in the Library of Dublin University where it is ordered that the Bishop consecrating together with the Bishops assisting to help him do place the Book over the neck and the shoulders of the Bishop consecrated without saying any word one of the Chaplains of the Bishop elect kneeling behind him and holding the Book until it be given to his hands and then the Bishop consecrating and the other Bishops assisting him do touch with both their hands the head of the Bishop elect saying Accipe Spiritum Sanctum Receive the Holy Ghost And in supposition that the mode of placeing the Book is not essential to this Ordination certainly the form prescribed by the Church of England in this particular is very decent and apposite to the purpose of this action the Arch-Bishop or other Bishop consecrating delivering the Bible to the Bishop consecrated saying give heed unto reading exhortation and Doctrine with other wholesome admonitions touching his pastoral duty Now touching the essential parts of this ordination which do consist in the imposition of hands as matter and the benediction or words pronounced by the Bishop consecrating as form the Church of England is exact in observing the form prescrib'd by the foresaid Council of Carthage since it orders that all the Bishops present should lay their hands upon the Bishop elect and only the Arch-Bishop or Bishop consecrating should bless or pronounce the words of the form saying Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Bishop in the Church of God now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Châ—st Here the Roman Pontifical deviates from the foresaid form prescribed by the Council of Carthage ordering that both the Bishop consecrating and the Bishops assisting should pronounce the words of the form saying Accipe Spiritum Sanctum By this we see how exact the Church of England is in observing all the essential and necessary parts and ceremonies prescrib'd by that renowned Council of Carthage for the ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons As for other ceremonies not essential the Council of Trent it self declares that even in the administration of Sacraments whereof they will have Orders to be a part they may be altered by the Church as the condition of matters times and places may require Neither is this to be understood of the Church Universal congregated in a general Council only but also of each particular Church whence proceeded the great variety of Rites in things indifferent amongst the ancient and even modern Christians of several places and orders approved by that grave sentence of a Lib. 1. Epist 41. Gregory the Great in una fide nihil ossicit Sanctae Ecclesiae consuetudo diversa And as the Roman Church upon this account introduces new rites why may not that of England abolish others especially such as are found to be superstitious for which the b Distinct 63. Quia Canon law giveth this warrant Docemur exemplo Ezechiae frangentis serpontem aeneum quae in superstitionem vertuntur illa sine tarditate aliqua cum magna autoritate à posteris destrui posse We are taught by example of Hezechias that such things as turn to superstition may be without delay and with autority extirpated in after ages As a good husband cuts off not only rotten but superfluous branches that may suck away the sap from the main tree so any Church that is free and independent such as this of England is may cut off superstitious and superfluous rites and ceremonies which by their multiplicity may distract both the Ministers and Congregation and take their attention from the main object of their devotion And certainly who ever considers the vast number of ceremonies used now by the Roman Church and prescribed in their Pontifical will find it a task not easie for even a good capacity to comprehend and practice them all and very hard to think of elevating the mind withall to praier or meditation CHAP. VIII How far the Church of England do's agree with the Romish in matter of Ordination wherein they differ and how absur'd the pretention of Romanists is that our difference herein with them should annul our orders AS the Church of England did not think convenient to follow that of Rome in all their superfluous ceremonies especially such of them as are noxious and opposite to the sincerity of Christian discipline so it do's not grudg to go along and conform with them in what they retain of ancient integrity In many things we agree with them First that only Bishops are to give Orders Secondly that none be promoted to Orders without the title of a benefice or sufficient patrimony which is far more exactly observed in the English then in the Romish Church Thirdly that the persons to be Ordained be examined as to behaviour and ability Fourthly that certain times and daies are appointed for Ordination Fifthly that the persons to be ordained ought to appear in the Church Sixthly that they receive their Orders on their knees Seventhly that they receive the Communion All this is commonly observ'd in both Churches but more exactly and indispensibly in the English as to Orders in general Now as to particular Orders we agree in the following points as to Deacons First that the Arch-Deacon presents them to the Bishop Secondly that the Bishop enquires of the Arch-Deacon whether he knows them to be worthy of that Order Thirdly that the Bishop admonishes the Congregation that if any person has any thing to say against them he should declare it Fourthly that the Bishop instructs them in the duty they are to perform Fifthly that litanies are said and the Bishop exhorts the Congregation to pray for the Persons to be ordained that they may be fit Ministers in that sacred Order Sixthy that the Bishop gives them the Book of the Gospels and power to read them in the Church of God Seventhly that one of the Deacons newly ordained should read the Gospel Herein we agree But we differ from the Roman Church First where they add to the litanies the invocation of Saints and Angels Secondly where power is given to the Deacons to read the Gospels for the dead Thirdly that what is not expresly delivered by the Roman formulary is more clearly expressed by the English As for example the Order of Deacons in the former is given by these words Receive the Holy Ghost for power to resist the Devil and his temtations in the Name of the Lord which being too general and common to all Christians is made more proper and apposite to the function of Deacons by these other words used in the English ordinal Receive autority to exercise the work of a Deacon in the Church of God committed to thee in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Fourthly that we redâ—ce the tedious variety of vestments and ceremonies used in the Roman Church to
a more grave and decent form and more suitable to Christian simplicity As to the order of Priesthood agreeing with them in the essential parts of the matter and form and some indifferent ceremonies we differ from them First that a Priest with them is anointed with Oil. Secondly that power is given him to offer a proper sacrifice and really propitiatory as well for the dead as for the living of all which no mention is made in the aforesaid Council of Carthage Thirdly that with them only the Bishop laies his hand on the head of the Priest to be ordained but with us all the Priests present do lay their hands upon his head together with the Bishops hands according to the express order of the Council of Carthage Finally touching the Ordination of Bishops agreeing with them in the essential parts of matter and form belonging to that Order and in some accidentaly ceremonies as before declared we disagree with them in some considerable superstructures First that in both Churches a mandate is required for receiving this order but in the Romish from the Pope in the English from the King Secondly in both Churches an Oath is required which in the Romish is in favour of the Pope in the English in favour of the King Thirdly in both Churches an examen is premis'd and tho the Romish pretends to follow the Council of Carthage herein yet they insert their decretal Epistles and obedience to be performed to the Bishop of Rome whereof no mention is made in that Council Fourthly they use an heap of vestments and ceremonies of which neither the Apostles nor primitive Church ever had notice which are too tedious to relate and more to practice Finally and chiefly they demand a new Symbol or Creed coined in the Council of Trent to be professed by him that is to be ordained Bishop containing among other articles Transubstantiation Purgatory Indulgences obedience to the Pope of Rome articles never mentioned by the Apostles nor by the ancient Creeds nor by the Council of Carthage nor by any of the four first general Councils Now Reader consider how rude and rash are the cries of the vulgar Romish writers and preachers against our Orders as invalid for not conforming with the whole heap of their ceremonies tho in the substantial and essential parts we agree For besides the intrinsic falsity of their assertion it brings a manifest ruine and nullity upon all their own Orders since both we and they suppose that inferiour Orders may not be given but by the Bishops and Bishops may not be made but by other true and lawful Bishops Then if the whole bulk of ceremonies requisites prescribed in the present Roman Pontifical of Clement the 8th above mentioned be necessary for a valid Ordination of a Bishop it follows evidently that there is no lawful Bishop and consequently no lawful Priest or Deacon at present in the Church of Rome This consequence I prove thus no Bishop was Ordained after the rites ceremonies requisites above mentioned in the Roman Pontifica for 300 and more years in the ancient Roman Church then if the aforesaid stock of ceremonies and requisites be essential to a valid Ordination no lawful Bishop was made all that while in that Church it being necessary as is supposed before that Bishops must be made by other lawful Bishops it follows evidently that all the train of Bishops or Men so called by the Roman Church in after ages were no true Bishops and consequently no Priests or Deacons made by them were true Priests or Deacons That Bishops were not ordained after the present rites and ceremonies of the Româ—n Pontifical for the first 300 and many years after in the Roman Church which is the ground of all this discourse requires no more proof then to read over the Roman martyrology used to be publicly read in their Churches or the lives of Popes written by Platina or any other of their Historians where you shall see that the present heap of ceremonies rites and requisites prescribed in the said Pontifical was never introduced at once but successively several Popes in several times and ages signalizing their raign with new rites ceremonies and requisâ—tes whereof their very different Pontificals published in several ages may be a further evidence Of whose great disconformity that samous * Episcopus Pientinus in proaemio Pontificalis ad Innocent compiler of ceremonies employ'd by Innocent the 8th giveth this remarkable testimony in the preface of his Pontifical speaking to the said â—nnocent Pontificalis libri emendationem beatissime Pater tuo jussu aggressus sum opus sane laboriosum varlum atque ut multis fortasse gratum ita invidia plenum Rei enim vetustate Ecclesiarvm multitudine temporum Praelatorum varietate effectum est ut vix duo aut tres codices inveniantur qui idem tradunt Eodem modo quot libri tot varietates ille deficit hic superabundat alius nihil omnino de eâ re habet raro autn unquam conveniunt I have taken upon me most holy Fâ—ther by your command the Reformation of the Pontifical Book a work indeed laborious various and as perhaps grateful to many so likely to beget envy too for it came to pass by the antiquity of the Subject the multitude of Churches and the diversities of times and Prelates that scarce two or three Books may be found which may deliver the same thing as many Books as there are so many are the differences one is deficient another superabundant another has nothing at all of this subject so that they seldom or never agree By this Reader you may see how blind the presumtion of Romanists is in pretending our Orders should be null for not conforming with the rites and ceremonies of their present Pontifical whereas upon that account the ordination of their Bishops and Clergy in precedent ages must have been null and consequently their present Bishops and Clergy derived from them and depending upon them must partake of the same nullity CHAP. IX That the Succession of Bishops and Clergy since the Reformation is much more sure and unquestionable in the English Church then in the Romish IF Men had a due regard of their own defects and of the Reformation of them they would busie themselves less in finding fault with their Neighbours And if the Ministers and Writers of the Roman Church did reflect sufficiently upon the lamentable corruptions introduced and enthroniz'd among themselves they would be less bold in casting dirt in the face of others that with more right and ground may cast it in theirs I have declared in the precedent Chapters by rules and principles generally received that the form of Ordination used in the Church of Englana since the Reformation is legal and valid as comprehending the essential parts belonging to each order that in the ceremonial part we are more exact in observing the rules of antiquity the primitive Christian Church then
one passionatly bent to extol St. John the Evangelist above St. John Baptist the other preferring with no less animosity the Baptist before the Evangelist Our preacher before mentioned to pleasure the Nuns of the Evangelist delivers that prodigious Paradox which in English may be turned thus exceeding great is the excellency of John upon the account of being the Beloved It is greater then that of a Redeemer even in God it is so great as to be God in trinity and unity nay for this cause the word was made flesh Go now and compare this piece of Doctrine with any of those you related of the Protestant writers and if it has not out gon them all add to it what follows Being advertised by the inquisitor general of Spain at the second time he sent me a licence for reading prohibited Books that I had not given him account of what censureable propositions I might have lighted upon in my readings as he had charged me to do in the instrument of such a Licence which he had sent me the year before I sent to him a list of some perverse Doctrines I saw in Books approved and in much use among themselves for Protestant Books I could find none to give account of among which were the three propositions following prefixed for titles to so many moral discourses of Leander de Murcia in his Commentaries on the book of Esther The first of which goes thus Adeo essicax est mortis memoria ad reducendos in meliorem frugem homines ut non solum ipsi sed etiam Deus op Max. proposita ante oculos morte in meliora contendat The memory of Death is so powerful to reduce Men unto a better life that not only they but even God Almighty himself laying death before his eies becomes better The second runs thus Etiam daemon morte ante oculos constituta contendit in meliora even the Devil looking upon death mends himself The third proposition is this Tanta dilectione prosecutus est filius Dei homines vt pro ipsis quasi insanire videatur The Son of God his love to men has bin so great that he seems to be mad for them And if thus it goes even in Books current and approved among you what if I did relate the Doctrines of others censured and prohibited by your inquisitions as you and your party frequently do upbraid our Church with erroneous Doctrines of particular Men which we do utterly detest and our learned Men do vigorously oppose by word and pen in Pulpits Books and Scholes CHAP. XVII The Reformation of the Church of England vindicated from the slanderous aspersions of N. N. and other Romanists IT is very usual with the Zelots of the Romish Church to make Henry the Eight sole Author of the Reformation of the English Church loading that Prince with bitter invectives and odious reports thereby to render the reformation contemtible to which N. N. in the 14. chapter of his Book adds a slanderous relation of the lives and behaviour of some Monks and Friers come out of Germany which he pretends to have bin the authors and contrivers of the 39. Articles of the Church of England I will not repete the many idle stories he tells of them more fit to divertise simple persons of his own credulity in a Winter night at the fire then to work on serious and knowing Men. I have chosen for a more short and solid way rather to justify our cause with positive arguments then to follow our adversaries in sifting fopperies To this purpose I will lay for foundation of my present discourse that the whole frame of the Reformation standeth upon two points whereof the first and more resented at Rome is the denying of the Popes supremacy and the withdrawing of the Church of England from subjection to him The second is the Reformation of the Liturgy and Doctrine of the said Church from