taking it for proved that a general Council is superiour to the Pope it must necessarily follow that there lies an Appeal from the Pope to such a Council And that his hands are tied up by such an Appeal so that he cannot proceed at least to Censure the Appellant for this were not only a private Injury to the Person but an Invasion of the Rights of the Supreme Court of Judicature among Christians Therefore if the Pope should do so Uncanonical a thing he may be Canonically disobeyed and resisted Yea he ought to be so for it were a betraying the Churches right to do otherwise till there is such a Court or Council to which the Appeal was made And such a Council there would be at least once in ten years if the Pope did not hinder it For having taken upon-himself the power of Calling and Presiding in Councils it is his pleasure to have none And no doubt he hath reason for it though there is Law to the contrary as good Law for a Council every ten years as can be made by any Authority in the Western Church Such Appeals from the Pope to a General Council have been made by divers Persons and Societies in the Roman Communion as namely by Auxilius in the name of the Clergy of all Italy By Michael of Caesena in the name of the whole Franciscan Order By seven Cardinals who were at that time the major part of their Colledge By divers Emperours of Germany against divers Popes some of whom they deposed and made other Popes in their Councils By divers Kings of France some of whom have forbid all Communication with Rome till they had right done them in their Controversies That some of these had cause enough for what they did and that they had just Authority to do it will be granted by most of them of the Roman Church But they will not grant the like of our King Henry VIII whom they make Author of the Protestant Schism as they call it And yet setting aside Popular Opinions and Prejudices I do not see what there was really in his Case which might not be cleared from Schism by those Rules and Examples I speak only of his casting off the Popes Authority as being that which no doubt was a means to bring on the Reformation As for those other things with which he is charged they are extrinsick to our Cause and we are no way accountable for them Namely for his dissolving of Monasteries It was one whom Wolsey had bred to it that taught him the way and they whom he employed would have burnt us if we had lived in those days For his being Head of the Church whosoever is offended at it let him blame the Six-Article men who brought up that Title and who both Preached and Writ for it and not the Q. Elizabeth Protestants who cast it forth Much more for his Personal excesses whatsoever they were if they concern any Religion it must be theirs and not ours For as to his Conscience they tell us he always continued a Roman Catholic These things being set apart or charged where they ought to be there will remain on our account only this to be considered Whether that Prince were guilty of Schism in casting the Popes Authority out of this Kingdom Or whether he did no more in that matter than he might lawfully do according to the Principles of his own that is the Roman Communion If he had Right to Appeal from the Pope to a Council and was hindred by him from prosecuting that right and was thereby forced to disobey and oppose him in this Case it has been shewn that Disobedience and Resistance was Lawful Whether that were his Case will appear by searching into matter of Fact And to be rightly informed of this one must not take all for true that Sanders says though having the luck to be contemned at the first by them that should have confuted him he has carried the World before him ever since being not only transcribed by the Writers of his side but also followed by many others that seem not to know whence they have their Stories We that live in a more inquisitive Age have seen many things of which he is the Author acknowledged by his Friends to be very improbable and some things proved by others to have been altogether impossible Yet in those things which he says without evident partiality Protestants are not unwilling he should be heard and Roman Catholics may be content to hear others with him who though Protestants yet are not liable to the like imputation In the Caufe of that King's Appeal many things are to be considered elsewhere which are not proper for this occasion It suffices to know that in his Minority he was betrothed to Katharine of Spain his Brothers Widow That the Contract was made by his Father for reasons of State against the judgment and advice of Archbishop Warham who then told him that he thought it neither honourable nor well-pleasing to God That the People at that time murmured against it and soon after the Prince himself as Warham advised made a formal Protestation that he would never marry her And yet after his Fathers death he was perswaded to it and did marry her with the Popes Dispensation When he had lived with her near seventeen years and as Sanders says was weary of her whether he was or no is not material the Popes Legate Cardinal Wolsey pretended to have found a Nullity in the Marriage and in care for the King's Salvation as he said acquainted Bishop Longland the Kings Confessor with it They both declared this to the King whose ancient doubt being now revived he spent almost a whole year in Study and Consultation concerning it I enter not into the merit of the Cause being indifferent at this time whether the Marriage was Lawful or no. For it appears which is enough that he had reason to doubt and that he took the best way for satisfaction according to their Principles When he had satisfied his own Judgment as himself says though Sanders say otherwise And had the Judgments not only of those Men before-mentioned but of all the Clergy of England save two that his Marriage was Null And he had reason to believe that most Learned Men abroad were of the same Opinion there wanted only this more to have the Popes Declaration of the Nullity This at present could not be had for he was the Emperour's prisoner But as soon as he was at liberty being desired by the King who had obliged him above all men and whom as yet he had occasion to use it seemed at first that there would be no difficulty that way For the Pope granted all his requests gave the King what Commissioners he had named impower'd them to hear the matter in England gave them Bulls
to shew the King and to assure him he was in earnest because things could not be done presently in form of Law he gave him secret advice to marry while the cause was depending The King having been two years without a Wife and not only holding himself free in his conscience but expecting to be shortly declared so and having now some kind of leave to chuse another cast his eye on Anne Bolen one whose Person and Birth might have deserved the best of his subjects and who being then a stranger in England could not have that part which Sanders gives her in displacing Queen Katharine nor could have preserved her any otherwise than by submitting to the King's lust the refusal whereof made her worthy of a nobler application But this Lady had been brought up in France among Protestants and was suspected to have some inclination that way which suspicion was enough not only to blacken her but to dash the King's suit much the sooner if not only for her sake It moved but slowly before for the Pope being engaged by the Emperour had sent instructions after his Legates requiring them to use all possible delays either to conceal his Bulls or to burn them and leave him free to do as he should see occasion Thus far he seems to have gone before he heard what choice the King had made But when that was discovered and whether for that cause or because he had made a new Alliance with the Emperour which tended to make the Popes Nephew Duke of Florence and the Queen being the Emperour's Aunt ought in reason to have some benefit of it whatsoever moved him to it the Pope after this would trust her cause no longer in England but having voided that Commission to his Legates called it home to his own Determination The King not knowing what to do next and taking time to consider in his Progress had Cranmer brought to him by some that chanced to hear him say what they thought was material in the Case He was a stranger to all that had passed hitherto which I mention because some would make him a chief man in it But from what he had heard and especially from their discourse he judged that the King had taken a wrong way in courting the Pope to retract his Predecessour's dispensation whereas in truth as most learned men thought the Matter it self was Indispensable And because it was not reasonable to expect that the Pope would judge it so for that had been to cut off a main limb of the Papacy he therefore wish'd that instead of dancing attendance at Rome the King would send to the Universities as being most able and unconcerned and get them to declare their Judgments in the case Hereupon the King sent learned men with his case and got the judgments of the Universities upon it To send to those in the Emperours dominions had been to no purpose But he had ours in England and those in France of his side and the two chief in Italy though not only the Emperour opposed but the Pope who had Bologna in his Territory And whereas it is said the King bought them which his Agents deny they say that the Emperour bought hands on the contrary and that he offered largely to get those who had given their judgments for the King to retract it but they would not take his Money though they might much more safely than the other The King being thus strengthened in his cause had reason to be the less in fear of the Pope and yet it appears he was not the more willing to break with him For after this he made fresh application to him by his Orators and Letters which were seconded with a Petition under the hands and seals of both the Archbishops and others the chief men of the three States of this Kingdom They represented their own and others judgments of the case they passionately besought him to do the King and them right in it they declared that if he did not they should think he had left them to themselves All this came out of time for the Pope was not then to be perswaded to break his Alliance while he was gathering the fruits of it This the King understood by his Answer And therefore knowing what he was to expect from abroad he was the more careful to secure himself at home Where to satisfie the minds of the people he declared what had passed to all his Subjects in Parliament he shewed them the Judgments of the Universities and the books of above one hundred Doctors against the lawfulness of his Marriage He also caused the same to be shewn to Queen Katharine by some Lords of his Council who would have perswaded her to withdraw her Appeal that she had made to the Pope and to refer her cause to the Judgment of others She refused it and thereupon was removed from the Court and had her choice given her of the Kings houses in the Country The Queen prosecuting her Appeal the Pope by Letters exhorted the King to receive her Which he refused as being unlawful for him to do and offered the Pope to send Doctors to dispute it before him He also got the King of France to mediate for him who did it as being assured of the Justice of his Cause But all this did not hinder the Pope from committing it to the Dean of the Rota who cited the King to appear before him This being done once and again the King entred his Protest against all proceedings in that Court. And the same day he privately married Anne Bolen in which if he was too hasty it was because he had not been quite seven years to consider Not long after this he had the Nullity of his former Marriage judg'd and declared in his own Kingdom which being done he owned her publickly as his Queen and gave her the solemnity of a Coronation This was no sooner heard of at Rome but the Pope who as long as the King was Plaintiff had used all possible delay and dissimulation now the Scales being turned without delay declared this Marriage a Nullity and gave Sentence of Excommunication against the King unless he put away Anne and restored Katharine before the end of September next The mean while the Pope made sure of the French King by a Treaty then afoot which produced an Interview between them at Marseilles and a Marriage between their two nearest Relations Our King in hope this new Allyance would have given good effect to the French King's Mediation in his behalf sent his Embassadours thither They waited there for a while but found nothing but delays And the Pope was now returning to Rome where he resolved to proceed in the Cause Therefore at an Audience before him they declared the King's Appeal
