at is attested by Fathers by Councells by Leiturgies ancient and modern even by the Leiturgies of the Roman Church it self And this is the undoubted sense of this place of the Councell of Ephesus that no man should dare to offer any other Creed to any person willingâ— to be converted from Paganisme or Iudaisme to Christianity that is to say to be baptised Alwaies upon Palm sunday such of the Catechument as were thought fit to be admiâ—ted into the number of the Faithfull did petition for Baptism the Anniversary time where of did then approach who from their joint petitioning were called competentes and from that day forward had some assigned to expound the Creed unto them whereof they were to make solemn profession at their Baptism as we find by the Homilies of the Fathers upon the Creed made to the Competentes So we keep ourselves to the old faith 〈◊〉 the whole Christian World that is the Creed of the Apostles explicated by the Nicene Constantinopolitan Ephesine and Chalcedonian Fathers the same which was professed by them of old at their Baptisme and is still professed by us at our Baptisme the same wherein all the Christian World and themselves among the rest were Baptised None of us all ever made any profession at our Baptismes of the Vniversality of the Roman Church or of the Soveraign Monarchicall power of the Roman Bishop by divine right or of the Doctrin of Transubstantiation Indulgences Imageworship or the like Wherefore we are resolved to adhere to that faith which hath been professed alwaies everywhere and by all Persons and particularly both by them and us at our Baptisms in which faith and which alone we were made Christians without either diminution or Addition of any new Essentialls This was their faith formerly and this is ours still But he objecteth it is a great Absurdity that thus the Creed defined by the Fathers in the Councell of Nice and the Apostles Creed according to the Bishop are one and the same Creed Have you found out that Yes indeed are they and alwayes have been so reputed in the Church even in the Roman Church it self in their ancient Leiturgies which call the Nicene Creed the Evangelicall Creed the Creed of the Apostles inspired by the Lord instituted by the Apostles and when he groweth older he will be of the same mind I hope by this time he seeth that although I did not cite the Councell of Ephesus in this place and therefore could be no falsifier of it Yet the Councell of Ephesus saith more then I did in every respect I said onely the Councell did forbid but the Councell it self goeth higher that whosoever should dare I said forbid to exact but the Councell itself goeth higher whosoever should dare to compose or publish or offer The Originall word is Prospherein to offer and as it is translated into Latin Qui verò ausi fuerint aut componere fidem alteram aut proferre aut offerre Whosoever shall dare to compose or to utter or to offer another faith or Creed One may compose or publish and not offer one may offer and not exact but whosoever doth exact doth more then offer If the Councell doth forbid any man to compose or publish or offer any other Creed much more doth it forbid them to exact it Thirdly I said to exact any more then the Apostles Creed as it was explicated by the Fathers that is concerning Essentialls of saith but the Councell goeth higher to compose or publish or offer alteram fidem another Creed containing either more or lesse either new Essentialls or new Explications I said onely at our Baptismall profession but the Councell extendeth it further to the reconciliation of Hereticks as well as the Baptism of Pagans and Iewes and generally to all occasions not allowing any man Clergy or Lay to compose or publish any other Creed or form of profession So every way the Councell saith more then I said But he saith there is nothing in the Councell of Baptismall profession except the bare word fidem Well fides in that place signifieth the Creed and that Creed which all Christians did professe at their Baptisme is their Baptismall Profession But that is not all for as fides signifies their Creed or Profession of faith so those other words to any Persons willing to be converted from Paganisme or Iudaisme signiâ—ieth as much as who desire to be Christened or to be Baptised But he saith these words if the proposers of another faith â—e Lay men let them be excommunicated do make it impossible to have relation to Baptism because the Ordinary Minister of Baptisme is a Clergy man If a Sophister should have brought such an Argument in the Schooles he would have been hissed out for his labour Because one part of the Canon hath reference to Lay men therefore no part of it can have reference to Clergy men Iust like this an Aethiopians teeth are white therefore it is impossible that any part of him should be black Whereas the CanoÌ„ saith expresly the Contrary if they be Bishops or Clerkes let them be deposed if LaymeÌ„ Anathematised But this great Censurer himself doth falsify the Councell of Ephesus indeed twice in this one place Once in omitting the word Prospherein to offer Secondly where he saith that Charisius had made a wicked Creed It was not a wicked Creed but a wicked exposition of the Creed which the Councell condemned Depravata Symboli Expositio Which was indeed produced by Charisius but neither made by him nor approved by him but condemned by him as well as by the Councell Observe Reader with what grosse Carelesnesse these great Censurers doe read Authors and utter their fictitious Fancies with as great Confidence He would have called this Forgery in another Sect. I. Cap. XII He saith I charged their whole Church with changing the ancieÌ„t discipline of the Church into a Soveraignty of power above Generall Councells whereas I confesse that it is not their Vniversall Tenet and withall acknowledge that they who give such Exorbitant Privileges to Popes do it with so many Cautions that they signify nothing And then curteously askes me whether this be a matter deserving that Church Vnity should be broken for it I doe easily believe that this is one of his merry Stationers Contradictions What pittifull Cavills doth he bring for just exceptions First I doe not clap it upon their whole Church that is one injury or if I should speake in his language a grosse Falsification but upon the guilty party Secondly I never said that they who change the ancient Government of the Church into a Soveraignty of power do it with so many Cautions but I spake expresly of them who ascribe infallibility and temporall power over Princes to the Pope This is another injury or falsification Thirdly how often must I tell him that we did not disunite our selves from their Church but onely reinfranchise ourselves from their Vsurpations Lastly this party which
the Lawes and histories of his native Country If he had perused them diligently he might have observed how the Court of Rome and Crown of England were long upon their Gards watching one another and the one or the other gained or lost mutually according to the Vigour of their present Kings or Popes or according to the exigence of the times His seventh Objection that the like Lawes to ours in England were made in the Papacy it self but those could not be against the Popes Headship of the Church and his tenth Objection that then there never was a Papist Country in the world because equivaleÌ„t Lawes to ours were made in France Spaine Italy Sicily Gormany Poland c and his answer to my demand what law full Iurâ—sdiction could remaine to the Pope in England where such and such Lawes had force The same that remaines still to him in France Spaine Italy where the like lawes are in force in his last paragraph are a dish of unsavoury mushromes all sprung up from his own negligent mistake or wilfull Falsification let him chuse whether he will in confounding the Lawes of Mortmain with the other Lawes against the Popes Vsurpations Which I distinguished exactly both at the beginning of that discourse the Statute of Mortmain justified and at the Conclusion But to leave this Digression But besydes this grosse errour there want not other inconsequences and fallacies in his discourse as in his seventh Objection from the Popes particular Headship of his own Church to an Vniversall Headship over the Catholick Church and from an Headship of order to a Monarchicall Headship of power and in his tenth Objection from like lawes to the same Lawes from Lawes made to Lawes duely observed We had Lawes made against Non-conformists in England will he conclude thence that we have no Non-conformists in England the Argument would hold better the Contrary way Ex malis moribus bonae leges And in his last Paragraph from Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court to Iurisdiction purely Spirituall in the Court of Conscience and from Coactive Iurisdiction with the leave of the Prince to the same without Leave Wee see all Roman Catholick Countries doe stint the Popes Coactive Iurisdiction over their Subjects more or lesse according to their severall Liberties which they could not doe at all if he held it by Christs own Ordination His eighth Objection that upon this new Law made by Henry the eighth England stood at another distance then formerly from Rome is a Fallacy non causae pro causa when a false cause is assigned for a true cause Our just Lawes are not the right cause of our distance from Rome but the Popes unjust Censures and that Character which some of our Countrimen give of us But this distance is greater among the Populacy then between the Estates who do not much regard the Popes Censures either in making or observing of Leagues To his ninth Objection in his order and his last in my order that this Posiâ—â—on takes away the Question and makes all the Controvertists in England on both sides talke in the aire because it makes the Pope to have had no Authority there to be cast out I answer I wish it did but it doth not The Pope had Authority there and Authority usurped fit to be cast out notwithstanding our former good Lawes But yet I must confesse this Position doth much change the Question from spirituall Iurisdiction in the inner Court to Coactive Iurisdiction in the exteriour Court and makes him and many other such Controvertists talk in the aire who dispute onely about Headships and First Moverships when the true Controversy lieth in point of Interest and profit Sect. 4. That the Britannick Churches were ever exempted from forrein Iurisdiction for the first six hundred years and so ought to continue After I had shewed the Equality of the Apostles except onely a Priority of Order and that the Supremacy of power did not rest in any single Apostolicall College that Nationall Patriarchs were the highest Order constituted by the Apostles in the Church and how some Patriarchs came to be advanced above others with the true dignity or Preheminence of Apostolicall Churches the summe of all the rest of this Section might be reduced to a Syllogisme Those Churches which were exempted from all forrain Iurisdiction for the first 600 years cannot be subjected to any forrain Iurisdiction for the future against their own wills But all the Britannick Churches were ever exempted from forrain Iurisdiction for the first six hundred yeares The Major Proposition was proved by me undeuiably out of the first Generall Councell of Ephesus to which Mr. Serjeant hath objected nothing Next I proved the Minor First by Prescription Affirmanti incumbit probatio The burthen of the proofe in Law resteth upon the Affirmer but they are not able to shew so much as one single act of Iurisdiction which ever any Bishop of Rome did in Brittaign for the first six hundred yeares Secondly I proved it from the Antiquity of the Britannick Church which was ancienter then the Roman it self and therefore could not be subject to the RomaÌ„ from the beginning Thirdly because the Britannick Churches sided with the Eastern Churches against the Roman and therefore were not subject to the Roman Foâ—rthly because they had their Ordinations ordinarily at home which is an infallible sign of a free Church subject to no Forrein Iurisdiction Lastly because they renounced all Subjection to the Bishop of Rome I am forced to repeat thus much to let the Reader see the contexture of my discourse which Mr. Serjeant doth whatsoever he can to conceale or at least to confound and disjoint Out of this he picketh here and there what he pleaseth First he pleadeth that my Title is the Vindication of the Church of England but the Church of England can derive no title from the Britannick or Scottish Churches He never read or quite forgetteth the State of the QuestioÌ„ I will help his memory Let him read the Vindication by the Church of England we understand not the English Nation alone but the English dominion including the British and Scotish or Irish Christians So at unawares he hath yielded the Bishopricks of Chester Hereford Worcester for all these were Suffragans to Carleon Wales Cornwall Ireland Scotland with all the adjacent Ilands that is to say two third parts of the English Dominion Secondly he pleadeth that for this many hundred yeares they acknowledged the Popes Authority as well as the Church of England I answer that this will doe him no good nor satisfy the Generall Councell of Ephesus at all which hath decreed expresly in the case of the Cyprian Prelates and they Command the same to be observed in all Provinces that no Bishop occupy another Province which formerly and from the beginning was not under the power of him or his Predecessors and if any doe occupy another Province that in this case let him restore it
phantastick Persons who have been great pretenders to demonstration but always succeslesse and for the most part ridiculous They are so conceitedly curious about the premisses that commonly they quite mistake their conclusion Causes encombred with Circumstances and those left to the election of free agents are not very capable of demonstration The Case in difference between us is this as it is stated by me Whether the Church of England have withdrawn themselves from Obedience to the Vicar of Christ and seperated from the Communion of the Catholick Church And upon those Termes it is undertaken by him in the words immediatly following And that this Crime is justly charged upon his Church not onely with Colour but with undeniable Evidence of fact will appeare by the position of the Case and the nature of his exceptions We have the State of the Controversy agreed upon between us Now let us see how he goeth about to prove his intention What Church soever did upon probable reasons without any neeessary or convincing grounds break the Bonds of Vnity ordained by Christ in the Gospell and agreed upon by all true churches is guilty of Schisme But the Church of England in Henry the eightâ—s dayes did upon probable reasons without any necessary or convincing grounds break the Bonds of Vnity ordained by Christ in the Gospell and agreed upon by all true churches therefore the church of England is guilty of Schisme I doe readily assent to his Major proposition and am ready to grant him more if he had pleased to insert it That that Church is Schismaticall which doth breake the Bonds of Unity ordained by Christ in his Gospell whatsoever their reasons be whether convincing or probable and whosoever doe either consent to them or dissent from them But I deny his Minor which he endeavoureth to prove thus Whatsoever Church did renounce or reject these two following Rules or Principles first that The doctrines which had been inherited from their Forefathers as the Legacyes of Christ and his Apostles were solely to be acknowledged for Obligatory and nothing in them to be changed Secondly that Christ had made St. Peter first or chief or Prince of his Apostles who was to be the first mover under him in the Church after his departure out of this World and to whom all others in difficulties concerning Matters belonging to Universall faith or Government should have recoâ—rse and that the Bishops of Rome as Successors from St. Peter inherited from him this privilege in respect of the Successors of the rest of the Apostles That Church did breake the Bonds of Vnity ordained by Christ in his Gospell and agreed upon between the Church of England and the Church of Rome and the rest of her communion But the Church of England did all this in Henry the eyghts dayes that very yeare where in this unhappy Separation began upon meerly probable no convincing grounds Therefore c. To his former Proposition I made this exception That he would obtrude upon us she Church of Rome and its dependents for the Catholick Church Uppon this he flyeth out as it is his Custome into an invective discourse telling me I looke a squint at his position of the case He will not find it so in the conclusion And that I strive Hocus-pocus like to divert my Spectators eyes With a great deale more of such like froath where in there is not a syllable to the purpose except this that he did not mention the word Catholick in that place The greater was his fault It is a foule Solecisme in Logick not to conclude contradictorily I did mention the Catholick Church in the State of the Question Whether the church of England had separated it self from the communion of the Catholick Church And he had undertaken in the words immediatly following to charge that very Schisme upon us with undeniable Evidence And in his very first Essay shuffles out the Catholick Church and in the place thereof thrusts in the Church of Rome with all the rest of her communion He might have known that wee doe not looke upon the Church of Rome with all the rest of her Communion as the Catholick Church Nor as above a fifth part of the present Catholick Church And that wee doe not ascribe any such in fallibility in necessary truths to the Roman Church with all her dependants as wee doe to the true Catholick Church Nor esteem it alwayes Schismaticall to seperate from the modern Roman Church Namely in those points wherein shee had first seperated both from the primitive Roman Church and from the present Catholick Church But wee confesse it to be alwayes Schismaticall to seperate from the Communion of the Catholick Church united Thus much he ought to take notice of and when he hath oecasion hereafter to write upon this Subject not to take it for granted as they use to doe that the Catholick Church and the Roman Church are convertible Termes or tell us a Tale of a Tub what their Tenet is that these Churches which continue in Communnion with the Roman are the onely true Churches We regard not their Schismaticall and uncharitable Tenets now no more then we regarded the same tenets of the donatists of old They must produce better authority then their Owne and more substantiall proofes then he hath any in his Budget to make us believe that the Roman Church is the Catholick Church It is charity to acknowledge it to be a Catholick church inclusively but the greatest uncharitablenesse in the world to make it the Catholick church exclusively that is to seperate from Christ and from hope of Salvation as much as in them lieth all Christians who are not of their own communion Howsoever it is well that they who used to vaunt that the Enemy trembled at the name of the Catholick church are now come about themselves to make the Catholick Church to be an appendix to the Roman Take notice Reader that this is the first time that Mr. Serjeant turns his back to the question but it will not be the last My next taâ—ke is to examine his two Rules or Bonds of Unity And first concerning his Rule of faith I doe not onely approve it but thanck him for it and when I have a purpose to confute the 12 new Articles of Pius the fourth I will not desire a better medium then it And I doe Cordially subscribe to his Censure that the Transgressors there of are indeed those who are truly guilty of that horrid Schisme which is now in the Christian world To his second Rule or principle for Government that Christ made Sâ— Peter First or Chiefe or Prince of his Apostles who was to be the first mover under him in the church after he departed out of this world to whom all others should have recourse in greater Difficulties If he had not been a meer Novice and altogether ignoranâ— of the Tenets of our English Church he might have known that wee have no controversy