errors and corruptions introduced in it As for the first it is clear and evident that neither Henry the 8. nor Luther nor Calvin nor any of those strangers mentioned by N. N. were authors or causers of the freedom of the Church of England from subjection to the Pope of Rome This freedom being by its own right inherent in it from the beginning of its Christianity however King Henry his valour and resolution broke off effectually the Tyrannical usurpations of Rome which long time did oppress the English Church and Nation notwithstanding their continual reluctancy and complaint against those Romish extortions Far were those good Christians that inhabited England before the time of Gregory the Great from giving or owning obedience to the Bishop of Rome and so when Augustin came hither about the year 590 and demanded their obedience to the Church of Rome the Abbot of Bangor returned him answer * Concil Spelm. P. 108. That they were obedient to the Church of God to the Pope of Rome and to every godly Christian to love every one in his degree in charity to help them in word and deed to be the Children of God and other obedience then this they did not know due to him whom he named to be Pope nor to be Father of Fathers And if Augustin did pretend to such a subjection from England to Rome as the Popes of it now would have certainly he exceeded his commission for St. Gregory that sent him never pretended to that supremacy which his successors do aspire to as we shall demonstrate in the 15 chapter of the second part of this treatise and how far he was from pretending England to be of his jurisdiction may appear by what is related of him that being told certain children were de Britannica Insula he did not know whether the Country were Christian or Pagan The siliâ—â— and voluntary respect and obedience which the holiness and learning of Gregory and some other good Popes gain'd among the English gave occasion to others following of less merit to pretend to a right to such obedience which being perceived by the Kings they prohibited all appeals to Rome and the coming of Legats thence and so much as the receiving of letters without the Kings licence as may appear by Paschalis the Second his letter to Henry the first expostulating with him about this particular in these words Sedis Apostolicae nuncii vel literae praeter jussum regiae Majestatis nullam in potestate tua susceptionem aut aditum promerentur nullus inde clamor nullum inde judicium ad sedem Apostolicam destinantur c. This happened in an 1114. notwithstanding the King stood upon his resolution so as in the year following 1119 sending his Bishops to a Council held by Callixtus the 2. at Rhemes at their departing he gave them instructions not to complain of each other because himself would right each of them at home that they * Joh Diacon l. 1. c. 21. vita Greg. should a Orderi Vital is p. 857. Ite Dominum
of a Bell calling upon all at set hours to prayers in the Chappel to which they assist with singular piety and gravity If I look upon the people flocking to their public Churches on holy daies the very silence and modesty of their carriage in the streets gives me a Testimony of their inward good disposition and when they are come to the Church each one retires to his respective seat all being decently severed to avoid confusion and disorders Divine Office is performed in a most grave and decent manner all fitted to the benefit and spiritual food of souls so as if any Hymm or Psalm be sung with more exquisite music the Chanter or some other of the Quire admonishes the people what Psalm or verse is to be sung that seeing it in their Books they may be furnished with the sense that thereby the music may work better on their minds to devotion so great a care is taken that in all we pay to God rationabile obsequium a rational service with sense and feeling of what we do What if I consider the admirable devotion and reverence wherewith they go to receive the sacred Communion far greater then ever I saw with Papists tho pretending to believe something more they know not themselves what about the presence of our Saviour in that Sacrament then Protestants do A spectacle of this kind certainly grateful to God and to his Angels which I saw in Christs Church of Dublin on Resurrection Sunday last year sticks fast in my memory with joy The most Reverend the Lord Arch-Bishop of Dublin Chancellor of Ireland having performed the Communion office with singular decency and good order he took himself first reverently the sacred Communion and gave it to the Minister of the Altar then to the Lord Leiutenant to the Peers and the Roial Council and to a numerous concourse all receiving it with singular devotion having for associates in giving it the most Reverend the Arch-Bishop of Armagh Primate of all Ireland the Right Reverend the Bishop of Meath the chief of the Bishops of Ireland after the Metropolitans and three dignitaries of the Church Doctors in Divinity to administer the Cup each one making a Godly brief exhortation to the receiver for a due receiving of it the Lord Arch-Bishop having read at the Communion Table a grave and pious Homily exhorting to a right preparation for receiving that venerable Sacrament as is usually don in all Churches upon such an occasion Go now Mr. I. E. and compare these practises of piety and devotion with your number of Ave Marias ran over Beads of stick or glass sitting or walking and mixing with them several talks to the people about you with your Mass mumbled over in hast and the people thronging to have a sight of the Priest and a touch of the holy water without understanding a word of what is saying This is your ordinary course of devotion and spiritual assistance given to your people if some particular persons will not provide otherwise for themselves And you speak to me of your deiform intentions of ravishing devotions c. I saw much of those devotions among your Extatics and in them much of delusion cheat and vanity I wish I may never see more of them What shall I say of the preaching used in the Protestant Church truly Apostolic and godly all delivering doctrinam sanam irreprehensibilem sound and blameless doctrine I may say with truth that I never saw a Protestant preacher yet giving a Sermon that was undecent or unbecoming that place not so with you There would I see frequently shewers of non-sens madness and blasphemies preached one to magnify his order will make his Frier a Cherubin another to out go him will make his a Seraphin and another thinking that but a small purchase will set up his Saint higher then Jesus Christ and the holy Trinity with other desperate essaies like those I produced above chap. 26. This lofty style certainly you missed in me when you tell your reader that tho I was a professor of Divinity yet not of any solid intensive learning a Pag. 56. In Epist de dicaâ— and in all the Doctors of the Protestant Church when you stile them ignorant Sciolists Good Lord who knows them and knows you as any may by your goodly Book what will he judg of your presumtion Finally will you tell me what purchase did you expect to make by your defamatory Libel to get the credit of an eminent Scold I confeses you deserve it and the highest chair appointed for persons of that quality And as for me you have confirmed me in the esteem of the election I made and in the acknowledgment of the great mercy of God in drawing me out of a Congregation where the spirit of fury and untruth animating all your Libel is countenanced If we are to believe you and shall we you had the boldness to present it to a most illustrious person whom I forbear to name for very reverence fearing an offence even in mentioning that so durty a piece of Paper should be put into such hands You tell us moreover that it was published by the approbation of your Superiors If it be so certainly God has turned the counsel of your Ahitophels into foolishness Let any man that hath not lost his wits judg whether it be tolerable that men who profess to be poor and humble should speak so scornfully and contemtuously of so great and illustrious a part of Christianity as we have seen the Protestant Church to be whether it be prudence in persons complaining that they are persecuted for their Religion and under the lash of a Protestant Government to cock and insult upon their masters with barbarous abusive language and most gross and manifest calumnies Mr. I. E. knows that in two visits he was pleased to bestow on me after he had honor'd me with his famous Libel excusing the harsh Language of it I told him my discontent was not for any injury don to me but for the prejudice I conceived such undiscreet writings would bring upon his poor Countrymen and mine of the Romish Communion of whose wellfare I could not omit to be solicitous and grieve for the harm they have received often by the means of blind Zelots Truly I was much pleased with the knowledge he seemed to have of my temper very alien from spite or malice and of the spirit of the Protestant Church in coming so freely to me after such heavy affronts published by him against both I do admire and honor the singular patience and Christian modesty of the English Government in not being to severe as Romanists are where they can command in punishing such proceedings and if Mr. I. E. and his council were wise they should rather honour then abuse this modesty of their Masters When I consider the different procedure of the Protestant Church and of the Romish with their desertors I am strongly confirmed in the choise I made If
of those who are to be saved but not without some note of infamy And a little after he added these words Sunt enim in Ecclesiâ credentes quidam acquiescentes divinis praeceptis erga servos Dei officiosi religiosi ad ornatum Ecclesiae vel ministorii satis promti sed in conversatione propriâ impuri obscoeni vitiis involuti nec omnino deponentes veterem hominem cum actibus suis Istis crgo Christus Jesus salutem concedit sed quandam infamiae notam non evadunt There are in the Church some believers and honorers of his Servants and ready to contribute towards the decency of his Service in the Church but in their private life impure and liable to vices not putting off altogether the old man with his works To these therefore Christ Jesus allows Salvation but they shun not a certain note of infamy According to this doctrine of Origen some may depart this life in state of Salvation and be received in Heavenly bliss tho with some blemishes of smaller guilt not inconsistent with Gods amity but occasioning a decrease in their degree of Glory and therefore capable of a pardon of such blemishes or imperfections even in Heaven if so your Text mentioning a pardon of sins in the other life doth not evince the existence of Purgatory If you say that Origen has erred herein as I conceive you will then first think it not a scandal to say that some one or other of the ancient Fathers should err Secondly acknowledg therein a fault of your Church in making choice of the foresaid words of Origen for Gloss ordinary of the above-mentioned passage of Joshua with the Gibeonites and conclude from all that this subtilty which clearly solveth your strongest Argument for Purgatory out of the New Testament is no invention of mine but a doctrine of a very learned Father of the ancient Church approved and received by yours modern with so public a qualification as to take it for an ordinary Gloss upon the fore-mention'd passage of Scripture CHAP. XXVII The attemt of our Adversary to make the doctrine of Purgatory an Article of the Apostles Creed declared to be vain Mr. I. S. makes sure account he found Purgatory in the Apostles Creed where it is said He descended into Hell And what if you are told those words were not in the Apostles Creed from the beginning and that the first time and place they were used in it was in the Church of Aquilcia some four hundred years after Christ that they are not expressed in those Creeds which were made by the Councils as larger Interpretations of the Apostles Creed not in the Nicene or Constantinopolitan not in that of Ephesus or Chalcedon not in those confessions made at Sardica Antioch Seleucia Syrmium not in the Creed expounded by St. Austin de fide Symbolo And * Ruffin in Expositione Symboli Râ—ffinus saies that in his time it was neither in the Roman or Oriental Creeds Sciendum sanè est quod in Ecclesiae Romanae Symbolo non habetur additum descendit ad inferna sed neque in Orientis Ecclesiis habetur hic sermo It is certain saith he that the Article of the descent into Hell was not in the Roman or any of the Oriental Creeds It is not mentioned in several Confessions of Faith delivered by particular persons Not in that of Eusebius Caesariensis presented to the Council of Nice nor in that of Marcellus Bishop of Ancyra delivered to Pope Julius nor in that of Acatius Bishop of Caesarea delivered to the Senate of Seleucia nor in others mentioned by the learned Bishop of Chester Dr. Pearson in that his grave and judicious exposition of the Creed writing upon the fifth Article of it I am perswaded this will appear strange unto you and tho sufficient to weaken the force of your Argument grounded upon the foresaid words of the Creed my Answer will not rely upon it I allow the said words to belong to the Catholic Creed long time received in the Church and embraced by that of England But I deny your inference from those words of the Creed in favor of your doctrine of Purgatory to be pertinent He descended into Hell I believe he did But not into the Hell of the damned say you for all Christians abhor the Blasphemy of Calvin that saies Christs Soul suffered the pains of the damned What then therefore he descended into Purgatory I am sure the more learned and pious men of your Communion will abhor this consequence I never heard any of them say that descent of Christ should have bin to Purgatory First because under the notion of Hell they never understood Purgatory Secondly if you mean he should descend thither suffering the pains of that place it s no less blasphemous then that you call Blasphemy in Calvin for if we believe your Authors the pains of Purgatory are the same with those of Hell and inflicted by the same Ministers of divine Justice that punish the damned souls in hell If you say he descended thither triumphant and glorious without suffering the pains of that place to purposes of divine Providence not manifested to us you may say without any Blasphemy he descended the same manner into the Hell of the damned triumphant and victorious without prejudice to his glory and honor as the Divinity of Christ is there still without prejudice to his glory why may not his Soul be there for a short time with the same immunity and to the same purpose of triumphing over Hell and his Enemies And the words of the Creed being capable of this Exposition more literal and obvious what need is there of your new Invention of Purgatory unknown to Primitive Christianity for the right understanding of that Article of our Creed CHAP. XXVIII How weak is the foundation of the grand Engine of Indulgences in the Roman Church WHEN first I came to examin the grounds of the doctrine of Indulgence used in the Roman Church I confess I was astonished to see how little ground they could shew in the Fountains of divine Faith for this mystery of the Romish belief of so great noise and so much use among them I thought it a strong negative argument against such a dectrine not to be contained in the Word of God that two so great Champions of the Roman Church Cajetan and Suarez both emploied by public authority to defend this doctrine should not meet with any convincing testimony of it in divine Scripture as both do confess plainly Both do examine the two chief Testimonies alledged for this doctrine the first out of John 20.23 Whose soever sins you remitt they are remitted to them The second out of Matth. 18.18 Whatsoever you shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever you shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven And both do acknowledg them not to convince the doctrine of Indulgences as now practised in the Roman Church Cajetan tom