diligence in our intestine Divisions and in the growth of Atheism which we cannot but be sadly sensible are both much increased since the late Toleration In these and the like practises they plainly declare that rather then not bring in Popery they would drive out Christianity before them and not leave the name of Christ to the people that will not receive the Pope as his Vicar How those Churches where he is so received and bears rule as he would do among us are blessed in it we may partly guess by the means that he employs to get us under him For it is seldom known that they who are so greedy of power use it well when they have it But not to go by guess when we have a Map before us We may see the condition of his Subjects describ'd by some of themselves that writ in those times when men durst write of such things when there was no Inquisition for them nor no Index Expurgatorius for their Writings I believe a more cruel Bondage a more miserable Thraldom and Yoke then they describe never was among the barbarous Nations I believe also the Inquisition where it is introduc'd hath not made their condition easier since And that it is not introduc'd in some Countreys as namely in France and Flanders they may thank the poor Protestants for it Where such are the Pope will have a care not to make too much noise for fear of frighting away the Birds that he would take And yet in France where there is no Inquisition he found other ways not long since to make the Iansenists feel the weight of his hand and that severely for no other reason but because in certain School-points they presum'd to oppose another party that were more firm to his Interests If this be his way of keeping Unity for which they so much cry up his Government though men do not speak so well of the Russian which keeps Unity better I see no reason why we should not be content and endure our dissentions or rather find some other way to compose them than by putting our necks into a yoke which being once fastned it will be too late for us to complain afterward We must either draw as he would have us or else go to the Shambles For the Temporal State how it hath been turmoild with this Papal Usurpation would ask a large Book to describe as the matter deserves I shall only say this that ever since it began it hath hung like a Comet over Kingdoms and Nations and shed forth direful Influences on all that have been any way obnoxious to it But it came not to its height till Pope Hildebrand's days whom their heavenly Muster-Roll calleth St. Gregory VII A Saint no doubt worthy of Red Letters for he caused the shedding of more Christian Blood than Mahomet himself and as Mahomet did he taught his Sect to do the same and merit Heaven by it His Dictates are commonly known being publish'd both in his Books and in the Councils I appeal to any one that hath read them whether Antichrist at his coming if he be yet to come can speak greater things Sure I am nothing can be more contrary to the humble and meek spirit of Christ. Among these there is one Doctrine briefly expressed but more amply declared in his Bulls and in his actions pursuant to them It is concerning a power that he assumes to himself to depose Kings and to dispose of their Kingdoms Which Arrogant Claim such as none but the Devil ever made before him hath ever since been continued by his Successors and yet is as often as they see occasion both declared and manifested by the like Bulls and actions The woful effects of it throughout this Western part of Europe are notoriously known to all that read History having torn the Bowels of this part of Christendom like an Earthquake for these last six hundred years having shaken the Foundations of all Empires Kingdoms and States involving all of them at one time or other in bloody and cruel Wars accursed and unnatural Rebellions and all other consequent Calamities In Germany particularly where it first began to operate The two next Emperours were fain to fight no less than sixty Field-battels to keep their Crowns upon their Heads In France it hath wrought proportionably Other Countreys have suffered their share But none more than England in King Iohn's miserable days And that had been forgotten in 88. if the design had taken which God only could and did defeat when otherwise this Doctrine in all probability had destroyed the English Kingdom and Nation we had been gone and our name had scarce remained upon the face of the Earth The sad experience of the manifold mischiefs and dangers both to Church and State from this pretended Authority taught our Fore-fathers at sundry times to provide against it by Laws with such Penalties annex'd to them as they found needful to prevent the like mischiefs and dangers for the future It appears that the ancientest Laws of this kind were made by them that lived and died in the Roman Communion I mean the Laws of Provisors and Praemunire enacted some hundreds of years since by Roman Catholick Kings and their Parliaments who could have no design against any other of those things we call Popery for they held the same erronious Opinions which our now-Papists do though they held them not as Articles of Faith But they endeavoured by those Laws to secure themselves against the daily Encroachment of the Pope and his Faction in the Roman Church When those Banks were found insufficient to restrain the growing Torrent within its bounds they found it needful to stop the Channel to exclude the Papacy it self and turn it out of the Kingdom This was done by King Henry VIII upon such a Provocation as perhaps would have moved a much gentler Prince to do the same For he was made to dance Attendance upon the Court of Rome five or six years for Sentence in a Cause which he commenced not of himself but by advice of the Popes Legat and his Confessor A Cause which the Pope himself at first had encouraged in which he had the judgment of the whole Church of England and divers Foreign Universities of his side His exclusion of the Papal Authority was by Acts both of Parliament and of Convocation almost no man dissenting They both form'd the Oath of Supremacy and took it themselves and joyn'd with him in imposing it in direct opposition to this grand point And yet this King himself and all the Members of those Bodies were firm to all things else that we call Popery It was otherwise in the time of Queen Elizabeth of blessed Memory who at the entrance of her Reign not only repair'd her Father's Fence against the Papal Authority but also purged the Church of all those Errours and Corruptions which are yet retain'd and own'd by all them of the Roman Communion And yet she
laid no penalty on any of them but the loss of their Ecclesiastical Preferments and the payment of Twelve pence for every Sunday that they were absent from Church This is all that they suffer'd for many years till the Pope took upon him to turn her out of her Kingdom When he had publish'd his Bull to that purpose and sent it hither among her Subjects and some of them had taken Arms and tried all ways to put that Bull in execution then she enacted a Law to forbid any of her Subjects under pain of Premunire to bring Bulls or any other such Trumpery from Rome and made it Treason for any of them to be reconciled as they call it to the Roman Church Yet for six years more though some were taken in the offence none suffer'd the penalty of that Law When the Pope proceeded further in Hostility against her to give away her Crown to invade her Dominions and to practise against her life when she found that under pretence of Religion he drew over many of her Subjects and train'd them up as his spiritual Janizaries in Houses founded for that purpose when she found that at their return they fully answered the ends of their Education and rather listed Souldiers against her than made Proselytes to their Religion then she executed those former Laws and made more from time to time as they gave her occasion In which Laws though she found it necessary to forbid sundry Acts which were purely Religious and to make it penal to such as were taken at them because she had no other way to find out them that were dangerous to the state yet she made it sufficiently appear that the design of such Laws was only against dangerous persons by the great care she took to turn the edge of them from those that were otherwise She gave private Instructions to her Judges that before any was to suffer by the Sanguinary Laws they should examine him how he stood affected to the State whether he owned Hildebrands Doctrine whether he approved the Popes Sentence whether he would side with him against her Majesty If they found any one in those Circumstances of a Prisoner dead in Law so desperately bold that he durst own a Foreign power in defiance of her that had his life at her mercy she would not have her Judges spare him that she might be very sure would not have spared her nor her Kingdom Otherwise if they stood right as to the Civil Authority it was her will that none should suffer death And though they were such of the Clergy whom she knew to be the Popes Disciples and Pensioners and therefore thought it not safe to trust them in her Kingdom yet if they gave her a fair answer she sent them out of it quietly And thus she dismist some of them that proved afterward as errant Traytors as any whom she put to death But for many other of their Clergy and especially those who were Priests in Queen Mary's days knowing them to be of peaceable Principles she suffered them to live peaceably in her Kingdom Of the Laity likewise she put none to death that would disown the Popes temporal power She took only a pecuniary Mulct with which she thought fit to repair her self for the charge she was put to in defending her self against the Head of their Communion When that charge was apprehended to be over namely at King Iames his coming to the Crown they were discharged even of those pecuniary penalties The King knew of no Sentence that the Pope had issued forth against himself and