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
for such when divers Churches and Countries may have divers such Accidentals and the same Churches may change them as they see cause Q. 80. If it be not Legislation but Judicature that we must have an Universal Judge or Power for what are the Cases that they must Judge Sure it is not whether John or Thomas shall be judged capable of Baptism or of the Lord's Supper or whether he be an Adulterer a Drunkard and impenitent therein and so to be Excommunicate Must all the World come before all the World Shall Millions of Sinners be unjudged till all the Bishops of the World Judge them If it be Persons accused of Heresie Schism or any Sin that must be judged must they not be heard and their witness heard before they can be judged justly But if they Judge not of Persons but of Doctrines whether they be Heresie or not this will make no Alteration or Reformation till it be judged what persons are guilty of such Errors or Heresies And if particular Pastors on the place must judge all such persons is not the Scripture the Rule of Faith a sufficient Rule to judge of Heresie by Q. 81. If it be whole Churches that are to be judged will not a brotherly power of disowning their Communion serve without a Governing Power Had every one a Governing Power to whom the Apostles commanded with such not to eat nor bid them good speed May not Princes renounce Communion with Neighbour Princes and Nations without being their Governour Q. 82. In conclusion doth it not remain that this pretended Universal Soveraignty Monarchical or Aristocratical is the device of the Prince of Pride a Treasonable Usurpation over all Princes disobedience to Christ Luke 22. and Antichristian Usurpation of his Prerogative and a base Captivating of the Souls and Reason of Mankind to a pretended Power which common sense reason and experience fully proveth to be a natural impossibility or that which in practice no Mortal Man or College is capable of Chap. XI A Breviate of the Papists Faith and Church Doctrine both the Monarchical and Aristocratical sort § 1. WE must believe that Christ hath a Church before we believe that he is Christ the Redeemer § 2. VVe must believe that this Church is Infallible or our Governour before we can believe that Jesus is Christ and our Governour § 3. We must believe that Christ Promised Infallibility or Governing Authority to this Church before we can believe that he is Christ. § 4. We must believe that this Promise is true and shall be fulfilled before we believe the Gospel Promise of Pardon and Salvation that is before we are Christians or believe the Scripture § 5. We must believe that the Pope is Christ's Vicegerent or Vicar General or General Councils at least before we can believe that Christ is Christ. § 6. We must believe that the Words of the Apostles were Intelligible else why did they speak but their Writings are not till a General Council make them so by an Exposition § 7. We must believe that it is intelligible which be true Bishops and Councils and what is the meaning of their Voluminous Decrees but it is not intelligible what is the sense of the Scripture till Councils tell us § 8. We must believe that God is the great Deceiver of the World by sense and things sensible e. g. by sense which takes Bread to be Bread and Wine to be Wine § 9. We must believe that all men are Hereticks who deny not their senses and all that believe sense even of all the sound men in the World shall be Damned That is All that believe God speaking by things sensible § 10. We must believe that God who is the great Deceiver of the World even to and by the senses yet hath given a Spirit of Infallibility to those Popes and Prelates in Council who live in worldliness and wickedness § 11. We must believe that an unlearned Pope and Prelates who never understood the Original Tongue but are ignorant men are by Miracle in Council inspired with the gift of right expounding the Scriptures which they never studied or understood before § 12. We must believe that every Priest how ignorant or wicked soever doth by pronouncing the bare words of Consecration work many Miracles turning Bread into no Bread Wine into no Wine making quantity and other Accidents to exist without Substance c. And that he can work such Miracles every hour of the day and if he can but get into a Bakers Shop or Vintners Celler to say Mass may in malice undo the poor men when he will by turning all their Bread and Wine into none § 13. We must believe that the Roman Empire was all the Christian VVorld or that a Council General as to that Empire was General as to all the VVorld And that the Roman Emperor or the Pope called the Bishops of all the VVorld together And that the humane Primate of one Empire was Governour of all the VVorld § 14. VVe must believe that now that Empire is dissolved the Laws then made bind all the Princes and Churches on Earth viz. that a defunct power still ruleth even those that never owed them obedience § 15. VVe must believe that we in England are rightfully under a Foreign Church Jurisdiction contrary to the Oath of Supremacy § 16. VVe must believe that all Temporal Lords must be sworn to extirpate all Protestants and to perform it if able on pain of Excommunication Deposition and Damnation And that if they do not the Pope may execute this penalty of Excommunicating and Deposing them and giving their Dominion to others and may Absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 1 2 3. § 17. VVe must Swear never to expound the Scripture but according to the Concordant sense of the Ancient Fathers who never expounded much at all much less ever agreed in any Exposition of them all § 18. VVe must believe that God hath given the Church that is the Pope and Councils a Power to Expound hard Scriptures and to end Controversies and that this is a great Blessing to us VVhen yet neither Pope nor Councils will give us a Commentary on the Bible or exposition of hard Texts nor will determine most of the Controversies that now trouble us § 19. VVe must believe that the Governing part of the Church is to be obeyed and Gods VVord received but by their Proposal when yet it is not known who is the Governing part Pope or Council nor which Councils be true and which but false Conventions nor can they assure us how we may ever come to know it § 20. VVe must believe those Councils to be true and credible which contradict and condemn each other and that both are in the right § 21. VVe must believe both that all Gods VVord in the Sacred Scripture is true and that Councils and Popes say Truth when they contradict it § 22. VVe must believe
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
true as it is not which you say How shall all Christians know it to be true When such as I with all our searching cannot know it yea are past doubt that it is false It 's like you 'll say It is our obstinacy And so all shall be Schismaticks and condemned with you whom you are pleased to call obstinate for escaping that Ignorance which would better serve your Ends. § 7. Dr. S. But Mr. B. objecteth That the Nestorians Jacobites Abassines c. renounce some of the six Councils yes three of the six They had a personal Veneration for the Persons of Nestorius and Dioscorus and did believe them when they said that the Councils were mistaken in Matter of Fact and Condemned them for Opinions which they did not own and thereupon did reject those Councils But they did not then nor do not at this day reject the Catholick Faith and the Rules of Christian Unity which are contained in the six General Councils So that in effect they own them For the principal thing required is to profess the true Faith and hold the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace and Righteousness which those Churches do in that they own the Nicene and C. P. Councils and deny not the Doctrine of the other four Answ. Do you think that none of your Readers will see how much you here overthrow or give up your Cause 1. If holding the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace and Righteousness will serve while they renounce the Councils as erroneous and tyrannical and holding the same Faith and Doctrine will serve what have you been Pleading for we are for all this as well as you 2. And if the Council may erre in Matter of Fact which may be known by common sence and reason how much more may they erre in matter of right and supernatural Revelation as the Articles of the Church of England say they have done 3. You confess here that Men may reject three or four of your six Councils and yet be no Schismaticks but hold Faith Unity and Peace And are the other two more necessary than all the rest You say They hold the two first Answ. They hold not the Infallibility of Councils nor that they may not be rejected when they erre nor that we may not be discerning Judges when they erre For all this is renounced in their renouncing all save two or three 4. You say They reject not the Rules of Christian Vnity Answ. Therefore they judged not the Decrees of Councils to be that necessary Rule Else the Decrees of those renounced by them would be as necessary as the rest 5. It 's apparent by this that they held the same with those Councils not because of the Authority of those Councils but on other Grounds For it is not possible that they who renounced the Councils should believe the Christian Faith on their Authority They believed it as a Divine Revelation fide Divina and so do we 6. And dare you say that a Man that believeth the same things because they are revealed by God in his Word shall be damned unless he believe them fide humana because a General Council decreed them 7. Did your other Councils add any Decrees to the first If not what need of believing any thing as theirs If yea then receiving the Decrees of the two first is not a receiving the Decrees of the later 8. And on whose Authority did Christians believe the first 300 years before there was any General Council § 8. Dr. S. P. 346. Obj. Did the Catholick Church die or cease after the sixth General Council Answ. The Essence of the Catholick Church doth not consist in the being of a Council Their meeting is but an external means for better declaring the Catholick Faith and holding mutual Correspondence between the several Churches Ans. 1. Still you are constrained to destroy your own Cause You confess then that Councils are no constitutive Governing part of the Church as a Governed Society And if so it hath some other Humane constitutive Regent part or none If none we are so far agreed This is it that we contend for If any other you must come to your Lords College of the diffused Pastors who never made Law never heard a Cause or judged out of Council to this day nor possibly can do 2. What is this that you call an external means of Correspondence Is it a necessary Supream Legislative and Judicial Power or not If it be it must be a constitutive Essential part of the Church as Political For every Politick Society is informed by such And you argued before that Nations must be under such as well as Dioceses under Diocesans If not habetur quaesitum 3. And because your former words assert an Vniversal Soveraignty I wonder how any of common reason can think this necessary to the whole Christian World during the few Years that those two or six first Councils sate and never before nor after Are dead Men our Governors VVill a Power of Governing never exercised serve for a Thousand Years last and 300 before and not for the other 300 Or hath the Church had one Form of Government for 200 or 300 Years and another for all the other 1300 And when you tell us that Kingdoms must be judged as well as single Persons did those first Councils judge all the sinning Kingdoms since If you own no Councils since the first Six all Kingdoms that have sinned these 1000 Years had no such Judges And what Councils or other Church Power save the Popes judged the many Southern and Eastern Countries that revolted Or the Western Nations in their various Changes and Crimes Must we have such an Uuniversal Judge now who never judged any these 1000 Years 4. Your Lord saith at last that they are Mutable Laws which Councils make If so why must we needs obey the six Councils that were 1000 Years ago under another Prince May not 1000 Years time and another King's Government make a Change in the Matter and Reason of the Law If you say it stands till another General Council change it I answer 1. VVhat Council abrogated the 20th Nicene Canon against Kneeling on the Lord's Day in adoration and many such other 2. Then if ever there was a General Council it's Decrees are immutable and so you contradict your selves For it 's certain there never will be a General Council to abrogate what is done till all the VVorld be under one Christian Monarch 5. The Laws of England bind us not now as the Laws of the Kings and Parliaments that are dead that is not by Virtue of their Authority though made by them But as the Laws of the present Legislative Powers who own them and rule by them and can abrogate them when they will And when the Canon-makers are dead 1000 Years ago where now is the Ruling Power whose Laws those are There is no General Council to own them nor ever will be A thousand Years sure
is time enough to prove the death of a Power never since exercised were there a Seminal Virtue of Universal Regiment in the diffused Church a Thousand Years Sleep in reason must pass for a Death 6. Yea the diffusive Church hath since disowned the Universal Obligation of those same Councils and doth disown them to this day For it is not near half the Christian VVorld that own them yea none but Papists that I could ever be certified of do receive any such Councils at all as Legislators and Judges to all the Christian World but only as Reverenced Rules of Concord made by Contract And if Constantine Theodosius Martian c. called their Subjects to Councils 1000 Years ago why is our King and Kingdom now any more subject to the Subjects of those Emperors than to them But if you were content to endure us to unite in Christ and take his Laws for our Rule and bond of Peace and stay till the next General Council be against us we desire no more § 9. P. 347. Mr. B. saith It is a doleful thing to think on what account all these Men expect that all Christians Consciences can be satisfied c. D. S. answereth It is a doleful thing indeed to think how they should be satisfied that set up a Pope in every Congregation and follow him in opposition to the Catholick Church and General Councils Mr. B. knows he does this and deludes the poor People c. Answ. 1. If I know it methinks I should know that I know it Which if I do it 's I that am the Impudent Liar If not Somebody is mistaken Qu. Whether a Council of such Bishops be infallible or can make us a better Rule than the Scripture 2. Readers here you see that it is no wonder that these Reverend Fathers renounce Popery You see what a Pope is in their account It is a Minister of a single Church who taketh not their Lordships or Councils to be Law-givers and Judges over all the Earth We poor Protestants took him for a Pope that claimed such an Universal Rule alone or as the President of Councils But these Men take him for a Pope that denieth Popery and pretendeth to no Government beyond his Parish Yea not only so but in our Parishes we oblige none to take up any of their Religion Faith or Duty to God on our commanding Authority but to learn by the Evidence which caused our own Faith to believe by a Faith Divine 3. I have oft said that the Catholick Church is such by Faith and Subjection to Christ which I own and daily Preach But that there never was a General Council of the Christian World nor is there any such thing as a Catholick Church in the Popish sence that is having one Political humane Soveraignty And how did the Man make himself believe that I knowingly opposed that which my whole Writing labours to prove never had a being Reader Lament the Case of the Church on Earth when the most studious Leaders are so dark and rash and bad as either I or these Reverend Fathers are setting the World into ruinating Divisions by words of such a Dialect as is harsh to name § 10. P. 348. Dr. S. pretendeth to some Scripture Proofs viz 1 Cor. 14.32 33. The Spirit of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets For God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace as in all the Churches of the Saints Answ. Reader Do you think this proveth that the whole Church on Earth is under one humane Soveraignty that hath a Legislative and Judging Power 1. This Text speaketh only of the avoiding Disorder in particular Assemblies by the means which they had present there among them To keep them from speaking two at once and such like Disorders As the Archi-Synagogoi were used to do in the Jews Synagogue And must a Council from all the Earth be gathered to that Assembly to rebuke such Disorder If it must be but to make a General Law to forbid it that 's done already in Scripture and in Nature And must the World meet to do it again 2. Their Dr. Hamond saith that this Text speaketh of the Spirit in each Prophet being subject to himself that is to his own reason and that the Spirit moveth them not to speak irregularly and confusedly And what 's this to the Power of Councils 3. If it were spoken of the other present Prophets what 's this to Men that are no Prophets and that are dead 1000 Years ago Are not present Pastors fitter Moderators of their Assembly than a General Council of dead Men § 11. Next he that so condemneth me as an Opposite citeth my words as granting his Cause yet this reconcileth him not I am not so idle as to write him a Commentary of my own words for I can devise no plainer Only I may tell him that he too quickly forgot that God is not the Author of Confusion and therefore it is not lovely A Law should not be confounded with a Contract or amicable Agreement nor a Soveraign Government with a Peace-making Assembly of Equals nor a possible Council of those within reach with an impossible Council out of all the World Neither the King of France or of England were Subjects to the Assembly at Nimeguen § 12. P. 351. He saith he could give numberless Quotations of Protestants Melanchthon Bucer Calvin Bishop Andrews K. James Spalatensis Casaubon Bishop White Bishop Mountague Archbishop Dr. Hamond Dailee c. Answ. I cannot answer what you can do but what you do But the Reader may know how far to believe you that will but search these few 1. Read what I have cited out of Melanchthon to Bishop Guning or rather his own Epistle of the Conference at Ratisbone and that to King Henry the 8th 2. Read Bucer de Regno Dei and the rest of his Opera Angl. and judge as you see cause 3. I am ashamed to cite any words of Calvin to confute our Drs. intimation 4. Whether Spalatensis was a Protestant I dispute not but read his own words cited by me in my Treatise of Episcopacy and then read him of Councils and judge 5. Bishop Vsher as I have oft said told me himself That Councils are not for Government of the absent or the particular Bishops but for Concord What Mind Dr. Hamond was of I determine not But of the rest you may judge by these The Matter is All Protestants hold that we must Serve God in as much Concord as we can And that the Meeting of Pastors is a means of Concord And that it was the true Christian Faith which the Councils which he nameth owned and we are of the same Faith and therefore they reverence these Councils And they hold that still Concord being much of the Strength and Beauty of the Churches when there is any special reason for it as several Princes assemble by themselves or Messengers at Munster Ratisbone Francfort Nimeguen so Pastors even of several Kingdoms
not too distant may for mutual help and Concord meet in Councils And none should needlesly break their just Agreements because of the general Command of Concord But 1. They hold that these Councils be no representers of all the Christian World 2. Nor have any Universal Jurisdiction 3. Nor any true Governing Power at all over the absent or dissenters but an Agreeing Power 4. And if they pretend any such Power they turn Usurpers 5. And if on pretence of Concord they make Snares or Decree things that are against the Churches Edification Peace or Order or against the Word of God none are bound to stand to such Agreements These being the Judgment of Protestants what do these Men but abuse their words of Reverence to Councils and Submission to their Contracts as if they were for their Universal Soveraign Jurisdiction § 13. And next he saith Whereas Mr. B. doth usher in his Discourse with an intimation that this was only a Doctrine of the Gallican Church he cannot but know that this was the sence of the Church of England in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign Answ. 1. I honour the Gallican Papists above the Italian but I am satisfied that both do erre 2. There is a double untruth in Matter of Fact in your words 1. That I cannot but know that which I cannot know or believe 2. That yours was the sence of the Church of England which I have disproved But what is your proof D. S. For the 20th Article saith The Church hath Power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith and the next Article doth suppose this Authority in General Councils Answ. The Church of England supposeth that Kingdoms should be Christian and the Magistrates and Pastors Power so twisted as that their Conjunction may best make Religion national as it was with the Jews But it never owned a foreign Jurisdiction or the Governing Power of the Subjects of one Kingdom over the Princes and People of another It followeth not that because the Church in England may Decree some Rites here that therefore foreign Churches may command us to use their Rites Our own Church Teachers no doubt have Authority in Controversies of Faith that is to teach us what is the truth and to keep Peace among Disputers but not to bind us to believe any thing against God's Word and therefore not meerly because it 's their Decree Therefore the Article cautelously calls the Church only a Witness and Keeper of holy Writ which we deny not And that besides Scripture they ought not to enforce any thing to be believed for Necessity to Salvation But you would have us believe the Soveraign Universal Jurisdiction of Councils yea and the lawfulness of all your Oaths and Impositions as necessary to escape damning Schism and is not that as necessary to Salvation 2. And one would think there needed no more than the next Articles to confute you which you cite as for you They knew that there had been Imperial General Councils which being gathered and authorized by the Emperors had the same Power in the Empire that National Councils have with us or in other Nations But there 's not a syllable of any Jurisdiction that they have out of the Empire Yea contrary it 's said 1. That they may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And therefore cannot Govern them without their Will nor have any Conciliar Power being no Council And one King cannot command the Subjects of another Indeed if Princes will make themselves Subjects to a Council or Pope who can hinder them 2. They are here declared to be Men not all governed by the Spirit and Word of God and such as may erre and have erred in things pertaining to God Therefore their meer Contracts and Advice are no further to be obeyed than they are governed by the Spirit and Word of God which we are discerning Judges of And it is concluded that things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scripture So that even their Expositions of the Articles of Faith which you make their chief Work hath no further Authority than it 's declared to be taken out of the Scripture it self nor yet their decision of the sence of controverted Texts And such proof must be received from a single Man § 14. Such another proof he fetcheth from the Statute 1 Eliz. c. 1. Forbidding to judge any thing Heresie but what hath been so judged by Authority of Canonical Scripture or the first four General Councils or any of them or any other General Councils Answ. As if forbidding private Heretication were the same with the Universal Soveraignty of Councils we are of the same Religion with all true Christians in the World and we are for as much Concord with all as we can attain But is Concord and Subjection all one or Contract and Government § 15. The like Inference he raiseth from a Canon 1571. forbidding any new Doctrine not agreeable to the Scripture and such as the Ancient Fathers and Bishops thence gathered Answ. And what 's this to an Universal Church Soveraignty § 16. The Church of England's Sence is better expounded Reform Leg. Eccles. c. 15. Orthodoxorum Patrum etiam authoritatem minime censemus esse contemnendam sunt enim permulta ab illis praeclare utiliter dicta Ut tamen ex eorum sententia de sacris literis judicetur non admittimus Debent enim sacrae literae nobis omnis Christianae doctrinae Regulae esse Judices Quin ipsi Patres tantum sibi deferri recusarunt saepius admonentes Lectorem ut tantisper suas admittat sententias interpretationes quoad cum sacris literis consentire eas animadverterit § 17. D. S. P. 358. Mr. B. saith The doubt is whom you will take for good Christians into your Communion But this can be no doubt when I except only the Jesuited part of the Roman and other Churches Answ. So you take in the Church of Rome which you cannot do without taking in the pretended Soveraignty Essential to it Was not that Church Papal before there were any Jesuites But hold Dr. It 's France that you are first Uniting with and they say that the Jesuites are there the Predominant part And are you against them there § 18. P. 360. He takes it ill that I suppose him to separate from the Church of England I have fully given him here my proof The Church of England took not it self for a part of an Universal humane Political Church But his Church doth and is thereby of another Political Species as a City differeth from a Kingdom I will not tire the Reader with following him any further Vain Contenders necessitate us to be over tedious § 19. I am loth here to answer the rest of his Book against our Nonconformity 1. Because I would not follow them that
