receptum fuit which the Church received and delivered as from them with known common Consent and to suspect odd Opinions Novelties and Singularities But Protestants against Papists commonly use these Distinctions 1. Authority of a Governor by Legislation and Judgment or either is one thing 2. Doctoral Authority like a Philosopher in a School of Consenters is another 3. The Authority of Witnesses which is their Obliging Credibility is another 4. The Authority of a Steward or Keeper of Records is another 5. The Authority of a Herald or Cryer or Messenger to publish Laws is another 6. And the Authority of Contractors in Mutual Self-Obligation is another Accordingly they hold 1. That there is no one Universal Head Governour or Summa Potestas Ecclesiastica to Rule the whole by Legislation or Judgment Personal or Collective but Christ. 2. That there is no one Person Natural or Political that is bound or authorized to be the Teacher of the whole World or Church but that all Pastors must Teach and Guide in their several Provinces 3. That the larger and more uncontrouled the Testimony is the greater is the Credibility and Authority of the Witnesses And therefore if all the Churches in the World as far as we can learn agree de facto that these are the Books Doctrines and practised Ordinances which they received and especially when Hereticks or Infidels and Enemies that would gainsay it cannot with any probability we thus receive the said Books and Practices as Baptism c. ex Authoritate Testium and not ex Authoritate Judicis Regentis or else Lay-Men such as Origen when he was a more credible Witness of the Text than an Hundred unlearned Bishops and such as Hierom that was no Bishop of whom I say the same yea and Women yea Hereticks and Infidels such as Pliny c. would be Church-Rulers 4. All Pastors being by Office to Preach Christ's Word and Ministerially Officiate accordingly are thereby especially intrusted with the keeping of these Sacred Records as Lawyers while they daily use them are with the Laws and the Universal Testimony of such Officers is the most credible part of the Witnesses Work or if not Universal the more the better 5. Every Pastor is as a Cryer to proclaim Christ's Laws 6. And in Circumstances left to Mutable Humane Determination the more common Consent Caeteris paribus the better And this is the use of Councils this is enough But the Protestants that I have known and read do make it our first Controversie with the Papists Whether Christ ever Instituted any one Head or Ruling Power over all the Church under himself And 2. Whether Pope or Council be such Both which they deny XIX If you have not read it I intreat you read in the Cabal-Supplement King Henry the VIII's Letter to the Archbishop and Clergy of the Province of York where you will find ☞ 1. Your cited seeming Contradictions of Scripture answered by use of Speech and Reason without any Universal Judicature 2. That Dic Ecclesiae cannot be meant of the Church Universal 3. That the Universal Church hath no Head or Governor but Christ but the Clergy subserve him as Ministers by whom he giveth Spiritual Grace and quae Spiritu aguntur libera sunt nulla Lege astringuntur and if the Teachers do their Office with scandal Magistrates must punish them and that it is the Ecclesia quae non Constat ex bonis malis which the King is not the Head of But that in Spirituals as the word signifieth Spiritual Persons and their Goods and Works and the enforcing the Observances of Gods Laws the King is Head And the reason of the word Head notably vindicated with much more XX. I crave your Pardon both for the Prolixity and Boldness while I add this Question not as accusing you of Popery Perjury or Disloyalty How can I be cleared from the guilt of Perjury and Disloyalty if having taken the ☞ Oath of Supremacy and subscribed according to the Canons c. I shall plead for the subjecting of the King and all Subjects to a Foreign Power in Spirituals when the Oath disclaimeth it and the Can. 1. saith That all Vsurped and Foreign Power hath no Establishment or Ground by the Law of God and is for most just Causes taken away and abolished and therefore no manner of Obedience or Subjection within His Majesties Realms and Dominions is due to ANY SVCH Foreign Power And all Ministers subscribe Can. 36. against all Foreign Power as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things or Causes as Temporal And Articl 21. General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And when will all Princes Orthodox Heretical Mahometan Heathen Enemies in VVar c. agree to gather them out of all the VVorld And when they be gathered together for as much as they be an Assembly of Men whereof all be not Governed with the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometime