and that by virtue of Christ's Law for Peace and Concord Obedience hath no formal Object but Authoritatem Imperantis But Assemblies for Concord have no Imperium 4. No Clergyman as such hath any but Pastoral and Teaching Power and as a Tutor to order his own School The Power of the Keys is no other 5. Mens holding and renouncing of Communion with other Persons or Churches may be without Governing Power I am not Governor of all that I hold or renounce Communion with No Bishops have power Judicially to determine of Individuals who shall have Communion with every Parish Church on Earth If they have they must hear them all speak for themselves before they judge them in or out They are not Governors of foreign Kings and Kingdoms though in their Government of their particular Churches they must all agree to observe one Rule that is Christ's Laws 6. There never was an Universal Council of all the Churches but only of one Empire a part of that nor ever will be till the Church be so destroyed as to be brought into a narrow space which God forbid As to Dr. Stillingfleet's Defence of all this I take him not to approve of all that he blameth not And if he did I believe on second thoughts he will more retract this than he did his Irenicon Chap. X. Dr. Peter Heylin's own Judgment § 1. BEcause we come newly from repeating Dr. Heylin's words of Archbishop Laud though they fully shew his own Judgment I will â—â—ere annex some more 1. There is a Book written by a Papist called Historical Collections of the Reformation gathered most out of Dr. Heylin's own words and some â—ut of others describing the Reformers and Reformation so odiously as greatly serveth the Priests to turn Protestants to their Church And â—s the Jesuit Maymbourgh maketh Dr. Heylin's Writings to have Converted the late Dutchess of York it 's like it was this Collection out of him 2. In his Book on the Creed speaking of the Catholick Church he saith Pag. 407. Such is the Ambition of the Pope of Rome that unless he may be taken for the Catholick Church he passeth not for being reckoned a Church at all And yet this is of the two the Lovelier Error Better the Church be all Head than no Head at all And such a Church that is all Body and no Head at all have some of our Reformers modelled in their late Platforms Answ. Is Christ no Head at all Or is any other Person or Court capable of Governing all Christians on Earth All Protestants hold that the whole Church hath no Head but Christ. Pag. 408. Speaking still of the Catholick Church he saith The Government of the Church not being Monarchical as our Masters of the Church of Rome would have it nor Democratical as the Fathers of the Presbytery and Brethren of the Independency have given it out both in their Practice and their Platform it must be Aristocratical Answ. This is a gross Slander of the Presbyterians and Independents Did ever the Presbyterians or Independents say that All Christians on Earth must Govern the whole Church in one Meeting or by Delegates where be the Laws that any of them pretend all Christians made Or the Judgments they past on any Persons after exploration The Presbyterians are for an Aristocratical Government of National Churches and some few Independents are for popular Government in single Congregations but no further 2. Is the Church now Governed by One Aristocracy that is per Optimates that are One Persona Politica by Vote ruling all the Christian World Where is their Meeting What be their Laws Whom do they so try and judge An Universal Governing Aristocracy is more impossible and irrational than an Universal Monarchy Civil or Ecclesiastical Every Bishop and Presbytery Governing his own Church and these keeping Concord by just Correspondency is no liker an Universal Aristocracy than an Assembly of Princes for Concordant Government of their Dominions or than all the Mayors and Justices ruling their several Corporations and Provinces make the Government of England Aristocratical Pag. 409. Saith he Every Bishop where-ever he be fixt and resident hath like St. Paul an universal Care over all the Churches which since they could not exercise by personal Conferences they did it in the Primitive times before they had the benefit of General Councils by Letters Messengers and Agents for the Communicating of their Counsel and imparting their Advice one to another as the emergent Occasions of the Church did require the same These Letters they called Literas formatas Communicatorias Answ. Thus Bishop Gunning and others But 1. St. Paul's Apostolick Power enabled him to do the Work of an Apostle which is to plant Churches in as much of the World as they could and deliver them Christ's Doctrine and Laws infallibly as receiving them by sight and hearing or miraculous revelation And this Power each Apostle could exercise singly and not only by Voting as part of a College the Spirit of Christ teaching them all the same Doctrine But Bishops have no such Office or Power 2. There are several ways of expressing a Care of all the Churches Every Christian must do it by private Endeavours Every Official Preacher by Preaching where he is called Every Pastor by guiding his Flock in Concord with all true Christians in the things which Christ hath made necessary to their Concord And if Archbishops have right to a larger Province they must do it in their proper Province per partes not as one Aristocracy 3. It is granted that as all Christians and Bishops must have a Love to all the Churches and a Care to do them good in their several Places so Concord in things necessary is a great means of that good and the ancient Pastors endeavoured it by Messages Letters and Synods and so must we But what Universal Laws were made by Literae formatae What formal Judgments were past by them Where did the Writers meet first to hear the Accused and examine Witnesses Or must all believe the report of every single Pastor And was it all the Bishops on Earth or a major part that wrote these Legislative and Judicial Letters What strange things can some Men gather from meer Communion and Concord Bishops had then a Necessity of getting the common consent of as many of their Order as they could to make their Government of force to the People that were all Volunteers and not constrained by any Magistrate And it 's useful still to the same end 4. And we grant them that every Bishop and Presbyter that giveth counsel to other Churches doth not do it as a meer private Man but as a Bishop that is One that by Office is authorized to give such Pastoral advice to such as he is called to give it to But not as one that hath the charge of Governing other Mens Flocks or is a Member of an Aristocratical Supream Senate Parliament Court or Voting States Suppose each Hospital
Communion of the Churches 8. But I supposed that none but those who were called to it immediately by Christ or endued with the gift of Infallibility therein were to be as his Mouth and Hand in so delivering the Gospel and writing the Holy Scriptures as should be his Word or Law to all the Christian World and to all future Generations 9. But as Prophets of old were the bringers of all new Revelations and the Priests were but the Preservers Expounders and Appliers of the Word which the Prophets had brought So the Spirit in the Apostles Evangelists and Prophets infallibly delivered that Word and Law which all succeeding Pastors must Preach Practise and Rule by as the only Universal Law This being hitherto my Judgment if you are not mistaken I am no Member of the Universal Church and so no Christian and therefore am uncapable of Communion and have not Christ's Spirit nor title to Salvation and therefore it concerneth me speedily to try and receive Instructions However we are of two Religions and Churches if you are in the right II That which I have hitherto denied herein is 1. That there is any Vicarious Constitutive or Governing Head of the Church Universal or Soveraign Power Personal or Collective having Supream Universal Legislative Judicial and Executive Power under Christ which all Christians are bound to be Subjects of and to obey 2. That Obedience to such an Universal Church-Soveraign or Power is not the necessary means or terms of Universal Concord or Communion 1. Because there is no such Power 2. If there be it cannot be Universally known by Christians 1. That it is 2. What it is 3. And in whom it is 3. Nor can the Measure of Obedience to such Power necessary to Concord and Communion of all be Universally known 4. And de facto there is no such Concord or Communion Universal in the World nor ever was at least since the Apostles days Of these in order I. If there be any Vicarious Universal Supream Power that all must obey that will be Members of the Church the Institution of it is to be found in Scripture or in some other Divine Record But no such thing is found in either we have no other Divine Record that notifyeth this and Scripture doth not It is the Apostles Power that is the thing hence alledged But 1. While they were near the whole Church in its Infancy or small Number Men could have sent to them for their Judgment But so they could not had they lived to see the Church in its present extent If the twelve Apostles were now at Jerusalem and we doubted of the Nestorian Eutychian Monothelite Controversies and the rest in Epiphanius and Philastrius Catalogue Could all the Christians in America Africa Asia and Europe know that the major Vote of the Apostles met at Jerusalem had thus or thus decided How few would live long enough for that Satisfaction 2. The Apostles singly by an infallible Uniting Spirit were the Mouth of Christ to deliver obligatorily his Laws and Doctrine without meeting to Consult and Vote it Paul professeth Gal. 1. that he received not his Gospel from the Apostles but from Christ And his Epistles need not a proof of their Authority from the Votes or Consent of the rest but were otherwise received And so of other parts of Scripture 3. The Apostles were to be dispersed about the World and not to stay long together to Govern the World as a College And while they stayed at Jerusalem we read not of their doing any thing in a College and Conciliar way save that Act. 15. 11. which was 1. No General Council from all the Churches 2. Nor done by Apostles only but the Elders and Brethren also of the Church at Jerusalem 3. And was not laid on the Authority of a major Vote but on the Apostolical Spirit of Infallibility and their special knowledge of Christ's mind in which they all concurred 2. Therefore their Authority of Teaching the World all Christ's Commands M-28-20 being proper to them by these two advantages being chosen Ear-witnesses and having the Spirit to guide them into all truth in this they have no Successors though they have in the continued parts of their Work They were Christs Instruments in Universal Legislation and the Scripture written by them is his Word and Law and they were accordingly enabled to Seal it by Miracles and giving the Holy Ghost by Imposition of their Hands This Law of Christ all Christians own But if in this they have Successors 1. The Church hath a larger Law than we have thought on and Gods Word is a greater Volume 2. And Miracles are as necessary to Seal the new Word as to Seal the old II. The Scripture denieth a Vicarious summam potestatem or Soveraignty over the Universal Church having a Legislative Power 1. In that it saith that There is One Law-giver Jam. 4.12 that is But One. 2. In calling Christ only the Head Lord and King and calling Apostles but Members 1 Cor. 12.27 and Stewards and Ministers by whom we believe 3. Baptizing us only into the Name of Christ and not of the Apostles and Baptism is Christening and sheweth all that is necessary to make us Members of the Church and Body which Christ is the Saviour of 4. Paul decryeth it as Carnality and Schism to think of Men above what is written as if they had been Baptized into the Names of Men. 5. The Apostles did not Convert Men by preaching up themselves as Soveraign but Christ only professing themselves Witnesses and Messengers of his Words and Deeds The Eunuch Acts 8. was Baptized by Philip upon his bare believing in Christ without hearing the â—ote of a Colledge of Apostles Nor did the Preachers that Converted Men do it by the Argument of the Authority of such a Colledge As Dr. Hammond saith on 1 Tim. 3. And such are all particular Churches of the whole World considered together under the Supream Head Christ Jesus dispensing them all by himself and administring them severally not by any one Oeconomus but by the several Bishops as Inferior Heads of Unity to the several Bodies so constituted by the several Apostles in their Plantations each of them having an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a several distinct Commission from Christ Immediately and Subordinate to none but the Supream Donor or Plenipotentiary Neither to a Personal nor Collective Soveraign Power The Judges of England have a Power which limitedly in their several Courts and Circuits respecteth all the Kingdom But 1. They have no Legislative Power 2. Nor are they Constitutive Essential parts of the Kingdom It would be the same Kingdom were their Power changed 3. Therefore the Constitutive Oaths or Bond is only between King and Subjects and we are not to Swear Allegiance to any other than the King 4. Nor are they Judges out of their several Courts and Circuits 5. Much less in other Kingdoms 6. Nor is any a Judge to all the World so is
Christ our Redeemer For this end he both died rose and revived that he might be the Lord of the dead and of the living Rom. 14.9 10. All power is given him in Heaven and Earth Mat. 28.19 All things are delivered to him of the Father and given into his hands John 13.3 and 17.2 He is made Head over all things to the Church Eph. 1.23 The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son John 5.22 VII Princes are therefore now the Ministers of Christ by Duty and are bound to study his Interest and Laws and to obey him VIII Subjects by Obligation are not always Subjects by Consent nor Subjects by Professed Consent always Subjects by Heart-Consent IX All the World is the Kingdom as of God the Creator so of Christ the Redeemer as to Obligation And the Wicked as Rebels X. All the truely Baptized are thereby made the Kingdom of Christ the Redeemer by Profest Consent And this is the Church visible XI All the true Believers and Sanctified are the Kingdom of Christ by Heart-Consent and these are the Church Regenerate and Mystical XII Therefore the Kingdom of Christ is larger than the Church of Christ And the Church is an Elect peculiar people Visible as to Means and Mystical as to Salvation Even as the Israelites had the Covenant of peculiarity while the Law of Grace in the first Edition made to Adam and Noah was still in force to all the World And Abraham thought that even Sodom had had Fifty Righteous Persons in it XIII The Church of Christ is an Eminent Politick Society of which Christ is the Specifying and Vnifying Head and all Christians are Members All the Baptized Visible Members and all the sincere consenters mystical Members XIV Christ is the Maker of his own Body Church or Kingdom He made himself the Head He made the specifying Institution or Law the Terms of Union and Communion He giveth Men the Grace by which they Believe Repent Consent and are made Members If Christ made not his own Church as to the Formal Head the Species the Unifying Terms and Graces it would be as a Wooden Leg to a living Body a Human Creature imposed on him Savouring of the Errours and Naughtiness of those that made it and Mutable at their Mutable Wills Every active Form makes it's own material Domicilium Who is he or who are they that had power to make Christ a Body or Church in specie before he made it himself Christs Body is not made by Man If it were who were they Were they his Body or Church first themselves or not If yea who made them such and who them and who them in infinitum If not how came Infidels and the Members of the Devil to have power to make a Body or Church for Christ XV. Christ hath de specie Instituted who shall be Members of this Church And by his Laws Terms and Description taught us certainly to know the Members as Visible Else we could never know whom to take for Christians nor whom to love as such Nor to whom to give the Seals of his Grace and Communion with his Members XVI Baptism is the Symbol or Badge of Christians and Baptizing is our Christening and whoever believeth and is Baptized shall be Saved Therefore till they Revolt all truly Baptized persons are Visible Christians and make up the Visible Church Which is the Society of all Christians Headed by their Soveraign Christ. XVII All Christians entered in Infancy are not capable of the Duty Blessings and Communion of the Adult Adult Members and Communion must be distinguished from Infant XVIII Therefore all that will have Adult Communion though they must not be Baptized again must as fully own their Baptismal Covenant Devoting themselves by their own Vnderstanding Consent and Vow to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Renouncing the World the Flesh and the Devil as if they were now to be Baptized The neglect of this or turning it into a dead image and Ceremony by dead Images of Bishops on pretence of Confirmation confoundeth the Church and would make it a dead Image and really but the World XIX The Universal Church of Christ in his days on Earth was but an Embrio and his few Apostles and Disciples who were suited in number to the Jewish Nation where their Ministry was to begin were but like the Organical parts of the Body the Heart Head Eyes Liver c. when Nature hath first made them that by them it may make the rest But when Christ was Risen and the Holy Ghost sent down in Eminency and the Gentiles called and the Church began to be Catholick this Kingdom of the Holy Ghost is that which is called specially the Kingdom of God and Heaven which the Gospel then proclaimed and John Baptist told Men was at hand XX. The Church of Christ on Earth is partly Visible and partly Invisible and yet but one Church As Man is visible as to his Body and invisible as to his Soul and yet but one Man It is visible 1. In that the Subjects persons are Visible 2. Their profession is Visible 3. Christ was Visible on Earth 4. He is Visible now in his Court of Heaven 5. He will in visible Glory come and Judge them 6. They shall see his Glory for ever 7. His Laws are Visible 8. His Officers are Visible 9. Many of his Judgments and Executions are Visible here 10. The rest shall be so quickly and for ever His Church is Invisible 1. In that Christ as God was never seen 2. His Soul never seen 3. His Office as to Truth Right and Authority Invisible and to be believed 4. The Souls of the Subjects Invisible 5. Their Sincerity Invisible 6. And Christ now not seen on Earth 7. Nor Heaven and Hell seen where is his great Execution and Retribution XXI Christ only is the Specifying and Unifying Form of the Church as United to the Matter And all Christians Pastors and People are but the Matter They have a sort of Unity in themselves They are of one Human kind of one Interest of one Profession and Faith and Love if sincere and joyn in one sort of Worship and Acts of Obedience to Christ But they are One Christian Church or Body of Christ only by their Vnion with Christ and Relation to him their Head and Center As the Kingdom of England hath one sort of Men in our Land of one Language c. But only their Relation to one King makes them one Kingdom XXII The Church or Body of Christ when fully made hath dissimilar parts some are Noble Organical parts first made to be instruments in making and preserving all the rest and the Church cannot be a Formed Church without them some are such Integrals as the Church may live without but not be Whole without Even as Aristotle defineth the Soul to be Entelechia or the Entitative Act and Form of a Physical organized Body capable of being Animated by it And as in
take them to mean seven Ages and States of the Catholick Church and two of them to mean the blessed Thousand years State For whether by the Angel be meant the Bishop alone or the Bishop with his Elders or the Presbyters as a College it is plain one Governing Power over each Church whether Monarch or Aristocracy is there mentioned by the word Angel And if the Universal Church have such in all Ages and that by Christ's Institution should we be against it Even that which the Thousand years shall have § III. It is a very ordinary Doctrine with us that the Jewish Church was the Universal then in Infancy or at least a Type of it And if so that Church had one summa Potestâ—s both in Magistracy and Ministry sacredly Civil and Ecclesiastical And Christ plainly offered to gather them under him and continue their Polity tho' not their Laws and set up twelve and seventy over them accordingly You I say Though one Aaron was their Head yet Christ is now the only High Priest it followeth not that the Universal Church must have one Humane Priest or King I answer By your way it will follow that it must have one Vniting Specifying Humane Soveraignty Civil and Ecclesiastical If Aaron be down so is not the Sanedrim Civil or Priestly Christ plainly offered to continue them in one Visible Body by his choice of twelve and seventy And it is an Aristocratical Universal Jurisdiction that is as bad as the Monarchical 2. Christ was not a Priest according to the Order of Aaron but of Melchizedeck 3. Christ is Universal King as well as Priest and hath National Kings under him supreme Therefore his being King or Priest in Israel would not exclude the necessity of a supreme King or Priest under him And if Israel was the Catholick Church in Type or Infancy it would follow that it also must have one such Head § IV. Too few Protestants have sufficiently answered the Papists Argument fetcht from the instance of the Apostles viz. The College of Apostles Peter called Primus were one Aristocratical Governing Power over the Universal Church Ergo such a Polity was instituted by Christ. And Christ never revoked this institution Government as well as Word and Sacraments is an ordinary work to be continued And not as Miracles Writing Scripture Witnessing what they saw and heard the extraordinary part of the Apostles VVork Ergo in this they have Successors This is the plausiblest of all Arguments for an Universal Jurisdiction I have shewed you how it prevailed with Bishop Guning and other New Church-men I am not willing to say The new Church How it is to be answered I have before shewed and more fully in my Treatise of National Churches § V. Have not the old and many later Nonconformists advantaged Popery by decrying all Episcopacy or Imparity of Ministers VVhen it is so plain that Christ did set Twelve above Seventy and kept up the number by Matthias and gave power to Apostles and they to other to be exercised over other Churches and Pastors And when it is apparent that all the Churches for many hundred years had Episcopal Government though not such as Popery and Tyranny hath since brought in Those called Hereticks and Schismaticks were for it The Novatians and Donatists over zealous for it Nestorians Eutychians Monothelites Macedonians Acacians and all the Sects in the time of Heathen Persecution I find not that Aerius alone excepted did ever call it unlawful or saw that it was better for the Churches to be with them But that the Bishops and Presbyters Officers were equal And will it not greatly confirm the Papists to find such Protestants reject the judgment and practice of all the ancient Churches and differ from the rest of the Christian VVorld § VI. But it advantaged them much more than our opinion when the Scots Covenant was imposed as the necessary terms of Ministry and Magistracy Thereby weakening the Protestants by a doleful Division that by opinions were divided too much before VVhen so great a part of the Kingdom Clergy Gentry and Vulgar were for the renounced Prelacy to shut all these and all of their mind that ever should come after from Ministry and Magistracy such men as Vsher Beadle Downame Davenant Brownrig Ward Prideaux Field c. Oh how many and how great was this to unite the Protestants and to strengthen them against the United Papists § VII And alas how greatly have those Zealous Protestants confirmed the Papists and dishonoured the Church and Christ their King that maintain that the Church became Antichristian in Anno 300 or 400 or at least 606 if not as soon as Christ by Constantine took possession of the Imperial Visible Government I will not aggravate this as it deserveth But I wonder not if it make thousands of Papists § VIII And Protestants too many have greatly hardened Papists by too bold and forced Expositions of the Apocalyps and laying too much of the stress of their Cause on it as that Pagan Rome is not the Babylon there meant nor that Rome as the Mother or Nurse of Pagan Idolatry the Whore nor the Pagan Empire the Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns nor the Pontifical Oracular Foretelling and Literate Tribe the Beast with two Horns nor the Jew and Gentile Miracle-working persecuted Christians radically Epitomized in Peter and Paul the two Witnesses and that Antichrist is spoken of in the Revelations and that Christ intended it as a Prophecy of all the great Affairs and Changes of the Church to the end of the World I say laying the stress of our Cause on these is next to giving it away When a Papist shall call for the proof of this and ask whether John and the seven Churches understood it and what one man on Earth so expounded it of a Thousand years or a Thousand four hundred after Christ and why Mr. Mede saith That the Waldenses were the first of all Mortals that took the Pope to be Antichrist And whether the Book was written for none but a few men that agree not of the sence of it so near the End of the World It will puzzle the Hearers before all these and many such Questions are well Answered When we have so much plain Evidence against Popery in the whole Bible to lay it mainly on these Expositions of the Revelation where I find not three men in thirty that differ not in great Material Points is almost to betray it when such a man as John Fox P. 111. Vol. 1. Sweareth that he had a Revelation contrary to much of this which he repeateth in his Comment on Revelations Specially those that venture to foretel thence the Year of Antichrist's fall and other particulars which time confuteth do expose us to the Scorn of Confirmed Papists § IX Protestants have too often advantaged Popery by ill answering the Question Where was your Church before Luther Pleading the Catholick Churches invisibility When non apparere and non esse