the Quini Sextum at Trull forbid Adoring by genuflexion on any Lords Day c. And no General Council hath revoked it but above a Thousand Years after it wore out by degrees in most Churches And yet Thousands of Christians are here to be denied Sacramental Communion if they keep these Canons even in the reception of the Eucharist and Hundreds yea Thousands of Christ's Ministers shall be silenced ejected and ruined if they will not Assent and Consent so to use them How many Canons in the Six Councils can I name which do not now bind us § 13. As to the work of Councils and Bishops named by you I. As to our receiving the true Scripture from an Universal Church-Governing Authority 1. Paul's Epistles were received otherwise Yea there is no mention of any part of the New Testament that was not received till such Universal Government required it 2. If I must first know the said Church Authority before I receive the Scripture how shall I know it Not by the Scriptures for that is supposed yet not received If by the Assertors Authority that is to know they have it because they have it which is the Question If by some fore-known Character of Infallibility what is it unless with Knot you come to the Miracles of the present Church I know not what can be said 3. But is not the common Protestant way which you call Chillingworth's much surer 1. VVe first receive the Matter of Fact Historically that such Persons were and wrote such Books and did such Deeds from the Concurrent Testimony of all Credible VVitnesses some Enemies some Hereticks the generality of Lay-Christians Presbyters that in all Churches received and used them and Bishops also as credible entrusted Keepers of these Records As we know the Laws of the Land by Judges Lawyers People and all that make up a full Historical Certainty and not from some fore-known Universal Governing Bishops Judicial Sentence 2. And the Matter of Fact being known by certain Historical Evidence I have so largely shewed how the rest is known in my Reasons of Christian Religion and Life of Faith c. that I will not repeat it Do you think that most or any Christians before they received the Scriptures did first otherwise know that all the Bishops on Earth are by God authorized to be a Supreme Collective Sovereign to the Church and to judge infallibly which are the true Scriptures for all the People and that they are now most of them true Bishops c. Which way are all these things to be known We deny not that Ministers are by Office entrusted to keep expound and preach the S. Scriptures But we use against the Papists herein to distinguish the Authority of a Teacher or Embassador from the Authority of a Judge and the Authority of an Official limited Judge in proprio foro from that of an Universal Judge to all the World Indeed it is commonly granted that it is proper to the Law-makers to judge of the sense of their own Law so as Universally to oblige the Subjects For it is part of Legislation it self the sense of the Law being the very Law Else Judges might make us what Law they please by expounding the Words as they please But the Power of Judicatures is limitedly to expound and apply the Law only to the decision of particular Cases that come before them If the Question be Whether our Statutes were really made by those Kings and Parliaments whose Names they bear And are not altered or corrupted since How shall we be sure By a Natural Certainty from such Concurrent Testimonies as cannot be false viz. 1. The Judges have still judged by them and 2. The Councellors plead them 3. Justices and all Officers execute them 4. All the People hold their Estates and Lives by them and stand to the Determination made according to them 5. The Records attest them And it is not possible were they forged or corrupt but that the Interests of Multitudes would have led them to plead that and appeal from the Corruption And yet none of these named are Supreme Governours of all the Kingdom who thus Historically assure us 4. It may be questioned What is the Law of Nature And it is known much by the Agreement of all Mankind and that is known Historically But neither of them is known by any Humane Soveraign-Authority appointed to Govern all the World And so it is in the present Case The Agreement of all Christians Ministers and People Friends and Adversaries of contrary Opinions and Interests contending against each other about the Rule of their Expositions is a full Historical Evidence of Fact when no considerable Contradiction even of Jews or Heathens is made against it 5. It is notorious 1. That regularly our first Reception both of Creed and Scripture is by Gods appointment to be by Children from their Parents before ever they hear a Preacher Deut. 6. and 11. Thou shalt teach them thy Children lying down and rising up c. And God will bless his appointed Means Timothy learned the Scripture when he was a Child If you say Parents received it first from the Church I answer Our Parents regularly were to receive it as we did even from their Parents and they from theirs and so on to those that had it from the Apostles or first Preachers And all Parents are not a Colledge of Sovereign Rulers of all the World 2. And private Christians by Conference convert many 3. And those that have not their Faith either of these ways usually have it by the teaching of particular Presbyters where they dwell And yet none of these are the Collective-Soveraign to all the Christian World any more than Tutors in Law Physick or Theology are Three and twenty Years ago I read most that you say in a Paris Doctor H. Holden's Analys S. fid who yet though mixt with injurious passages against the S. Scripture acknowledgeth that it is by such an Universal Consent of all Christians Lay and Clergy that we receive the Scriptures that it is a Natural Historical Evidence that the Matter of Fact is resolved into and not of Supernatural Infallibility by Authority 4. And when Vinc-Lirinensis turneth us to quod ab omnibus ubique semper receptum est and the Papists that go with Holden lay most on the Consent of all Christians they never thought that the Laity through all the Christian World are one Universal Collective Soveraign Nor do you think so of all the Consenting Priests while you appropriate this Collective-Soveraignty to the Bishops 6. I would know whether it be only the Scripture or also our Christianity and Creed which must be received as from a Soveraign Church-Power If you say it 's only Scripture why may we not receive the Scripture otherwise if we may otherwise receive our Christianity Creed and Baptism But I doubt not but you will say It is both If so then a Child or Man must know and believe that Christ
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
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
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
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
what was to be done for Councils and Popular Humours would never know where to stop but would break down all the Churches strength and glory 2. Luther's Party after their riper thoughts were for such a Reformation as consisted in a nullifying of the Papal Church and Separation from it as no True Church but the Seat of Antichrist 3. A moderate sort of Papists were for reforming of many things in the Roman Church but not for nullifying it They were for reconciling the two Parties and for submissive Conformity but not for Separation Such were Julius Pslug Sidonius and Agricola who drew up the Interim and also Erasmus Cassander Ar. Baldwin Wicelius c. And in France the great Chancellor Michael Hospitalias Thuanus and many of their most excellent Lawyers and Parliament-men and some Bishops and Divines These men being offended at the Separating part of the Reformation were taken with the notion of Unity and Government but understood not the true state of the Controversie and were of two minds among themselves 1. Some had long had an untryed notion by Tradition that the Church throughout the World was One Body Politick under one Humane Government 2. Others never thought of that but having seen a submission of all the Western Churches to the Pope thought a Separation unlawful § X. But the case of the Separation which they understood not who blamed it was this The Reformers took the Universal Church in all the Earth to have no Head King or Soveraign Governour but Christ none else having the least shew of true capacity or right and therefore that none had an Universal Legislative Judicial or Executive Power And a Church-Soveraignty was a more irrational conceit than a Civil Soveraignty over all the Earth And an Aristocracy of Bishops more irrational than a Papal Monarchy Therefore they professed not to separate from Papists as Christians or from any of their Societies as parts of Christ's Church but to renounce deny and separate from their new Vsurped Church-Species or Form as it is feigned to be an Vniversal Humane Soveraign with his Subjects Had they never corrupted other Doctrine or Worship this Church-Species of Universal Soveraignty is to be separated from 2. And with all the Reformers found that though they could have submitted to Patriarchs as a Humane Power set up by Princes had they Governed according to the Laws of Christ yet 1. It being but a Humane Power 2. And one Prince having no right to set up a Patriarch over another Princes Subjects 3. And the Roman Patriarch claiming also the Universal Soveraignty or part of it in Councils 4. And having corrupted Doctrine Worship and Discipline they took it to be their duty to renounce also the Pope's Patriarchal Government and for all Christians to obey Christ's Universal Laws alone and the Local Laws circa sacra left to man's Legislation of the particular Princes and States where they live And not to place Universal Unity or Concord in any Usurping Humane Soveraign or their Laws or mutable circumstances And had those excellent moderate Papists before-named well studied this point of Universal Soveraignty it 's like they had forsaken Rome § XI When the Pope thought to satisfie the World and confound the Reformation by the Council of Trent the Cardinal of Lorain and the French consented not to much that they there did but stuck to the Councils of Constance and Basil lest they should lose the Liberties of the Gallican Church So that it was long e're that Nation seemed to own the Council of Trent and never did it heartily and universally but continued at some further distance from the Absoluteness of the Pope than Italy or Spain And to this day they continue to maintain 1. That the Pope hath no Power over the King in Temporals 2. That he hath no Power to Depose Kings 3. That General Councils are so far above him as to reform him and his disorders 4. That he is not Infallible alone but in conjunction with the Church or Councils And though some have spoken and written against the first and second Barclay and many others have confuted them and the Parliaments have burnt their Books And this is the Moderate Popery of France Well may I call them Papists still for 1. They renounce not a Humane Universal Church Soveraignty 2. They allow the Pope to call Councils and Preside and to be the principium Vnitatis and Patriarch of the West 3. They know that when no Church-Parliaments are in being the Universal Executive Power must be continued or the Universal Policy be dissolved Therefore they allow the Pope a Right of Universal Government according to the Canons but not Arbitrary and therefore not above Councils So that if those that are for the King Ruling by Law and making Laws only in and by Parliaments be yet for Monarchy then Concil Constan. Basil and the French are yet for Popery As to our Reformation it is so fully recorded by many and newly by that excellent and moderate Historian Dr. Burnet that for the time he writes I shall only transcribe a few Notes out of his Abridgment Page 87. The Oaths which the Bishops swore to the Pope and the King were found so inconsistent as it appeared both could not be kept which caused the Popes to be dismist Page 113. An Act was made for Election and Consecration of Bishops in short The King to name one and the Dean and Chapter in twelve days to return an Election of the person named by the King Page 138. Cranmer Tonstall Clark and Goodrik Bishops being called to give their Opinion of the Emperors Power to call Councils said That though ancient Councils were called by the Roman Emperors yet that was done by reason of the extent of their Monarchy that was now ceased But since other Princes had an entire Monarchy within their Dominions Yet if one or more of those Princes should agree to call a Council to a good intent and desire the concurrence of the rest they were bound by the rule of CHARITY to agree to it Page 139. Cranmer said that this Authority of General Councils flowed not from the Number of Bishops but from the Matter of their decisions which were received with an Universal Consent for there were many more Bishops at Arimini than at Nice or Constantinople c. Christ had named no Head of the whole Church as God had named no Head of the World In Queen Elizabeth's Reign 1559. the Divines appointed to dispute against the Papist Bishops in their second paper maintain That every Church had power to reform it self This they founded on the Epistles of Paul to the particular Churches and St. John to the Angels of the Seven Churches In the first three Ages there were no General Councils but every Bishop in his Diocess or such few Bishops as could assemble together condemned Heresies determined Matters that were contested so did also the Orthodox after Arrianisme had so overspread the World that even
Master of a Colledge in Cambridge whom I take for his Mouth being himself present hath published what he would have the World to believe of our Discourse in a Book against me for Universal Jurisdiction And therefore he hath put some necessity on me to publish the Truth which I am confident will not be to the Readers loss of time who will peruse it When I had sent him my Book of Concord he sent me Dr. Saywell's first by Dr. Crowther of which I wrote to him my sence On this he desired me to come speak with him which having done three several days I thought it meet at Night to Recollect our Discourse and send him the Sum of all in Letters that neither he might forget it or any Man misrepresent it These four Letters I have therefore here annexed and with them an answer to Dr. Saywell's Reasons for a Forreign Jurisdiction XXIV I am so far from charging the Church of England with the guilt of this Doctrine or Design that I prove that the Church of England is utterly against it But then by that Church I do not mean any Men that can get heighth and confidence enough to call themselves the Church of England but those that adhere to the Articles of Religion the Doctrine Worship and Government by Law Established XXV And I am so far from uncharitable Censures of the Men whom I thus confute that I profess that I believe Mr. Thorndike Bishop Guning Mr. Dodwell c. to be Men that do what they do in an Erroneous Zeal for Unity and Government and are Men of great Labour Learning and Temperance and Religious in their way And I have the same Charity and Honour for many French Papists yea for such Papal Flatterers as Baronius who joyned with Philip Nerius in his first Oratorian Exercises and Conventicles Yea I cannot think that they that burn and torment Men for Religion could live in quietness if they did not confidently think that it is an acceptable Service to God And I fear not still to profess that were it in my power I would have no hurt done to any Papist which is not necessary to our own defence But I must say that I much more honour such as Gerson Ferus Espencaeus Monlucius Erasmus Vives Cassander Hospitalius Thuanus c. who among Papists drew nearer the Reformers than such among us as having better Company and Helps draw fromward them and nearer to the Deformers XVI And as to you Reverend Brethren Conformists who are true to the True Church of England I humbly crave of you but three things I. That you will by hard study and Ministerial diligence and holiness of life keep up to your power the common Interest of Christianity of Faith and serious Piety and Charity II. That you will heartily promote the Concord of all godly Protestants and therein follow such measures as Christ himself hath given us and as you would have others use towards you III. That you will openly and faithfully disown the dangerous Errour of Universal Legislative and Judicial Soveraignty and bringing the King and Church and Kingdom under any Forreign Jurisdiction Monarchical Aristocratical or Mixt and never stigmatize the Church of England and your sacred Order with the odious brand of Persidiousness after so many Imposed and Received Subscriptions Professions and Oaths against all Endeavours to alter the Government of Church or State XVII And as to the Nations fears of future Popish Soveraignty for my part I meddle no further than 1. To do the work of my own Office and Day 2. And to pray hard for the Nations Preservation 3. And to trust God and hope that he will perfect his wonders in such a deliverance as shall confirm our belief of his special care and providence for his Church But I must tell you that such Reasons as Bishop Gunings Chaplains should not be thought strong enough to make you so secure as to abate the fervour of your prayers His words are these more congruous far to him than to you and me page 282 283. The only means that is left to preserve our Nation from destruction and to secure us from the danger of Popery is to suppress all Conventicles c. Being by this method provided against having our People seduced by the Papists which as yet they are in great danger of the next thing is to consider how to prevent violence that those be not murdered and undone that cannot be perswaded to submit Now to secure this His Majestes gracious promises to conform any Bills that were thought necessary to preserve the Established Religion that did not intrench on the Succession of the Crown do make the way very easie if our People were united among themselves and in the Religion of the Church of England For matters may be so ordered that all Officers Ecclesiastical Civil and Military and all that are employed in Power and Authority of any kind be persons both of known Loyalty to the Crown and yet faithful Sons of the Church and firm to the Established Religion And the Laws that they act by may be so explained in favour of those that Conform to the Publick Worship and the discouragement of all Dissenters that we must reasonably be secure from any violence that the Papists can offer to force our submission For when All our Bishops and Clergy are under strict Obligations and Oaths and the People are guided by them and all Officers Civil and Military are firm to the same Interest and under severe penalties if they act any thing to the contrary Then what probable danger can there be of any violence or disturbance to force us out of our Religion when all things are thus secured and the Power of External Execution is generally in the hands of men of our own Perswasion Nay moreover the Prince himself will by his Coronation Oath be obliged to maintain the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom so Established I am not of a Calling fit to debate the Reasons of these Reverend Fathers some will read them with a Plaudite some with a Ridete some with a Cavete and I with an Orate And he that will abate the fervour of his prayers by such securing words is one whose Prayers England is not much beholden to The words with all their designs are edifying as Diagnostick and Prognostick I only say Seeing we receive a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12.28 29. March 28. 1682. Chap. I. The Protestant Church of England is against all Humane Vniversal Soveraignty Monarchical or Aristocratical and so against all Forreign Church Jurisdiction I Prove this I. From the Oath of Supremacy which saith thus I do utterly testifie and declare in my Conscience That the King's Highness is the only Supream Governour of this Realm and of all other His Highness Dominions and Countreys as well in all
whole Church under an impossible and non-existent unifying and governing Power 3. That which may be proved a Duty out of God's Word was such before any Pope or Council made Laws for it So that if their Commands herein are any more than declarative and subservient to God's Laws as the Crying of a Proclamation or as a Justices Warrant God hath forestalled them by his Laws and theirs come too late And if all the Power that Councils or Bishops have as to Legislation be to make Laws unnecessary to Salvation it were to be wished they had never made those that are hinderances to Salvation and set the Churches together by the Ears and have divided them these 1200 Years and more Surely our English Canons 5 6 7 8 which Excommunicate so many faithful Christians do much hinder Salvation if they be not necessary to it But it 's apparent that they take their Laws to be necessary to Salvation 1. Who say All are Schismaticks that obey them not and that such Schismaticks are Mortal Sinners in a state of Damnation They that make their Canonical Obedience necessary to avoid Schism and that necessary to Salvation make the said Canonical Obedience necessary to Salvation But c. 2. And one would think that they that torment and burn Men and silence Ministers for not obeying their Canons made them necessary to Salvation The 34th Article saith That every Particular or National Church hath Authority to Ordain Change or Abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained only by Man's Authority so that all things be done to edifying And if so they that may abolish the Rites ordained by General Councils or Popes are not their Subjects nor is this Power of making and abolishing Rites reserved to them nor can they deprive any National or Particular Church of this their own Power The 36th Article saith That The Book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops Bishops and Ordaining of Priests c. doth Contain all things necessary thereto But nothing in that Book doth make it necessary that English Bishops or Priests receive their Power or Office from any Foreigners Pope Council or Bishops which yet must be necessary if they be their Subjects The 37th Article saith That Though the Queen hath not the Power of administring the Word and Sacraments yet she is not nor ought not to be subject to any foreign Jurisdiction And that the Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England And if so then he hath no Patriarchal Jurisdiction here nor have foreign Councils any IV. King Edw. 6. Injunctions say That No manner of Obedience or Subjection is due to the Bishop of Rome within this Realm Therefore not as to a Patriarch President or Principium Vnitatis V. Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions say No manner of Obedience or Subjection is due to any such foreign Power And Admonit No other foreign Power shall or ought to have any Authority over them VI. The Reformatio Legum Ecclesiast c. 9 10 11.14 15. are full proof There the Reformers professing reverence to the 4 first General Councils as holding sound Doctrine add Quibus tamen non aliter fidem nostram obligandam esse censemus nisi quateâ—us ex S. Scripturis confirmari possint Nam concilia nonnulla interdum errasse contraria inter se desinivisse partim in actionibus juris partim etiam in fide manifestum est Itaque legantur Concilia quidem cum honore Christiana reverentia sed interim ad Scripturarum piam certam rectamque regulam examinentur C. 15. Orthodoxorum Patrum etiam authoritatem minime censemus esse contemnendam sunt enim permulta ab illis praeclare utiliter dicta ut tamen ex eorum Sententia de Sacris Literis judicetur non admittimus Debent enim sacrae literae nobis omnis Doctrinae Christianae regulae esse judices Quin ipsi Patres tantum honoris sibi deferri recusarunt saepius admonentes lectorem ut tantisper suas admittat sententias interpretationes quoad cum sacris literis consentire eas animadverterit Et de Haeres c. 1. Illorum intolerabilis est error qui totius Christiani orbis universam Ecclesiam solius Episcopi Romani principatu contineri volunt Nos enim eam quae cerni potest Ecclesiam sic definimus ut omnium coetus sit fidelium hominum in quo S. Scriptura sincerè docetur Sacramenta saltem his eorum partibus quae necessaria sunt juxta Christi praescriptum administrnetur Et de Judic Cont. Haeres c. 1. Appellatio reo conceditur ab Episcopo ad Archiepiscopum ab Archiepiscopo aâ— Regiam personam but no further Vid. de Eccles. c. 10. de Episc. Potestate Et pag. 190. Rex tam in Archiepiscopos Episcopos Clericos alias Ministros quà m in Laicos intra sua regna dominia plenissimam jurisdictionem tam civilem quà m Ecclesiasticam habet exercere potest Cum omnis Jurisdictio tum Ecclesiastica tum secularis ab eo tanquam ex uno eodem fonte derivantur Et de Appell c. 11. There 's no Appeal to any above or beyond the King judging by a Provinâ—ial Council or Select Bishops Though the King died before these were made Laws they tell us the Church of England's since VII To save transcribing I desire the Reader â—o peruse that notable Letter of King Henry the â—th to the Archbishop of York It is the first in the second Part of the Caballa of Letters well worth the reading to our purpose VIII The Liturgy for Nov. 1. called the Pope Antichrist And the Homilies to the same since And the Convocation in Ireland Art 8. 1615. So doth the Parliament of England in the Act â—or the Subsidy 3 Jacobi of the Clergy And â—ure they that took him for Antichrist thought 〈◊〉 not that as Pope or Patriarch he had any ruling â—ower here IX The Apology of the Church of England â—n Jewel's Works ordered to be kept in all the â—arish Churches saith Pag. 708. Of a truth even those greatest Councils and where most Assemblies of People ever were whereof these Men use to make such exceeding reckoning compare them with all the Churches which throughout the World acknowledge and profess the Name of Christ and what else I pray you can they seem to be but certain Private Councils of Bishops and Provincial Synods For admit peradventure Italy France Spain England Germany Denmark Scotland met together If there want Asia Greece Armenia Persia Media Mesopotamia Egypt Ethiopia India Mauritania in all which Places there be both many Christians and many Bishops how can any Man being in his right Mind think such a Council to be a General Council Pag. 629. It 's proved that Councils have been so factious and tyrannical that good Men have justly refused to come at them Pag. 593. But the Gospel hath been carried on without and against Councils and Councils been against the Truth And Jewel Pag. 486.