finding no trouble from those of his Communion he was willing to give none Nor did he till he had tried them None suffer'd among them in any kind none had cause to be in fear of any suffering no distinction was made between them and other Subjects But this calm was soon interrupted by the breaking out of a Conspiracy which yet seemed only to waken the vigilance of the State For no great matter was done upon it till another broke forth that of the Powder-Treason which out-went all former examples And then when it was almost too late he understood by searching into this Conspiracy that though the Pope had not deprived him by name of the Kingdom yet he had barred his right to it by a sufficient Description having sent out two Breves before the Queens death in which he commanded all his Catholicks not to suffer any Protestant how near soever in Blood to succeed her in the Kingdom This Papal Precept it was to which the Authors themselves ascribed their Gunpowder-Treason And that the King might not always be in the like danger he saw no way but to punish them that heeded such Precepts Other Papists he excused and made himself as it were their Compurgator declaring to the World that he believ'd they were innocent and peaceable Only they were not to be excused for keeping ill Company For they joyned in all Religious Acts with those of Hildebrand's Sect therefore they ought not to think much if their purses paid for it But otherwise the King did what lay in him to distinguish them And therefore he provided the Oath of Alleigance by the taking or refusing whereof he might be able to know the one from the other That Oath was made at first in such Terms as might perhaps have raised scruple in those that held the Papacy to be of Divine Right though not in Temporals but only in Spiritual things Though most of that Communion held otherwise in France and few held so in England in King Henry VIII's days Yet lest that might stick with any innocent person the King that desired to hurt none that might be spared and well knowing all their Principles for he had studied their Authors therefore took upon him so to moderate the Oath that it could not pinch the Conscience of any Roman Catholick that was not first infected with Hildebrand's Principles And they were generally so well satisfied with the Oath in those Terms in which he had conceived it that it was forthwith taken by the Superior of the Secular Clergy and by many other both of the Clergy and Laity Few stuck at it but those of Hildebrand's Sect whom the King had a mind to single out of the Herd and to rid the Land of them that he might live quietly with the other Roman Catholicks But this pleased not at Rome where only those are the Darlings And it concerned the Pope to assert his own power in Temporals which being something the younger he is more fond of than that in Spirituals and yet the elder being the more popular he wilfully mistook and perswaded the people as if he had believed himself that the Oath was against his power in Spirituals But he mistook not in forbidding the Oath of Allegiance to be taken by any Catholick upon any Terms whatsoever His Prohibition was under pain of his Curse both which were confirm'd by one
from the Pope to the next lawful General Council Which Appeal the Pope rejected as being unlawful and against the constitution of one of his Predecessours He also declared that there should be a General Council but that the calling of it belonged not to the King but to himself And soon after the term that he had set for the restoring of Queen Katharine being now expired he caused his Sentence against the King to be openly set up at Dunkirk which was then in the Emperours Dominions This was only a declarative Sentence in the case of Attentates as they term it but this being passed there was no doubt but soon after he would proceed to a Definitive Sentence in the cause The King was now concerned to look about him and to provide for the worst that could happen Therefore first with the advice of his Council he acquainted his Subjects with his Appeal which he caused to be set up on every Church door throughout his Kingdom And that his people might understand the validity of it he commanded that they should be taught that a General Council is above the Pope and that by Gods Law the Pope has no more to do in England than any other Forein Bishop Next he sent to engage as many Forein Princes as he could into a stricter Allyance with him And yet lastly to shew that he sought not these ways but was driven to them he desired the Bishop of Paris who was then Embassadour in England to get his Prince to deal effectually with the Pope and to promise in his name that if the Pope would forbear to pass any definitive Sentence till the cause might be heard before indifferent Judges he would also forbear what he had otherwise purposed to do that is to withdraw his obedience from the See of Rome The Bishop gladly took the office of Mediation upon himself and though it was now the dead of Winter yet he went post to Rome to discharge it There in Consistory he delivered his Message to the Pope and so far prevailed that at his earnest request there was a present stop of proceedings on condition that the King should send a Ratification of his promise precisely by such a day In prefixing the day they seemed not to have considered the time of the year For though the Messenger whom the Bishop sent into England found a present dispatch there yet being hindered by weather he did not return within his day The Pope as if he had watcht for that advantage resolved immediately to proceed to a definitive Sentence There being a Consistory called for that purpose the Bishop once more came in and pressed for a longer time He begg'd no more but six days which as he said might be granted to a King that had waited on them with patience for six years It was put to the vote where through the eagerness of the Imperial Cardinals not only that small request was denied but such precipitation was used that as much was done at once in that Consistory as would have askt no less than thrice according to their usual forms Such hast they were in to cut off and to destroy him whom three Popes successively had entitled their Defender and Deliverer When they had done their will within less than fix days that is the second day after this rash and hasty Sentence the Post returned from the King with a Ratification of all that had been promised in his name And he brought this further offer from the King that he would submit to the Judgment of that Court on condition that the Imperial Cardinals who had made themselves Parties against him should be none of his Judges There was an Authority sent for Proctors to appear for him on that condition At which great submission of the King compared with their precipitation the wiser Cardinals were astonished and petitioned the Pope for an arrest of Judgment Which could not well be denied him in those Circumstances And yet it was as if it had not been granted for they that got the Sentence passed by majority of Votes had the same will and power to get it confirmed And confirmed it was with this advantage that the Execution of the Sentence was committed to the Emperour who would be sure to see it done thoroughly as well to enrich himself with the Spoyls as to take his revenge in the ruine of a Prince that had provoked him no way more than in his zeal for the deliverance of this Pope out of his hands In this series of things I cannot but observe the hand of God and adore that unsearchable wisdom by which he made way to bring in the Reformation of this Church There was no King in that Age so zealous for Popery as he had been that came now to throw it out of his Kingdom Whosoever considers him from first to last in this business cannot but see he had no intention to do this He did all things to avoid it that could be done by one who was perswaded of the Justice of his cause And those Princes and Prelates who were perswaded as he was did their parts to hinder things from coming to this extremity None desired it but the Spanish and Imperial Faction unless perhaps the Pope himself could desire to lessen the Papacy by cutting off a whole Kingdom from the Church but he seemed to mind nothing but the raising of his Family and in order to that let the Imperialists do what they would with him Perhaps he might think when his own turns were served to give the King satisfaction afterwards as it may seem by what one says that when the Sentence was past he suspended the Execution of it till the end of September next But he died before that time and so his Sentence continued in force The next Pope that came after him did not approve what he had done for to use his own words he had urged him to right the King in his Divorce and would have perswaded the Emperour to have born it patiently But as then he could not prevail on that side so now he came too late to be heard on the other For on the day of his Coronation at Rome the Parliament met here in England that made the Act of Supremacy The edge of which Law falling severely on the Friends of the Papacy even while the Pope was offering at a reconciliation he was thereby provoked to curse the King afresh by a Bull which yet was not published till some years after When the King having presumed to Un-saint Thomas Becket the Pope thereupon pronounced him no King which made the breach quite unreconcileable I have given so large account of this matter because it is brought into common discourse and as it is told serves to blacken many other beside the King who was only or chiefly concerned in it Otherwise it would serve for our
present occasion to show which I think I have sufficiently done that he had cause to Appeal from the Pope to a Council that he did Appeal in due form of Law and prosecuted it with great Moderation which was enough to acquit him from Schism as far as we are concerned in it That on the other hand the Pope rejected his Appeal to the affront of that Supreme Tribunal among Christians and not only proceeded against the Appellant in which case the Appellant might and ought to resist him but he also took a course that the case should never be otherwise For whereas the Pope assumes to himself the only power to call Councils and whereas there had been none in Ten years to say no more and therefore a Council ought to have been then according to the Canons yet the Pope would have no Council then nor afterwards till he had tried all other ways to destroy both the King and his Kingdom When at last after many years talk and deliberation a Council was called that at Trent which pretends to be a General Council it was such as the King could not think himself bound to acknowledge nay he was bound to oppose it as well for his own preservation as to maintain the Common Right of Christians according to the Principles then received in the Western Church By his Appeal he was not bound to submit to any other than he expressed in it that is a Lawful General Council Such the Councils of Constance and Basil were then generally acknowledged to have been And it was the cry of the Western Church as well in this as the foregoing Ages for such a Council as those were to reform abuses as well in the Head as in the Members But the Head was as it would be and therefore being to chuse would take no Physick to cure it self This was visible in the Popes