aggravated thereby as being a formal and willful impostor with certain knowledg of the untruth of what he saies he having bin a master of a Grammar School in one of those Colledges where I was Professor of Divinity and where he says Divinity was never taught and knowing certainly that I had all those emploiments which he denies I should have had for which cause several of the Romish Clergy and Laity in Ireland who know the same have detested the impudence of this man in denying a thing so publicly known I could not but imagin that some person capable himself of so desperate a folly as to take upon him fictitious titles should be author of this rude calumny for mens apprehensions of others are commonly a testimony of their own temper as is observed in the beginning of this Preface And if the said Jesuit be Author of that book and of the calumnies of it the observation now mentioned is fully verified in him for to my certain knowledg this man being sent away from Spain before he was ripe in learning to magnify his mission with privat friends gave himself a title so ridiculously and Chimerically fictitious that if I did mention it here it would bring upon him an incurable confusion not to wound him to deeply I forbear to unfold the matter further at present But I have declared it to a person of quality of his acquaintance with a message to him and his brethren that if they will not stand to the offer of their Superior above mentioned of union in Christianity and civill demeanor nor will accept of my invitation to a trial of our cause by a grave and Scholastic way becoming Christians and learned men but must force me out of it by calumnies and slanders they may possibly find that it is not want of materials that keeps me from throwing dirt in their face as others commonly do departing from them but want of inclination to such practises and when their * Vide Caramvel Theolog fundamentali fundamento 551. N. 1589. great Doctors teach them to raise false testimonies whereby to discredit their adversaries as this man does I hope they will allow me to repell with truth tho bitter the assaults of malicious enemies After the publication of these four Books now mentioned the last and great engin applied by my former brethren to recall me was a large and solemn Bull of Pope Clement the 10. now reigning in Rome signed and Sealed by his Protonotarius Apostolicus Claudius Agrete assuring me in terms of full Legality an intire and absolute Remission of all that is past and a favorable reception to my former condition and priviledges if I would return to them This Bull came into my hands by Dublin post in September last with a letter about it of few lines in Latin without subscription inticeing me to an acceptance of the favor offered and concluding with admonishing me of evil design'd against me if I did not consent to it of which designs against me I have had more notice given to me then I am willing to publish I thank God for delivering me hitherto and I pray that he may correct the ill affected minds that harbor such cruel thoughts To the offer made by that Bull of pardon and favour I answer that I want a more necessary indult from the true supreme Head of the Church our Saviour Jesus Christ for submitting to the present Laws and Commands of the Roman Church opposit as I do conceive to the Commandments of God the Doctrine of Christ and the practise of the primitive Apostolical Church as I hope to make appear in the following Treatise to the indifferent Reader by the help of God And finding the above mentioned I. S. more eager in challenging me to answer his Syllogisms and his party more confident of them I hastned my reply to him for the print but some delaies intervening which gave me way to have the second part which 〈◊〉 intended to be of my reply finished before this other could be printed I have resolved to leave his own place to Mr. I. S. which is the last and begin with my reply to N. N. declaring by occasion of his objections that the faith we profess in the Church of England is that and no other which Jesus Christ and his Apostles taught and was professed by the faithful in the first and better ages of Christianity that we have in this Church all those titles and rights which do qualify a Church for truly Catholic even according to the rules prescribed by the ablest writers of the Romish party whereby all those loud cries against us for Heretics and Scismaties appear to be no better then emty bubles and meer wind only apt to delude weak and ignorant people and thence I will proceed to declare how their ordinary stuffe of arguments against us is bottomed constanly upon false suppositions and misrepresentations of our Doctrin and practices which if well known to the sober and sincere sort of Roman Catholics they would be far otherwise affected then they are towards the Church of England by the false informations of ignorant or malicious instructors O may the Father of light and the God of truth open the eies of men blinded with earthly passons that they may see and follow the true way to everlasting happiness declared to us by his dear Son Jesus that his will and glory may be the common aime of all our wishes and writing and of all our actions that our Studies and endeavors be not to make the breach among Christians wider but to reconcile them in Christ that thus united in him we be at length happily united among our selves in the profession of true faith in our good Saviour Jesus to whom with the Father and Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen A TABLE of CHAPTERS Of the First PART CHAP. I. A Summary account of the Contents of N. N. his two Books and a Distribution of the points to be handled in relation to them pag. 1. CHAP. II. That the Church of England is a true Catholic Church and the Doctrine professed in it truly Catholic and Apostolic pag. 6. CHAP. III. Suarez his Argument taken from the propriety of the word Catholic applied to prove that the Church of England is truly Catholic pag. 14. CHAP. IV. The Church of England proved to be Apostolic upon the foundation laid by Suarez to rob it of that calling pag. 21. CHAA. V. Of the succession and Lawful Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons in the reformed Church of England pag. 27. CHAP. VI. The Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons in King Edward the Sixth his time and after proved to be legal and valid pap 41. CHAP. VII How far the form of Ordination used in the Church of England agrees with that of the ancient Church declared in the fourth Council of Carthage and how much the form prescribed by the Roman Pontifical of this time differs from
the ancient â—orm pag. 49. CHAP. VIII How far the Church of England do's agree with the Romish in matter of Ordination and wherein they do differ and how absurd the pretention of the Romanists is that our difference herein with them should annul our orders pag. 57. CHAP. IX That the succession of Bishops and Clergy since the Reformation is much more sure and unquestionable in the English Church then in the Romish pag. 6â— CHAP. X. A further cause of Nullity discovered in the Election of Pope Clement the 8 th pag. 75. CHAP. XI Nullities declared in the Popedom of Paul the 5 th and others following pag. 81. CHAP. XII Of the large extent of Christian Religion professed in the Church of England pag. 89. CHAP. XIII Of the several large and flourishing Christian Churches in the Eastern Countries not subject to the Pope pag. 98. CHAP. XIV Of the Jacobites Armenians Maronites and Indians pag. 110. CHAP. XV. A reflection upon the Contents of the three Chapters precceding and upon the pride and cruelty of the Romanists in despising and condemning all Christian Societies not subject to their Jurisdiction pag. 116. CHAP. XVI Inferences from the Doctrine preceeding of this who'e Treatise against the several objections of N. N. pag. 121. CHAP. XVII The Reformation of the Church of England vindicated from the slanderous aspersions of N. N. and other-Romanists pag. 130. CHAP. XVIII A view of N. N. his discourse upon Transubstantiation and upon the affinity of the Roman Church with the Grecian pag. 132. CHAP. XIX N. N. His Book intitled the bleeding Iphigenia examined his abusive language bestowed therein upon persons of Honor and his censure upon the Kings Majesty reprehended pag. 140. CHAP. XX. That it is not lawful for subjects to raise arms and to go to war with their fellow subjects without the consent of their Prince The Doctrine of killing men and making war by way of prevention and on pretext of Raligion confuted pag. 148. CHAP. XXI A Conclusion of my discourse with N. N. with a Friendly Admonition to him pag. 171. CHAP. XXII A check to I. E. his Scandalous Libel and a vindication of the Church of England from his false and sâ—anderous report of it pag. 178. The SECOND PART CHAP. I. AN Anatomy of Mr. I. S. his Genius and drifts appearing in his Dedicatory Epistle to my Lord Lieutenant of Ireland pag. 1. CHAP. II. A vindication of several Saints and worthy Souls our Ancestors from the sentence of Damnation passed upon them by I. S. pag. 6. CHAP. III. Mr. I. S. His cold defence of the Infallibility of his Church examined pag. 14. CHAP. IV. That Protestants have a greater security for the truth of their Doctrine then Papists have pag. 19. CHAP. V. Mr. I. S. His prolix Excursion about the Popes Authority requisite to know which is the true Scripture declared to be impertinent and the state of the question cleared from the confusion he puts upon it pag. 27. CHAP. VI. Mr. I. S. His defence of the Popes pretended infallibility from the censure of Blasphemy declared to be weak and impertinent his particular opinion censured for heretical by his own party pag. 33. CHAP. VII Our Adversaries corruption of Scripture detected pag. 41. CHAP. VIII Mr. I. S. His horrible Impiety against the Sacred Apostles and malicious impostures upon the Church of England reprehended pag. 46. CHAP. IX Our Adversartes pretention to prescription and Miracles in favour of the infallibility of their Church rejected his impostures upon me and upon the Church of England discovered further pag. 53. CHAP. X. A Check to Mr. I. S. his insolent Thesis prefixed for title to the 8th Chapter of his book that the Protestant Church is not the Church of Christ nor any part of it That they cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their tenets And his own argument retorted to prove that the Roman Church is not the Church of Christ pag. 59. CHAP. XI A Refutation of several other engagements of Mr. I. S. in that 8 th Chapter pag. 66. CHAP. XII Mr. I. S. His answer to my objections against the Popes in fallibility refuted his defence of Bellarmin of the General Council of Constance and of Costerus declared to be weak and vain pag. 70. CHAP. XIII Our Adversaries foul and greater circle committed pretending to rid his pretention of infallibility from the censure of a circle his many absurdities and great ignorance in the pursuit of that attemt discovered a better resolution of Faith proposed according to Protestant principles pag. 77. CHAP. XIV A Reflection upon the perverse Doctrine contained in the resolution of Faith proposed to us by Mr. I. S. and the pernicious and most dangerous consequence of it pag. 85. CHAP. XV. Mr. I. S. his defence of the Popes Supremacy declared to be vain their pretence to a Monarchical power over all Christians whether in Spiritual or Temporal proved to be unjust and Tyranical pag. 92. CHAP. XVI How falsly Mr. I. S. affirms the Irish did not suffer by the Popes prohibiting them to subscribe to the Remonstrance of fidelity proposed to them pag. 100. CHAP. XVII The complaint of Papists against our King for the Oath of Supremacy he demandeth from his subjects declared to be unjust pag. 103. CHAP. XVIII Our Adversaries essay in favour of Transubstantiation examined his challenge for solving two Syllogisms answered pag. 110. CHAP. XIX Several answers to my arguments against Transubstantiation refuted pag. 118. CHAP. XX. Ancient Schole men declare Transubstantiation cannot be proved out of Scripture and that it was not an Article of Faith before the Lateran Council Mr. I. S. his great boast of finding in my check to their worship of the hoste a prejudice to the Hierarchy of the Church of England declared to be void of sense and ground pag. 126. CHAP. XXI Mr. I. S. His weak defence of their halfe Communion confuted pag. 135. CHAP. XXII The Roman worship of Images declared to be sinfull pag. 142. CHAP. XXIII Mr. I. S. His defence of the Romish Worship of Images from the guilt of Idolatry confuted the miserable condition of the vulgar and unhappy engagement of the learned among Romanists touching the worship of Images discovered pag. 148. CHAP. XXIV Our Adversaries reply to my exceptions against their invocation of Saints declared to be impertinent pag. 159. CHAP. XXV A great stock of Faults and Absurdities discovered in Mr. I. S. his defence of Purgatory pag. 168. CHAP. XXVI The Argument for Purgatory taken from the 12 th of S. Matth. v. 32. solved 173. CHAP. XXVII The attemt of our Adversary to make the Doctrine of Purgatory an Article of the Apostles Creed declared to be vain pag. 185. CHAP. XXVIII How weak is the foundation of the grand Engine of Indulgences in the Roman Church pag. 188. CHAP. XXIX The unhappy success of Mr. I. S. his great boast of skill in History touching the Antiquity of Indulgences discovered pag 195. CHAP. XXX Of
Church of England which was taught by the Primitive Church first called Catholic and Apostolic and consequently is a Church truly Catholic and Apostolic according to the foresaid rule given us by Suarez and laid for a foundation of his argument to prove the Roman Church to be Catholic And truly it cannot but appear strange that any Christian not blinded with partiality or prejudice should imagine that the sacred Apostles intrusted to preach saving Doctrine to all the World should not have given a sufficient notice of it in the system of Articles they left to us That those venerable Fathers of the purer ages of Christianity congregated in the four first general Councils should give us but a diminute account of Catholic and Apostolic belief that the Popes Infallibility Supremacy and other articles of latter impression in the Roman Church should be so essential to Christian Faith as none may be saved without a belief of them This argument may be confirmed by the testimony of Athanasius related by Suarez in the chapter above mentioned num 2. saying that the collection of Articles contained in his Creed is the Catholic Faith haec est Fides Catholica c. this is the Catholic Faith which except a Man believe he cannot be saved but in the Church of England that Faith called Catholic and contained in the Creed of Athanasius is believed and professed therefore if any Church professing the Catholic Faith is Catholic it self the Church of England professing this Catholic Faith is truly Catholic The second foundation laid by Suarez in the same chapter n. 6. to prove that his Church is Catholic is to say that it did in all times profess the Faith of that Creed wherein the Church is called Catholic But the Church of England does and alwaies did profess the Faith of the same Creed therefore it has the same right to the like calling The third foundation laid by Suarez from the 15. num of the said chapter is a sign or distinctive used by ancient Fathers for to know a Church or Congregation truly Catholic and to distinguish it from another not Catholic That whensoever any Sect takes its name from the master or teacher of such a Doctrine and the followers of it do call themselves by such a name neither the Doctrine nor the followers of it are Catholic For which he alledg'd the testimony of Athanasius Chrysostom Lactantius and Others And the reason or cause of this distinctive is that every Heresie brings in some novelty against the ancient Faith and new things must have new names whereby to be known and distinguished from others But it is very remarkable how this subtil disputant otherwise very exact and formal in his discourses pretending to rob the Church of England of the name of Catholic by the principle now mentioned comes to confirm the same name upon it not finding it capable of the foresaid note of a Sect not Catholic For pretending to name it from Calvin he finds an obstacle in it because Calvin do's not approve a chief Doctrine of it Then he passes to call it Henrician from King Henry the Eigth because from him the Church of England did learn to acknowledg the King for Head or supreme Governour of the Church in his own dominions Against this also he meets with several obstacles to which I will add this other very considerable that this practice of the Church of England is by many ages more ancient then the time of Henry the Eight whereas it allows no other Supremacy to our King over the Church then such as the Godly Kings of Israel and the Christian Emperors in the Primitive Church did exercise in their respective Dominions as is declared in the 37. Article and in the second Canon of the Church of England Since Suarez can not find the name of Lutheran Calvinist Henrician or any other taken from any particular Author or teacher to be agreeable to this Church it must follow from the above mentioned note of a Catholic Church delivered by him and taken out of ancient Fathers that it is a Church truly Catholic that being the only name it self own 's And the Preachers of it praying for our King do stile him Defender of the Faith truly Catholic and Apostolic and King James in his Monitory to the Emperor and other Christian Princes stiles himself Defender of the Faith truly Christian Catholic and Apostolic of the ancient and Primitive Church and we do all pray heartily that our Kings may never defend any other Faith then this CHAP. II. Suarez his argument taken from the propriety of the word Catholic applied to prove that the Church of England is truly Catholic THe fourth foundation laid by Suarez in the 14th Chap. of his foresaid Book to prove that the Church of England is not Catholic he takes from the propriety meaning of the word Catholic He supposes that according to the etymology of the word in Greek Catholic is the same as Vniversal or Common which Universality he saies is fourfold in relation to the present purpose First as to the matter or object of our belief that it be entire comprehending all points belonging to Christian and saving Faith Secondly that it have an Universal or common reason of belief which common reason or rule must be Divine truth or the Word of God whereby he gives testimony to truth according to that expression of Saint Paul 1 Thess 2.13 When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us ye received it not as the word of men but as it is in truth the word of God Thirdly Universality is required in relation to the degrees and orders of persons according to that description of a Church given by Optatus Milevitanus Lib. 2. contra Parmenianum Certa membra sua habet Ecclesia Episcopos Presbyteros Diaconos Ministres turbam fidelium that the Church has its certain members Bishops Priests Deacons Ministers and a Congregation of the faithful The fourth and chief universality required for the propriety of the name Catholic is that a Church to be such be extended over all the parts of the Earth according to the declaration of the said Optatus Lib. 2. Contra Donatistas ubi ergo erit proprietas Catholici nominis quod sit rationabilis ubique diffusat that the propriety of the name Catholic requires it should be a Church rational and diffused over all places Suarez endeavours to prove that all these proprieties of Universality belonging to a Catholic Church are wanting to this of England that it may be called Catholic First as to the material universality or integrity of Articles necessary to a Catholic Faith he pretends that the Church of England is deficient in several Articles as he promises to prove elsewhere but at present singles out as chief that of the Popes Supremacy which the Church of England denies and he promises to prove that it belongs to a Catholic Faith I commend Suarez his ingenuity and