sheweth that Councils have been against Councils and the Arrian Hereticks had more Councils than the Christians and sheweth their uncertainty Pag. 19. As to the Authority of Councils Augustine saith Ipsa plenaria Concilia saepe Priora ◠posterioribus emandantur And of the Succession and Ordination of Bishops he saith Pag. 131. If there were not one of them that turned from Popery or of us left alive yet would not therefore the whole Church of England fly to Lovaine Tertullian saith Nonne Laici sacerdotes sumus Ubi Ecclesiastici Ordinis non est Consessus offert tingit sacerdos qui est solus Sed ubi tres sunt Ecclesia est licet Laici And frequently he saith The Church is found among few as well as among many And he was for Lay Mens Baptizing X. The first Canon commandeth Preachers Four times a Year to declare That All usurped foreign Power forasmuch as the same hath no Establishment nor Ground by the Law of God is for most just Causes taken away and abolished And that therefore No manner of Obedience or Subjection within His Majesties Realms and Dominions is due to any such foreign Power The 12th Canon Excommunicateth ipso facto any that shall affirm That it is lawful for any 〈◊〉 of Ministers to joyn together and make 〈◊〉 Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical without the King's Authority and shall submit themselves to be ruled and governed by them Therefore none may go beyond Sea to Councils without his Authority And the Canons of Foreigners are not to be made a Rule without his Authority And is not other Princes Authority as necessary in their Dominions The Canon which bids Prayer 55th describeth Christ's holy Catholick Church to be the whole Congregation of Christian People dispersed throughout the whole World But such a Church hath no Legislative or Judicial Power XI The Controversie is about an Article of Faith I believe the holy Catholick Church The Humanists say It is an universal Political Society Governed by one humane Supream Monarch Aristocracy or mixt under Christ. Protestants say It hath no universal supream Ruler but Christ. Now the Generality of Protestant English and transmarine who write on the Creed expound this Article accordingly in the Protestant sence as he that will peruse their Books may find which sheweth what is the sence of the Church of England XII Though King Edw. VI. was but a Youth when he wrote his sharp Book against Popery lately printed It sheweth what his Tutors and the Clergy of his time who were called the Church then thought of these Matters XIII If the Parliaments of England all the days of Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles I. and II. knew what was the Doctrine of the Church of England about a Forreign Jurisdiction it is easie to gather it in their Votes and Acts. Let him that would know whether they were for a Coalition with the French on such terms read Sir Simon Dewes Journals Rushworths Collections or Prins Introduction ad annum 1621. or any other true Historian and he will see how far they were from owning any Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction But the contrary minded would make the World believe that all these Parliaments were of some Sect differing from the Church of England But what call they the Church of England but that part of the Clergy who conform to the Laws And did not the Law-makers understand the Laws Or if they more regard the sence of the Clergy let them read A. Bishop Abbot's very plain and bold Letter to the King in Prin's Introduct pag. 39 40. and Dr. Hackwell's c. and they may know what was then the sence of the Clergy With whom concurred the Bishops of Ireland Insomuch that Bishop Downame expressing his sense of the Papists there and his contrary desires presumed to add And let all the people say Amen at which the Church rang with the Amen And though he was questioned in England for it he came safe off His Neighbour Bishops also declaring Popery to be Idolatry and the Pope Antichrist XIV The Bishops and chief Writers of England have taken the Pope to be the Antichrist Cranmer Whitguift Parker Grindall Abbot all A. Bishops of Canterbury Vsher Downame Jewel Andrews Bilson Latimer Hooper Farrar Ridley Robert Abbot Hall Allig and abundance more Bishops The Martyrs Sutcliffe Fulke Sharp Whittaker Willet Crakenthorp and most of our Writers against Popery Sure then they were for none of his Jurisdiction here XV. The Prayers have been and are to this day added in the end both to our Bibles and Common Prayer Books which shew how far the Church of England was from desiring a Coalition with the Papists by submitting to any Forreign Jurisdiction They say to God Confound Satan and Antichrist with all Hirelings whom thou hast already cast off into a reprobate sense that they may not by Sects Schisms Heresies and Errors disquiet thy little Flock And because O Lord we be fallen into the latter days and dangerous times wherein Ignorance hath got the upper hand and Satan by his Ministers seeketh by all means to quench the light of thy Gospel we beseech thee to maintain thy Cause against those ravening Wolves and strengthen all thy Servants whom they keep in Prison and Bondage Let not thy long-suffering be an occasion either to increase their tyranny or to discourage thy Children c. Though A. Bishop Laud put out all these Prayers from the Scots new Liturgy we had never had them still bound with ours to this day if the Church of England had not at first approved them There is also a Confession of Faith found with them describing the Catholick Church as we do XVI The Oath called Et Caetera of 1640. saith that The Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England containeth all things necessary to Salvation Therefore Obedience to any Forreign Jurisdiction is not necessary to Salvation And therefore not necessary to the avoiding of Schism or any Damning Sin XVII The Church of England holdeth that no Forreigners Pope or Prelates have Judicial Power to pronounce the King of England a Heretick Or Excommunicate though as Bishop Andrews saith in Tortura Torti even a Deacon may refuse to deliver him the Sacrament if uncapable much more that Pastor whom he chuseth to deliver it him For it 's known by sad experience how dismal the Consequences are exposing the lives of the Excommunicate to danger among them that believe the Pope and his Councils and rendering them dishonoured and contemned by their Subjects We know how many Emperors have been deposed as Excommunicate and what Queen Elizabeth's Excommunication tended to And if our Laws make it Treason to publish such an Excommunication sure the Law-makers believed not that either Pope or Prelates had a Judicial Power to do it In Prin's Introduct p. 121. the Papists that were unwilling to be the Executioners had no better plea than That no Council had yet judged
Fervour and the Devotion of the Catholicks of those Countries and feeling that I had none of it or very little I have never ceased since that time to ask of God the Grace that if I were not of the true Religion I might be so before I died Nevertheless I had not the least doubt but that the Belief of the Church of England was the true and I never had any scruple or trouble of Conscience on this Occasion until November last that I began to read Dr. Heylin's History of the Reformation which is much esteemed and whereof the reading in the Opinion of all the able Men of the Kingdom is sufficient to free the Conscience from all Scruples and Doubts which might arise about Religion But for my part far from finding in that History what was said of it I found to the contrary that by reading of it it only made me see the most horrible Sacriledges that were ever heard spoken of and that it was not sufficient to satisfie an indifferent understanding nor to perswade it that we had the least foundation or appearance of reason for changing the ancient Face of the Church and renouncing the Catholick Religion I noted in that History first that Henry the Eighth quitted not the Communion of the Church of Rome nor opposed the Authority of the Pope but because he would not let him put away the Queen his Wife to Marry another 2. That King Edward the Sixth being yet a Child his Uncle who governed him abusing the Royal Authority which he had in his hand enriched himself by appropriating to himself and his Family the Lands and Goods of the Church 3. That Queen Elizabeth not being the lawful Heir of the Crown could not keep the unjust Possession which she had taken but by renouncing the true Church because the Purity and Rectitude of her Doctrine was not consistent with the Usurpation of the Kingdom of Great Britain I could not conceive much less believe that the holy Spirit which governs the true Church should be the Author of the Three Points that I now noted which have been the only Foundation of the Subversion of the ancient Religion to favour the Licentiousness of Henry the Eighth the Usurpation of Queen Elizabeth and the Ambition mixed with the extream Avarice of the Uncle of Edward the Sixth Neither could I understand how the Bishops who boast that they had no other design â—n separating themselves from the Communion of the Church of Rome but to endeavour the re-establishing of the Doctrine Discipline of the Primitive Church have not thought of this pretended Reformation but while Henry the Eighth attempted a Separation from the Roman Church that he might satisfie his guilty Pleasures All these Reflections having busied my Mind after the reading of that History I endeavoured to â—nstruct my self in the Points controverted between â—s and the Catholicks I examined them the most â—xactly that I could by the Scripture it self and though I thought not my self sufficient for underâ—tanding it well I found nevertheless some things which appeared to me so clear so easie to be unâ—erstood that I have a thousand times wondred that I have been so long without reflecting on them I was particularly and strongly convinced of the â—eal Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar of the Infallibility of the Church Confession and Prayer for the Dead I was willing to confer of these Matters by way of Discourse with the two most able Bishops that we â—ave in England and both confessed to me ingenuously that there are many things in the Church of Rome which it was to be wished that the Church of England had still observed as Confession which it could not be denied but that God had commanded it and Prayer for the Dead which is one of the most authentick and ancient Practices of the Christian Religion But as to themselves they made use thereof in private without making publick profession thereof As I pressed one of these Bishops upon the other Points of Controversie and principally on the real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar he answered me freely That were he a Catholick he would not change Religion but that having been educated in a Church in which he believed there was all that was necessary to Salvation and there having received his Baptism he thought he could not quit it without great Scandal All this Discourse served but to increase the ardent desire which I had to become a Catholick and I felt inward pains and horrible disquiets after the Conversation I had with these two Bishops Nevertheless that I might not precipitate in an Affair of this Importance and where my Salvation was concerned I endeavoured to satisfie my self entirely I prayed God with all my heart to calm my troubled Mind by making me to know the Truth the search of which had caused my trouble Being in this Condition I went at Christmas to the Kings Chapel to receive the Sacrament which put my Soul into new troubles which continued till I discovered my state of Mind to a Catholick who to procure me the repose and tranquillity which I wished caused a good Priest to come to me and he was the first Ecclesiastick with whom I conferred of my inward condition and the affairs of my Soul The more I spoke with him the more I found my self inwardly perswaded and strengthened by the Grace of the Holy Spirit to change Religion As I could not doubt of the truth of the words of Jesus Christ which assures us that the Holy Sacrament contains his Flesh and his Blood I could not easily believe that he who is truth it self had permitted that the Communion under one kind had been introduced into his Church in which and with which he hath promised to dwell to the end of the World if it sufficeth not for the Salvation of them who communicate under one kind only To conclude I am not able to enter into Dispute with any on these great Truths and though I were I would not engage my self further than in a Discourse of a few words and without contesting to express simply the Motives and Reasons of my Conversion I call God to witness who knows the secret of Mens hearts that I had never thought of changing Religion if I had believed I might obtain Salvation by continuing in the state I was by my Birth and Education and I think it is not necessary that I here declare that it was not Interest nor prospect of Honors or of any fading and perishable Profits which have perswaded me thereunto seeing that on the contrary by changing Religion I exposed my self to the hazard of losing both my Friends and my Credit and freely to confess the truth I considered and examined often whether it was not more expedient for me to keep my Friends my Rank and my Credit in the Court by continuing in the Exercise of the Religion of the Church of England
sapientiam quae de terra est detruserunt usque in coenum Et quod ex toto non corruerit est ex gratia Dei salvatoris nostri Haec ego loquor eo liberius quia mihi Conscius sum non ex quaestu non ambitu non ad laudem propriam meae professionis sed pro assertione veritatis utilitâ—â—e publica haec dicere O happy England if Protestants had been as much in this against Popery and Error § 5. And here the Roman Deceivers and some peaceable Men of them have joyned to draw us to them on Pretences of Peace and Reconciliation Some honest peaceable Men have been destroyed by the rest for their Moderation The Learnedst Moderator that we have had was M. Ant. de dominis Archbishop of Spalato whose Books de Republ. Eccles. are full of both Learning and Judgment and so moderate that I cannot call him a Papist Though being enticed to Rome again by flattery he perished by their Cruelty What Leander was I am not fully acquainted Fr. de Sancta Clara alià s Davenport was a real Papist and designed on the pretence of Reconciliation to draw us over to them And hath shewed more acquaintance with Scotus and other Schoolmen than with the Protestants in his attempt to reconcile our Articles to their Doctrine Dr. Morley Bishop of Winchester tells us That in his Conference with the Jesuit F. Darcy he would have drawn him to them by perswading him that they are not unreconcileable but can abate us many things P. 5. The Father replied that perhaps we should not find them so stiff in all Points for in things of Positive and Ecclesiastical Constitution only the Church might in order to Christian Peace alter something which she had before Established and he doubted not but she would And his Instances were the Latine Service the Sacrament under one Species and the Caelibate of Priests But as for Matters of Faith they could not alter or abate any thing instancing in the Point of the Churches Infallibility And this is their ordinary Opinion and yet they would not grant the Cup to the Bohemians and to this day the Churches Peace hath not prevailed with them for such Alterations as they say are in their Power What of this Kind they offered in the Treaty with Archbishop Laud we shall see after The Book called The Catholick Moderator goeth this way But no man hath attempted it with so much ability of Judgment and Success of late as Hugo Grotius in his Votum Pro Pace Consultatio and Notes on Cassander his Annotations on the Revelations and De Antichristo and his Writings against Rivet The Dutch dealt hardly with him as an Arminian and Judged him to perpetual Imprisonment when they had not such another Man among them from which his Wife delivered him getting him carried out in a Trunk on pretence of carrying from him his Arminian Books And being escaped into France he was intimate with the Learned Jesuits especially Petavius and made the Queen of Sweden's Embassador who shortly after turned Papist and is yet living at Rome And it is no censoriousness to suspect that his great exasperation might have influence on his judgment And because he is the Man whom our English Defenders of a foreign Jurisdiction own I will next tell you what his late judgment was in his own words I confess I have a far greater honour for those Men that were bred in Popery and are Moderators than for those being bred Protestants revolt from Reformation to a Coalition I doubt not but Gerson was a very holy Man Cassander seemeth to have been an excellent Pious learned Man And I doubt whether most of our nominal Protestants that are for a foreign Jurisdiction be near so moderate as he He oft as de Officio Pii Viri p. 788 789 c maketh the Church of Rome to be but a part of the Universal Church He maintaineth that some called Schismaticks are not indeed departed from the Church for departing from Rome as long as they depart not from Christ the Head of the Church and that only defection of Love and not diversity of Rites and Opinions cuts Men off from Christ And that as long as they are joyned to Christ the Head by sound belief of him and by the Bond of Charity and Peace they are joyned to the Church and are not to be taken for Schismaticks and Aliens from the Church though they be rejected and seem separated from their Society and Communion by another more powerful part of the Church which doth obtain the Government How much more moderate and sound is Cassander than such as Mr. Dodwell And Pag. 791. he saith the same of the Oriental Churches and the Ethiopians that are not under the Pope And he still speaketh so cautelously that it is not easie to understand how far he took the Papacy to be necessary Yet sometime he only excuseth the unwilling departers from Rome and asserteth Consult de Pont. Rom. p 931. That it is not alien from the consent of the ancient Church that Obedience to our Chief or Supream Rector the Successor of St. Peter in Governing and Feeding the Church is required to the Unity of this external Church And it is not only Primacy of Order but Obedience to one Chief Ruler that he Pleads for And in his Epistle to Lindanus and frequently he still professeth only to desire some Reformation in the Roman Church but never to depart from it nor own those that do Chap. VI. Grotius's Judgment in his own Words § 1. TO give you Grotius's Judgment to the full would be to transcribe many Books I shall choose some plain Passages Discussione Apologet. Rivet p. 255. Those that knew Grotius knew that he always wished for the restitution of Christians into one and the same Body But he sometime thought even after he was known to the most excellent Vairius that it might be begun by a Conjunction of the Protestants among themselves Afterwards he saw that this was altogether unfeasible because besides that the Genius of almost all the Calvinists is most alien from all Peace the Protestants are not joyned among themselves by any common Government of the Church which are the Causes that the Parties made cannot be gathered into one Body of Protestants yea and that more and more Parties are ready to rise out of them Wherefore Grotius now absolutely judgeth and many with him that the Protestants cannot be joyned among themselves unless at once they be joyned to them that cohere to the See of Rome without which there can be no common Government hoped for in the Church Therefore he wisheth that the Division which fell out and the Causes of that Division were taken away The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons is none of these c. Ib. P. 185. Grotius professeth that he will so interpret Scripture God favouring him and Pious Men being consulted that he cross not the
Rule delivered by himself and by the Council of Trent c. P. 239. The Augustane Confession commodiously explained hath scarce any thing which may not be reconciled with those Opinions which are received with the Catholicks by Authority of Antiquity and of Synods as may be known out of Cassander and Hoffmeister And there are among the Jesuits also that think not otherwise P. 71. The Churches that join with Rome have not only the Scriptures but the Opinions explained in the Councils and the Popes decree against Pelagius c. They have also received the egregious Constitutions of Councils and Fathers in which there is abundantly enough for the Correction of Vices But all use them not as they ought And this is it that all the Lovers of Piety and Peace would have corrected as Borromaeus did Page 18. Speaking of false Doctrine These are the things which thanks be to God the Catholicks do not thus believe though many that call themselves Catholicks so live as if they did believe them But Protestants so live by force of their Opinions and Catholicks by the decay of Discipline Page 95. What was long ago the judgment of the Church of Rome the Mistress of others we may best know by the Epistles of the Roman Bishops to the Africans and French to which Grotius will subscribe with a willing mind Page 7. They accuse the Bull of Pius Quintus that it hath Articles besides those of the Creed but the Synod of Dort hath more But these in the Bull are New as Dr. Rivet will have it But very many Learned Men think otherwise that they are not new if they be rightly understood and that this appeareth by the places both of Holy Scripture and of such as have ever been of great Authority in the Church which are cited in the Margin of the Canons of Trent Page 35. And this is it which the Synod of Trent saith That in that Sacrament Jesus Christ true God and truely Man is really and substantially contained under the form of those sensible things Yet not according to the Natural manner of existing but Sacramentally and by that way of existing which though we cannot express in words yet may we by Cogitation illustrated by Faith be certain that to God it is possible The Councils expressions are that There is made a change of the whole substance of the Bread into the Body and of the whole substance of Wine into the Blood Which Conversion the Catholick calleth Transubstantiation Page 79. When the Synod of Trent saith That the Sacrament is to be adored with Divine Worship it intends no more but that the Son of God himself is to be adored Page 14. Grotius distinguisheth between the Opinions of School men which oblige no Man for saith Melchior Canus our Church alloweth us great liberty and therefore could give no just cause of departing as the Protestants did and between those things that are defined by Councils Even by that of Trent The Acts of which if any Man read with a mind propense to peace he will find that they may be explained fitly and agreeably to the places of Holy Scripture and of the ancient Doctors that are put in the Margin And if besides this by the care of Bishops and Kings those things be taken away which contradict that holy Doctrine and were brought in by evil Manners and not by Authority of Councils or old Tradition then Grotius and many more with him will have that with which they may be content Val. pro pace That which he blameth is 1. The School-mens liberty of disputing and Opinions not agreeable to Councils 2. And the Pride Covetousness and ill Lives of the Prelates and others which all sober Jesuits and Papists blame Page 16. That the labours of Grotius for the peace of the Church were not displeasing to many equal Men many know at Paris and many in all France many in Poland and Germany and not a few in England that are placid and Lovers of peace For as for the now-raging Brownists and others like them with whom Dr. Rivet better agreeth than with the Bishops of England who can desire to please them that is not touched with their Venom And whereas you may find Grotius and his Adherents yet disclaiming Popery and saying They are no Papists he tells you his meaning Ib. p. 15. In that Epistle Grotius by Papists meant those that without any difference do approve of all the sayings and doings of the Pope for Honour and Lucres sake as is usual By this description I suppose that many Popes even of late were no Papists such as condemned the Acts and Persons of their Predecessors and such as censured Liberius and Honorius nor Adrian the sixth that saith a Pope may be a Heretick nor Baronius Binnius Genebrard that exclaim against many of them Nor Bellarmine nor Queen Mary nor More or Fisher nor Bonner nor Gardiner nor any that ever I met with But others more moderately call only those Papists that are for the Popes Power above Councils And so the French are none nor the Councils of Constance and Basil were none Grotius addeth p. 45. that By Papists he doth not mean them that saving the Rights of Kings and Bishops do give to the Pope or Bishop of Rome that Primacy which ancient Customs and Canons and the Edicts of ancient Emperors and Kings assign them which Primacy is not so much the Bishops as the Roman Churches preferred before all other by common consent So Liberius the Bishop being so lapsed that he was dead to the Church the Church of Rome retained its right and defended the Cause of the Universal Church Ans. If it be a Primacy of Name and Honour only without any Governing Power it 's nothing to our case But seeing it 's a Governing Primacy that he means 1. It 's against the right of Kings and Kingdoms that Foreigners claim Jurisdiction over them 2. Emperors never gave Popes or Councils power over other Princes Dominions nor could give any such 3. Nor did ancient Councils nor could do Who gave it them And who knows to what Councils he will limit this power Councils these thousand years have been for much of Popery 4. If Common Consent give this power it binds not the Dissenters The Judgment of others concerning Grotius 1. Vincentius wrote a Book called Grotius Papizans 2. Claud. Saravius an Eminent Parliament-man in Paris in his Epistles p. 52 53. ad Gron. saith Heri invisi Legatum De ejus libro libello postremis interrogatus respondet plane Mileterio consona Romanam fidem esse veram sinceram solosque clericorum mores degeneres schismati dedisse locum Adferebatque plura in hanc sententiam Quid dicam Merito quod falso olim Paulo Festus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Sed haec tibi soli Infensissimus est Riveto Est sanè in praecipiti in quo diu stare non licet Deploro veris lacrymis tantam jacturam Deumque ex