extreme averseness to a Council till he saw that without it the Nations were likely to Reform themselves Then he began to think it needful to call one himself But at first he named no time or place Then he named first one Town and then another When men began to think he was in earnest for they had been often fooled with reports the King declared he would not own a Council called by the Popes single Authority It was the Judgment of the Church of England that he ought not to own it for so their Synod declared that neither the Bishop of Rome nor any one Prince whatsoever may by his own Authority call a General Council without the express consent of the residue of Christian Princes When afterwards it appeared that the Pope was intent upon it the King on the same grounds made his publick Protestation shewing that the Indiction of a Council belonged not to the Bishop of Rome but to the Emperour and Princes which should send or come thither The like Protestation he sent abroad into all forein Countries And he afterward made it good by not sending one Bishop to the Council when it met though one of his Subjects was there whom the Pope was pleased to make a Bishop with a Title in this Kingdom Having thus no obligation to own this for a General Council he was therefore obliged to oppose it as being the Mockery and Abuse of that Supreme Judicatory joyned with the defrauding all Christians of their right in it and particularly himself of the benefit of his Appeal to it Which things he ought to have considered had it been held in the most innocent manner But much more being held as it was with most apparent design to establish those abuses which all Christendome cried out to have reformed to deprive the diffusive Church of that which was the only remedy for them to bring it to pass that there should be no more General Council as now we see there is like to be none while the world stands particularly as to himself he had cause to oppose the Trent Council as far as he was able For it was originally designed to please the Emperour and thereby to oblige him to head the Party of Christian Princes whom the Pope was then uniting to make War against England And as that Council was framed in all its circumstances the King could consider it no otherwise than he did the Pope himself who was his open and implacable Enemy For as the Pope called it by his single Authority so he always presided in it by his Legates He had it filled with his Creatures Italians and others who were sure to carry every thing by their Number And yet for fear they should forget themselves every thing must be examined at Rome before it could pass through their hands And being past yet it was of no force till it had the Pope's Approbation By which means he made himself so far Lord of this Council that though perhaps he could not pass whatsoever he pleased yet nothing could pass that should displease him in it And least by taking all this care the Pope might seem to intend no more but only to secure himself without doing the King a farther injury there was one thing which made it appear that he had as great a mind to plague the King as to provide for his own preservation For among all his number of Cardinals he could find none fitter to preside in the Council and there to judge the King's cause if he were so unwise as to send it thither than one that was the King's Enemy more than the Pope himself if it were possible That was Cardinal Pool the King 's unnatural Subject and Kinsman who being brought up by him and sent to travel for his farther improvement and while he was abroad being intrusted by him in his cause forsook it and joined himself to the Imperial party In which though he might pretend that he followed his Conscience yet nothing could excuse him for practising against his King and his Country He was the man employed to write against the King's Divorce and out-did other Writers in this that he stirred up the Emperour to revenge his Aunts injury for fear he should forget it and not only so but went about from Prince to Prince and from Country to Country to stir them up to War against this Realm For which so unworthy and so officious a disloyalty he was declared Traitor at home by Act of Parliament and had a price set upon his Head not to mention other instances of the King 's extreme displeasure against him When this had so far endeared him to the Pope that being not content to have made him one of his Cardinals he must also have this man to preside in his Council the English had so much the more cause to be jealous and to stand upon their guard as well against his Council as himself A General Council they could not hold it to be for their Church was not allowed to
have any Right in it Though she had not lost her Right any otherwise than as being cut off by the Pope's uncanonical Censures against which she was relievable on her Appeal thither if that had truly been a General Council And the Bishops whom she should send to represent her in such a Council had as much to do there precedence only excepted as the Pope himself had according to the ancient Canons But now as matters were ordered at Trent if she had sent any thither and if they had been admittable otherwise yet they must not sit there without owning the Pope in his Legate They must not only be joyned into one Body with him but they must acknowledge him for their representative Head who yet to them was no other than a man dead in Law For they knew him to be condemned for a Traytor by that Authority to which they were Subjects as well as Trent as in England And though the Popes placing him there in that Character was the highest Affront that could be done to the Justice of their Nation yet they must submit nay contribute to that Affront by owning him in that Character or else they must have no place in that Council This Contumelious Condition being implicitly imposed on our Bishops was a virtual Exclusion of them from their Right of sitting there And it was so contrived that it lookt as ill upon the State as on the Church The King was not only concerned for both these but also for Himself on another account having his Cause to be heard there if it had been a General Council It was an Injury to him all this while that he had None so long after his Appeal to it But now to make him amends he had a Council pack'd by his Adversary and if that were not enough he had this Traiterous Subject in the Head of it Which last thing went beyond all former Trials of his Patience and perhaps had been enough to have angered the meekest of Princes If it be an ill thing to have ones Judge chosen by his Enemy it is worse to have his Enemy be his Judge He had both in this Council as the Pope had ordered it for him Therefore as he could not be Canonically obliged to stand by it so he did but use his own Right as before in Protesting so now in Declaring against it He did it on all Occasions and continued so doing till his Death His Son Edward VI who reigned next kept the Pope at his distance and had many things reformed in the Church of which I shall not speak particularly because all that he did of this kind was soon after undone by his Successour Queen Mary She for reasons that I mentioned before restored the Pope's Authority in this Kingdom And though his Council of Trent was all her time in adjournment so that she could not send her Bishops thither yet she had it acknowledged by them in a Synod where Cardinal Pool being first restord in bloud had the honour to preside as his Legate But as to the Schism between us and the Roman Church both these Princes were unconcerned in the Original cause of it which was as I have shewn the Popes Sentence concerning their Fathers Marriage For Edward VI. was born to him by another Wife whom he had married after Katharines death And Queen Mary being his Daughter by Katharine was not aggrieved by the Sentence but on the contrary held her self righted by it The only Person aggrieved was Queen Elizabeth the Daughter of Henry VIII by Anne Bolen whose Marriage the Pope had declared to be Null and pronounced any fruit that should come of it to be Illegitimate This Queen being the only fruit of that Marriage the Sentence was injurious to her if to any And whether she was wrong'd in it or no it ought to have been tried before a Lawful General Council to whose Judgement her Father had Appealed as has been already shewn And there being no such Council held in his life time the right of his Appeal descended to her at his death She was now the only party concerned in the Cause and her Right could not be given from her by any other She was as much concerned as ever her Father was to be heard by the Judge to whom He had Appealed and to be Righted against the Pope if it should appear that he had injured her and also against his Council of Trent which abetted him in it And she had as much Reason as ever her Father had to disobey and to resist both the Pope and his Council till they would suffer such a Council to meet as was the only proper Judge of her Cause Thus far all that has been said of her Father except only in things of Personal concernment is as Applicable to her And more needs not be said to shew that they were neither of them guilty of Schism in asserting their Cause as they did against the Adversaries of it For therein they did no more than what they lawfully might and ought to do according to the Principles of the Western Church But there was something in her Case which was not in her Fathers and which would have cleared her of Schism though he had been guilty of it For whereas when he rejected the Pope and his Council he was wholly of their mind in all the Articles of Faith then in being She did it not till the Council had sate and till they had already made sundry new Articles of Faith Whereof the first were defined some months before her Father died However he might like them as they presume he did who tell us that he died in their Faith yet it is certain that though at sometime she did not shew it she did always dislike them her Enemies being Judges And as soon as she came into Power she declared they were so far from being any part of her Faith that she took them for no other than False and Novel opinions If she mistook in so judging which shall be considered in its place then she was at least materially an Heretic And such he must prove her to have been that will make her a Schismatick For if she was in the right and those Doctrines were not of Faith then the Schism occasioned by them must not lie at her door It must be charged on the Council who defined them and on the Pope who added them to the Creed who made the belief and profession of these Doctrines a condition without which there is no living in his Communion She did what she ought to do in refusing to have it on those terms in adhering to the Faith once delivered to the Saints and in rejecting the Authority which would have it defiled with those Mixtures What has been said may suffice to clear Queen Elizabeth from the Imputation of Schism on any Personal account in not obeying the Pope or his Council It appears that she was free from Schism in