perspicacity in striking the nail in the head This indeed is that stumbling stone and Rock of offence This is the chief and I may say the only cause of that irreconcileable disunion of the Roman Church with us We know by certain and well authorized * Tortura torti Pag. 152. records that Pope Paul the Fourth offered Queen Elizabeth to approve of the Reformation if the Queen would acknowledg his Primacy and the Reformation from him and he being dead his Successor Plus the 4. prosecuted the same as appears by his letters written the 5 * Cambden Anno 1560. of * Twisden H. Vind. Cap. IX n. 5. May 1560. and sent by Vincentius Parpalia offering to confirm the Liturgy of the English Church if she would acknowledg his Supremacy This being told by Sir Roger Twisden as he relates himself to an Italian Gentleman versed in public affairs together with the grounds on which he spake it well said the Gentleman if this were heard in Rome among religious Men it would never gain credit but with such as have in their hands the maneggi della corte the management of the court affairs it may be held true And indeed suâ—h as know the spirit of that Court may easily believe that if this great point of the Supremacy the foundation of their power and grandeur were agreed upon they would easily wink at other dissentions Whereof we have a pregnant testimony from Bellarmin Lib. 3. de Ecclesia Cap. 20. asserting that even such as have no interiour Faith nor any Christian vertue are to be taken for members of the Catholic Church provided they do but outwardly profess the Faith of the Roman Church and subjection to the Pope tho it be only for some temporal interest So ready they are in Rome to embrace all sorts of men provided they acknowledg the Popes Supremacy This being established all is well being denyed the best of Men and soundest Believers in Christ must be damned Heretics by sentence of that Court. But I shall declare sufficiently in the 15. Chapter of the 2d part of this Treatise how vain the pretence of Suarez and his party is to make the Popes Supremacy an article of saving Faith how unjust and tyrannical an usurpation it is how far the best Popes in the Primitive Church were from pretending to it and more from pressing it upon Christians as an article of saving Faith And indeed it must appear strange to any impartial judgment that the System of articles contained in the three Creeds and four first general Councels which gained the name of Catholic to the Church first called so should not suffice to make a Church Catholic in all times Therefore the Church of England professing all those Articles is to be taken for truly Catholic tho denying the Popes Supremacy not contained in the foresaid System nor ever own'd by the Church first called Catholic as hereafter will be proved As to the second sort of Universality consisting in taking the Word of God for a common reason or rule of belief how can any pretend the Church of England to be deficient herein having ever protested that the Word of God contained in Canonical Scripture is the prime and only rule of its belief while the Roman Church denies to stand to this rule as unable to make out all the belief it would force upon us What Suarez pretends that the Church of England wants a rule infallible for knowing which is true Scripture and the true meaning of it which they conceive to have themselves in the Popes infallibility I shall declare in the eighth Chap. of the 2d part of this Treatise how vain it is we having in universal tradition and in the Writings of the Holy Fathers means sufficiently certain for knowing which is the true Scripture and which the true meaning of it in points necessary to Salvation As for others less necessary if there be obscurity and diversity of opinions among our Writers so is there among theirs nor could their pretended Infallibility ever make them agree Nay among the best and wisest Fathers of the Church there was alwaies a great diversity of opinions in points not fundamental without breach of Catholic and Christian union Now concerning the third kind of union or universality consisting in a hierarchical order of Bishops Priests and Deacons c. Suarez is much mistaken in saying that we have them not true and legal I will declare at large from the fifth Chapter following that we have all the security they have of a legal sucession and true ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons It s their concern we should not be found deficient herein for any defect conceived in our hierachy will reflect upon theirs Finally touching the fourth manner of Universality signified by the name Catholic that a Church or Faith so called should be extended over all the Earth Suarez exceeds much in denying this property to the Church of England or Faith professed in it saying it passes not the bounds of Brittish land To which is contrary that grave and modest testimony of King James related by Suarez in the same place chapter xv n 6. Nos Dei benesicio nec numero nec dignitate ita sumus contemnendi qui â—â—ono vicinis nostris exemplo praeire possimis quandoquidem Christiani orbis omniumque in eo ordinum inde à Regibus liberisque Principibus usque ad insimae conditionis homines pars propè media in nostram Religionem consensit We by the grace of God are not so despicable either for number or dignity that we may not be a good example to our Neighbours whereas neer the one half of the Christian World and all orders of People in it from Kings and Soverain Princes to the meanest sort of persons have already embraced our Religion I shall declare hereafter from the XIX Chapter descending to particulars that this saying of King James was both true and modest and that more then the one half of the Christian World agrees with the Church of England in unity of Faith sufficient to render them Catholic and that the Church of Rome may cease bragging of her extent being now come so short of that latitude which made her swell to the contemt of all other Christian Churches now far exceeding her in number and lustre of Princes and Kingdoms embracing the Faith professed in them Suarez preventing a check to his argument from this discovery in the XVI Chapter num 4. of his said Book premises that this general extension of the Catholic Church over all the World is to be understood of extension either by right or by actual possession and tho the latter be deficient the former of right cannot want Christ having commanded that his Gospel should be preached to all the World But how can Suarez pretend that this right should belong to the Faith of his Church rather then to that of the Church of England whereas this latter preacheth only for object of
belief the Word of God contained in the Gospel and in the other Canonical Scriptures while the Roman preaches articles coined by her self and never given to the Apostles to be preached as we shall shew abundantly hereafter refuting the errors of it CHAP. IV. The Church of England proved to be Apostolic upon the foundation laid by Suarez to rob it of that Title SVarez after having used his best endeavours to deprive the Church of England of her right to the name of Catholic with so little success as we have seen in the precedent Chapter he passes in the 17. Chapter of his foresaid Book to rob it of the name of Apostolic so to deprive King James of the title he gives himself of Defender of the Faith truly Catholic and Apostolic To prove that the Faith of the Church of England is not Apostolic he laies this foundation that two things are requisite to make a Faith or Doctrine Apostolic The first that it proceed in some manner from the Preaching words or writings of the Apostles Secondly that it be conveyed to us by legal tradition and succession The first is contained in those words of St. Paul Ephes 2.19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and forreigners but fellow Citizens with the Saints of the houshold of God are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets The second requisite is declared by Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 3. in these words Traditionem Apostolorum in omni Ecclesia adest perspicere quae vera velint audire habemus annumerare eos qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis successores eorum usque ad nos Who are willing to hear truth must look upon the tradition of the Apostles in all Churches and we can number those that were ordained Bishops by the Apostles and their successours to our own times Suarez pretends these two requisites to be wanting in the Church of England to merit the Name of Apostolic First saies he because the Doctrine of it was not preached by the Apostles neither was it taken out of their Doctrine or conveyed to us by lawful tradition Against which position he brings King James protesting himself to believe admit and reverence the Canonical Scripture the three Creeds and the first four General Councils in which sacred fountains he judged the Apostolic Faith to be contained and Suarez acknowledges that King James spoke herein not only his own sense but the sense and belief of the whole Church of England which is no small glory to it But how can Suarez make out that the Apostolic Faith and Doctrine is not sufficiently contained in those sacred Fountains of the Scriptures Creeds and Councils received by the Church of England See Reader and admire his answer Tho the Doctrine of the said Books considered in it self saies he be Catholic Apostolic Faith or rather a part of it for he pretends that all Catholic Faith is not contained in those fountains yet as it is received by sectaries either it is not Apostlic or it may not be certainly taken for such First because they cannot be certain whether those Books they receive be Canonical or the Councils legal Secondly that they cannot be certain of the true meaning of the Scriptures Creeds or Councils So that in conclusion the Divinity of our Saviour preached by a Romish Priest is Catholic Apostolic Faith but not so when preached by one of the Church of England I should indeed think this only consequence to be a sufficient confutation of this unhappy subtilty of Suarez but further to his reason when effectively we are secured that the Scripture received by us is truly Canonical and Divine and our adversaries do allow it what need is there for quarrelling about the grounds and motives of our security therein and touching the sense both of Scripture Creeds Councils the * Se tria symbola in eo seâ—su interpretari quem illis esse voluerunt Patres atque concilia a quibus funt condita atque descripta saying of K. James related by Suarez n. 9. that he does take the Creeds in the same sense which the Fathers and Councels by whom they were made were willing to give to them well considered is both pious and prudent When the words of a Scripture or article are capable of different senses all consistent with Christian verity and none repugnant to sound Doctrine it is bâ—t Catholic prety to suspend a firm assent to one and keep a readiness to adhere to what may be the real intention of the sacred writer For example that article of the Apostles Creed touching our Saviours descent into Hell is capable of different senses in relation to the Hell he descended into It s a groundless conjecture of Suarez that King James and the Church of England with him should deny a real descent and say he did suffer the pains of Hell in the garden as may be seen by the grave discourse of learned Dr. Pearson now Bishop of Chester upon that article We believe he descended really into Hell that is to say into some place under the Earth it may be without any absurdity to the Hell of the damned as declared in the second part of this Treatise c. 27. But whether it was that Hell or an other subterranean place he descended into we may with piety and prudence suspend our judgment having no Divine oracle to ground upon the determination of the place And Suarez gives us a signal example of this resignation of our intellects to the intention of the Writer in a matter less sacred then the Articles of the Creed I mean the expressions of Popes touching Indulgencies Finding insuperable difficulties in giving a congruous sense to terms of that art which appear non-sense as those of plena plenior plenissima full more full most full If full or plenary how can another be more full c. He confesses not to understand the propriety of these and other expressions used upon that Subject but will rest upon the judgment of the Church which knows the meaning of those measures as will be seen in the 39. Chapter And certainly all those of his party have need of this kind of resignation to rest upon if they will have quiet for there is no article of Creed or Council without diversity of Opinions touching the true meaning of it among their Doctors But this Author has more to say to us that the points wherein we differ from the Roman Church were never taught by any of the Apostles For example saith he to make the King Supreme Governour of the Church this nettles him still what place of Scripture what History do's warrant this Doctrine What Christian or Godly King did practise such a Supremacy over the Church to which I say that we have a warrant for this subjection to our Princes in the words of St. Paul Rom. XIII 1. Let every Soul be subject unto the higher powers where no distinction is