animo supplex veneror ut illi spiritum suum mentemque meliorem det And in another Epistle to Salmasius p. 196. he saith being ask'd his Judgment of his last Books Tantum abest ut omnia probem ut vix aliquid in co reperiocui sine conditione calculum apponam meum Verissimè dixit ille qui dixit Grotium papizare Vix tamen in isto scripto aliquid legi quod mirarer quodve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 occurreret Nunquid enim omnes istiusmodi authoris lucubrationes erga Papistarum errores perpetuam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 erga Jesuitas amorem erga nos plusquam vatinianum odium produnt clamant In voto quod ejus nomen praeferebat an veritus est haec 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 profiteri And how far he was familiar with Grotius he â—ells us p. 248. Ad Vincent Fabrit Cum eo nempe Communicaveram vel solebam mea fere omnia c. And what Salmasius thought of him these words of Saravius ad Salmas intimate Ex quo à vera orbita in religionis negotio deflexit captasti occasionem toto biennio antequam sato fungeretur eum illudendi certe irritandi I have formerly said that worthy Mr. Ereskin yet living since dead told me that Petavius told him that Grotius was resolved to have declared himself for the Church of Rome and joyned with them if he had returned safe from the Journey he died in Henr. Valesius in his Funeral Oration on Petavius saith p. 684. Batesâ—i Collect. Quid non praestitit ut clarissimum Virum Hugonem Grotium ad Catholicaâ— Communionem adduceret Erat ille quidem minimè à nobis alienus poene noster quippe qui doctrinan Tridentim Concilii in omnibus sese amplecti palam profiteretur Id unum supererat ut Ecclesiae Sacrariâ—m ingressus Communionem nostram Sociaretur Quod ille nescio quas ob causas dum ad Catholicae fidei umtatem plurimos secum sperat adducere Consultò differebat But I make no other mens but his own words the Index of his Faith Chap. VII Of the several sorts of Conciliators or Peace-makers about our Controversies with the Papists § 1. IF any shall think that I who have spent so much time and labour for the Churches peace am now against it or would raise dishonourable suspicions on any just endeavours to that end they will utterly mistake me There are divers sorts of Endeavours for peace with the Papists by real Protestants § 2. I. The old Conformists that prevailed against the Dissenters in Queen Elizabeth's days were for going no further from the Papists than they needs must lest they gave them occasion of accusation II. Since then many Men have taken notice that many of our Doctrinal Controversies consist more in ambiguous words and misunderstanding of each other than most on either side imagine And they have endeavoured the lessening of such Controversies by better Explications and stating of the Case In this kind Spalatensis and Bishop W. Forbes have done very Learnedly but in some things yielded a great deal too far Camero Amiraldus Capellus Testardus the Theses Salmurienses and Sedâ—nenses have done much But no Man so much as Lude Le Blank in his Theses which he sent me his desire here to publish To these I adjoin my self as among many other Writings in my Catholick Theology and Methodus Theologiae I have openly and largely shewed the World And no Censures have deterred me from this honest and necessary way of pacification III. But there are others that would on pretence of Peace take in many of their Errors in Doctrine Government and Worship But yet are for no Foreign Jurisdiction IV. But those that I now write against go further and some under the Name of a Prince Patriarch and the Principium Vnitatis Catholicae would come under the Pope some by pretence of the power of General Councils or an Universal Colledge of all Bishops and some by these and Patriarchs conjunct would bring us under a Foreign Jurisdiction and contrive an Union on some French terms And would to this end let in abundance of corruptions in Discipline and Worship on pretence of Obedience to the Canons of Councils Yea some condemn those as Schismaticks yea as in a state of Damnation who are not in these matters of their mind It is these that I am against § 3. While I oppose these I still own my foresaid reconciling Books and no reproach of those that run into a contrary extream shall ever drive me from the true terms of Peace nor to desire any cruelty against them or any of their Sufferings but what necessary defence of Soul and Body require And though my Exposition of the Revelation have offended many upon far closer study of it since I am not less but more perswaded that Pagan Rome was Babylon and that John Fox Martyrol Vol. I. p. III. who took his Oath of a Divine Revelation to him which brought him to take the Pagan Empire for the Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns and to expound the Times and Thousand years accordingly is much to be regarded But if I be uncertain of such points I will rather suspend my Judgment than in uncertainty venture on any thing that is against Christian Love and Peace I hold Communion with the Romans in Christianity though not in Popery I take all true Christians among them for Part of the Catholick Church of Christ though I take their pretended Catholick Church as Headed by the Pope for no Church of Christ at all nor as Headed by any Usurping Humane Head whatsoever Chap. VIII The Doctrine of Archbishop Bromhall in defence of Grotius in his Book called His Vindication of himself and the Episcopal Clergy from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery as managed by Mr. Baxter in his Treatise of the Grotian Religion I fiercely Prefaced by a Dignitary of the Church Parker § 1. I mean to give you his own words and pass by his mistakes against my self Only saying That it was not fairly done to affirm that I numbered him with the Papists or those that designed to bring in Popery when I had no such words yea and praising him excepted him from that number only dissenting from his too near approach But whether he except himself his words will best shew § 2. Page 20 21. he saith I will endeavour to give some light what was the Religion of Grotius He was in affection a Friend and in desire a true Son of the Church of England And on his Death bed recomended that Church as it was Legally Established to his Wife and such other of his Family as were then about him obliging them by his Authority to adhere firmly to it so far as they had opportunity Page 81. I know no Member of the Greek Church that give them the Popes either more or less than I do Page 82. To wave their last four hundred years
Supremacy in these parts of Christendom which I conceive no man of Learning and Sobriety would have grudged to grant him It was also condescended to in the Name of the Pope that Marriage might be permitted to Priests that the Communion might be administred sub utraque specie and the Liturgy be officiated in the English Tongue And though the Author adds not long after that it was to be suspected that so far as the inferior Clergy and the People were concerned the after-performance was to be left to the Pope's discretion yet this was but his own suspicion without any ground at all And to obtain a Reconciliation on these Advantages the Archbishop had all the reason in the world to do as he did in ordering the Lord's Table to be set where the Altar stood and making the accustomed reverence in all approaches towards it and accesses to it and in beautifying and adorning Churches and celebrating Divine Service with all due Solemnities in taking Care that all offensive and exasperating Passages should be expunged out of all such Books as were brought to the Press and for reducing the extravagancy of some Opinions to an evener temper His Majesty had the like reason also for tolerating lawful Recreations on the Sundays and Holidays the rigorous restraint whereof had made some Papists think those most especially of the vulgar sort whom it most concerned that all honest Pastimes were incompatible with our Religion And if he approved auricular Confession and shewed himself willing to introduce it into the use of the Church as both our Authors say he did it is no more than what the Liturgy commends to the care of the Penitent though we find not the word Auricular in it and what the Canons have provided for in the point of security for such as shall be willing to Confess themselves But whereas we are told by one of our Authors that the King should say he would use force to make it be received were it not for fear of Sedition among the People yet it is but in one of our Authors neither who hath no other Author for it but a nameless Doctor And in the way to so happy an Agreement though they all stand accused for it by The English Pope p. 15 Sparrow may be excused for Pleading for Auricular Confession and Watts for Pennance Heylin for Adoration towards the Altar and Mountague for such a qualified Praying to Saints as his Book maintaineth against the Papists If you would know how far they had proceeded towards this happy Reconciliation the Pope's Nuntio will assure us thus That the Universities Bishops and Divines of this Realm did daily embrace Catholick Opinions though they professed not so much with Pen or Mouth for fear of the Puritans For example they held that the Church of Rome is a true Church that the Pope is Superior to all Bishops that to him it pertaineth to call General Councils that it 's lawful to Pray for the Souls of the Departed that Altars ought to be erected of Stone In sum that they believed all that is taught by the Church but not by the Court of Rome Another of their Authors tells us that those among us of greatest Worth Learning and Authority began to love Temper and Moderation that their Doctrines began to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the visible Church of Christ As for example The Pope not Antichrist Prayers for the Dead Limbus Patrum Pictures that the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture About Free Will Predestination Universal Grace that all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works inherent Justice that Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledge the authority of Traditions Commandments possible to be kept that in Exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers And that the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars are used willingly in their Talk and Writings In which Compliances so far forth as they speak the truth for in some Points through Ignorance of the one and Malice of the other they are much mistaken there is scarce any thing which may not well consist with the established though for a time discontinued Doctrine of the Church of England the Articles whereof as the same Jesuit hath observed seem patient or ambitious rather of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick And such a sence is put upon them by him that calls himself Franciscus à Sancta Clara as before was said And if upon such Compliances as those before on the part of the English the Conditions offered by the Pope might have been Confirmed who seeth not that the greatest benefit of the Reconciliation must have redounded to this Church to the King and People His Majesty's Security provided for by the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance so far as it concerned his Temporal Power The Bishops of England to be Independent on the Pope of Rome The Clergy to be permitted the use of Marriage the People to receive the Communion in both Kinds and all Divine Offices officiated in the English Tongue no Innovation made in Doctrine but only in qualifying some Expressions and discharging some Outlandish Glosses that were put upon them And seeing this what Man could be so void of Charity so uncompassionate of the Miseries and Distractions of Christendom as not to wish from the very bottom of his Soul that the Reconciliation had proceeded on so good terms as not to magnifie the Men to succeeding Ages who were the Instrument Authors of so great a Blesâ—ing So far Dr. Heylin who was the Archbishop's Intimate and Agent Archbishop Laud's own words as laid down in his Book defended by Dr. Stillingfleet § 1. The Archbishop disclaimeth the Divine Institution and the Infallibility of General Councils But he thinks we must allow them external Obedience and that honour and priviledge which all other GREAT COURTS have that there be a Declaration of the invalidity of their Decrees as well as of the LAWS of other Courts before private Men can take Liberty to refuse Obedience Part. 3. c. 2. And page 540. It doth not follow because the Church may erre that therefore she may not govern For the Church hath not only a Pastoral Power to Teach and Direct but a Praetorian Power to controul and censure too where Errors and Crimes are against fundamental Points or of great Consequence Thus the Archbishop It is the Universal Church and Councils that he speaks of But 1. There is no such thing on Earth as he calls the Church that is One Universal Aristocracy that hath Power of Governing all the Christian World in one Council or otherwise as one Supream 2. General Councils of divers Kingdoms o're all the World are no more a Court than the Assembly at Nimeguen was 3. No Obedience is due to them but only consent for Concord so far as their Canons tend to true Concord
have its allowed Physitian who in doubtful Cases consulteth with many others Their counsel is the counsel of Physitians that is of Men licensed for that Work and Care But it proveth them not to have any proper Governing Power over his Hospital or Patients 5. If every Bishop be a Governor not only in but of the whole World or Church it is either Singly or Collectively as part of a Governing Company If singly it 's a monstrous Body that hath so many thousand Universal Heads If collectively then no one is a Supream Governor but a part of that Body which is such And no one on Earth can act as such a part of One Aristocracy without presence with the rest hearing what they say and what Actors and Witnesses say and gathering Votes Pag. 411. He confesseth out of Socrates about the Emperors Power in Church Matters that from the time in which Emperors received the Faith Ecclesiae negotia ex eorum nutu pendere vis◠sunt Socr. l. 5. Proem And if so why is Mr. Morice angry with me for saying That Bishops used in Councils much to follow the Emperors minds 2. And then it will be but an odd Universal Legislative and Judicial Soveraign Power over all the World which dependeth on the consent of so many Princes Protestants Papists Mahometans Heathens Jacobites Nestorians c. as a General Council must be called by or depend on And it will be an endless Controversie what Princes have or have not a Power to consent or dissent that their Subjects shall go to such Councils But also Consultation is not Government Chap. XI The Judgment of Mr. Herbert Thorndike a late Eminent Divine of the Church of England § 1. MR. Thorndike hath written so much on this Subject that I need no more than refer the Reader to his Books for the discovery of his mind The sum of his late Writings these thirty years past is to call us all into one visible Catholick Church which is unified by one Humane Government of all out of which nothing will excuse us from Schism or make our failing tolerable His arguments for an Universal Aristocracy answered by Dr. Izaak Barrow in the end of his Treatise of Supremacy I will not here recite because they are there so fully and learnedly confuted § 2. In his Just Weights and Measures he tells us that the Church of Rome being a true Church Reformation lyeth in Restoration and not in Separation Page 5. he saith Who will take upon him to shew us that the Worship of the Host in the Papists is Idolatry Page 6 7. They that separate from the Church of Rome as Idolaters are thereby Schismaticks before God For in plain terms we make our selves Schismaticks by grounding our Reformation on this pretence Should this Church declare that the Change which we call Reformation is grounded on this supposition I must then acknowledge that we are Schismaticks Ch. 2. Is to disprove them that make the Pope Antichrist and Papists Idolaters and shew that the supposition of one Catholick Visible Church is the ground of all Communion and supposed to Reformation And Ch. 3. Nothing to be changed but on that Ground of such Visible Unity Ch. 5. If our Lord trust his Disciples and their Successors with the Rule of his Church he trusteth them also to make Laws for the Ruling of it These Laws are as Visible as the Laws of any Kingdom or Common-wealth that is or ever was are Visible I maintain the Popes Canon Law and the same is to be said of the Canon Law by which the Patriarch of Constantinople now Governs the Eastern Church to be derived from those Rules whereby the Disciples of our Lord and their Successors governed the Primitive Church in Unity The power of Giving Laws to the Church the power of Dispensing the Exchequer which God hath provided for the Church are in the Governors of the Church and the power of admitting into and excluding out It 's a Visible Society founded by God under the Name of the Catholick Church on the command of holding Communion with it Page 41. The Church in the form which I state it is a standing Synod able by the consent of the Chief Churches containing the consent of their resorts to conclude the whole Page 48. The Church of Rome hath and ought to have when it shall please to hear reason a Regular pre-eminence over the rest of Christendom in these Western parts And he that is able to judge and willing to consider shall find that Pre eminence the Only Reasonable means to preserve so great a Body in Unity And therefore I am not my self tyed to justifie Henry the Eighth in disclaiming all such pre-eminence Page 48. That the difference may be visible between the Infinite and the Regular Power of the Pope Page 91. The perpetual Rule of the Church makes them Hereticks to the Church that Communicate with Hereticks and Schismaticks that Communicate with Schismaticks Page 94. The Flesh and Blood of Christ by Incarnation the Elements by Consecration being united to the Spirit that is the Godhead of Christ become both One Sacramentally by being both One with the Spirit or Godhead to the conveying of Gods Spirit to a Christian. Page 125. The worshipping the Host in the Papacy is not Idolatry Page 132. He saith that the Oath of Supremacy is but to exclude the Popes Temporal power But because the words seem to exclude the power of General Councils of which the Pope is and ought to be the chief Member of necessity the Law gives great offence And that offence is the sin of the Kingdom and calls for Gods Vengeance on it which though all are involved in the account in the other World will lye on them which may change it and will not Page 134. But the authority of those Divines of this Church who have declared the sence of the Oath of Supremacy with publick allowance are now alledged by the Papists themselves to infer that the matter of it is lawful as excluding only the Popes Civil Power Page 141. We receive the Body and Blood of Christ and by consequence his Spirit Hypostatically united to the same to inable us to perform Page 149. The Church of Rome cannot be charged with Idolatry The Pope cannot be Antichrist Ch. 22. The Reformation pretended is abominable and Apostasie and the usual Preaching a hinderance to Salvation and new Homilies to be formed to restrain Preaching Page 146. I confess I can hope for no good end of any dispute without supposing the sence of the Articles of One Catholick Church which hath carried us through this discourse for the Principle on which all matter in debate is to be tryed P. 214. And oft he professeth that Presbyters not ordained by Bishops baptize and give the Eucharist void of the Effect of a Sacrament and only by Sacriledge speaketh against killing and and banishing But this will require the like Moderation to be extended to 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
a Vice-God or his Deputy to Rule all the World For sure he never dreamed that all Kings and States on Earth would meet or voluntarily agree to chuse one Universal King over them I met newly with an extraordinary Wit who saith that after the Conflagration in the Millennium of the New Heaven and Earth Christ or his Vice-Roy will triumphantly Rule c. But 1. I never read before of a Vice-Roy after the Conflagration which he saith will first consume Antichrist 2. I know not how much of the New World he assigns to this Vice-Roy's Government for if Gog and Magog after cover the Earth and the New Generation be numerous which he thinks the Earth will bring forth like lower Animals it may be the New Jerusalem may be so small that one Vice-Roy may Rule it 3. But sure that holy Generation will make Government and Obedience far easier things than now they are Chap. XIV Dr. Saywell's Arguments for a Foreign Jurisdiction considered § 1. THis Dr. who I may well suppose speaketh his Lord and Masters sence is so open as to let us know 1. That it is the Popes Power above General Councilâ— which they call Popery 2. And that they join with the conciliar Party in point of Church Government and so take not them for Papists who hold not that Soveraignty of the Pope but only his Primacy 3. That it is but the Jesuited Party of the Church of Rome which they renounce 4. That they also renounce all Nonconforming Protestants as a Jesuited Party So that he would tempt us to believe what some affirm that their design hath long been to subdue the Jesuits and Reformed Churches or rather destroy these and to strike up a Union with the French and maintain that they are no Papists as to Government But though the Power of old Protestants in England were never so much subdued to them methinks the Jesuits Interest in France should resist them unless the Jesuits themselves be as some vainly think faln out with the Pope and then it will be the Jesuited Party which these Men will own § 2. But to his Arguments Page 342. Mr. B. saith I have earnestly desired and searched to know tâ—e proof of such a Legislative Vniversal Power and I cannot find it But if Mr. B. would seriously consider these Texts he might find that obedience is due to the Church Mat. 18. If he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen Man and a Publican Now as one private Man may neâ—lect to hear the Episcopal Church to which he belongs so the Episcopal Provincial and National Church may also prove Heretical and neglect to hear the Catholick Church but the Vniversal Church can never faâ—l for the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against it And if more Persons or particular Churches give offence by Heresie Schism c. the Church Vniversal or the rest of the Bishops may reprove them for it and then there is no reason why one Man should be censured and many go frâ—e and consequently our Saviour hath established the Authority of his Church over all Christians as well particular Churches as private Men. Ans. 1. Let us try this Argument by the like God hath commanded obedience to Kings and said He that will not hear the King and Judge shall be put to death But Kings and their Kingdoms may be Criminal And if private men must obey Authority or be put to death so must Kings and Kingdoms Why should they escape Therefore all Kings and Kingdoms must obey One Universal Humane King or Kingdom under Christ. Do you think this is true No There is no such Universal Humane Empire Monarchical or Aristocratical No Mortal Men are capable of it any more than of Ruling the World in the Moon or the Fish in the Sea but of a part only So there is no such Universal Church Power but particular there is As to your reason I answer God is the Universal King and he only is the punisher of all Soveraign Powers whether Monarchs Aristocracies or Mixt. which I have ever asserted though the Lying Spirit hath feigned the contrary God hath several ways to Rule and Judge them here and his final Judgment is at hand And the case is like with National Churches save that their own Princes may punish offending Clergy-men 2. One Person or Nation may renounce Communion with another as Heretical without any Ruling Power over them And the other may do the same by them deserving it Am I a Governor or Legislator over every one that I may refuse to eat or pray with as a Brother 3. That there is no Humane Universal Church which hath power to Govern a National Church as the Bishops may their Flocks is proved 1. They cannot have the Authority who have not so much as a Natural Capacity But none have a Natural Capacity to Govern all the Christian World Ergo none have such Authority 2. They have not the Authority who have not the Obligation to use it in such Government For an Office containeth Authority and Obligation But none are obliged to Govern all the Christian World Ergo c. For the Minor 1. None are obliged to Impossibilities But c. 2. None are obliged without some obliging Law But there is no Law obliging any to Govern all the Christian World Ergo. 3. If they are obliged they are condemned if they do it not But none do Rule all the Christian World He confesseth none have done it since the sixth General Council that is these thousand years and more by one And doth he not Damn the Bishops of all the World then for neglecting their great Duty a thousand years together If he say that Others made Canons enough before I answer 1. If they have had no such work to do these thousand years then there was no Office or Obligation or Power to do it 2. It was then only those that made the Laws that had that Soveraignty The Dead are no Rulers and so the Church hath had no Soveraign since 2. If he say They since Ruled by the old Laws I answer 1. That was not by Legislation but Execution 2. They never Ruled the Universal Church as one Soveraign Power by the old Laws but only per partes in their several Provinces as Justices and Mayors Rule the Kingdom without Soveraignty Arg. 3 That which never was claimed till the Papal Usurpation was not instituted by God But a Soveraign Government of the Univeâ—sal Church on Earth was never claimed till the Papal Usurpation Ergo. That Councils were only General as to one Empire and called only in one Empire and pretended to Govern that Empire and not all the World I have fully proved against Johnson Arg. 4. Those that must Rule all the Christian World must teach them For the Pastoral Government is by the Word But no one Person or Aristocracy are the Teachers of all the World Who have pretended to it but the Papacy Arg.