Toleration and at the Popes Agents and Nuntio's here in London were much more offended at the changes suddenly made by Bishop Laud. The blotting out the name of the Pope and Antichrist and the Zeal for Altars and Bowings and the report of a Treaty for Union with Rome Printed by some with the particulars and their conceit that Arminianism lookt towards Popery and the casting out many Conformable Ministers and many such things especially when they thought the Liberty of their Persons and their Properties had been Invaded and that A. Bishop Laud and the new Clergy Men Sibthorp Mainwaring Heylin c. were the Cause of all I say These things raising in men a dread of Popery our greater distances were here begun And though in A. Bishop Abbot's days the Church of England was against the Syncretism and few went with Bishop Laud at first he afterwards got many to adhere to him He that would see all the Case in an unsuspected Author let him read Dr. Heylins Life of A. B. Laud where he shall find much of the proceedings and the Articles and Reasons of the Treaty with the Papists And if he add Laud's Tryal and Rushworth's Collections he may see more Heylin tells us that the Design was but to bring the Papists in to us by removing that which kept them out They that feared a Toleration of Papists did much more fear a Comprehension or Coalition though their Conversion they desired For they knew that they must still be Members of the false Universal Papal Kingdom and that we must in the greatest points come to them who without changing their Religion could not come to us And if we could hardly now keep out the Pope what should we do when he had got so much more advantage of us Besides all other Changes we must change our very Church-species or else we should not be of the same Church though we sate in the same Seats For a Church which is but a subject part of a Sovereign greater Church is no more of the same species with one that is subject to no other but Christ than our Cities are of the same species with a Kingdom § XVI These distances between the old Church-men and the Laudians having increased to that which they came to in 1641. suddenly on Octob. 23. the Irish Rebellion Murdering two hundred thousand and Fame threatening their coming into England cast the Nation into so great fear of the Papists and next of Bishop Laud's new Clergy who were supposed to be for a Coalition as was the Cause where-ever I came of Mens conceit of the necessity of defensive Arms and this was increased by two or three Opinions which many were then guilty of who had not Learning enough to know which side was right according to the Law One of their Opinions was That the Law of Nature is the Law of God Another was that no men have Authority to abrogate it Another was that the Law of Nature inclineth men to Love their Lives and to private Self-defence Another was that every Kingdom or Nation hath by the Law of God in Nature a right of publick Self-defence against professed Enemies and apparent danger of its destruction And another was that They whose profest Religion obligeth them on pain of Damnation to do their best to exterminate or destroy the Body of the Kingdom are to be taken for its profest Enemies if they renounce not that obligation Especially if they or their Confederates Murder two hundred thousand Fellow-Subjects and apparently strive for power over the rest These Opinions being then received and by many ill-applyed things then ran to what we saw § XVII When the old Churchmen and Parliament on one side and we know who on the other side began the War necessity caused them to call in the Scots as Auxiliaries who brought in the Covenant and attempted Illegally the Change of the Church Government and all after falling into the hands of Cromwell and his Army the King destroyed the Parliament pulled down and other unthought of Changes which we saw Discord and War grew odious to the Nation And we longed to be reconciled to those that we had differed from especially in matters of Religion Among others more considerable I attempted in Worcestershire a Reconciliation with them I tryed first with my Neighbours The Gentry that I spake with of the Royal Party professed willingness and that they desired but the Security of the Essentials of Episcopacy Dr. Good and Dr. Warmstrie with others of them Subscribed their approbation to our Agreement When I tryed with others distant Bishop Vsher easily consented Bishop Brownrig on somewhat harder terms but such as would have healed us Dr. Hammond on harder yet but yet such as we could have born save that he left all to the uncertain determination of a Convocation Put shortly Dr. Warmstrie withdrew his Consent and as the reason of it sent me a Writing against our Agreement saying It was a confederacy with Schism and labouring to prove that they were no Ministers or Churches which had not Episcopal Ordination and much more to that effect I wrote a full answer to it which satisfied all that I shewed it to but did not publish it The writing answered was Dr. Peter Guning's now Bishop of Eli. Presently I found this opinion That they were no true Ministers or Churches that had not an uninterrupted Succession of Diocesane Ordination from the Apostles but that they were true Ministers and Churches that had Roman Ordination became the stop to our desired Agreement and I saw that it proclaimed an utter renunciation of the Reformed Churches which have no such Succession and yet a Coalition with the Roman Clergy though the Bishops of Rome have had the most notorious intercisions And having read Grotius his Discussio Apologetici Rivetiani in which he more plainly pleads for Canonical Popery than he had done in his Votum or Consultatio c. I thought I was bound in Conscience to give notice to the Royalists of the Grotian Party and Design and after printed a small Collection out of Grotius his own words These Dr. Pierce wrote against and others were offended at But in the Second Part of my Key for Catholicks I shewed the utter impossibility of this Conceit of Sovereign Government by General Councils § XVIII When God was pleased by the restoration of the King to raise Mens hopes of Protestant Agreement I need not repeat what was done towards it among many worthier Persons by my Self the Earl of Manchester and the Earl of Orery first making from us the motion to His Majesty who readily consented and granted us the healing Terms exprest in His gracious Declaration of Ecclesiastical Affairs 1661 for which the London Ministers subscribed a Thanksgiving and the House of Commons gave him their Publick Thanks as making for the Publick Concord But when the King under the Broad Seal granted a Commission to many on both Sides to treat and agree of
the King to be a Heretick But Protestants deny that any Council hath a Judicial Power so to judge him though all Men have a Discerning Power to judge with whom they should hold Communion But if our Defenders of a Forreign Power say true then the Universal Judge Pope or Prelates may Judge and Excommunicate Kings who they think deserve it And if so not only Justice but Humanity requireth that such Kings be first heard speak for themselves and answer their Accusers Face to Face And this can seldom be well done by proxy as the Prelates will not Excommunicate the Proxies or Advocates only And must all Emperors and Kings travel no Man knows whither or how far to answer every such accusation and that at the Bar of a Priest that 's Subject to another Prince perhaps his Enemy And if it be at an Universal Council the King of England may be Summoned to America or Constantinople at nearest if they must be indifferently called together XVIII The Church of England is not for Popery but against it But the Doctrine of an Universal Church Soveraign under Christ is Popery by the Confession of Protestants and Papists I. Protestants ordinarily rank the Papists into these sorts differing from each other 1. Those that place the Universal Supream Power in the Pope alone which are most of the Italians that dwell near him 2. Those that place it in a Pope and General Council agreeing which are the greatest number 3. Those that place it in a General Council as above the Pope especially if they disagree 4. Those that place it in the Universal Church real or diffusive See Dr. Challoner in his Crede Ecclesiam Catholicam describing these four sorts of Papists II. And the Papists themselves number all the same differences as you may see in Bellarmine at large Of the first Opinion is Valentia in Thom. To. 3. Disp. 1. p. 7. § 45. and divers others both Jesuits Friars and Seculars And Albert. Pighius hath written an unanswerable Book against the Supremacy of Councils But Bellarmine himself saith of this way Vsque ad hanc diem quaestio superest etiam inter Catholicos Lib. 2. de Concil c. 13. And they that have different Soveraigns have different Churches Of the second Opinion are the greatest number of their Doctors Of the third Opinion for a Councils Supremacy above and against the Pope in case of disagreement were the Councils of Constance and Basil And saith Bellarmine Joh. Gerson Petr. de Alliaco Card. Cameracensis Jacobus Almanius Card. Nicol Cusanus Card. Florentinus Panormitanus Toslatus Abulensis and multitudes more with Oviedo Okam c. and the Parisians and French Church And the Pope and Jesuits will not say that all these are Protestants or none of the Roman Church And the Church of England never took them for any other than Papists XIX The small Book called Deus Rex which is approved by the Church of England may give the Reader satisfaction herein XX. The common strain of the most approved Doctors of the Church in their Licensed Books against the Papists disclaimeth all Forreign Jurisdiction of Pope or Prelates 1. Bishop Jewel I before cited 2. Bishop Bilson is too large to be recited Of Christian Subj p. 229. To Councils saith he such as the Church of Christ was wont by the help of her Religious Princes to call we owe Communion and brotherly Concord so long as they make no breach in Faith and Christian Charity Subjection and Servitude we owe them none See more p. 270 271 272 273 c. of the Errours and Contradictions of General Councils and how the major Vote obligeth us not to follow them And pag. 233. The Title and Authority of A. Bishops and Patriarchs was not ordained by the Commandment of Christ or his Apostles but the Bishops long after when the Church began to be troubled with Dissentions were contented to link themselves together in every Province to suffer one to assemble the rest Pag. 261. The Bishops speaking the Word of God Princes as well as others must yield Obedience But if Bishops pass their Commission and speak beside the Word of God what they list both Prince and People may despise them 3. Dr. Fulke on Eph. 1. § 5. sheweth that the Church hath no Head but Christ and no man can be so much as a Ministerial Head 4. Dr. Reynolds against Hart proveth that none but Christ can be the Head of Government any more than the Head of Influence 5. Dr. Whitaker against Stapleton de sacra Script pag. 128. He sheweth his Ignorance as worthy to sit among the Catechumens that instead of Believing that there is a Catholick Church puts believing what the Catholick saith and believeth sic tu ut novam tuam fidem defendas nâ—vos articulos condis etiam non haeresis sed perfidiae Magisteres I believe that there is a holy Catholick Church but that I must believe all that it believeth and teacheth I believe not Augustine appealed from the Nicene Council to the Scripture We receive not the Baptism of Infants from the Authority of the Church but from the Scripture And pag. 103. he sheweth that Councils have erred and corrected one another and are more uncertain than the Scripture And pag. 50. The Peace of the Church is better secured by referring all to the Scripture than to the Church Pag. 501. The Catholick Church in the Creed is invisible and known only by Faith 6. See Bishop Hall's No Peace with Rome and his Letter to Laud. It is tedious to cite all in Willet Slater Prideaux Abbot Marton Crakenthorp Challoner White and the rest to this purpose It is most notorious that the Church of England was against all Forreign Jurisdiction of Pope or Prelates as over this Land To cite a multitude of such Testimonies would but needlesly swell the Book and weary the Reader Chap. II. The whole Kingdom and Church is sworn against all Forreign Jurisdiction and all alteration of Government in Church and State And ought not to be stigmatized with PERJURY § 1. THat the whole Church and Kingdom is under such Oaths is visible I. The Oath of Supremacy before cited against All Forreign Jurisdiction is put upon all the Land II. The Oath called Et caetera 1640. is against Change of Government and was taken by many III. The Act of Uniformity obligeth the whole Ministry to subscribe against all endeavours to alter the Government IV. The Oxford Act of Confinement sweareth all Nonconformists and more never to endeavour any Alteration of Government in Church or State V. The Vestry Act sweareth all the Parish Vestries to the same VI. The Corporation Act sweareth all the Cities and Corporations of England to the same that is All in Power and Trust as to Government VII The Militia Act sweareth all the Souldiers of the Land to the same So that it is undeniable that all the Kingdom is sworn never to endeavour any Alteration of Government in Church or
State and also expresly against all Forreign Jurisdiction § 2. That it is not only an Alteration but even an Alteration of the very Species or Constitution of Church and State Government to bring the Land under the Forreign Jurisdiction either of Pope Prince or Prelates I have proved by it self and to any man of understanding it needs no proof § 3. That Church and State and the whole Land ought not be wilfully perjured is clear 1. It is so heinous a sin against God as is like to bring down destructive vengeance He that threatneth it even in the Tables of Stone The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain And Perjury is the chief taking his Name in vain to confirm a Lie And if this threatning reach to every individual what will become of perjured Church and Kingdom The Lord is the avenger of all such crimes And it 's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of this God who is a consuming fire II. Perjury is a direct dissolution of Societies Mutual Trust is their concernment Utter Distrust is a Virtual death or war King and People are tied to each other by Oaths Majors and chief Officers and Judges are tied to fidelity by Oaths The Bishops swear their Clergy to them though old Canons condemned it Loose this Bond and what are Societies Who can trust him that maketh no conscience of the Obligation of Oaths any more than an Enemy III. It depriveth the King of a necessary means of security for his life If all conscience of the Oaths of Allegiance were gone it is supposed that the conscience of Loyalty would be gone And many a Traytor would study how to kill Kings secretly without danger to themselves or to make it good by strength and numbers IV. It depriveth all the Subjects of necessary Security for Estate Name or Life If Church and State should openly be perjured who can expect that all Individuals should stick at it But rather that every Man that hath an Enemy or hath either Wealth or Place which another desireth should presently be Sworn to the Gallows or the Block It were far better dwell among Toads Snakes and Adders or Wolves and Bears against whom a Man hath some defence Homo homini Lupus would be turned into Homo homini Diabolus V. It would make us uncapable of Trust Traffick and Friendship with any Forreign Land Open National Perjury is so odious against the Light and Law of Nature that Englishmen would be to other Lands as Man-eating Canibals are to us None could treat with us or trust us VI. This would be a most heinous wrong to the King to have the History of his Reign so odiously blotted to all Posterity as that under him the Land should be turned to Diabolism and made the hatred and scorn of all the Earth when God had honoured it with so many Blessings above most others VII It would render Popery it self more odious than it is as if it lived by the most horrid crimes and must revive by National Perjury And would confirm those self-conceited Whimsical Expositors of Rev. 13. that think the mark in the Forehead imposed upon all that must buy and sell and be Freemen is PERjury with PERsecution and that dream that the Letters of the Name of the Beast are not to be understood meerly Numerally but Materially and Nominally and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 xi sigma-tau are our Ch. and St. conjoyned by a Serpentine X or and to signifie that our Swearing and Forswearing was for Church and State Yea and the more odious fancy of another Name in them will become their Sport VIII It would make the Nonconformists say that never Men on Earth were dealt with so inhumanely and Challenge the World to give any such instance in any History Christian Mahometan or Pagan if the same men that have reviled them as Rebellious and endeavoured their Imprisonment and utter Ruine for not Swearing never to endeavour any alteration of Government should all this while be designing the alteration of it and first to make all men abjure it and after to bring them to it The Dissenters scruple not Swearing never to Endeavour the Altering of the State Government nor of the Church as in the Hands of such Pastors as Christ or his Apostles instituted nor any Reformation by Sedition or unlawful Means But they durst not absolutely abjure all Lawful Endeavour to take the Church Keys out of Lay-mens Hands and to have more Bishops than one to many score or hundred Churches c. And if we must lye in Jails as Rogues for refusing this for fear of Perjury and yet the Reverend or other Prosecuters should so far alter all the Government of Church and State as to bring all the Land under a Forreign Jurisdiction Legislative Judicial and Executive and to make King Parliament Clergy and People the Subjects of the Pope or which is more base of a Court or Colledge of Prelates who are almost all Subjects to Forreign Papists Mahometans and Heathens of whom few dare disobey their Lords and Princes this would be such a thing as Humane Language hath no words significant enough to describe § 4. Obj. Sinful Oaths bind none and must be broken Ans. 1. Sinful Oaths involve Men in the dreadful guilt of Perjury 2. Oaths sinfully imposed and taken yet bind to Lawful Matter 3. If these Oaths be sinful why were they imposed Shall the same Men urge all to take them and then say You may break them as being sinful 4. It is not sinful to Swear Loyalty and Self-defence against foreign Enemies or Usurpers Obj. 2. Luther and your other Reformers broke their Vow of Chastity and Obedience to the Pope and defended it Answ. 1. You think they did ill and will that justifie you 2. To obey a Pope that is by Usurpation a Vice-Christ or King of all the World is a great Sin and they that Swear it are no more bound to it than they that Swear Murder or Treason And the Vow of Chastity becomes unlawful to those that have not the Power of Continence But for those that had let them justifie them from Perjury that can I cannot 3. The Perjury of a few Individuals and of a Kingdom vastly differ 4. They took that Oath in ignorance thinking they had done well But those that I now speak to at once reviled them that took it not and did their best to lay it on all the Land and yet were then for a Foreign Jurisdiction and designed or desired that all that took it might after break it But these Objectors shew us that there is no Sin so odious and inhumane which Learned and Reverend Men may not plead for under a Name and Mask of Virtue Loyalty Piety and the Churches Good and Service Obj. The Laws may repeal these Oaths Answ. That will but free new Men from taking them but not those that have already Sworn from keeping them in all the
Recusants of the Church of Rome p. 234. The Recusants being for the most part of the Good Families of the Nation will take it for a part of their Nobility freely to profess themselves in their Religion if they understand themselves Whereas the Sectaries being people of mean quality for the most part cannot be presumed to stand on their reputation so much In his Book called The Forbearance of Penalties c. 3. p. 12 13. he makes the foundation of all Union to be the Government and Laws of the Church as visibly Catholick which Laws must be one and the same the violating whereof is the forfeiture of the same Communion And here I crave leave to call All Canons All Customs of the Church whether concerning the Rites of God's Service or other Observations by one and the same name of Laws of the Church P. 23. As for the Canons of the Church it was never necessary to the maintenance of Commumunion that the same Customs should be held in all parts of the Church It was only necessary the several Customs should be held by the same Authority That the same Authority instituted several Customs for so they might be changed by the same Authority and yet Unity remain Whereas questioning the Authority by questioning whether the acts of it be agreeable to ☞ God 's Law or not how should Unity be maintained It is manifest that they the Fathers could not have agreed in the Laws of the Church if any had excepted against any thing used in any part of the Church as if God's Law had been infringed by it It followeth of necessity that nothing can be disowned by this Church as contrary to God's Law which holdeth by the Primitive Church Page 27. He saith as Mr. Dodwell It is agreed on by the whole Church that Baptism in Heresie or Schism that is when a man gives up himself to the Communion of Hereticks or Schismaticks by receiving Baptism from them though it may be true Baptism and not to be repeated yet it is not available to Salvation making him accessory to Heresie or Schism that is so Baptized Pag. 28. The promise of Baptism is not available unless it be deposited with the true Church nor to him that continueth not in the true Church that may exact the promise deposited with it Page 33. It is out of love to the Reformation that I insist on such a Principle as may serve to reunite us with the Church of Rome being well assured that we can never be well reunited with our selves otherwise Yet not only the Reformation but the common Christianity must needs be lost in the divisions which will never have an end otherwise Pag. 111. If it be said that it is not visible where those Usurpations took place I shall allow all the time which the Code of the Canons contains which Pope Adrian sent to Charles the Great pag. 128. which I would have this Church to own In Mr. Thorndike's large folio Book there is yet much more for his Universal Legislative Aristocracy mixt with Regular Papacy The sum of all is The Pope Governing at least in the West by the Canons in the intervals of General Councils that is alwaies and as the chief Member with Councils making Laws for all the World Thus the French and Italian Papists differ whether the Pope shall Govern the World as the King of Poland doth his Land or say some as the Duke of Venice or rather as the King of France But Protestants know no such thing as an Universal Legislative Church nor owns any Universal Laws but Gods unless you mean Nationally Vniversal as in the Empire Councils and Laws were called I refer you again to Dr. Barrows Confutation of the rest of Mr. Thorndikes Chap. XII The Judgment of Dr. Sparrow Bishop of Norwich and divers others BIshop Sparrow Pref. to Collect. As my Father sent me so send I you Here committing the Government of the Church to his Apostles our Lord Commissions them with the same Power that was committed to him for that purpose when he was on Earth with the same necessary standing Power that he had exercised as Man for the good of the Church Less cannot in reason be thought to be granted than all Power necessary for the well and peaceable Government of the Church And such a power is this of Making Laws This is a Commission in general for making Laws Then in particular for making Articles and Decisions of Doctrines controverted the power is more explicite and express Mat. 28. All power is given me Go therefore and teach all Nations that is with authority and by virtue of the power given me And what is it to teach the Truth with authority but to command and oblige all people to receive the Truth so taught And this power was not given to the Apostles persons only for Christ then promised to be with them in that Office to the end of the World that is to them and their Successors in the Pastoral Office To the Apostles or Bishops that should succeed them to the end of the World To this One holy Church our Lord committed in trust the most holy Faith c. commanding under penalties and censures all her Children to receive that sence and to profess it in such expressive words and forms as may directly determine the doubt Thus she did in the great Nicene Council This authority in determining Doubts and Controversies the Church hath practised in ALL AGES and her constant practice is the best Interpreter of her right I shall not tire the Reader with the needless recitation of many more late Divines that lived since 1630. enough are known Those that have defended Grotius of late I pass no judgment on you may read their own Books and judge as you see cause viz. Dr. Thomas Pierce now Dean of Salisbury and the famous Preface to Archbishop Bromhall's Book against me c. I fear all this History is needless Men now laugh at me for proving by Mens writings their endeavours to subject the King and Kingdom to a Foreign Jurisdiction when they say it is more sensibly and dreadfully proving it self Chap. XIII Dr. Parker's Judgment since Bishop of Oxford THE last mentioned Author Dr. Sam. Parker besides what he hath said against me in his large Preface before Archbishop Bromhall's Book hath since gone so far beyond all his Fellows that finding himself unable to answer this Argument otherwise The World must not have one Universal Humane Civil Governor King or Aristocracy ergo It must not have one Humane Priest or Church Governor desperately denieth the Antecedent and saith that though de facto the Kings of the Earth have not one Soveraign over them all that is meer Man they ought to have Audite Reges I cannot conjecture who he meaneth unless it be the Pope and he be of Cardinal Bertrand's mind that God had not been wise if he had not made one Man
5. If any Soveraign may Rule England and all other Churches as a Bishop ruleth his Flock then that Soveraign Power may when they judge it deserved Excommunicate the King and all the Kingdom and silence all the Bishops and Ministers and forbid all Church Communion as Popes and their Councils have done But the consequence is false Ergo Arg. 6. If any have such power they must be such as people may have access to to decide their Causes and may hear their Accusations Defences Witnesses But so cannot the Universal Church of Bishops They confess these thousand years they met not in Council and whither else should we carry our Witnesses and where else should we expect their sentence Paul's charge was 1 Thes. 5.12 13. Know them that labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and esteem them very highly in Love for their work sake But we cannot know all the Bishops over the Earth that never were among us An unknown Judge cannot be obeyed That is One whom we cannot know to be indeed our Judge But it 's impossible for us now to know what number of Bishops and who must be called the Universal Judge And an unknown sentence cannot be obeyed but it 's impossible for us to know the sentence of the Majority of the Bishops on Earth about any case to be judged by them these thousand years But enough is said of this already And Dr. Barrow hath utterly confounded your pleas for Foreign Jurisdiction Pastors and Churches may Reprove one another who Govern not one another And do you think we are so sottish as not to see that your Colledge and Council must have some to call them together or to gather Votes and preside and approve And that the question will be only of the Degree of the Popes power and whether the French sort of Popery be best § 2. Dr. S. addeth p. 343. So the Scripture plainly tells us elsewhere that Churches of Kingdoms and Nations have a Soveraignty over them to which they must yield Obedience Isa. 60 12. where the Prophet speaking of the Christian Church saith The Nation and Kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish yea those Nations shall be utterly wasted If Nations and Kingdoms must serve the Church then she hath Authority to Command their Obedience in things that belong to Peace and Holiness Ans. I confess Campanella de Reâ—no Dei doth thus make the Papacy the Fifth Monarchy and confidently brings many such Texts for their Clergies Universal power But 1. Is it the King of the Church or the People that must be obeyed The people have no Ruling Power And if it be the Soveraign the question is Who that is Protestants say It is only Christ And the Text plainly meaneth The Nation that will not serve Christ the Head of the Church for the good of his Body shall perish But the Italians say It is the Pope and Council and the French That it is the Council and Pope as President and Prime Patriarch that is here meant 2. This may be discerned by considering Who it iâ— that is to destroy such Nations It is Christ as the second Psalm sheweth If it were the Pope and Council you threaten all Nations as terribly as Bellarmine doth 3. And what is the perishing and wasting here meant No doubt their Souls that rebel against Christ shall perish and he will also punish Bodies and Kingdoms as such Put doth any of all this belong to the Bishops None of it 1. Excommunicating is their destroying work But the Heathen and Infidel Nations are not to be Excommunicated What have you to do to judge them that are without Will you cast them out that never were in 2. And destruction by the Sword is no Bishop's Work 4. And when is it that all Nations that obey not shall utterly perish We see that 19 parts in 30 saith Brierwood of the World are Heathens and Mahometans and yet prosper Ever since Abraham's days till now the Church is a small part of the World And it is not by any Power of the Church Governours that the Souls of Infidels perish but by themselves And their Kingdoms are unlikely to be destroyed till Christ's second coming And if it be his destroying them at his Judgment that is meant that proveth no Power in the Church against them But I confess you tell us what to fear and whence it is that the French Protestants suffer They must utterly perish that obey not a Governing Universal Soveraignty Nay not only French Subjects by their Lawful King but Protestants States and Kingdoms that thought they had no Soveraign but their own proper one and Christ But this is in Ordine ad Spiritualia Yet O you intend no Cruelty § 3. Pag 344. He tells us of the Churches Power to decide Controversies and of the Council Act. 15. Answ. A multitude of Protestant Writers have long ago answered all this 1. The word Church is ambiguous When Christ and his twelve Apostles were on Earth they were the Church as to Rule And then the Vniversal Church met in a House together celebrated the Sacrament together c. Must they do so now It was no General Council that met Act. 15. unless you will say that there dwelt a General Council at Jerusalem as long as the Apostles dwelt there None of the Bishops of the Churches planted by Paul Barnabas and others about the World are said to be there nor any at all but the Inhabitants of Jerusalem save Paul and Barnabas who were sent as Messengers and were not the Men sent to And you now say that none but Bishops have decisive Votes 2. And there are more ways of deciding Controversies than one We doubt not but every Pastor may decide them by Evidence of Scripture and Reason And many assembled may contribute their Reasons and be helpful to each other and may see more than one if they be meet Men. And Pastors thus by Teaching Evidence do that as Authorized Officers as Tutors and Schoolmasters which Private Men do but as Private Men and not as Officers so that even theiâ— Teaching Decision is an act of Authority as well as of Skill And so far as Humane authority must go the concurrent Judgment of a multitude of Divines as of Physitians Lawyers c. Cateris paribus deserveth more reverence than a singular opinion But for all that 1. An Assembly of Lay Men have no Authority but from their Evidence and Parts 2. An Assembly of Bishops have no deciding Authority but by an office by which they are entrusted as fallible Men to teach others what they know themselves by the same Evidence which convinced them and to guide their particular Congregations in mutable Circumstances 3. But an Assembly of Apostles had Power to say It seemeth good to the Hâ—ly Ghost Obj. 1. There were the Brethren also 2. Single Apostles had the Holy Ghost yet they did it in an Assembly Answ. 1. The Inspiration