made betwixt the Ecclesaâ—ic and Secular We have for the same practice the examples of the Godly Kings of â—srael and of Christian Emperours in the Primitâ—â—e Church as will be declared hereafter Chap. XV. 1. And our Doctrine herein being built thus on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets appears thereby to be Catholic and Apostolic And if any Doctrine of ours be not found grounded upon the same foundation of the Apostles and Prophets we are all reaâ—y to make that pious confession of our great King James related by Suarez Chapter XVII n. 15. Ego vero id ingenuè spondeo quoties Religionis quam profiteor ullum caput ostendetur non antiquum Catholicum Apostolicum sed novitium esse ac recens in rebus sc spectantibus ad sidem me statim ab eo dâ—sâ—essurum I do faithfully promise that whensoever any point of the Religion I profess shall be found not to be ancient Catholic and Apostolic but new and modern as to things belonging to Faith I will presently depart from it This much those of the Roman Church cannot say with sincerity and truth since several of their tenents are not built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets but are contrary to them as is declared in the second part of this Treatise Therefore our Church and the Faith of it rather then that of Rome is truly Catholic and Apostolic CHAP. V. Of the Succession and lawful Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons in the Reformed Church of England NOthing is affirmed more confidently nothing more blindly believed by most of the Romish party then the nullity of the Protestant Clergy that our Bishops Priests and Deacons are not such effectively but nominally or by title and therefore unable to give Orders they have not or administer Sacraments depending upon such Orders This I find by experience to be the greatest stop many of the more sober and serious of them have in embracing the Communion of the Church of England They see cleerly nothing is asserted by it which may be thought Heretical or erroneous And what it denies of superstructures added in latter Ages by the Roman Church they easily perceive them not to be essential to Salvation Their main scruple is whether in this separation of the reformed Churches from the Roman a lawful succession of Bishops and Ministers was retained and a legal ordination of them continued whether they may live and die confidently relying upon the Ministery of the reformed Ministers for consecrating absolving c. without recourse to a Romish Priest This point I find to be so necessary for setling the minds of many in this wavering age that I thought convenient to examine it exactly as far as may consist with the brevity and clearness I aim at in this writing To relate the reproches and calumnies of Romish Writers against our Ministery were endless and impertinent The shorter and readiest way will be to shew the truth and right of our cause by positive undeniable arguments touching the lawful succession and due Ordination of our Clergy This being established old stories and slanders will fall of themselves Who would not think it impertinent in me to take notice of that very rude and ridiculous fable of the Ordination of Parker and others at the Naggs-head in Cheapside most vigorously and demonstratively refuted many years ago by Mr. Mason and unhappily revived of late by a certain Gentleman to his own great shame and discredit of his cause being evidently convicted of Impostures by the Lord Bishop Bramhal in a separate Treatise printed upon that Subject Such base stuff as this if suitable to ears possessed with fury and blind passion is unworthy of any mention or regard among serious and sober Men. Now coming to the point after much reading and serious consideration upon the matter I wish heartily I could find the succession of lawful Bishops so cleer and not interrupted in the Roman Church from the Apostles times to the Reformation as we are able to shew it in ours from the beginning of the Reformation to our own daies It shall not be my present work to take notice of doubts occurring touching the former It will suffice for my purpose to demonstrate that from the beginning of Henry the Eight his reign when no doubt was of the legality of our Clergy to this day there has bin a lawful uninterrupted succession and due Ordination of Bishops and other Inferiour Clergy in the Churches of England and Ireland If the testimony of an adversary will avail we have that of * Cudsem de desper Calvini causa Cap. 11. pag. 108. Cudsemius who came into England the year 1608. to observe the state of our Church and the order of our Universities Concerning the state of the Calvinian Sect in England saith he it so standeth that either it may endure long or be changed suddainly or in a trice in regard of the Catholic order there in a perpetual line of their Bishops and the lawful succession of Pastors received from the Church for the honour whereof we use to call the English Calvinists by a milder term not Heretics but Schismatics Bellarmin is peremtory upon the contrary saying of all the Reformed Churches nostri temporis haeretici neutrum habent id est nec ordinationem nec successionem the Heretics of our times have neither ordination nor succession Whatsoever be said of other reformed Churches which I leave to speak for themselves upon this point we have cleer evidences to shew the falsity of the Cardinals assertion as relating to the Reformed Church of England and the more criminal as more wilful calumny of * Bristow Harding Sanders Kellison apud Masonliâ— 1. cap. 2. Vindiciae Eccleâ—ae Anglicanae Bristow Harding Sanders Howlet Kellison and other English Romanists whose malice must be Diabolical or their ignorance supine and unexcusable in slandering their Country with what they knew or easily might know to be an untruth as that stranger Cudsemius with due inquiry came to know For evidencing this point of so great importance * Papists Prisoners in Framblingham Castle in Queen Elizabeths time related by Mr. Mason 1 Book 3. Chap. of his English Edition that it was the cry of Papists to the Protestant Clergy in Queen Elizabeths time and is still the challenge of many among them if you can justify our calling we will come to your Church and be of your Religion I am to premise first as to matter of fact that in all prudence I am to rely with more satisfaction upon the public authentic records of the Church and state of England touching the transactions of both then upon the report of declared bitter Enemies such as those of the Romish faction are known to be Whereas it cannot but appear morally impossible in any impartial judgment that in so grave and wise a Nation as England is known to be the Lords and Officers of Church and State should conspire and agree in deluding
the Canons and rites of the Catholic Church With Thomas Cranmer Arch-Bishop of Canterbury they begin their quarrel Against him the Kings and Clergy of England Becan insults thus Legitimè consecrati non estis A quo enim an à Rege at is consecrandi potestatem non habet An ab Episcopo Cantuariensi vel aliquo simili ne id quidem Nam Thomas Cranmerus qui sub Hemico 8º Cantuariensem Episcopatum obtinuit non fuit consecratus ab ullo Episcopo sed à solo Rege intrusus designatus igitur quotquot ab eo postea consceratisunt non legitime sed ex praesumtione consecrati sunt You are not lawfully consecrated for by whom were you Whether by the King but he has not power to consecrate or by the Bishop of Canterbury or some other such neither that truly for Thomas Cranmer who under King Henry the Eighth obtained the Bishopric of Canterbury was not consecrated by any Bishop but intruded and designed by the King alone therefore as many as were afterward consecrated by him were not consecrated lawfully but by presumtion I cannot but note Becan's disingenuity in deluding thus his Reader as if he would have him believe that the Kings of England did take upon them to consecrate Bishops themselveâ— or to thrust into the Government of Churches men not consecrated contrary to what he knew well or might easily know to be true having Popes Cardinals Priests and Jesuits to aâ—â—ertain him of it such as were Clement the seventh Paul the fourth Cardinal Allen Parsons Kellison whose manifold testimonies of Cranmer to have been a true Bishop Mason relates lib. 2. cap. 7. adding for farther evidence this following testimony of the time place and persons ordaining him out of the public Records Thomas Cranmerus consecratus 30. Martij 1533. 24. Hen. à Joh. Lincolniensi Joh. Exoniensi Hen. Asaphensi Against all these evidences Henry Fitz Symonâ— takes up the cudgils in defence of Becan's assertion that Cranmer was not consecrated by any Bishop but a meer Layman intruded upon that see of Canterbury by Henry the Eighth his sole will This he promises to demonstrate à gravissimorum totius gentis authorum monumentis consularibus actis by the testimonies of the most grave Authors of the Nation and public Act of Parliament Seeing these big words and knowing upon what subject I could not but sigh and grieve remembring how these Rhetoricians do delude poor credulous People with such swelling phrases founding high in the eares of Boies and Women and of Womanish weak Men whereas being touched close they are found to be no better than a bubble floating pompously and containing nought but wind Where he promises the testimonies of the gravest Authors of the Nation in favour of his pretension he only brings one testimony and of whom of some impartial writer No but of * Sander de Schism lib. 3. pag. 296. Sanders the most passionate and bitter Enemy of the reformed Clergy that could be named But even his testimony how much to Fitz Simons purpose he relates these words of him Henricus 8. radix peccati cum ab Ecclesia sede Apostolica Regnum suum divisisset decrevit ne quisquam electus in Episcopum bullas Pontificias vel mandatum Apostolicum de consecratione requireret sed regium tantum diploma afferret Henry the Eâ—ghth the source of evil having separated his Kingdom from the Church and from the See Apostolic hath decreed that no Bishop elect should look for Bulls from the Pope for his consecration but only should bring the Kings Patent And here Fitz Symons stops fraudulently pretending his unskilful Reader should understand by those words that the King did give the title of Bishops without any consecration But the words following of Sanders do overthrow his purpose which run thus Sed Regium tantum diploma afferret secundum quod à tribus Episcopis cum consensu metropolitae ordinatus jubebatur lege comitiorum facta ad imitationem antiquorum canonum esse verus Episcopus nec alio modo ordinatum pro Episcopo agnosci oportere That he should bring the Kings mandat according to which the person ordained by three Bishops with the consent of the Metropolitan was by Act of Parliament made in imitation of ancient Canons declared to be a true Bishop and that any person otherwise ordain'd should not be taken for a Bishop And is this to say that Henry the Eighth should give the title of Bishops to and intrude upon Churches Persons without any consecration Truly this defence of Becan by Fitz Symons is like the cause defended both guilty of fraud and disingenuity so as we may call it malae causae pejus patrocinium of a bad cause a worse defence * Keâ—lison in replic contra Doct. Sut. p. 30. Kellison is more ingenious saying thus Cranmerum verè ordinatum non nego quia ab Episcopis Catholicis munus consecrationis accepit ita vixisse eum mortuum esse verum Episcopum fateor I do not deny that Cranmer was truly ordained having received his ordination from Catholic Bishops so as I confess he lived and died a true Bishop Let now the Author of Britonomachy I mean Fitz Symons come and reconcile this piece of Romanomachy In the mean time be it concluded that their testimonies against Cranmer are like those of the false witnesses against Christ which did not agree together Mark XIV 56. And let that blessed Martyr canonized by Christ for such where he declared blessed them that suffer persecution for justice as Cranmer did for doing justice to his King and Country in maintaining their right against the tyrannical usurpations of the Court of Rome let him I say enjoy in glory the indelible character of Bishop which all the malice of his adversaries will never be able to take from him And let their calumny against the Church of England be confounded wherewith they pretend the ordination of our Clergy to have been vitiated in that of Cranmer By this it appears that all Bishops made in King Henry the Eighth his reign were true and lawful Bishops as being consecrated by three Bishops and according to the accustomed rites of the Catholic Church it being a 25. Henr. 8. c. 20. enacted then that the Consecrations should be solemnized with all due circumstance and moreover that the Consecrators should give to the consecrated all benedictions ceremonies and things requisit for the same And if thing essential were abolished or omitted certainly Sanders speaking purposely of this point would not have concealed it But he rather saies plainly b Sanders de Schism lib. 3. p. 29â— it was King Henry's will that the ceremony and solemn unction should as yet be used in Episcopal Consecration after the manner of the Church But the c â— Mariae sess 2. c. 2. Statute of Qu. Mary putteth the matter out of all doubt enacting that all such Divine service and administration of Sacraments
that the words of their Pontifical accipe potestatem offerendi Sacrificium provivis defunctis are contained in those others of our Saviour at the last Supper hoc facite in meam commemorationem Do this in remembrance of me is notoriously weak gratis dicitur gratis negatur as t is said without ground so it may be denied without regard Now as to the form of Ordination * Bellar. de Sacramento Ordinis lib. 1. c. 9. Bellarmine tells us that all agree in taking for form the words that are pronounced by the minister when he exhibits the sensible signs or matter he adds that tho the Scripture doth not mention particular words to be pronounced in each order yet the ancient Fathers of the Church Ambrose Jerome and Augustine do expresly teach that a forme of words suitable to each Order is required and was practiced so in the ancient Roman Ordinals and so is practiced to this day in the Ordinal of the Church of England which in King Edward the sixth his time was disposed according to the more qualified ancient Ordinals used in the Catholic Church In the Ordination of Deacons the Bishop laies his hands severally upon the Head of every one of them kneeling before him saying Take thou authority to execute the office of a Deacon in the Church of God committed unto thee in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost c. After delivering to every one of them the New Testament he saith Take thou authority to read the Gospel in the Church of God and to preach the same if thou be thereto licensed by the Bishop himself In ordaining Priests the Bishop with the Priests present do lay their hands severally upon the Head of every one that receiveth the order of Priesthood the Receivers kneeling and the Bishop saying Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands whose Sins thou do'st forgive they are forgiven and whose Sins thou do'st retain they are retained and be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God and of his holy Sacraments in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost In the consecration of Bishops the Archbishop and Bishops present do lay their hands upon the Head of the elected Bishop kneeling before them and the Archbishop saying Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Bishop in the Church of God now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen And remember that thou stir up the Grace of God which is given thee by this imposition of our hands for God has not given us the Spirit of fear but of power and love and soberness The Church of England being thus exact in observing the form and matter essential to holy Orders it appears how rash and false was Kellison in saying that in King Edwards time neither matter nor form of Ordination was used How vain and windy * Fitz Symons Britonomach p. 3â—9 Fitz Symons his flourish cum in Sacramento mutatur materia forma intentio faciendi quod facit Ecclesia quae ejus essentiam conficiunt desinit esse Sacramentum omnium qui ante te vixerunt tecum vivunt post te victuri sunt orthodoxe sentientium consensu When in the Sacrament the matter form and intention of doing what the Church do's which make up the essence of it are changed it ceases to be a Sacrament by the common consent of all Catholics that lived before you do live with you and after you shall live Truly Fitz Symons seem'd to study more how his phrase should be round and sounding then to furnish it with sense and truth so as without injury I may say here of him dat sine mente sonum Setting aside what belongs to the matter and form who told Fitz Symons that the Ministers of the Church of England in the administration of Sacraments have not an intention to do what the true Church of God do's And tho their intention were to do expresly what their own Church of England do's and not what the Church of Rome Bellarmin declares that not to be an alteration annulling the Sacrament non est opus intendere quod facit Ecclesia Romana sed quod facit vera Ecclesia quaecunque illa sit vel quod Christus instituit vel quod faciunt Christiani imo si quis intendat facere quod aliqua Ecclesia particularis falsa ut Genevensis intendat non facere quod Ecclesia Romana respondeo etiam id sufficere nam qui intendit facere quod Ecclesia Genevensis intendit facere quod Ecclesia universalis It is not necessary saies Bellarmin to have an intention of doing what the Church of Rome do's but what the true Church which soever that be nay if he should intend to do what some particular false Church which he thinks to be true as that of Geneva saith the Cardinal even that will suffice for he that intends to do what the Church of Geneva * Bellar. de Sacra in Gen. lib. 2. c. 27. do's intends to do what the Universal Church do's of which he believes the Church of Geneva to be a member Then Fitz Symons was mistaken when he said that the supposed alteration in the intention of the Ministers did annul the Sacrament by consent of all Catholics if he will not have Bellarmine to be put out of that number not to take notice of his extravagancy in making the intention of the Minister an essential constitute of the Sacrament nor of the dismal confusion and discomfort he brings upon his proselytes by making the effects of Sacraments depending upon the foresaid intention whereof no Man receiving a Sacrament can have a full certainty the words of the Minister I can hear and his action I can see but of his intention I can never be entirely assured Then if the matter and form of Order necessary and essential be retained in our Church as we have seen and no reasonable doubt is left of the intention of our Ministers to do what the Church of England do's which according to Bellarmin's supposition now mentioned is sufficient How comes Fitz Symons to say that in the matter and form and intention of our Ministers such alteration is made as annulls our Sacraments CHAP. VII How far the form of Ordination used in the Church of England agrees with that of the ancient Câ—â—rch declared in tâ—e fourth Council of Carthage and how much the form prescribed by tâ—e Roman Pontifical of this time differs from the ancient fâ—rm AS in many other points so in this of Crdination especially I cannot but admire how bold the Romish Writers are in imposing upon the ignorant that themselves are the observers of antiquity and the Reformed Churches the contemners of it whereas indeed