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
of the truth For instance The first General National Council determineth that Christ is God of God Light of Light Very God of Very God I believe they meant the truth But these words are so far from making me a new Article of Faith or making the point plainer than Scripture made it that they are to me much darker than many Scripture words That Christ is God even One God with the Father and that he is the Eternal Word and Son the only begotten of the Father the Scripture plainly tells us And that the Person of the Son is of the Father For the Persons being three it is meet to say that one is of the other But God of God and Very God of Very God is of harder understanding and hath tempted mistakers to say it is Godhead of Godhead as if the Essence as well as Persons were many Creeds must be supposed to speak properly And denominations formal are most proper The Tritheites take advantage of this and say It is not said that the Person of the Son is of God the Father but the Godhead as such God of God being twice said say they signifieth two Gods They misinterpret it But the Scripture speaketh plainlier The same I say of Light of Light a Metaphor in a Creed And they that put substare accidentibus into the definition of substance and when they have done say that God hath no accidents do not by the Word substance add any plainness to the Scripture phrase And how little the Council at Constantinople and Chalcedon did to end the Controversies of Prelates and unite the Church by setting Constantinople and Rome in mutual Jealousies and Competition the World knows And what the Councils at Ephesus and Chacedon did to end the Controversies about the Nestorian and Eutychian points or that at C. P. against the Monothelites or that under Justinian de tribus capitulis Mr. Morice and you cannot keep the World from knowing nor yet what all the Councils about Images some for them and some against them have done Are they the only means of ending Controversies 1. Who do end none 2. Who have most increased them 3. Who are the greatest Controversie themselves The World will never be agreed which are to be taken for General Councils Authoritative and which not nor can you give us any thing that hath the shadow of reason to satisfie any impartial Man And no wonder when indeed there never was an Universal Council in the VVorld All true Christians are agreed in all that constituteth Christianity And it is not the Authority of Councils that made them Christians and so agreed them And to dream of ending all Controversies about lesser matters as long as men are so ignorant and imperfect as all are in this VVorld is the part of no Man in his VVits § 5. Page 345. Dr. S. Accordingly the Christian Church has challenged such an Authority and has held such Assemblies as occasion did require and six such have been approved and received generally i◠the Church and no more Ans. In all this matter of fact I think there is not one true word 1. The Christian Church did never challenge such an Authority unless you mean the Papal Church as in Council to have a Legislative and Judicial Soveraignty over the whole Christian VVorld 2. Never such an Assembly was call'd or held as I have fully proved 3. The six you mean we honour and are of the same Faith as they were but how far all the Christian World hath been from receiving them all I have elsewhere shewn and so hath Luther de Conciliis and many Protestants 4. That there were no more approved and received as these were is unproved § 6. Dr. S. As for Mr. B 's exception why we do not own the second of Eph. and second of Nice for General Councils also I answer because they were at the time they were first held and many years after accounted no General Councils and not received for such by the Church And page 346. Mr. B. demandeth how shall any Mans Conscience be satisfied that just these six had a supream c. Ans. By the publick Acts of the Church as we are satisfied of our Acts of Parliament For there are no more generally received and these are Ans. 1. I will not stand here on many previous questions How we shall know that a Council not General binds us not as much as a General if they have as wise Men and as strong Evidence And whether any Council be General which carrieth it but by a Major Vote where a few turn the Scales and the rest dissent But 2. If there be in this decision of this great point one word that should satisfie any Mans Conscience which will not be satisfied with meer noise or the VVriters Authority I confess I cannot find it 1. Either the Decrees of the said Councils are obligatory by their Soveraignty before the diffused Church receiveth them or not If yea then that obligation must be first known yea and it is known and the Council known by those that are nearest before all the Church on Earth can know it If not then it is not the Council but the Receiving-Church which hath the obliging Soveraign power And this is indeed to make Soveraign and Subjects to be the same This is like Mr. Hooker's Principles and many Politicians that the Legislative Power is really in the people by Natural right and it 's no Law which hath not common consent And if so no Man can tell how to date your Church Laws They did not begin to be Laws when the Council made them but when all the Church on Earth consented But we have need of the Decree of a General Council for no Dr. is sufficient to tell us when all the Christian VVorld consenteth for if every Christian must travel all over the VVorld to know it will be a vagrant Church And if he must send he cannot be sure that his Messenger saith true And a thousand Messengers may all differ And who can bear their Charges And if a Council tell us when the VVorld consenteth to former Decrees we must know also the worlds consent to that Decree before we can be sure it 's true And 2. VVhether the Church diffusive give authority to the Decrees or only be the Promulgators whose reception must be our notice it is a contradiction to say I know it first because all the World of Christians receive it For that 's all one as to say Every single Christian knoweth it because all Christians know it first That is All know it before they know it The parts are in the whole 3. Hath God laid the Salvation of all the Millions of Men and Women Learned and Unlearned upon such acquaintance with Cosmography and History as to know what Councils past 1000 years all the Christian World receiveth Or whether the greater part be for them or against them Is there one of a hundred thousand that knoweth it
decoy and divert Men from the state of our chief Controversie to hide their Design 2. Because it seemeth to me to be of no use He that will not read impartially what we say as well as they will never be cured of his Errours by any thing that we can write And he that will impartially read but my first Plea for Peace Apology and Treatise of Episcopacy and take this Book to be a Satisfactory answer shall never be troubled by my Replyes no more than the distracted § 20. This much I shall presume to say lest he expect some account of his Success upon my self I. That when he tells the Reader at last of my Concessions as if I scarce differed from them save by not giving over Preaching when forbidden they do but shew how charitable and humble they are in their Domination who yet can hardly suffer such Men alive out of Jail much less to preach who come so near them II. That when he tells us that the Presbyterian Cause is given up and yet their Party make the name of Presbyterian odious to them but not to us the Engine of their reproachful malice this seemeth not to me to come from the Spirit of Christ. III. That when this whole Book pretendeth to confute us and scarce once that I find in all the Book truely stateth the case of our difference but still silenceth or falsly representeth the points which we judge sin yea heinous sin such a Deceiving Volume seemeth not to me to beseem a Bishop or his Amanuensis or Chaplain IV. That when he tells us what pitiful proof he hath for the justification of their Silencing and Ruining ways and yet how extream confident he is it maketh me wish Christians to pray yet harder that Christ would save his Church from such Bishops I will now stay but to instance in that which they say the Bishop hath some peculiarity in viz. Our Assent to the Rubrick about the Salvation of dying Baptized Infants Reader I have reason to believe that it is the Bishop as well as Dr. Saywell that speaketh to me And 1. He dealeth more ingenuously than they that on pretence of Assenting to the use say that we are not to Assent to the Truth of this as a Doctrine of Religion He professeth the contrary and that Assent to this is required as well as to the Catechism 2. He seeketh not their Evasion that make not the phrase Vniversal but Indefinite For he knew 1. That in re necessaria which he takes this to be an Indefinite is equal to an Universal And 2. That a quatenus ad omne valet consequentia And the assertion is of Infants quâ Baptized 3. It is a certainty mentioned by Tautology that must be by every Minister professed It is certain by the Word of God that they are undoubtedly saved Here we ask them two things or three 1. VVhether none should be a Minister of Christ who cannot truely profess this undoubted Certainty 2. VVhether almost all the Learned Writers and Ministers of the Reformed Churches should be Silenced that hold the contrary 3. But specially what be the words of God here meant which express this undoubted certainty They confess that God saith Deut. 12.32 Thou shalt not add thereto nor take ought there-from and concludeth the Bible with If any Man add to these things God shall add to him the Plagues that are written in this Book We tell them we dare not venture on such a dreadful Curse This cannot be one of their things indifferent Therefore before we profess our Assent that this is undoubtedly certain by the Word of God they will shew us so much compassion as to tell us where to find that Word of God And after all our intreaty even my own to the Bishop he giveth us by his Chaplain but this one Text of Scripture Gal. 3.27 As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Reader is here one word of the certain undoubted Salvation of dying baptized Infants without exception 1. Here is no mention of baptizing Infants and it 's usual with this sort of Men to say That we cannot prove Infant Baptism by Scripture but only by Tradition or the authority of the Church 2. This Text most certainly speaketh of the Adult And will not these Drs. believe St. Peter himself who told Simon when he was Baptized Thou hast no part nor lot in this matter For thy heart is not right in the sight of God Thou art yet in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity If they say that Simon had been saved if he had died as soon as he was Baptized and that he fell to that false Heart and gall of bitterness after who will take such Drs words in despight of the evident truth His Friend Grotius more modestly expoundeth Gal. 3.27 Sicut à baptismo vesies sumuntur ita vos Promisistis vos induturos Christum id est victuros secundum Christi regulam Do these Men believe that all Infidels and Hypocrites shall be saved if they die as soon as they are Baptized Or do they think that none such may be and are Baptized The very words before the Text are Ye are all the Children of God by Faith in Christ Jesus And Christ saith He that believeth and is Baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned And yet they bring us no Text for their new Article of Faith but one which will as much prove the Salvation of all dying baptized Hypocrites and Vnbelievers as of all dying Infants As if none came in without the Wedding Garment or such were in a state of Life I must profess that I cannot see should I subscribe this how I could escape the guilt of Heresie being liable to the foresaid Curse and Plagues of adding to the Word of God by saying that Gods Word speaketh this certain and undoubted Salvation of dying Baptized Infants as such without Exception Yet if we would all conform to all their Oaths Covenants and Impositions besides we must all be cast out and forbid to preach the Gospel if we durst not Assent to this one Article Such is the mercy of these Men And all is justified as for sound Doctrine which we are ignorant of and these Masters are the Judges whom we must believe Yet note that though when he got the Church of England to pass this Article he put not in the least Exception and the Canon forbids the refusing Baptism to any Child that is offered to it yet now he limits it to all Children seriously offered by any that have power to educate them in that profession And as it is not the Parent that must be the Promiser nor is suffered to be so much as one of the Godfathers or Sureties for his Child so by this little limitation what a dreadful brand of perfidious Covenanting with God doth he six on our common English Baptism For sure it is not the confident talk
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
Basil out of the West or some few parts of it and few from the East and none from Ethiopia Armenia America and many other Churches are these a true Universal Council And can we all be here resolved The Countrey where the Council meeteth and the Prince who is for them will have more Bishops there than any if not all the rest when remote parts and the Churches under Enemies or dissenting Princes will have few 5. The same Councils that had most for them under one Prince have had most Bishops against them under the next and so off and on for many Successions We know that the Council of Nice was mostly for the truth because we try it by the Word of God Else how should it be known after when under Constantius and Valens most of the Bishops by far in Councils and out were Arrians The World groaned to find it self grown Arrian The Council of Constantinople in the beginning set up Greg. Nazianzen and in the end was against him Which part was the Universal Governor The first Council at Ephesus was against Nestorius till Joh. Antiochenus came and then it divided into two which condemned each other and after by the Emperors threatening was united The Chalcedon Council carried most while Martian Reigned and after most condemned and cursed it and then again most were for it and under other Emperors most cursed it again and under Zeno the most were for Neutrality or Silencing the difference The Eutychians had far most at Ephes. 2. and a while after under Theodos. 2. and Anastasius c. And under others and most Princes most were against them and called Eph. 2. Latrocinium And yet most of the East have been for Dioscorus ever since saving the Greeks The Monothelites had far most innumerable Bishops out of the East saith Binnius ut supra under Philippicus in a Council yea saith Binnius the Council at Trullu in Constant. were Monothelites and yet the same Men that were at the foregoing approved fifth General Council at Const. And over and over most Bishops were for one side and most for the other as Princes changed afterward Under Justinian most seemed for the Phantasiastae against the Corrupticolae VVhich yet are since with Justinian accounted persecuting Hereticks The approved Council at Const. de tribus Capitulis had some time most Bishops for it and sometime most-against it Insomuch that it occasioned much of Italy it self to renounce the Popes-headship and set up the Patriarch of Aquileia as their Chief The Council at Nice 2. and others for Images and so others against them have been so oft and notoriously under one Emperor owned by most and under another condemned by most yea by the same Bishops owned and after disowned that no Man can tell which of them to take for the Universal Legislators or Rulers of the Church by the number of the Bishops but only we must know which of them were sound by the VVord of God And since them what Council ever was there that could be so known by numbers to be of Authority Constance and Basil that had the greatest numbers are condemned by Florence and by the most of the Roman Church No Man can tell us of all that are past what Councils are of obliging Authority and must be obeyed by any outward Note but only by trying them by the VVord of God 6. And what wonder when there is no other certain Note by which an obliging Council can be known from others And he that knoweth what God saith without the Council needs it not The Papists have no Note of difference but the Popes Approbation And Protestants know that this is no proof of their Authority At Eph. 2. Bellarmine and Binnius tell us that the consent was so general that only St. Peter's Ship escaped drowning At Const. 1. they confess that the Pope had not so much as a Legate By what Note shall we know the true and Authorized Councils from the rejected when part of the Christian VVorld is for one and against another and the other part contrary III. And there is no Agreement in what the Power of such Councils materially doth consist and what it is that they may command us and what not IV. Nor is there any Agreement which and how many are their true Obligatory Laws when we have such huge Volumes of Decrees and Canons woe to us if all these must necessarily be obeyed to our Concord or Salvation And if not all how shall we know which V. Nor do we know how we must be sure that all these Canons indeed were Currant and had the Major Vote or many be Counterfeit when the Africans had then such a stir with the Pope about the Nicene or Sardican Canon and when to this day the Canons of the Laterane Council sub Innoc. 3. are justified by most and denied by many VI. If this could be known to a few Learned Men it is certain that to most Christians yea Ministers it cannot To me it is not And it 's certain that all Christians nor all Ministers are not obliged to so great a task as to search all the Councils till they know which they be and which the Laws which they must obey III. And as the Power and Laws cannot be known so it is certain that Obedience to these is not the necessary means of Christianity Concord or Communion because the necessary measure of such Obedience cannot be known to such a use Christ in his Institution of Baptism and other ways hath told what he hath made necessary to be a Member of the Universal Church and how all such must live in Love and Peace in obeying the rest of his Word so far as they can know it But you that make Obedience to a visible Power over the Church Universal necessary to our Membership can never tell us which is the necessary Degree If it be all the Canons and Mandates that must be so obeyed no Man can be saved much less can the Churches all have Concord on such terms yea every Christian If it be not all who can tell us which be the necessary Canons and Acts of Obedience and distinguish Essentials from Integrals unless you will return to the Word of God and say that The Covenant of Grace is Essential which we may know without these Councils Laws The Ministry of Councils teaching us how to know God's Word and Laws is one thing and their own pretended universally obliging Legislation is another Of all this I have said much in the second Part of my Key for Catholicks and in my foresaid Rejoinder to W. Johnson II. But you tell me of another Church Power which all must obey that will have Communion and Concord which you call Collegium Pastorum If none be Church Members or Christians that understand not what this is much less do obey it I doubt the Church is still a little Flock indeed For I understand it not nor know one Man that I think doth 1. Is
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
hath authorized a Vicarious Soveraign Prelacy before he can believe that there is a Christ that had any Authority himself 2. And he must be so good a Casuist as to know what maketh a true Bishop 3. And so well acquainted with all the World as to know what parts of the Earth have true Bishops and what they hold And is this the way of making Christians Perhaps you will say That Parents Tutors and Priests tell them what all the Bishops of the World hold as a Soveraign Judicature I answer 1. If they did Holden confesseth that the Certainty of Faith can be no greater than our Certainty of the Medium And the Child or Hearer that knoweth not that his Parent and Teacher therein saith true can no more know that the Creed or Scripture is true on that account 2. The generality of Protestants believe not an Universal-Governing Soveraign under Christ but deny it Therefore they never Preach any such Medium of Faith And can you prove that those that are brought to Christianity by Protestant Parents Tutors or Preachers are all yet Unchristened or have no true Faith 7. Why should we make Impossibilities necessary while surer and easier Means are obvious It is impossible to Children to the Vulgar to almost all the Priests themselves to know certainly what the Major Vote of Bishops in the whole World now think of this or that Text or Article save only consequently when we first believe the Articles of Faith we next know that he is no true Bishop that denieth them And it is impossible to know that Christ hath authorized a Soveraign Colledge before we believe Christs own Authority and Word But the Protestant Method is obvious viz. To hear Parents Tutors and Preachers as humble Learners To believe them Fide humana first while they teach us to know the Divine Evidence of Certain Credibility in the Creed and Scriptures and when they have taught us that to believe Fide Divinâ by the Light of that Divine Evidence which they have taught us What that is I have opened as aforecited and also in a small Treatise against the Papists called The Certainty of Christianity without Popery in which also I have confuted your way Besides what I have said in the Second Part of The Saints Rest and my More Reasons for the Christian Religion 8. I cannot by all your Words understand how you can have any Faith on your Grounds 1. You that renounce Popery I suppose take not the Popish Prelates for any part of the Soveraign Colledge 2. I perceive that you take not the Southern and Eastern Christians for a part who are called Nestorians Eutychians or Jacobites 3. I find that you take not the Protestant Churches that have no Bishops for any part for the Soveraignty is only in Bishops 4. I find that you take not the Lutheran Churches or any other for a part whose Bishops Succession from the Apostles hath not a Continuance uninterrupted which Rome hath not 5. And me thinks you should not think better of the Greeks than of such Protestants on many accounts which I pass by Where then is that Universal Colledge on whose judging-Judging-Authority you are a Christian Sure you take not our little Island for the Universal Church I would I knew which you take for the Universal Church and how you prove the Inclusion and Exclusion 9. I find not that the Universal Church hath so agreed as you suppose of the Canon of Scripture and the Readings Translations c. Four or five Books were long questioned by many General Councils have not agreed of the Canon Bishop Cousins hath given us the best account of the Reception of the true Canon Provincial Councils have said most of this Even the fullest at Laodicea hath left out the Revâ—lations The Romanists take in the Apocrypha Many Churches have less or more than others What Grotius himself thought of Job and the Canticles I need not tell you Nor how Augustine and most others strove for the Septuagint against Jerome And if the Universal Judicature have decided the many Hundred Doubts about the Various Lections I would you would tell us where to find it for I know not § II. Your second Use of the Soveraign Power is to judge of the Sense of Fundamental Articles of Faith because the Words may be taken in a false Sense 1. This is very cautelously spoken Is it only Fundamentals that they are to expound by Soveraign Judgment How then shall we know the Sense of all the rest of the S. Scriptures And how will this end a Thousand Controversies 2. And why may not the same Means satisfie us about Fundamentals which satisfieth us about the Integrals of Religion Yea we have here far better help The first Christians Catechized and taught the Sense of Baptism before they were Baptized They and their Tutors and Preachers taught the same to their Children and so on Baptism and the Fundamentals have been constantly repeated in all the Churches of the World There are as many Witnesses or Teachers of these as there are Understanding Christians And yet must all needs hear from the Antipodes or know the Sense of a Humane Soveraign of the World before they receive them 3. Can this Supreme Colledge speak the Fundamentals plainlier than God hath done and than the Parish Priest can do Are they necessary to tell us that Christ died rose ascended because Scripture speaketh it not plain enough We know that no Words of Creed or Scripture falsly understood make a true Believer But is not that as true of a Councils Words as of the Creed And are there any Words that Men cannot misunderstand Why hath Filioque continued such a Distraction in the Churches and Councils yet end it not To say nothing of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and other such Have we a necessity of a Soveraign Judicature to be to all Men in stead of a Schoolmaster to tell them what is the meaning of Greek and Hebrew Words And could not one Origen or Jerom tell that better than a General Council of Men that understand not those Tongues I must confess that what understanding of the Words of Creed or Scripture I have received was more from Parents Tutors Teachers and Books than from Soveraign Councils or Colledge of Bishops though Dr. Holden say he is no true Believer and Catholick that believeth an Article of Faith because his Reason findeth it in Scripture and not rather because all the Christian World believeth it There is more skill in Cosmography Arithmetick and History necessary to such a Faith than I have attained or can attain I can tell E. g. by Lexicons and other Books what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth in the Creed better than how all the Bishops in the World interpret it by an Authoritative Sentence § III. Your third Work of this Soveraign Power is Authoritatively to declare what Government of the Church was delivered by the Apostles 1. As I said of Scripture we