contracted or I cannot do it here without exceeding the brevity which I design First Whereas all Roman Catholics are said to be obliged by their principles to follow the Judgment of the Roman Court I find little less than Demonstration for this in a Book lately published Where it is proved that they cannot justifie their calling themselves Catholics exclusively to all other Christians any otherwise than by resolving their Faith into the Infallibility of the Roman Church as united to the Pope that is really into the Infallibility of the Pope as being Head of the Church So that if he declare as it is evident he has done that those things which we call Popery are Articles of Faith they are bound if they will do things consequently to their Principles either to believe him in those Articles or else to relinquish that Communion This follows by good Reasoning though that way of proof is not so clear to a Vulgar Capacity as that which is drawn from Authority and appears in plain instances of Fact But what greater Instance can there be of this kind than the practice of the whole Roman Church which has actually followed the Judgment of the Roman Court and that in things which are properly Popery By the whole Roman Church I mean that which they call so themselves that is the governing part of the Clergy of all the Churches of that Communion that part which acts for all the rest in Ecclesiastical matters and by whose Acts all their Subjects are obliged according to their own Principles Now taking Popery as I have defined it to be the owning of the Pope's pretended Authority whether in Spirituals over the Universal Church or in Temporals over all Princes and States it hath been proved that this Roman Church owns this Doctrine in both the branches of it First in Spirituals there can be no question of this For none can be of the Governing Clergy without taking an Oath in which they own the Pope's Authority with a witness For they swear Fealty to him and that in those Terms which import as well a Temporal as a Spiritual subjection No doubt that was Hildebrand's sense that made the Oath and it is most agreeable to the Principles and Practices of them that Impose it But this I leave to Temporal Princes and States and especially to Protestants who are chiefly concerned to consider it Let the Oath be for Spirituals only it is enough to prove the Churches subjection to the Pope because in that sense at least it is taken by all the Governing Clergy And for the rest there is a Form of Profession by which they are sworn to him every one in his Person for fear they should not think themselves obliged by the Oaths of their Superiors If among them that are the Guides of Conscience to others there be any that makes no Conscience of an Oath yet such a one will go which way his Interest leads him And the Pope has them all secured to him by Interest likewise Not to speak of those ways that his Interests are theirs nor of other ways that he has to oblige them it is enough that he is so far Patron of the whole Church that none can have a Bishoprick or any other eminent Dignity but he must either take it of the Pope's gift or at least he must come to him for Confirmation Having two such sure holds on the Bodies and on the Souls of his Clergy the Pope is not only in present possession of a spiritual Monarchy over the whole Roman Church but he is as much as it is possible for him to be assured that none shall ever be able to take it out of his hands Unless the Princes of his Communion should come to find their Interest in a Reformation which is rather to be wisht for than to be expected in our Age otherwise there is nothing that can dispossess him but a general Council And that indeed he has some cause to apprehend upon the experience of former times It is remembred by others too often for the Pope to forget it how such a Council when time was humbled two or three of his Predecessors But then they that were for the Liberty of the Church had not only the Diffusive Church on their side but they had a good party among the Cardinals themselves Especially they had the Papacy at an Advantage being to Judge whose it was among them that pretended to it They had also the times very favourable to to them in other Circumstances which I shall not mention because they are not like to come again And yet then what ground they got from Popes of disputable Titles they lost afterward to those whose Titles were certain They left free Declarations and Laws for future times which might do good if there were men to put Life in them But withal they left a certain experiment to shew us that that good cannot be done by men who are so engaged to the Papacy Interest of it self were enough to give the Pope a Majority of Bishops in any Council where Conscience did not bear too much sway It was observed by one that writ for the Authority of those Councils that they could never keep up their side for this reason because the Pope had the disposing of all the Livings But how much greater must his Party be when all the Bishops are bound in Conscience likewise as far as an Oath can oblige them to support the Popes spiritual Monarchy It is hard for men to think that such an Oath does not bind them as well when they are together as severally We see the Pope so well understood this that when it was proposed during the Council of Trent that to make it a Free Council he should dispense with the Oaths of all the Bishops that sate there his Legates declared that they would rather die than consent to it I suppose they would not have been so much concerned for that which they had not found to be of very great use in their business And we see the effect of it For all the Bishops there present though it was against many of their wills yet suffered the Council to be prorogued and translated and rid about how and when the Pope pleased till he had done with them that is till they had made it unnecessary for him ever to have another Council But as safe as he has made himself in case there should be a General Council it cannot be denied that it is safer for him to have none And therefore presuming there shall be none for the future as we may judge by the experience of the last hundred years we come now to consider what his power is in the Intervals of Councils During these it is acknowledged by the whole Roman Church and that as well by the Laity as the Clergy that the Pope has the supreme Authority over all Christians Which being another kind of Supremacy
Considerations Touching the True way to suppress POPERY IN THIS KINGDOM By making a Distinction between Men of LOYAL and DISLOYAL PRINCIPLES In that COMMUNION On occasion whereof is inserted an Historical Account OF THE REFORMATION Here in ENGLAND LONDON Printed for Henry Brome in St. Paul's Church-yard at the West end 1677. A PREFACE THE Reader will find this Book to be of a mixt nature and in some places of a different stile as being compos'd at distant times and by two several hands One part of it is a Proposition for securing the Civil State against the danger of Popery by making a distinction between them of the Roman Communion The other part which is inserted into the former concerns the chief and original controversies between ours and the Roman Church For that Part which belongs to the Civil State it was most of it printed about a year since as appears by several Instances of which the Reader is desired to take notice that there may be no mistake in the timeing of some things The Model of this Part was drawn up by a worthy Gentleman who thought it a design not only agreeable to his known Moderation but really Practicable and likely to be exceedingly beneficial toward the safety of this Kingdom at home and the honour of it abroad to which nothing would more conduce and yet nothing is more wanting than some kind of general unity of the English Nation within it self But what is here said on this Argument the Reader is intreated to interpret with the same candor with which it was intended For the things proposed being only spoken Problematically it cannot be expected they should be deliver'd with great exactness and it is but reason that every little expression should not be called to a severe Account in a Treatise where the whole design it self is not imposed but only offer'd to be fairly consider'd If any one think that even this is a boldness which private men should not allow themselves in matters which belong to the Government the Author could wish all men were of that mind though it put him to the cost of an Apology for himself in this particular But he is not so ignorant of the Age we live in as not to know that this Liberty is commonly taken and that none is censured for it that does not much exceed the bounds of Modesty And if others can extend this Liberty so far as to write Books that tend directly to disturb the publick settlement he does not see what need he can have for an excuse for writing that which can have no other end but to promote it To speak plain he has seen divers pieces of late whereof some go about from hand to hand to disswade men from taking the Oath of Allegiance others and those not a few of late years have been printed and sold publicly in behalf of a General Toleration What is if this be not to assault the publick settlement and either to force our Governors to alter it or to set the people against them for continuing it Not to mention the Reproaches that are thrown upon the Memory of them by whom the settlement was made Whereas here is no design to alter any thing of it any farther than may be needful to make it the more practicable in our times To a people that is always prone to Compassion and of late so much discomposed by a Civil War no doubt the extreme severity of Laws is likely to hinder the Practicableness of them And it is not the Severity of Laws but the Practice that tends to the Security of the State And therefore the Alteration here proposed is so far from having any Reflection on the Wisdom of our Legislators in former times that there is no reason to doubt that they would have made it themselves if they had lived in our present Circumstances If the Author commit any error in judging thus he is not obstinate in it but submits this together with the rest to the Iudgment of wise and good men and especially to the Publick Wisdom which must be Acknowledg'd to be the most proper and it were well if it were the only Iudg in these matters The other things contained in this Book were added by another Person who being well persuaded of the usefulness of the foregoing design was desirous to Improve it to farther Advantage And therefore he thought it would be an useful Labour and prudent Counsel not only to render the Civil State easie to the peaceable Romanists among us but to make them also well disposed to our Church as well as State He is of opinion that if many of their Nobility and Gentry and some of their moderate Clergy shall once come to live amicably with us on the terms here mentioned or on any other that shall be thought more discreet and seasonable they would by degrees suffer themselves to be calmly instructed in the Iustice of our Cause and they would without Prejudice examin which side is to be blam'd for the Divisions between us And then he doubts not but many of them would in time discover how much they have been misinformed concerning the State of our Differences To this purpose hoping to find the most Ingenuous of their Laity and even some of their well-meaning Priests in good humour while they are reading a Book which pleads something in their favour he has taken this opportunity to give them some light into the occasion and progress of the first breach between us and them This he knows to be a Subject in which the Generality of their Laity and Clergy are most confident and seem most to triumph But they are much mistaken in matter of Fact as here the Reader will see it evidently prov'd out of Unquestionable Records and Impartial Writers many even of their own side From whence it will appear that the whole business of the Schism was begun and continued on the Popes side for their Secular Interests and Passions whilest the Reformation on the part of our Church and State was managed all along with great Iustice and prudent Moderation After all that has been said it is more than possible that of one sort of men there may be some I hope not the wisest among them who upon other Accounts may take offence at both Parts of this Book In the Political part perhaps offence may be taken at the Liberty of this Proposal as seeming too favourable to them of the Roman Communion without the like Consideration for any other Dissenters But the favour here proposed in behalf of the Romanists is not more than they enjoy among Protestants abroad at this day nor so much as the Generality of those who are most zealous against them have thought fit heretofore to allow to persons differing only in opinion They did not think it fit that even Heretics themselves should suffer any Capital Punishment barely upon Account of their Opinions how dangerous soever they might be to mens