have erred even in things pertaining to God wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have no Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scriptures And doth Church-Unity Concord and Salvation lie on things not necessary to Salvation If you say that none of this speaketh against Foreign Ecclesiastical Power such as the Apostles had I answer 1. Not against a Foreigners Preaching and Baptizing and Celebrating the Lord's Supper if he be where we are and there he is no Foreigner But against all Foreigners proper Government of Men as their Subjects The Apostles Commission in that was extraordinary and yet they Ruled Doctorally none but Voluntary Consenters 2. The Law Oath Canon and Articles disclaim such Power as the Pope claimeth here But the Pope claimeth proper Ecclesiastical Government and most English and French Papists and half the rest I think claim for him only the power of the Word and Keys and not any forcing Power by the Sword XXI As hence I wonder not that Mr. Thorndike threateneth
bounds of Civil jurisdiction The many Councils which have been for Arians Eutychians Nestorians Monothelites Adoration of Images Papal tyranny c. and the many that have contradicted and condemned them tell us that the Right of Councils must have a better proof than their own affirmation And the far greater number of Christians that have approved or received the Erroneous tell us that they need a better proof than the reception of the greater part How great a part received Greg. 7th dictates and the Councils that Hereticated Royalists as Henricians But that proved not that these things were just Pope Vrbans Letter to King Lewis 13th of France 1629. in the 2d part of the Cab. p. 213. saith Your Ancestors have ever born as much respect to the exhortations of Popes as to the Commandment of God But do these words prove that this is true No more doth it that Leo the first was Caput Ecclesiae Vniversalis because he so called himself The Grand Signiour in his Defiance of Maximilian the Emperor ibid. p. 12. calls himself God in Earth Great and High Emperor of all the World the Great Helper of God King of Kings the only Victorious and Triumphant Lord of the World and of all Circuits and Provinces thereof And more Persons are Mahometans than Christians and more Heathens than either or both and yet none of this proveth Truth and Right § 10. I have marvelled that Carol. Boverius should think it a fit Argument to move our late King Charles 2d in Spain to turn Papist that Monarchy is the best Government in the State Ergo the Papal Monarchy in the Church Did he think the King so dull that he could not distinguish Particular Kingdoms and Monarchs from Vniversal How would the King have taken it if he had said Sir an Vniversal Monarchy is the best humane Government therefore you must subject your self and Kingdom to one Vniversal Monarch But the pretence of an Universal Democracy Aristocracy or Church-Parliament is more absurd and worse as I have proved § 11. Do our Changers of Government think that it is a small matter of which King and People will take no notice but be decoyed into by degrees in the dark to make King Lords Bishops and all the Kingdom the Subjects of a Foreigner and of a Parliament of Prelates who are themselves the Subjects of a Multitude of Foreign Princes Mahometans Heathens Greeks Papists c. As the Child said My Mother ruleth my Father and I rule my Mother and my Father ruleth the City Therefore I rule the City So we may then say the King ruleth England and a Council of Foreign Prelates rule the King and Heathen Mahometan Moscovian Armenian Papist c. Princes rule most of the Bishops in Council Ergo these Princes rule the King Do they know what it is for Pope or Prelates abroad to be made Judges Ecclesiastical of all persons and causes here and to have Power to Excommunicate King and Lords and depose Bishops and silence Ministers and Hereticate Dissenters and Interdict the Kingdom c. Again and again I say that I wonder if those men that have promoted so many Oaths and Promises in the Acts of Corporations Uniformity Vestries Confinement Conventicles Militia never to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State can possibly blind the Nation to think it no alteration to Subject King Church and Kingdom to a Foreign pretended Universal Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction Whether it be Perjury or Treason is no debate for me but I am sure that in ordine ad Spiritualia great temporal power will follow and Excommunicating and Anathematizing Kings and People hath not hitherto been a Toothless thing But quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat § 12. And what if they had found Ancient Councils Excommunicate some men without the Empire What pitty is