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
of a more speedy way of Success So that he resolved to put it to a speedy upshot and would have all or none which brought the Changes which we have since seen § 8. But is the Church of England yet delivered from all the Inclination to a Foreign Jurisdiction and the French Government The Oath of Supremacy made it seem hard to perjure the whole Land that had renounced all foreign Jurisdiction But many devised an Expository Evasion that only a Civil Jurisdiction was meant though the Ecclesiastick also was named Should there be but a new attempt by such as the former Rulers probably made is it not like that Men of the French or Grotian Principles will promote it yea and be glad of French assistance I doubt they that would Perjure the Kingdom by a foreign Jurisdiction will debate this odd Question Qu. Whether all that Profess or Swear that it is Vnlawful on any Pretence whatever to resist the King or any Commissioned by him in the Execution of that Commission may resist a French Army if they Invade the Land by K. J 's Commission Or will they turn Nonconformists Chap. XXIII Postscript to the Reverend Dr. Beveridge SIR § 1. THough you were Bishop Guning's Witness with Dr. Saywell his Chaplain when he conferred with me I was not willing to believe that you were of his mind for a Foreign Jurisdiction either Aristocratical or Democratical or Monarchical but to my grief am now convinced of it by your published Convocation Sermon Having too copiously here and elsewhere confuted it specially in my two Books against William Johnson alias Terret the Papist I shall go on the supposition that you will there take notice of it Especially of these two Reasons against it 1. That the Kingdom and Church is sworn against it 2. That a pretended Universal Humane Soveraignty or Legislative and Judicial Power over the whole Church on Earth is the Grand Usurpation of Christs Prerogative which no Mortal Men are capable of And if this be not Popery there is no such thing as Popery And if the Pope be justly called Antichrist or at least a Trayterous Usurper against the Right of Christ and Kings it is by this And if such a Power be really given to any the Pope cannot be excluded at least from the Universal Primacy § 2. I doubt not but the Love of Unity and the sense of the woful case of the Church by Sects and sad Dissentions engaged Bishop Guning and you in the Opinions you took up And no doubt but the Consciencious part of the Learned and Religious Papists are fixed by the same Motives in their way I may say fixed and very confident or else they durst not carry it on as they have done in France and all other Popish Countreys And I can say that I have not fixed on the denial of a Humane Universal Jurisdiction without thinking seriously Forty years of what I could find said for it as well as against it nor out of an inclination to any contrary extreme Could I have found but any Humane capacity in One or Many for such a Soveraignty Legislative and Judicial and but a possibility of such a thing and any probability that it was of Christs Institution the Love of Unity and Hatred of Unruliness and Divisions and their Effects had long ago made me a hot defender of it But the contrary Truth had contrary Effects § 3. That you may not think that I differ from you more than I do I here premise I. That I doubt not but that the Universal Church visible is One Body or Society of professed Christians As the Universal Church as Regenerate and Spiritual is One Body of sincere Christians II. That the Unity and Concord of it as Professors and as sincere must be maintained to the utmost of our power by all due lawful means III. That a wise Correspondency between all those Churches which by nearness are capable of Acquaintance and Communication is a due means to preserve their Love and Concord IV. That seasonable and duly chosen Synods of many conjunct that live within the reach of such Acquaintance and Communication may in case of true need be a fit means of such Concord V. That where such Synods cannot be had with due equality Letters and Messengers from the several Nations or Provinces or Churches may be used to that end VI. That the General Law of Christ commanding Love Concord and Edification maketh it a sin for any to affect causless singularity and to chuse any way which tendeth to Division And that where there is an Equality and no Regent power yet just Contracts for Concord ought to be observed VII That if in National Churches that is Christian Kingdoms or Commonwealths the Soveraign Power give one Seat or Bishop a Primacy or peculiar Priviledge in the Circa Sacra the Circumstantials of Sacred Offices which are within the Magistrates Power it ought to be obeyed VIII If I had lived in the Christian Empire when it sometime gave the Bishop of Rome and sometime the Bishop of Constantinople this preheminence of degree and the other Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch and Jerusalem their several Priviledges and Powers not contrary to the Word of God I would have obeyed that which the Emperor by his Law preferred IX The Roman Empire was so great a part of the known Civilized World and so Potent that I quarrel not with the Titles of Orbis Romanus and Ecclesia Vniversalis given to that Dominion and Church which was meerly National or Imperial so be it we understand the true meaning X. Had the Empire continued one Polity and had made the Bishop of Rome the Primate as to his Seat in Councils and the said Bishop had been a capable Person and had not Challenged the Government or Primacy in order of Regiment over the whole Christian World but in the Empire only as the Archbishop of Canterbury doth in England I would have been none of his opposers All this I grant you § 4. But premising for the Explication of Terms that we take the words Regiment Laws Authority c. in the proper political sense and not equivocally for meer advice or consent I add as followeth 1. That as the Universal Church on Earth hath but one Soveraign Jesus Christ so it is one Body Politick in relation to no one Vnifying Head but Christ and hath no one Substitute Vicarious Christ or Substitute Soveraign Government Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical or Mixt. II. The Soveraignty of one Christian King Emperor or Senate in Aristocracy over an United or Confederate Christian Clergy and Laity as Subjects each keeping to their own Place and Work is the Unifying Headship of a National Church which is nothing but such a Christian Kingdom or Republick And that Christ hath owned such National Church Power and hath instituted and owned no Power of Humane Government over it on Earth And therefore as pretending to Universal Jurisdiction is Treason against Christ so the claim
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
And yet he may own most or all other Pastors of the Catholick Church as such He that thinks the Subscriptions Forms or Ceremonies of the Greek Roman or English Church unlawful doth not therefore think Christianity or Catholick Communion unlawful XXXVIII All Christians are not bound to be fixed Members of particular Churches subordinate to National but those that can enjoy it ought The Negative I have so fully proved against Dr. Stillingfleet that for Dr. Sherlock to go on to harp on the same string and give no answer to it doth but tell us with what Men we have to do I will not repeat the Proofs I gave that some Ambassadors some Merchants some wandering Beggars or Tradesmen some Travellers and some where no Churches yet are gathered some Soldiers and some in times of Confusion are not obliged to be fixed Members of any particular Church but only to be Christians in Communion with the Church Catholick and to hold transient Communion with the Churches where they come He that yet will deny this words will not make him see it XXXIX Many of these Churches in one Kingdom have so great advantage by the Unity of Soveraignty civil Interest and Laws to be strengthening helpers to one another that they should accordingly associate and live in as much concord as their various conditions Auditors and Imperfections will allow And accordingly as Neighbours owe some more Charity to each other than to Strangers so Christians under the same Prince united by Civil Government Laws and Interest should be so far from persecuting and destroying each other for that which in various Kingdoms is allowable in Religion that they should exercise more love compassion and forbearance of one another XL. Christian Princes are true Parts of the Kingdom of Christ and eminent Integral Parts of the Universal Church as well as Pastors And are bound by Christ to do their best to make all their Kingdoms the Kingdoms of Christ that is to bring all their Subjects to consent to be Christians and to live in concordant Obedience to the Laws of Christ. And so all Nations should be discipled as far as they can procure it And such National Churches that is Christian Kingdoms we must all desire XLI Supreme Christian Princes or States are authorized and obliged to drive on by just means all Pastors and People to the Duties of their several Places and correct them for their Crimes XLII Christian Princes and States being Members of the Universal Church are bound to contribute their best endeavours to its welfare And therefore so far to Unite and Agree as is necessary to their mutual strengthening for the Universal good XLIII Therefore so far as Civil Councils or Dyets of many Princes or their Delegates or Ambassadors are necessary to this Concord for the common good they are bound by God to keep such And where Meetings cannot be kept to use all meet correspondency by Ambassadors and Letters for the same End So that this is no duty proper to Bishops but common to Christian Princes And if their sinful omission make it strange it is nevertheless their duty as God will make them know XLIV Thy Synods of Pastors duly ordered are of great use for their mutual advice strength and concord in order to the universal good So far are we from being against them that we think the right use of them of great importance That they may keep a right understanding of the Faith which they agree in and bear down Heresies the better by their joynt opposition and may keep up Christian Love and work out the disaffections which strangers and the calumnies of backbiters are apt to breed And even in Integrals and meet Accidents may do as much in Concord as they can XLV The Obligation which lieth on Particular Pastors to observe the Agreements of such Synods is from the general command of Love and Concord and the means thereto And he that stands not to such Agreements as make for the Strength and Concord of the Churches violateth this Common Law But such Agreements of Synods as make not for this common end but are against it no man is obliged to observe For it is no means that is not for the End but against it Therefore every Canon which enjoyneth sin or is not to the Churches good but hurt must not be kept XLVI It is not true that the Diocesan is by Office the Representer of the whole Church in Synods and Presbyters have no place or decisive Votes Protestants have at large confuted this in their Confutations of Popery and so have many French Papists and some others The Convocation in England hath a lower House of Presbyters Else in Abassia one Bishop were instead of all the Clergy of the Empire And two or three were a National Synod in a Nation that hath no more Diocesses They can shew no Commission for such a Representative Power therefore they have none such XLVII Much less have five Patriarchs and a few Metropolitans or such near them as they will call Authority to pass for the Representatives of all the Christian World and to constitute a General Council XLVIII No Pastors or Churches can give power to any to represent them absolutely but only limitedly to lawful things for common good And to oblige them no further or longer to stand to what they do than the common good requireth it What a man may not do himself he may not authorize another to do for him And no man may himself oppose Truth or Duty or cross the common good or assert any falshood or consent to any sin And that which accidentally maketh for the common good in one Age or Countrey may be against it in the next And then we are obliged against it whatever our Delegates Ancestors or selves did for it before XLIX There was never in the World a General Council of all the Bishops on Earth nor of the Representatives of all the Churches Even the six or eight or more old Councils now most honoured were General but as to One Empire yea far from that and not as to all the Christian World This I have fully proved in my second Book against Johnson 1. From the Subscriptions to the said Councils 2. From the Authority of the Emperors that called them 3. From the rest of the History and Acts 4. And from the Testimony of the Historians of those Times Yet A. Bishop Bromhall with the Papist Priest Johnson maintaineth the contrary pag. 110. saying This Exception was made in the dark c. and saith it abounds with Errours and that the Abuna of Ethiopia submitteth to the Patriarch of Alexandria and they all acknowledge the Pope the first Patriarch c. Ans. 1. If such a cant as this go with any man for a satisfactory answer to the full proof aforesaid which I have given and my Confutation of ten times more of Johnsons I have done with that man Ans. 2. Our Question is Whether any or all the
Extra-Imperial Churches had Bishops in those Councils or were there represented yea or ever called Doth he prove a word of this Not one word but saith The Ethiopians now submit to them Ans. 3. The Question is not what they do now but what they did then Christian Reader admire the gracious Providence of God The Custom then was for the Major Vote of the Bishops in Council when they anathematized any as Hereticks to get them banished Many of these banished men enlarged the Church and encreased the numbers of Christians where they came but they propagated a Condemnation of the Councils that condemned them Nestorius but specially Dioscorus and Jacobus Syrus and many of the Eutychians turned multitudes in the East and South and some in Tartary to their minds herein Among others the Abyssines were taken with the Reverence and Authority of Dioscorus condemning the Council at Chalcedon and the rest that were against him And all the Extra-Imperial Churches honoured those of the Empire above themselves living under Infidels except Abassia and rejoyced in the Power of the Christian Empire but never joyned in their Councils nor received them as their Laws but rejoyced as Consenters to all that they thought good He cannot prove that before Dioscorus Banishment the Abassines obeyed Alexandria And to this day their Abuna is chosen by the Monks at Jerusalem say some but say others chosen and confirmed by the titular Patriarch of Alexandria and ruleth Abassia himself and they all condemn the foresaid Councils and the Pope Godignus tells you and Ludolphus more fully what respect they have for the Pope and our Councils Ans. 4. The truth is all that ever I heard yet that can be said for the Subjection of the Abassines or other Exterior Churches to the Council even of Nice or the Patriarchs before is but a Word in the Canons lately Divulged by Pisanus which are novel of no Authority nor to be Credited by any that Credit not the Roman Forgeries And it 's contrary to the true Nicene Canon that saith Egypt only is Subject to Alexandria when this Forgery addeth Ethiopia And yet it 's said of Trajan that he went far into Ethiopia to Enlarge the Roman Power So if the Romans had any skirt there as they had oft in Persia and Scythia that 's nothing to the Abassines nor proveth any Exteriors much less all represented in the General Councils of old Ans. 5. Many Countries and Parties did for Concord and some Advantages put themselves under particular Patriarchs and also profess their voluntary consent to the Nicene and some other Councils Canons or Creed who yet never took a General Council for the Rightful Soveraign of the Christian Churches through the World At this day one Sect obeyeth only the Patriarch of Constantinople and rejecteth all the rest and another the Patriarch of Alexandria and three others the three pretending Patriarchs of Antioch rejecting the rest and they reject as aforesaid some of the four first Councils and all that followed By which it appeareth that they take not the four or five Patriarchs Essential to Catholick Unity nor General Councils to have a supream Regiment over all Most Protestants receive the four first General Councils saving some mutable accidentals And yet they hold not their Universal Soveraignty L. It is neither lawful nor possible to call a Vniversal Council to Exercise Vniversal Soveraignty nor ever like to be I have fully proved this in the Second part of my Key for Catholicks Consider 1. It must be Grave Experienced Men who are fit to be trusted in so great a Matter And such are Aged and usually weak 2. From Abassia Mexico Armenia c. they must be a year or near in receiving the Summons and as long in preparing and coming to Europe if this be the place 3. They must it's like be some years absent at the Council 4. They cannot if they are sufficient Representatives come all into one Room to hear Debates 5. They cannot most of them understand one anothers Language 6. They will hardly live to bring back the Decrees 7. There is no Person or Senate in the World that hath an obliging Authority to call them 8. It is not like that they will ever agree Voluntarily to meet in one place without such Authority The Abassines Armenians Syrians c. will think we should come to them and we shall think they should come to us 9. If possibly they should agree a Mans Age is little enough to go all over the World to Sollicite and bring them to such Agreement 10. Who and how many will undertake that task 11. How few can bear the Charges of all this 12. It were sinful Cruelty to Separate the Wisest Men so long from their Charges to the Peoples loss as well as by the Voyages and Journeys to kill them 13. It is certain that most of the Princes on Earth under whose power the Bishops live would not give leave to go out of their Dominions to such Synods most being Infidels many Heterodox and many in Wars or Enmity with each other and almost all in Jealousies and without their leave they cannot come 14. The great Numbers of the nearer Bishops and the paucity of the most remote would make it no true Representative as to Votes 15. There is no one on Earth Antecedently Authorized to be their President what ever the Papists pretend And to choose a President it 's like so many such would hardly agree 16. It 's already known that they account one another Hereticks or Schismaticks or Usurping Tyrants before hand Some are called Nestorian Hereticks some Eutychian or Jacobite Hereticks some Melchites some one thing and some another and most take the Papists for Tyrants and Hereticks both And will all these ever meet in Council 17. Men are naturally so much for their own ease and so much against Works of so vast difficulty charge and hazard that a competent number of fit Men would never undertake it it being almost equal to a Martyrdom which even the best Men will not undergo till they are better Convinced of the Duty and Necessity than any Man can truly be of such Universal Councils 18. It 's known that all the Protestants if not allmost all other Christians save Papists do believe no such Councils to be necessary no nor lawful but to be usurping Tyranny as challenging the Universal Church-Government as a Senate So that as there never was so there never will be must be or can be such a Council unless which God forbid all the Church should be again Reduced to a narrow Room LI. They that would make such Councils possible by pretending that a few Patriarchs and such Bishops as they will bring with them are the Sufficient and Authorized Representers of all the rest do but more grossly deceive and abuse the Christian World For 1. They never proved nor can prove that ever Christ Authorized such Patriarchs much less to such a Power 2. And whereas Arch-Bishop