with Sâ— Peter nor with any other about the privileges of St. Peter Let him be First Chiefe or Prince of the Apostels in that sense wherein the Ancient Fathers stiled him so Let him be the First Ministeriall Mover And why should not the Church have recourse to a prime Apostle or Apostolicall Church in doubtfull cases The learned Bishop of Winchester of whom it is no shame for him to learn might have taught him thus much not onely in his own name but in the name of the King and Church of England Neither is it questioned among us whether St. Peter had a Primacy but what that Primacy was And whether it were such an one as the Pope doth now Challenge to him self and you challenge to the pope But the King doâ—h not deny Peter to have been the prime and prince of the Apostles I wonder how it commeth to passe that he who commonly runneth over in his expressions should now on a suddain become so dry upon this Subject If this be all be needed not to have forsaken the Communion of the Church of England for any great Devotion that he beareth to St. peter more then wee But yet wee dare not rob the rest of the Apostles to cloath St. Peter Wee say clearly with St. Cyprian Hoc erant utique caeteri Apostoli quod fuit petrus pari consortio praediti honoris Poâ—estatis sed exordium ab Vnitate proficisciâ—ur Primatus Petro daâ—ur ut una christi Ecclesia una caâ—hedr a monstretur The rest of the Apostles were even the same thing that Peter was endowed with an equall Fellowship both of honour and power but the beginning commeth from Vnity the primacy is given to Peter to signify one church and one chaire It is wel known that St. Cyprian made all the Bisshop ricks in the World to be but one masse Episcopatus unus est Episcoporum multorum concordi numerositate diffusus whereof every Bishop had an entire part cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur All that he attributeth to St. Peter is this beginning of Vnity this primacy of Order this preheminence to be the Chief of Bishops To be Bishop of the principall Church from whence Sacerdot all Vnity did spring Yet I esteem St. Ciprian as fauorable an Expositor to the See of Rome as any they wil find out of their own Chaire that was no more interessed in that See This primacy neither the Ancients nor wee doe deny to St. Peter of Order of Place of preheminence if this first Movership would serve his turn this controversy were at an end for our parts But this Primacy is over leane The Court of Rome have no Gusto to it They thirst after a visible Monarchy upon earth an absolute Ecclesiasticall Soveraignty A power to make Canons to abolish Canons to dispense with Canons to impose pensions to dispose dignities to decide Controversies by a single Authority This was that which made the breach not the innocent Primacy of St. Peter as I shall demonstrate by evident proofes as cleare as the noone day light Observe Reader that Mr. Serjeant is making another Vagare our of the lists to seeke for his Adversary where he is sure not to find him here after if he have a mind to employ his pen upon this subject and not to barke at the Moonshine in the water let him endeavour to demonstrate these foure things which wee deny indeed First that each Apostle had not the same power over the Christian world by virtue of Christ Commission As my Father senâ— mee so send I you which St. Peter had Secondly that St. Peter ever excercised a single Iurisdiction over the persons of the rest of the Apostles more then they over him besides and over and above his Primacy of Order or beginning of Vnity Thirdly that St. Peter a lone had his Commission granted to him by Christ as to an Ordinary Pastour to him and his Successors And all the rest of the Apostles had their CoÌ„missions onely as Delegates for term of life This new hatched Distinction being the foundation of the present Papacy I would be glad to see one good author for it who writ within a thoâ—sand yeares after Christ. Lastly that the Soveraignty of Ecclesiasticall power and Iurisdiction rested in St. Peter alone and was exercised by him alone and not by the Apostolicall College During the hystory of the Acts of the Apostles Now let us proceed from St. Peter to the Pope which is the second part of his rule of Government And that the Bishops of Rome as Successors of St. Peter inherited from him this Privilige in respect of the Successors of the rest of the Apostles And actually exercised this power in all the Countreyes which kept Communion with the Church of Rome what Privilege To be the first Bishop the Chiefe Bishop the principall Bishop the first mover in the Church just as S. Peter was among the Apostles we have heard of no other Privilege as yet If a man would be pleased ou of meer pitty to his starving cause to suppose thus much what good would it doe him Doth he think that the pope or the court of Rome would ever accept of such a Papacy as this or thanke him for his double diligence He must either be meanly versed in the Primitive Fathers or give little credit to them who will deny the Pope to succced St Peter in the Roman Bishoprick or will envy him the Dignity of a Patriarck with in his just Bounds But the Breach between Rome and England was not about any Episcopall Metropolitical or Patriarchall rightes A Patriarch hath more power in his proper Bishoprick then in his province and more in his province then in the rest of his Patriarchate But papall power is much greater then any Bishop did ever challenge in his own Diocesse In my answer to his Assumtion I shal shew sufficiently who they were that Brake this Bond of Vnion and are the undoubted Authors of Schisme But before I come to that I would know of him how the Pope did inherit all those Privileges which he claimeth from S. Peter or how he holds them by Christs own ordination in holy Scripture First all the Eastern Churches doe affirm Confidently that the most of these Privileges were the Legacyes of the Church representative not Christ or St. Peter And it seemeth to be very true by that of the Councell of Sardica Si vobis placet Sancti Petri memoriam honoremus If all these Priuileges were the popes inheritance it was not wel done of old Osius to put it upon a Si placet content or not content and to assigne no better a reason then the memory of a Predecessour It semeth likewise to be true by the Councel of Chalcedon which attributeth the primacy of the Bishop of Rome to the Decrees of the Fathers and the dignity of that imperiall City And when the popes
Legates did oppose the Acts of the Councell Gloriosissimi Iudices dixerunt The most glorieus Iudges said let both partyes plead the Canons By the Canons that great Councell of six hundred and thirty Fathers did examin it By the Canons they did determin it there was no inheritance pretended in the case Secondly if the Bishop of Rome did hold all his privileges by inheritance from S. Peter how much were three successive Popes over seen Zosimus Bonifacius and Caelestinus to ground them upon the canoÌ„s of the councell of Nice and these either counterfeited or mistaken for the Canons of Sardica Which when the African Fathers did find oâ—t by the true Copyes of the Nicene Councell they rejected that part of papall power as appeareth by their Letter to Pope Caelestine We earnestly beseech you that hence forwards you doe not easily lend an eare to such as come from hence nor which Bellarmine cuts of guilefully receive any more such as are excommunicated by us into your Communion with this sharp intimation Ne fumosum typum saeculi in Ecclesiam videamur inducere If soveraigne Iudicature did belong to the Bishop of Rome by Inheritance from St. Peter why did three popes challenge it upon the Decrees of the Nicene Concell and why did the Affrican Fathers refuse to admit it because it was not conteined in the Decrees of the Nicene Councell Thirdly if by Prince of Bishops Mr Serjeant understand an absolute Prince one who hath a single Legislative power To make Canons To abolish Canons to dispense with Canons as seemeth good in his owne eies if he makea greater Prince of the Steward then he doth of the Spouse of Christ he will have an hard Province to secure him self from the Censures of the Councells of Constance and Basile in the former of which were personally present one Empereur Two Popes Two Patriarchs All the Cardinalls The Embassadors of all' the Princes in the West and the Flower of Occidentall Schollars Divines and Lawyers These had reason to know the Tradition of the Universall Church as well as Mr. Serjeant Lastly before he can determine this to be an vndeniable truth and a necessary Bond of Vnity that the Bishop of Rome is Inheriâ—er of all the Privileges of St. Peter And that this Principle is Christs own Ordination recorded in Scripture He must first reconcile him self to his own party There is a Comentary upon the Synodall answer of the councell of Basile printed at Colone in the yeare 1613. wherein is mainteined That the Provinces subject to the foure great Patriarchs from the beginning of the Christian church did know no other Supreme but their own Patriarchs And if the Pope be a Primate it is by the church If he be the head of all churches it is by the church and where as wee have said that it is expressed in the councell of Nice that many provinces were subjected to the church of Rome by Ecclesiasticall custome and no other right the Synod should doe the greatest injury to the Bishop of Rome if it should attribute those things to him onely from Custom which were his due by divine right Gerson goeth much more accurately to worke distinguishing Papall rights into three sorts divine which the Bishop of Rome challengeth by succession from St. Peter Canonicall wherewith he hath been trusted by generall councells and civil granâ—ed to that See by the Emperours Of the first sort he reckoneth no more but three privileges To call councells To give sentencee with councels and Iurisdiction purely spirituall Among the Propositions given in to the councell of Pisa and printed with the acts of the councell wee find these first Although the Pope as he is the Vicar of Christ may after a certain manner be called the head of the church Yet the Vnity of the church doth not depend necessarily or receive its beginning from the Vnity of the Pope Secondly The church hath power and authority originally and immediatly from Christ its head to congregate it self in a gonerall councell to preserve its Vnity It is added That the Catholick church hath this power also by the Law of Nature Thirdly In the Acts of the Apostles we read of four Councells Convocated and not by the Authority of Peter but by the Common Consent of the Church And in one Councell celebrated at Ierusalem we read not that Peter but that Iames the Bishop of the Place was President and gave Sentence He concludeth that the Church may call a Generall Councell without the Authority of the Pope and in some cases though he contradict it The Writers and writings of those times in and about the Councells of Constance and Basile and the two Pisan Councells doe a bound with such expressions Before he determined positively The divine right of the Papacy as it includeth a Soveraignty of power he ought to consider seriously what many of his own friends have written about it as Canus and Cusanus and Stapleton and Soto and Driedo and Segovius as it is related by Aeneas Sylvius and others That the Popes succession is not revealed in Scripture That Christ did not limit the Primacy to any particular Church That it cannot be proved that the Bishop of Rome is perpetuall Prince of the Church That the Glosse which preferreth the Iudgement of the Roman Church before the Iudgement of the world singular and foolish and unworthy to be followed That it hath been a Catholick Tenet in former times that the Primacy of the Roman Bishop doth depend not upon divine but human right and the positive Decrees of the Church That men famous in the Study of Christian Theology have not been affraid in great Assemblies to assert the Humane Right of the Pope He ought to Consider what is said of a great King that Theologians affirmed that the Pope was the head of the Church by divine right but when the King required them to prove it they could not demonstrate it And lastly what the Bishop of Chalcedon saith lately To us it sufficeth that the Bishop of Rome is St. Peters Successour and this all Fathers Testify and all ihe Catholick Church believeth but whether he be so Jure divino or humano is no point of Faith Here Reader I must intreat the before wee proceed a step-farther to read his Assertion That the Constant beliefe of the Catholick World was and is that this Principle namely that the Bishop of Rome inherited the Privileges of St. Peter is Christs own Ordination recorded in Scripture Derived to us by the strongest Evidences that our Nature is capable of What a strange Confidenee is this to tell his Readers he cares not what so it may serve his present turne How should this be recorded in Scripture when the Bisshoprick of Rome is never mentioned in Scripture nor so much as whether St. Peter ever was at Rome Except we understand Rome by Babilon but this is too remote and too obscure to
is the Keeper of both the Tables and wee say that for the first Table the Bishops ought to be his Interpreters Thirdly as wee question not the Popes legislative or coactive power over his own subjects so we submit to the judgemeÌ„t of the Catholick church whether he ought to have a primacy of order as the successour of S. Peter and as a consequent thereof a right if he would content himself with it to summoÌ„ Councells when and where there are no Christian Soveraignes to doe it and to joyne with other Bishops in making spirituall Lawes or Canons such as the Apostles made and such as the primitive Bishops made before there were christiaÌ„ Emperours But then those Canons are the Lawes of the Church not of the Pope As those Canons in the Acts of the Apostles were the Lawes of the Apostolicall College The Apostles and Elders and Brethren not the Lawes of S. Peter Then their Lawes have no Coactive Obligation to compell Christians in the outward Court of the Church against their Wills or further then they are pleased to submit theÌ„selves All exteriour coactive power is from the Soveraigne Prince and therefore when and where Emperours and Kings are Christians to them it properly belongeth to summon Councells and to confirm their Canons thereby making them become lawes Because Soveraign Princes onely have power to License and Command their Subjects to Assemble to assign fit places for their Assembling to protect them in their Assemblyes and to give a Coactive power to their Lawes without which they may doe their best to drive away Wolves and to oppose Heriticks but it must be with such Armes as Christ had furnished them withall that is persuasions Prayers Teares and at the most seperating them from the Communion of the faithfull and leaving them to the Iudgement of Christ. The Controversy is then about new upstart Papall Lawes either made at Rome such are the decretalls of Gregory the ninth Boniface the eighth Clement the fifth and succeeding Popes Or made in England by Papall Legates as Otho and Othobone Whether the Pope or his Legates have power to make any such Lawes to bind English Subjects and compell them to obey them against their Wills the King of England contradicting it The first time that ever any Canon of the Bishop of Rome or any legislative Legate of his was attempted to be obtruded upon the King or Church of England was eleven hundred yeares after Christ. The first Law was the Law against taking Investitures to Bishopricks from a Lay hand And the first Legate that ever presided in an English Synod was Iohannes Cremensis of both which I have spoken formerly Observe Reader and be astonished if thou hast so much faith to believe it That the Pope should pretend to a legislative power over British and English Subjects by divine right and yet never offer to put it in execution for above eleven hundred yeares It remaineth now to prove evidently that Henry the eighth by his Statute made for that purpose did not take away from the Bishop of Rome any Privilege which he and his Predecessors had held by Inheritance from St. Peter and been peaceably possessed of for fifteen hundred yeares But on the contrary that eleven hundred yeares after St. Peter was dead the Bishops of Rome did first invade the right of the Crown of England to make Lawes for the externall Regiment of the Church which the Predecessors of Henry the eighth had enjoyed peaceably untill the dayes of William Rufus nemine contradicente And that the Kings Lawes were evermore acknowledged to be true Lawes and obligatory to the English Subjects but that the Popes decrees were never esteemed to be binding Lawes in England except they were incorporated in to our Lawes by the King and Church or Kingdome of England Whence it followeth by irrefragable consequence that Henry the eighth was not the Schismatick in this particular but the Pope and those that maintain him or adhere to him in his Vsurpations First for the Kings right to make Lawes not onely concerning the outward RegimeÌ„t of the Church but even coÌ„cerning the Keys of Order and jurisdiction so far as to oblige them who are trusted with that power by the Church to doe their dutyes it is so evident to every one who hath but cast his Eyes upon our English Lawes that to bestow labour on proving it were to bring Owles to Athens Their Lawes are extant made in all Ages concerning faith and good Manners Heresy Holy Orders the Word the Sacraments Bishops Priests Monkes the Privileges and Revenues of Holy Church Marriages Divorces Simony The Pope his SenteÌ„ces his oppressions and usurpations Prohibitions Appeales from Eeclesiasticall judges and generally all things which are of Ecclesiasticall Cognifance and this in those times which are acknowledged by the Romanists themselves to have been Catholick More then this they inhibited the Popes own Legate to attempt to decree any thing contrary to the Kings Crown and dignity And if they approved the decrees of the Popes Legates they confirmed them by their Royall Authority and so incorporated them into the Body of the English Lawes Secondly that the Popes decrees never had the force of Lawes in England without the Confirmation of the King Witnesse the decrees of the Councell of Lateran as they are commonly called but it is as cleare as the day to any one who readeth the eleveÌ„th the six and fortieth and the one and sixtieth Chapters that they were not made by the Councell of Lateran but some time after perhaps not by InnoceÌ„t the third but by some succeeding Pope For the author of them doth distinguish himself expresly from the Councell of Lateran It was well provided in the Councell of Lateran c. But because that statute is not observed in many Churches we confirming the foresaid statute doe adde c. Again It is known to have been prohibited in the councel of Lateran c. But we inhibiting the same moro strongly c. How soever they were the Popes decrees but never were received as Lawes in England as wee see evidently by the third Chapter That the Goods of Clergimen being convicted of Heresy be forfeited to the Church That all Officiers Secular and Ecclesiasticall should take an Oath at their Admission into their Office to their power to purge their Territories from Heresy That if a Temporall Lord did neglect being admonished by the Church to purge his Lands from Heresy he should be excommunicated And if he contemned to satisfy within a yeare the Pope should absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance And by the three and fortieth Chapter That no Ecâ—â—â—siasticall person be compelled to swear allegiance to a Lay man And by the six and fortieth Chapter that Ecclesiasticall persons be free from taxes Wee never had any such Lawes all Goods forfeited in that kind were ever confiscated to the King We never had any such Oaths Every one is to answer for himself We know
Represētative Church that is a Generall Councell or Synod nor the Executive headship of each Patriarch in his Patriarchate nor the Bishop of Romes headship of Order among them and thus this great Objection is vanished By this he may see that we have introduced no new Form of Ecclesiasticall Government into the Church of England but preserved to every one his due right if he will accept of it and that we have the same Dependence upon our Ecclesiasticall Superiours which we had evermore from the Primitive times He chargeth us that we give no certain Rule to know which is a Generall Councell which not or who are to be called to a Generall Councell There is no need why we should give any new Rules who are ready to observe the old Rules of the Primitive Church Generall Summons to all the Patriarchs for them and their Clergy Generall Admittance of all Persons capable to discusse freely and to define freely according to their distinct Capacities and lastly the presence of the five Protopatriarchs and their Clergy either in their persons or by their suffrages or in case of Necessity the greater part of them doe make a Generall Councell Whilest we set this rule before us as our pattern and swerve not from it but onely in case of invincible Necessity we may well hope that God who looketh upon his poore Servants with all their Prejudices and expecteth no more of them then he hath enabled them to performe who hath promised that where two or three are gathered together in his name there will he be in the midst of them Will vouchsafe to give his assistence and his Blessing to such a Councell which is as Generall as may be although perhaps it be not so exactly Generall as hath been or might have been now if the Christian Empire had flourished still as it did anciently In summe I shall be ever ready to acquiesce in the Determinaation of a Councell so Generall as is possible to be had so it may be equall not having more Iudges of one Country then all the rest of the Christian world as it was in the Councell of Trent but regulated by the equall votes of Christian Nations as it was in the Councells of Constance and Basile and so as those Nations which cannot in probability be personally present may be admitted to send their Votes and Suffrages as they did of old and lastly so it may be free called in a free place whither all parties may have secure accesse and Liberty to propose freely and define freely according to the Votes of the Fathers without being stinted or curbed or overruled by the Holy Ghost sent in a Curriers Budget And for the last part of his exception that Hereticks should not be admitted I for my part should readily consent provided that none be reputed Hereticks but such as true Generall Councells have evidently declared to be Hereticks or such as will not pronounce an Anathema against all old Heresies which have been condemned for Heresies by undoubted Generall Councells But to imagin that all those should be reputed Hereticks who have been condemned of Heresy or Schisme by the Roman Court for their own interest that is foure parts of five of the Christian world is silly and senselesse and argueth nothing but their fear to come to a faire impartiall Tryall And this is a full answer to that which he allegeth out of Doctor Hammond that Generall Councells are now morally impossible to be had the Christian world being under so many Empires and Divided into so many Communions It is not credible that the Turke will send his Subjects that is four of the Protopatriarchs with their Clergy to a Generall Councell or allow them to meet openly with the rest of Christendome in a Generall Councell it being so much against this own Interest but yet this is no impediment why the Patriarchs might not deliver the Sense and Suffrages of their Churches by Letters or by Messengers and this is enough to make a Councell Generall In the First Councell of Nice there were onely five Clergymen present out of the Western Churches In the Great Councell of Chalcedon not so many In the Councells of Constantinople and Ephesus none at all And yet have these four Councells evermore been esteemed truly Generall because the Western Church did declare their consent and concurrence Then as there have been Generall Orientall Councells without the personall presence of a Western Bishop so there may be an Occidētall Councell without the personall presence of one Eastern Bishop by the sole Communication of their sense and their Faith Neither is such Communication to be deemed impossible considering what correspondence the Muscovian Church did hold long with the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Abyssine hath long held and doth still hold with the Patriarch of Alexandria It is cōfessed that there are too many different Communions in Europe it may be some more then there is any great cause for and perhaps different Opinions where there is but one Communion as difficult to be reconciled as different Communions But many of these Mushrome Sects are like those inorganicall Creatures bred upon the Bankes of Nilus which perished quickly after they were bred for want of fit Organs The more considerable parties and the more capable of reason are not so many if these could be brought to acquiesce in the determination of a free Generall Councell they would towe the other like lesser Boats after them with ease No man wil say that the Vnity of the Church in point of Government doth consist onely in their actuall subordination to Generall Councells Generall Councells are extraordinary Remedies proper for curing or composing new differences of great Concernment in Faith or discipline That being done Generall Councells may prove of more Danger then use No healthfull man delighteth in a continuall course of Phisick But Vnity consisteth also and Ordinarily in Conformity and submission to that discipline which Generall Councells have recommended to us either as the Legacies of Christ and his Apostles or as Ecclesiasticall Policies instituted by them with the Concurrence or Confirmation of Christian Soveraigns for the publick good of the Catholick Church He chargeth us that we have so formed Gods Church that there is no meanes left to asssemble a Generall Councell having renounced his Authority whose proper Office it was to call a Generall Councell His errours seldome come single but commonly by Clusters or at least by paires What height of Confidence is it to affirm that it is the proper Office of the Pope to call Generall all Councells when all ingenuous men doe acknowledge that all the First Generall Councells were Ab Imperatoribus Indicta Called by Emperours To which the Popes Friends adde that it was by the Advise and with the Consent of the Pope And Bellarmine gives diverse reasons why it could not be otherwise First because there was a Law which did forbid frequent Assemblyes for feare af Sedition Secondly