which the Primitive Universal Church was for But such are the Diocesane Party now mentioned Ergo The Major is proved not only from Ignatius who maketh one Altar and one Bishop with his Presbyters and Deacons the noâ—e of Individuation to every Church but a multitude of other proofs which I undertake to give And from the Councils that determined that every City of Christians have a Church till afterward they began to except small Cities The Minor is notorious Matter of Fact every Parish with us hath an Altar and many hundred have but one Bishop Ergo they are no Churches according to the Saying Vbi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo adunata And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then signified every great Town like our Corporations and Market-Towns And Titus was to set Elders in every such City II. They that render Bishops Odious endeavour to Extirpate Episcopacy But so do I need not name them Ergo The Major is granted The Minor is proved 1. They that use Episcopacy to the Silencing of faithful Ministers of Christ near Two thousand at once than whom no Nation under Heaven out of Britain hath so many better and to render them and all that adhere to them odious and ruined do that which will render Bishops odious But Ergo 2. From Experience when we treated with you 1661. the People would have gladly received Episcopacy as we offered it to you and as the King granted it in his Declaration But when they saw near Two thousand Silenced and that Bishops thought all such as I and the many better Ministers of the Countrey where I lived to be intolerable it hath done an hundred times more to alienate the People from Episcopacy than all the Books and Sermons of the Opposers of Episcopacy ever did e. g. The People that I was over would reverently have received Pious Bishops But though I never saw them nor wrote to them one Letter against Episcopacy these 19 years but have largely written to draw them to Communion in the Parish Church and much prevailed yet they will now rather forsake me as a complier with Persecuters as Martin did the Bishops than they would own our Diocesane Prelacy since they saw me and so many better Men of their Countrey Silenced and cast out and many of themselves laid in Jails with Rogues and ruined for repeating a Sermon together as they were always wont to do He that will teach Men to love Prelacy by Prisons Undoing them and Silencing and ruining the Teachers whom they have found to be most edifying and faithful to them will do more to extirpate Prelacy by making it odious than all its Enemies could do The reason of the thing seconded by full experience are undeniable proofs No Men that I know of have done more against Episcopacy than Bishops and Pardon my free inviting you to Repentance none that I know alive either Sectaries or Bishops more than you two who I unfeignedly wish may have the honour before you die of righting the Church and repairing the honour of true Episcopacy It is a dreadful thing to us Nonconformists to think of appearing before God under the Guilt of Silencing Two Thousand of our selves if it prove our doing If not let them think of it that believe they shall be judged Prov. 26.27 Whoso diggeth a Pit shall fall therein and he that rolleth a Stone it shall return upon him Chap. XVI The Second Letter to Bishop Guning after our first Conference My Lord I Much desire some further help for my Satisfaction in the Three things which we last Discoursed of 1. Whether I mis-recited or misapplied the Case of St. Martin's Separation 2. Whether by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Ignatius be not meant One material Altar or Place of ordinary Communion of one Church 3. What are the true terms of Universal Christian Concord But the last is to me of so much greater Importance than the rest that I will now forbear them lest by diversion from this my expectation should be frustrate And seeing I profess in this to write to you with an unfeigned desire to learn and also to take the Matter to be such as my very Religion and Church relation lyeth on I beseech you either by your self or some other whom you direct to speak your sense to endeavour my better information The only terms or way of Vniversal Christian Concord you say is Obedience to the Vniversal Church and the Pastors are the Church And he is not a true Member of the Church that doth not obey it And this Church to be obeyed is not only a General Council but also a Collegium Pastorum who rule per literas formatas being Successors to the Apostles who had this Power from Christ. This is the Substance of what I understood from you Here I shall first tell you what I hitherto held and next tell you wherein I desire Satisfaction I. I have hitherto thought 1. That only Christ was a Constitutive Head of the Church Universal and had appointed no Vicarious Head or Soveraign either Personal or Collective Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical 2. Therefore none but Christ had now an Universal Legislative Power nor yet an Universal Judicial and Executive 3. And that this is the first and fundamental difference between us and the Church of Rome 4. But I doubt not but that all the Pastors in the World may be intellectually thought on in an Universal Notion and we may say with Cyprian Episcopatus est unus c. as all the Judges and Justices and other Officers are Universally All the Governing Power of the Kingdom under the King and as all the Individuals are the whole People as Subjects 5. And I doubt not but each Pastor is in his place to be obeyed in all things which he is authorized to Command 6. And these Pastors must endeavour to maintain Concord as extensive as is possible to which end Councils and Communicatory Letters are to be used And that the individual Pastors and People are obliged by the General Law of endeavouring to maintain Love and Concord to observe the Agreements of of such Concordant Councils in all things Lawful belonging to their Determination 7. And I doubt not but while there were but twelve Apostles those twelve had under Christ the Guidance of the whole Christian Church on Earth which for a while might all hear them in one place and were to do their work in Concord and had the Unity of the Spirit thereto by which they infallibly agreed in that which was proper to them and they had no Successors in even though they were never so distant as well as when they were together Act. 15. though in other things Peter and Paul and Paul and Barnabas disagreed And as in the recording of Christ's Works and Doctrine in infallible Scriptures so also they agreed in their Preaching it and in the Practice of all that was necessary either to Salvation or to the forming or
it in the Case in question yet were they Apostles to the Universal Church that which none are since their time III. If there be such a Vicarious Governing Soveraignty over the Universal Church it is either the Pope or a General Council or some Colledge of Pastors But it is none of these 1. As to the Pope you say that he is so far from being Head of the Church that he is not a Member So that I need not say more of this to you 2. That General Councils are no such Soveraign Power which all must obey that will be Christians or in a Church seemeth to me past doubt for these Reasons 1. Because there is no such thing in the Creed though the Catholick Church and Communion of Saints be there But it would be there were it of such necessity to Christianity 2. Because there is no such thing said in all the Scripture which would not omit so necessary a point What is said from Acts 15. is answered before it was no General Council A General Council was not then the necessary means of Concord or Communion 3. There never was one General Council representing the Universal Church in the World I have fully proved in my second Book against Johnson that the Councils called General were so only as to the Roman Empire and few if any so General and that the Emperor called all the Chief Councils who had no Power without his Empire nor called any that were without 4. I have oft proved the unlawfulness of calling General Councils now as the Church is dispersed at such distances over the Earth and under Princes of so contrary Interests and Minds 5. I have oft proved the Impossibility of such a Councils meeting to attain the ends of Government in question being to pass by Sea and Land from all quarters of the World by the Consent of Enemies that rule them and through Enemies Countreys and Men of Age that must have so long time going and sitting and returning and of divers Languages uncapable of understanding one another and a number uncapable of present Converse with other such insuperable difficulties 6. If such Councils be necessary to the Being of Christianity Church or Concord at least the Church hath seldom had a Being or Concord it seldom having had such a Council in your own esteem And you cannot say that it ever will have any 7. If General Councils have Supream Government visible it is 1. Legislative 2. Judicial 3. Executive But I. If Legislative then 1. Their Laws are either Gods Infallible Word or not If not all Men must disobey them when they err If yea Gods Word is not the same one Age as another and is Crescent still and we know not when it will be perfect 2. Their Laws will be so many that no Christians can know them obey them and have Concord on such terms 3. If they could agree who should call them and whither yet the Prince whose Countrey they meet in would be Master of the whole Christian World and so of other Christian Countreys by Mastering them 4. Princes would be Subjects 1. To Foreign Powers 2. Yea to the Subjects of other Princes 3. Yea of their Enemies 4. And to such Preâ—ates as they are uncapable to know whether they are truely called to their Office 5. Or whether they are erroneous or sound in Faith 5. And then the Ecclesiastical Laws of all National Churches and Kings might be destroyed by such Councils as Superior Powers 6. And no Princes or Synods could make valid Laws about Religion till they knew that no Law of any such Council were against them 7. The Laws of Christ recorded in Scripture would by all this be argued of great insufficiency â—f more were Universally necessary he that made the rest would have made them whose Authority is to the Church unquestionable 8. The Christian World is divided so much in Opinion that except in what Christs own word containeth plainly they are in no probability of agreeing So much of Legislation II. As to Judgment 1. To judge the sence of a Law Scripture or Canon for the common Obligation of the Church is part of the Legislative Power and belongs to the Law-makers 2. To judge the Case of Persons e. g. whether John Peter Nestorius Luther Calvin c. be a Heretick an Adulterer a Simonist c. requireth that the Accuser and Accused and Witnesses of both be present and heard speak But he that would have all Hereticks Criminals Accusers Witnesses travel for a Tryal to Jerusalem Nice Constantinople Rome even from America Ethiopia c. will not need any Confutation III. The same I say of Executive Silencing Ejecting Excommunicating c. II. A Soveraign Power that cannot be known is not necessary to Christianity or the Constitution Communion or Concord of the Church But General Councils so impowered cannot be known I. I have shewed that it cannot be known by ordinary Christians that there are any such Authorized by Christ. I know it not nor any that ever I was familiar with The main Body of the Reformed Churches know it not for they ordinarily deny it as the prime point of Popery They cannot prove it who affirm it Therefore they know it not as others may judge Millions are Baptized Christians that never knew it II. It is not to this day known which were true General Councils that are past Some say those were Latrocinia and Conventicles that others say were Lawful Councils Some are for but four some for six some for eight some for all so called there is no agreement which are true and obligatory Grotius is for Trent and all which others abhor 2. It is not known who hath Power to call them and whose call is valid 3. Nor what Individuals or Particular Churches are capable of sending and chusing and obliged to it Almost all the Christian World is judged uncapable by the most of Christians The Papists are so judged by the Greeks Protestants c. The Eastern and Ethiopian Christians are excluded by the Papists Greeks c. as Jacobites Nestorians Schismaticks c. The Greeks are excluded by the Papists and others as Schismaticks and Erroneous The Protestants are judged Hereticks and Schismaticks by the Papists and many Greeks c. How Lutherans and Calvinists Diocesans and Presbyterians c. judge of one another I need not tell And can all or any of them know which of these must make up a Legislative Council of the whole Church on Earth 4. It is not known how many must Constitute such a Council nor in what proportions If there be innumerable Bishops under Philippicus for the Monothelites out of the East as Binnius saith and few out of the West was that a true General Council If at Nice Ephesus Constantinople Chalcedon there be not one out of the West to twenty or forty or a hundred others is it a true representative of the whole Church If there be two hundred at Trent or a thousand at
must believe e. g. In Abassia Egypt Syria c. they will be bound to believe one thing and at Constantinople another c. Those called now Nestorians are by Travellers said to own none of that Heresie but to Condemn the Council of Chalcedon and Eph. 1. for wronging Nestorius as Innocent did them that condemned Chrysostome Those called Jacobites and Eutychians are said to have no more of the Heresie but to condemn the said Chalcedon Council for wronging Dioscorus and to own the second Ephesine Council some will be bound to be for Images in Churches and some against them some for Constantinople and some for Rome's Supremacy and all in their Countries to be Papists for their Pastors tell them that the Catholick Church is on their side yea in the same Country as in England some must be for Arminianism as it is called and some against it some for the imputation of Christ's righteousness and some against it some for free Prayer in the Pulpit and some against it c. For on both sides their differing Pastors plead the Authority of the Church Few Christians can thus agree in any thing but Christ's plain Laws which I shewed are the terms of Concord If we must appeal from particular Pastors to whom is it If to Councils to whom must we appeal from disagreeing Councils If to the whole Church on Earth how shall we hear from them and know their mind I never saw nor knew any Man that saw any literas formatas subscribed by all Bishops scattered through the Earth 5. You that are Zealous against Popery I presume would not have me be a Papist But I cannot avoid it if I receive your Doctrine that there is a Church-Power in a Council or College of Pastors to Govern the Universal Church and that none are in the Church nor have the Spirit that obey not this Universal Church of Pastors and that to obey them is the only means or terms of Concord For 1. I then yield them the fundamental difference That there is one Universal summa Potestas or Visible Head Collective under Christ. 2. And if so I cannot deny it to be the Pope as the Principium Vnitatis and the Chief Executor of the Laws and the first Bishop in Councils For Councils are rare and the Church is a Church when there are no Councils And the Pope is a known Person and Rome a known Place and accessible and no other pretendeth to this Power that I know of And the Executive Power must be Constant And any other Supream accessible College is unknown to me and all that I can speak with and I can no more obey them than a College of Angels unknown to me If the Church have a visible Vicarious Supream the Pope is likest to be he as to the constant Executive Power and the President of Councils I suppose you take the Councils of Constance and Basil and the French for Papists though they set a Council above the Pope 6. The World hath no Universal Civil Government under God neither a Monarch nor a College or Council of Kings All the World is Governed by Men per partes in their several Dominions as all England is under the King by all the Mayors Bailiffs and Justices But there is no Council of Justices that are One Vniversal Governour Collective Nor is the Dyet of Princes or any Council of Kings one Supream Government of the Earth A Logical universality there is as all Rulers considered notionally rule all the World by Parts but no Political Head or Universal Governour over the whole whom all the Parts must obey I. If now I am in the right and you mistaken then you wrongfully deny the Spirit Church-Membership and consequently Salvation as well as Concord to all Protestants that ever I knew or read who deny a visible Universal Church Head Personal or Collective And I think to most in the World And what Schism that is I need not say II. If I am in the wrong I am no Christian nor Church Member nor can be saved For you say This Body so governed only hath the Spirit And I cannot help it not knowing possibly how to know 1. Who this College is 2. What Councils 3. Or which be the Laws which I must obey 4. Nor with what degree of Obedience 5. Nor that they have such Power How great need have I then earnestly to beg your speedy help for my Information Which will oblige Your Servant Ri. Baxter Decemb. 27. 1679. Chap. XVII The Third Letter to Bishop Guning To the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Ely My Lord THough in Conference I told you the Sense which I had of your words yet judging it my duty to think of them over and over again I also judge it my duty in Writing to leave with you the sum of such a Judgment as I am able to pass on them on my best Consideration leaving it now to your self whether you will by word or writing return any further Answer my hopes of Satisfaction thereby being very low The sum of your Speech which I am concerned in is as followeth I. That certainly a Supream Vicarious Governing Power there is in the Bishops by Christ's Institution 1. Because it is Prophesied Isai. 60.12 That the Nation and Kingdom that will not serve the Church shall perish And the word Church is never put for Christ. 2. And the Apostles only were admitted by Christ to his last Supper and so the Power of Administring that Sacrament till Christ come is given only to them and such as they shall give that Power to 3. And it was not Paul and Barnabas that had the infallible judgment of that Case decided Act. 15. but the College of the Apostles II. That this Supream Vicarious Governing Power over the whole Church on Earth is 1. In all the Christian Bishops of the World 2. And the Major part goeth for the whole 3. And General Councils are their Representatives and so have this Power 4. And that to such Councils it is enough that all be called though all be not there 5. And it is their reception by the Church Vniversal which must prove their Vniversal Power and the Obligation of their Laws 6. And though the Vniversality of Bishops be not always in such a Council they have always that Power which in Councils is to be used as the Judges out of Term time 7. And that if I or any will publish a Heresie we shall know where that Church is by their Censure 8. But as Promulgation is necessary to the Obligation of Laws so many that never can or do hear of the foresaid Vniversal Church-Governing Power or what their Laws are or what is the sence of them may be saved without them by the reading of the Word as many that have not the Scriptures may be saved without them And this you say answers three parts of my last Papers 9 Of these General Councils it is only six that you own as such
know such Matter of Fact better by Universal Consent of all Christians and true History than by such a Judicature of all the Bishops of the VVorld 2. But Protestants do so strongly prove that the S. Scripture is the entire Regulating VVord of God without defect or supplement by Unwritten Tradition as that nothing is left out of it which is of Divine Obligation to all the Christian VVorld in all Ages And therefore that all that the Spirit instituted as Universally Necessary in Church-Government is there 3. If it were not so this Gap of Unwritten Necessary Supplemental Tradition will let in no Man knoweth what besides Church-Power on the like Pretences 4. Tradition hath been oft pretended by General Councils against each other as I undertake to prove 5. All that is not in Scripture of Church-Offices and Government have been so far new or changed up and down as proveth that the Church never took them as Universal Necessary Institutions of Christ delivered by the Apostles I need not instance in Patriarcks and such like nor such difference of Seats as Nazianzen and Isidore Pelusiota wish levelled when if General Councils themselves had been this Necessary Church-Government the Church had not been Three Hundred Years without them yea and to this Day indeed 6. As the King by his Laws and by his Officers Judges and Justices Lawyers c. without another Vicarious Soveraign or Vice-King doth tell the Subjects what is the Constituted Government of the Kingdom and all Official Powers which they must obey so doth Christ by his Written Law and by his Ministers teaching us in their several places tell us what is his Church-Government without an Universal Vicarious Soveraign 7. When Leo the First called himself Caput Ecclesiae Vniversalis and Boniface was called Vniversal Bishop much more long after for many Hundred Years so great a part of the Empire judged the Roman Bishop to be the prime in the Empire and in Councils and Principium Vnitatis as Archbishop Bromhal speaketh as that it seemeth then to have been the Major part of the Bishops of the whole World the Empire being then the far greatest part of the Universal Church And even Salmasius liberally granteth that the Pope was not a meer Patriarch but the Heads of the Patriarchs and Church Universal in the Empire de Eccles. Suburbicar prope fin And I understand not how he is Principium Vnitatis in a Governed Society as such who is not Principium Regens But it followeth not that it was so from the Apostles nor that it must continue so when the Empire is overthrown or the Emperor will change it If most of the Church be in one Empire and the Prince think he should form the Government to that of the State as the Chalcedon Council that magnified Leo yet witnesseth doth this make one of his Subjects Ruler of all other Christian Kings or subject the World to Foreigners Yea and that when the Empire and its Laws are overthrown and most of the Church is without the Empire enlarged more over other Lands Must we turn Papists if they can but prove that once a General Council or the Major part of Bishops was for them by Corruption or Secular Advantage What Changes have the Majority oft made § IV. Your fourth VVork of Universal Supremacy is To declare what Ordinances were received from the Apostles as Imposition of Hands to give the Holy Ghost and such others 1. I acknowledge that Baptism and the Eucharist were known by practice before the New Testament was written and the continued practice hath been as sure a Tradition of the substance of them as the Scripture it self hath had But it is all Christians Lay and Clergy that assure us of this yea Hereticks and Enemies with them by Universal Historical Concord and not the Authority of a Supreme Universal Judicature And yet it was all recorded in the Scripture that without those sure sufficient Records the Tradition might not as Oral or practical only be continued So that all that is Universally Necessary is now in Gods written Law And if it had not been so the Papists changes of the Eucharist which yet Holden with others pleadeth Current Tradition for tell us how little security we should have had of them If there be more Sacraments than two in the Scripture we will receive them Or if more could be proved instituted by Christ and delivered from the Apostles than the Scripture mentioneth we should not refuse them But we are perswaded there is no such proof The Papists plead Scripture for all their seven Sacraments and we quarrel not at the Name but expect better proof of all that is Obligatory to the whole Church on Earth than an unproved Universal Judicature VVhat Confirmation is I now pass by § V. Your fifth VVork for the Soveraign Power is Judicial Sentencing not Individuals ordinarily but by Description such as are to be cast out by Excommunication 1. This is not part of Judicial Government but Legislative To say He that is impenitent in Drunkenness or Heresie shall be cast out is the Penal part of the Law And Gods Law hath already told us who shall be cast out There are Sins enough enumerated to this use 2. If all the Necessary Doctrine and Practice be expressed in Scripture then so is the Necessary Cause of Excommunication For that Cause is bringing other Doctrine or Impenitence in breaking Gods Law But the Antecedent is true Ergo. 3. How happy had it been for the Church if there had been no Hereticating or Anathematizing but for violating Scripture Doctrine and Law impenitently Alas what Work have Hereticators and Anathematizers made in the Church 4. How know we what Curses are valid when General Councils have cursed per Vices almost all the Christian World And the same Bishops in one Council cursed one party and in the next the contrary and cursed their own Councils 5. As there needeth no Vicarious Monarch of the whole World no nor of one Kingdom under the King to tell who shall be Fined or Hanged but the Kings Law as the Rule and the Judges and Justices in their several Limits to pass Sentence in particular Cases so there needs no Church-Vicarious-Judicature of all the Earth to judge who shall be cursed and cast out Christs Laws and the Pastors respectively in the several Churches are enough And in doubtful Cases and for Concord Neighbor-Bishops in Synods must Consult § VI. Your sixth Use of an Universal Supremacy is to make mutable Church-Laws 1. God is the only Lawgiver to all the World Christ to all the Church We deny any such Church on Earth as hath an Universal Soveraign under Christ and can make Laws for all the Christian World 2. How is Gods Law sufficient in sâ—o Genere if it leave out that which is to be commanded to all the World of Christians How is Mans Universal Legislative Power proved any more than an Universal Civil Soveraignty Or how differeth it from