the main purpose of the Reformation was to cut off the superstitious innovations of the Romish Church and stiâ—k to the Christian simplicity and gravity of the Primitive Apostolic Church This will appear evidently by comparing the present form of Ordination used in the Church of England with the most qualified of ancient formularies established in the fourth Council of Carthage celebrated by 214. Fathers whereof St. Augustine was one in the year 398. Honorius and Arcadius being Emperours of which Council Baronius gives this honorable Character Extitit hujusmodi Carthaginense Concilium veluti Ecclesiasticae promtuarium disciplinae non quidem recens inventae sedantiquioribus * Baron An. 393. n. 68. usu receptae atque ad pristinam consuetudinem revocatae This Council of Carthage was as it were a treasure of Ecclesiastic Discipline not newly invented but used by the ancient and restored to the former custom He adds that this Council was taken as a pattern by the other Churches both Eastern and Western I have perused carefully this Council and conferred it with our form of ordination set down in the Book of Common Praiers as also with the form of Ordination used in the Roman Church as contained in their latter Poâ—tifical published by Autority of Pope Clement the 8. printed at Rome in the year 1595. Clement complains of many errors crept into the former Pontificals and purposes to mend them in this latter according to the rule of ancient integrity for which purpose it seems no better rule could be taken then the foresaid Council of Carthage for the reasons aforesaid of Baronius Now if we shew that our form of Ordination is more agreeable to that of the Council of Carthage then the form prescribed in the Roman Pontifical we shall prove that we stand for the most warrantable antiquity and consequently for right in this point I will not dispute now about those called inferiour Orders in the Roman Church both because none will pretend them to be essential to Church Discipline and the duties appropriated to them are performed in both Churches sometimes by persons constituted in no order and sometimes by those in sacred Orders I will therefore only treat of the three sacred orders proposed by Suarez out of Optatus Milevitanus as necessary to the constitution of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy to wit Bishops Priests and Deacons And beginning with Deacons the said Council in the fourth chapter hath only these words Diaconus cum ordinatur solus Episcopus qui eum benedicit manum super caput illius ponat quia non ad sacerdotium sed ad ministerium consecratur When a Deacon is ordained only the Bishop who blesseth or ordaineth him is to lay his hand on his Head because he is not ordained to Priesthood but to ministery Here we have three things declared the Minister the matter the order the Minister is only the Bishop the matter or the exteriour sign is the imposition of hands the form is not described in particular but is included in the word benedicit for to bless here is nothing else but to pronounce the words by which the power of this order is conferred to the Person ordained all which is exactly performed in the Ordinationof Deacons by the Church of England as we have seen in the Chapter precedent Now touching the Ordination of Priests the Council decrees thus Presbyter cum ordinatur Episcopo eum benedicente manum super caput illius tenente etiam omnes Presbyteri qui praesentes sunt manus suas juxta manus Episcopi super Caput illius teneant When a Priest is ordained the Bishop blessing him and laying his hand on his Head the Priests present are likewise to lay their hands on his Head together with the Bishops hands Of this decree likewise the Church of England is as observant as the Roman is negligent for in their present Pontifical above mentioned of Clement the Eighth I see no mention made of what the Council decrees that the Priests present should lay their hands together with the Bishops hands upon the Head of him that is to be Priested and their practice goes accordingly But in lieu of this ceremony decreed by the Council of Carthage I find many others substituted in the foresaid Pontifical of which the Council makes no mention such as those about the amict albe girdle maniple stole cope candles crosses oil and the like And which is more remarkable the Council makes no mention of that great and chief ceremony used in the Roman Church and appointed in the aforesaid Ponâ—ifical and wherein some of their Authors will have the very essence of Priestly ordination to consist as we have seen above out of Bellarmin that the Bishop is to deliver to the person to be Priested after having anointed his hands with holy Oil the Chalice with wine and water and the Patin over it with the hoast or wafer saying Accipe potestatem offerre Sacrificium Deo missasque celebrare tam pro vivis quam per defunctis Receive power to offer sacrifice unto God and to celebrate Mass for the living and the dead If this ceremony were so essential or the power of sacrificing were so inherent to Priestly ordination as the present Church of Rome will have it to be certainly that grave and venerable Council of Carthage would not have passed it over with so deep a silence when it descended to particularize the duties and performances of inferiour Ministers not so necessary as those of Priests as may be seen in the ensuing Chapters of that Council from the fifth chapter forward Finally touching the Ordination of Bishops the aforesaid Council of Carthage has these words Episcopus cum ordinatur duo Episcopi ponant teneant Evangeliorum Codicem super Caput cervicem ejus uno super eum fundente benedictionem reliqui omnes Episcopi qui adsunt manibus suis Caput ejus tangant When a Bishop is ordained let two Bishops put and hold the Book of the Gospels over his head and neck and one blessing him let all the other Bishops that are there present touch his Head with their hands Here three things are required the giving or placeing of the Book the imposition of hands and the blessing to be given whereof the placeing of the Book is no essential part as * Vasquez in 3. p. disp 240. w. 63. Vasquez declares and so both Churches deviate somthing from the form mentioned for if we are to believe Vasquez and the Pontifical he quotes the Book of the Gospel is put upon the shoulders of the Bishop consecrated not by the Bishops consecrating but by one of the Chaplains and he relates out of Pope Clement that anciently it was performed by the Deacons who are no Ministers of this Order Neither do I find by Mr. Mason that the Pontifical he saw do's contradict what Vasquez saies yet I find it otherwise in the Roman Pontifical forementioned of Clement the Eighth to be seen
the Romish party Now it remains to shew that the succession of our Bishops and Clergy from those of unquestioned legality before the Reformation and the due Ordination of them according to the said rules and rites is more cleer and unquestionable with us then with the Roman Church As for the Bishops of England Mr. Mason giveth an exact account of their Succession and lawful Ordination the time and place of it the persons conscerating them running upon several Dioceses especially that of Canterbury from the time he published his Book which was the year 1638. to the time of K. Henry the Eighth when the validity of Ordination was not questioned grounding his narrative upon the authentic Records kept in London And in the same Records may be found the like account of the ensuing ordinations from Mr. Masons time to this day The like account may be found in the several Registries of the Churches of Ireland from our daies up to the aforesaid time of Henry the Eighth and touching the prime Church that of Armagh I found the ensuing account of the Succession and Ordination of Arch-Bishops in it from the present Arch-Bishop the most Reverend Father in God James Lord Arch-Bishop of Armagh Primate of all Ireland to the great comfort and benefit of it since the blindest passion can't miss to see in his Grace the Idea of a most renowned and perfect Prelate In the hands of his worthy Vicar General and Judge of his Prerogative Court the noble and Learned Dudley Loftus Doctor in Laws I found I say the account following of his Grace his lineal succession from the Bishops of unquestioned authority in Queen Maries time James Margetson Consecrated the 27. of January 1660. by John Bramhal Arch-Bishop of Armagh c. in the Cathedral Church of St. Patric in Dublin John Bramhal Doctor of Divinity was Consecrated Bishop of Derry in the Chappel of the Castle of Dublin the 26. of May 1634. by James Vsher Arch-Bishop of Armagh c. James Vsher Doctor of Divinity was Consecrated Bishop of Meath at Droghedah in the Church of St. Peter Anno 1621. by Christopher Hampton Arch-Bishop of Armagh c. Christopher Hampton Doctor of Divinity was Conseciated Bishop of Derry May the 5. 1613. in the Cathedral Church of St. Patric by Thomas Jones Arch-Bishop of Dublin c. Thomas Jones Doctor of Divinity was Consecrated Bishop of Meath in the Cathedral Church of St. Patric Dublin the 12. of May 1584. by Adam Loftus Lord Arch-Bishop of Dublin c. Adam Loftus Lord Arch-Bishop of Dublin was Consecrated Arch-Bishop of Armagh in the Church of St. Patric Dublin Anno 1562. by Hugh Curwin Lord Arch-Bishop of Dublin c. Hugh Curwin Doctor of Laws was Consecrated Arch-Bishop of Dublin the 8. of September 1555. being the third of Queen Mary together with James Turbirwill Bishop of Exeter and William Glin Bishop of Bargor Each one of the other Bishops of Ireland may give the like account of their lawful ordination and lineal succession from the Bishops of unquestioned autoâ—ity in King Henry the Eighth and Queen Maries time no exception is known to have bin taken against the legality of any of them and the Laws being so severe and the penalties of premunire so heavy against any Bishop that would enter otherwise then by the Rites and requisites above mentioned and justified 't is morally incredible that any would permit any defect to intervene in his Consecration that might bring upon him so great a damage 'T is not so with the Bishops or Popes of Rome We have not only conjectures but cleer evidences by a learned and exact Pen of their own party that none of the Bishops or Popes who usurped that see from Gregory the 13. was a lawful Bishop or Pope The treatise pen'd upon this subject in Latin and dedicated to King James bore this title The new Man or a supplication from an unknown person a Roman Catholic unto James the Monarch of Great Britain and from him to the Emperour Kings and Princes of the Christian World touching the causes and reasons that will argue a necessity of a General Council to be forthwith assembled against him that now usurps the Papal chair under the name of Paul the Fifth This treatise being published by order of so excellent a Prince as the World knew King James to be it were a blind insolence to say it should not be real and unfeigned and a treatise so destructive to the credit and interest of the Roman Court being not disproved for the space of nine years by any of that party as reported by Mr. William Crashaw translator of the said treatise from Latin into English in the year 1622. nor to this day by any that we know 't is a cleer argument they wanted means to gainsay the truth of it I will reduce to a brief sum the heads of his proof as well to matter of fact as of Law that the election of Pope Sixtus the fifth succeeding Gregory the thirteenth was null and invalid and consequently the Cardinals created by him were no true Cardinals nor the Popes elected by such Cardinals true Popes For ground of this discourse it is to be supposed that any simoniacal contract intervening in the election of a Pope such an election is therefore rendred null and invalid as is declared in the Bull of Julius the 2d set out against Simonaical elections of the Pope whose words are as followeth If it shall hereafter fall out through the Devils malice the Enemy of Mankind or the ambition or covetousness of the Elector that when we or any of our Successors shall by Gods appointment be removed from the Government of the Church on Earth the election of the new Pope be made and don either by him that is châ—sen or by any other or more of the Colledge of Cardinals by the Heresie of Simonaical contract giving promising or receiving any goods of any kind or Lands or Castles or offices or benefices or by making any other promise or obligation of what kind soever whether they do it by themselves or another by a few or by many and whether the election be accomplished by the voices of two parts of the Cardinals divided in three or by the uniform consent or voices of them all whether it be done by way of assumtion or adoration yea tho there be no writing made at all We determine define and declare That not only the election or assumtion so made shall be from that very moment void and of none effect and no power or faculty shall accrew to him thereby thrust in of any administration government or jurisdiction in matters spiritual or temporal but also that it shall and may be lawful to any Cardinal present at the said election to except against the said intruder and to call him into question for the crime of Simony as of a true and undoubted Heresie that so being an Heretic he may be of all men accountedas no Pope or
not ordained again after their ceremonies Which point of presumtion and contemt of ancient Canons the Church of England refuses to learn from the Romish admitting to the practise of their respective orders among us such as have bin ordained in the Romish Church tho we have far greater reasons to suspect their ordinations as disagreeing with ancient Canons then they have to suspect ours as we have hitherto largely declared By all this discourse it appeareth how groundless is the scruple of such as refuse to join with the Church of England for fear that the ordination of its Clergy is not valid whereas we have all the certainty and even more for the validity of our ordination that the Roman Church hath for hers how much Suarez was mistaken in affirming that the Church of England has not the Ecclesiastic hierarchy composed of Bishops Priests and Deacons necessary to the constitution of a Catholic Church CHAP. XII Of the large extent of Christian Religion professed in the Church of England THe fourth and chief kind of universality proposed by Suarez as necessary to the constitution of a Catholic Church is the extent of it over all the parts of the Earth This he denies to the Church of England as not passing saies he the Limits of the Brittish Dominions But if he speaks of the Faith professed in the Church of England as he ought to do for the present purpose he was greatly mistaken Here I will shew that King James's saying as Suarez relates that the one half of the Christian World do join with us in the same Faith did not exceed the bounds of truth and modesty and that of three parts of Christians two do join with us in the profession of the Faith of Christ contained in the Apostles Creed tho not of all contained in the Creed of Trent whereby the Roman Church alone is singled from us and from all other Christian Churches not unlike Ismael whose hand was against every one and every Mans hands against him And as the Donatists would confine the Church of God to that corner of Africa they inhabited so the Romanists would not have it extended further then their jurisdiction declaring for excommunicated and damned all that join not with them in obedience to their Pope That they may be ashamed or weary of their blind presumtion and cruelty in offering to mangle and deface in this manner the Church of God if avarice and ambition the genuine cause of this proceeding is capable of shame or amendment I will give to the People blinded by them a view of the multitude of illustrious Nations and Religious Believers in Christ which they do rashly if not maliciously condemn and segregate from their communion And beginning with Protestants inhabiting Europe from the remotest parts thereof Eastward in the Kingdom of Polonia containing under its dominion Polonia Lituania Podolia Russia the less Volhinia Massovia Livonia Prussia all which united in a roundish enclosure are in circuit about 2600 miles and of no less space then Spain and