that Authority which he doth challenge and not wave the extent as a thing Indifferent If he challenge it out of Prudentiall Reasons it ought to be considered whether the Hopes or the Hazards the Advantages or Disadvantages the ConvenieÌ„ces or Inconveniences of such a Form of Government particularly circumstantiated doe over ballance the one or the other And the surest tryall of this is by experience It will trouble him to find so many Advantages which the Church and Kingdome of England have received from Papall Iurisdiction I speak not of the Key of Order as may overweigh all those Disadvantages which they have susteined by the Extortions and Vsurpations and Malignant Influence of the Papacy If he attribute no more power to the Pope then all Roman Catholicks universally do approve which is the onely Rule that he giveth us to know what is the Substance of Papall Authority he need not be so impetuous this Question is near an end He askes whether wee and the Eastern Southern and Northern Christians be under the Government of Patriarchs or any other Common Government I answer wee and they are under the same Common Government which the Primitive Church was under from the Dayes of the Apostles long before there were any Generall Councells that was the Government of Bishops under Primates or Patriarchs For as I have said formerly a Protarch and a Patriarch in the Language of the Primitive Church are both one We have as much Opportunity to Convocate Synods as they had then before there were Christian Emperours and more yet by such Councells as they could Congregate though they were not Generall they governed the Church If there be not that free Communication of one Church with another that was then either by reason of the great distance or our mutuall misunderstanding one of another for want of the old Canonicall Epistles or Literae Formatae the more is the Pity We are sorry for it and ready to contribute our uttermost endeavours to the Remedy of it With these western Churches which have shaken of the Roman Yâ—ke we have much more Communion by Synods by Letters by Publishing our Confessions aÌ„d we might justly hope for a much nearer union yet both in doctrine and Discipline if God would be graciously pleased to restore an happy Peace That we have it not already in so large a measure as we might is their onely Faults who would not give way to an Vniform Reformation Sometimes they accuse us for having too much Communion with them at other times they will not grant us to have any at all Concerning the rest of the Western Churches which submit to the Papacy we have the same Rules both of Doctrine and Discipline which they had We have the same that they have saving their Additionall Errours We have broken no Bonds of Unity either in Faith or Discipline we have renounced no just Authority either Divine or Humane we adhere to the Apostles Creed as the ancient and true Rule of Faith into which alone all ChristiaÌ„s that ever were have been baptised and we renounce the upstart additionall Articles of Pius the fourth We are willing for peace sake to give the Pope the same Primacy of Order which St. Peter had above his Fellow Apostles but the Supremacy of power was not in St. Peter but in the Apostolicall College neither is now in the Bishop of Rome but in a Councell of Bishops He saith we maintein a larger Brotherhood then they but never goe about to shew any visible Tye of Government We shew them the same Badge or Cognisance of our Christianity that is the same Creed and the same Discipline or Government that is the same Colours derived down from the Apostles by an uninterrupted Succession The same Doctrine and the same Discipline is Tye enough To take an exact View it is necessary the Organ should be perfect the Medium fit and the Distance convenient if any one of these were Defective in Mr. Rosses View he might well mistake but I may not doe him that wrong to trust your Testimony without citing his words He urgeth If Christ have left any Vnity of Government in his Church and Commanded it to be kept and we have taken a Course to leave no such Vnity then we have rebelled against Christ and his Church and falsly pretend to have him our Spirituall head I admit this now let him Assume But you Protestants have taken a Course to leave no Vnity of Government in the Church which Christ left and Commanded to be kept I deny his Assumtion altogether and he saith not one word to prove it This is his Enthymematicall manner of Arguing He procedeth That to have a Generall Councell for an Ecclesiasticall Head is to confesse that there is no Ordinary Vnity of Government in Gods Church but extraordinary onely when a Councell sits I deny this Proposition altogether and the reason is Evident because besides a Generall Councell which sitteth but rarely neither is it needfull that it should sit often Nisi dignus Vindice nodus inciderit there are particular Councells which in lesser Exigents serve the turn as well as Generall There are Patriarchs and Bishops which are Ordinary and perpetuall In an Aristocracy it is not necessary that the Governours should be evermore actually Assembled In the first three hundred yeares there were no Generall Councells held there was lesse hope of ever holding them then then now yet there was an Ordinary Vnity of Government in Gods Châ—rch in those dayes for which they were not indebted at all to any visible Monarch Bâ—t when a Generall Councell doth sit the Supreme Ecclesiasticall power rests in it He wonders why I should make the King onely a Politicall Head Contrary to our Common Assertion It seemeth that though he hath been bred among us yet he hath not been much versed in our Authors No man that ever understood himself made him otherwise Yet this Politicall Head hath a great Influence upon Ecclesiasticall Causes and persons in the Externall Regiment of the Church He demandeth is there any Orderly Common Tye of Government obliging this Head to Correspond with the other head If not where is the Vnity I answer yes the direction of his Spirituall Guides that is his Bishops and Synods If this Method be so great a Rarity with him it is his own fault He had said more properly to Correspond with the other Heads then Head He saith It is false to say that they have sometimes two or three heads since there can be but one true or rightly chosen Pope True but the Election may be uncertain that no man living can know the true Pope so whether there be three Popes or one Pope and two pretenders yet if the right Pope cannot be made appeare it is all one relatively to the Church If the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to the Battell He telleth us further that when the See of Rome is vacant the Headship is
His Friend Possivine calls him a Virulent Adversary and if ever Mr. Serjeant read him throughly it is ten to one he will change his note Thus much for my Communion with the Eastern Churches it is the same with the Southern and Northern Churches all which doe plead better Tradition then himself Whereas he saith that my Assertion that the Creed conteined all points necessary to be believed is grounded onely upon my falsifying of the Councell of Ephesus he bewrayeth his ignorance both in the Fathers and in his own Authours The Scripture is none of those particular Articles which are necessary to Salvation to be believed but it is the Evidence whereby those Articles are revealed and wherein they are comprehended The Creed was composed before the Canon of Scripture was perfected They have not onely changed from their Ancestours in Opinions but they have changed their own Opinions into necessary Articles of Faith which is worse I denied that the Councell of Trent was a Generall Councell as wanting the requisite Conditions of a Generall Councell which they themselves judge to be necessary The summons ought to have been generall but it was not The great Patriarchs ought to have been present but they were not neither the Patriarchs of Constantinople Alexandria Antioch and Hierusalem nor any of them nor yet the Patriarchs of Armenia Abissina Mosco Mussall c. nor any of them He answereth they had no right to be summoned thither unlesse to be called to the Barre as Delinquents nor to sit there nor are to be accounted Christians It had need to be a large Barre indeed to hold them all Was it ever heard before that a fifth part of a Councell did call foure parts to the Barre Their Ancestours had right to be summoned to a Generall Councell and to sit and vote there as well as the best how have their posterity lost this right Had they been heard and condemned in a Generall Councell No. But he urgeth what need hearing when themselves in the Face of the whole world publickly confessed and maintaine their imputed fault How what needed hearing O Iust Iudge He that giveth a right Sentence yet if he give it without hearing is an unrighteous Iudge They confessed their imputed Fault but did they confesse it to be a Fault No I warrant you he can not say it for shame Or how should they confesse it in the Face of the whole Christian world They are the Christian world themselves and your Roman world is but a Microcosme in comparison of them The case is so evident and notorious that no man can doubt of it The Continent hath not left St. Peters Boat but St. Peters Boat hath left the Continent The Innovation or swerving from Apostolicall Tradition was not in the Christian world but in the Court of Rome who would have advanced their Aristocraticall power to a Soveraign Monarchicall power but the Christian world would not give way to it if this were an errour in them all their Ancestours were guilty of it as well as they But the Court of Rome being conscious to themselves that they were the Innovators to free themselves from feare of being censured by the Christian World adventured to give the first blow by censuring the whole Christian world it self This was a Bolder Act then that of Pope Victor which Irenaeus misliked so much He will never leave his Socraticall manner of disputing by Questions what certain Rule have we to know what Sects are of she Church Although I needed not yet I have answered this demand formerly All those are of the Church who weare the Badge and Cognisance of Christians that is the Apostles Creed as it is explicated by the foure first Generall Councells as all those Churches doe and have not been cast out of the Church by the Sentence of a Generall Councell as none of these Churches have no nor yet by the Sentence of the Roman Church it self if we may trust the Bishop of Chalcedons Survey cap. 8. Neither doth the Roman Church excommunicate all the Christians of Affrick Asia Greece and Russia but onely such as doe vincibly or sinfully erre He addeth that there are innumerable who are not formall Hereticks but onely Hereticis Credentes These continue good Christians still and are Churches still and ought not to be excluded froÌ„ Generall Councells though supposed to be materially in an errour much lesse being innocent and in no Heresy or Schisme either formall or Materiall I pleaded that though it were true that all the other Patriarchs were such Materiall Hereticks yet of all others they ought especially to have been summoned The reason is evident because they that are sick have more need of the Physitian then they that are in health Hence he inferreth that it is more necessary that Hereticks be called to a Generall Councell then Orthodox Fathers Not so both are necessary the one to Cure the other to be cured but the especiall Consideration or end of a Councell is for those that erre that they may be reduced I said the Pope hath not that Authority over a Generall Councell that the King hath over a Parliament He answereth that he is so plaine a man that he understandeth not what the Authority of King or Parliament signifies I will help him The King may dissolve a Parliament when he pleaseth so may not the Pope a Generall Councell against their wills If the King dye by whose writ it was called the Parliament is dissolved so is not a Generall Councell by death of the Pope The King hath a Negative voice in Parliament so hath not the Pope in a Generall Councell I urged that the Protoâ—patriarchs are not known or condemned Rebells He answereth first this is onely said againe not proved He is alwaies stumbling upon the same Block It doth not belong to me to prove they were not condemned but to himself who accuseth them to shew when and where they where condemned Secondly he answereth that their Errours have been condemned by Councells and for the most part some of their own party being present But the condemning of their errours is no sufficient warrant for the excluding of their persons out of Generall Councells Neither were these Councells Generall Councells or such as had any Iurisdiction over the Protopatriarchs Moreover they condemne Papall Errours as well as he condemneth their Errours whether is more Credit to begiven to the Pope in his own cause charging all the Patriarchs in the world or to all the other Patriarchs in the world unanimously condemning his Vsurpations in the name of the Catholick Church He demands whether there might not be a Parliament of England without having the fifth part of the Members found in that Councell and yet be a lawfull Parliament I think there might if the absence of all the rest proceeded from their own neglect but not if it proceeded from want of Summons as the absence of the Protopatriarchs did He bids me rub up my memory he believes
SCHISME GARDED and beaten back upon the right owners Shewing that our great controversy about Papall power is not a quaestion of faith but of interest and profit not with the Church of Rome but with the Court of Rome wherein the true Controversy doth consist who were the first innovators when and where these Papall innovations first began in England with the opposition that was made against them By JOHN BRAMHALL D. D. Bishop of Derry Act. 25. 10. I stand at Caesars judgmēt seate where I ought to be judged Psalm 19. 2. Dies diei eructat verbum nox nocti indicat scientiam GRAVENHAGH Imprinted by JOHN RAMZEY Anno M.DC.LVIII To the CHRISTIAN READERS especially the Roman-Catholicks of England CHristian Reader the great Bustling in the Controversy concerning Papall power or the discipline of the Church hath been either about the true sense of some Texts of holy Scripture As thou art Peter and upon this rocke will I build my Church and to thee will I give the Keies of the Kingdome of heaven and feed my sheepe Or about some privileges conferred upon the Roman See by the Canons of the Fathers and the Edicts of Emperours but praetended by the Roman Court and the mainteiners thereof to be held by divine right I ēdevour in this Treatise to disabuse thee and to shew that this challenge of divine right is but a Blind or Diversion to withhold thee from finding out the true State of the Quaestion So the Hare makes her doubles and her iumpes before she come to her Forme to hinder Tracers from finding her out I demonstrate to thee that the true controversy is not concerning St. Peter we have no formed difference about St Peter nor about any point of faith but of interest and profit nor with the Church of Rome but with the Court of Rome and wherein it doth consist namely in these quaestions VVho shall conferre English Bishoprickes who shall convocate English Synods who shall receive tenths and first fruites and Oathes of Allegiance and Fidelity VVhether the Pope can make binding Lawes in England without the consent of the King and Kingdome or dispense with English Lawes at his owne pleasure or call English Subjects to Rome without the Princes leave or set up Legantine Courtes in England against their wills And this I shew not out of the opinions of Particular Authors but out of the publick Lawes of the Kingdome I prove moreover out of our fundamentall Lawes and the writings of our best Historiographers that all these branches of Papall power were abuses and innovations and usurpations first attempted to be introduced into England above eleven hundred yeares after Christ with the names of the Innovators and the praecise time when each innovation began and the opposition that was made against it by our Kings by our Bishops by our Peeres by our Parliaments with the groanes of the Kingdome under these Papall innovations and extortions Likewise in point of doctrine thou hast been instructed that the Catholick faith doth comprehend all those points which are controverted betvveene us and the Church of Rome vvithout the expresse beliefe vvhereof no Christian can be saved vvhereas in truth all these are but opinions yet some more dangerous then others If none of them had ever bene started in the vvorld there is sufficient to salvation for points to be believed in the Apostles Creed Into this Apostolicall faith professed in the Creed and explicated by the foure first Generall Councells and onely into this faith vve have all been baptised Farre be it from us to imagine that the Catholick Church hath evermore baptised and doth still baptise but into one half of the Christian faith In summe doest thou desire to live in the Communion of the true Catholick Church So do I. But as I dare not change the cognisance of my Christianity that is my Creed nor enlarge the Christian faith I meane the essentialls of it beyond those bounds vvhich the Apostles have set So I dare not to serve the interest of the Roman Court limit the Catholick Church vvhich Christ hath purchased vvith his blood to a fourth or a fifth part of the Christian vvorld Thou art for tradition So am I. But my tradition is not the tradition of one particular Church contradicted by the tradition of another Church but the universall and perpetuall tradition of the Christian vvorld united Such a tradition is a full proofe vvhich is received semper ubique ab omnibus alvvaies every vvhere and by all Christians Neither do I looke upon the oppositiō of an handfull of Heretickes they are no more being compared to the innumerable multitudes of Christians in one or two ages as inconsistent vvith universality any more then the highest mountains are inconsistent vvith the roundnesse of the earth Thou desirest to beare the same respect to the Church of Rome that thy Ancestours did So do I. But for that fullness of power yea coactive power in the exteriour Court over the subjects of other Princes and against their vvills devised by the Courte of Rome not by the Church of Rome it is that pernicious source from vvhence all these usurpations did spring Our Ancestours from time to time made Lavves against it and our reformation in pointe of discipline being rightly understood vvas but a pursueing of their steppes The true controuersy is vvhether the Bishop of Rome ought by divine right to have the externall Regiment of the English Church and coactive jurisdiction in English Courtes over English Subjects against the vvill of the King and the Lavves of the Kingdome SCHISME GARDED and beaten back upon the right owners Or A cleare and CIVIL ANSWER to the railing accusation of S. W. in his late Booke called SCHISME DISPAT'CHED Whatsoever S. W. alias Mr. Serjeant doth intimate to the contrary for he dare not cough out it is a most undeniable truth that no particular Church no not the Church of Rome it self is exempted from a possibility of falling into errours in faith When these errours are in Essentials of faith which are necessary to salvation necessitate medii they destroy the being of that Church which is guilty of them But if these errours be in inferiour points such as are neither absolutely necessary to Salvation to be known nor to be believed before they be known such an Erroneous Church erring without obstinacy and holding the truth implicitly in praeparatione animi may and doth still continue a true member of the Catholick Church and other coordinate Churches may and ought to maintein Communion with it not withstanding that they dissent in opinion But if one Church before a lawfull determination shall obtrude her own Errours or Opinions upon all other Churches as a necessary condition of her communion or after Determination shall obtrude doubtful opinions whether they be Erroneous or not as necessary Articles of Christian faith and so not onely explain but likewise enlarge the Ancient Creeds she becommeth Schismaticall As on the