said of themselves when they cried Omnes Peccavimus for Voting with Dioscorus and the Eutychians at Council Eph. 2. I would fain know when as the greater Part of the Empire and Church was against this Council in the days of Zeno Basiliscus and Anastasius by what means every Christian should then have known the sence of the Universal Church At Jerusalem the Orthodox rebelliously resisted the Emperor's Lieutenants and put them to â—light in defence of this Council following a Monk that compared the four Councils to the four Evangelists and sent the Emperor word that they would spend their Blood for it And yet even there before the prevailing Part had condemned it At Antioch the Bishop and Monks fought it out to so much Blood that the Monks Carcasses could have no Grave but the River Orontes At Constantinople and Alexandria the Matter oft was little better Are these things indifferent or jesting Matters of small Infirmity 5. And the 5th General Council Const. 2. was thought long by a great Part of the Church to have contradicted the 4th de tribus Capitulis and was so much disowned that even Venice Liguria Istria c. renounced the Pope and Roman Primacy for Owning it and chose a Patriarch at Aquileia to be the Primate instead of Rome which long continued till Sergius reconciled them 6. And that Concil Trullanum called Quino-Sextum which you own as the same with the Fifth is disowned by the Roman Party to this day and accused by them to have been Monothelites Vid. Binnium And yet said to be the same Men who were the Second Const. Council And so they make that Second also to have been Monothelites 6. And the next Const. Third were condemned by the Seventh General at Nice as heinous Sinners for condemning Church Images and even Helvicus with other Lutherans call it Synodum Iconomaâ—hicam quam Oâ—cumenicam dici voluerunt And I think that the Church of Rome disowneth the Doctrine both of it and the Second of Nice which hath agreed that Christ's Body is not flesh in Heaven Now I would know while these Councils thus anathematized each other or lamented their own former Errors as Voting by Fear or Mistake and while most of the Bishops declared against any of them as they oft did and when Heraclius Philippicus or other Emperors were Monothelites and the Major part of the Bishops followed them how common Christians should know whom to Obey XV. I remember that you also pleaded Christ's words Hear the Church But he saith also Tell the Church even the same Church which we must Hear And verily here I am utterly at a loss Christ I know and Paul I know should be heard but who are this one Universally ruling College for me to to hear yea the Pope may be told and heard but how to tell or hear a College that dwell all over the Earth I know not I cannot hope to live long enough to send to or hear from Abassia Armenia Syria Mengrelia Georgia Circassia and all the Greek Churches and to Mexico and perhaps the Antipodes nor do I think our Salvation lyeth so much on our Skill in Geography that we must know that there are any such Countries in the World nor a Rome or a Constantinople c. And I cannot think that most of the World will ever hear that there is such a Man as I in being nor that one of a thousand of the Bishops ever hear the Names or know the Opinions of all the rest or of the one half of them And if I were rich enough to hire a Messenger to go all over the Earth and were so foolish as to hope to live till he returned I must take their Votes on the Credit of the Messengers Word which is a sandy Ground for Church-Communion and Salvation Nay I cannot hope to live to see a General Council much less to see the end of it and to be certain of their Votes and Sentence And if I knew that I had all the Bishops on Earth for one Opinion I am not certain whether most of the Presbyters being an hundred to one be not against them and in England the Presbyters are part of the Convocation which is the Representative Church Had I lived on Earth when the Council of Nice was contradicted at Sirmium Ariminum Tyre Milan and the World groaned to find it self turned Arrian Or when they were Anathematizing each other and fighting at the first Eph. Council Or when the 2d Nicene were condemning the second Const. Or when Vigilius was dragged by a Rope at Const. by Justinian's Command and the Patriarch of Aquileia set up against Rome or when the Trull Canons were made by Men now called Monothelites or when innumerable Monothelite Bishops met under Philippicus c. I could not possibly have told how to know the Governing Judgment of the College of Bishops that live all over the Earth Nay when you own no Council since the Sixth why will no Importunity intreat you to tell me whether for these Thousand Years last the Universal Church was Governed by one College and what Governing Act this Colledge hath so long exercised over all the Christian World And how it was known And whether their Literae formatae are to be found written And where Or are only transmitted to all the World by Memory and by whose Memory and of whom we may all enquire of them with certain Satisfaction Or whether the Church hath been this Thousand Years no Church or Ungoverned You say the Council at Frankford condemned that at Nice How shall I know which the College owned at the time of the sitting of each Council How few Councils were ever so great as that at Basil Can you tell me how to be sure whether the College be more for it or against it at this day Bear with me for telling you that if I had not found that you are a Man of strong Passions full of your self and of undoubting Confidence in your Apprehensions I should wonder how so Studious Learned and Sober a Man could possibly take either Union Communion or Salvation to lie upon Mens Belief of and Obedience to such a College as all the Bishops on Earth And if you take the Creed to mean this as the Holy Catholick Church I shall not wonder if you take me and almost all the Protestants that ever I knew or read for Hereticks and having twice admonished me and not convinced me if you avoid me and should not only Seventeen Years silence me but banish or burn me if you are for such execution upon Hereticks or at least take me and all such as I to be intolerable and use us accordingly XVI I will sum up the Difference between you and me in a Similitude All Power in Heaven and Earth and all Judgment is given to Christ. The Creator's Government by Civil Rulers he changeth not but is now their Soveraign King His Church he Governeth as a Saviour and a Teacher and their Heavenly
High Priest It is his School and we are his Disciples I suppose that God the Father and Christ is the only Rightful Universal Civil and Church-Monarch and none else can give Laws or exercise Judgment over the whole Earth but that Magistrates and Pastors are Commissioned by God to their several Provinces Governing the whole only per partes between them and God as the Monarch maketh them such Universal Laws as they must Rule and be Ruled by And that there is no more proof of one Ecclesiastick Humane Judicature to Rule all the World than of one Civil one and less probability But that Princes and Pastors must do all by the best Advantages of Unity Love and Concord and keep such Synods and Correspondencies as are necessary to that end I suppose that every Kingdom hath its own King and Inferiour Magistrates Ruling by their several Courts and Circuits and by the Kings Laws but not Ruling all the Kingdom as one College of a Voting Synod of Judges Justices and Majors If Senates have any where a Supremacy it is from the peculiar Constitution of that Commonwealth and there is no Institution of a College of Kings or one Monarch to Rule all the Earth But their Unity is centred in God that is one I suppose that the King hath ordained that all Free-Schools in England Scotland and Ireland shall have each their proper Schoolmasters one to a small School and to a great one a Chief Master with under Schoolmasters and he hath made an Order that they shall teach E. g. Lilly's Grammar and faithfully perform their Trust or be put out by them that have the Power And if any School-Difficulty occur they may do well to consult for their Mutual Help But you seem to add g. d. as if 1. All the World is one Humane School though under several Kings 2. None is a Member of this School that is not under the College of Schoolmasters that dwell all over the World and never know one another and that doth not live in Obedience to that College 3. All these Schoolmasters of the whole World must meet by themselves or Delegates in General Councils 4. All Schools must receive Canons from these Councils and be judged by them and bring their Accusation at least Appeals to them from all Nations of the Earth 5. All the Schoolmasters of the several Kingdoms must hold National Assemblies in those Kingdoms or Provinces as a College of Governors to the whole Land 6. A Thousand or many Hundred or Scores Local particular Schools must be Schools but equivocally so called and have all but one proper Schoolmaster who alone must have the Keys of them and judge of each Scholar that is 1. admitted 2. corrected 3. or put out 7. All these Schools under this Diocesan Schoolmaster shall have his Ushers and no proper Schoolmasters who shall have Power to teach those that will learn and to tell the proper Schoolmaster perhaps One Hundred Eighty or Twenty Miles off of every Boy that deserveth to be corrected or put out But none of these Ushers shall have Power 1. To judge whom to take or refuse or what Boys to correct nor to correct them till commanded by the Diocesan Master 3. Nor to put out any till he bids him 4. Nor to forbear correcting or casting out any when commanded though he know them to be the best I think this 1. Deposeth all the Inferiour Schools and robs them of proper Schoolmasters which are their due 2. And deposeth the Ushers that should be mostly Schoolmasters 3. And maketh School-Government an impossible thing while one only in a Diocess is to use that which he cannot do 4. And thereby overthroweth Learning and introduceth Barbarousness 5. And bringeth in a new sort of Diocesan Schoolmasters who will undo the Scholars and themselves by undertaking Impossibilities But I disallow not 1. A Chief Schoolmaster in each School 2. Nor needful Overseers or Visitors to see that all Schoolmasters do their Duty 3. Nor that the King and Justices keep them all to their Duty and make Laws that they truly teach the Sacred Scriptures and correct those Schoolmasters who by their Insufficiency or Unfaithfulness deserve it Again I tell you 1. Make us no Universal Governor but Christ. 2. And restore the Power of necessary Discipline to the Parish-Churches or at least make Christs Church-Discipline a possible practicable thing and you will reconcile many Nonconformists to you But to say only one Schoolmaster with meer Teaching-Ushers shall Govern many Hundred Schools or one Bishop many Hundred Churches or rather Oratories and Chappels that are made but parts of one true Church infimae specici this is in English to say that there shall be no considerable Government of such Schools or Churches at all and to put it down on pretence of having the Power to do it And yet by the Charity and Justice of many that now Write and Preach against us we are all unruly intolerable rebellious Schismaticks and against Bishops for desiring more Bishops at least one to every 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Corporation that Discipline might be a possible thing I have in many Years of Liberty tryed without Rigour so much as all Church-Canons agree to be necessary in a Congregation that had not Three Thousand Souls and was unable for it with the assistance of Three Presbyters when one Parish about London hath Thirty Thousand and Forty Thousand if not Sixty Thousand Souls and most or many far less Governable XVII The Essentials of the Sacred Office are 1. Power or Right 2. Obligation to 3. The Work 1. The Work you say is to Rule the Church Universal on all the Earth not only separately per partes but as Vnum Collegium which is Vna Persona Politica 2. The Power is Jus Regendi 3. The Obligation maketh it their Duty The Apostles were sent first to Preach the Gospel to every Creature or all Mankind and make them Christians and after to Teach them all Christs Doctrine and Law and to Rule them by Pastoral Guidance thereby 2. If the College of Bishops be their Successors are they bound to that Work in uno Collegio which the Apostles did each one apart That is deliver Christs Commands and guide the Churches If yea are they not bound in uno Collegio to Preach to all the Heathen World And then are they not guilty of the Damnation of most of the World for not so Preaching to them 3. If you say that it is only a Regiment that they must do in uno Collegio or per Literas formatas do you not make the whole Pastoral Church guilty of perfidious Negligence as a Pastor would be that never guided his Flock for not at all performing any such Government What one Act of Government hath the College performed in our Age or in the Age foregoing or in any Age according to your self since Constant. Pogonatus his sixth or seventh Council And was it only the Church of those Ages
that was bound to Govern Then it was they only that were Authorized or had the Office and Power For Obligation to the Work though not ad hic nunc is Essential to the Office as well as Authority Or will the Performance of the Bishops of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries excuse all that succeed them to the end of the World from any Performance Why then not from all Pastoral Guidance And are they not then degraded XVIII We are against Singularity in Matters of Faith We believe that all Christs Church shall never err from any one Essential of Christianity or Communion else it would thereby cease to be a Church But we believe General Councils such as the Empire had have erred so far as to condemn each other of Heresie We perswade all Men to believe as the Church believeth that is to receive that from the Apostles quod ab omnibus ubique semper receptum fuit which the Church received and delivered as from them with known common Consent and to suspect odd Opinions Novelties and Singularities But Protestants against Papists commonly use these Distinctions 1. Authority of a Governor by Legislation and Judgment or either is one thing 2. Doctoral Authority like a Philosopher in a School of Consenters is another 3. The Authority of Witnesses which is their Obliging Credibility is another 4. The Authority of a Steward or Keeper of Records is another 5. The Authority of a Herald or Cryer or Messenger to publish Laws is another 6. And the Authority of Contractors in Mutual Self-Obligation is another Accordingly they hold 1. That there is no one Universal Head Governour or Summa Potestas Ecclesiastica to Rule the whole by Legislation or Judgment Personal or Collective but Christ. 2. That there is no one Person Natural or Political that is bound or authorized to be the Teacher of the whole World or Church but that all Pastors must Teach and Guide in their several Provinces 3. That the larger and more uncontrouled the Testimony is the greater is the Credibility and Authority of the Witnesses And therefore if all the Churches in the World as far as we can learn agree de facto that these are the Books Doctrines and practised Ordinances which they received and especially when Hereticks or Infidels and Enemies that would gainsay it cannot with any probability we thus receive the said Books and Practices as Baptism c. ex Authoritate Testium and not ex Authoritate Judicis Regentis or else Lay-Men such as Origen when he was a more credible Witness of the Text than an Hundred unlearned Bishops and such as Hierom that was no Bishop of whom I say the same yea and Women yea Hereticks and Infidels such as Pliny c. would be Church-Rulers 4. All Pastors being by Office to Preach Christ's Word and Ministerially Officiate accordingly are thereby especially intrusted with the keeping of these Sacred Records as Lawyers while they daily use them are with the Laws and the Universal Testimony of such Officers is the most credible part of the Witnesses Work or if not Universal the more the better 5. Every Pastor is as a Cryer to proclaim Christ's Laws 6. And in Circumstances left to Mutable Humane Determination the more common Consent Caeteris paribus the better And this is the use of Councils this is enough But the Protestants that I have known and read do make it our first Controversie with the Papists Whether Christ ever Instituted any one Head or Ruling Power over all the Church under himself And 2. Whether Pope or Council be such Both which they deny XIX If you have not read it I intreat you read in the Cabal-Supplement King Henry the VIII's Letter to the Archbishop and Clergy of the Province of York where you will find ☞ 1. Your cited seeming Contradictions of Scripture answered by use of Speech and Reason without any Universal Judicature 2. That Dic Ecclesiae cannot be meant of the Church Universal 3. That the Universal Church hath no Head or Governor but Christ but the Clergy subserve him as Ministers by whom he giveth Spiritual Grace and quae Spiritu aguntur libera sunt nulla Lege astringuntur and if the Teachers do their Office with scandal Magistrates must punish them and that it is the Ecclesia quae non Constat ex bonis malis which the King is not the Head of But that in Spirituals as the word signifieth Spiritual Persons and their Goods and Works and the enforcing the Observances of Gods Laws the King is Head And the reason of the word Head notably vindicated with much more XX. I crave your Pardon both for the Prolixity and Boldness while I add this Question not as accusing you of Popery Perjury or Disloyalty How can I be cleared from the guilt of Perjury and Disloyalty if having taken the ☞ Oath of Supremacy and subscribed according to the Canons c. I shall plead for the subjecting of the King and all Subjects to a Foreign Power in Spirituals when the Oath disclaimeth it and the Can. 1. saith That all Vsurped and Foreign Power hath no Establishment or Ground by the Law of God and is for most just Causes taken away and abolished and therefore no manner of Obedience or Subjection within His Majesties Realms and Dominions is due to ANY SVCH Foreign Power And all Ministers subscribe Can. 36. against all Foreign Power as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things or Causes as Temporal And Articl 21. General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And when will all Princes Orthodox Heretical Mahometan Heathen Enemies in VVar c. agree to gather them out of all the VVorld And when they be gathered together for as much as they be an Assembly of Men whereof all be not Governed with the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometime have erred even in things pertaining to God wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have no Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scriptures And doth Church-Unity Concord and Salvation lie on things not necessary to Salvation If you say that none of this speaketh against Foreign Ecclesiastical Power such as the Apostles had I answer 1. Not against a Foreigners Preaching and Baptizing and Celebrating the Lord's Supper if he be where we are and there he is no Foreigner But against all Foreigners proper Government of Men as their Subjects The Apostles Commission in that was extraordinary and yet they Ruled Doctorally none but Voluntary Consenters 2. The Law Oath Canon and Articles disclaim such Power as the Pope claimeth here But the Pope claimeth proper Ecclesiastical Government and most English and French Papists and half the rest I think claim for him only the power of the Word and Keys and not any forcing Power by the Sword XXI As hence I wonder not that Mr. Thorndike threateneth
differences 1. By the Church they mean not the People but the Prelates and Councils headed by their great President 2. They suppose these to be God's Proxies and that God doth what they do and they so oblige God to stand to it and men to take it as God's act 3. They suppose these Prelates and their President alike impowered by God as the Apostles were and therefore God by his Proxies now may undo what he did by his Proxies then Do you now wonder if Pope and Council by Canons have power from God to make new Canonical Scriptures and new Universal Laws for the Church yea and for the World And if these may undo the Scripture Laws and Institutions and make other Sacraments and Worship in their stead But Protestants have long ago proved 1. That there is no Vice-God and that God hath no Proxies or proper Representatives with whom he hath entrusted his Power so as that their word must lead and he will follow But only Embassadors whose Message is prescribed them by God and they are to speak and do only what he bids them and he will own it and not that which they add of their own or which they do against his Word 2. That the present Pastors have not the same power as the Apostles had who were commissioned to deliver Christ's Commands to the World and enabled for it by the Spirit of Infallibility and Miracles Even as the Jewish Priests had not the Power of Moses nor could change a tittle of the Law but only keep it teach it and apply it VII That he and his followers are for a Supreme Governing Visible Humane Power over the Universal Church is a thing that I need not cite their words further to prove Mr. Thorndike Bishop Bromhall Bishop Gunning Bishop Sparrow Dr. Saywell and the rest of that mind are not ashamed of it And it is a General Council that by some of them is supposed to be this Supreme Power And when I have proved against Johnson that there never was a General Council of the Christian World but of the Empire I can get none of them to answer me save that when the Empire was broken some of the pieces came together for a Job at Florence c. But it is the Pope's right saith Bishop Bromhall to be President and Patriarch of the West which Thorndike and others largelier insist on as the necessary Principium Vnitatis which turned poor Grotius to them for Unity But I confess I thought Mr. Dodwell had been more for a Councils Power than I find he is The Protestants believe no Supreme Governor of the whole Church but Christ. Dr. Iz. Barrow of the Unity of the Church hath fully overthrown the fiction of a human Supreme Aristocracy as well as of a Monarchy But an Union of all the parts in one Head Christ we all believe and consequently a Communion among themselves VIII But what Mr. Dodwell's Judgment is of the Power of the Council and whether the Supremacy be in it or in the President I will tell you only in his own words supposing the Reader to know that the Papists so far differ among themselves that 1. Some are for the Pope's Supremacy alone the Council being but his Counsellors as some are for the Kings the Parliament being but his Counsellors 2. Some are for the Councils Superiority over the Pope as some say Parliaments are greater than the King and urge his old Oath to pass such Laws quas Vulgus elegerit so say they the Pope must own those that the Council passeth yea that they may depose him if he deserve it 3. Some say that Universal Legislation belongs only to the Pope and Council agreeing the Pope being to Call and Approve them And this is the prevailing Opinion among them so that the Controversie is much like that which men have raised about Kings and Parliaments Now saith Mr. Dodwell Ch. 24. Pag. 509 c. Even by the Principles of Aristocratical Government no Power can be given validly but to persons who are are at least in conjunction with those from whom they receive their Power Subordinate Authority must be derived from the Supreme No act can be presumed to be the act of the whole Body but what has passed them in their Publick Assemblies in which Body is the Right of Government so it have the prevailing Vote Nay though that prevailing Vote be not the greater part of the Society so it be the greater part present at such Assemblies God himself cannot be supposed to have made a Government even of his own Institution practicable till he have setled these Rules of Administring it As nothing but the Society it self can in justice make a valid Conveyance of its Right so it is not conceivable how the Society it self can do it by any thing but its own act If this be so 1. Mark that this man disclaimeth any other Divine Institution than by the Society 2. The People that have no Power being the greater part of the Society or Church give the Bishop and Pope and Council their Power 3. If the Clergy were all the Church the Presbyters give that Power to the Bishops and Pope which they had not themselves 4. All runs on the false Antimonarchical and Anarchical Principle which I have confuted in Hooker that the Body makes Power by giving up their own Right 5. Then the General Councils and Pope have no Power For the Body of the Universal Church never gave it them but the Emperors save as to Teaching and Arbitrations 6. Then in those Countries where the Body of Clergy and People put down Bishops there Bishops are put down by such as had Power to do it For 1. If man may set up Diocesans Popes and Councils man may take them down Yet the Proteus changeth his face and presently supposeth that the whole Right of these Assemblies could not have proceeded from the bare consent of the Society but from the actual Establishment of God No Assemblies can dispose of the Rights of such Societies but such as are lawful ones according to the Constitutions of that Society As out of Assemblies they have no power to act who might act in them how many soever of the Suffrages and how freely soever they had been gotten so all those Meetings how numerous soever for acts of Government if they be not Legal they add nothing of advantage to the power of particulars singly considered They are not in the Eye of the Law Assemblies but Routs and their concurrence not Consent but Confederacy And as it were Rebellion in particular persons to attempt any thing of that nature concerning the Government without the consent of their present Established Governours so is there nothing in such a Meeting that can give them any Power as united more than they had as singly considered that may excuse them from Rebellion Nay rather by the Principles of all Societies that which had not been Rebellion if done
Italian Papists 2. Nor with the moderate Papists that are for the Councils of Constance and Basil For he takes them for Papists with whom he hath no Communion 3. Nor with the Church of France because they have Communion with Papists Though many of them are no Papists in their Principles 4. He hath no Communion with any Protestant Churches that have not Bishops 5. Nor with any Protestants that have Bishops not Ordained by Canonical uninterrupted Succession from the Apostles at lest presumptively 6. With none of the Greek Church that have Communion with the Church of Rome or with any Schismaticks or that want such Succession or refuse the Laws of the Church which is all 7. With none of the remote Nations called Jacobites Nestorians c. Because they are judged Hereticks or Schismaticks or Communicate with such or have a notorious interruption of Succession 8. Not with the Maronites or any Sect that Communicate with Papists 9. Not with the Nonconformists of the Church of England whom he endeavoureth to prove Damnable Schismaticks 10. Not with the true and old Church of England who professed to hold Communion with those Foreign Protestants whom he calleth Schismaticks Nor with any of the present Bishops and Conformists who profess the same Communion For his Rule is that they are Schismaticks who Communicate with Schismaticks Who then hath he Communion with It seems none but those few new Men in England of his own Mind who perhaps may call themselves the Church of England 11. Nay not with those among them who profess Communion with the Church of Rome except with the Jesuited part 12. And with those of them who are for one Supreme Universal Aristocracy or Legislative College Council and Judicature over the Universal Church And now can you tell which is the Church that he is of Or is there a more notorious Separatist or Schismatick than he § 6. And now can any Man tell which is that Church which he speaketh such wonderful things of as the One Body Politick of Christ with one visible human Government Which be the Bishops and Church that have all that Leviathan-like Power of Heaven and Hell which he describeth and asserteth Is it only the uncertain relicts of all these § 7. Mr. D. hopeth justly that none or few of his friendly Readers will read what I write against him and therefore when I detect his Fraud and putid Errors he puts it off with saying I do but put many new Questions and answer nothing accurately But for the sake of them that will read I will ask him 1. Whether his little invisible Church be a Body meet for the Glorious Elogies which he giveth the Church of Christ I profess I know not one Bishop that is of his professed Principles Archbishop Laud was not that took a General Council to be a Court of Pretorian Power to be externally obeyed by all the Church Bishop Guning is not as the foresaid Evidence sheweth 2. And I would ask him whether his Church have all the Power of Heaven and Hell which he describeth over those that are without the Church or only over those within Paul saith What have we to do to judge them that are without And if so how narrow is the Power of his magnified little Church Let their own Subjects escape their Damning Power how they can it seems none of all the people on Earth whom he counteth Schismaticks or Hereticks are within their reach For these with him are all without If it be said They were within when they were Baptized I answer 1. What they were and what they are is not all one 2. But he saith that the Sacraments are but Sacrilegious Acts and Nullities that are done by such And if so they were never Baptized and so never in the Church § 8. But let us come to his new Book and Method And first I will tell him once more what our different Church Principles are that he may not accuse he knows not what 1. Christ is the only Head Prophet Priest and King to the whole Church on Earth both of Influence and Government Constitutive Specifying and Unifying and hath no Deputy or Vicar under him Aristocratical or Monarchical that hath any such Capacity Power or Obligation 2. Therefore the Church though Compaginated in all its parts is only one Politick Body of Christ and not of Man and hath no other Soveraign 3. Therefore neither Pope Council or College of Bishops have any Legislative or Judicial Power over the whole Church Collective but only the several Pastors are such to their several Churches 4. Yet are they obliged to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and Love and to do all in Concordant Observation of Christs Laws And all Churches and Christians to help others to their Power 5. And when they afford such Counsel or help for Concord to other Churches they do it not as Lay-men but as Pastors in the Universal Church though not as Pastors to other Mens Flocks As Physicians of several Hospitals and Judges of several Courts or Mayors of several Corporations or Kings of several Kingdoms may advise for Concord without Usurping each others Government 6. As God only by Moses made the Jewish Law and the Priests were not to make more but only to Rule by it it being a Prophetical and Mediatorial Work So Christ only by himself and his Spirit of Infallibility and Miracles in the Apostles made the Christian Universal Law and no Men are to make more such but to Rule by that so made 7. As Gerson truely told the Pope Christs own Law is sufficient for the Government of the Church Universal else Christ had not been a perfect Law-giver And they that pretend by Supplements or Emendations to add or do better are not his Ministers but Accusers 8. Therefore those Popes and Councils that have presumed to make Laws for the whole Church have Usurped Christs Prerogative and are false Prophets or Traytors against Christ. 9. Therefore none should own them as such nor is it Schism but Duty so far to disown them 10. Nor should any own these Bishops as such who own this their Usurpation As no Soldiers of the Kings Army should follow those Captains who subject themselves to and take Commissions from an Enemy Usurper or Foreign Princes 11. The Power of Bishops under Christ as to Laws is only to keep and teach Christs Laws and Rule by them and determine themselves of undetermined circumstances or accidents which vary as time and emergent occasions vary and are unfit for Universal Obligation and this Power they have only over their single Flocks though by contract they may join in such things with others for Concords sake 12. When the case of many Churches is alike and their common good requireth Concord in any such accidents all are bound to observe such Concordant Agreements by virtue of Christs command for Concord 13. But if on this pretence Pastors will turn Agreements for Concord