France laid together In this so large a Kingdom the Protestants in great numbers are diffused through all the quarters thereof having in every Province their public Churches and Congregations orderly severed and bounded with Dioceses whence they send some of their chiefest men of worth unto their general Synods which they have frequently held with great celebrity and with such prudence and piety as may be a happy example to be followed by all Christian Churches and likely would be followed upon a due consideration if the insatiable avarice and boundless ambition of Rome aspiring desperatly to a monarchical power over all did not obstruct all the waies that sincere piety and zeal of Religion can imagine for the peace of Christians For as much as there are diverse sorts of these Polonic Protestants some embracing the Waldensian or the Bohemic others the Augustan and some the Helvetian confession and so do differ in some outward circumstances of discipline and ceremony yet knowing well that a Kingdom divided cannot stand and that the one God whom all of them worship in Spirit is the God of peace and concord they jointly meet at one general Synod and their first act alwaies is a religious and solemn profession of their unfeigned consent in the substantial points of Christian Faith necessary to Salvation Thus in general Synods at Lendomire Cracovia Petricove Woodslave Torun they declared upon the Bohememic and Helvetic and Augustan confessions severally received amongst them that they agree in the general heads of Faith touching the Holy Scripture the sacred Trinity the person of the Son of God God and Man the providence of God Sin free will the Law the Gospel justification by Christ Faith in his name Regeneration the Catholic Church and supreme head thereof Christ the Sacraments their number and use the state of Souls after Death the Resurrection and life Eternal They decreed that whereas in the forenamed confessions there is some difference in phrases and forms of Speech concerning Christs presence in his holy Supper which might breed dissention all disputations touching the manner of Christs presence should be cut off seeing all of them do believe the presence it self and that the Eucharistical Elements are not naked and emty signs but do truly perform to the Faithful receiver that which they signify and represent To prevent future occasions of violating this sacred consent they ordained that no man should be called to the sacred Ministry without subscription thereunto and when any person shall be excluded by excommunication from the Congregation of one confession that he shall not be receiv'd by them of another Lastly For as much as they accord in the substantial verity of Christian Doctrine they profess themselves content to tolerate diversity of ceremonies according to the diverse practice of their particular Churches and to remove the least suspicion of rebelling sedition wherewith their malicious and calumniating adversaries might blemish the Gospel tho they are subject to many grievous pressures yet they earnestly exhort one another to follow that worthy and Christian admonition of Lactantius defendenda Religio est non occidendo sed moriendo non saevitiâ sed patientiâ non scelere sed side illa enim bonorum haec malorum sunt This is the State of the Professors of the Gospel in the Elective Monarchy of Polonia who in the adjoining Countries on the fouth Transylvania and Hungary are also exceedingly multiplied In the former by the favour of Gabriel Bartorius Prince of that Region who not many years since expelled thence all such as are of the Papal faction in a manner the whole Inhabitants except some few rotten and pâ—trid limbs of Arrians Antitrinitarians Ebionits Socinians Anabaptists who here as also in Polonia Lituania and Borussia have some public assembly are professed Protestants and in Hungary the greater part especially being compared with the Papists Thence Westward in the Kingdom of Bohemia consisting of 3200 Parishes
be added the Christians called Nestorians for having maintained antiently the errour of Nestorius spread over a great part of Asia For besides the Countries of Babylon Assâ—ria Mesopotamia Parthia and Media wherein many of them are found they are scattered far and wide in the East both northerly to Cathaia and foutherly to India So that beyond the river Tigris eastward there is no other Sect of Christians to be found as learned Brerewood relates except only the Portugals and the Converts made by them in India The Patriarch of the Nestorians to whom all those of the East parts acknowledg obedience hath his seat in the City of Musale on the River Tigris in Mesopotamia or in the Patriarchal Monastery of Saint Ermes fast by Musale In which City tho subject to Mahometans it is recorded that the Nestorians retain yet 15. Temples being esteemed about 40 thousand Souls Sanders relates the great number of suffragan Bishops and Metropolitans subject to the Patriarch of Musale Next to these we may name the Christians of Egypt called Cophti under the Patriarch of Alexandria to whose jurisdiction belong not only the native Christians of Egypt but also those about the bay of Arabia and in the Mount Sinai Eastward and in Afric as far as the greater Syrtis westward To him likewise are subject the Christians called Habassins spread over the wide Empire of Aethiopia with their Prince commonly called Prester John For tho they have a Patriarch of their own whom they call in their idiome Abuna our Father yet are they limited b Zaga Zabo de relig mor. Aethiop apud Damian Goes to chuse one of the jurisdiction of Alexandria and a Monk of Saint Anthony he must be Besides the confirmation and consecration of him belongeth to the Patriarch of Alexandria and by him is he sent with Ecclesiastical a Tho. Ã Jesul 7. p. 3. Tho. Ã Jes lib. 7. p. 3. charge into Habasia The conferring of Bishopries and other Ecclesiastical benefices except the Patriarcship belongeth only to the King Their Priests and other inferiour Ecclesiastical Ministers as also Monks live by their labour as having no tithes nor any Ecclesiastical revenues to maintain them nor being suffered to crave alms All which is recorded by Zaga Zabo an Ethiopian Bishop The Christians of Egypt are so constant in the profession of Christianity that if any of them are by force circumcised by the Turks he is marked in the forehead or hands with the sign of the Cross that all Men may know him to be a Christian The Patriarch of Alexandria's dwelling is now neer the Church of Saint Nicholas in Caire which City is one of the greatest Cities in the World reputed to be eight and twenty miles in length and fourteen in breadth as a Lithgows travels p. 306. Lithgow reporteth and that of Greeks Copates Armenians others there are about two hundred thousand Christians in that City of Caire b Tho. a Jesu de convers gent. lib. 7. par 1. c. 6. p. 363. Thomas a Jesu relates a foul mistake in Baronius who in the end of his sixth to me tells that in the time of Pope Clement the 8. an Embassage was brought from the Church of Alexandria to the Roman Bishop in which the Patriarch and all the Provinces of Egypt and others adjoyning did acknowledg him chief and universal Pastor of the Church but the matter being more diligently examined appeared to be a meer ly and fiction of a certain Impostor Bartavis How great is the extent of Christianity in Aethiopia may appear by the vast extent of that Empire which according to Mr. Brerewood his dimension is equal with Germany France Spain and Italy Others do report it to be as great as all Europe a Apud Pagit p. 38. Horatius Malegueius maketh the dominion of the Aethiopian Emperour larger then any other excepting the Dominion of the Catholic King b Godig de Abass reb lib. 1. c. 32 p. 195. Godignus reports that there are in Aethiopia one hundred and twenty seven arch-Arch-Bishops arch-c Alvares c. 14. Alvares a Portuguese Priest relates that in Macham Talacem which is the Church of the Holy Trinity he saw two hundred mitred Priests together and sixty four Canopies carried over them Their Churches are built round and very rich with hanging of Cloth of Gold Velvet and Plate They have many goodly Monasteries to the Monasteries of the vision of Jesus belong about 3000 Monks Many were the attacks of Rome upon this flourishing Christianity of Aethiopia to bring it under the Dominion of the Pope d Godig p. 367. The more famous I find recorded is that of Andreas Oviedo sent thither with the title of Patriarch in the year 1557. who coming with his letters to the Emperor Claudius received this answer from him That he would never yield obedience to the Bishop of Rome he gave him leave to teach the Portugals but forbad him to speak one word to his Abassins touching Religion and that he would not suffer the Roman yoak to be laid on him or his This Emperor Claudius dying Adamas succeeded who banish'd the said Patriarch Andreas and this was the issue of the Embassy as Godignus relates Under the Patriarch of Jerusalem a Chytr de statu Ecclesiae p. 24. are the Christians inhabiting Palestine mingled with Turks and others The Patriarch keeps his residence in Jerusalem where are now remaining ten Churches of Christians The Patriarchal Church is the Church of Saint Sepulcher in Jerusalem and his house is near unto it To this Patriarch did belong the three Palestines Tyrius adds two Provinces more Rubensis Beritensis He relateth also five Metropolitans to have belonged to this See and about 101 Bishops The Armenians Georgians Abassins and other Christians have several Churches in Jerusalem Under the Patriarch of Antioch are the Christians called Syrians of the place of their chief habitation and Melchites which according to the Syrian Etymology is as much as to say Royalists because their Bishops have followed alwaies in Faith and in their Councils the example and autority of the Emperors of Constantinople They inhabit mingled with Mahumetans part of Syria Beritus Tripolis Alepo and other places in Asia b Boter relat univers par 3. lib. 2. Boterus saith they are the most numerous sort of Christians in the East They live under the jurisdiction of the Arch-Bishop of Damascus by the title of Patriarch of Antiochia For Antiochia it self where the name of Christians was first heard in the World lying at present wast or broken into small villages the Patriarchall seat was translated thence to Damascus where are reported to be above a thousand houses of Christians For altho the Patriarch of the Maronites and of the Jacobites whereof the former keepeth residence in Libanus and the latter in Mesopotomia entitle themselves Patriarchs of Antiochia and by the Christians of their own Sects be so acknowledged yet do the Melchites
Papam de parte mea salutate Apostolica praecepta humiliter audite sed superfluas adinventiones regno meo adinferre nolite salute the Pope from him hear his precepts but bring no superfluous devices or innovations into his kingdom True it is That several of our Godly Kings did permit appeals should be made to Rome in matters wherein our own Bishops could not agree and directions to be sought from thence as from a flourishing and learned Church not as a superior Judicature And when the Roman Bishops did pretend to any such superiority our Kings did protest against it So Henry the fifth having demanded of Martin the fourth some particulars to which his Embassadors not finding him ready to assent they b Arthur Duc. in vita Henrici Chichly p. 56. 57. told him That they had orders to protest before him that the King would use his own right in those particulars as things which he demanded not out of necessity but for the honour respect he was willing to shew to that Sea that they should make a public protestation thereof before the whole Colledg of Cardinals And to this purpose are sundry examples remaining on c Rot. parliam 17 Edward 3. n. 59. 25. Edw. 3. oct purif n. 13. 7. Hen. 4. n. 114. 13. Hen. 6. n. 38. record where the King at the Petition of the Commons for redress of some things amiss belonging to Ecclesiastic cognizance first chuses to write to the Pope but on his delay or failing to give satisfaction doth either himself by statute redress the inconveniency or command the Archbishop to see it don For certain it is by the course of all our Chronicles and histories that our Kings together with the convocation of their Bishops and Clergy had in themselves absolute and entire power of governing and reforming the Church of this kingdom without any dependency uppon any forreign authority It was never doubted neither could it be denied upon any warrantable ground that they had within their own dominions the same power which Constantine had in the Empire and that our Bishops had the same which St. Peter had in the Church For which since the Erection of Canterbury into an Archbishoprick the Bishops of that Sea were held * Malms de Pontif. lib. 1. in Ansel fol. 127.15 Quasi alterius orbis Papae as Vrban the Second styled them and did exercise vices Apostolicas in Anglia that is they used the same power within this Island which the a Eadmer p. 27. Pope did in other parts And in our writers the Archbishop of Canterbury is frequently called Princeps Episcoporum Angliae b ib. p. 107. 33. Pontifex summus c Gervas Boro ber col 1663. 54. Patriacha King Edgar asserted this power to be in himself and in his Clergy in his memorable speech made to them d Apud Ailred col 361.16 Ego Constantini vos Petri gladium habetis in manibus I bear in my hand the sword of Constantin and you that of Peter And therefore as the affairs of most concerns in the Church had their dependance on the Emperor and the holy men of those times did not doubt to continue to him the style of Pontifex maximus as e Tom. 3. an 312. n. 106. Baronius notes sine ulla christianitatis labe So f Regularis Concordia c. Not. Seldeni ad Eadmerum p. 146. 16. King Edgar was solicito is of the Church of his Kingdom veluti domini sedulus Agricola pastorum pastor And wrote himself the Vicar of Christ and by his g Concil Spelm. Ã p. 444. aâ— p. 476. laws and Canons he made known that he did not assume those titles in vain King h Leg. Edw. Confes c. 17. p. 142. Rex quia vicartus summi Regis est ad hocest constitutus ut regnum terrenum populum domâ—ni sâ—per omnia sanctam veneretur Ecclesiam ejus regat ab injurtis defendat Edward the Confessor a canonized Saint did declare the same and practised accordingly The King saies he being vicar of the supream King his duty is to govern and defend the earthly Kingdom and the people of the Lord from injuries and over all to reverence govern and defend his Church The same was declared and practised by i Leg. Inae in pras p. 1. Ina whom Baronius styles a most pious King by k Leg. fol. 11. p. 109. Canutus acknowledged for a most bountiful benefactour of Churches and of the servants of God Erga Ecclesias atque Dei servos benignissimus largitor as l Epist 97. fol. 93. Canut c Furbertus Carnotensis relates of him and several other godly Kings of England whose several laws touching Ecclesiastic affaires you may see related by Jorvalens c. 2. col 761. c. 5. col 830. c. 23. col 921. as also the laws of Emperors to the same purpose in the books of m Codex Theodos de seriis de nuptiis c. de sâ—de Catholica de Episcopis Ecclesiis clericis de monachis de haereticit de Apost de Religione de Episcopali judicio cod Jast l. 1. Tit. 1 2 3 4 5. passim in co Theodosius and Justinian The Emperors did employ their Bishops and Divines in resolving upon wholsome decrees touching Church affaires and these decrees they espoused themselves for Laws so as the transgressors of them should be subject to penalties This same course our Kings have taken as well in former ages as in this latter of the Reformation of our Church Henry the Eighth haveing those occasions of discontent with Pope Clement the Seventh which as too much known I omit to relate and being urged by the States of the Kingdom to execute at last what long time was desired and often attemted in England viz. to throw off the usurped power and jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome over this Kingdom to proceed with due legality and consideration in so weighty a matter he wrote to the Universities and great Monasteries and Churches of the Kingdom in the year 1534. and the eighteenth of May of the same year to the University of Oxford requiring them like men of vertue and profound Literature diligently to intreat examine and discuss a certain question viz. An Romanus Episcopus habeat majorem aliquam Jurisdictionem sibi collatam in Sacra Scriptura in hoc Regno Angliae quam alius quivis Externus Episcopus Whether the Bishop of Rome had any greater jurisdiction given to him in holy Scripture over this Kingdom of England then any other foreign Bishop and to return their opinion in writing under their common Seal according to the meer and sincere truth of the same To which after mature deliberation and examination they returned answer That he hath no such jurisdiction in this land The words of the University of Oxford returning their answer to the King upon this subject the 27. of June of the aforesaid 1534.