it that any where Lords yea Bishops and Clergy men should be bred up in such Ignorance as to think that all Excommunicating is an act of Government I said before any Neighbour Prince Nation or People any number of Bishops when they hear another Nation turned notorious Hereticks may renounce Communion with them and declare the reason of it because they have made themselves uncapable Governing Excommunication per judicium publicum id est per personam publicam seu Rectorem is one thing and a declared renunciation and refusal of Communion per judicium privatum that is by an equal or private person is another thing I am not bound to stay till Turk or Pope is Excommunicated by their Governours before I renounce Christian Communion with them Paul's charge 1 Cor. 5. With such a one no not to eat and Tit. 3.10 A Man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid and St. John's Bid him not good speed c. may bind equals that have but judicium privatum discretionis when no Superior Ruler Excommunicateth the Sinner Chap. X. Some Questions about General Councils to be resolved before all the World can subject Kings Kingdoms Souls and Scripture to their Government or Decrees and take them for the Vnifying Ruling-Power over the Vniversal Church NOthing can be more necessary to all Christians Learned and Unlearned than to be sure of the truth of that which must be the foundation of all our obedience and our hopes And therefore if it be the General Councils Actual or Virtual in the chief Patriarchs and Metropolitans or supposed College of Bishops which is the Unifying or Constitutive Regent part of the Universal Church and on whose credit we must take the Scripture to be God's Word and from whose Judgment we must not appeal to Scripture or to God it 's the primum necessarium that we be sure of the Authority and Infallibility or Credit of such Councils And first we are to consider the matter of their Determining Power 1. There are Things 2. Words 3. The signification of words to be judged of 2. There are Truths of Natural and of Supernatural Revelation to be judged of 3. There are the Essentials of Christianity the Integrals and the Accidents to be judged of 4. And the Judgment is 1. Witnessing 2. Teaching 3. Or judicially Deciding We must first know who are the Judges 2. What is their work 3. How certain they are Qu. 1. Did not Apostles and other Preachers singly convert men even thousands before there was any General Council and that by such evidence as the single Preacher brought Or was it by the Argument of Universal Consent that every one then was converted e. g. the Eunuch Act. 8. The Jailor and Lydia Act. 16. Cornelius and his house Act. 10. The three thousand Act. 2.37 c. Q. 2. Did none that St. Paul wrote his Epistles to believe them till they were told that all the Teachers and Bishops of the Churches gave them their Authority Were the Gospels written by Matthew Mark Luke and John received only by the Argument of the Councils or Colleges Authority Q.
Master of a Colledge in Cambridge whom I take for his Mouth being himself present hath published what he would have the World to believe of our Discourse in a Book against me for Universal Jurisdiction And therefore he hath put some necessity on me to publish the Truth which I am confident will not be to the Readers loss of time who will peruse it When I had sent him my Book of Concord he sent me Dr. Saywell's first by Dr. Crowther of which I wrote to him my sence On this he desired me to come speak with him which having done three several days I thought it meet at Night to Recollect our Discourse and send him the Sum of all in Letters that neither he might forget it or any Man misrepresent it These four Letters I have therefore here annexed and with them an answer to Dr. Saywell's Reasons for a Forreign Jurisdiction XXIV I am so far from charging the Church of England with the guilt of this Doctrine or Design that I prove that the Church of England is utterly against it But then by that Church I do not mean any Men that can get heighth and confidence enough to call themselves the Church of England but those that adhere to the Articles of Religion the Doctrine Worship and Government by Law Established XXV And I am so far from uncharitable Censures of the Men whom I thus confute that I profess that I believe Mr. Thorndike Bishop Guning Mr. Dodwell c. to be Men that do what they do in an Erroneous Zeal for Unity and Government and are Men of great Labour Learning and Temperance and Religious in their way And I have the same Charity and Honour for many French Papists yea for such Papal Flatterers as Baronius who joyned with Philip Nerius in his first Oratorian Exercises and Conventicles Yea I cannot think that they that burn and torment Men for Religion