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
unlimited Monarch we will speak according to common use and let them speak as their Interest dictates to them but remember that the Controversie is but about the Name and not the Thing We take the French Church for Papists If they will call them Protestants they are free But if we are agreed what a Pope is the case is plain as followeth I. Mr. Dodwell their most Learned defender if number of words or greatest self-conceit be the chief strength tells you that if the Council be not lawfully called it obligeth you rather to bring them to Punishment as a Rout or Rebels than to obey them And that none but the President hath Power to call them And remember yet that this good Man is no Papist And indeed who else but the Pope should call Universal Councils The King in Scotland may call a Scotch General Assembly and in England a Convocation and Parliaâ—ent And 1. The Emperor of Rome or Constantinople might call such Councils in the Empire as were then called General and did so But who now shall call one out of France Spain Portugal Italy Germany Britain Denmark Sweden Poland Moscovie the Turkish Empire Armenia Georgia Mengrelia Tartary Abassia Mexico Peru China c. We are awake and therefore cannot Dream of Princes doing it by Agreement We are yet out of Bedlam and cannot conclude that all the Bishops in the World will come together by common consent or as the Atomists say the World was made by a fortuitous concourse of Atomes 2. How shall lawful Councils be known from unlawful if none have Authority to call approve and difference them If only ex factis by their good or bad Deeds half the World will Judge as they have done and do one Council to be spurious which another obeyeth 3. What order shall be kept among them if none have Authority to appoint the Place the Time to Preside and Moderate and to dissolve them and who pretends to this but the Pope 4. When Councils Contradict Condemn and Curse each other who shall tell us which of them to receive believe and obey II. And if we must have a visible Supreme Power we must have one that successively existeth that the Church be not dissolved And none pretendeth to this but the Pope III. And if all National Patriarchal Churches be but Parts of a visible Catholick Church with a Humane Supremacy then there must be some Power still existent to give Patriarchs and Metropolitans their Power Mr. Dodwell saith it overthrows all Government to appeal to Scripture as a Charter or Law of Christ None hath more than the Giver intended him None can give that which he hath not to give The Inferior hath not Power to give to the Superior Who then but a Pope can give Patriarchs and Metropolitans their Power If for want of Authoritative Collation of Power all the Presbyterian Ordinations Sacraments and Covenant-hopes of Salvation are Nullities and Sins against the Holy Ghost as Mr. Dodwell and his Tribe say what better are all the Bishops and Archbishops for want of a Superior conferring Power which none pretendeth to but the Pope IV. And who else shall judge Patriarchs Metropolitans and National Churches when they prove Hereticks or Schismaticks Their Heresie and Schism is far more heinous and dangerous than single Persons or Congregations And Councils are not extant And we cannot send all over the Earth to gather Bishops Votes against them unheard It must be a Pope or no body on Earth that must by Governing Authority Judge them V. And who else shall be the stated Judge of new started Controversies You say such there must be shall they be undecided till the World have a true general Council VI. And who shall an injured Person appeal to from a Tyrannical Metropolitan or National Church but to the Pope Many more clear Necessities there will be of a Pope on their Principles I blamed the Author of the Divine Hierarchy for naming such without an Antidote lest it should make men Papists But I understand he is a worthy Protestant But verily there is no avoiding a Pope by any that assert an Vniversal humane Church Supremacy VII And indeed I must not suppose them so immodest as to deny it For it is but the Pope's Absolute Power above the Councils and their Laws and not Simple Popery or the Pope's limited Power that they deny 1. They confess that they hold Rome for the Mistriss Church as Grotius calls it 2. And that the Pope is Patriarch of the West and the prime Patriarch 3. And that he is Principium Vnitatis to all the Church on Earth And if so they are out of the Church which is One that deny this 4. That he is authorized to call General Councils 5. And to be their President 6. And to be the chief Governor when there are no General Councils and that is indeed always 7. And that they are all Schismaticks that do not thus far submit to him And how much more Mr. Dodwell giveth the President I have shewed you in his own words VIII As Mr. Thorndike threateneth England with God's Judgments if they do not amend the Oath of Supremacy by making it acceptable to the Papists that renounce not a foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction so others labour to prove that the meaning of it is only to renounce the Pope's Jurisdiction here in Temporals which belongs to the King and not a Papal and Foreign Jurisdiction properly Ecclesiastical by the Keys As you may see partly in Mr. Hutchinson's alias Berry's Book who on that Supposition took the Oath as many do and publickly profest himself of the Church of England IX In the Description of the Reconciliation with the Pope endeavoured by Archbishop Laud in Heylin's History of his Life Pag. 414 415 c. All that the Pope was to abate was 1. That the Oaths of Supremacy and Fidelity may be taken I told you in what sense 2. And that the Pope's Jurisdiction here but no where else be declared to be of Humane Right that is say ours by the Fathers in General Councils not without the Apostles by whose Church-Laws we are all bound 3. That all should be really performed to the King so far as other Catholick Princes usually enjoy and expect as their due and so far as the Bishops were to be independent both from King and Pope but not from subjection to either This saith he no man of Learning and Sobriety would have grudged to grant him 4. Marriage permitted to Priests 5. The Communion in both kinds 6. The Liturgy in English I ask any sober man now Qu. 1. Whether the Pope did himself think that by this bargain he ceased to be Pope and all Papists to be Papists 2. Whether if the King had been thus far equalled with other Catholick Princes the Pope would not have supposed him and his Bishops and Church to be of the same Roman Catholick Church as they 3. Whether in all this here be any
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
to him after 3. Between a Bishop whose revolt is professed and one that denieth it or keeps it secret 4. Between living peaceably and owning the Right of the Bishops Authority 5. Between obeying him as a Magistrate and as a Church Pastor 6. Between obeying him as a meer Bishop and as the Subject of a Foreign Power 7. Between obeying such a one when the Church accepteth him or when he is but an intruder against their consent 8. Between subjection in necessary cases where no better can be had and in cases unnecessary where we may have better § 6. And I shall speak my thoughts as in a dreadful case in these Conclusions I. If the Bishops revolt to a Foreign Jurisdiction be unknown it maketh not that Obedience to him unlawful which was his due II. If a few Bishops revolt to a Foreign Usurper it 's easie to see that no one should follow them against the contrary judgment of all the rest in the Nation and so forsake the National Concord III. If one or more Bishops be known to revolt to a Foreign Soveraign a Minister is not bound therefore to renounce Communion with all the Christians or Churches in his Diocess who are innocent No nor with all that renounce not Communion with him For we know not whether they know his case and have had means to understand and do their Duty IV. So far as a Bishop exerciseth the Power of the Sword as an Officer of the King we must obey him though he be a Papist in all things which he hath true power to command V. One that was Ordained by him before his revolt may go on with his work and live peaceably and not openly renounce the revolting Bishop till he have a particular Call for the Churches safety or the preservation of his own innocency VI. If a man be necessitated to live where no other Ministry or Christian Communion can be had one that renounceth the Bishops Subjection to an Universal Usurper may yet be subject to him and receive Baptism from him or administer it and other Ordinances of God in his Diocess and acknowledge his Office so far as it is described by Christ and conveyed by just means and hath the consent of the Church A man may have two Commissions to one Office of which one is currant and the other null If one that hath Christs Commission shall also take one from a Forreign Usurper the latter is void and the taking of it is his heinous sin but it doth not nullifie all his Administrations to the Church because his better Commission may so far stand good as that his Baptizing Ordination and other Administration of Gods own Ordinances shall not be null And therefore we use not to Rebaptize such as Papists Baptize nor Re-ordain all that they ordain to the Ministry in general VII But it is rather a Duty to forbear all Church Assemblies where no other can be had than to profess conâ—â—nt to a Foreign Usurpation or pretended Universal Soveraignty For no sin must be done on pretence of necessity nothing being indeed necessary which must be got by sinful means VIII If a Nation as France be subject to the Usurpers of an Universal Soveraignty or if a Nation shew themselves to be designing such a Subjection or if one Bishop or more declare themselves for it It is the Duty of Ministers openly to disown and oppose such attempts and ordinarily to disown the proper Church Government Ordinations and Communion of such Bishops And it is the peoples Duty to disown the Pastoral Conduct of such Ministers as openly follow them For 1. The design of this Universal Usurpation is Treason against Christ by setting up men to possess his Prerogative and pretend to be his Vicars or Chief Substitutes without his Commission And it is a design to divide all the Churches by false means of Union and so to cast them all into that miserable War which the Romanists these Thousand years have done And consequently to introduce an intolerable corruption of Discipline and Worship Doctrine and Life And no man may lawfully join in so wicked a design nor be so much as neutral If with single Fornicators Railers Drunkards c. we may not eat in familiarity much less with such Subverters of the Christian World 2. And no Christian is actually a Church-member under any one as his Pastor without mutual Consent And it is not lawful to consent to take a Traytor against Christ and the Church for our Pastor He that is no Pastor should not be taken for a Pastor But if he either want any Essential Qualification as to be Christs Minister for the Churches good or the Consent of the Flock he is no Pastor to them 3. The resolution of the Case against Martial and Basilides by the Carthage Council with Cyprian fully decideth the Case proving by Scripture and Reason if the people forsake not an uncapable Bishop though other Bishops are for them they greatly sin against God And those that were but Libellatick came far short of the guilt of the Universal Usurpation 4. And it is not the danger of suffering that will justifie Subjection to such Designers For suffering must not seem intolerable to Believers None are true Christians but dispositive Martyrs 5. Many old Canons were made against Presbyters Swearing or Promising Obedience to Bishops as a thing dangerous to the Church much more is it sinful to do it to such Church Enemies 6. And Magistrates commands will not excuse it because it is a thing forbidden of God and which no Man hath right to command IX The restriction of in licitis honestis maketh it not lawful to Swear or Promise Obedience to such 1. Because even to subject our selves to Usurpers is not licitum aut honestum tho' they command nothing else but good 2. A Lawful Ruler must be obeyed only in licitis honestis And a Usurper must not be as much owned as a Lawful Ruler If an Usurper should set up in England and should falsly pretend the Kings Commission and should sollicite the Kings Army to take Commissions from him a Loyal Subject might be deceived by him believing that he had the Kings Commission when he had none And might at once be true to the King in Heart and do the things that Traytors do But if he know that he hath none of the Kings Commission but raiseth Arms against his Will and Law to strengthen himself every Subject ought to renounce him and to renounce the Commanders that follow him and neither to Swear Obedience to them in licitis honestis nor yet to bear Arms under them And this is as true of a Parliament or any Senate as of a single Usurper should they falsly pretend that the King or Law doth make them the Governors of the Kingdom and so Usurp the Kings proper Power And specially if the Total Legislative and Judicial Supreme Power be absolutely in the King alone as it is in God
and Jesus Christ which I add because some think they may lawfully be subject to those Bishops that are subjected only to Universal Councils or Church Parliaments so they do but disclaim the Roman Papacy X. Though some may think that subjection to a pretended Universal Council may stand with Loyalty to Christ because such a Council is a Chimera or Non Ens and never will be in the World and so can do no harm as one may be true to the King who yet Sweareth Obedience to an Assembly of Mortal Angels yet the case is otherwise For 1. These Men that profess Subjection to Councils cannot be supposed to take such Councils for Chimera's or things impossible without being taken for mad Men. Therefore it is not a true General Council but something possible that they mean And they use to say themselves or as General as can be well had So that such a one as that at Trent or as they will call General as they do the old Imperial Councils will serve their turn 2. And let them disclaim Popery never so loudly they mean still that the Pope must be the ordinary Caller and President of these Councils and the Chief Patriarch and Principium Vnitatis Vniversalis And so all will come but to a limited Pope instead of an Absolute One And is he not a Monarch though he must Rule by Law For they intend not that there be no Catholick Church all the time that there are no Councils and therefore they intend some Unifying Constitutive Executive Supreme XI Obj. But if we may not own a Bishop that subjecteth himself to the Pope or other Foreign Vsurper of Vniversal Government then if the King be a Papist it will follow that we must not be subject to him Which all Protestants confess to be false Ergo so is the Antecedent as of Bishops Ans. I deny the Consequence speaking only of such a Kings Religion Nero was a Heathen and it was lawful for Christians to be subject to him for Conscience sake But it was not lawful to subject themselves to Heathen Bishops a contradiction A Heathen may be Gods Minister to preserve the common Peace and Execute the Laws of God in Nature and the Just Subordinate Laws But the Office of a Bishop consisteth in another matter viz. In teaching the true Doctrine and Laws of Christ and guiding the Church by them and keeping out all that is against them And therefore no other man can be a Bishop that doth not this as to the Essentials If the King command us to be Papists we must disobey him But if he command us to do things good and lawful we must obey True Christianity is Essential to a Bishops Office but not to a Kings as King But if any put the Question Whether a Ruler of a Protestant Kingdom who taketh himself bound by the Laterane or other Council on pain of Damnation to destroy all his Kingdom that will not forsake their Religion be Publicus Hostis And whether by the Law of Nature every Nation have a right of self-defence against open Enemies I meddle with no such Cases as these XII To conclude I advise all Christians to live peaceably in their places but to take care whom they trust with the Pastoral Conduct of their Souls and not to be seduced to enter into a Confederacy against Christs Prerogative by any pretences of Humane Authority or Catholick Vnity which really are against Divine Authority and the true Unity of the Church in Christ For a thousand years experience even by our Bishops confession who own but the Six first Councils have told us by the sad confusions of the Christian World that such Pretenders to Unity in a Humane Universal Soveraignty have but caused divisions and offences contrary to the Apostolical Doctrine not serving Christ but their own bellies and by good words and fair speeches deceived the hearts of the simple Our Unity consisteth in One Head Jesus Christ One God one Body or Church of Christ one Faith one Baptism one Hope one Gospel and Universal Law of Christ and that we live in Love and Peace and Order in Learning and in Worshipping God in several Congregations under their respective Guides as consenting Volunteers and that the conjunction of such under Christian Kings makes Christian Kingdoms where by the Counsels of Pastors in their own Dominions they may keep that Church-Peace and external Order which is left to the trust of their determination and that in cases of need the Counsel and Help of Foreign Churches be desired and that Communion in Christianity be professed with all the true Christian World and that we wait for perfect Unity in Heaven But that Princes and Kingdoms be not brought under a Foreign Jurisdiction specially if pretended Universal instead of Foreign Counsel Communion Peace and Aid Chap. VII Of the second Part of the Design to bring the Papists into our Communion as they were in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign § 1. Dr. Heylin saith That this was much of A. Bishop Laud's design and that it was in order to this that he made the Changes which he made And Dr. Burnet saith That even Queen Elizabeth thought that if she could some how bring all her Subjects into one Communion tho' of different Opinions in one Age they would come to be of one mind And therefore she was desirous to have kept up Images and other such things in the Churches till the reasons and importunity of some Divines prevailed with her § 2. If this be done it must be either by the Papists turning Protestants or the Protestants turning Papists or by meeting in some third State of Religion between both or by continuing in the same Church-Communion without change of their Religion § 3. I. If the Papists come into our Churches by Conversion it is not then Papists but Protestants that come in There is no true Protestant that is not earnestly desirous of this But bare coming in to our Churches and Communion is not a renunciation of Popery § 4. II. That the Protestants should turn Papists for Union is not openly pleaded for by them that we have to do with The name of Papists they earnestly disown § 5. III. If it must be by meeting in some middle way it must be by a change in the Papists or by a change in the Protestants or both 1. If the Papists change any thing of theirs it must be either the Essentials of Popery or also the grosser errours and sins which are its most corrupt Integral part or only some mutable Accidents or lesser faults and errours 1. If the Papists hold still that there ought to be one Universal Soveraign Power of Legislation and Judgment under Christ on Earth and that either the Pope himself with a General Council or a Council where the Pope is President and Principium Vnitatis is this Soveraign this is the Essence of Popery continued 2. If the Papists should quâ—t this Universal Soveraignty and yet