fully proved to them that it signified no Councils above the Imperial or National But distinguished those that were Universal in that one Empire from the Provincial 2. The Reformed Church of England taketh the Parish Communicants to be true Churches and the Pastors to have as much of the Oversight as is necessary to the Constitution of a true Political Church Though their Canons sinfully fetter them in the Exercise But the Foreigners hold the Diocesses to be the least or lowest Churches and the Parishes to be no true Churches for want of Bishops in them but only Parts of a Church that hath a Bishop over them all 3. The Old Church of England owned the Foreign Protestant Churches as true Churches and their Ministers as true Pastors and own Communion with them But the Innovators say that they have no true Bishops because they have not Diocesans and are no true Pastors if they have not an uninterrupted Succession of Diocesane Ordination from the Apostles whereas for some Hundred Years after the Apostles there was no such Bishops known in the World as were not either Congregational Parochial Bishops or Apostolick Overseers of such and no Diocesans over many Hundred or Score Parish Churches that had no Bishops under them § 12. When you consider what Power the New Foreigners had at Court and with the Parliament that made the Act of Uniformity and required Re-ordination and that made all the other persecuting Acts and with the Justices that executed them And when we see how they promoted the Roman Interest and when we see how potently and obstinately they frustrated all attempts of the Protestant Union here and read how they reviled the old Reforming Bishops from Parker to Abbots and the Parliaments as going too far from Rome And when we consider that we have not one Bishop but who was chosen by K. Charles II. and K. James and what Men they may be supposed to choose we Contradict not these Men when they call themselves the Church of England But when we consider that the old Homilies Apology Articles Liturgy Canons c. were never yet repealed and that they are all Sworn to Endeavour no Alteration of Government of Church or State we have cause to think that the old Party have more right to be called The Church the altering Endeavours having not changed its Essentials By this much the Reader may Expound whom I speak of in my Treatise of Episcopacy § 13. The Church is nothing but the Men that constitute the Church If 1. It be denominated by their Numbers no man can tell which Party hath the greater Number till they are further put upon the tryal 2. If they are denominated by Laws the better part are rather to be called the Church because the Old Laws against Popery are not yet Repealed Though yet some late Laws are to the Old as poyson to a living Man So if they be Denominated by Power the Innovators have been the Church at least these 31 Years For that Party Ruled and had the Countenance of the Kings who chose them And indeed in the Days of the differing Emperors Constantine Constantinus Valens Theodosius Arcadius Marcian Leo Zeno and the rest that usually went for the Church or Orthodox party which the Emperor owned The uppermost will have the Name § 14. Though the French and English aforesaid designed a Coalition the long possession of their different ways unavoidably hindered them from an immediate Union But they were forced to approach by leisurely Degrees England would not suddenly turn the Liturgy to a Mass-Book nor France suddenly turn the Mass-Book Corrected into French But what fair Approaches were made and what further intended Grotius his Counsel Magnified by both Churches and the present practices of the French declare The Council of Grotius was to bring down the Pope to Moderation that he might Rule but by the Canons and not be above Councils nor deprive Kings nor Bishops of their Rights and that the Lives of the Clergy be Reformed and School Niceties left indifferent and the Lutheranes as Reconcileable Courted to a Concord and the unreconcileable Calvinists brought down by force But the Lutheranes are not so Reconcileable as they imagined Princes that are once free are loth to become Subjects to a Foreign Priesthood § 15. And how much the French meant to bring down the Pope their late Transactions shew a little but their Doctrines much more Mr. Jurieu himself in his Posteral Letters Engl. p. 216.217 thus Describeth them 1. That the Church of Rome is no more than a Particular Church as other Churches are 2. That St. Peter had nothing but a Primacy of Order and Presidence above the Apostles 3. That St. Peter could give to his Successor over other Bishops no more but that Primacy which he had over the Apostles 4. That the Bishop of Rome Originally and by Divine Right had no Power over the Universal Church 5. That he did not receive Appeals in the first Age of the Church 6. That he had no Right to Assemble General Councils 7. That he could take Cognizance of the Affairs of no other Provinces but his own no not by Appeals 8. That he had no Right to take Knowledge of Matters of Faith to make Decisions therein which should oblige the whole Church 9. That before the Council of Nice and after he had no inspection over other Churches but those which were in the Neighbourhood of Rome 10. That he could not Excommunicate other Bishops otherwise than the other Bishops could Excommunicate him 11. That a Man might separate himself from the Bishop of Rome without being a Schismatick and out of the Church 12. That the Pope had no Right over other Bishops 13. That the Council of Sardica is the Fountain of that Right of receiving Appeals which the Pope claimeth 14. That the Rights which the Pope hath at this Day excepting his Primacy are by Human Laws and because he hath assumed them to himself and because they have bin conceded to him 15. To which they add he is not Infallible nor Superior to Councils nor Master to the Temporalities of Kings This is the French Religion and who would think that this is Popery No wonder if the Pope be more hearty for other Friends than for France § 15. Lay all this together and it 's Notorious that though Whetgift and some other Calvinists were too much guilty of the Persecutions to keep up the Dominion and Preferments which they were jealous of yet it was the French Reconcilers that have set and to this Day kept on foot our present increased Divisions and Dangers Since Le Strange new-named them the old Church Protestants are called Trimmers and are Men that love not Division or Persecution and would fain see a Coalition of Protestants though they have not zeal enough save too few to put it on openly lest they provoke the opposites But the Laudians called Tories are still as much against the Removal of the Dividing
of Foreign Jurisdiction is Hostility against Kings and States III. That Foreign Councils of Bishops and Dyets of Soveraign Princes are Authorized for Communion for mutual Counsel and Concord by Contract and Agreement and have no just Jurisdiction or Political Regiment over particular Soveraigns or their subject Congregations Though in Councils they retain their proper Power at home IV. The Foreign Councils agreeing on things profitable to the common benefit of all Gods own Law of Love Unity Concord Edification and publick Regard and Peace forbiddeth the particular Bishops and Churches causlesly to dissent and affect singularity But if they agree on things hurtful and dangerous to any of the particulars they are not to be obeyed nor yet if they claim Jurisdiction instead of Communion and Contract But every Prince and Pastor must Rule their own As Kings will not own a Foreign King or Council of Kings who shall Usurp a Soveraignty over them much more if over all V. That all Forcing Power that the Clergy can claim by Canons or Mandates in Christian Kingdoms is only from the Prince or State as they are authorized by him as his Officers who only hath the power of the Sword and not at all any part of their Pastoral Office And therefore as Grotius in that excellent Book de Imperio sum Potest circa Sacra hath shewed Clergy-Canons are no Laws but directing Agreements VI. The Canons of the Greatest Councils called General were Laws to none without the Empire unless Foreign Princes or Pastors made them so Nor to any within the Empire but by the Soveraigns Act as they are forcing and the particular Pastors as Directing VII Before the Division and Ruine of the Empire the Name of a General Council signified but an Imperial or National Council They being called by the Emperors who had no further power and only out of the Imperial Provinces unless any odd Person came voluntarily in for help and advantage which was rare This I have at large proved in my two Books against W. Johnson alias Terret And Ecclesia Vniversalis usually signified no more than Vniversal National or Imperial Leo meant no more when he called himself Caput Ecclesiae Universalis nor Phocas when he gave Boniface the Title of Universal Bishop And when the Empire was divided it was the Treasonable Erection of Popery to feign that Orbis Romanus was Orbis Universalis and that Concilia Generalia and Ecclesia Vniversalis meant extra Imperial and Vniversal Over-foreigners and all the World And this is still as the Foundation of Popery so the common Cheat that pleadeth for Foreign Jurisdiction VIII Though Rome was a meet Seat for Imperial Church Primacy while Emperors would have it so as it hath no just pretence to the Government of Foreigners so it is of all others most unfit for a Primacy or Presidentship in the Councils of Foreign Confederate Princes and Churches because it claimeth so much more even Foreign and Universal Regiment Nor are Councils of such Bishops or Princes to be trusted with General Contracts who claim such Jurisdiction A Primacy in Lawful Councils of Confederates would strengthen their claim of an Universal Jurisdiction till they openly renounce it And so would the use of a Senate or Council that pretendeth to the like power IX Patriarchs and Metropolitans and Provincials or Diocesans in one Empire or Kingdom can for Number Seat or Precedency justly claim no power of Governing Foreigners nor subject Bishops of that Nation but from the Soveraign X. Legislation is the first Essential power of Regiment Therefore none can be an Universal Legislator that is not an Universal Rector XI As an Universal Monarch Ecclesiastical or Civil is the absurd claim of an Impossible thing and open Hostility to all Christian Kings and Churches so an Universal Aristocracy in Councils or Patriarchs and Bishops is yet more absurd as claiming a more notorious Impossibility than the Pope doth XII An Universal power of Expounding or Judging of Christs Laws by Regent Authority or of being such Keepers of unwritten Laws seemeth the most Eminent part of Legislation it being more to be Judge what is Law and to make or determine of the sence than to make the bare words And so the Bishops should have a higher Regency than Christ Official Judges Expound the Laws only in their limited Provinces and for the deciding of particular Cases but not to be the Universal Determiners of the sence to all others None but the Law-makers can make an Universally obliging Exposition XIII The instance of the Apostles power will not prove an Institution of a stated Universal Legislative Aristocracy or Monarchy For 1. It is evident that Christ first chose and instituted them as his National Ministers by the number of Twelve related to the Twelve Tribes and by the keeping up just that number after the coming down of the Holy Ghost And by his special Mission of Paul Barnabas and others to the Gentiles distinguishing their Apostleship from Peter's and the rest to the Jews 2. When Persecution and the fall of the Jewish state made the Apostles Office more Extensive it was rather Indefinite than Universal They were to go as far as they were sent and were able 3. The Church was then in so narrow Bounds as made that Extent easie when now an Universal Humane Regiment is of Natural Impossibility and so past rational Controversie 4. Their power was not any further Legislative than as they were Promulgators of Christs Laws and Determiners of mutable undetermined Circumstances or Accidents 5. They have no Successors in those extraordinary parts of their Office which looketh like any part of Legislative power Which parts are 1. Being Eye and Ear-witnesses of what Christ did and said committed to their Testifying and Predicating Trust. 2. Having a special Commission to teach all Nations his Laws or what he commanded as the prime Promulgators 3. As having the promise of the Spirit to Teach them all things and bring all to their remembrance 4. And having the Miraculous Gifts of the Holy Ghost to attest their Witness As Moses had Successors in Executive Regency but not as a Mediatorial Deliverer of Gods Law which Aaron Samuel David and Solomon must obey and rule by but had no power to alter words or sence nor add any thing but undetermined Circumstances Yet as the Laws of Christ promulgate by the Apostles bind all Nations to whom they are revealed so we grant that the same Laws of Christ declared by Councils or Preached by any single Minister bind all to whom they come And that every Minister and Christian being a Member of the Church Universal his Doctrine tendeth to Universal Benefit which yet giveth him no Universal Regent Jurisdiction As I remember I have said all this before in my Letters to Bishop Guning when you were his Second or Witness of our Conference But the Invitation of your Discourse which I shall now give you my thoughts of maketh me think that this
the Papists or Greeks or Moscovites that cannot Preach at all O how happy a Church do you Dream of VII And it is yet more incredible that this popular Majority should be so right in such small Matters as Rites and Ceremonies and Discipline as that their Practice should be a Law to all the rest of the Christian World And that the Unity or Concord of the Universal Church must be built on such Sand as cannot so much as be gathered into one Heap And all must be Schismaticks and so far separate from the Church that obey them not I remember when Dr. Hammond proceeded Dr. I heard Dr. Prideaux in the Chair argue against the Churches Infallibility that John and Thomas and so every Individual was fallible Ergo a company of fallibles were not infallible Especially in such Matters as a Ceremony Those that Paul wrote to Rom. 14. 15. were not taken for infallible or Legislators by him VIII And you no where prove that Paul meaneth by the Churches have no such Customs that none in the World had any other nor must have any other but only that what Garb and Habit the Custom of all those Countries had placed Decency in the general Rule of Decency would oblige all to in the solemn Assemblies as it obligeth us to be uncovered You must needs know that by your Exposition and Inference you Condemn your own Church that hath the contrary Custom Especially your noble Patrons that wear Periwigs IX And how impossible a work do you set us all as a Law to know what these Ceremonies are without which we separate as Schismaticks 1. Must all good Christians be so great Historians as to know what Ceremonies have been used in all Ages by the Major part 2. Must they be so Skill'd in Cosmography as to know what Countries make the Major part 3. Must they have so good intelligence of former Affairs as to know who have now the greater Vote in Councils and out of them 4. But you say It must be of such Rites as ab omnibus ubique semper have been used we like Vincentius Liri's rule well as to things necessary that may aliunde be so proved But how shall any man know that ab omnibus ubique without more Knowledge of the World than Drake or Candish had or any Traveller Except Negatively that we must not affect causeless Singularity from the most of the Godly as far as we can know them And how shall we understand the semper Must it respect all time to come Then none can know his Duty till the End of the World If it be only as to time past then how knew they that lived in the first Age how long their Customs would continue And then all the after Changes which were many were Schismatical X. Do you not too hardly censure the Church of England as Schismatical You know Epiphanius hath a peculiar Treatise to tell us what then were the Customs and Ceremonies of the Universal Church And how many of these are forsaken by us yea and by almost all the Churches Do you now clothe the Baptized anew in White Do you dip them over head in Water Do you anoint them as they did and cross them with the Ointment Do you give them to taste Milk and Honey Do you exorcise them Do your Bishops only make that Chrysme Do all here and in other Churches worship only versus Orientem Do you all forbear and forbid Adoration Kneeling on any Lord's Day or any Week Day between Easter and Whitsunday What! when you cast out of the Church those that will not Kneel at the Sacrament You know that the Council of Nice and that at Trull and the Fathers commonly make this a Rite of the Universal Church And Dr. Heylin saith that Rome it self kept it for a Thousand Years and it was never reversed by any other General Council Do you keep the Memorial of Martyrs at their Graves as then they did Do you use their Bones and relicts as they did Twenty more you may see in Epiphanius and others O condemn not the Church of England as separated from the Universal Church And our Reformers too XI What a case would you bring this Church and Kingdom to by your Law of the Custom of the Major part Must we have all the Opinions Rites or Ceremonies which the Greeks Moscovites Armenians and Papists have many Hundred Years in their Ignorance and Superstition agreed in as to the Major part Must we be able to confute their pretensions of Antiquity and Custom as to all these He that readeth the Description of their Customs methinks should be loth that we should be such XII And your Doctrine of Traditions as certainly received from the Apostles when the Majority use them is so much against the Church of England's Judgment and so copiously confuted by the whole stream of Protestant Bishops and Drs. and foreign Divines that I will not stay now to repeat that work were all the Traditions forementioned since laid by received from the Apostles About Genuflexions Milk and Honey Chrysme the white Garment You instance in Synods meeting and making Laws To meet for worship or necessary consultation and Concord is no unwritten ceremonial Tradition but the obeying of Christ's written Law which requireth such mutual help and that we do all to Edification Concord and Peace But Communion of many Nations is one thing and a Government over all is another thing It was the Emperor's Commission and Power that made Canons to be Laws And do you not here write against the King's Commission by which you sit which declareth from that Act of H. 8. that your Canons are no Laws till King and Parliament make them so Ask the Lawyers Were not the Canons of 1640. cast out even by your own long Parliament XIII But the worst is that while you set us a new Universal Church Legislative and Judicial Soveraignty you deny the sufficiency of Scripture if not the Soveraignty of Christ himself while you feign unwritten Universal Laws as part of Christ's Law a supplement to the Scripture give Christ's Prerogative to a Usurping Soveraignty utterly uncapable of that Office Scripture we know where to find but where to find your Universal Additional Laws and your Church Senate or College they must know more than I that know But so much is written against the Papists as aforesaid for Scripture sufficiency that I refer you thither and to the Articles Homilies and Ordination Books which this Church subscribeth to Alas Sir is not the whole Bible big enough to make us a Religion XIV As to your definition of the Church P. 12. It is tolerable if you make no Head but Christ and set up no Vicarious Head Monarchical or Aristocratical and instead of Provincial parts put National and Congregational or confess that you describe but the Imperial-National Church which was made up of Roman Provinces And gratifie not the Fanaticks by making the Holy Ghost
to be the authoriser of the Majority for Government For they will think that they have more of the Holy Ghost than you and therefore must Govern you I would all Rulers had the Holy Ghost but it 's somewhat else that must give them Authority XV. Your instance of the Easter Controversie is against you The difference undecided for 300 Years and Apostolical Tradition urged on both sides tells us that it was no Apostolick Law And Socrates and Sozomen tell us that in that and many such like things 〈◊〉 Churches had freely differed in Peace 〈◊〉 you seem to intimate contrary to them and to Irenâ—â—us that the Asians were Schismaticks till they Conformed And why name you Asia alone Were our Brittish Churches and the Scottish no Churches Or do you also Condemn them as Schismaticks for about 300 Years after the Nicene Council What could the Papists say more against them XVI How impossible a thing do you make Church Union to be while the Essentials or great Integrals of Religion are made insufficient to it and so many Ceremonies and Church Laws are feigned necessary which no man ever comes to the true knowledge of that he hath the right ones and all XVII If the Patriarchs must be the Soveraign College I beseech you give us some proof in a Case so weighty 1. How many there must be 2. Where seated 3. Who must choose and make them 4. And quo jure 5. And whether we have now such a College or is there no Church XVIII What Place will you give the Pope in the College I suppose with your Brethren you will call him 1. Principium Vnitatis But that 's a Name of Comparative Order what is his work as such a Principium How is he the Principium if he have no more Power than the rest Must not he call the Councils Though our Articles say General Councils may not be gathered without the Will of Princes Shall he not choose the Place and Time Tell us then who shall Must he not be President Must he not be Patriarch of the West And so Govern England as our Patriarch and Principium unitatis Vniversalis also XIX I pray tell us whether the French be Papists And how their Church-Government as Described from themselves by Mr. Jurieu differeth from that which you are for Tell me not of their Mass and other Corruptions It is Government that is the Form of Popery And they will abate you many other things And must we be Frenchified If the French restore those that we called Papists will disowning the Name and calling them the Church of England chosen by Papist Princes make us sound and safe And when we find Arch-Bishop Laud Arch-Bishop Bromhall Bishop Guning Bishop Sparrow Dr. Saywell Dr. Heylin Mr. Thorndike Bishop S. Parker and many more were for a Foreign Jurisdiction can we think if the French bring in the late Governours that such Churchmen would not embrace the French Church Government and call it the Church of England when since Lauds days they have endeavoured a Coalition If they be Defeated we may thank King James who could not bear delays and would have all or none when Grotius way would have been a surer Game XX. You tell us of Penalties made by Church Laws Deposing Ministers and Anathematizing the Laity But while the Clergy hath no power of the Sword who will feel such Penalties When Rome Excommunicates the Greeks the Greeks will Excommunicate them again What Penalty is it to Protestants to be Excommunicated by the Pope or his Council How commonly did they that were for and against the Chalcedon Council Excommunicate each other And those that were for and against Images And for Photius and for Ignatius Cheat not Magistrates to be your Lictors and Cursing will go round as Scolding at Billingsgate Who is hurt by a causeless curse but the Curser I confess that Dr. Saywell sayeth well If single persons must be punished shall not Nations also Yes But by whom By God the Universal King and not by an Universal Human Soveraign whether a King or Pope or a Senate of Foreign Subjects XXI We are promised by a trifling Pamphleteer that some of you are answering Mr. Clerksons two Books about the Primitive Episcopacy and Liturgies I pray you procure them also to answer my Treatise of Episcopacy and my English Non-conformity and not with the Impudent Railing Lyars to say it is answered already while we can hear of no such thing And see that they prove that all these things following are Traditions of the Vniversal Church received from the Apostles and used ab omnibus ubique semper 1. That most particular Churches for two Hundred or three Hundred years and so down consisted of many Congregations that had no personal presential Communion 2. That Churches infimi ordinis were Diocesan having many Hundred or Score Parishes under them 3. That these Diocesans undertook the sole Pastoral Care of all these Parishes as to Confirmation Censure Absolution and the rest 4. That all these Parishes were no true Churches as having no Bishops but the Diocesans and were but Chappels or parts of a Church 5. That the Incumbents were no true Pastors or Bishops but one Bishops Curates And that there were not then besides Diocesan Arch-Bishops in each single Church Episcopi Gregis and Episcopi praesides 6. That Bishops Names were used by Lay-men that had the Decretive Power of Excommunication and Absolution 7. That such Secular Judicatories far from the Parishes rather than the particular Pastors Tryed and Judged the unknown people 8. That Parish Ministers Swear Obedience to the Diocesans and they to Metropolitans 9. That all People that would have Licenses to keep Ale-houses or Taverns or that would not lye in Jail were Commanded to receive the Sacrament as a Sealed Pardon of their Sins 10. That from the beginning all Churches were forced to use the same form of Liturgy and not every Church or Bishop to choose as he saw Cause 11. That Kings chose Bishops and Deans without the Consent of the Clergy and People 12. That all Ministers were to be Ejected and forbidden to Preach the Gospel that durst not Subscribe that there is nothing contrary to Gods Word in such as our three imposed Books 13. That all Lords Magistrates Priests and People that affirm the contrary be ipso facto Excommunicate 14. That Lay-Patrons that are but Rich enough to buy an Advowson how Vicious soever did choose all the Incumbent Ministers to whom the People must commit the Ministerial Care of their Souls 15. That they that dare not trust such Pastors as are chosen by Kings though Papists and such Patrons and dare not Conform to every imposition like ours must live like Atheists in forbearance of all publick Worship and Church Communion 16. That all may Swear that an Oath or Vow of Lawful and Necessary things bindeth not our selves or any others if it be but unlawfully imposed and taken and had any unlawful part
