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A49112
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A continuation and vindication of the Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness of separation in answer to Mr. Baxter, Mr. Lob, &c. containing a further explication and defence of the doctrine of Catholick communication : a confutation of the groundless charge of Cassandrianism : the terms of Catholick communion, and the docrine of fundamentals explained : together with a brief examination of Mr. Humphrey's materials for union / by the author of The defence.
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Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing L2964; ESTC R21421
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191,911
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485
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was so general that St. Cyprian and Optatus found the Consent of the whole Church upon it However half the World or all the known famous Churches were sufficient for Advice and Counsel though not for supreme uncontroulable Government which I never asserted to advise with all the known Churches which were within the reach of such Communication is sufficient to satisfie us how necessary they thought it to use the most effectual Means they could to preserve Catholick Communion and that they believed mutual Advice and Counsel a very proper means for that end and the Duty of all true Catholick Bishops This way St. Austin calls an Epistolare Colloquium Aug. de baptismo l. 3. cap. 2. a Conference by Letters which he thinks is not to be compared with the Plenarium Concilium as he very properly calls a general Council a full or plenary Council which is made up of wise and learned Prelates from distant parts of the World For when the Bishops of so many several Churches who may be well presumed to know the Judgment and Practise of their own Churches meet together without any private or factious Designs freely to debate and consult for the publick good of the Church the Authority of such a Council must needs be venerable and it must be some very great reason that will justifie a dissent from it Such Councils indeed are not infallible Article 21. as our Church asserts because they consist of fallible men who may be and have been deceived and therefore in Matters necessary to Salvation we must believe them no farther than they agree with the holy Scriptures though a modest man will not oppose his private judgment to the Decrees of a general Council unless the Authority of the Scripture be very expresly against it but in Rules of Discipline and Government their Authority is greater still because the Canons of general Councils are a great Medium and excellent Instrument of Catholick Communion the promoting of which is the principal end and the greatest use of general Councils and therefore though they do not command by any direct Authority and superior Jurisdiction yet they strongly oblige in order to serve the ends of Catholick Communion 2. But now suppose a man should assert the Authority of a general Council how does this subvert the Kings Supremacy or incur a Premunire For let the Authority of a general Council be what it will it is wholly Spiritual as the whole Government of the Church is considered meerly as a Church or Spiritual Society but the Supremacy of the King is an external and civil Jurisdiction in all Causes and over all Persons Ecclesiastical within his Dominions and Mr. Lob might as well say that every man who sets up any spiritual Authority in the Church subverts the Supremacy of the King and thus the King's Supremacy makes him a Bishop and a Priest too a Scandal which Mr. Lob's Predecessors raised in Queen Elizabeths days to disswade People from the Oath of Supremacy which it seems they were not then so fond of and which the Queen confutes in her Injunctions and tells her Subjects that she neither doth nor ever will challenge any other Authority but only this under God to have the Soveraignty and Rule over all manner of Persons born within these her Realms Dominions and Countries of what Estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be so as no other Forraign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them When Bishop Jewel writ his Apology and Defence to Scipio a Patrician of Venice who complained of the English Nation for not sending their Legates to the Council of Trent he never thought of this reason against it that it was contrary to the King's Supremacy which is owned and confirmed by the Laws of this Land and we may observe that the Statutes of Provisors and several Laws to preserve the Liberties of the Realm from the Usurpations of the Pope of Rome or any other Forraign Potentate were made and confirmed in several Kings Reigns long before Henry the 8th a particular Account of which the Reader may find in Dr. Burnet's History of the Reformation part 1. Book 2. p. 107. c. upon which the Clergy were convicted in a Praemunire by King Henry the 8th and therefore Arch-bishop Bramhall truly observes Bramhall's vindication of the Church of England That the Supremacy was not a new Authority usurped by that King but the ancient Right of the Imperial Crown of England and yet in those days it was not deemed a Subversion of the Supremacy to acknowledge the Authority of general Councils For after the Statutes of Provisors we find the English Bishops in the Councils of Constance and Basil which asserted the Authority of general Councils as high as ever any men did For indeed since Princes have embraced the Christian Faith no Bishops excepting the Pope of Rome have pretended to call a general Council but by the Will and Authority of the Prince nor can the Decrees and Canons of any Council be received in any Kingdom or obtain the Authority of Laws but by the Consent of the Prince which therefore certainly can be no encroachment upon his Supremacy While the King has the supreme executive Power in all Causes and over all Persons in his own Hands the spiritual Power and Authority of the Church is no invasion of his Rights This is sufficient at present in answer to Mr. Lob's insinuation that to assert the Authority of general Councils subverts the Kings Supremacy subjects the Church of England to a Forraign Court and Jurisdiction and thereby incurs the Penalty of a Praemunire whereby we see that he understands the Law as little as he does the Gospel only shews his good Will to poor Cassandrians and as much as he declames against penal Laws against Dissenters would be glad to see the Church of England once more under the Execution of a Praemunire 4. Mr. Lob has not done with me yet but to make me a perfect Cassandrian whether I will or not he adds as my sense Reply p. 12. That this Council of Forraign Bishops unto which they i.e. the Bishops of the Church of England are accountable must look on the Bishop of Rome as their Primate the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome being acknowledged it seems by our Author himself as well as by Bramhall The Primacy he saith out of Cyprian being given to Peter that it might appear that the Church of Christ was one and the Chair that is the Apostolical Office and Power is one Thus Cyprian on whom lay all the Care of the Churches dispatches Letters to Rome from whence they were sent through all the Catholick Churches all this is to be found from p. 208. to the end of the Chapter This is a terrible Charge indeed and home to the Purpose and Mr. Lob is a terrible Adversary in these days if he can but Swear as well as he can Write for all this is