could live in quietness if they did not confidently think that it is an acceptable Service to God And I fear not still to profess that were it in my power I would have no hurt done to any Papist which is not necessary to our own defence But I must say that I much more honour such as Gerson Ferus Espencaeus Monlucius Erasmus Vives Cassander Hospitalius Thuanus c. who among Papists drew nearer the Reformers than such among us as having better Company and Helps draw fromward them and nearer to the Deformers XVI And as to you Reverend Brethren Conformists who are true to the True Church of England I humbly crave of you but three things I. That you will by hard study and Ministerial diligence and holiness of life keep up to your power the common Interest of Christianity of Faith and serious Piety and Charity II. That you will heartily promote the Concord of all godly Protestants and therein follow such measures as Christ himself hath given us and as you would have others use towards you III. That you will openly and faithfully disown the dangerous Errour of Universal Legislative and Judicial Soveraignty and bringing the King and Church and Kingdom under any Forreign Jurisdiction Monarchical Aristocratical or Mixt and never stigmatize the Church of England and your sacred Order with the odious brand of Persidiousness after so many Imposed and Received Subscriptions Professions and Oaths against all Endeavours to alter the Government of Church or State XVII And as to the Nations fears of future Popish Soveraignty for my part I meddle no further than 1. To do the work of my own Office and Day 2. And to pray hard for the Nations Preservation 3. And to trust God and hope that he will perfect his wonders in such a deliverance as shall confirm our belief of his special care and providence for his Church But I must tell you that such Reasons as Bishop Gunings Chaplains should not be thought strong enough to make you so secure as to abate the fervour of your prayers His words are these more congruous far to him than to you and me page 282 283. The only means that is left to preserve our Nation from destruction and to secure us from the danger of Popery is to suppress all Conventicles c. Being by this method provided against having our People seduced by the Papists which as yet they are in great danger of the next thing is to consider how to prevent violence that those be not murdered and undone that cannot be perswaded to submit Now to secure this His Majestes gracious promises to conform any Bills that were thought necessary to preserve the Established Religion that did not intrench on the Succession of the Crown do make the way very easie if our People were united among themselves and in the Religion of the Church of England For matters may be so ordered that all Officers Ecclesiastical Civil and Military and all that are employed in Power and Authority of any kind be persons both of known Loyalty to the Crown and yet faithful Sons of the Church and firm to the Established Religion And the Laws that they act by may be so explained in favour of those that Conform to the Publick Worship and the discouragement of all Dissenters that we must reasonably be secure from any violence that the Papists can offer to force our submission For when All our Bishops and Clergy are under strict Obligations and Oaths and the People are guided by them and all Officers Civil and Military are firm to the same Interest and under severe penalties if they act any thing to the contrary Then what probable danger can there be of any violence or disturbance to force us out of our Religion when all things are thus secured and the Power of External Execution is generally in the hands of men of our own Perswasion Nay moreover the Prince himself will by his Coronation Oath be obliged to maintain the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom so Established I am not of a Calling fit to debate the Reasons of these Reverend Fathers some will read them with a Plaudite some with a Ridete some with a Cavete and I with an Orate And he that will abate the fervour of his prayers by such securing words is one whose Prayers England is not much beholden to The words with all their designs are edifying as Diagnostick and Prognostick I only say Seeing we receive a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12.28 29. March 28. 1682. Chap. I. The Protestant Church of England is against all Humane Vniversal Soveraignty Monarchical or Aristocratical and so against all Forreign Church Jurisdiction I Prove this I. From the Oath of Supremacy which saith thus I do utterly testifie and declare in my Conscience That the King's Highness is the only Supream Governour of this Realm and of all other His Highness Dominions and Countreys as well in all