a Universal Soveraignty or Legislative and Judicial Power And therefore uncapable of our Coalition more than an Impenitent Murderer is of Church Communion § 2. And there are not a few nor small Matters that are above Four hundred Years old that found Protestants will never Unite with And though Mr. Thorndike give us so much quarter as to say that It is the Authority that must necessarily be owned and not the Canons if that Authority will change them 1. It is the usurped Authority that we most disown 2. And we have no assurance what Canons that Authority will change And Mr. Thorndike's Mr. Dodwell's and such Mens great rule of Unity is that none of us must question whether any of the Canons of that Authority are contrary to God's Word nor appeal to God and Scripture against them Multitudes of Papists themselves renounce such Doctrine § 3. I. And first All this is built on the Sand I have largely proved long ago in several Books that it is impossible for them to certifie us who have this Authority Who it is that we must hear as the Catholick Church and take Universal Laws from when there is no General Council Or what Councils we may be sure are General or what not Besides none were General but of One Empire When they condemn each other and when each call the other Heretical or Schismatical and when as Great a Number were at one as at the other and the same Authority chose and called both sorts How shall we know which we must obey Is it by Scripture Reason or Authority of Councils themselves that we must Judge They cannot tell us § 4. II. The Cause which I am pleading against is exprest by their Champion the Lord Primate of Ireland Archbishop Bromhall in the words forecited viz. To wave their last Four hundred years Determinations is implicitely to renounce all the necessary Causes of this great Schism And to rest satisfied with their Old Patriarchal Power and Dignity and Primacy of Order which is another part of my Proposition is to quit the Modern Papacy both Name and Thing By this we see what the Protestant Church of England must be or else be Schismaticks in the Judgment of these Learned Men. I will here tell you why this will never Unite us and why the old Church of English Protestants could not close with Rome on these mens terms § 5. I. Salmasius de Ecclesiis Suburbicariis circa finem granteth them that by their Imperial Constitutions the Bishop of Rome was not a meer Patriarch but more than a Patriarch a Caput Ecclesiae This was not Christ's Institution but the Emperours and their Clergies in one Empire But call it Patriarchal or what you will it contained such Power as Christ having not given and Dead men of another Kingdom being none of our Rulers we are not obliged to obey nor indeed lawfully can do 1. A Patriarch and Primate hath some degree of Governing Power or else wherein doth his Primacy consist He calleth Councils Precedeth c. And if he cannot command Archbishops how can they command Bishops And if they are not Commanders of Bishops why do our English Bishops in their Consecration Profess Promise and Swear all due Obedience to the Archbishops And 1. We cannot yield to bring England under the guilt and brand of Perjury by submitting to the Foreign Jurisdiction of a Roman Primate or Patriarch contrary to the Oath of Supremacy 2. We know already how many false Doctrines and Practices the Roman Church and Patriarch have espoused And we can no more receive all these Errours from a Patriarch than from a Pope § 6. II. But we will freely confess to you that we neither are nor can be such a sort of Protestants as the Regnant Church of France is which persecuteth the Protestants nor as these Men called the Church of England in such Proposals would have us be I will give you a Catalogue of some Determinations of above Four hundred Years old which the Church of England before Bishop Laud could not receive § 7. I. Mr. Thorndike also consenteth to rest in the Canons sent by Pope Adrian to Carol. M. about An. 773. And C. 23. ex Clem. is That Arch-Bishop Presbyter or Deacon taken in Fornication Perjury or Theft be deposed but not Excommunicate II. Can. 28. is That a Bishop who obtaineth a Church by Secular Power be deposed And yet we are called Schismaticks for not obeying alas I dare not name the things the Bishops that have many Score or Hundred Churches by Secular Power And must we Unite in this III. Can. 11. is Condemned Clerks shall never be restored if they go to the Emperour And must we Confederate against such Bishops in England IV. C. Laodic there recited 33. is that None Pray with Hereticks or Schismaticks When we knowing how the Roman Party are counted at the best Schismaticks by Greeks Syrians and Protestants and all these counted Schismaticks by them it will be but Schism to separate from almost all Christ's Church on Earth as Schismaticks V. Ex Can. Sard. 2. That a Bishop that by Ambition changeth his Seat shall not have so much as Lay Communion no not at the end VI. Ex C. Afric c. 15. That there be no Re-ordaining or Translation of Bishops VII No man must receive the witness of a Lay-man against a Clergy-man VIII The Second General Council at Nice setteth up the Adoration of Images cursing all from Christ with Anathema that are against it or doubt of it IX Even the contrary Council at Constantinople of 338 Bishops anathematizeth all that do not with a sincere Faith crave the Intercession of the Virgin Mary as the Parent of God and Superior to every Creature visible and invisible And all that confess not that all who from the beginning to this day before the Law and under the Law and in the Grace given of God being Saints are venerable in the Presence of God in Soul and BODY and seek not their Intercessions Yet they conclude with the Conc. Nice 2. That Christ's Body Glorified is not proper Flesh Def. 7. X. The said Second Council at Nice saith Every Election of a Bishop Priest or Deacon which is made by Magistrates shall remain void by the Canon which saith If any Bishop use the Secular Magistrate to obtain by them a Church let him be deposed and separated and all that Communicate with him Thus our English Bishops and Parish Ministers are deposed and all their Communicants to be Excommunicated XI Ibid. Can. 4. Those that for Gain or Affection of their own shut out any Ministers or shut the Temples forbidding the Divine Ministry are sharply condemned which would fall on Silencing Bishops XII Can. 15. Forbiddeth one man to have two Churches which would break our Clergy specially the Bishops that have Hundreds XIII Can. 7. Forbiddeth any Temple to be Consecrated without Relicts and ordereth Temples that have no Relicts to be put down XIV A Council
bounds of Civil jurisdiction The many Councils which have been for Arians Eutychians Nestorians Monothelites Adoration of Images Papal tyranny c. and the many that have contradicted and condemned them tell us that the Right of Councils must have a better proof than their own affirmation And the far greater number of Christians that have approved or received the Erroneous tell us that they need a better proof than the reception of the greater part How great a part received Greg. 7th dictates and the Councils that Hereticated Royalists as Henricians But that proved not that these things were just Pope Vrbans Letter to King Lewis 13th of France 1629. in the 2d part of the Cab. p. 213. saith Your Ancestors have ever born as much respect to the exhortations of Popes as to the Commandment of God But do these words prove that this is true No more doth it that Leo the first was Caput Ecclesiae Vniversalis because he so called himself The Grand Signiour in his Defiance of Maximilian the Emperor ibid. p. 12. calls himself God in Earth Great and High Emperor of all the World the Great Helper of God King of Kings the only Victorious and Triumphant Lord of the World and of all Circuits and Provinces thereof And more Persons are Mahometans than Christians and more Heathens than either or both and yet none of this proveth Truth and Right § 10. I have marvelled that Carol. Boverius should think it a fit Argument to move our late King Charles 2d in Spain to turn Papist that Monarchy is the best Government in the State Ergo the Papal Monarchy in the Church Did he think the King so dull that he could not distinguish Particular Kingdoms and Monarchs from Vniversal How would the King have taken it if he had said Sir an Vniversal Monarchy is the best humane Government therefore you must subject your self and Kingdom to one Vniversal Monarch But the pretence of an Universal Democracy Aristocracy or Church-Parliament is more absurd and worse as I have proved § 11. Do our Changers of Government think that it is a small matter of which King and People will take no notice but be decoyed into by degrees in the dark to make King Lords Bishops and all the Kingdom the Subjects of a Foreigner and of a Parliament of Prelates who are themselves the Subjects of a Multitude of Foreign Princes Mahometans Heathens Greeks Papists c. As the Child said My Mother ruleth my Father and I rule my Mother and my Father ruleth the City Therefore I rule the City So we may then say the King ruleth England and a Council of Foreign Prelates rule the King and Heathen Mahometan Moscovian Armenian Papist c. Princes rule most of the Bishops in Council Ergo these Princes rule the King Do they know what it is for Pope or Prelates abroad to be made Judges Ecclesiastical of all persons and causes here and to have Power to Excommunicate King and Lords and depose Bishops and silence Ministers and Hereticate Dissenters and Interdict the Kingdom c. Again and again I say that I wonder if those men that have promoted so many Oaths and Promises in the Acts of Corporations Uniformity Vestries Confinement Conventicles Militia never to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State can possibly blind the Nation to think it no alteration to Subject King Church and Kingdom to a Foreign pretended Universal Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction Whether it be Perjury or Treason is no debate for me but I am sure that in ordine ad Spiritualia great temporal power will follow and Excommunicating and Anathematizing Kings and People hath not hitherto been a Toothless thing But quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat § 12. And what if they had found Ancient Councils Excommunicate some men without the Empire What pitty is it that any where Lords yea Bishops and Clergy men should be bred up in such Ignorance as to think that all Excommunicating is an act of Government I said before any Neighbour Prince Nation or People any number of Bishops when they hear another Nation turned notorious Hereticks may renounce Communion with them and declare the reason of it because they have made themselves uncapable Governing Excommunication per judicium publicum id est per personam publicam seu Rectorem is one thing and a declared renunciation and refusal of Communion per judicium privatum that is by an equal or private person is another thing I am not bound to stay till Turk or Pope is Excommunicated by their Governours before I renounce Christian Communion with them Paul's charge 1 Cor. 5. With such a one no not to eat and Tit. 3.10 A Man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid and St. John's Bid him not good speed c. may bind equals that have but judicium privatum discretionis when no Superior Ruler Excommunicateth the Sinner Chap. X. Some Questions about General Councils to be resolved before all the World can subject Kings Kingdoms Souls and Scripture to their Government or Decrees and take them for the Vnifying Ruling-Power over the Vniversal Church NOthing can be more necessary to all Christians Learned and Unlearned than to be sure of the truth of that which must be the foundation of all our obedience and our hopes And therefore if it be the General Councils Actual or Virtual in the chief Patriarchs and Metropolitans or supposed College of Bishops which is the Unifying or Constitutive Regent part of the Universal Church and on whose credit we must take the Scripture to be God's Word and from whose Judgment we must not appeal to Scripture or to God it 's the primum necessarium that we be sure of the Authority and Infallibility or Credit of such Councils And first we are to consider the matter of their Determining Power 1. There are Things 2. Words 3. The signification of words to be judged of 2. There are Truths of Natural and of Supernatural Revelation to be judged of 3. There are the Essentials of Christianity the Integrals and the Accidents to be judged of 4. And the Judgment is 1. Witnessing 2. Teaching 3. Or judicially Deciding We must first know who are the Judges 2. What is their work 3. How certain they are Qu. 1. Did not Apostles and other Preachers singly convert men even thousands before there was any General Council and that by such evidence as the single Preacher brought Or was it by the Argument of Universal Consent that every one then was converted e. g. the Eunuch Act. 8. The Jailor and Lydia Act. 16. Cornelius and his house Act. 10. The three thousand Act. 2.37 c. Q. 2. Did none that St. Paul wrote his Epistles to believe them till they were told that all the Teachers and Bishops of the Churches gave them their Authority Were the Gospels written by Matthew Mark Luke and John received only by the Argument of the Councils or Colleges Authority Q.
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
all Children be taught to read and learn Catechisms and Scripture and use the Lords day in pious Exercises and submit to their Teachers and forbear profane contempt or abuse of Persons or Things I think the whole Matter is decided in these ten Particulars § 4. II. Now de nomine the question is what is to be called the FORM and what but the MATTER of the Church as National For of a Church as Congregational or as Diocesan or a Provincial we have no controversie No more than of a City or School And seeing every Politick Society consisteth of the Pars Imperans and Pars Subdita all grant that the Pars Imperans as related to the Pars Subdita is the Specifying or Unifying Form and Head it is then clear that all the Clergy being but the Pars Subdita under the Government of the summa potestas whether Kings alone or King and Parliament or an Aristocracy they can be but the Matter of the Church as National and not the Formal Head For a Body Politick of one Species can have but one Head of that Species So that to make a Primate or two Metropolitans or a Synod of Diocesans or a Convocation representing all the Clergy to be more than the Matter of a Church as National is to make them the summa potestas or Soveraign and to depose King and Parliament § 5. Obj. But the Regiment being of two Species so is the Policy Society and Supremacy Each is Supreme in sua specie Ans. 1. So then you would have two National Churches and Soveraigns If you 'll extend the Controversie but to the Name it may be the better born But then acknowledge the Equivocation and give us the definition of each Church and use not the Name of the Church of England for your own Form only 2. But a Subject Policy is not the Supreme and denominating Policy It 's private and subordinate as to National The Physicions the Soldiers the Marriners c. though they are in hoc fit to over-rule the King and Parliament are not therefore the Soveraign Power of the National Body Politick § 6. Obj. But their 's are matters of small moment but the Clergy are Rulers in matters of Salvation Ans. Unhappy dividing Rulers they have been here and in most of the Churches But 1. I have proved that Kings are Rulers also in matters of Salvation as great as theirs and over them 2. Was not Moses and David and Solomon and Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah and Josiah c. the Soveraign Rulers of Church and Priests though an Vzziah might not offer Sacrifice or Incense 3. The proper Governing power of Bishops is but over their own Flocks and they may not Rule in other Mens Diocesses much less over King Parliament and Kingdom further than the Soveraign giveth them Political Power § 7. Obj. They may command Kings and Kingdoms in Christs Name to obey God and forbear Sin Ans. True so did every Prophet so may any one Minister Yea a Foreigner a Salvian a Luther c. But this is Gods Government Nunciative and not Political And so if the Metropolitans Diocesans Convocation or a General Council command as in Christs Name and prove their Commission as Messengers from him we will obey Christ in them But if one Man bring better proof from Scripture that he speaketh from Christ he is to be obeyed before a Council that proveth no such thing This sort of Divine Authority lyeth in Evidence which most Bishops on Earth now have not of the truth of their Message and is but Nunciative and worketh only on voluntary Believers and Consenters And if the Controversie de nomine be whether a Christian Kingdom as such may be called A CHURCH what pretence have the deniers Not à notatione nominis The Church in the Wilderness is a Scripture Name And sure the Jews Church was not denominated from the Priests only Moses is ofter named as its Head than Aaron § 8. Obj. But are not Judges and Bishops a part of the Pars Imperans as well as the Soveraign Ans. Only subordinate in their Provinces They are but as the Kings Hands and Tongue They are Subjects themselves and have no Political Power but what he giveth them 2. If you might so far distinguish of them as Imperant under the King and as Subjects as to say that Judges and Bishops are as the Wife in the Family that hath a Governing power over Children and Servants that maketh her not the denominating Head of the Family but a Subject of the highest Rank § 9. Qu. What if a Christian Kingdom had no Pastors Ans. Then they were but an Embrio or half Christian and not materia disposita for a full formation The Matter and Privation that is Dispositio receptiva are Essential to the Body though they be not the Form 10. Qu. But what if under an Infidel King a Christian Nation be confederate under Bishops Ans. They are no Christian Kingdoms but a Christian Nation and are many confederate Churches and may be called One Church equivocally and secundum quid as confederate Kingdoms may be one Kingdom But they are but materia disposita sine forma as to a National Church properly so called and as such § 11. Qu. Are those of the Church of England that are not Conformists Yes if they conform to Christianity and are Subjects of the same King § 12. There is an odd Writer that hath lately published a book to prove that the Act of Toleration freeth not Nonconformists from the guilt of Schism Doleful is the case of such a Church and Land where the Learned men after near thirty years silencing imprisoning and ruining multitudes know not to this day what they are or what they hold and who it is that they do all this against How can such wink so hard as not to know that we took it for no Schism to assemble for Gods Worship before the Act of Toleration while they have done all this against us for so doing Could they think us so mad as to suffer Jails and Ruine and Scorn and Death to many for known Schism And if we took it for a duty before how can we take the Act of Toleration to be it that must justifie us But such men Englanâ— suffers by that cannot distinguish between Foâ—m Divinum and Humanum We believe that Goâ—s Command justifieth us in foro Divino for obeying it But the Law justifieth us in foro humano Gâ—ds Law and Judgment will keep us from Hell aâ—d at last silence our silencers But the Kings Laws bring us and keep us out of Jails and from thâ— Jaws of them that envy our Liberty and Lives § 13. It 's a question considerable whether England be a Protestant Church or not if it have a Papist King To which I say we must distinguish between a profest Papist and a concealed one 2. And between a King that hath the total Soveraignty and Legislative Power and one that hath but
part of it and the Parliament another part 3. And one whose Laws are for Popery or his power above Laws used by Commission and one who ruleth by Protestant Laws And so 1. A Kingdom under a total Popish Soveraignty ruling by Popish Laws or Mandates above Law is no Political Protestant National Church tho all the Clergy were Protestants The form that denominateth is Papal And yet it is not a Papal Church or Kingdom Because the matter is essential and its disposition without which non recipitur forma It is a Christian Church neither Protestant save equivocally nor Papist but mixt But if Bishop Morley and those Conformists that give the total Legislation and Soveraignty to the King alone be not in the right nor they that make it traiterous to suppose that the Kings Authority speaking by Law may be set against his Personal Will Word and Commission then the Parliament and Laws remaining Protestant the Kingdom and Church may ye be so called though not in the fullest sence Foâ— then the Laws being the Kings publick voice aâ—d the effect of a Power above his own alone 〈◊〉 them tho' he be a Papist he Ruleth as a Protesâ—ant But it is otherwise if his Commissions e. â— to the French or Irish to Invade the Land be â—bove Law and may not be resisted on any pretence whatsoever So great a stress lieth on this poiâ—t of Conformity § 14. But I will leave another case to the consideration of others â—f Metropolitans or Primates if Diocesans or Convocations be the summa Potestas Ecclesiastica and a Church be truly Societas Politica or governed Qu. Then what Religion was the Diocesan Church of Gloucester while Godfrey Goodman was Bishop Or the Diocesan Churches of Eli of Norwich of Oxford c. while Dr. Guning Dr. Sparrow Dr. Parker c. were Bishops Or the Church of England and Ireland while Dr. Laud Dr. Neale were here the Metropolitans and Dr. Bromhall Primate of Ireland § 15. As to the Learned Dr. now Bishop Stillingfleet that maketh the Church of England to have no visible Informing Constitutive Head or Soveraign but to be Governed by meer Consent of men Agreeing in a Convocation representing the whole body I am sorry I have said heretofore so much against it as if the Consent of all Writers of Politicks regardable had not been answer enough who agree that all Politick bodies are essentiated by the Pars Imperans or summa Potestas and the Pars subdita as the Materia disposita And I so much honour the National Church of England as that I shall not yet grant till it is further deformed That It is no Political Body but a meer Confederating Community likâ— a Confederacy of Kingdoms But if ever it come to that you may say that when the same Land hath many sorts of Confederate Clergies it hath as many Churches and which is the best I think is not known in France or Spain or Italy or here by the Major Vote nor hath Nature put a Ruling Authority in Major Votes of Lay or Clergy as born with them before Contract give it them by Political Constitution All 's well in Heaven The Lord fit us for it March 30. 1691. Since the writing of all this I have read Bishop Stillingfleet's excellent Charge to his Clergy which would give me hope not only of the continuance of the Protestant Reformation here but also of such a further Reformation as may procure our Concord or at last move the Law-makers so far to amend the Act of Uniformity as may procure it were it not that the deluge of the wickedness in City and Countrey and the paucity of Men qualified for his described Work and the Power and Number of the Enemies of it maketh me fear that it will die as unpracticable singularity But I humbly recommend to the Clergy the regard especially of these passages in it I. Pag. 12. Those that have the smallest Cures are called PASTORS and Linwood notes that Parochialis Sacerdoâ— dicitur Pastor and that not only by way of Allusion but in respect to the Cure of Souls but we need not go so far back What are they admitted to Is it not ad Curam Animarum Ask Dr. Fuller Dean of Lincoln then Whether it be Ministerial Truth to publish that Parochus was never called Pastor till the deliraâ—ion of this and the former Age. II. Pag. 25. I hope thâ—y are now convinced that the Persecution wâ—ich they complained lately so much of was carried on by other Men and for other designâ— than they would then seem to believe I am glad that you are convinced of it You are mistaken in us we believed it ever since 1660. But we know that it was Sheldon Morley Guning Hinchman Sparrow and many more such that were the great Agents of it in Court Convocation and Parliament I thank you for disowning it III. I rejoice to find it proved Pag. 37. that The Bishop is judge of the fitness of any Clerk presented to a Benefice which as it puts us in some faint hopes for the future so for the time past it tells the Bishops whose the guilt is of the Institution of all the uncapable Clergy IV. Pag. 40. He proveth that Visitations should be Parochial V. He comfortably purposeth to reduce Confirmation to its true use And tells Ministers their Duty of Certifying the Receivers fitness VI. In a word I intreat the Reader to compare this Charge with the Visitation Articles of Bishop Wren Pierce and such others and the Charge against them in Parliament and observe the difference and be thankful for so much April 3. 1691. FINIS (a) So they are even of that one Body of which Christ is Head (b) They are united in all the 7 terms of Unity required Eph. 4.4 5 6. They desire not to be of any Universal Body but Christs no more than under one Monarch of the World (c) Nor in Kingdoms neither under one Man or Senate But they have a better Union (a) They that Record his death say that he died in Rostok in his too hasty passage from Sweden towards is Wife then absent Quistorpius Pastor of Rostok being with him Yet this Bishop knew Grotius Who saith true I know not (b) How much that is see in their Patriarch Jeremias and in the Council at Florence (c) The very worst of Popery was brought in by Hildebrand long before four hundred years last And he that can receive all that their Councils brought in till 1256. need not stick at any of the rest save Transubstantiation We cannot obey the Pope as Patriarch and Universal Primate though he would quit the last four hundred years additions Nor think this a quitting Popery (d) Did the third tye us to the fourth (e) That was well put in But by whom Convocated (f) Over Councils (g) Did Christ make the Subjects of the Roman Emperors perpetual Law-makers to other Princes and all the World Or to that Empire when it 's