of the Matter 17. That the Church ever held it unlawful for a whole Kingdom to defend it self against a Prince that would deliver up half the Government to a Foreiner and force them to a Religion which requireth them to be Damned or to Dye When the Clergy and Church at Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch Rome c. did so oft by force and Blood resist even Christian Emperors such as Theodosius II. Zeno Anastasius and many others 18. That all the Churches held it lawful to Swear and Covenant never to endeavour any Amendment or Alteration of any such as the forementioned Church Government If all these things be contrary to the constant judgment or practice of the Church Quaere whether Dr. Beveridge and his Approvers pronounce not the Church of England Schismatical as so far separated from the Church Universal But again I conclude O! What must the Christian World suffer even by Learned and I hope pious Doctors I. Because they will not distinguish National or Imperial Vniversality of Church and Councils from those of the whole World II. Nor Communion from Regiment nor Contracts from Laws nor a Regent Excommunication from a Renunciation of Communion by Equals III. Nor Divine Obligations to Concord and human demands of obeying Usurpers or the hurtful Agreements of an injurious Majority of equal Votes IV. And by their Deposing Christian Kings and Magistrates from their Sacred Power over Bishops in Church-Government and for Mens Souls as if they were made only for the base things of the World and Flesh and Priests only were trusted with Religion and Souls And Kings were not Heads of National Churches V. And their shameless calling them Adversaries to Episcopacy that would have one Hundred Bishops for one and are for the old three sorts Episcopi Gregis Episcopi praesides and Arch-Bishops and calling those the Episcopal part that put down all the Bishops in a Diocess save one As for your self I profess to be so far from Censuring any thing of you save these Mistakes that as I have long so I do still Love and Honour you as a Man fearing God and of a good and blameless Conversation as far as ever I Credibly heard And I thought the like of Bishop Guning though as it is with many Religious Papists his Opinions more prevailed against his Charity for that Mischievous hurtfulness in which he served the Subtilty of Sheldon and the fierceness of Morley and the Designs of Papal Courtiers But I hear that your Piety and Charity prevaileth against the evil tendency of your mistaken Doctrine Though Mr. Thorndike threaten England unless they Reform the Oath of Supremacy I confess I wish it restored and am Displeased with those Scots that have causelesly quarrelled with it and so helpt to open a Door to a Foreign Jurisdiction which the Kingdom is Sworn against Since the writing of all beforegoing I first read your two great Volumes of Canons and your Answer to Dallaeus In the Prolegomena of the first to my Grief I find you more express for an Universal Legislative Power and Foreign Jurisdiction than in your Sermon And yet not at all telling us where to have access to this Universal Soveraignty for Judicature out of the times of General Councils nor how to know but by believing your bare word what Councils are our Universal obliging Laws when you confess the vast difference of the Eastern and Western numbers nor how to know what our Religion is while we know not what be our Laws Nor how to know whether the Church be extinct when it hath no human Head by the Cessation of such Councils nor who must call them nor whence nor what is their Constitutive Matter only you say they must be called out of all the Christian World But need not all be there And will a Call make a General Council if the Men come not And can they come from all the Dominions of the Abassines Armenians Turks Persians Muscovites c. And who hath right to call them hath the Pope Or our Emperors or Kings what power hath he over all other Princes Subjects You confess they were called out of the Imperial Provinces And how few if any other Names are Subscribed But I am sorry that you still so contrary to all Evidence take National or Imperial Universality for Terrestrial Universality of Church and Councils I beseech you if we must be Papists let us be of the more reasonable sort that know where to find a Papal Monarch or Vice-Christ and not sent to seek a Church-Parliament Universal or Universal Aristocratical College that is no where extant in the World nor can be especially now the five Patriarchs are what and where they are How much more Rational to be Governed by the Pope as Patriarch of the West only till we can find out the Aristocratical Head But since the Empire was turned into many Kingdoms who can prove that those many must have all one Human Head But I am yet more sorry that you joyn with Hildebrand in making Princes to be but for the Body and Civil Peace and Bishops and Priests to be the Church and for the Soul Which God willing as I have oft done I shall fullier Confute in a Treatise for true National Churches proving that Christ hath made no Higher Visible Humane Church Power or Form And that Christian Kings are as Sacred Persons and Ministers of Christ as Bishops and Superior Heads of National Churches though the Power of the Keys belong only to the Clergy And that a true National Church is but a Christian Kingdom as such the King being the Head and Confederate Pastors and Churches the Subject Body The Second Part. The Stating of the Controversie and full Confutation of the Pretences for a Foreign Jurisdiction The CONTENTS CHap. I. The clear stating of the Controversie and Confutation of the Pretenders In 60 Propositions proving it a perjurious alteration of Government c. Ch. II. Why Parliaments and the Church of England before Bishop Laud were so much against such a Coalition with the Papal Church Ch. III. The said Coalition is not the way to Catholick Union Ch. IV. The Deceits that are pleaded for an Universal Humane Soveraignty Ch. V. A Foreign Jurisdiction by College or Counsels unmaskt Ch. VI. The Grand Consequential Case Whether it be lawful for Presbyters to Swear or Profess Obedience to those Bishops who profess Subjection to a Foreign Jurisdiction or for the people to own them Ch. VII Of the second part of the design to bring the Papists to our Churches as in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's days Ch. VIII Why it will not serve for a Coalition for the Papists to abate their last 400 years corruptions as Archbishop Bromhall maintaineth Ch. IX Whether the instance of the Apostles Church Government prove an Universal Soveraignty in man Ch. X. Many Questions about Councils to be resolved before we can take them for an Universal Aristocracy Ch. XI A Breviate of both the Aristocratical
Generation the Heart is first made and then some Rudiments of the Vessels for Distribution and then the Head and Eyes and then the Liver c. So Christs Humane Nature with his Spirit is as Heart and Head to the Church And then Teaching by himself first was as the Arteries for Distribution And the Apostles were first made the most Noble Organical parts to Deliver and Record his Universal Commands and by his Spirit make up the Inferior parts and the ordinary Pastors to be as the Stomach and Liver c. for the Nutrition of the whole None of these parts are the Soul or forma hominis but the Noblest parts are necessary in that Contexture which is forma Corporis to make it materiae disposita receptive of the Soul which is the Form as to its full Operation though the Semen to make an Embrio before received it Much like is it in our present Case XXIII Our Controversie then is not whether it be necessary to the being of the Church in facto esse that it have Apostles and Pastors and Teachers to make it the Organized Body of Christ for this we all acknowledge Nor yet whether these should be all Christians of one Body Spirit Faith Baptism Hope united to one Head and God in him Nor whether the Unity of the Spirit for that 's the Unity should be kept in the Bond of Peace no more than whether the dissimilar parts of the Body should all be of one Matter and live by one nutriment united to the same Head and Heart Contiguous and made for the Good of the whole actuated by the same Spirits and Animated by the same Soul XXIV But our Controversie with the Papists is Whether the Church on Earth have any One lawful Supream Power under Christ Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical authorized to Govern the whole by Legislation and Judgment That is One Ministerial Soveraign or Vice-Christ a Constitutive specifying and Vnifying Supream over all being one Political person whether in one or many natural Persons This Protestants deny XXV It is but our second Question with the Papists Whether the Pope be this Head or Supreme Rector but our first and fundamental Controversie is Whether there be any such at all but Christ. Did we believe there were any such at all we should readily be Papists either of those that give most to the Pope as Absolute or of those that make him the President of Councils and in their Intervals the Prime Church Governor according to the Laws Of which more anon That the Protestants commonly deny all Universal Soveraignty but Christ's I should tire the Reader needlesly to prove by numerous Citations He may soon know that will read 1. All the Churches Confessions in the Corpus Confessionum 2. Our Oaths for renouncing all foreign Jurisdictions 3. Our Disputants Luther de Conciliis Zuinglius Oecolampadius Melanchthon Brentius Calvin Bullinger Zanchy Illiricus Pezelius Musculus Aretius Chamier Molinaeus Blondel Dallaeus Rivet Paraeus Sohnius Piscator Beza Sadeel Danaeus Grynaeus Spanhemius Arminius Episcopius c. Jewel Whitaker Reignolds Crakenthorpe Abbot Challoner Willet Vsher White Chillingworth Davenant Morton Carlton Bernard Barrow c. Their Disputes were not Who is this Summa Potestas Ministerial to Govern all the Christian World but whether there be any such XXVI No Protestants ever yet denied the Councils of Pisa Constance and Basil and the French allowed Clergy to be Papists because they were not of the Italian strain nor for the absolute unlimited Power of the Pope Nor did any call them Protestants XXVII That the Pope hath no right to an Universal Supremacy Headship or Government I have proved at large in the First and Second Part of my Key for Catholicks And Dr. Barrow hath better and more largely proved after many other Briefly 1. No Man is naturally capable of Governing all the World Only God and our Redeemer is capable Man cannot know hear send execute over all the Earth per se per alios it 's a kind of madness to imagine it 2. The Christian Churches are mostly under the Power of various Princes Abassines Turks Persians the Mogol Moscovites Tartarians Swedes Danes English c. that will not receive the Pope How then can he govern the Subjects under them 3. Had such a Head been of Christ's making he would have plainly made us understand it by his word Of so great importance would it be to the Churches Unity and our Salvation 4. When Heresies and Sects and Controversies arose and troubled the Church the Apostles would sure have told them this necessary means of ending all and living in Unity and Concord 5. Paul would never have chidden the Contenders for saying I am of Cephas if centering in him had been the only uniting means 6. Peter never exercised any Power over the rest of the Apostles nor over the Universal Church any more than the rest 7. If he had it had been no more to the Bishop of Rome than to the Bishop of Antioch and others 8. None can shew any Commission of Christ for such a Headship And none other can authorize them 9. The Council of Chalcedon saith expresly that it 's being the Imperial Seat caused Rome to have the Primacy by the Father's Gift 10. The whole Greek Church never believed that Christ made any Universal Soveraign For 1. Else they would never have contended for the Primacy at Constantinople nor for the second place For they knew that was no Apostolical Seat nor did they claim it as by Christs institution and they were not so impudent as to set up a Human Right before a Divine 2. And even they never claimed a Soveraignty over the Extra Imperial Christian World but only over the Churches of the Empire and those that had been the Emperor's Subjects 11. The Fathers and Primitive Church and Tradition are all against the Pope's Universal Government without the Empire as I have elsewhere proved 12. The Catholick Church is now against such a Soveraign even the far greatest part of Christians And it never acknowledged him or united in him in any Age. 13. There is less reason for one Church Monarch over all the World than for one Civil Monarch as shall be further proved which yet no Man hath the face to plead for 14. This Papal Claim hath no just pretence There is no work or use for any such Power of which more anon Let not Magistrates or Pastors be robbed of their right and there will no Governing Work be left for the Pope 15. It is an unsufferable Usurpation of the Power of all Christian Princes who are entrusted with the Exteriors and Accidentals of the Church and a wrong to them and their Kingdoms to subject them to Foreigners The Pope of old was a Subject to one Prince And for one Princes Subject to Rule all other Princes of the Earth is in effect to make that Prince the Ruler of them all 16. A humane Usurping Head maketh an human adulterous
Bromhal saith that God doth it by the Law of Nature enabling Men to do it and to deny this is to overthrow all Government I answer 1. We know of no such Law of Nature nor that he is a Credible Expositor of it We take the Law of Nature on the Reasons before and after mentioned to be plainly against the very being of such Councils and especially against such trusting our Religion with them and supposing them to be the Governors of all the Christian Princes and People on Earth 2. What Men be they that have given these Patriarchs this Power If Men dead 1300. years ago they have no Authority now Dead Men have no ruling Power The Laws of the Land bind us not now by any power that the Dead Kings and Parliaments have over us But though made by them they bind us now only as the Laws of our present Governours By the Constitution the Successive Kings are still by consent to make them Their Laws till by consent of King and Parliament they are Dissolved Unless some present power over us make them Their Laws no old Church Canons can bind us 3. If they say that God binds us to stand to what our Ancestors did I want the proof of that If we will have the benefit of our Ancestors Contract we must stand to them else we may choose A Father cannot bind his Child to his hurt but only to his Benefit Let them prove the Obligation 4. But we deny that any made those Patriarchs who would have had any power over us had we been then alive The Subjects of one Prince made them in his Empire and he Confirmed them But neither that Prince nor his Subjects were our Rulers here what if the King or Convocation make Canterbury and York Metropolitans Doth it follow that they have Church-power over other Lands 5. These Patriarchs had never the Government of any given them by the old Councils but within the Empire And after of some Volunteers that for Advantage chose it 6. Who be these Patriarchs they talk of Are they not all turned into Names and Shadows Condemning one another and must these five fighting Shadows Represent and Rule the Christian World 7. To return to the twelve Apostles is Impertinent The Apostles were prime Ministers and more Represented Christ than the Church The Church chose them not Christ made them Foundations Bases and Pillars in his Church but not Representatives of it And if he had they chose none to Succeed them as Apostles But as ordinary Ministers all Ministers Succeed them and as Superior Ministers some say Bishops Bellarmine confesseth and proveth that the Apostles as such have no Successors and that the Pope Succeedeth not Peter as an Apostle but as he Dreams as an ordinary Supream Pastor Had the Apostles setled twelve or thirteen Successors or appointed any Churches to be Rulers of the rest we must have obeyed these Rulers But who have called them a General Council None but Rome Antioch and Alexandria claimed Succession from the Apostles and all these claimed it but from one Apostle Peter Rome and Antioch as his pretended Seats and Alexandria that he set St. Mark over them sure the Apostles rose not from the dead to make Constantinople and Jerusalem Patriarchates And if they had four of the five Patriarchs are all now Subjects to the Turk And experience telling us what Power Princes have in the Choice and Ruling of the Clergy All this doth but say that the Turk is the Chief Governour of the Religion and Consciences of all the Christian World If they plead for new Power to make Patriarchs let them prove who hath that Power over all the World and how they came by it and how they now use it Will all the Christian World who fear the guilt of obeying Usurpers and disobeying Christians ever unite in the obedience of Patriarchs who cannot be known by the wisest much less by all to have any Authority to command them LII The Pope hath done much of his mischiefs to the Church and World by the Councils of Bishops They have been his Army and he their General Without them he could have done little or nothing By them the most of Church Corruptions have been made Laws By them Emperors have been deposed Rebellions maintained the Pope enabled to give away their Kingdoms absolve Subjects from their Oaths to make it a Heresie called Henrician to be Loyal to dig dead Bishops out of their graves as Hereticks that were for Loyalty Yea the Councils of Bishops without if not against the Pope deposed the good Ludovicus Pius and have done much to the corruption and confusion of the Churches as I have elsewhere proved LIII General Councils are not the authorized or lawful Supreme Government of the Universal Church nor have an Universal Legislative or Judiciary Power This many Protestants and after all Dr. Barrow have unanswerably proved Arg. 1. If there never was nor must be nor can be a true Universal Council then such a Council is not the Churches Supreme Governour But the antecedent I have before proved Arg. 2. That Government which the Church was without for three hundred years is not the just Supreme Government of the Universal Church For the Church is not the Church without its Supreme Government But the Church was without a General Council at least for three hundred years Arg. 3. That Government which rarely existeth and hath not existed near an hundred years or as some of our Adversaries say a thousand is not the Supreme Government of the Church For then the Church would be dead and no Church in all that time of vacancy for the Species depends on the Supreme Government But the Church hath so rarely had that which our present Adversaries themselves take for a true General Council If the Council of Trent were any they have had none since Yea Bishop Guning owneth but the six first Councils called General And if there were none since then the Church hath had no Supreme Council just a thousand years And was it this thousand years no Church or of another Species Or can the Church be a thousand years without its Supreme Government Arg. 4. If General Councils be the Supreme Legislative Power then the Church hath had no such Councils-Laws for all the foresaid vacancies 300 years first and since 601 a thousand years after But the Adversaries will not allow the consequent that all the Canons of General Councils were no Laws so long But the antecedent is proved from the definition of Laws which are the signification of the Soveraigns Will to be the Rule of the Subjects Right actions and dues There is no Law which is not the Rulers Law and if the Ruler be dead the Law is dead For a dead man hath neither Authority nor Will. Obj. Our Laws die not with the King nor at the dissolution of Parliaments Ans. 1. The Law saith Rex non moritur As soon as he is dead the next Heir
Who knoweth how many must come to make it a General Council § 9. Against what I have proved against Johnson alias Terret that Councils were General but as to the Orbis Romanus as National I never heard but one Objection regardable and that is out of Tâ—rrians or Pisanus Arabick Canons of the Council of Nice which place Ethiopia under Alexandria But 1. Dr. Beveridge and many others have told us how little credit is to be given to those Canons lately vended by ignorant unlearned Men. And is it credible that all the Eastern and Western Churches should be ignorant of them 2. Ludolphus in his new Ethiopick History labours to prove that the first planting of Religion in Habassia was by Frumentius and Edesius and that the old Writers mistook Habassia for India And if so Habassia could haâ—â— no Bishop at Nice and certainly had none there nor any to be subject to Alexandria save Frumentius whom Athanasius ordained and so by a voluntary Submission depended on him as a Child on his Father But whereas Ludolphus thinks Christianity was not in Habassia till Frumentius days because they had no Bishops or Pastors before I answer 1. His Conjecture that it was Habassia that Frumentius went to and is called India is uncertain 2. He confesseth the Ethiopick Tradition is that Christianity was there before 3. And it is not improbable that both agree viz. That the Eunuch Act. 8. brought Christianity thither but being a Lay man ordained no Pastors and so they had none before Frumentius 4. But whoever well considers the whole History of the Southern and Eastern Churches may easily discern that Habassia was never subject before to the Imperial Alexandria but began their subjection voluntarily to Dioscorus who had been Patriarch of Alexandria after he was Banished § 10. It is a dreadful Judgment of God that the Understandings of Learned men should be so far forsaken as to make the Major part of the Christian World not only the Pattern but the Law-givers to the rest renouncing hereby the common Experience of Mankind It is God's great Mercy that all Christians agree in the Essentials of Christianity else they were not Christians In Christianity we are united to them all But 1. Even among the Heathens few were Philosophers And among the Philosophers few sound and few of one Mind And others as well as Seneca said A wise man must be content with few Approvers The Multitude will not understaâ—â— 2. Even Nature maketh but few Men of strong Wits 3. Education giveth few Men the advantage of sound teaching and great helps and leisure 4. Few Men have patience to hold on in hard Studies till they digest the truth 5. Few Men escape the snares of Temptations to byass them to some corrupt opinions or way 6. Few Men escape the fleshly worldly inclination which ever followeth worldly interest 7. He would be thought no Wise Man himself who would refer a Controversie about the Translation of a Hebrew or Greek Text or a difficulty in Divinity Philosophy Astronomy Criticism c. to the Major Vote of the University or Ministers of England or Drs. either K. James had more wit than to make the Majority of the Clergy the Judges of his Translation of the Bible 8. We see among Godly Persons what various degrees of Knowledge and Virtue and consequently different Opinions there be 9. It 's actually known that most of the Churches and Clergy in the World are very ignorant and erroneous The Abassines Copthies Syrians Armenians Georgians Circassians Mengrelians Greeks Moscovites generally unlearned Ignorant men The multitude of the Parish Priests among the Papists are so And too many among the Protestants If King James had not chosen Six extraordinary men for the Synod of Dort there had been worse work there than was And must we condemn God's Law of Insufficiency to be the Universal Law that we may come under the Universal Legislation of such men as these Should we not rather pity and pray for the Ignorant erroneous Majority of Churches and study how the few that are wiser may help them into a clearer light And how should it be otherwise who chooseth the Clergy In a great Part of the Churches the Turk who is their Enemy chooseth them or as bad He receiveth into the Patriarchates of Constantinople Alexandria Antioch and Jerusalem unlearned Fellows that give most Money and they dare not displease him And all the Bishops of his Dominions in the entrance and exercise of their Office accordingly are liable to corruption by servile dependance on the Infidels In Moscovy and other Countries ignorant and barbarous or tyrannical Rulers choose them Among Papists and Protestants the Pope and Princes choose the Bishops and Lay-Patrons choose the Priests for the most part § 11. To Unite in Sin as the necessary terms of Universal Concord is foolish and sinful But to Unite in all that is held by the greater part of Christians is to Unite in much Sin Ergo § 12. It is only Vniversal Laws which are the Rule of necessary Vniversal Concord But it is only Christ's own Laws Proclaimed and Recorded by the Spirit in his Apostles and Evangelists which are Vniversal Laws Ergo it is only Christs own Laws which are the Rule of necessary Vniversal Concord I challenge all the Church Usurpers in the World to answer this Argument better than by deceiving words The Major is grounded on the natural Notice of Mankind It is Duty only which we speak of Duty is made Duty by a Law or Command of Authority Universal Duty must be made such by an Universal Law The Minor is thus proved No Universal Law can be made but by a rightful Vniversal Law-maker But there is no rightful Vniversal Law-maker but Christ Ergo no Vniversal Law can be made but by Christ. The Major is undeniable The Minor is thus proved 1. None can be a rightful Universal Law-maker but such as hath a rightful Vniversal Power of Government and that in Soveraignty For Legislation is the first and chief part of Soveraignty But none but Christ hath a rightful Universal Power of Government or Soveraignty Ergo Minor None can be a rightful Universal Governor or Law-maker to whom God never gave such Power But God never gave such Power to any but Christ Ergo c. None can be a rightful Universal Law-giver and Governor who is naturally uncapable of it But all on Earth are naturally uncapable of it Ergo c. If there be any rightful Universal Governor on Earth it is either a Pope or some Patriarchs or a General Council or the Pastors of all the Church on Earth diffused But it 's none of these Four as I have oft proved and am ashamed to repeat Chap. 4. The Deceits that are Pleaded for an Vniversal Humane Soveraignty § 1. THE great means by which the Popish Clergy have been themselves deceived and then deceived much of the Christian World are especially these following I. By a false Notion