thing which offereth it self to our Consideration is his Minor Proposition Whether the church of England did breake these Bonds of Vnity c But I hold it more Methodicall to examine first the Proofes of his Major That these were the right Bonds of Vnity and so dispatch that part out of my hands All which was agreed upon unanimouslly between the Church of Rome and its dependents and the Church of England and delivred from hand to hand in them all by the Orall and immediate Tradition of a World of Fathers to a world of Children successively as a rule of Faith or Difcipline received from Christ and his Apostles which so vast a Multitude of Eye witnesses did see visibly practised from Age to Age is undoubtedly true and such a rule is infallible and impossibe to be Crooked But these two Rules are such Rules And so he concludeth that they are incapable of Vsurpations and as easy to teach faith as Children learn their A B C. I have given his Argument as much force and edge as I could possibly but all this Wind shakes no Corn. His other two Rules were not so much to be blamed as this Rule of Rules Orall and immediate Tradition Of such Orall and immediate Tradition it was that our Saviour told the Sribes and Pharisees That they made the Commandements of God of none effect by their Tradition And St. Peter told the dispersed Iewes that they were redeemed by the blood of Christ from their vain Conversation received by Tradition from their Fathers These were such Traditions as The Iewes pretended they had receiued from Moses and the Prophets as the Romanists pretend now to have received their Traditions from Christ and his Apostles Otherwise wee doe not onely admit Orall Traditions in generall as an excellent Introduction to the Doctrin of saving truth and a singular help to expound the holy Scriptures but also particular unwritten Traditions derived from the Apostles and delivered unto us by the manifest Testimony of the Primitive Church being agreeable to the holy Scriptures The Apostles did speak by inspiration as well as write and their Tradition whether by word or writing indifferently was the word of God into which faith was resolved The Traditions of the Catholick Church of this present or another age have this Privilege to be free from all Errours that are absolutely Destructive to Salvation but this they have not from the nature of Tradition which is subject to Errour to Corruption to Change to Contradiction Mobilitate viget viresque acquirit eundo but from the speciall Providence and protection of Christ who hath promised to be with his Church untill the end of the World In summe I deny both his Propositions First his Major Immediate Tradition from Parents to Children is not a certain and infallible Rule of Truth and Faith Traditions are often doubtfull doe often change with the times and sometimes contradict one another As we see in the Different Traditions of the Eastern and Western Churches about the observation of Easter And the Councells of Nice and Frankford about Images c. Neither points of Faith nor Papall rights are so visible as he imagineth Credulity and Ignorance and Prejudice and Passion and Interest doe all act their parts Upon his Grounds there can be no Ecclesiasticall Usurpations yet Experience teacheth us that there have been such Vsurpations in all Ages If he had reason to renounce the immediate Tradition of his Father and Grandfather and great Grandfather Then others may have the like and better reasons Let him believe the Suns dancing upon Easter morn and the Swanssinging and the Pellicans digging of her Breast with her Bill and all the Storyes of King Arthur and Robin Hood for it may be he hath received all these from his Elders by immediate Tradition He him self Confesseth that the possession of goverument must be such a possession as may be presumable to haue come from Christ not of such an one as every one knowes when it began P. 49. To what purpose is it to pretend tradition for all those branches of Papall power which are in controversy betweene them and us seeing all of them had their first originall eleven hundred yeares after Christ Secondly this is not all he ascribeth moreover too much to the immediate Tradition of the present Church but much more then too much to the immediate Tradition of his elders to make it absolutely infallible cui non potest subesse falsum and to resolve Faith into it The last resolution of Faith must be into that which is formally the word of God The voice of the present Church may be materially the word of God in regard of the matter and thing testified but it cannot be formally the word of God in respect of the Witnesses and manner of testifying But immediate Tradition is often a Seminary of Errours Thirdly he makes the Orall and immediate Tradition of Fathers to their Childâ—ren to be a more ready and safe Rule of Faith then the holy Scriptures which are the Canon of Faith and so ready that it is as easy as for Boyes to learn their A B C. aud so safe that it is impossible to be made crooked Lastly he Confoundeth the Tradition of the Roman Church with the Tradition of the Catholick Church yet the one is but particular the other Universall Tradition Saint Augustine setteth us downe a certeine rule how to know a true genuine Apostolicall tradition Quod univers a tenet Ecclesia nec Conciliis institutum sed semper Retentum est nonnifi authoriate Apostolica traditum verissiÌ„ me creditur Whatfoever the whole Church doth hold which was not instituted by councells but allwayes received is most rightly beleeued to have bene delivered by Apostolicall authority These three markes conjoinctly do most firmly prove an Apostolicall Tradition I do not denie but that there have bene Apostolicall Traditions which have wanted some of these Markes but they were neither necessary to salvation nor can be proved at this day after sixteene hundred yeares to have bene Apostolicall Traditions Whatsoever wanteth either universality or perpetuiâ—y is not absolutely uecessary Neither can the reception of one Apostolicall Church proue a tradition to be Apostolicall if other Apostolicall Churches do reject it and contradict it To conclude we give all due respect to Tradition but not so much to Orall Tradition as to Written Tradition as beingmore certain lesse subject to mistakes and more easily freed from mistakes Liter a scriptamanet A serious person if he be but to deliver a long message of importance from one to another will be carefull either to receive it in writing or put it in writing Nor so much to particular immediate Tradition as we do to Vniversall and perpetuall tradition He overshooteth himself beyond all aime in affirming of immediate and Particular Tradition that where it hath place it is impossible for usurpations or abuses to enter or find admittance He might as
affirm That neither the King of England nor the Church of England neither Convocation nor Parliament did breake his two Necessary Bonds of Christian Vnity or either of them or any part of either of them But that the Very Breakers and Violaters of these Rules were the Pope and Court of Rome They did breake his Rule of Faith by adding new points to the Necessary Doctrin of saving Truth which were not the Legaceyes of Christ and his Apostles nor delivered unto us by Universall and perpetuall Tradition The Pope and Court of Rome did breake his second Rule of Vnity in Discipline by obtruding their excessive and intolerable usurpations vpon the Christian world and particularly upon the Church of England as necessary Conditions of their Communion It appeareth plainly by comparing that which hath been said with his positioÌ„ of the case that after all his Bragges of undeniable evidence and unquestionable certeinty he hath quite missed the question We joine with him in his rule of Faith Wee oppose not St. Peters Primacy of Order and he him self dare not say that St. Peter had a larger or more extended power then the rest of his Fellow Apostles And though wee cannot force our understandings to assent that after the death of S. Peter Linus or Cletus or Clemens or Anacleâ—us were Superiours to S. Iohn and had actuall Iurisdiction over him who had as large a commission immediatly from Christ as S. Peter himselfe and larger then any succeeding Romane Bishop ever had Yet to shew him how little wee are concerned in it and for his clearer conviction wee are willing to suppose that they were his Superiours and give him leave to make all the advantage of his second Rule which he can in this cause And here if I regarded not the satisfaction of my self and the Reader more then his opposition I might withdraw my hand from the Table But I am so great a Friend of Ingenuity that I will for once discharge his Office and shew the World demonstratively and distinctly what Branches of Papall power were cast out of England by Henry the eighth upon which consideration the weight of the whole Controversy doth lye For it is agreed between us that if it appeare by rigorous Evidence that all those Branches of Papall power which were renounced and cast out of England by Henry the eight were grosse Vsurpattons then his renouncing was no eriminall Breach but a lawfull self enfranchisement And by undeniable consequence the Guilt of â—chism resteth upon them who made the Vsurpations that is the Pope and Court of Rome I adde further upon the equity of my second Ground that although Henry the eight had cast out something more then be ought yet if wee hold not out more then wee ought and be ready to admitt all which ought to be admitted by us then we are innocent and free from the Guilt of Schism and it resteth soly upon them who either will have more then their due or nothing Wheresoever the fault is there the Guilt of Schisme is If the fault be single the Guilt is single if the fault be mutuall the Guilt is mutuall And for rigorous Evidence There cannot possibly be any Evidence more demonstrative what Papall power was cast out of England then the very Acts of Parliaments themselves by which it was cast out Let us view them all The first Act made in the Reign of Henry the eight which hath any referente to Rome is the Act for holding Plurality of Benefices against the lawes of the land by dispensation from the Court of Rome making licenses for non Residence from the Court of Rome to be voide and the party who procureth such Licenses for Pluralityes or Non-residence to forfeyt twenty pounds and to lose the profits of that Benefice which he holdeth by such dispensation It were a pretty thing indeed if the Church and Kingdome should make necessary lawes and the Pope might give them liberty to break them at his pleasure The second Act is that No person shall be cited out of tâ—e diocesse where he dwelleth except in certain cases Which though it may seem to reflect upon the Court of Rome yet I do not find that it is concerned in it but the Arches Audience and other Archiepiscopall Courts within the Realm The third Act is meerly declarative of the law of the land as well the Common lawes as the Statute lawes and grounded wholy upon them as by the View of the Statute it self doth appeare So it casteth out no forraine power but what the lawes had cast out before The summe of it is this That all Causes Matrimoniall Testamentary or about Tithes c. shall be heard and finally judged in England by the proper Iudges Ecclesiasticall and Civill respectively and not elswhere notwithstanding any forrein Inhibitions Appeales Sentences citations suppensions or Excommunications And that if any English Subject procure a Processe Inhibition Appeale c. From or to the Court of Rome or execute them to the hinderance of any processe here he shall incurre the Penalties ordained by the Statute of provision or premunire made in the sixteenth yeare of King Richard the second against such as make provision to the See of Rome This law was eâ—larged afterwards to all causes of Ecclesiasticall cognisance and all appeales to Rome forbidden The fourth Act is an Act for punishing of Heresy Wherein there are three clauses that concern the Bishop of Rome The First is this And that there be many Heresies and paines and punishments for Heresies Declared and ordained in and by the Canonicall Sanctions and by the Lawes and Ordinations made by the Popes or Bishops of Rome and by their Authorities for holding doing preaching of things contrary to the said Canonicall Sanctions Lawes and Ordinances which be but humane being meer repugnant and contrarious to the royall Prerogative Regall Iurisdiction Lawes Statutes and Ordinances of this Realm The second Clause is that No License be obtained of the Bishop of Rome to Preach in any part of this Realm or to doe any thing contrary to the Lawes and Statutes of this Realm or the Kings Prerogative Royall The third Clause followeth That the Decrees of the Bishops of Rome not confirmed by Holy Scriptures were never commonly attested to be any Law of God or man within this Realme And that it should not be deemed Heresy to speak or doe contrary to the pretended power or Authority of the Bishop of Rome made or given by Humane Lawes and not by Scriptures nor to speake or Act contrary to the Lawes of the Bishop of Rome being contrary to the Lawes of this Realm The Fifth Act is an Act concerning the Submission of the Clergy to the Kings Majesty The scope of it is this that the Clergy shall not assemble in Convocation nor make or proniulge any new Canons without the Kings License Hitherto there is nothing new in point of Law Then that the King should have
their fore fathers to be the infallible voice of the Church At other times he maketh the extent of Papall power to be a matter of Indifferency wherein every Church is free to hold their own Opinions In his Rule of Discipline he maketh St. Peter onely to be the Head the Chiefe the Prince of the Apostles the First mover in the Church all which in a right sense we approve or do not oppose Why doth he not acknowledge him to be a visible Monarch an absolute Soveraign invested with a plenitude of power Soveraign Legislative Iudiciary Dispensative All the rest of the Apostles were First Movers in the Church even as well as St. Peter except onely his Primacy of order which we allow When your men come to aâ—swer this they feign the Apostles were all equall in relatioÌ„ to ChristiaÌ„ people but not in relatioÌ„ to one another Yes even in Relation to themselves and one another as hath beeÌ„ expresly declared long since in the First Generall Councell of Ephesus not now to be contradicted by them Petrus Ioannes aequalis sunt ad alterutrum dignitatis Peter and Iohn were of equall Dignity one towards another A Primacy of Order may confist with an Equality of Dignity but a Supremacy of power taketh away all Parity Par in parem non habet potestatem He is blind who doth no see in the History of the Acts of the Apostles that the supremacy or Soveraignty of power did not rest in the person of any one single Apostle but in the Apostolicall College These indefinite Generalities he stileth Determinate points It may be Determinate for the generall truth but Indeterminate for the particular manner about which all the Controversy is Yet he who never wanteth Demonstrative Arguments to prove what he listeth will make it evident out of the very word Reformation which we own and extoll that we have broken the Rule of Unity in Discipline If he doe he hath good luck for by the same reason he may prove that all the Councells of the Christian world both Generall and Provinciall have broken the Bond of Vnity by owning and extolling the very word Reformation both name and thing As for the points of our Reformation I doe not referre him to Platonicall Ideas to be found in the Concave of the Moone but to our Lawes and Statutes made by all the Orders of our Kingdome Church and Commonwealth not as they are wrested by the tongnes and pens of our Adversaries Malice may be a good informer but a bad judge but as they are expounded by the Genuine and Orthodox Sons of the English Church by our Princes by our Synods by our subsequent Parliaments by our Theologians by our most Iudicious Lawiers in their Injunctions in their Acts in their Canons in their writings which he may meete with if he have such a mind in earnest without any great search in every Library or Stationers shop Sect I. Cap. XI We doe not suffer any man to reject the 39. Articles of the Church of England at his pleasure yet neither doe we looke upon them as Essentialls of saving Faith or Legacies of Christ and of his Apostles but in a meane as pious Opinions fitted for the Preservation of Vnity neither doe we oblige any man to believe them but onely not to contradict them Yet neither is the Bishop got into a wood nor leaveth his Reader in another further from knowing what these Doctrines of saving Faith are then he was at first It is Mr. Serjeants Eyesight that failes him through too much light which maketh him mistake his ancient Creed for a wood and the Articles for trees persons who are gogle eied seldome see well wherein all things necessary to be believed are comprehended And although he inquire Where are the processions of the Divine Persons the Sacraments Baptism of Children the Government of the Church the acknowledging there is such a thing as Scripture to be be found in the creed The Bishop is so far from being gravelled with sâ—ch doughty Questions that he pitieth his simplicity aÌ„d returneth him for answer that if he be not mopâ—eyed he may find the Procession of the Divine Persons in his Creed that the Sacraments and Discipline of the Church are not to be reckoned amoÌ„g the Credenda or things to be believed but among the Agenda or things to be acted and the Holy Scripture is not a particular Doctrin or point of Faith but the Rule wherein and whereby all Fundamentall Doctrins or points of Faith are comprehended and tried So still his truth remaineth unshaken that the Creed is a Summary of all particular points of saving faith which are necessary to be believed He proceedeth that the Protestants have introduced into the Church since the Reformation no particular Form of Government in stead of that they renounced A grievous accusation We had no need to introduce new formes having preserved the old They who do onely weed a Garden have no need to set new Plants We have the Primitive Discipline of the Church and neither want Spirituall nor Ecclesiasticall nor Politicall Government If you have any thing to say against it cough out and spare not And although we want such a free and generall Communion with the Christian World as we could wish and such as Bishops had one with another by their formed Letters Yet we have it in our desires and that we have it not actually it is principally your faults who make your Vsurpations to be Conditions of your Communion And so I leave him declaiming against Libraries of Bookes filled with dead words and thousands of Volumes scarcely to be examined in a mans whole life time and quibling about Forefathers and inheriting and Reformation and Manasseh Ben Israel and repeating the same things over and over againe as if no man did understand him who did not heare him say over the same things an hundred times He Chargeth me that having granted that They and we do both maintain his Rule of Vnity yet I do immediatly disgrace it by adding that the Question is only who have changed that Doctrin or this Discipline we or they We by substraction or they by Addition Which is as much as to say the pretended Rule is no Rule at all When he and his Merry Stationer were set upon the Pin of making Contradictions doubtlesse this was dubbed a famous Contradiction or an absurdity at least As if a man might not hold one thing in his Iudgement and pursue another in his Practice professe one thing in words and perform another in deeds Video melior a proboque Deterior a sequor Medea see that which was right and approved it but swerved altogether from it in her Practise They professe saith St. Paul that they know God but in workes they deny him The Church of Rome professeth in words to adde nothing to the Legacies of Christ and his Apostles but in their deeds they doe adde and adde