Scripture they could then face them down with those things which now they do not love to hear of namely with forg'd decretal Epistles or Councils or Fathers or with pretended Revelations and Visions or with counterfeit Miracles For all which they had those at their beck who though ignorant enough otherwise had more learning and skill to forge such things than others had at that time to disprove them Thus in a blind Age nay many Ages together when this part of the World was conducted and governed in spiritual things by one-eyed men for the Popes themselves were no better it is no wonder that the generality of the people ran into so many Errours as they did to the great hurt and scandal of the Christian Religion And though 't is charitable to believe that at first there was no design to have those Errours obtruded on the Faith of Posterity yet appearing to be such as might be of great use for the wealth and greatness of the Clergy who were strongly attach'd to the Roman See nay some of them to the Advancement of the Papacy it self the Pope had great cause to look kindly upon them and to wish they were no Errours but Catholick Doctrines and if he pleased to have them such who durst say they were otherwise When they had once receiv'd that publick countenance from him he had much greater cause to continue it and by all possible ways to keep them in possession of that esteem which those dark times had given them And that not only for affection as before on the account of their usefulness to himself and his Clergy but for fear that if these Errours were detected and brought in disgrace it might reflect on the Infallibility of the Roman See and might give men occasion to look farther and to examine the whole Fabrick of Popery which being search'd to the bottom it could not but appear that the Fundamental Errour was that which gave the Pope such a Power and Authority over the whole Christian Church This was truly the cause why such care was continually taken in all the latter general Councils for so the Pope was pleas'd to call those Conventions of his Vassels in which nothing pass'd but what he pleas'd to establish those popular Errours as they grew up and to put them out of question by their Canons and Decrees Whereas the great capital Errour was never defin'd but supposed and pass'd as all Fundamentals do by such a general consent as is stronger than all positive Laws whatsoever It pass'd thus for many Ages till upon occasion of that long Schism when for about fifty years the Western Church carried double a Pope and an Antipope that rid Cursing and Damning one another the Council of Constance being met to judge which was which deposed both and began to set bounds to the Papacy It was follow'd by the Council of Basil which presuming to do the same and being likely enough to have gone farther the Pope that then was call'd an opposite Council and therein settled his Authority by a Law It was the Council of Florence which though not acknowledg'd by many Roman Catholicks abroad and particularly not by the generality of them in France Yet since I write this to English men I shall shew what they of our Nation thought of it at the last Revolution to Popery from whence we may take some kind of measure and guess what many would be at again It was declar'd by the Cardinal Legate with consent of his Synod at London that the cause of all the evils in this Church sprang from hence that departing from the Vnity and Doctrine of the Catholick Church we had relinquished the Authority and Obedience of the Pope of Rome Christ's Vicar and the Successor of Peter The denial of this Authority was declar'd to be the chief Errour of Protestants To correct which they thought fit to set forth the true Doctrine as it was delivered in the Eighth General Council at Florence held under Pope Engenius IV. of happy memory in these words We declare That the holy Apostolical See and Pope of Rome holds the Primacy over all the World and that the Pope of Rome is the Successor of St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles and is the true Vicar of Christ and Head of the whole Church and Father and Teacher of all Christians and that to him in St. Peter our Lord Iesus Christ gave full power to feed rule and govern the Vniversal Church Since the Council of Florence there have been only two pretended General Councils namely the fifth Lateran and the Council of Trent both which were acknowledged by that Synod of London above mentioned The fifth Lateran Council was call'd by the Pope for no other end but that he might be able to write their Approbation in the stile of those Bulls which he should publish for the greatness of the Papacy In the first of those Bulls he damn'd the Pisan Council which the French King had assembled against him In the second he laid an Interdict on the whole Kingdom of France and ordered the Fair of Lions to be removed from thence to Geneva In a third he annulled the famous pragmatick Sanction the Palladium of the French Church And so went on till having brought the French King to his terms his next Bull was to set himself above all General Councils and to declare That all Christians sub necessitate salutis under pain of Damnation must be subject to the Pope of Rome according to that Luciferian Constitution of Boniface VIII which he mentions and approves and confirms All this he does with consent of that Council The Council of Trent which came last and pinn'd the Basket not only took care to leave the Pope in full possession of this usurp'd Power by declaring that no act of theirs should infringe it and by making him Judge and Interpreter of all their Decrees but also confirmed it to him as much as in them lay For they ordained That in every Church of the Roman Communion at the first Provincial Synod after that Council every Member thereof should promise and profess true Obedience to the Pope and that all that were preferr'd for the future whether to Bishoprick Dignity or Cure of Souls should promise and swear the like Obedience in such form as the Pope should prescribe Whereupon Pope Pius IV. made that form of Profession of Faith that is every where taken at this day whereof one Clause is I promise and swear true Obedience to the Pope of Rome Successor to St. Peter Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Iesus Christ. Beside these publick Acts which have a general influence on all parts and Members of the Roman Communion there is a special tye on the governing part of it if not by their interest by another Oath which is taken by all Archbishops Bishops Abbots at their Consecration The form of it is prescrib'd in the
to convince him that all their suffering is for Religion and not for treasonable Principles if he instance in that Loyal Person himself and bids him judge by his own experience he cannot but feel himself suffer he knows himself free from disloyalty therefore his suffering can be for nothing else but his Religion He must be a man of more than ordinary Abstraction that can discern the fallacy of this reasoning And he that cannot find that had need stop his ears with a resolution to hear nothing against the Government or else the Jesuite will be too hard for him He had need be as resolute in his Loyalty as in his Religion For the proof being made as well to his Sense as to his Reason it looks like an Argument against Transubstantiation If the person so attack'd be a very Iob in holding his integrity if no Argument will move him nor no other temptation draw him from it Yet he must yield to Want which can neither be hid nor resisted There are many good men that live from hand to mouth and that hardly enough while they enjoy their Estates If any of these be deprived of so much as the Law would take from him he cannot live with that which he has left And then if a Pension be offer'd him out of the Jesuites Bank or out of the Pope's Coffers he will scarce know how to refuse it Necessity will make a generous man do that which he would hate to think of in better circumstances And having eaten their bread he will find it a hard matter to keep himself disengag'd from their Interests Much more if he suffer himself once to be engag'd he will find it impossible to untwist himself afterwards And 't is next to impossible for him that has been oblig'd by their benefits and as it were listed in Service and taken pay on the Enemies side to have any kindness left for his Country that drove him to all this I know but one instance that of David in Gath of a man that was put to all these streights and yet not corrupted in his Principles I shew but one way of many how men that are very good Subjects and desire nothing more than to continue so may be spoil'd with hard usage and made Enemies against their Inclinations Which being added to those things said before on this head may be more than enough to make good my third Reason against an undistinguishing execution of the Laws on Roman Catholicks as being against the interest of the Church and State of England And this seems so evident to me that I have no manner of doubt that as the best news we could send to Rome would be of a general Toleration of all Religions and Sects whatsoever so next to that which I know would please them best the most welcome news would be to assure them that all the Laws here in England against Roman Catholicks were severely and indifferently put in execution And I am as sure that nothing would trouble them more than to hear of such a Discrimination or Distinction of Roman Catholicks as I come now to propound For now to speak on the Affirmative side of the Debate this seems to be the only way for suppressing of Popery if the State will be pleas'd to distinguish btween Papists and other Roman Catholicks and so to shew favour to the one upon security given of their Loyalty as that the other who will not give that security may have no part of that favour but be left to the severity of all those Laws that have been or shall be made against