mention the Country-Conformist who is such an insignificant Appendage and Hanger-on as a silly flie is to a Wheel though possibly he may have no more wit than to fancy that he has raised all this dust and stir They charge me with advancing a Cassandrian design and promoting an Union with the Church of Rome rather than with Protestant Dissenters And to insinuate the belief of this into his Readers Mr. Lob endeavours to prove that Arch-Bishop Laud had this design in his head but what is this to me I am no Arch-Bishop yet and greatly suspect I never shall be if he can prove that the Arch-Bishop died like a Papist or a Phanatick with a lye in his mouth or that he attempted any reconciliation with the Church of Rome which is not consistent with the Principles or Practices of the Primitive Church I think he was very much to blame for it and am very glad he did not perfect his Design but could a Reconciliation be obtained upon the principles of Primitive and Catholick Christianity accursed be the man who would hinder this Union which I would be glad to effect not only with shedding my Blood once but if it were possible a thousand times with all the Scorn and Obloquies of the most virulent Phanaticks into the Bargain But whatever Mr. Lob may fancy I look upon this as a very hopeless and impractible design and never had such a vain Conceit in my head while I was a 〈◊〉 â—â—â—iting the late Defence and had any one Whispered such an accusation in my Ear without at the same time shewing the folly and weakness of the Charge I should have been more puzzled to have found out the Rise and Occasion of it than to have answered all the Cavils against the Church of England which I have ever yet seen But though I knew nothing of a Cassandrian Design yet my Adversaries have found me out and if we will believe Mr. Lob I am got at least as far as France in my Journey to Rome surely there is some Conjuring in the Case for I don't know that ever I went a step beyond Canterbury But this is a Cause which will not bear an Ignoramus and therefore I must defend my self as well as I can and in order to that I shall 1. briefly represent the Doctrine of the Defence with respect to the Unity of church-Church-power and Government whereon this Charge of Cassandrianism is founded 2. Consider what the Doctrine of Cassander was in this matter 3. Examine the Arts my Adversaries have used to pervert the Sense of my words to turn them into Non-sense and Ridicule and to draw me head-long into the Popish Plot. 1. As for the first in order to prove that the Unity of the Catholick Church consists in one Communion I asserted that all the Bishops of the Church are but one 〈◊〉 invested with the same Power and Authority to Govern the Church that as St. Cyprian tells us Defence of the unreas of Separation p. 208. There is but one Episcopacy part of which every Bishop holds with full Authority and Power That all these Bishops are but one body who are bound to live in Communion with each other and to govern their respective Churches where need requires and where it can be had by mutual advice and consent and therefore that no Bishops are absolutely independent but are obliged to preserve the Unity of the Episcopacy or Episcopal Colledge as Optatus calls it whereon the Unity and Communion of the Catholick Church depends for it is impossible the Catholick Church should be one Body or Society or one Communion if it be divided into as many independent Churches as there are absolute and independent Bishops for those Churches must be independent which have an independent Power and Government as all those must have which have independent Governors or Bishops and independent Churches can never make one Body and one Catholick Communion because they are not Members of each other and thus the Unity of the Catholick Church must be destroyed unless we assert one Episcopacy as well as one Church one Evangelical Priesthood as well as one Altar all the World over But to make this as plain as possibly I can that every one may understand it who will I shall reduce the whole state of this Controversie under some few heads 1. There is but one Episcopacy because all the Bishops of the Catholick Church have originally the same Authority and Power in Church Affairs no one has the whole but each of them has a part and equal share and therefore they are called the Episcopal Colledge and a copious Body of Bishops as all the Churches in the World are one Catholick Church not because they ever do or ought to meet together for Advice and Counsel and Acts of Government from all parts of the World no more than the Catholick Church does for Acts of Worship but because they are and ought to be in Communion with each other they have all the same Power and Authority which must be exercised in one Communion 2. Though all Bishops have a Relation to the whole Church every Bishop being a Bishop of the Catholick Church yet the Rules of Order and good Government and the Edification of the Church require that the Exercise of this Power be in ordinary Cases limited and confined to a certain Part which we call a particular Church for as no particular Bishop can Instruct and Govern the Catholick Church no more than he can be in all parts of the World at the same time so every Bishop will be capable of exercising his Office to the best Advantage when his Care is confined to a certain Place and particular Church and every particular Church is likely to receive the greatest Benefit from the Care and Inspection of a fixed Pastor and Bishop 3. That the same Rules of Order and Government require that every Bishop have the chief Power of Government in his own Diocess for if every Bishop had Authority as often as he pleased to intermeddle in another Bishops Diocess and order the Affairs of his Church it must needs cause great Confusion and Distraction in all Churches and make the People very uncertain whom they are to obey and therefore it has been the constant Practice of the Apostles and all succeeding Ages to set Bishops and Pastors over particular Churches and to confine their Care and Inspection to them 4. But yet the Power of every Bishop in his own Diocess is not so Absolute and Independent but that he is bound to preserve the Unity of the Episcopacy and to live in Communion with his Collegues and Fellow-Bishops for this is the Foundation of Catholick Communion without which there can be no Catholick Church and therefore he who causelesly breaks this Unity can be no Catholick Bishop and this is the Foundation of all those greater Combinations of Churches and that Authority which is regularly exercised over particular Bishops by their Colleagues For