notoriously as the Vniversality of the Roman Church the doctrins of Purgatory of Indulgences of Worshiping of Images and the rest of their new Essentialls of faith Extra quas nemo salvus esse potest saith Pope Pius Without the beliefe of which no man can be saved Then no man was saved for a thousand yeares after Christ. If there be the least Print of a Contradiction here it is not in my discourse but between their own Principles and their Practice He taunteth me sufficiently for making the Apostles Creed a summary of all things necessary to be believed by all Christians calling it the wildest Topick that ever came from a rationall head and would gladly perswade us that it was onely an Act of Prudence to keep out heterogeneous persons in that present age which was to be inlarged as often as new Heresies did arise I pitty the young man who is no better acquainted with that Value which both the ancient Fathers and his own Doctors set upon the Creed Whilest he thinketh to confute me he is ignoraÌ„tly condemning all them He condemneth the Fathers who made it to be the one onely immoveable and irreformable Rule of Faith The summe of the whole Catholick Faith The Key of the Christian Faith The Rule or Square of the Apostolicall Sermons after the Composition of it Wherein the Apostles of the Lord have collected into one breviary all the points of the Catholick Faith which are diffused throughout the Scriptures He condemneth his own Authors who acknowledge it to be a short comprehension or summary of all things to be believed Bellarmine saith it containeth the summe of the Gospell And more plainly there is exâ—ant that most ancient Symboll which is called the Creed of the Apostles because the Apostles composed it to this end that it might be agreed among all men what was the summe of the whole Christian Faith Whereof he produceth Witnesses St. Ambrose St. Hierom St. Austin Maximus Adding that in the Creed although briefly is conteined in a Summary the whole object of Faith According to that of St. Austin the Creed is a simple short full Comprehension of our Faith that the simplicity may provide for the Rudenesse of the Hearers the shortnesse for their memory and the fulnesse for their Doctrine And elswhere he telleth us that all Catholicks doe confesse that it is the unwritten word of God So there is more in the Creed then a meer Shiboleth to distinguish an Ephraimite from a Gileadite It is fundamentum firmum unicum not onely a firm but an onely Foundation He asketh me whether ever Protestant did hold there is nothing of Faith but the 12 Articles in that Creed I doe not know how I come to be obliged to answer him to so many impertinent Questions but for once I will not refuse him Protestants doe know as well as himself that there are many things of faith which are necessary to be believed by some men at some times as that St. Paul had a Cloak but there is no Article or Point absolutely necessary to Salvation to be believed which is not comprehended within the 12 Articles of the Creed And here he serveth us up again his twice sodden Coleworts that the Procession of the Holy Ghost the Baptism of Infants the Sacraments the Scriptures are not comprehended in the 12. Articles I have but newly answered the very same Objection and here Meander-like with a suddain turning he brings it in again but I will not wrong the Reader so much as to follow him in his Battologies Onely if he think the Creed was imperfect untill the word Filioque was added he is much mistaken But saith he by the same Logick we may accuse the Church at the time of the Nicene Councell for pressing the word Consubstantiall Pardon us good Sr there is no Analogy between the Consubstantiality of the Sonne with the Father and your upstart Doctrins of Indulgences and Image Worship Indeed the word Consubstantiall was not in the Creed before the Nicene Councell but the thing was and was deduced from the Creed When the Apostles delivered the Creed to the Church they did it by Orall Tradition and this is that famous Tradition much mentioned in the Fathers which you doe altogether misapply to the justifying of your new patches aÌ„d when they delivered the Creed they delivered likewise the sense of the Creed by the same Tradition and it was the most proper worke in the world for those first Oecumenicall Councells to search out and Determin by Tradition the right sense of the Articles where in they were delivered by the Apostles But for us now after fifteen or sixteen hundred yeares to inquire not onely into new senses of the old Articles altogether unknown to the Ancients but to find out new Articles which have no relation to the old Articles and all this by Tradition is ridiculous For whatsoever Tradition we have we have from former Ages successively and therefore if they had no Tradition for such an Article or such a sense wee can have none But such are all the twelve new Articles added to the Creed by Pius the fourth not onely new senses of old Articles which had been too much but new Articles newly coined which have no relation to the old Articles at all Something 's are de Symbolo conteined in the Creed somethings are contra Symbolum against the Creed and somethings praeter Symbolum besides the Creed First for those things which are conteined in the Creed either in the Letter or in the sense or may be deduced by good consequence from the Creed as the Deity of Christ his two Natures the procession of the Holy Ghost the Addition of these is properly no addition but onely an Explication Yet such an Explication none under a Generall Councell can impose upon the Church Secondly such things as are contrary to the Creed are not onely unlawfull to be added to the Creed but they are Hereticall in themselves Thirdly for those things which are neither of the Creed nor conteined in the Creed either explicitly nor can be deduced by good Consequence from the Creed and yet they are not contrary to the Creed but Opinions or inferiour truths which may be believed or disbelieved without any great danger of Heresy of this nature are chose 12. points or Articles which Pius the fourth added to the Creed To make these part of the Creed and to oblige all Christians to believe them under pain of Damnation as Pius the 4 â—h doth without which there is no Salvation is to change the Symbolicall Apostolicall Faith and to adde to the Legacy of Christ and his Apostles Faith doth consist in indivisibili and the Essentiall parts of it cannot be contracted or inlarged This is that which we Charge the Romanists withall and which I see not how they will be able to shake of Not the Explication of the old Articles of Faith nor the prescribing of inferiour truths
as inferiour truths to those who are under their Iurisdiction nor the obliging of their Subjects not to oppose their Determinations for peace and tranquilities sake but the adding of new Articles or Essentialls to the Creed with the same Obligation that the old Apostolicall Articles had to be believed under pain of Damnation Either all these 12 new Articles which were added to the Creed by Pius the Fourth were implicitly or virtually comprehended in the 12 old Articles of the Apostles and may be deduced from them by necessary Consequence the contrary where of is evident to all men or it is appareâ— that Pius the 4. hath corrupted the Creed and changed the Apostolicall Faith He might even as well let our 39. Articles alone for old acquaintance sake Dissuenda non dissecanda est amtcitia as to bring them upon the Stage and have nothing to say against them Some of them are the very same that are contained in the Creed some others of them are practicall truths which come not within the proper list of points or Articles to be believed lastly some of them are pious opinions or inferiour truths which are proposed by the Church of England to all her Sonnes as not to be opposed not as Essentialls of Faith necessary to be believed by all Christians Necessitate medii under pain of damnation If he could charge us with this as we do them he said something The Nicene Constantinopolitan Ephesian Chalcedonian and Atbanasian Creeds are but Explications of the Creed of the Apostles and are still called the Apostles Creed He will not for shame say that Pius the fourths Creed is onely an Explication of the Apostles Creed which hath 12. new distinct Articles added at the Foot of the 12. old Articles of the Apostles I doe not say that there can be no new Heresy but what is against some point found in the Creed I know that as there are some Errours heretical in their own nature so there are other Errours which become hereticall meerly by the Obstinacy of them who hold them Yet if I had said so I had said no more then some Fathers say and sundry of their own Authors Neque ulla unquam exit it heresis quae non hoc Symbolo damnart poâ—uerit There was never any Heresy which might not be condemned by this Creed And so he may see clearly if he will that it was no incomparable straine of weaknesse nor self contradicting absurdity nor nonsense as he is pleased to Vapour to charge them with changing the Legacy of Christ and his Apostles by the Addition of new Essentialls of Faith I will conclude this point with the excellent Iudgement of Vincentius Lirinensis Peradventure some man will say shall there be no growth of the Religion of Christ in the Church Yes very much but so that it be a growth of Faith not a change Let it increase but onely in the same kind the same Articles the same sense the same Sentences Let the Religion of soules imitate the manner of bodies c. The members of infants are little young mens great yet they are the same Children have as many joints as men c. But if any thing be added to or taken from the number of the members the body must of necessiâ—y perish or become monstrous or be enfeebled so it is meet that Christian Religion doe follow these Lawes of Proficiency c. But now he brings a rapping Accusation against me charging me with four falsifications in one sentence and then concludes triumphantly Goe thy wayes brave Bishop If the next Synod of Protestants doe not Canonise thee for an Interpreter of Councells they are false to their best interests Who so bold as blind Bayard Here is a great deale more Cry then Wooll But let us examin these great falsifications my words were these The Question is onely who have changed that doctrin or this Disciplin we or they we by Substraction or they by Addition The Case is cleare The Apostles contracted this Doctrin into a Summary that is the Creed the Primitive Fathers expounded it where it did stand in need of clearer Explication Then follow the words which he excepteth against The Generall Councell of Ephesus did forbid all men to exact any more of a Christian at his Baptismall Profession It is strange indeed to find four falsifications in two short lines but to find four falsifications where there is not one sillable cited is altogether impossible I relate as of my self what the Councell of Ephesus did I cite no Authority at all neither in the â—â—ext nor in the Margent nor put one word into a different Character His pen is so accustomed to overreach beyond all aime that he cannot help it A Scotch man would take the Liberty to tell him that he is very good Company The truth is I did forbear to cite it because I had cited it formerly in my answer to Monsieur Militier where he might have found it if he had pleased That it should be lawfull for no man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed then that which was defined by the Nicene Councell And that whosoever should dare to compose or offer any such to any persons willing to bâ— converâ—ed from Paganisme Iudaisme or Heresy if they should be Bishops or Clerkes should be deposed if Laymen Anathematised If he can find any Falsification in this let him not spare it but to find four falsifications where not one word was cited was impossible In a word to deale plainly with him his fâ—ur pretended Falsifications are a silly senslesse ridiculous Cavill To cleare this it is necessary to consider that this word Faith in holy Scripture Councells and Fathers is taken ordinarily for the Obâ—ect of Faith or for the summe of things to be believed that is the Creed and so it is taken in this very place of the Councell of Ephesus and cannot be taken otherwise for it is undeniable that that Faith which was defined published and composed by the Nicene Fathers was the Nicene Creed or the Creed of the Apostles explicated by the Nicene Fathers Secondly we must consider that the Catholick Church of Christ from the very Infancy of Christian Religion did never admit any person to Baptisme in an ordinary way but it required of them a free profession of the Creed or Symbolicall Faith either by themselves or by their sureties if they were Infants and so did baptise them in that Faith This was the practise of the Apostolicall Church this was that good profession which Timothy made before many witnesses This was the universall practise in the Primitive Church and continued ever since untill this day Abrenuncâ—as Abrenuncio Credis Credo Dost thou renounce the Devill and all his workes I do renounce them Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty c. All this I stedfastly believe Wilt thou be baptised in this Faith It is my desire This baptisticall profession which he ignorantly laugheth
advanceth the Papacy above the Representative Church is no worse then their Virtuall Church the Pope and the Court of Rome with all their adherents they who have the Keys in their hands such a party as he dare not say his soule is his own against them nor maintain the Contrary that a Generall Councell is above the Pope He urgeth that I ascribe no more to S. Peter and the Pope for their first Movership but onely Authority to sit first in Councell or some such things I ascribe unto the Pope all that power which is due unto him either by divine right or humane right at the Iudgement of the Church but I doe not hold it meet that he should be his own Carver And for S. Peter why doth he not leave his wording of it in Generalls and fall to work with Arguments in particular if he have any We offer him a faire tryall for it that S. Peter never enjoyed or exercised any greater or higher power in the church then every one of the Apostles had either extensively or intensively either in relation to the Christian world or the Apostolicall College except onely that Primordium Vnitatis or Primacy of Order which he scoffeth at every where Yet neither do we make his first Movership void of all Activity and influence as he accuseth us First we know he had Apostolicall power which was the highest spirituall power upon Earth As my Father sent me so send I you Secondly some power doth belong to a First Mover even by the Law of nature besides the First seate As to convocate the Members to preserve Order to propose such things as are to be discussed to receive the Votes to give the Sentence and to see it executed so far as he is trusted by the Body What the Church of England believeth of the Popes inheriting St. Peters Privileges and the exercise of that power before the Reformation and how the breach was made and when I have shewed abundantly already Wee have seen his rare skill in the discovery of a Falsification or a ContradictioÌ„ now let us see if his sent be as good to find out an Absurdity He maketh me argue thus The Pope did not exercise St. Peters power because he exercised St. Peters power and much more which is as much as to say totum est minus parte aud more does not contain lesse and then he Crowes out his Victory aloud a hopefull Disputant who châ—seth rather to run upon such Rocks c. What Rocks doth he mean I hope none of the Acroâ—eraunia those ridiculous things which he calls Rocks are soapy bubbles of his own Blowing This inference is none of mine but his own Is it not possible for this great pretender to sincerity to misse one Paragraph without Falsifications Give him leave to make Inferences and Periphrases which is as much as to say and Africa did never abound so much with Monsters as he will make the most rationall writing in this world abound with Absurdities I desire the Courteous Reader to view the place and either to pitty his Ignorance or detest his Impudence The words which I answered were these That the Bishops of Rome actually exercised St. Peters power in all those Countries which kept Communion with the Church of Rome that very yeare when this unhappy Seperation began My answer was that this Assertion did come far short of the truth in one respect for the Popes exercised much more Power in those Countries which gave them leave then ever St Peter pretended to Here is no other inference but this The Pope exercised more power then ever St. Peter pretended to therefore this Assertion that he exercised St. Peters power came short of the truth which consequence is so evideâ—t that it can admit neirher denyall or doubting What hath this to do with his whole is lesse then the part or more does not contain the lesse But now suppose I had said as he maketh me to say on his own head that in this case the whole is lesse then the part or more does not contain the lesse what had he to carpe at Hath he never heard or read that in morality the half is more then the whole Hath he forgotten his Ethicks that he who swerveth from the Meane or strict measure of virtue whether it be in the excesse or in the defect is alike Culpable and commethshort of his Duty If the Pope as Successour to S. Peter did usurp more power then S. Peter had right to no man in his right wits can call it the actuall exercising of S. Peters power The second part of my answer was that as the Pope exercised more power then was due to him in some places where he could get leave so in other places no lesse then three parts of foure of the Christian World that is all the Eastern Southern and Northern Churches his Vniversall Monarchy which he claimed was Vniversally rejected For this I am first reviled Are moderate expressions of shamelesnesse sufficient to Character this man c. If better was within better would come out But Stultis the saurus iste est in linguasitus ut discant male loqui melioribus And then when he hath first censured me he attempteth to answer me as well as he is able that the Pope exercised his power over them by excommunicating them as Revolters As Revolters In good time They were Christians and had Governours of their own before either there was a Church of Rome or Bishop of Rome and never acknowledged themselves to be his Subjects untill this day nor regarded his Excommunicatious upon that score at all If they were Revolters the Apostolicall Age and all succeding Ages were joined in the Revolt These are his rigorous demonstrations to prove the Popes single Iurisdiction by divine right from his own impotent Actions If the Pope have a Supremacy of Power by divine right he hath it over the world but that we see evidently he never enjoyed from the beginning if he did did not enjoy it universally from the beginning then certainly it cannot be an Apostolicall Tradition I doe begin with the Eastern Church because their case is plainest as having Proto-patriarchs of their own and Apostolicall Churches of their own but when that is once acknowledged I shall be contented to joine issue with him in the West First for our Britannick Churches and next even for the Church of Rome it self that the Popes Vniversall Monarchy and plenitude of Soveraign power by divine right was neither delivered from Parents to Children by perpetuall Tradition as a Legacy of Christ and his Apostles nor received by the Sonnes of that Individuall Church as a matter of Faith but onely a Primacy of Order or beginning of Vnity which we do not oppose nor yet those accessions of humane power which Christian Emperours and Oecumenicall Councells have conferred upon that See provided they be not exacted as a divine right His First Movership and
of Faith He knoweth better by this time what I understand by points of Faith publickly professed even the Articles of the Creed which every Christian that ever was from Christs time untill this day professed at his Baptisme All the Christian world have ever been baptised into the Faith of the old Creed never any man yet was baptised into the Faith of their new Creed If these new Articles be as necessary to be known and publickly professed for the common salvation as the Old they doe them wrong to baptise them but into one half of the Christian Faith He troubleth himself needlesly with Iealousy and suspicion least under the notions of Faith universally professed and the Christian world united I should seeke a shelter or Patrociny for Arrians or Socinians or any other mushrome Sect as if the Deity of Christ were not delivered by Vniversall Tradition or not held by the Christian world united because of thei◠Opposition I doe not looke upon any such Sects which did or do oppose the Vniversall and perpetuall Tradition of the Catholick Church before their dayes as living and lasting Streames but as suddain and violent Torrents neither do I regard their Opposition to the Catholick Church any more then of a Company of Phrenetick persons whilest I see plainly a parte ante that there was a time when the wheat did grow without those Tares and a parte post that their Errours were condemned by the Catholick Church This exception of his hath great force against his immediate Tradition should the Children of Arrians or Socinians persist in their Arrian or Socinian Principles because they were delivered to them as the Legacies of Christ and his Apostles by their erring Parents But against my Vniversall and perpetuall Tradition they have no force at all Neither do I looke upon their petty interruption as an empeachment to the Succession from the Apostles no more then I esteem a great mountain to be an Empeachment to the roundnesse of the Earth Neither was it the Church of Greece and all the other Eastern Southern and Northern Churches which receded from this Vniversall Tradition in the case in Difference between us concerning the disciplin of the Church but the Church of Rome which receded from them Non tellus Cymbam tellurem Cymba reliquit He knoweth little in Antiquity who doth not know that the Creed was a Tradition both materially as a thing delivered by the Apostles and Formally as being delivered by Orall Tradition But he who shall say as he doth that all the points controverted between us and them were delivered as derived from the Apostles in a Practise as dayly Visible as is the Apostles Creed by our Forefathers as invoking Saints for their intercession the the lawfulnesse of Images praying for the dead Adoration of the Sacrament and in particular the Subjection to the Pope as Supreme head to use his own phrase is a frontlesse man His very mumbling of them and chopping of them by halves as if he durst not utter them right out is a sufficient Evidence of the Contrary We doe not charge them onely with invoking Saints for their intercession or to speake more properly with the invoking God to heare the intercession of his Saints but with more insolent formes of ultimate prayers to the Creatures to protect them at the houre of death to deliver them from the Devill to conferre spirituall Graces upon them and to admitt them into heaven precibus meritisque not onely by their prayers but likewise by their merits As improper and Addresse as if one should fall down on his Knees before a Courtier and beseech him to give him a Pardon or to knight him meaning onely that he should mediate for him to the King We do not question the lawfulnesse of their having of Images but worshipping of them and worshipping of them with the same worship which is due to the Prototype We condemne not all praying for the dead not for their resurrection and the consummation of their happinesse but their prayers for their deliverance out of Purgatory We our selves adore Christ in the Sacrament but we dare not adore the Species of bread and wine And although we know no divine right for it yet if he would be contented with it for peace sake we could afford the Bishop of Rome a Primacy of Order by humane Right which is all that antiquity did know And if any of our Ancestours in any of these particulars did swerve from the Vniversall Perpetuall Tradition of the Church we had much better warrant to return to the Apostolicall line and Levell then he himself had to desert those principles temerariously which his immediate Forefathers taught him as delivered by the Apostles and derived from them His next exception is a meere Logomachy that I call two of his Assertions Inferences What doth this concern either the person or the Cause Either this is to contend about the shadow of an Asse or I know not what is Let thē be premisses or Conclusions which he will they may be so disposed to make them either if they be neither what do they here if they be conclusions they are inferences He calleth the former Conclusion their chiefe Objection who ever heard of an Objection without an Inference And the second is so far from being no Inference that it comprehendeth four Inferences one from the first Principle another from the second Principle and the third from both Principles That Churches in Communion with the Roman have the onely right Doctrine in virtue of the First Principle and the onely right Government in virtue of the second Principle and Vnity necessary to Salvation in virtue of both Principles And the last conclusion is the Generall Inference from all these And by consequence we hold them onely to make the entire Catholick Church I said truely that we hold both their Rules of Vnity I adde that we hold them both in the right sense that is in the proper literall sense of the words but what their sense of them is concerneth them not us If by the Popes Supremacy he understand a single Soveraignty or Supremacy of power by virtue of Christs own Ordinance we hold it not indeed neither did the Catholick Church of Christ ever hold it So likewise if by Tradition of our Ancestours he understand Vniversall and Perpetuall Tradition or as it were Vniversall and perpetuall we joine hands with him but if by Tradition he understand the particular and Immediate Tradition of his Father or ten thousand Fathers or the greater part of the Fathers of one Province or one Patriarchate in one Age excluding three parts of the Catholick Church of this Age and not regarding former Ages between this Age and the Apostles we renounce his Rule in this Sense as a Bond of Errour not of Vnity And yet in generall according to the Literall sense of the words we embrace it as it is proposed by him self that The Doctrins inherited from our Fore