their Principles and Practices My Reasons are 1. Because this course being taken would be effectual to the end above-mentioned 2. It would be equitable in it self 3. And it would be for the interest of the Church and State of England I shew'd before that the undistinguishing way had not any of those three properties or qualities Now the way which I propound being contrary to it must have all the three by the Rule of Contraries and I conceive I need no other proof But to make the matter more plain I shall resume these three Reasons and prove them severally in the order propos'd 1. This course would be Effectual For it would take away the causes of Popery The only immediate causes which have either propagated or preserved Popery so long in this Kingdom notwithstanding all Laws that have been made against it as well anciently as of late times are chiefly these two On one side the great boldness and business of the truly Popish Clergy in asserting and crying up all Papal pretences whatsoever On the other side the tameness of the other Clergy of that Communion or whatsoever else their fault is and has been in not opposing those Papal pretences For the former of these I think 't is very visible in all the Iesuites that come among us and in most of the other Regular Orders and not a few of the Seculars that their chief business amongst us is to advance the Pope's Authority in all things and to reduce all men under the obedience of it 'T is true they have not yet seen their time to attempt this by open War They have not set up the holy Banner in England and plac'd the Pope's Nuncio in the head of an Army against the King as their Brethren did in Ireland and do not repent of it But neither will our Popish Clergy say that those in Ireland did ill in it They have neither declared their dislike of that Rebellion by any publick act Nor among all the Books they have writ since the King's Restauration has any one of their Writers writ so much as one line against it that ever I could see or hear of But their Books abound with those principles out of which that Rebellion was hatch'd They are slily insinuated in those which are to be had at every Stall And there are those that pass from hand to hand in which this Treason is the main scope of their writing By which we may guess what wholesome Doctrine it is that they infuse upon occasion in private when they are among their own people What kind of preaching and catechising they use What information of their Penitents What ghostly counsel they give and what loyal directions of Conscience And if we had nothing else to discover them to us we may soon find what kind of spiritual Offices they perform by the Fruit of them in the perversness and obstinacy of so many of their Laity who choose to do or endure any thing rather than take the Oath of Allegiance I deny not that there are other Priests of that Communion who as far as we can judge by their private discourse seem to be rightly principled and well inclined towards the Civil Government There are those that seem to be heartily for the Independency of the Crown of England and that hold that the external Government of the Church ought to be in
about him so madly with the Keys of the Church It was so in Luther's Case The quarrel begun between him and the Procurers of the Pope's Bulls It proceeded from them to their Patrons in the Court of Rome And so at last it came up to the Papal Authority it self Who knows but that it may please God for Vexatio dat intellectum that many among us being vext with Declarations that are certainly uncanonical may be brought by that means to discover that the Power which sent them forth is Antichristian The most difficult thing that is required toward the making this discovery is only to lay aside those strong prejudices which men commonly receive from their Education and from converse with men and things of that Age in which they live He that laying aside these shall look impartially into the Scriptures and into the undoubted Records of the Primitive Church shall find no Foundation for that prodigious Fabrick of the Papacy For the first three hundred years after Christ they will find only two namely Victor and Stephen that took upon them to censure any which were not of their Diocess And though their Censures for ought that appears were only Declarations of Non-Communion such as any Bishop in those days might send forth against the Bishop of Rome as well as he against other Bishops yet we find that even for that they were blamed and condemned by other Bishops And that is all the effect that we read their Censures had in any place out of Rome it self Pope Victor in his Censure of the Asian Bishops is thought not to have gone beyond threatning to break Communion with them and endeavouring to persuade other Bishops to do the same And yet for this he was smartly handled by some of the Brethren and it is charitably thought he was set right by the grave Counsel of Irenaeus who writ to him in the name of the Gallican Church and told him he did not learn this of any of his Predecessors Of Pope Stephen it is certain that he went farther in his Quarrel with the Asian and African Bishops For he not only broke off Communion but all civil Conversation with them and commanded his people not to let any of them come within their doors But this was only at Rome For it does not appear that he pretended any Authority elsewhere And how he was scorn'd abroad for his Pride and Folly in this the Reader may see in those two excellent Epistles The later of which was left out of the Roman Edition of St. Cyprian and Pamelius honestly declares he would have stifled it if others had not publish'd it before him Lest any one should take offence at my not giving the usual garnish of the Popes of that Age to those two whom I mentioned for I dare not call them Saints and Martyrs though the Roman Church does both elsewhere and in her Offices on their days I ought to let him know how that Church is abused by them that have gained no small advantage to themselves by such Fictions That the old Roman Church in the time of Constantius knew nothing of either of their Martyrdoms it appears by her Catalogue of Popes publisht first by Cuspinian and since by Bucherius the Jesuite Nay she knew the contrary of one of them For in the Roman Calendar of that Age publisht by the same Iesuite Victor is not mentioned at all and Stephen is among the Popes that were no Martyrs If this proof were not enough or if this place were proper for it I should shew from good Authors that though these Popes lived under Emperors that were afterwards Persecutors yet they died before the beginning of their persecutions I do not say but they may be Saints but if they are 't is more than we have any ground to believe For neither the Church-History nor any Writer within a hundred years of their time has any more of their Sanctity than of their Sufferings Of Stephen there is great cause to doubt the contrary from what we read of him in St. Cyprian's Epistle and more from that of Firmilian which is thought to have been translated by St. Cyprian and which was written about the time of Stephens death rather after than before it It is to be hoped that many Roman Catholics among us have truly that Reverence which all of them profess to true Primitive Christian Antiquity and to the judgment of Saints and Martyrs in all Ages We all agree that Irenaeus and Cyprian had a just right to those Titles And Firmilian was a chief Pillar of the Church in his Age. He was thought worthy to preside in several Eastern Councils namely in that against the Novatians before Stephen was Pope and those against Samosatenus after Stephen was dead And after his own death the Eastern Church of that Age called him Firmilian of Blessed Memory Why this man is not in the Calendar of Saints they best know who can tell us why Victor and Stephen are there No doubt the Saint-makers do all things with great consideration But can any one imagin that those excellent men did ever believe themselves to be under the Roman Bishop that they ow'd any obedience to Him whom they school'd so or any Reverence to his Censures which they slighted in that manner Could any assurance of their Cause have justified that contempt of Authority if they had known any in him But it appears they knew it not nor did others in that Age. Those that were against them in the Cause blamed them for that and nothing else and yet held Communion with them for all Pope Stephen and his Censures So far it appears those great men had the judgment of the Church on their side They knew of no Authority over the Universal Church that the Pope had more than any other Bishop by any right whether Divine or Humane What the Judgment of the Church was in the next Centuries let them consider that shall read those Canons in the Margent and remember they are such as past in the first Four General Councils and in the African Council of 217 Bishops of whom St. Austin was one assembled at Carthage To which I add the African Church to Pope Coelestine I. as containing a full Declaration of their mind in that Canon I know there are objections against one or two of these Canons But all the dust that has been rais'd will not hinder any reasonable man from seeing that which I think is sufficient for our purpose namely that all the Fathers that sate in those Councils or at least the major part of them were of the same judgment with those above-mentioned in this point of the Authority of the Bishop of Rome They all allow'd him precedency as being Bishop of the Imperial City They had commonly a great deference to his Judgment in Debates between themselves And sometimes the Christian Emperors made him honorary Judge whether