of the Vnity of the Catholick Church As if it were Vnified by One Humane Political Soveraignty Monarchical or Aristocratical Pope or Universal Council which hath Power of Governing all Christians on Earth by Universal Legislation and Judicature and not only by Christ who indeed is its only Universal Governour II. By extolling Monarchy as the best means of Unity and so inferring the Papal Monarchy so did Carolus Boverius to our late King Charles in Spain As if Princes were so weak as not to distinguish a National and a Vniversal Monarchy Let them try this Argument with any Papist King on Earth Monarchy is the best Government Ergo there should be One Monarch of all the Earth whose Subject you and all other Kings must be and see whether they will be so fooled into Subjection III. By dreaming of such a difference between Civil Government and Church Government that though no man in his wits pleads for one Humane King or Senate to Govern the whole Earth by the Sword yet it is our Religion to be for and under One Soveraign Church Governour Pope or Senate of all the Earth whereas he is unfit to Govern one Church who knoweth not that It is more impossible for the whole Earth to be Governed by One Church Soveraign Pope or Council than by one King or Parliament by the Sword IV. By confounding the Universal Roman Empire and Church and the Vniversal World and dreaming that what is said of the first was said of the last and when the Church is called Catholick or Universal and Councils General only as to the Roman Empire they would perswade men that it 's meant of all the World V. By pleading that Possession which Pope and Patriarchs and Councils had in the Empire as if it obliged the same Countries to them when they are fallen under other Princes And by pleading to the same Ends all the Possession which Popes or Patriarchs or Councils have got by deceiving any Nations of the World VI. By mistaking the Nature and Extent of the Pastoral Office because as every Christian so every Pastor is related to the Universal Church therefore they gather that there is one College or Council consisting of all Bishops in the World the Pope being President who as an Aristocracy must soveraignly Govern all the Christian World by Legislation and Judgment As if because Physicions are Licensed to Practice any where in the Land as they are called therefore they might gather into a General Council and Command all the Land to obey them as Law givers in all Matters of Health and Physick and might invade the Hospitals at their pleasure And so all the Churches and Church Affairs on Earth must be governed by Priests of Foreign Lands VII By first mistaking and then falsly claiming Apostolical Power Because Christ chose a few whom he first personally taught his Will and then endowed with the Gift of Infallibility by his Spirit to Preach first and Record after his Doctrine and Laws to oblige all the World therefore they pretend that ordinary Bishops who had no such Spirit Office or Commission may also make Laws to bind all the World And when every single Apostle had this Office Power and Spirit but they yet a while lived together at Jerusalem till their dispersion they pretend that at Jerusalem they were a General Council and that all Bishops therefore may Govern as a General Council whereas the Apostles Mission was Indefinite and not Universal else they had sinned in not going into all the World And it was easie to Guide the Universal Church while it was almost all at Jerusalem or near them And their Office as to Legislation differeth from common Pastors as Moses the Legislator's did from the Priests who were but to govern by his Laws and not to make more VIII By pretending a necessity of Judging and Ending Controversies and therefore of having one deciding Judge or Judicature for all the World As if any would be so mad as ever to expect that all Controversies about the Mysteries of Supernatural Revelation and the unseen World should be ended in this Life As if Ignorance would be without Errour And is he a Man that knoweth not how little it is that the wisest know and how much Ignorance all Mankind is guilty of Have these Pretenders yet ended Controversies Are there not many Horse-Loads of Volumes of Controversies among themselves Have they yet written any Infallible or Determining Commentary on the Bible Did not St. Paul write Rom. 14. 15 c. for bearing with tolerable Differences Is it not the Great Wisdom and Mercy of God to lay mens Salvation upon a few plain things though a multitude besides remain as Controversies Christ will decide them all at the Great approaching Judgment And is there any on Earth that can decide them all that hath either so great Knowledge or so Universal a decisive Power Why is the Christian World these Thousand or Twelve hundred Years divided into Greeks Armenians Nestorians Jacobites Papists Protestants c. if there be a Humane Judicature to End all Controversies And are such Popes as reigned from a Thousand to Fifteen hundred and such Bishops as made up their Councils Men of Ignorance and Vice fit to end all Controversies on Earth IX In order to these Ends they make a great cry of the Sects and Divisions which are among Protestants to draw men that love Unity to come for it to the Church of Rome And first they impudently falsifie the History of the Matter of Fact and perswade Men that the Differences among Protestants are ten times greater than they are They have thus pleaded it to my face when I had a Pastoral Charge at Kidderminster where we were all of one Religion and lived in love and Peace and had not one separating Assembly in a great Town and Parish And where to this day they live in Piety Love and Peace and I hear not of one person that for any difference breaketh this bond of brotherly love and liveth in any opposition to the rest Yet Strangers are told that we are mad in religious Sects and Strife Indeed zealous people that account all the Matters of the World but trifles in Comparison of things everlasting do make a greater Matter of them than men of no Religion do If among them one or two turn to any dangerous Sect or Course it stirs up much censure and opposition when in undisciplined Churches corrupted like the common World multitudes in a Parish may abstain from Sacraments and in Coffee-Houses or at Visits familiarly talk against the Immortality of the Soul and against the Scripture and all serious Religion and it maketh no great noise An Act of Fornication once in many Years among chast religious persons is a Scandal scarce ever to be expiated when among known Stews it 's little talkt of Weeds are not suffered in a Garden But in the Commons who pulls them up And what wonder if they strive most about
Clergy-man or may invest any XXXIX An. 1094. A Council at Constance decree against Married Priests XL. An. 1095. A Council at Clermont command that no Bishop or Priest make any Promise of Allegiance to a King or any Lay-man And that every Lay-labourer abate or pay the Tenth of his Wages to the Clergy XLI About 1100. a Council decreed that all Bishops of the Henrician Heresie for Loyalty be deposed and if dead dig'd up and burnt XLII An. 1108. A Council at Benevent decree that if any take a Benefice from a Lay-man's Presentation the Giver and Taker shall be Excommunicate XLIII An. 1180. A General Council as they call it at Laterane under Alexander the 3d called the Eleventh General Council condemning those whom they call Catharoi Puritans absolve Inferiours from all Duty and Fidelity to them and promise Indulgence to those that fight against them XLIV An. 1215. was the great Fourth Laterane General Council under Pope Innocent 3d. which obligeth Princes to exterminate all that are against Transubstantiation c. and else deposeth excommunicateth and damneth them Thus you see what must be the Protestant Religion when our present Church of England is United with the Roman Obj. Some of these were but Provincial Councils Ans. And are you not in England for obeying Provincial Councils I 'le then omit transcribing Spelman's Chap. IX Whether the Instance of the Apostles Church Government prove an Vniversal Soveraignty in the Bishops further considered § 1. THE pretence of all the Bishops in the World to the Government of all the Church on Earth as one Aristocratical Senate College or Court is so monstrous a fiction that were it not for that shadow of an Argument which they fetch from the instance of the Apostles and their pretended Succession I should think it would expose the pretenders to be taken for distracted men And therefore whether this instance will prove them in their wits let us further try § 2. The Apostles Commission is contained in Matth. 28.18 19 20. All power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and loe I am with you alwaies even unto the end of the World Here 1. Christ's proper Universal Power is both the cause of their Commission and the matter which they must Preach 2. Their appointed work is 1. To make Nations Christ's Disciples 1. By Teaching 2. By Baptizing them 2. To Teach them when they are Disciples That which they must teach them when they are Disciples is To observe all Christ's Commands These Laws or Commands are but what Christ himself commanded these Disciples To the performance of this Commission he promised them to give them the Holy Spirit to bring all things to their remembrance and to lead them into all Truth and to be with them even to the end The Spirit thus eminently given for this special work was Christ's promised Substitute or as Tertullian calls him his Vacarius and Agent so that what the Spirit so commanded Christ commanded Christ's Commission to them contained much proper to themselves viz. By this extraordinary help of the Spirit to Remember what Christ had commanded them and what they had seen him do and to deliver it with special Power and seal it with special Gifts and Miracles and to Record it Sufficiently and Infallibly as his History Doctrine and Law for the use of the whole World unto the end And so he was with them to the end of their Age and is with their recorded Word to the end of the World And his Commission contained much common to others that is To Preach the same Christ and gather Disciples and Baptize them and to teach the Disciples all those Commands which Christ had delivered to his Apostles by his Mouth or Spirit And with these also in this Work Christ will be to the end of the World § 3. Here we must first consider what was the Apostles Power and Work 2. And then whether all Bishops have the same 3. And what the extent of their Work was when they are sent to all Nations or all the World § 4. 1. It is plain that All Power is not theirs but Christs They are but his Ministers 2. They are not Authorized to be Legislators themselves so as to make any Universal Law as their own But only to be Teachers of the Laws of Christ even such only as they received from him Accordingly they never made any Universal Law as their own But only told the World what Christ Commanded by his Word and Spirit 3. They were not made an Aristocratical College to do this by the authority of a Major Vote For as the same Spirit of Truth was given to every one of them singly so singly they were herein as Infallible as altogether 4. Accordingly they Preached abroad the World the same Gospel by the same Infallible Spirit Paul did not so much as speak or consult with any Apostles before he Preached as receiving his Gospel not from Man but from God Gal. 1. and 2. 5. The Universal Laws Promulgate by them are the matter of the several Books of the New Testament And there is not one of all these written in the Name of the College or Senate of the Apostles but every one of them by that single person whose name they bear or imply If Christs Law had been to have been made or delivered by the authority of a College as such some one of the Gospels or Epistles would have been so written 6. Yet while they abode together at Jerusalem no doubt they lived in Concord and held the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and believed and spake the same things And so they did when they were dispersed abroad the World And no doubt but their consent was more useful to convince others that they spake Truth than themselves who otherwise knew it 7. In cases not revealed by the Spirit they had the same use for consulting and reasoning the case and learning of others as all other men In this case reasoning was to help them to know But in case of Inspiration Reasoning did but express and exercise their Knowledg 8. As that Act. 15. was no more a General Council than the other Sacred Converse of the Apostles till they dispersed themselves so in their determination they lay it upon the Holy Ghost And Paul and Barnabas had before by the same Spirit accordingly determined But because they were not of the men that had received their knowledge from Christs own works and mouth in converse with him on Earth no wonder if the Jewish Christians desired fuller satisfaction § 5. II. From hence it is apparent 1. That ordinary Pastors or Bishops who have not the same Commission nor the same Inspiration or promise of it nor the same gift of Tongues and Miracles to
confirm their Doctrine have none of the extraordinary Apostolical work to do The Commands which Christ gave his Apostles to teach the World are already told us and recorded by the Apostles They left not part of that work undone for others after them to do If they had how could the Bishops have known but from the Apostles themselves what Christ Commanded And what means have they to know it but what all other men have The Scripture now added to the Law of Nature containeth all that can pretend to be an Universal Law For no Law but of a Universal Lawgiver can be Universal And if all Bishops pretend to Apostolick Inspiration they must prove it by Miracles or pass for Fanaticks And methinks those among us who deride even the pretence of Praying by the Spirit when it meaneth no Enthusiasm but the illuminating quickning and sanctifying influx of the Spirit should hardly believe that all or most of the ignorant and erroneous Bishops of the World have Apostolick Inspiration If they have are not their Decrees and Writings God 's Word and equal to the Scriptures God's Law is not so imperfect a thing nor Christ so imperfect a Law-giver as that more and more must be added to it and no man can tell by whom nor when it will be perfect Nothing unnecessary is fit for an Universal Law And all that is Universally necessary Christ hath done already An Universal Law-giver is a Christ If a false pretender he is a false Christ. But all Pastors are Successors to the Apostles as ordinary Ministers in that ordinary part of their work viz. To Preach Christ and make and baptize Disciples and teach them to observe all that Christ commanded the Apostles as Official Guides of their several Flocks And to do this in order decently and to edification And being the Church-Guides it is their Office to judge of their own acts that is when where in what words to Preach and Pray and whom to Baptize and to whom to deliver the Sacraments of Communion c. § 6. III. But the next doubt is of the extent of the Apostles Office and next of the Bishops and ordinary Pastors And 1. It is evident that what the Apostles did in delivering Christ's Commands in writing in the Scriptures though at first and most immediately it was for the use of particular Persons and Churches yet was intended for all the Christian World as being the Word of the Universal Bishop and King 2. But their Personal Vocal Preaching was confined by natural necessity Their Mandate or Commission was but indefinite or limitedly universal Christ never bound them to go to every Nation or Person in the World else how greatly had they sinned They went not into the fourth part of the Earth And in those parts not to one person of many hundred or thousands Yet their Commission had no positive prohibition restraining them from any one place or person But Natural Incapacity restrained them They were to go as far as they could and speak to as many in the World as they could And this Mandate was given to each one nor do we read that ever they went abroad all twelve together nor ever met when dispersed to consult nor ever judged any cause or persons as a College after It was easie for them to meet when they dwelt together and easie to govern all Christians when they were all before them or at hand And easie to record Christ's Laws and Doctrine by which all must be governed to the end being thereunto inspired by his Spirit But as the Church grew greater they increased the number of Pastors but gave them no Universal Soveraignty § 7. And now what pretence can ordinary Ministers or Bishops have for Universality of Soveraignty Legislation and Judgment in an Aristocratical Senate or Council If they were Apostles they must but teach men to observe all Christ's Commands They may do their proper work as far as they have capacity and ability If they can Preach at the Antipodes we shall pray for their success But sure they will not do it as a Senate or Church Parliament To leave them no excuse Christ hath left no Universal Legislation or Judgment to do The continuance of the Question so oft answered How shall Controversies be ended And who shall Judge When they never attempt to confute our answer sheweth that they are so full of themselves that they have not room for the plainest Truth that comes from others Judgment of Controversies is Private or Publick that is either Private Mens Discerning Judgment or Governors Deciding Judgment The Private is either that of each single person for himself and this is every mans as he is a Rational Moral Agent who cannot do his Duty undiscerned or it is for the guidance of Charity to others And that is either the Judgment of an Arbitrator or of a private Instructer or Reprover Hitherto there is no difficulty who shall Judge Publick Judgment supposeth a forum Tribunal and a Ruling Judge And every one is Judge in proprio foro in his own Court The Magistrates in their several Degrees are Judges in their several Courts who shall suffer or be Protected by them And the Pastors in their several Churches who shall be Baptized and used as of their Communion and who not But there is no Vniversal forum or Court to judge all the World but Christs None out of this Kingdom are publick Judges of King or Subjects Other Princes and Prelates all over the World have a judicium privatum whether they will take our King and Kingdom for Christians and Communicate with them or not and such a judgment have we towards any other Nation But a Ruling Publick Judgment none hath out of the Kingdom Civil or Ecclesiastick All Controversies shall be ended by Christ at last It 's Madness to think of ending all till then so that there is no Judgment but Christ's that is Vniversal and Final for the ending of Controversies or deciding any Cause by Government And were there nothing but a double incapacity 1. NATURAL and 2. POLITICAL or Accidental by the restraint of the Princes of the Earth I have oft shewed here that a Dream of an Universal Soveraign Council or Senate yea or Pope is utterly irrational § 8. But if the Apostolick Succession prove not such a Soveraignty will not the Antient General Councils do it No I have oft enough proved that General Councils were but General in the Empire While they kept sober and humble they never claimed more Nor was there any on Earth that had power to call them out of all the World And when they claimed more they broke the Church and by Usurpation brought on Desolation There is neither Scripture nor reason nor obliging example for extending the Ecclesiastick jurisdiction beyond the Civil but much of all these against it § 9. And what man can think that a claim is the proof of a title in those Councils which began to transgress the
3. Did not Christ that sent out his Preachers by two and two and bid them shake off the dust of their feet as a Witness against those that did not receive them expect that they should be received and believed without the Authority of a Council Q. 4. Did Christ or his Apostles ever institute a General Council or Unifying College of Bishops to be the standing Aristocratical Government of all the Universal Church as one Q. 5. Would not this have been plainly done if the certainty of Scripture and Salvation and the Churches Unity had been founded on it Q. 6. If thousands were then made Christians without the knowledge of Councils or College may they not be so now Q. 7. Was the Church no Church or ungoverned for the first 300 years when there was no General Council Q. 8. And were not Christians all that while sure that the Scripture was true And were they not of the same Faith as now Q. 9. Was it not Constantine that called the first General Council at Nice and had he any Authority to call any but his Subjects Q. 10. Do not the Subscriptions of the Antient Councils shew that they were General only as to the Roman Empire and not to all the World Q. 11. How shall we be sure that the Council of one Nation or Empire is Ruler of all the other Kingdoms of the World Q. 12. When Councils of equal number and called by equal Authority of Emperors condemned one another in the days of Constantius Valens Valentinian Gratian Arcadius and Honorius Theodosius senior and junior Martian Zeno Basiliscus Leo Philippicus Anastasius Justinian c. how were all men and women sure which was of Conciliar Power and which not As to their faulty carriage each accused other Q. 13. Seeing so many then erred and are called Hereticks at this day as the Councils of Tyre Ephes. 2. Arimin Sirmium Milane Constantinople Alexandria Antioch Jerusalem Rome c. how shall we now be sure which err not Q. 14. If we must believe Scripture on the credit of Councils must we not also believe which Councils are true upon the credit of Councils And if so is it on the Authority of that same Council or another If of the same then must every Council even the Heretical be so believed or which and how known If of another must the Church suspend its belief of one Council till anoâ—her is called to attest it And on what account is that other to be believed And what if the later condemn the former and the next condemn that as Florence and Pisa Constance and Basil Q. 15. Is it all the Council agreeing or the major Vote against the rest that hath the credit or authority aforesaid Q. 16. How shall we be sure that the minor part are not in the right Q. 17. How shall all the distant World be sure the Votes were truly taken Q. 18. Why was the major Vote counted invalid if the Patriarchs were against it And are those Patriarchs of Divine Authority infallible Q. 19. What if one or two Votes turn the scales for a majority and what if afterward more come in on the other side and turn it back the other way as the Constantinopol Council did in Nazianzens case are both the sides infallible or authoritative So at Eph. 1. Q. 20. Who must call a valid Council What if the Pope call one and the Patriarch of Alexandria another and the Emperor another which is valid Q. 21. Is the Church no Church in the long intervals of Councils Q. 22. If it be where is the Visible Constitutive Supremacy or Power If in the Patriarchs and Metropolitans they are divided and account each other sometime Hereticks and sometime Schismaticks Q. 23. Who hath Authority to make Patriarchs now or Metropolitans for all the Christian World Q. 24. Must we now obey the major part of the old Patriarchal Seats Q. 25. If it be in all the Bishops of the Earth 1. Who shall go to them all over the World with all our Church cases 2. Who shall judge which of them are Hereticks while they hereticate each other 3. Who shall assure us that their Votes are truly gathered 4. Who shall bring them from all over the Earth to the person to be judged 5. Can they judge truly without hearing the accused and their witnesses 6. Where at this day may we find their Decrees by which they Rule except in Councils Q. 26. Must a General Council or this College consist of all the Bishops of the World or but of part Q. 27. If of all is such a Council possible or lawful Q. 28. If of part who shall chuse them And seeing undoubted experience tells us that most of the Clergy every where in such cases obey the Power that hath the Sword whether the choice that is made in the Turks Empire will not be made by the Turk and in other Kingdoms of Heathens Infidels Papists Hereticks by their several Kings and Magistrates And can we be sure such are infallible Q. 29. If the Empire of Abassia have but one Bishop the Abuna shall that Empire have but one Vote in Councils and be ruled by the rest And is it not certain that those next the Antipodes and remotest Kingdoms can send but few and must they therefore be ruled by those near the place who will be many Q. 30 Yea is it not wickedness or madness to attempt to call aged Bishops or any from all the Christian World to displease prohibiting Princes to hazard their lives in travel many years to forsake their Flocks so long and by differing Languages not able to understand each other nor like to live long enough to bring home the Decrees when perhaps they must sit so many years in Council as they did at Trent wearing out the lives of many Popes And what is the necessity of all this Q. 31. If those few that are sent do that which the rest at home dissent from is it valid e. g. King James chose Six to go to the Synod at Dort and most then consented and most now dissent The Parliament chose a Synod of one Mind and the King by his Clergy one of another And how shall we know that the Churches own the Acts of their Delegates and dissent not as the Greeks did after the Council of Florence Can all Men and Women rest on things no better known to them Q. 32. Seeing that it is notorious that the Bishops of almost all the Christian World except part of Europe are very unlearned ignorant Men Armenians Georgians Iberians Mengrelians most of the Greeks Moscovites and the numerous Easterns called Nestorians and Jacobites and Copties c. and abundance of the Papists also in Europe How shall we be sure that so many Ignorant Men and too vicious will do the work of Wise or Infallible Judges of the Christian World if they do but meet together in Council much less as scattered and called a College Must not this
be by an undeniable Miraclâ— And hath God promised to Govern his Church by constant Miracles yea as many Miracles as there be ignorant and wicked Bishops and that through all Generations Q. 33. Doth it not require great Knowledge of History to be sure what Councils there have been and which were Orthodox and which Heretical which valid and which invalid and what they did and which side had the Major Vote And is all this Historical Knowledge necessary to Salvation in Learned and Unlearned Q. 34. Yea Is there one Priest of many that hath such certainty of such History of Councils when Writers so much disagree Q. 35. Seeing Historians are but like other men and all men are lyars or untrusty and it 's notorious that Ignorance Faction Temerity and Partiality if not Malignity hath filled the World with so much false History that except in Matters of Publick uncontradicted Evidence no man well knoweth what to believe How shall all Christians lay their Salvation on so great knowledge of History as is necessary to certainty herein Q. 36. If the belief of Councils or the College of Bishops as wide as the World be fundamentally necessary to Duty Unity or Salvation Is it not necessary that all know what are their Decrees and Laws And how can they know this when Councils and Decrees are so Voluminous and few Priests know them and when the World is yet disagreed what Canons or Laws are obligatory and what not But they contradict and condemn each others Laws Q. 37. If a Lay-man should know but one part of the Councils Decrees about Faith or Obedience will such a defective half Faith and Obedience save him or must he know all Q. 38. If you say that all this Historical Knowledge is not necessary to the Laity but they must believe herein the Priests or Bishop that is over them 1. How is this then a belief of Councils 2. What shall the poor People do that one of many hundred of them never see their Bishop much less ever spake with him 3. And are their Priests infallible herein or not Q. 39. Doth not this by the deceitful noise of the Catholick Church and Councils and a College of Bishops make every Parish Priest's word the very Foundation into which all mens Faith must be resolved And he that saith I believe the Scripture because the Church and Councils propose it or attest it and I believe that the Church and Council say it because the Priest saith it Doth he not say as much as I believe the Scripture Church and Councils upon the bare word of the Priest Q. 40. Is it not hard for the People that know their Priests to be sottish ignorant prophane drunken malicious men to lay all their Salvation on a supposed certainty that these Priests say true Q. 41. If the Parishioners know also that their Priests never read the Councils and confess that he is ignorant of them and know him also to be a common lyar Can they certainly believe the Scripture and the Councils and the Matters of Faith and duty contained in both upon the word of such a Priest Q. 42. Can they that are unlearned and never see a Bishop tell whether the Parish Priest and the Bishop say the same Or whether their Bishop be of the same Mind with the other Bishops and whether the Bishops e. g. of England be of the same Mind with the Bishops of France Spain Italy Germany Denmark Sweden c. and they of the same Mind with the Greeks c. Q. 43. Is it a Divine Faith that is resolved thus into the meer belief of Man yea of an Ignorant Priest or Prelate or but a Humane Q. 44. If we and all men had no other certainty of the Scripture but the word of such a Priest or the Decree of a Council would it be more or less certain to us than now it is Q. 45. Have none of all those Christians a true Divine Faith who are converted by Protestant Preachers who teach them to believe the Scripture upon other Evidence than a Councils word Q. 46. By what Evidence doth a Council know the Scripture to be God's Word Is it only by the Testimony of a former Council If so How did that former Council know it and so the first Council that had none before to testifie it And what use is there for the assertion of the later Council when it 's done already by a former Q. 47. Why doth not one Council determine of all that is necessary to Salvation but leave it still undone But if it be done must new ones be called to the end of the World to say the same thing over again and do that which others had done before them Q. 48. Is not the Law the Rule of Duty and Judgment and must all Christians be Judged at last by the Bishops Canon Law And seeing Sin is a Transgression of the Law and it 's harder to obey a Thousand Laws than a few Are not they the most Mortal Enemies to Christians who make them so many Laws and make Salvation so hard a work Q. 49. Seeing Christ was above three Years teaching his Apostles before he died and after his Resurrection was seen of them fourty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God and being assembled together with them commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but wait for the Promise of the Father even the Spirit to lead them into all truth and bring all things to their remembrance and their Commission was to teach all Christians to observe whatever Christ commanded Act. 1.3 4. Math. 28.19 20. is it to be believed that yet Christ by himself and his Spirit in these Apostles did not make all the Laws that are Divine and enow for the Universal Church to observe as necessary to Salvation and Universal Concord Q. 50. Is it not enough to Salvation and Church Concord for all the Pastors of the Churches to agree 1. In preserving these Laws and Doctrines of Christ 2. And to teach the People to know and obey them 3. And to defend them against Adversaries and 4. To make them the rule of their Communion by the exercise of the Keys 5. And by their own Authority to determine of variable Circumstances of Worship such as the Place of meeting the time the translation the subject for the day c. Is there besides all this a necessity of Universal Laws for the Salvation and Concord of Believers and of a standing Soveraign Power in Priests Prelates or Patriarchs or Pope to make such Laws Q. 51. Have we not better assurance that the foresaid Apostles taught by Christ and inspired by the Holy Ghost had Authority and Infallibility for this work than we can have that Pope Patriarchs Prelates or Priests have it Q. 52. When some English Prelates and Priests tell us that he is a Schismatick that obeyeth not the Universal Church and that Schism is a damning Sin do they not