as he calleth them do not baffle him and trip up his heeles I pleaded that Roman Catholicks did make the first separation He answers that this Plea doth equally acquit any Villain in the World who insists in the steps of his Forefather Villains Would no expression lower then this of Villains serve his turâ—e Who can help it If those Forefathers whom he intimates were Villains or any thing like Villains they were his Forefathers twenty times more then ours We inherit but one point in difference from them but he twenty The denomination ought to be from the greater part If any of them were deemed more propitious to us then the rest it was Henry the eighth or Archbishop Cranmer For both these we have their own confession that they were theirs First for Henry the eight We had a King who by his Lawes abolished the Authority of the Pope although in all other things he would follow the faith of his Ancestours And for Archbishop Cranmer heare another of them Cranmer the unworthy Archbishop of Canterbury was his the Earle of Hartfords right hand and chiefe Assistant in the work although but a few moneths before he was of King Harries Religion yea a great Patron and Prosecuter of the six Articles But to deale clearly with you there is not the same reason to imitate a notorious knave in his confessed knavery and to follow one who hath not onely a reasonable and just cause of contending but also the reputation of an honest man even in the judgement of his adverse party in all other things except onely therein wherein he is adverse to them Such were all the Actors in this cause by their Confession If we acknowledged that they who cast out Papall Vsurpations were Schismaticks for so doing he said something but we justify their Act as pious and virtuous and so his Comparison hath never a leg to run on I pleaded that it was a violent presumption of their Guilt and our Innocence when their best Friends and best able to Iudge who preached for them and writ for them who acted for them and suffered for theÌ„ who in all other things were great Zelots of the Roman Religion and persecuted the poore ProtestaÌ„ts with fire and fagot yet coÌ„demne theÌ„ and justify this seperarioÌ„ He minceth what I say according to his use and then excepteth The word best might have been left out They ever were accounted better Friends who remained in their former faith and the other Bishops looked upon as Schismaticks by the Obedient party Yet the Bishop of Chalcedon doubted not to call them the best of Bishops He should do well to tell us for his credits sake who those other Bishops were who looked upon these as Schismaticks Such is his ignorance in the State of these times that he dreameth of two parties an Obedient Party and a Rebellious Party whereas there were no Parties but all went one way There was not a Bishop nor an Abbot of Note in the Kingdome who did not vote the Kings Supremacy Four and twenty Bishops and five and twenty Abbots personally at one time There was not a Bishop nor any person of note in the Kingdome who did not take the Oath of the Kings Supremacy except Bishop Fisher and S. Thomas Moore who were imprisoned for treason either true or pretended before that Act was made for opposing the Succession of the Crown If he will not trust me let him trust the Veredict of our Vniversities A length we all agreed unanimously in this Sentencâ— and were of one accord that the Roman Bishop hath no greater Iurisdiction given him by God in holy Scripture in this Kingdome of England then any other Forrain Bishop The same Sentence was given by our Convocations or Synods The same Sentence was given by our Parliaments with the same concord and Vnanimity Nemine Dissentiente We had no parties but one and all Let him listen to his Friend Bishop Gardiner No Forrain Bishop hath any Authority among us all sorts of people are agreed with us upon this point with most stedfast consent that no manner of person bred or brought up in England hath ought to doe with Rome And Ireland was unanimoâ—s herein with England All the great Families as well of the Irish as of the English did acknowledge by their Indentures to S. Anthony St. Leger then chiefe Governour of Ireland the Kings Supremacy and utterly renounce the Iurisdiction of the Pope Yet it was not the meaning of our Ancestours then and though some of them had been so minded it is not our meaning now to meddle with the power of the Keys or abridge the Bishop of Rome of any Iurisdiction purely spirituall or any Legacy which was left him by Christ or his Apostles but onely to cast out his usurped Coactive power in the exteriour Court without the leave of the Soveraign Prince which Christ and his Apostles did never exercise or dispose of or meddle with and to vindicate to our Kings the Politicall or externall Regiment of the Church by themselves and by their Bishops and other fit delegates as a Right due to all Christian Princes by the Law of God and nature But he attributeth all this to the Feare of the Clergy and the people and the Kings violent Cruelty and for proofe of what he saith citeth half a passage out of Doctor Hammond but he doth Dr. Hammond notorious wrong Dr. Hammond speaketh onely of the first preparatory act which occasioned them to take the matter of right into a serious debate in a Synodicall way he applieth it to the subsequent act of Renunciation after debate Dr. Hammond said onely it is easy to be believed Mr. Serjeant maketh it a just Presumption or confest Evidence Dr. Hammond speaketh of no feare but the feare of the law the law of Premunire an ancient law made many ages before Henry the eighth was borne the Palladium of England to preserve it from the Vsurpations of the Court of Rome but he misapplieth it wholy to the feare of he Kings violent Cruelty Lastly he smothers Dr. Hammonds Sense expressed clearly by himself that there is no reason to doubt but that they did believe what they did professe the feare being the Occasion of their debates but the reasons or Arguments offered in debate the causes as in all Charity we are to Iudge of their decision He useth not to cite any thing ingenuously If he did he could have told his Reader that this answer was taken away by me before it was made by him For two whole Kingdomes the Vniversities the Convocations the Parliaments to betray their Consciences to renounce an Article which they esteem necessary to salvation onely for the feare of a Premunire or the losse of their goods to forswear themselves to deny the Essence of their faith to turn Schismaticks as if they did all value their Goods more then their soules without so much as one to oppose it is a vain uncharitable
doe not mean that power purely Spirituall is to be won by the Sword but I believe that exemtion from Coactive power in the exteriour Court is to be won by the sword So the Scots eased the Archbishop of York of the trouble of a great part of his Province◠So just Conquerours may and doe often change the Externall Policy of the Church for the publick good He bids me shew that the English Bishops were impowered by the British Bishops or else let me confesse that they could inherit no Privileges from them I can shew him that I my self was impowered and did receive my Episcopall Ordination from the ancient Scotch Bishops by an uninterrupted Succession And many English Bishops have received their orders mediatly or immediatly from the British Bishops I said most truely that before he can allege the Authority of the Councell of Sardica for Appeales to Rome he must renounce the divine institution of the Papacy or at least the divine right of the Bishop of Rome to the Papacy because that Canon submitted it to the good pleasure of the Fathers and grounded it upon the Memory of St. Peter not the Institution of Christ. The reason of this Consequence is most evident For the Councell of Sardica would not nor could have submitted that which is the Popes right by Christs own Ordination to the good pleasure of the Fathers whether he should have it or not nor would have assigned their respect to the Memorie of Saint Peter for a ground of that for which they had the Commandement of Christ But the Councell of Sardica did submit the Popes right to receive Appeales to the good pleasure of the Fathers Placetne doth it please you that we honour the memory of St. Peter Therefore they did not hold this right of the Pope to receive Appeales to be due to the Pope by Christs own Ordinance or Commandement This he is pleased to call a flat Falsification of the Councell there being not a word in it either concerning Papall power it self or its institution but concerning Appeales onely I am grown pretty well acquainted with his Falsifications Did I say there was any thing in the Councell concerning the Papacy or Institution of it If I did let him tell us where and when or els it is his own Falsification But by his own Confession there is something in the Councell concerning Appeales to the Pope and this is submitted by the Councell to the good pleasure of the Fathers and no higher ground assigned for it then the respect to the Memory of St. Peter yet this right of receiving Appeales is made by him and all his Partakers an Essentiall Branch of Papall power Therefore if he and his Partakers say true the Councell of Sardica did submit an Essentiall Branch of Papall Power or Papall power in part to the good pleasure of the Fathers which is as much as to say they held it not to be of divine Institution By this time I hope he understandeth my meaning better He presumeth that some British Bishops sate in Councell of Sardica it may be Athanasius intimateth as much He presumeth that they assented to the Sardican Canon about Appeales It may be or it may not be I should rather assent to their voting to acquit Athanasius who testifieth of them that they were right to the Nicene Faith But surely among all the Subscibers in the Sardican Councell there is not one British Bishop named And in the Synodall Letters of the Councell it self wherein they reckon all the Provinces Britain is not named But what is the right of receiving Appeales to an Vniversall Monarchy or the decree of a Councell to Christs own Ordination If we would be contented to abrogate our old Lawes and give the Bishop of Rome leave to execute that power which the Sardican Fathers did give him he would scorn it and much more their manner of giving it Si vobis placet if it please you or of it seem good to your Charity let us honour the Memory of St. Peter as both the Latin and the Greek Edition have it I said that the Councell of Sardica was no Generall Councell after the Eastern Bishops were departed not out of any ill will to Athanasius or favour to the Arrians as for Arrianisme the Sardican Fathers did no more then the Nicene had done before them but out of another Consideration because the presence of the five great Patriarchs with their respective Bishops or at least the greater part of them was ever more held necessary to the being of a Generall Councell as Bellarmine himself confesseth that the seventh Synod judged the Councell of Constantinople against Images to have been no General Councell because it had not Patriarchs enough If the Councell of Sardica had been a Generall Councell why doe St. Gregory the great Isiodore and Venerable Bede quite omit it out of the number of Generall Councells Why did St. Austin Alypius and the African Fathers sleight it And which is more then all this why doe the Eastern Church not reckon it among their seven Generall Councells nor the western Church among their eight first Generall Councells To Conclude why did the English Church leave the Sardican Councell out of the number of Generall Councells in the Synod of Hedtfelde in the yeare 680 and embrace onely these for Generall Councells untill that day The Councell of Nice the first of Constantinople the first of Ephesus the Councell of Chalcedon and the second of Chalcedon Here he may see a plain reason why I say the Councell of Sardica was never incorporated into the English Lawes I would know whether he or I be of the old English Religion in this point The five First Generall Councells were incorporated into the Law of England but the Councell of Sardica was none of them Therefore no Generall Councell I have given him a further account concerning this Councell Sect. 1 c. 7. to which I refer him I said and I said most truely that the Canons of the Sardican Councell touching Appeales were never received in England nor incorporated into our English Lawes For proofe hereof I bring him an evident demonstration out of the Fundamentall Law of England as it is recorded in that famous Memoriall of Clarendon All Appeales in England must proceed regularly from the Archdeacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and if the Archbishop failed to doe Iustice the last complaint must be to the King to give Order for redresse Our Ancestours had not so much respect for Pope Iulius nor thought appeales to Rome any honour to the Memory of St. Peter I said the Canon of the Councell of Sardica was cōtradicted after by the Great Councell of Chalcedon He rejuneth that I neither thought the words worth citing nor the Canon where the Abrogation of the Sardican Canon is found worth mentioning Pardon me I said nothing of Abrogation but I did say it contradicted it and for proofe of the
is such an immediate Tradition There is not so much as a Nationall Tradition for those Branches of Papall power which we have rejected and much lesse for the divine right of them And if there were such a Particular Tradition yet wanting both perpetuity and Vniversality we deny that it is a sufficient proofe of any right This and the Privilege to receive Appeales which is a Protopatriachall Privilege is all he produceth If he would know what a Spirituall Monarch is let him consult with Sanders de Visibili Monarchia and Bellarmine in his first booke de Ponâ—fice Romano But he is quite out of his aime who knoweth no meane between a flat Tyrant and an Ordinary Chief Governour Vpon these Termes a President of a Councell a Maister of a College a Major of a Corporation should be so many Monarchs I have shewed him what are those Branches of Soveraign Monarchicall Power which the Popes have Vsurped and when each Vsurpation did begin the first of theÌ„ about 1100. yeares after Christ with the Opposition that was made unto them by the King and Kingdome of England If he will speake to the purpose let him speake to these in particular and trouble us no more with his Chief Governourships or hold his peace for ever All the Controversy between them and us is in point of Interest and the Externall Regiment of the Church which is due to every Christian Soveraigne in his own Kingdome It is not we but they who have changed their Governour He would faine perswade us if he could that no Catholick will believe that a Patriarch is dependent on a King in Ecclesiasticall affaires yet he himself hath confesâ—ed formerly that they hold that every good King is to take Order to see Ecclesiasticall GrievaÌ„ces remedied and the Canons of the Church observed Then Patriarchs are not altogether independent upon Kings in Ecclesiasticall affaires if a King be bound to see that a Patriarch execute the Canons and see Patriarchall Grievances remedied Soveraign Princes have founded Patriarchates and confirmed Patriarchates and conferred Patriarchates and taken away Patriarchates still here is some dependence Gregory the Great was a Patriarch and a Pope yet he acknowledged that he ought due SubjectioÌ„ to the Law of Mauritius in an Ecclesiasticall affaire I being subject to your Command have transmitted your Law to be published through diverse parts of the world And because the Law it self is not pleasing to Almighty God I have expressed my Opinion thereof to my Lords Wherefore I have performed my duty on both sides in yeilding Obedience to the Emperour and noâ— concealing what I thought for God But Mr. SerjeaÌ„ts reasoÌ„ is silly beyoÌ„d all degrees of coÌ„parisoÌ„ Otherwise St. Peter could not preach at Rome if Nero were a King nor St. Iames at Hierusalem without unkinging Herod See what a doughty Argument he hath brought Apostles or Patriarchs or Bishops or Priests may perform the Ordinance of Christ notwithstanding the Prohibition of Pagan Emperours and Kings therefore they are independent upon them and owe no Subjection or Obedience to any Kings Christian or pagan Yes Sr. although they owe theÌ„ onely passive ObedieÌ„ce in that yet they owe them active Obedience to their other lawfull Commands even in Ecclesiasticall affaires But now he saith he will give me fair Law Put the case Papall Government had not been of Divine but onely of Humane Instituâ—ion yet it ought not to have been rejected unlesse the abuses had been irremediable I allow him to give law and shuffle and cut aÌ„d use what expressioÌ„s he pleaseth yet I used but an innoceÌ„t allusioÌ„ to the soaling of a Bowle and it is thrice cast in my teeth But for his faire law I thaÌ„k him I will take no Law from him but what I can win my self He would be glad with all his Heart to have but a good pretense of Humane Institution for those Branches of Papall power which are really controverted between us but I deny him all manner of Institution both divine and Humane and have shewed that they are but upstart Vsurpations of the Popes themselves after 1100. years and wanting lawfull Prescription even in these last ages which ought to be plucked up as weeds so soone as they are discovered and to be removed before all other things by those who are in Authority Ante omnia spoliatus restitui debet And here he is at us again with his often repeated and altogether mistaken case which hence forward I shall vouchsafe no other answer to but passe by it with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He demanded whether I would Condiscend to the Rejection of Monarchy or extirpation of Episcopacy for the misgovernment of Princes or Prelates I answered No We fancy not their Method who cannot prune a tree except they pluck it â—p root and Branch but I gave him three reasons why this could not advantage his cause First never any such abuses as these were objected to Princes or Prelates in England Secondly we desire not the extirpation of the Papacy but the reduction of it to the Primitive Constitution Thirdly Monarchy and Episcopacy are of divine Institution so is not Papall Soveraignty of Iurisdiction To the first he saith nothing but by way of Recrimination the most ignoble kind of answering especially when he himself cannot but condemne them in his own Conscience for notorious Fictions of Cretian Minotaures But these abuses which we complain of are the proper subject of the next Section He is here pleased to relate a pretty story of the late Archbishop of Canterbury that he confessed himself to lein a Schisme in a private discourse I warrant it was private enough without either witnesse or parties as this Author was told by a very grave person whose Candour he hath no reason to suspect And why doth this grave person appeare in a Vizard without a name or appeare after the parties death that durst not have said it in his lâ—fetime and for feare to be detected now telleth us it was in private And when all is done it is ten to one this worthy person if he be in rerum natura is an utter enemy and of another Communion We have had many abhominable lies spread abroad in the world upon the bare Testimony of some such single Adversary as the Apostacy of Bishop King the Defection of King Charles the hopes they had of my Lord of Sâ—rafford when all that knew my Lord of Strafford and that witnesse knew right well he never did in the presence of any other nor ever durst offer to him any discourse of that nature To the second he answereth that we have already exâ—â—rpated the Papacy out of England No we have onely cast out seven or eight Branches of Papall Iurisdiction in the exteriouâ— Court which Christ or his Apostles never challenged never exercised never medled withall which the Church never granted never disposed He might still for us enjoy his Protopatriarchate and the dignity of an