that matter as well in Foro Ecclesiae having the Canonical right of an Appeal against them as in Foro Conscientiae because what she did was to keep her Faith pure from their undue Impositions Whether she can be cleared as well on the account of her Government in Ecclesiastical matters this we ought to consider as a thing that more immediately concerns us For we date the Reformation of our Church from the beginning of her Reign And though we have a Prescription since of above a hundred years which is enough to secure us against the Claims of the Papacy in the Judgment of them that hold it to be only of Humane Right as all men ought to do upon those grounds above mentioned yet to them of the Roman Communion it will perhaps be more satisfactory if it appear that beside the Right that we have now from Prescription there was also an Original Right in our Reformers to do what they did in the beginning of the Reformation The first thing they did was to assert the Queens Supremacy from whence they proceeded to settle the Church Government and ended with the Reformation of Worship and Doctrine 1. First of what she did in assuming the Supremacy more needs not be said than to make it be understood And we cannot understand her meaning in it better than by her own declaration and practice She declared that she took no other power to her self than what Anciently belonged to the Crown of England that is immediately under God to govern her people of all sorts as well the Clergy as the Laity And she exercised no other Power or Jurisdiction over the Church than what was meerly External as appears by her Injunctions and other Acts. Though if she had exercised any other power than what she claimed it had been only an Act of Misgovernment in her for which she was accountable to God and the Church had not therefore been guilty of Schism since it gave her no other power nor owned her in the exercise of any other than what is above-mentioned And that power is so inherent in every Supreme Magistrate and so necessary for the well-being of the People that we cannot deny the right of it in them to whom we grant the Supreme Magistracy it self Wheresoever any Prince or State have seemed to think so ill of themselves as if they were not so fit as a Foreiner was to be trusted with this Power over their own People or rather where they have been so obsequious to the Pope as to take this Flower out of their own Crown and put it into the Triple It may be every where observed that either they or their Successors have found occasion at some time or other to call for it home again or to use it as if they had notgiven it from themselves We may see examples of this in Germany in Ockham's days in Spain under the Emperour Charles V and in Venice at the time of the Interdict But especially in France where the Gallican Church is obliged to justifie this Right of Princes unless she will grant that her most Christian Kings have been in Schism more than once and especially while they stood to the pragmatic Sanction But we need not go abroad for examples having so many at home and such as are very full to our purpose He that will may see them elsewhere gathered to his hand And I have mentioned enough to shew that even in Popish times our Princes were not ignorant of their Right and that between whiles they were fain to assert it in such terms as did import though they did not name a Supremacy But as their Laws did not expresly mention the word so neither did they always stand by their Laws When they had made them the Pope still found some device or other to make them ineffectual Till King Henry VIII having thrown out the Pope for those reasons above mentioned did by advice of his Council and Bishops take both the Power and the Title on himself whether he took more than his due let others judge As I am not engaged to defend all that he assumed so I need not for so much as Queen Mary exercised of it For it is agreed and there was great reason for it that she was always for the Popes Supremacy in her heart though for fear of her life she renounced it when time was And yet she no sooner came to the Crown but she exercised the Supremacy her self in changing most of the Bishops and Reforming what she held to be Abuses in the Church Afterward when she had surrendred it to the Pope yet she did not so wholly put it out of her self but that when He displeased her she could shut his Legate out of her Kingdom So that to adjust the matter between the two Sisters in this point of Supremacy they seem to have differed only thus One adjudged it to the Pope and yet took it from him when she pleased the other thought it belonged to the Crown and therefore kept it wholly to her self 2. What Queen Elizabeth did in setling Church matters was founded on her Right in the Supremacy By vertue whereof she took upon her to Reform abuses in the Church as her Sister Queen Mary had done And I believe that whosoever compares their proceedings will find that she took more leisure and advice than Queen Mary in doing it For before a Parliament sate she had gone only thus far that she allowed her people some of the Church Offices in a Language which they all understood Afterward by advice of her Parliament she restored King Edwards Laws and repealed those which had been made by Queen Mary for Ecclesiastical matters And by those Laws she abolished the Popish Mass and restored the whole Communion to the Laity whereas her Sister had done the contrary without Law by her mere Right of Supremacy Which Right she having afterwards given away by Act of Parliament though still she used it when she saw cause Queen Elizabeth thought fit to have it restored by Act of Parliament or rather Redeclared for the Act was not Operative but Declarative And whereas by this Act it was required that all Bishops and others that held any Church-living in this Kingdom should take an Oath of Supremacy as we call it or else should be uncapable of holding any such Church preferment on refusal of this Oath there were turned out thirteen Bishops I note the number the rather because there had been just so many of the Protestant Bishops turned out by Queen Mary There appears to have been some difference between the turning out of these by Law and of those without any Law then in force But there was more in the cause of their fuffering those being outed for matters purely Religious and these for a Civil cause for refusing an Oath lawfully imposed Which Oath did not truly concern their
Religion even themselves being Judges For they had all or most of them taken it before some of them had taken it many times over two or three of them had writ in defence of it nay were at the first composing of it But there was a greater difference than either of these if the Bishops then turned out by Queen Elizabeth had been most of them Canonically deprived under King Edward VI and were never since Canonically restored which may deserve a further Consideration The mean while it is certain that this Act outed not two hundred more of all the Clergy in this Kingdom And their places being filled with such as had been banished in Queen Maries days it is not hard to judge how all things else to be done in Church matters might pass any Obstruction as they did afterwards in full Convocation 3. As to Doctrinal things it was generally observed in those times by the Advantage of Ecclesiastical learning that in those many former Ages which wanted it many errors and some very gross ones had crept into the Church And those errors having the Papacy on their side for Reasons which I have already shewn had so far prevailed that they were growing to be Articles of Faith Many of them were already defined so and more were like to be by the Council of Trent Therefore now the Church of England being free from the Yoke of the Papacy and having an Absolute Power to act for her self thought fit to use the Right of a National Church that is to Reform her self by declaring against those errors and to rid Christianity from them here in England without taking upon her to prescribe to other Churches And withal she thought it needful to set such bounds to the Reformation that men might not by their heats against Popery be transported so far as to run into contrary errors For these causes that famous Summary of Christian Doctrines which we call the XXXIX Artielés was drawn up and approved by Convocation The Compiling and Publishing of these Articles was properly the Act of the Church of England And these Articles being many of them opposed to those Doctrines which the Roman Church holds to be of Faith and being either in Terminis or at least in the sense of them the same which their Trent Council hath branded with Heresie it is therefore evident that upon the account of these Doctrines neither the Queen nor Church of England can be justly charged with Schism unless the Doctrines themselves are first proved to be Heretical as they are judged by those decrees of the Trent Council For the trial of these Doctrines they will not allow our Church that resort which she would make immediately to the Scriptures And we cannot go along with the Roman Church whither she would have us that is to the Council of Trent or which is all one to the judgment of their present Church Therefore there is no possible way to end disputes but by some known equal Standard between us And that can be no other than Catholic Tradition Which they of the Roman side cannot well decline for it is that from which the Council of Trent has pretended to receive all her Doctrines Nor have we any cause to decline it for the Primitive Fathers who were the Original Conveighers of this Tradition did profess to know no other Faith than what was contained in the Scriptures Why we cannot stand to the judgment of the Council of Trent for the trial of our Doctrines we have all the same Reasons that they have in the French Church why they reject it in matters of Discipline That is if they deny it to have the Authority of a General Council the English though of their Communion may as well deny it to have Infallibility Nay much more this than the other For we may give to whom we please an Authority over us but we cannot give Infallibility to any but to them to whom God has promised it that is if to any Council to such a one as represents the whole diffusive Church And we have one reason more than the French have and which signifies more than all theirs to shew that though they did yet we ought not to look upon this as such a Council For the French Church was represented at Trent in some sort though they were not at all satisfied with it but Ours neither was Represented nor could be as I have shewn neither after nor before the Reformation And though as it is said the French have since received the Doctrinal Decrees of that Council that is they have allowed them to be Antecedently true in those Terms in which the Council defined them though not a whit the more true for having been defined in that Council ours cannot pretend that here in England it ever had so much as that lowest Degree of Reception Before the Reformation of which we now speak that is before the beginning of Queen Elizabeths reign the Council of Trent had sate not much more than half its Sessions And though it was quoted with respect by the Synod of London in Queen Marys days yet it does not appear that there was then any Formal Reception of the Council Nor if there had been could that have obliged aftercomers to receive whatsoever should pass afterward in that Council Thus much I think ought to be considered by them if there be any that hold themselves obliged by that Synod But much less would it have signified to our Reformers who did not hold themselves obliged by that Synod For beside that they differed in point of Faith they had other Canonical Objections against it That it was composed of Bishops who had been Deprived as was said in King Edwards days and had not been duly Restored since for ought that appears And it was Headed by the Popes Legate in that Quality as representing Him against whom they had an Appeal yet in force Now to him that considers the Case in these Circumstances it cannot seem reasonable that King Edwards Bishops should have thought themselves obliged by the Synodical Act of them that sate there in their Injury or that they who adhered to their Appeal from the Pope should be concluded by any thing that passed under his Legate Since the Reformation it cannot be imagined that the Council of Trent should be received here in England by any other than by them of the Roman Communion And whether they have Received it or no they best know But if they have it must be their own voluntary Act for no power whatsoever could oblige them to receive it If any could it must be either the Council it self or the Pope by his Universal Authority But for the Popes Power they understand themselves so well that they know he cannot oblige them to the reception of a Council For he cannot bring them under what Government he pleases I say not without their own Consent as they have judged and shewed