Preach meer desperation to all that have not more knowledge than I have who cannot possibly find out a Governing Universal Church nor its Laws though I would willingly find it and obey it Q. 53. Do they not Preach common desperation who say that Schism is a damnable Sin and he is in that guilt who suffers himself to be Excommunicated by Prelates for not obeying them in any unsinful condition of Communion as H. Dodwell speaketh Do not such Carnifices animarum make it necessary to Salvation to know all the unsinful things in the World which a Prelate may impose to be unsinful And is any man on Earth so Skilful How many indifferent things are there which the wisest man may doubt whether they be indifferent Of old it was thought enough to know the few things which God made necessary and now these Tormenting Uniters make it necessary to know the multitude of things indifferent to be such Q. 54. Must we needs know what sense perceiveth by the credit of a General Council or all the Bishops of the World As whether I see the Light or Colours What taste my Meat hath c If not why may I not take Bread to be Bread and Wine to be Wine on the credit of my senses though the Bishops or Council say the contrary Q. 55. Must I have the Authority of a Council or College of Bishops to believe that there is a God and that he is most Great and Wise and Good most Holy Merciful True and Just or to know that there is a Life to come and the Soul Immortal or that men must not hate the Good and love the Evil as such nor live in Murther Theft Adultery Perjury c. Doth not the Law of Nature bind men without a Council of Prelates And can they null that Law by their pretended Soveraignty Q. 56. Must every man have the Sentence of a General Council or College as wide as the Christian World to satisfie him of the truth of Christianity before he is Baptized and made a Christian Q. 57. Must we know what the Council or spacious College saith before we believe the Creed Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments or did the ancient Christians receive them only on such Authority Did not every Baptizer expect a Profession of the Creed Q. 58. Was not the Bible received before there was a General Council Q. 59. Have not Councils differed about the Canonical Books of Scripture See Bishop Cousins of the Canon Compared with the Council of Trent Q. 60. Must we have new Councils to deliver us again the same Creed and Bible Q. 61. Is it not a reproaching of Christianity to tell the World that after 1691 Years it is not yet fully known what it is but we must have new Councils to tell it us and to make it up Q. 62. Did Councils only receive the old Apostles Creed when they made so many new ones or added so many Articles Q. 63. Was the Primitive Church of the same Species with the present Romish and Imposing Church when he was then a Christian who profest belief of the Creed as the Christian Symbol and to desire according to the Lord's Prayer and Practise according to Christ's Commands And now so many other things are made necessary hereto Q. 64. Do not those men deal falsely who subscribe the 39 Articles of the sufficiency of the Scripture as to all things necessary to Salvation and yet say that it 's necessary to Salvation to obey the Bishop of the place in all unsinful things and consequently to Believe them all to be unsinful Q. 65. Is it by the Divine Authority of a Council or Mundane College of Prelates that we know which are the true Writings of Ignatius Irenaeus Clemens R. Alex. Tertullian Cyprian Hierom Augustin c Or do their Critical Writers send us to the College or Council to know If not why may not the Canon of Scripture be known yea much better by meer Historical Tradition and inherent Evidence Q. 66. Is it not by History and not Church Power that we know what Popes have been at Rome what Councils have been called and what they decreed And may not the same way secure us of the Matter of Fact about the Scripture Q. 67. Hath any Council or College yet Decreed which are the true and current Copies of the Original of the Scripture and which of the various Lections are true If they had agreed but of the vulgar Latin would Sixtus 5th and Clemens 8th have Published Editions so vastly different If they never did it yet when will they do it Q. 68. Did ever Council or College determine which is the truest Translation Q. 69. Did ever Council or College give the Church a Commentary on the Bible Q. 70. Did they ever write a Decision of the multitudes of Controversies about the meaning of several Texts and the multitudes of Doctrines which are yet controverted among Papists themselves and all the World Q. 71. Is it a Satisfaction or a gross Cheat to tell us of a necessary Church Power to Expound Scripture and Judge of Controversies who yet will not do it but leave all unexpounded and undecided Q. 72. Was Gregory Nazianzen a Fool that spake so much of the hurt that Councils do and resolved never to go to more Q. 73. Can I know that Pope or Council have Authority given them by Christ before I believe that Christ is Christ and had Authority himself Q. 74. Can I know that Christ's Promise to Pope Council or Prelate is true before I know that the Promise of Justification Adoption and Salvation are true that is Before I am a Christian Q. 75. Can I believe the Promise of Pardon and Salvation or the Promise made to General Councils or Prelates without knowing the meaning of those Promises And can I believe the Churches Power from God without believing the Promise of it And if I can understand all these Promises without a Council why may I not understand more And how then do I receive all Scripture from a Council Q. 76. Do those that Preach to convert Infidels in Congo China Japan Mexico among Turks c. Preach first the Authority of General Councils or a Mundane College as the Primum credendum upon whose credit Christianity is to be received Hath this been the way to Convert the World Q. 77. If Paul curse an Angel from Heaven if he bring another Gospel and Paul charge Timothy to see that men Preach no other or new Doctrine must there be Councils or a College to make either a new Gospel or a new Doctrine or Universal Law Q. 78. If men were saved without believing the Canons and Decrees of Councils before they were made even by simple Christianity is it not necessary Mercy to let men be so saved still Q. 79. If it be not a new Gospel but mutable Accidents which the Church Laws do determine of what need there an Universal Power or Soveraignty or an Universal Law
dissolved (h) And Men taught to be Perjured by taking in Foreign Ecclesiastical Power (i) And yet Obey his Councils Canons (k) Christ hath given us a sufficient Law for the Government of the Church else saith Gerson he were not a perfect Lawgiver Must we be beholden to the Pope for leaving us a little of that which Christ gave us Who gave him Power to take any of it from us Would our Conciliators have magnified the Men that for the Peace of England would have agreed with Cromwell to allow the King the Isle of Wight or Wâ—les Or to have made a Law that every Highway Robber shall reâ—urn â—ne half to the Owner And with what Conscience could the Subjects of Christ have obeyed all the rest of the Usurpers sinful Canons (a) Confusion 1. The form denominateth The Church of Rome which we separate from is a pretended Soveraignty over all Christians This is no true Church of Christ. 2. But we separate not from them in point of Christianity But 1. From their Usurpation 2. And other Sins (b) And having before made the Church of England Schismaticks he makes all Schismaticks that Communicate with it (c) Here is 1. An Universal Legislative Power over all the Church on Earth 2. This Power is in Councils of which the Pope is the chief Member and the only reasonable means of the Union of so great a Body is his Regular Power as distinct from Infinite Power 3. All the Canons Rites and Customs are these Laws of the Church 4. All Kings and Kingdoms are bound to obey them 5. No man must question whether these Laws or Customs or any of them are contrary to God's Law 6. The men that must have this Absolute Power over all the Kings and Kingdoms on Earth that will be Christian are themselves the Subjects of the Turks the Moore the Emperor of Abassia the Persian the Emperor of Indastan called the Mogal the Kings of Poland Hungary Spain France England Denmark Sweden the Emperor of Germany and abundance more when it 's known that few Bishops are chosen in any of these Countreys Mahometans or Papists but such as the Princes like and that they dare not go against their wills in any great matter 7. Their minds are known already and consequently what they would do in Councils if all these Princes would agree to call an Universal Council The Major Vote if it were called in Mesopotamia or that way would be such as Rome calleth Hereticks If called in Greece it would be Greeks If in Italy or Germany or France they would be Papists no where Protestants Few would travel above a thousand miles to the Council 8. Tho' one would think that this platform of Governing the whole Earth could be believed by no man in his wits yet you see Learned men are so far deceived And it is by judging of the World by the Old Roman Empire There indeed Councils were Nationally General They were Courts They had Legislative Power and Pretorian Command None might appeal from them for Relief in Foro Humano Emperors gave them this Power It was but rational over their own Subjects What Power had they over others The Convocation in England or the General Assembly in Scotland may be made and called a Court by the King But France or Spain were never Governed by them nor took them to be over them unquestionable Legislators Yea I believe King and Parliament at home are not so subject to their Laws (d) And are not these unmerciful men that will let men take up with a damning Baptism and will not rebaptize them that they may have a saving Baptism which yet they hold necessary to Salvation They fear Anabaptism it seems more than mens Damnation (e) The true Church that is an Usurped Power of Universal Legislation is here made by him and Mr. Dodwell as necessary to Salvation as Christ and more than the holy Scriptures But what will now become of all the Papists that by dispensation come in to Protestant Churches They also are all damned as Schismaticks for communicating with them unless he forgot to except them that the Pope dispenseth with (f) How much wiser are these men than Christ and St. Paul who made it the duty of all that were baptized Christians to live as one Body of Christ in Love Him that is weak in the faith receive but not to doubtful disputations Rom. 14.1 The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost He that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men (g) This yet is some mercy to us But is it as your grant 1. How will this stand with all that you have written for the continued Universal Legislative Church Did it cease at Charles the Great 's time and yet are all damned that are not subject to it 2. How shall we be sure that the Canons bind us till Adrian's time and not since 3. But Sir we take him for a Papist that is for all the Canons and Customs till Charles the Great And there are many things before that which we cannot Conform to without renouncing the Laws and sufficient Government of Christ which we cannot do upon such pitiful reasonings as yours (a) The standing Power of the Head or Soveraign and that of Official Ministers much differ (b) All necessary power since Christ by his Apostles published his Universal Laws is but that all Ministers in their several Churches guide the Flocks by these Laws of Christ and teach them the people and determine of incidental Circumstances pro loco tempore and not to make new Universal Laws (c) Christ expresly limiteth the Apostles to teach the Churches what he had commanded them and promiseth to give them the Spirit to bring all to their remembrance and lead them to all Truth (d) When the King sendâ— out Judges and Justices he doth not make them Kings or Legislators The Apostles had the Spirit for promulgating and recording Christs Laws Others have it only to preserve and teach them and rule by them and not to make more such as if they were insufficient and Christian Religion were still to be changed by new additions and were half Divine and half Humane Gods Word and the Bishops in medley (e) The three first Ages had no General Councils The three next had National or Imperial General Councils The thousand years last past which you include in All Ages had such Councils and practices as prove not her right Else why do not you now practise accordingly Bishop Guning owneth but six General Councils which were all but in three Ages And others but four and none that I know of but eight who do not openly profess Popery Hath Christ given any new commands since those which he sent the Apostles to deliver Have you any more of his commands to give us than the Apostles delivered in their times If you may make new ones you have more than
specially Universal in a College or a Council or a Pope or a Council and College under the Pope as President their Subscription to our Articles and their usage of Oaths would be no invitation to Dissenters to imitate them or Conform Chap. XIX Mr. Henry Dodwell's Leviathan further Anatomized § 1. I Have already elsewhere in two Books detected the Schismatical and Tyrannical Doctrine of Mr. Dodwell in his tedious voluminous Accusation of the Reformed Churches as damnable Schismaticks that Sin against the Holy Ghost and have No right to Salvation by Christ. I recite now a few Passages that shew the Constitution of the Church he Pleads for Pag. 73. The Essential work of the Ministry according to my Principles is to transact between God and Man to Seal Covenants on behalf of God and to accept of those which are made by Men and to oblige them to perform their part of the Covenant by otherwise authoritatively excluding them from God's part Hence results the whole Power of Ecclesiastical Government And for this No great Gifts and Abilities are Essential All the Skill that is requisite essentially is only in general to know the Benefits to be performed on God's part and the Duties to be performed on Mans and the Nature and Obligation of Covenants in general and the particular Solemnities of Ecclesiastical Covenants And of this how any Man can be uncapable who is but capable of understanding the common Dealings of the World Pag. 72. He sheweth that Immoralities of Life are not sufficient to deprive them of this High Power And of the Power it self he saith Pag. 80 81. It is not stated in Scripture but to be measured by the Intention of the Ordainers and that the Hypothesis of God's setling in Scripture is irreconcileable with Government in this Life by permitting Men to appeal to Writings against all the visible Authority of this Life On the contrary saith he Our Hypothesis obliging inferiour Governours to prove their Title to their office and the extent of it from the intention of their Superiour Governours doth oblige all to a strict dependance on the Supreme visible Power so as to leave no place for Appeals concerning the Practice of such Government which as it lasts only for this life so it ought not to admit of Disputes more lasting than its Practice from them and that upon rational and consciencious Principles for how fallible soever they may be conceived to be in expounding Scripture yet none can deny them to be the most certain as well as the most competent Judges of their own Intentions As certainly therefore as God made his Church a visible Society and constituted a visible Government in it so certain their Hypothesis is false P. 83. How can Subjects preserve their due Subordination to their Superiours if they practice differently They may possibly do it notwithstanding Practices of Humane Infirmity and disavowed by themselves But how can they do it while they defend their Practices and pretend Divine Authority for it Yea and pretend to Authority and Offices unaccountable to them which must justifie a whole course of different Practices P. 84. If their Authority be immediately received from God and the Rule of their Practices be taken from the Scriptures as understood by themselves what reason can there be of subjection to any humane Superiours I Must intreat the Reader that he will not call any of these men Papists till they are willing to be so called You are not their Godfathers Do not then make Names for them But I must confess that once I thought the stablished French Religion had been Popery and I see no reason to recant it But if Brierwood's Epistles mis-describe them not Mr. Dodwell is not so much of their Mind for the Supremacy of a General Council as I thought he had been Will you know my Evidence It shall be only in his own words I. Separation of Churches c. Pag. 102. The Church with whom this Covenant is made is a Body Politick as formerly though not a Civil one and God hath designed all Persons to enter into this Society Pag. 98. Faith and Repentance themselves on which they so much insist are not available to Salvation at least not pleadable in a Legal way without our being of the Church And the Church of which we are obliged to be is an external Body Politick So that it 's clear it is the Universal Church and a visible Humane Politie which he meaneth Pag. 107. The design of God in erecting the Church a Body Politick thus to oblige men to enter into it and to submit to its Rules of Discipline however the secular State should stand affected It is more easie for the vulgar Capacity whatsoever to prove their interest in a visible Church than in in an invisible one consisting only of elect Persons In these and many places of both his Books he tells us that the Catholick Church is One Body Politick and hath on Earth a Supreme humane Government which I have noted in his words in my Answer to him II. Pag. 488. Only the Supreme Power is that which can never be presumed to have been confined Of which more in his words which I have confuted III. That the Intention of the Ordainers is the true measure of the Power of the Ordained he copiously urgeth and proveth as much as the Ringing a Bell will prove it by loudness and length Pag. 542. Therefore the Power actually received by them must not be measured by the true sence of the Scripture but that wherein the Ordainers understood them Now the Ordainers of the first Protestants never intended them Power to abrogate the Mass or Latin Service or Image-worship or to renounce the Pope or gave them any Power but what was in Subordination to the Pope but bound them to him and his Canons and to the Mass and the other parts of Popery To prove this he saith Pag. 489. It is very notorious that at least a little before the Reformation Aerius and the Waldenses and Marsilius of Padua and Wickliff were Condemned for Hereticks for asserting the Parity of Bishops and Presbyters And it is as notorious that every Bishop was then obliged to Condemn all Heresies that is all those Doctrines which were then censured for Heretical by that Church by which they were Ordained to be Bishops Our Protestants themselves do not pretend to any Succession in these Western Parts where themselves received their Orders but what was conveyed to them even by such Bishops as these were And Pag. 484 485 486. he sheweth at large That All the Authority which can be pretended in any Communion at the present must be derived from the Episcopal especially of that Age wherein the several Parties began Within less than Two Hundred Years since there was no Church in the World wherein a Visible Succession was maintained from the Apostles which was not Episcopally Governed And the first Inventers of the several
Sects were at first Members of these Episcopal Churches and received both their Baptism in them and all the Orders they received There was then no other Communion that could give this Authority Our Adversaries will not deny but that their Orders were received by them were actually received by their Forefathers in the Episcopal Communion They have actually received no more Power from God than they have received from their Ordainers For their Ordainers are they and they alone who have represented Gods Person in dealing with them 2. They have actually received from their Superiors nothing but what their Superiors did actually intend to give them One would think this should be very clear To the Objection that They ought to have given more Power he answers That only proveth that we have no more if they wronged us Where now is all the Reformers Power Did the Pope or his Bishops intend them any against himself IV. But yet he perceived that some might say Particular Ordainers might have singular Intentions And I cannot tell him that as Richardus Armachanus and abundance more thought Bishops and Presbyters to be ejusdem Ordinis so did Jacobus Armachanus of late and Bishop Downame and many other Bishops and declared that Presbyters had Power of Ordination but for Order sake it should not be without the Bishop save in cases of necessity To this he saith That the Ordainers must be presumed to do according to the common sense of the Church and Canons But what if they declare the contrary As Bishop Edw. Reinolds openly declared that he Ordained Presbyters into the same Order with Bishops who were but the prime Presbyters and that he was of Dr. Stillingfleet's Judgment that no Form of Government was Jure Divino necessario Saith he Pag. 487. The Law is alway charitable to presume that every Man intends as becomes him to intend Very good But it 's prudent to presume his actual Intention not from what others do think will become him no nor from what will really become him in the Judgment of God Therefore they must not judge of the Intention of the Bishop by the real Will of God Supposing us to be Proud of the Suffrages of the Schoolmen pag. 492.493 He suspecteth It was rather Picque than Conscience that brought them to it Alas Were not the Schoolmen Prelatical enough Many of them were Bishops and one was a Pope at least And the Council at Basil that allowed Presbyters deciding Votes and St. Jerome and the Reformers all fall under his Censure for the like viz. That Necessity put them on it as a Shift or else the Pope by the Vote of Bishops would have carried it and he justifieth not the Necessities choice but concludeth Pag. 496 497. If it be suspicious whether the Men who then followed these Principles did embrace them out of a sincere sense of their Truth then they cannot be presumed to have been Principles of Conscience Which if they were not this is sufficient to shew that they are not fit Measures of the Power that was actually given by the Bishops of that Age. I confess I had thought that the Papist Bishops Intention had not been the Measure of the Power of Bishops or Presbyters And that Mr. Dodwell had not been so much against the Council of Basil as unjust Conspirators by ill means to overtop the Pope He saith truly Pag. 505. Most certainly they who were of this Opinion the Papists could not intend to follow the Doctrine of the Wicklefists and Waldenses who had been lately censured for maintaining the Equality of Bishops and Presbyters No nor the Doctrine of Luther Cranmer or such as the Church of England hath held V. Yet being forced to confute himself he saith p. 52. It is sufficient for my purpose that Ecclesiastical â—ower be no otherwise from God than that is of every Supreme Civil Mugistrate It is not usual for Kings to be invested in their Offices by other Kings but by their Subjects Yet when they are invested that doth not in the least prejudice the Absoluteness of their Monarchy where the fundamental Constitutions of the respective places allow to them And hath not God's fundamental Law as much Power much less doth it give any Power over them to the persons by whom they are invested If the Power of Episcopacy be Divine and all that men can do in the case be only to determine the Person not to confine his Power c. what kept the man from seeing how great a part of his Book he here confuteth Doth he not confess now that God's Law may give the Power which men may not alter but only determine of the Person to receive it In the case of the Presbyters Office he will have it otherwise because the Bishops are forsooth not only the Investers but the Donors who give just what they please and he proveth it fully by saying it confidently and copiously Because God giveth it not immediately Yes he immediately by his Spirit in the Apostles instituted the species though he do not immediately chuse the Receiver But who giveth the Bishops their Power The Council is above them Do they give them their Power Who giveth them theirs And who giveth the Pope his Power If his may be given by Divine Charter without a Humane Donor but a meer Invester why may not a Presbyters VI. But it is the Vicedeity that is his great foundation Pag. 543. saith he Nor is there any reason for them to oppose God and the Church as they do on this and other occasions If the Churches Authority be received from God then what is done by Her is to be presumed to come from him the same way as what is done by any man's Proxy is presumed to be his own act And as what is done by an Inferior Magistrate by virtue of his Office is presumed to come from the Supreme This is in Answer to an Objection That the Powers united by God are inseparable by any Humane Authority But the Power of Ordination is by God united to the other Rights of Scripture Presbyters c. He answers If our Adversaries mean that those Presbyters who had both those Powers united in them by God could not be deprived of the one without the other nor of any by any Humane Authority this if it should prove true is a case wherein our present Ordinations are not concerned which were not received in those times wherein our Adversaries pretend to prove that these two Powers were inseparably united They may be separated de facto tho' they who separate them be to blame for so doing If they were then united by God because they were united by the men who represented God why are they not disunited by God now when men alike impowered by him have disunited them Why should they not oblige God in one case as well as the other Readers you see here the Core of the Churches disease and chief of our