Apostolicall Bishop and his Primacy of Order so loÌ„g as the Church thought fit to continue it to that See if this would content him To my third reason he excepteth If Monarchy be of Divine Institution the Venetians and the Hollanders are in a sad case I am glad when I find any thing in him that hath but a resemblance of matter more then wind and empty words although they weigh nothing when they come to be examined The Venetians and Hollanders may be in a sad Condition in the Opinion of such rash Censurers as himself is who have learned their Theology and Politicks but by the halues Who taught him to argue from the Position of one lawfull forme of Government to the Deniall of another All lawfull Formes of Government are warranted by the Law of Nature and so have their Institution from God in the Law of Nature The Powers that be are ordained of God whether they be Monarchicall or Aristocraticall or Democraticall Man prepareth the Body God infuseth the Soule of Power which is the same in all Lawfull Formes But though all lawfull Formes of GovernmeÌ„t be warranted by the law of nature yet not all in the same Degree of Eminency There is but one soule in the body one Sun in the heaven one Maister in a Family and anciently one Monarch in each Society all the first Governours were Kings The soule of Soveraign Power is the same in all Formes but the Organ is more apt to attain its end in one Form then another in Monarchy then in Aristocracy or Democracy And we say God and Nature doe alwaies intend that which is best Thus it is in the Law of Nature which is warrant sufficient for any form of Government but in the Positive Law of God he never instituted or authorised any form but Monarchy In the last Paragraph where I say that the Popes Headship of Iurisdiction is not of divine Institution he excepteth that it is my bare saying and my old â—rick to say over againe the very point in dispute between us If this be the very point in dispute beâ—ween us as it is indeed it is more shame for him who letteth the very point in dispute alone and never offereth to come neare it especially having made such lowd bragges that he would charge the Crime of Schisme upon the Church of England with undeniable Evidence and prove the Popes Headship of Iurisdiction or Power by a more ample cleare and continued Title then any right of Law or Humane Ordinances can offer Quid tanto dignum tulit hic promiss or hiaâ—u As for my part I know my Obligation whilest I am upon the defensive to make good my ground and when it is my turn to assault I shall discharge my duty If he have any thing to say to the Huguenots of France they are at age to answer him themselves Our Controversy is onely concerning the Church of England SECT 6. That the King and Church of England had sufficieÌ„t grounds to seperate from the Court of Rome I had reason to wonder not at our Grounds but their sileÌ„ce that having so long so ofteÌ„ called for our grounds of Seperation and charged us that we have no grounds that we could have no grounds now when sufficient Grounds are offered to them two of them one after another should passe by them in deep silence And this Dispatcher being called upon for an answer unlesse he would have the cause sentenced against him upon a Nihil dicit with more haâ—â— then good speed gives us an answer and no Answer like the Title of an empty Apothecaries Box. If there be any Monster the Reader may looke for it on that side not on our side He may promise the View of a strange Monster in his Antepasts and Postpasts and blow his Trumpet to get pence a piece to see it as he phraseth it but if the Readers expect till he shew them any such rare sight they may wait untill Dooms day and all the remedy he offers them is to say he hath abused them as he doth often Now roome for his Case or his two Principles of Vnity which are evermore called in to help at a dead lift But his case is not the true case and his Rules are leaden Rules they might be streighâ— at the beginning but they have bended them according to their self Interest Both his case and his Principles have been sufficiently discussed and fully cleared so that I will not offend the Reader with his sleight dish of Coleworts sodden over and over againe He is angry that I make our seperation to be rather from the Court of Rome then from the Churcâ— of Rome and stileth it perfect Impudence So my Assertion be evidently true I weigh not his groundlesse Calumnies Let any man looke upon our GrievaÌ„ces and the Grounds of our Reformation 1. the intollerable extortion of the Roman Court 2. the unjust Vsurpations of the Roman Court 3. the malignant influence of the Roman Court upon the body politick 4. the like malignant influence of the Roman Court upon the body Ecclesiastick 5. and lastly the Violation of ancient Liberties and Exemtions by the Roman Court and he can not doubt from whence we made our Separation All our sufferings were from the Roman Court then why should we seek for ease but where our Shoe did wring us And as our GrievaÌ„ces so our ReformatioÌ„ was onely of the Abuses of the Roman Court Their bestowing of prelacies and dignities in England to the prejudice of the right patrons Their Convocating Synods in England without the Kings leave Their prohibiting English Prelates to make their old Feâ—dall Oaths to the King and obliging them to take new Oaths of Fidelity to the Pope Their imposing and receiving Tenths and First fruits and other arbitrary Pensions upon the English Clergy And lastly their usurping a Legislative Iudiciary and Dispensative Power in the exteriour Court by Politicall Coaction These are all the Branches of Papall power which we have rejected This Reformation is all the Separation that we have made in point of Discipline And for Doctrine we have no Difference with them about the old Essentialls of Christian Religion And their new Essentialls which they have patched to the Creed are but their erroneous or at the best probable Opinions no Articles of Faith He is still bragging of his Demonstrations yet they are but blind Enthymematicall Paralogismes wherein he maketh sure to set his best legge formost and to conceale the lamenesse of his Discourse as much as he can from the eyes of the Reader and still calling upon us for rigorous Demonstration I wish we knew whether he understaÌ„d what rigorous Demonstration is in Logick for no other Demonstration is rigorous but that which proceedeth according to the strict Rules of Logick either a priore or a posteriore from the cause or the effect And this Cause in Difference between us whether those Branches of power which the Pope claimeth and we have
because no reason doth permit that such an Assembly should be made in an Imperiall City without the leave of the Lord of the place Thirdly because Generall Councells were made then at the Publick Charge He might have added that Councells did receive their Protection from Emperours and they who sit in Councells were the Subjects of Emperours In the second place he erreth in this also that we have taken away the meanes of assembling Generall Councells We have taken away no power from the Pope of convocating any Synods except onely Synods of the King of Englands Subjects within his own dominions without his leave which Bellarmine himself acknowledgeth to be agreable to reason If the Pope have any right either to convocate Generall Councells himself or to represent to Christian Soveraigns the fit seasons for Convocation of them either in respect of his Beginning of Vnity or of his Protopatriarchate we do not envy it to him since there may be a good use of it in respect of the division of the Empire so good caution be observed Bellarmine confesseth that that power which we acknowledge that is that though the Pope be no Ecclesiasticall Monarch but onely chief of the Principall Patriarchs yet the right to convocate Generall Councells should pertein unto him But it may be this is more then Mr. Serjeant did know My last Ground was the Exemtion of the Britannick Churches from forrein Iurisdiction by the Generall Councell of Ephesus As to the Exemtion of the Britannick Churches he referreth himself to what he had said formerly and so do I. To the Authority of the Councell of Ephesus he answereth that howsoever Cyprus and some others are exemted from a Neighbouring Superiour falsly pretending a Iurisdiction over them yet I shall never shew a Syllable in the Councell of Ephesus exemting from the Popes Iurisdiction as head of the Church Not directly a maÌ„ may safely sweare it for the Councell never suspected it the world never dreamed of it the Popes themselves never pretended to any such headship of Power and Vniversall Iurisdiction over the whole Church in those dayes All that the Primitive Popes claymed by divine right was a Primacy of Order or Beginning of Vnity due to the Chaire of St. Peter all that they claimed by humane right were some Privileges partly gained by Custome or Prescription and partly granted by the Fathers to to the See of Rome because it was the Imperiall City But there is enough in this very Canon collaterally to overthrow all the Vsurpations of the Roman Court There is no need that Britain should be named particularly where all the Provinces without exception are comprehended Let the same be observed in other Diocesses and in all Provinces There is no need that the Bishop of Rome should be expressed where all the Bishops are prohibited That no Bishop occupy another Province which formerly and from the beginning was not under the power of him or his Predecessours If the Fathers were so tender of pride creeping into the Church in those dayes or of the danger to lose their Christian Liberty in the case of the Bishop of Antioch who pretended neither to divine right nor Vniversall Iurisdiction what would they have said or done in the present case of the Bishop of Rome who challengeth not onely Patriarchall but Soveraign Iurisdiction not over Cyprus onely but over the whole world not from Custome or Canons but from the institution of Christ If Maister Serjeant be in the right then the Bishop of Antioch was quite out to sue for the Iurisdiction of Cyprus which beloÌ„ged more to the Bishops of Rome then to him Then the Bishops of Cyprus were quite oâ—t to challenge the Ordination of themselves and Iurisdiction over one another as a proper right belongiâ—g to themselves which they hold onely by Courtesy and favour from the Bishop of Rome Then the holy Synod was quite out to Determine so positively that not onely Cyprus but every Province should enjoy its rights and Customes inviolated which it had from the beginning without a Salvo or saving the right of the Bishop of Rome or a restriction so long as he pleaseth to permit them and to doe it in such Imperiall Terms It hath pleased the holy Synod or such is our pleasure Lastly the Pope himself was out to ratify the Privileges and exemptions of the Cyprian Bishops not onely from the Patriarch of Antioch but from himself also and to suffer his divine right to be trampled under foot by Customs and Canons which are of no force without him But this is the least part of the passages in the foure First Generall Councells which are repugnant to the Popes pretensions of a Generall Monarchy The Eastern Churches doe still adhere firmly to the Primitive Discipline and for this cause the Pope hath thought fit to excommunicate them Si violandum jus est regnandi causâ violandum est Against all our Grounds the most intolerable extortions that ever were heard of most grievous Vsurpations malignant Influence both upon the State Politick and Ecclesiastick and undoubted Privileges he produceth nothing but immediate Tradition and you must be content to take his bare word for it for he is altogether unfurnished of proofes Some men by telling strange Stories over and over do come at last to believe them It may be he believeth there was a Tradition for those Branches of Papall power which we cast out but we deny it altogether and require him to prove first that there was such a Tradition in England next that a particular Tradition is a sufficient proofe of divine Institution We admit readily that the Vnity of the Church is of great importance and the breaking of it an heinous Crime and that no abuses imaginable are sufficient excuse for a totall desertion of a just power Thus far in the Thesis we agree but in the Hypothesis we differ That which is a sufficient ground for a reformation is not a sufficient Ground for an extirpation So many so grievous so unconscionable extortions and Vsurpations and malignant influences as we complain of and prove are without all peradventure a sufficient ground of Reformation which is all our Ancestours did or we defend though not a sufficient cause of the extirpation of any just Authority Our Grounds are sufficient for a Reformation of abuses and encroachments which we acknowledge and which is all we did at the Reformation but for the abolition of any just power it is his fond Imagination we disclaime it altogether We have cast out all Papall Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court as being Politicall not Spirituall but for any Papall Iurisdiction either purely spirituall or justly founded we have not medled with it Those things which we have cast out are onely abuses and Vsurpations So there is no need of that Consideration which he proposeth whether the abuses were otherwise remediable or not for our Reformation is that very Remedy which he himself hath prescribed to
hold out encroachments with the point of the sword without any medling with just right Other division then this which he himself hath allowed we believe our Ancestours intended none we hold none and so are accountable for none The main Question is whether the Britannick Churches were de facto subject to Rome or not I have demonstrated the contrary already that they were not and had alwaies their Ordinations at home But his Conclusion which he puts upon me that true complaints against Governours whether otherwise remediable or no are sufficient reasons to abolish that very Government is a vain assertion of his own no CoÌ„clusion of mine He starteth a Question here little to his own Credit whether he that mainteineth the Negative or he that mainteineth the Affirmative ought to prove He saith according to his old Pueriles that a Negative may be proved in Logick No man doubteth of it or denieth it Quis eâ—im potest negare I said on the Contrary that in this case which commeth here in difference between us according to the strict rules of Law the burthen to proue resteth onely on his side who affirmeth As the Question is here between us whether we had other Remedies then to make such a Reformation as we did We say No. They say Yea. It is possible to â—rove there might be other Remedies â—ut it is impossible to prove there were no â—ther Remedies Galen or Hippocrates himâ—elf would not have undertaken such a Taske to prove that there were no other Remedies for a disease then that which they used It is not for want of Logicall Forms that Negatives are not to be proved â—n matter of Fact but for want of sufficient Mediums He saith he is no Bowler and so â—nexpert as not to understand what is the soaling of a Bowle It may be it is true but if I should put him to prove this Negative it is impossible But so farre as a Negative of that nature is capable of proofe I did prove it by our Addresses to Popes and Councells and long expectation in vain that we had no other Remedy then that which we used to thrust out their Vsurpations by the power of the sword which course he himself adviseth and we practised The division is not made by them who thrust out Vsurpations but by them who brought them in and defend them I said that not onely our Ancestors but all Catholick Countries did maintein their own privileges inviolated and make themselves the last Iudges of their Grievances from the Court of Rome Hence he concludeth with open Mouth therefore there were other Remedies there needed no Division Alas poore man how he troubleth himself about nothing They and we used the very same Remedies the same that he adviseth in this place The Pope would not ease them upon many addresses made What then had not the King the Sword in his own hands Did it not lie in his power to right himself as he listed and to admit those pretended encroachments onely so far as he thought just and fitting Yes the King had the sword in his hands and did right him self and cast out those Papall Usurpatious so far as he found Iust and now when we have followed your own advise you call us Schismaticks and Dividers Sr. we are no Dividers but we have done our Duties and if we prove those things which we cast out to be Vsurpations as we have done you are the Schismaticks by your own Confession He pleadeth If Papall Authority be of Christs Institution then no just cause can possibly be given for its Abolishment Right But those Branches of Papall power which we have cast out are neyther of Christs Institution nor of Mans Institution but meer Vsurpations Neither doe we seek to abolish Papall Authority but to reform it from Accidentall Abuses and reduce it to its first Institution The best Institutions Divine or Humane may sometimes need such Reformation Here is nothing like proofe but his World of Witnesses and his Immemoriall Tradition presumed not proved To shew that no Nation suffred so much as England under the Tyranny of the Roman Court he saith I produce nothing but the pleasant saying of a certain Pope Well would he have a better witnesse against the Pope then the Pope him self Habemus confitentem reuÌ„ He was pleasant indeed but Ridentem dicere verum Quid vetat VVhat hindereth that a man may net tell the truth laughing He asketh whether those Testimonies which I produce be Demonstrative or rigorous Evidences I thinke he would have me like the unskilfull Painter to write over the Heads of my Arguments This is a Demonstration It would become him better to refute them and shew that they are not Demonstrative then to trifle away the time with such frivolous Questions I shewed that England is not alone in the Seperation so long as all the Eastern Southern Northern and so great a part of the Western Church have seperated themselves from the Court of Rome and are seperated by them from the Church of Rome as well as we In answer to this he bids me shew that those I call Christians have any infallible or certain Rule of Faith c. This is first to hang men up and then to examine their cause first to excommunicate four parts of five of the Christian world for their own Interests because they will not submit their necks to the Roman Yoke and embrace their upstart Vsurpations with as much Devotion as the genuine Legacies of Christ and his Apostles It behoved the Court of Rome to have weighed the case more maturely before they gave such a temerarious sentence against the much greater part of Christendome in so weighty a cause But for their rule of Faith they have a more certain and Authentick Rule then he himself by as much as the Apostles Creed is a more Authentick rule of Faith then Pius the fourths Creed and the Holy Scriptures a more infallible ground then particular supposititious Tradition which wanteth both Perpetuity and Vniversality I said that we desired to live in the peaceable Communion of the Catholick Church as well as our Ancestours as far as the Roman Court will give us leave He answereth that he knoweth very well we would be glad that the Church of Rome would own us for hers c That lack Straw or Wat Tiler after they had rebelled had no mind to be hanged That it is no Charity or Courtesy in us but a request of an unreasonable favour from them to admit us into their Communion and would be most absurd in Government c. Whether they hold us for theirs or not is not much materiall if they did it were the better for themselves if they doe not it is not the worse for us so as Christ own us for his it skilleth not much whether they say come ye blessed or goe ye cursed whether we be the wheat or Chaffe their tongues must not winnow us Although he snuffe at
to pervert as many as they can not to sow good seed in the Lords Field but to superseminare or sow Tares above the wheat We should thank them more to stay at home then to compasse Sea and Land to gaine Proselites as the Pharisees did and made them twofold more the Children of Hell then themselves He saith that this is the solemne Custome of their Church every Good Friday Let it be so but they have not the same incentive and provocation which we have we do not curse and Anathematise theÌ„ the day before as they doe us This Advantage we have over them that we render blessing for cursing which they doe not He addeth that they cannot be understood under the notion of Hereticks first because we acknowledge theirs to be a true Church and therefore not hereticall Secondly they are of Christs Flock already and therefore not reductble to his Flock To the First â— answer that a particular Church which is onely materially Hereticall not formally doth still continue a true Church of Christ. The Bishop of Chalcedon understood these things much better then himself this is confessed by him in the place formerly alleged A particular Church may be really Hereticall or Schismaticall and yet morally a true particular Church because she is invincibly ignorant of her Heresy or Schisme We agree with him wholy in the sense onely we differ in the expression What he calleth really Hereticall we stile materially Hereticall and what he calleth morally a true Church we use to stile Metaphysically a true Church that is by truth of Entity not of Morality Secondly I answer that the Flock of Christ is taken variously sometimes more largely sometimes more strictly more largely for all those that are In domo by outward profession more strictly for those who are Ex domo so in the Church that they are also of the Church by inward Sanctification And our Collect hath reference to this later acception of this word Flock So Fetch them home blessed Lord to thy Floek that they may be saved He taketh it ill that our Church hath chaÌ„ged these words in the Missall recall them to our Holy Mother the Catholick and Apostolick Church into this dwindling puling puritanicall expression of one Floek and one Fold under one Shepheard Whether it be because he hath a Pick against Scripture phrases as sounding too preacherlike or rather because our Church did presume to name the right Shepheard Iesus Christ and not leave it to their Glosses to entitle the Pope to that Office But certainly the Authority of the Catholick Church is not formidable at all to any Genuine Sonnes of the Church of England I doe readily acknowledge that it is the duty of each Orthodox Church to Excommunicate Formall Hereticks and them who swerve from the Apostles Creed as the rule of Faith but this doth not oblige the Church of England to Excommunicate all materiall Hereticks who follow the dictate of their conscience in inferiour Questions which are not Essentialls of Faith and do hold the truth implicitly in the preparation of their minds Neither do I ever know that the Church of England did ever excommunicate Papists in grosse qua tales but onely some particular Papists who were either convicted of other Crimes or found Guilty of Contumacy It were to be wished that the Court of Rome would use the same Moderation and remember how Ireneus reproved Pope Victor that he had not done rightly to cut of from the Vnity of the Mysticall body of Christ so many and so great Churehes of God This is that great nonsense which this egregious Prevaricatour hath found in our Collect that the English Church cannot reconcile her doctrine and her practise together Let him not trouble his head with that but rather how to recoucile himself with his own Church He will have prayers to be onely words no works but his Church maketh Prayer Fasting and Almes to be three satisfactory works My third proofe of our Moderation was that we doe not challenge a new Church a new Religion or new holy Orders but derive our Church our Religion our Holy Orders from Christ and his Apostles by an uninterrupted Succession we obtrude no Innovations upon others All this is quite omitted by this great pretender to Sincerity and yet he knoweth or may know that there have been pretended Reformers who have committed all these excesses But he catcheth hold of two words of my defence that we have added no thing I wish they could say as much nor taken away any thing but Errours To the former part he excepteth that he who positively denies ever addes the contrary to what he takes away He that makes it an Article there is no Purgatory no Masse no prayers to Saincts hath as many Articles as he who holds the Contrary I have taken away this answer before and Demonstrated that no negative can be a Fundamentall Article or necessary Medium of Salvation because it hath no Entity That there are an hundred greater disputes and Contradictions among them selves in Theologicall Questions or in these things quae sunt fideâ— materialiter then those three are between us and them Yet they dare not say that either the Affirmatives or Negatives are Articles of Faith The ChristiaÌ„ Church for fifteen hundred yeares knew never more then 12. old Articles of Faith untill Pius the 4th added twelve new Articles And now this young Pythagoras will make us more then 1200. Articles affirmative Articles and Negative Articles Fundamentall Articles and Superstructive Articles Every Theologicall truth shall either be a Fundamentall Article or an indifferent and unconcerning Opinion He saith our 22. Article defineth the Negative to Purgatory yet I like an ill tutored Child tell my old Crasy Mother the Church of England that she lies I hope by this time the Reader knoweth sufficiently that his penne is no slander If the Church of England did ever ill it was when she begot him Neither doe I tell the Church of England she lies nor dissent in the least from the Definition of the Church of England neither doth the Church of England define any of these Questions as necessary to be believed either necessitate medâ—i or necessitate praecepti which is much lesse but onely bindeth her sonnes for peace sake not to oppose them But he himself can hardly be excused from lying where he telleth us the good simple Ministers did sweare to maintein them Perhaps he was one of the simple Ministers did he ever sweare to maintein them did he ever know any man who did sweare to maintein them For him to urge such falshoods after they have been so often detected is double Effronterie Periisse puto â—ui pudor periit He inferreth further By the Bishops Logick these propositions that there are not two Gods that the devills shall not be saved nor the Saints in Heaven damned that there is no Salvation but through Christ must cease to be Articles of Faith and
become indifferent unconcerning Opinions because they are Negative I wish no more disparagement to any man then to be the authour of such an absurd assertion Either they are Fundamentall Articles or unconcerning Opinions How should they cease to be Articles which never were Articles That there is one God and one Saviour Iesus Christ that the life of the Saints is everlasting and the Fire of the devills Everlasting are Articles of Faith but every thing which may be deduced from these is not a distinct Article of Faith To the latter part of my plea that we tooke nothing away but weeds he pleadeth first that it is but a self supposition or a begging of the Question By his leave I have demonstrated that all the Branches of Papall power which are in controversy between them and us are all grosse Vsurpations and weeds which did never sprout up in the Church of England untill after 1100 yeares no man can say without shame that such were planted by Christ or his Apostles Secondly he excepteth that to take away Errours is a requisite act af Iustice not a proofe of Moderation On the contrary therefore it is a proofe of Moderation because it is a requisite Act of Iustice all virtue consisteth in the meane or in a moderation It is not his particular pretended supposititious Tradition which doth secure us that Christ was and that the Holy Scripture is the Genuine word of God but the Vniversall and perpetuall Tradition of the Catholick Church of Christ. My last proofe of our Moderation was that we are ready in the preparation of our minds to believe and practice whatsoever the Catholick Church of this present Age doth believe and practice And this is an infallible preservative to keep a man within the Pale of the Church whosoever doth this Cordially cannot possibly be a formall Heretick or Schismatick because he is invincibly ignorant of his Heresy or Schisme No man can have iust cause to seperate his Communion a Communione orbis Terrarum from the Communion of the Christian world If he would have confuted this his way had been to have proposed something which the Christian World united doth believe or practise which wee are not ready to believe or Practice This he doth not so much as attempt to doe but barketh and raileth without rime or reason First he telleth us we say that there is no Vniversall Church Chuse Reader whether thou wilt believe him or our Leiturgy wherein we pray dayly that God will inspire the Vniversall Church with the Spirit of Truth Vnity and Concord He telleth us that they doe not doubt but we have renounced our Creed Chuse Reader whether thou wilt believe him or our Leiturgy wherein we make profession dayly of the Apostolick Nicene and Athanasian Creeds He telleth us that we have renounced our reason If he had said onely that we had lost our reason it is more then any man in his right wits would say but to say we have renounced our reason is incredible The reason of all this is because we give no certein Rule to know a true Church from an Hereticall He supposeth that no Hereticall Church is a true Church The Bishop of Chalcedon may instruct him better that an Hereticall Church is a true Church whilest it erreth invincibly He saith that he hath lived in Circumstances to be as well acquainted with our Doctrin as most men are Yet he professeth that if his life were at stake be could not Determine absolutely upon our Constant Grounds VVhether Presbyterians Anabaptists or Quakers are to be excluded from the Vniversall Church or no. The nearer relation that he hath had to the Church of England the more shame for him to scoffe so often at the supposed Nakednesse of his Mother and to revile her so virulently without either ground or Provocation which gave him his Christian being He hath my Charitable Iudgement of Presbyterians in my Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedons Epistle And for the other Sects it were much better to have a little patience and suffer them to dye of themselves then trouble the world so much about them they were produced in a Storme and will dye in a Calme He may be sure they will never molest him at any Councell either Generall or Occidentall It is honour enough for them to be named in earnest by a Polemick writer But what manner of Disputing is this to bring Questions in stead of Arguments As what new Form of Discipline the Protestants have introduced What are the certain Conditions of a right Oecumenicall Councell What is the Vniversall Church and of what particular Churches it doth consist What are the notes to know a true Church from an Hereticall We have introduced no new discipline but reteined the old Our Conditions of a right Oecumenicall Councell are the same they were not altogether so rigorously exacted in case of invincible necessity We are readier to give an account of ourselves then to censure others either to intrude ourselves into the Office of God to distinguish perfectly formall Schismaticks from materiall Or into the Office of the Catholick Church to determine precisely who ought to be excluded from her Communion who not We exclude all those whom undoubted Generall Councells have excluded the rest we leave to God and to the determination of a free Councell as Generall as may be But because I would not leave him unsatisfied in any thing I am contented to admit their own Definition of the Vniversall Church That is the Company of Christians knit together by the profession of the same faith and the Communion of the same Sacraments under the Government of lawfull Pastours Taking away that purple patch which they have added at the latter end of it for their own Interest And especially of the Roman Bishop as the onely Vicar of Christ upon Earth And if they had stinted at a Primacy of Order or beginning of unity I should not have excepted against it He objecteth that Protestants have no grounds to distinguish true believers from false That were strange indeed whilest we have the same Scriptures interpreted by the same perpetuall Tradition of the Vniversall Church according to the same Analogy of Faith wherein we give this honour to the Fathers not to be Authours but witnesses of Tradition whatsoever grounds they have to distinguish true believers from false we have the same But because I made the Apostles Creed to be the rule of Faith he objecteth First then the Puritans who deny the Article of Christs descent into Hell must be excluded quite from the Vniversall Church If they be so what is that to the Church of England if they be turned out yet let them be heard first They plead that the manner of Christs descent is not particularly determined but let it be determined or not they ought to be turned out of the Vniversall Church by a Generall Councell and it may be they will submit to the Authority of a Generall
Councell then there will need no turning out Secondly he objecteth So a man may reject all Government of the Church the Procession of the Holy ghost all the Sacraments all the Scriptures and yet continue a Member of Gods Church Why so When I said the Creed was a â—ufficient Rule of Faith or Credendorum of things to be believed I neither said nor meant that it was regula agendorum a Rule of such things as are to be practised such as the Acts of discipline and of the Sacraments are The Creed conteined enough for Salvation touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost before the words Filioque were added to it and there is great cause to doubt that the Contentions of the Eastern and Western Churches about this Subject are but a meer Logomachy or strife about words The Scriptures and the Creed are not two different Rules of Faith but one and the same Rule dilated in the Scripture contracted in the Creed the end of the Creed being to contein all Fundamentall points of Faith or a summary of all things necessary to Salvation to be believed Necessitate medii But in what particulaâ— writings all these fundamentall points are conteined is no particular fundamentall Article it self nor conteined in the Creed nor could be conteined in it since it is apparent out of Scripture it self that the Creed was made and deposited with the Church as a Rule of Faith before the Canon of the new Testament was fully perfected Arrians and Socinians may perhaps wrest the words of the Apostles Creed to their Hereticall Sense but not as it is explained by the first foure Generall Councells which all Orthodox Christians doe admit He saith they and we differ about the sense of two Articles of the Creed that is the descent of Christ into Hell and the Catholick Church but setteth not down wherein we differ He hath reason to understand our Differences having been of both Churches but I for my part do rather believe that he understandeth neither part right Howsoever it be the Different Sense of an Article doth make an Heretick after it is defined by the Vniversall Church not before He saith he hath already shewed in the foregoing Section that the Protestant Grounds have left no Order and Subordination of Vniversall Government in Gods Church But he hath neither shewn it in the foregoing Section nor any where else nor is able to shew it We have the same subordination that the Primitive Church of Inferiour Clergy men to Bishops of Bishops to Archbishops of Archbishops to Patriarchs and of Patriarchs to a Generall Councell or as Generall as may be Let him shew any one linke of this Subordination that we have weakened I said we acknowledge not a Virtuall Church or one man as infallible as the Vniversall Church He rejoineth Nor they neither I wish it were so Generally but the Pope and Court of Rome who have the power of the Keys in their hands whoÌ„ onely we accuse in this behalf do maintain the Contrary that a Generall Councell without the Pope may erre that the Pope with any Councell Generall or particular cannot erre that the infallibility of the Church is radicated in the Pope by virtue of Christs prayer for S. Peter that his faith should not faile not in a company of Counsailers nor in a Councell of Bishops that the Pope cannot define temerariously in matters of Faith or good manners which concern the whole Church What a Generall Councell is and what the Vniversall Church is and who ought to be excluded from the one or the other as Hereticks I have shewed already namely all those and onely those who doe either renounce their Creed the badge of their Christianity the same Faith whereinto they were baptised or who differing about the sense of any Article thereof have already been excluded as Hereticks by the sentence of an undoubted Generall Councell Howsoever he sleighteth the Controversies which they have among themselves concerning the last resolution of Faith as if they were of no moment yet they are not of so little concernment to be so sleighted What availeth it to say they have the Church for an infallible Iudge whilest they are not certain or do not know what the Church is or who this infallible Iudge is May not a Man say unto them as Elijah said unto the Israelites Why halt ye between two Opinions Or rather why halt yet betwixt five or six Opinions If the Pope alone be infallible Iudge follow him If a Generall Councell alone be this infallible Iudge follow it If the Essentiall Church be the infallible Iudge Adhere to it If the Pope and a Generall Councell oâ— the Pope and a particular Councell or the Pope and his Conclave of Cardinalls be this infallible Iudge follow them He telleth us that their Vniversall Church is as Visible as the sun at Noone day to wit those Countryes in Communion with the See of Rome Without doubt they are Visible enough but it is as Visible that they are not the Vniversall Church What shall become of all the rest of the Christian world They are the elder Christians and more numerous fower for one both Patriarchs and people It is against reason that one single Protopatriarch should cast out fower out of the Church and be both party and Iudge in his own Cause But here it ends not If the Pope will have his Visible Church to be one Homogeneous body he must cast out a great many more yet and it is to be suspected this very Dispatcher himself among the rest for all his shewes They flatter the Pope with Generall Terms of Head and Chief Governour and First Mover which signify nothing but in reality they would have the Pope to be no more then the Duke of Venice is in the Venetian Common wealth that is lesse then any single Senatour Or that which a Generall Maister is in a Religious Order Above all Priours and Provincialls but subject to a Congregation Generall Wherein doe these men differ from us Sect. 8. That all Princes â—nd Republiques of the Roman Communion doe in effect the same thing whicâ— Henry the eighth did when they have Occasion or at least doe plead for it This was the Title and this was my scope of my Fifth ground which I made good by the Lawes and decrees of the Emperours with their Councells and Synods and Electorall College by the Lawes of France the Liberties of the Gallican Church the Acts of their Parliaments and declarations of their Vniversities By the practise of the King of Spain his Councells his Parliaments in Sicily in Castile in Brabant and Flanders By the sighs of Portugall and their bleaâ—ings and the Iudgement of the Vniversity of Lisbone By the Lawes and Proclamations of the Republick of Venice This I made good in every particular branch of Papall power which we have cast out of England the Patronage of the English Church The right to call and confirm Synods to conferre Bishopricks to
Governed The Supreme Governesse in respect of its Representative a Generall Councell to which all Ecclesiasticall Officers higher or lower whether Constituted by Christ or substituted by the Church doe owe an account And the Governed in respect of that Vniversality of Christians which he mentioneth And this sounds much more sweetly in Christian eares then to make either the Pope the Maister or the Church of Rome the Mistresse of the Church He brought an Argument for the Succession of the Roman Bishop drawn from the Vicissitude of Humane affairs I retoâ—ted it upon himselfe that Rome itself was as much subject to this Vicissitude as any other place it may be destroyed with an Earthquake He saith It must be an unheard of Earthquake which can swallow up the whole Diocesse if the City be destroyed yet the Clergy of the Roman Diocesse can elect to themselves a new Bishop But this new elected Bishop shall be no more the Bishop of Rome after it is destroyed But that which concerneth him and the cause more is he proposeth my Objection by halfes I said it might be destroyed by warres also that is both City and Diocesse and become a place for Satyrs to Dance in and Owles to scrâ—ech in As great Cityes as Rome have run that Fortune In that case what will become of his Election I added it may become Hereticall or Mahumetan He answereth True so may the whole Church if it had pleased God so to Order causes No by his leave not so Christ hath promised that his Vniversall Church shall never faile but he hath not promised that Rome shall never faile I said the Church never disposeth so of her Offices as not to be able to change her Mesnagery according to the Vicissitude of Humane affaires He opposeth that I granted in the foregoing Page that Christ himself and not the Church instituted this Prineipality or Primacy and bids me shew that the Church hath Authority to change Christs Institution I did not grant it but suppose it but whether granted or supposed it is not materiall to the purpose The Church hath no power to change Christs Institution in Essentialls but all Ecclesiasticall Officers whatsoever are her Officers and she hath power to dispose of them and govern them and to alter what is not Essentiall I know there are other meaus between Tyranny and Anarchy besides Aristocracy even all lawfull Formes of Government as Monarchy and Democracy but in the Government of the Catholick Church Monarchy and Democracy had no place unlesse it were in respect of Particular Diocesses or Provinces and therefore to have named Monarchy here had been superfluous and impertinent But the Government of the Primitive Church in the Apostles and their Successours was ever Aristocraticall first by an equall Participation of power in the Apostles and then by a Subordination of Bishops in their Successours and this as well out of Generall Councells as in them as well before there were Generall Councells as after It is not my want of Memory but his want of Iudgement to pursue such shadowes as these and nickname them Contradictions He askes how should a Primate of Order who hath no power to Act at all in order to the Vniversall Church have more power to prevent her good or procure her harme then one who hath Soveraignty of power This is his perpetuall Practise to dispute from that which is not granted St. Peter was a Primate of Order aâ—ong the Apostles and no more yet he had power to act singly as an Apostle and as a Primate among the Apostles he had power also to Act jointly with the Aposâ—olicall College so have all other Primates of â—rder Whatsoever Mr. Serjeant thiâ—kes Our Saviâ—uâ— thought this Form of Goveâ—ment as conducible to the good of his Church both to procure her Good and to prevent her harm as an absolute Soveraignty I doe not feast the Reader with Contradictions Nothing is more true then my Assertion but he abuseth his Reader with notorious Fictions If the Papacy be the Bridle in the mouth of the Church then without peradventure the Pope is the Rider though the Papacy be not I said enough before to let him see the unfitnesse of his lâ—dicrâ—us Allegory and taxed him for it if he delight in it let him pursue it Nos hac a Scabie tenemus ungues How the Church doth both govern and is governed I have shewed him formerly In his answer he fell into a large Encomiuâ— of the Papacy demanding among other things What Christian Prince can chuse but be glad to have an Arbitrator so prudent so pâ—â—â—s so distinteressed as a Good Pope should be and if this Authority were duely Governed I told him that to looke upon men as they should be was to write dreaming He rejoineth that he lookes not upon men at all in this place but speakes of the Office it self And challengeth me what say you to the Office it self I answer first he saith not truely for he did looke at men in this place otherwise why did he adde this Condition as a good Pope should be And this other If this Authority were duely governed Certainly he who lookes upon an Arbitrator so prudent so pious so Disinteressed as a good Pope should be looketh something upon men And so in truth he ought to doe but his fault is that he lookes upon them as they should be and not as they commonly are which is the same fault I taxe him with to write Dreaming not waking Now to his Question What say you to the Office it self I say first that though he hath stated it p. 624 Yet he hath not stated it at all neither I feare dare he state it nor is willing to state it He telleth us indeed sometimes of the Substance of the Papacy but wherein the Substance of the Papacy consists except some Generall unsignificant Expressions of an Headship or Chief Governourship or First Movership about which we have no Controversy with them and which are equally appliable to a Primacy of Order and a Soveraignty of Power he saith nothing Whether the Pope be an absolute Monarch or a duke of Venice inferiour to the whole Senate whether he have a Coactive power in the Exteriour Court throughout all other Princes dominions without their leaves Whether he have the right to conferre Bishopricks Convocate Synods Impose Pensions For bid Oaths of Allegiance and require new Oaths of Allegiance to himself Set up Legantine Courts Receive Appeales make Lawes dispense with Lawes at his pleasure he saith nothing yet these are the onely Controversies we have with them to aske what we say to the Popes Authority without stating of it without stinting of it is an unreasonable demand I say secondly that he ought to explain himself by what right he doth challenge this Authority Divine or Humane or onely out of Prudentiall reasons If he challenge it by divine right or Humane right he ought to prove the right according to the just extent of