which I saw in the Records of that University are as follow Post susceptam itaque per nos quaestionem ante dictam cum omni humilitate devotione ac debita reverentia convocatis undique dictae nostrae Academiae Theologis habitoque complurium dierum spatio ac deliberandi tempore satis amplo quo interim cum omni qua potuimus diligentia Justitiae Zelo Religione conscientia incorrupta perscrutaremur tam Sacrae Scripturae libros quam super cisdem approbatissimos interpretes eos quidem saepe saepius à nobis evolutos exactissime collatos repetitos examinatos deinde disputationibus solennibus palam publice habitis celebratis tandem in hanc sententiam unanimiter omnes convenimus ac concordes fuimus viz. Romanum Episcopum majorem aliquam jurisdictionem non habere sibi a Deo collatam in Sacra Scriptura in hoc Regno Anglia quam alium quemvis Externum Episcopum We therefore after having taken in hand this question with all humility devotion and due reverence the Divines of our University being called together from all places and the space of many daies and time enough bein given for deliberating whereby with all diligence possible zeal of Justice Religion and upright conâ—â—ience we should search as well the Books of Holy Scripture as the most approved interpreters of them and they being very often turned over by us and most exactly conferred together review'd examin'd moreover having celebrated held public solemn disputes on this subject at last we have all unanimously agreed upon this sentence viz. That the Bishop of Rome hath not any more Jurisdiction given to him by God in holy Scripture in this Kingdom of England then any other foreign Bishop hath Having met with this religious and learned declaration of the University of Oxford I thought convenient to relate it here as well for the autority the opinion of this great University is apt to give to the matter as also that it may be to us an argument of the zeal and diligence wherewith the other Scholes Monasteries and Churches did proceed to deliver their opinion upon this subject And if it be true what the famous Canonist * Navar. cap. Cum conti gat de rescript remed 1 n. â—o qui unius Doctorâ—s eruditione ac animi pretate celebrâ—s autoritate dâ—ctus secerit al quid exâ—usatur etiamâ—â—d non esset justum alii contrarium tenerent Navar saies and now is more commonly said and confirmed by Casuists and Canonists that who do's any thing following therein the opinion of one Doctor of known learning and piety tho others be of contrary opinion is excused tho happily what he did should not be just in it self and if the authority of one Doctor of learning and piety can justify a mans proceeding shall not the opinion of so great a number of men famous for learning and piety that were then in the Universities Monasteries and Churches of England justify the proceedings of King Henry in freeing his Kingdom from the slavery it was in under the Bishop of Rome This indeed was to lay the axe to the root of the Romish usurpations and corruptions in this Land Their pretended authority in it being found and declared not to be from God nor grounded upon his divine word but illegally and fraudulently intruded upon the Nation it followeth that they were all at their own liberty to reform their Church by a National Synod of their own Prelats and Clergy under the protection and inspection of their Prince as in other times was don in this land in consequence to this the states of the Kingdom being congregated in * Stat. 26. Hen. 8. c. 1. begun Nov. 3. end Dec. 18. 1533. Parliament an 1533 have declared that his Majesty his heirs and successors Kings of this Realm shall have full power and autority from time to time to visit repress redress all such errors heresies abuses c. which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction may be lawfully reformed repressed ordered redressed c. And this was not to assume a new power but to renew and publish the ancient right of the Kings of this Land It is true that Popes in former ages not finding means to hinder our Princes from exercising this right of their own would by priviledg continue it unto them So Pope Nichelas finding our Kings to express one part of their office to be Regere populum Domini Ecclesiam ejus wrote to Edward the Confessor Vobis posteris vesâ—ris regibus Angliae committimus convocationem ejusdem loci omnium totius Angliae Ecclesiarum vice nostra cum consilio Episcoporum Abbatum constituatis ubique quae justa sunt We commit unto you and your successors Kings of England the government of that place and of all the Churches of England that in our name ye may by the Councils of Bishops and Abbots order in all places what will be just The same Pope did allow the like priviledg to the Emperor * Bar. 11. Annal. 1059. n. 23. Nicolaus Papa hoc domino meo privilegium quod ex paterno jure susceperat praebuit Said the Emperors advocat Pope Nicholas allowed this priviledg to my Master which himself had by his birth-right By the like art finding the People of England unwilling to acknowledg any Ecclesiastic power besides that of the land and the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury for supreme of it under the King the Popes have contrived that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury should exercise that power as from them under the name of Legatus natus or Legat by his place of the Roman Sea This may seem like what they report of the great Cham of Tartary that after he had dined he orders to give leave by the sound of a Trumpet to all the Kings of the World that they may go to dinner But the Pope drives further in his grants that in time if power should assist him he may force upon them a subjection to him as if really the Princes did owe their power to him But the arts of Rome are too much known in England for the people to be further deluded by them And therefore a National Synod or a Convocation of the arch-Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbots and other Clergy of the Kingdom being celebrated at London by order of King Henry the sixth in the sixth year of his reign being that of our Lord 1552. a summary of Articles was agreed upon to remove dissentions in Religion and reform the Church from corruptions that crept into it so pious and moderate so well grounded upon Divine Scripture and upon the Doctrine and practice of the Primitive Apostolic Church that Romanists may more easily rail and rant at then discover any real error in them My adversary N. N. after highly inveighing against these Articles and boasting to discover Heresies in them singles out the 22. Article which runs thus The Roman
Doctrine of Purgatory Indulgences veneration and adoration as well of Images as of reliques as also of the invocation of Saints is absurd and vainly invented nor is grounded upon any authority of Scripture but is rather repugnant to the word of God Upon which Article N. N. delivers this heavy censure that it is false profane and Heretical But in the whole discourse of the second part of this Treatise I will demonstrate God willing that it is rather true Religious and Catholic as also I do intend by the help of God to vindicate the rest of those Articles in a separat Treatise from the cavils of Alexander White and other Romanists whereby N. N. will find how much he is mistaken in taking the said Alexander White 's Book against the thirty nine Articles for unanswerable as certainly he is far mistaken in saying resolutely tho without having any ground for it that the aforesaid White hath bestowed more time and deliberation in quitting those Articles then I have don in deserting the communion of the Roman Church Seven years he saies Mr. White spent in deliberating upon his resolution but certainly I have spent many more years in deliberating upon mine How many they were as it is not easie to demonstrate so it is not material to tell men may deliberate long and err at last in their resolution To my reasons alledged for that resolution which I took I appeal and do willingly expose them to public view and examination that others as well as I may judg of the weight of them Very foul and slanderous also has bin the mistake of our adversary in saying that the Authors of our 39. Articles were only some few obscare men Priests and Friers run out of Germany and that by them the Church and Kingdom of England was governed in the Reformation of their Religion How false their report is may appear by the public Records and Histories of the Land and by several Acts of Parliament passed with great deliberation of all the States of the Kingdom upon the settlement of the Reformation and of those Articles as well in that great Synod or Convocation celebrated under Edward the sixth in the year 1552. above mentioned as also an other no less famous Synod held at London ten years after viz. 1562. wherein the said Articles were reviewed examined and confirmed I have seen among Seldens Books kept in the Bodleian Library of Oxford an Authentic COpy of these Articles printed at London in the year 1563 and a scroul of parchment annexed to it with the subscriptions by their proper hands of the members of the lower house of Convocation being all Deans Arch Deacons and procurators of Clergy which I found to be in number 104 besides the Arch-Bishops and Bishops sitting in the upper house whose names came not in my way to see but I am to suppose they were all the Prelates of the Land as they used to meet in Convocation And is this to shuffle up a Reformation and make Articles in clandest in manner without due examination as our Adversary would make his Reader believe CHAP. XVIII A view of N. N. his discourse upon Transubstantiation and upon the affinity of the Roman Church with the Grecian THo N. N. had declared his purpose in the beginning to deal with me not Scholastically but Historically yet it seems he would not part with me without disputing upon the point of Transubstantiation He alledges testimonies and Fathers and miracles in favour of it and pretends it to have bin a Doctrine of more ancient standing then the Lateran Council To all which I have given a full answer in what I have delivered by my discourse formerly printed and in what will follow in the second part of this Treatise from the 18. Chapter forward Only I will reflect here upon two or three very gross mistakes of N. N. in his present discourse with me upon the point The first is touching my belief of this great mystery He saies resolutely without giving any ground for his saying as indeed he could have none for it that I do not believe Christ to be really present at all in this Sacrament why then saies he should he dispute with us about the Doctrine of Transubstantiation seeing he flatly denies the body and blood of Christ to be really and substantially present in the Sacrament But good Sir where have you seen this flat denial of mine certainly not in my declaration which seems to be the object of your quarrel not in the 39. Articles not in any public Catechism or system of Doctrine generally received by the Church of England nay the Catechism approved by autority and commended to the use of all being inserted into the Common Praier Book delivers the Doctrine quite opposite For to the question proposed touching the inward or invisible part of this Sacrament this answer is returned The Body and blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lords Supper And is this to deny flatly that the Body and blood of Christ is really present in the Sacrament as you impute to us When a Jesuite in Germany broached the like calumny in a conserence had with some of the English nobility waiting upon our King in that Country in presence of his Majesty and of a Prince Elector in that Empire both his Majesty and the Noble-Men took offence at his Speech as being a foul Calumny and therefore desired the Reverend and Learned Doctor Cosin Bishop of Durham to vindicate the Church of England from that a spersion as he did abundantly in a very learned Tract published under the title of Historia Transubstantiationis Papalis Wherein he proves by the Articles public Catechisms and by the testimonies of several * Vide Jacobum Armac in resp ad Malon Mont. Norw in Antidiatribis Laud. Cantua in resp ad Fish Hooker Polit. Eccles l. s Joh. Roffens de potest Pap. in prae fat stat Prime Elis. c. 1. 8. Elis. c. 12 13. Elis. c. 1. grave and learned Prelates that all true Protestants especially those of the Church of England do constantly believe and profess that Christ our Saviour is really and substantially present in the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist and his Body and blood really and substantially received in it by the faithful and accordingly he alledges the learned Bilson B. of Wincl ester declaring the belief and Doctrine of the Church of England touching this point in the words following Eucharistiam non solum figuram esse Corporis Domini sed etiam ipsam veritatem naturam atque sul stantiam in se comprehendere ' That the Eucharist is not only a figure or representation of the Body of our Saviour but that it comprehends also the very truth and nature and substance of his body The very same Doctrine is contained in the 28. Article of the 39. above mentioned in these words The Body of Christ is given or taken and eaten in the
Parisian Doctors in their Declaration against the forementioned Thesis of Clermont Colledg presented to all the Bishops of France extant in the hands of many both in French and English And if their reason exhibited for their censure be considered well we shall find it to comprehend Mr. I. S. his opinion no less then that of the Clermont Jesuits since both the one and the other do bottom the pretended Infallibility of their Church upon the Popes Autority whether in a Council or out of it and so the reason of the Parisian Divines doth conclude in either case that it is a Blasphemy injurious to Jesus Christ to ascribe to the Pope that Infallibility which Christ alone possesses and that men should render that Supreme Cultus of Divine Faith to the words of the Pope which is only due to the word of God The allegations of our Adversary for obedience due to the Church as to Christ and of promises made of the assistance of the Holy Ghost to the Apostles and the Church governed by them will appear very impertinent to his purpose in favor of the Pope and his faction when we come to examine the Texts alledged for which I will assign the Chapter following In the mean time we may conclude from what is said in this Chapter That to ascribe Infallibility to the Pope is Blasphemy in the opinion even of Popish Doctors and Mr. I. S. his pecular way of defending that tenet declared for heretical by Doctors of his own party which was my present undertaking To which may be added the opinion of Mr. * Tabul Suff. cap. 19.20.21 Thomas White of the same Communion whose whole Book called his Tabulae suffragiales is purposely designed against this doctrine of the Popes personal Infallibility affirming it to be not heretical but Archiheretical and that the propagating of this doctrine is in its kind a most grievous sin so weary men of Learning and Parts begin to grow of this intolerable Arrogance of the Roman Church or Court and of their Flatterers CHAP. VII Our Adversaries corruption of Scripture detected OUR Adversary certainly never look'd into the Bible for the Texts he alledges for the Infallibility of his Church but snatch'd them out of some of his old Controvertists whose custom is to clip and cut Scripture to their own pretences without regard of their true meaning Or if he has seen them with their contexts he has bin strangely dull in not perceiving the right sense of them very obvious to any ordinary good understanding or malicious in misrepresenting the meaning of them This is especially seen in his Allegation of these words Joh. XV. 26. When the Paraclete will come whom I will send from my Father the spirit of truth he will give testimony of me and ye will give testimony This he will have us take for a certain testimony of the Holy Ghosts assistance promised to his Church If he did see the half verse immediatly following which he left out or his Tutors cut off he would find that these words were spoken to the Apostles with circumstances making them impossible to be applied to his Church The verse restored to its integrity saies thus And ye also shall bear witness because ye have bin with me from the beginning What man in his senses would think those words appliable to the Council of Trent Were the Fathers of that Council with Christ from the the beginning was the Holy Ghost not yet descended He confirms further his opinion out of Acts the XV. 28. where the Council of the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem deciding the controversy concerning Circumcision delivers their opinion thus It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us signifying that the Holy Ghost did assist them and that grounded on the words aforesaid of our Saviour Joh. XV. 26. When the Paraclete will come he shall give testimony of me and you shall give testimony of me If that be the ground of the Apostles Phrase we have seen before to whom that promise was given whether to the Apostles alone or the Bishops of Rome to be for ever We have seen that the Text in its integrity cannot be applied to the latter But Mr. I. S. of his own autority declares that promise was made by Christ not only to the Apostles but to the Roman Church for ever And to make this latter Text sound somthing like to his purpose he patches it up with a piece of a verse fetch'd out of Matth. XXVIII Vntil the consummation of the world This usual art of theirs of cutting from the Texts what is against their purpose and patching them with other words far fetch'd that may have a gloss or appearance of their pretention may be practiced with more safety in conversation or in a Sermon to a vulgar Auditory then in a serious debate by print exposed to a strict examen This is a cheat like that used in Italy with rotten Apples to set them out for sound They cut off the rotten pieces and glue together the sound fragments to an appearance of a fair Apple but being handled more close it falls in pieces and discovers the cheat This abominable Legerdemain is too often seen in their Pulpits fathering upon the Gospel forsooth most execrable Blasphemies extolling their several new Saints to whom they would gain devotion and by that devotion mony to their Coffers above the Apostles above the Angels above Christ and all that is in heaven to the perpetual scandal of the discreet part of their own flock and edification of none All is sanctified with them by repeting at the end of every desperate discourse some words of the Gospel as a burden of the song tho with no relation in its sense to their purpose This is the art Mr. I. S. useth with the testimony related of Acts XV. touching the assistance of the Holy Ghost in the Council at Jerusalem grounded as he confesses upon the aforesaid Text of John XV. 26. declared to relate only to the Apostles then present and Mr. I. S. of his own head will have it extended to the Roman Church for ever and his Interpretation must be taken for Canonical Scripture by closing it up with this fragment of the twentieth verse of Matthew the XXVIII Vntil the consummation of the world The Text he corrupts and cuts off Matth. XXVIII contains a promise of Christ to the Apostles and Church founded and Faith preached by them that he will assist them for ever saying I am with you all the daies until the consummation of the world St. Hierom better then Mr. I. S. will tell us the meaning of these words glossing thus upon them qui usque ad consummationem seculi cum discipulis se futurum esse promittit illos ostendit semper esse victuros se nunquam à credentibus recessurum In these words our Saviour promises to his Disciples life everlasting and to the Church founded by them and to all true believers in him his
which name of either he pleaseth to term it to put us to silence as to further debates as truly he had need accordingly he appears ill furnished to enter into them We will now proceed to see how ill armed he is to encounter upon the particular points I proposed for motive of my discontent with the Roman Church CHAP. XV. Mr. I. S. his defense of the Popes Supremacy declared to be vain Their pretence to a Monarchical power over all Christians whether in Spiritual or Temporal proved to be unjust and tyrannical OUR Adversary will have us take for an Article of Faith the Supreme power of the Pope over all Christians in Spiritual affairs Whether he hath the like supreme power over Princes in temporal concerns he leaves to our discretion to believe what we please the case being disputable And indeed it is a courtesy in Mr. I. S. to permit us this liberty even touching temporal affairs and beyond commission from the Court of Rome as may appear by what we are to say in this Chapter But what he allows him of Supremacy in Spiritual government over all other Bishops and over all Christians is certainly more then his right more then Christ gave him and more then S. Peter had whose Successor the Pope pretends to be He will never find any mention in History Ecclesiastic of any claim S. Peter should pretend to have of power over S. James in Jerusalem S. Andrew in Achaia over Thomas in the Indies or over any other of the Apostles in their respective Provinces no dependance of them upon him None of those more worthy first Bishops of Rome for five hundred years did ever pretend to any such Supremacy if we are to believe one of the best of them St. Gregory the Great in his many Epistles written against the Ambition of John Patriarch of Constantinople pretending to such a calling of Universal Bishop Neither did he therein act for himself as he do's formally protest to obviate the malice of those who would cast that aspersion upon his proceeding herein a Gregorius lib. 4. Regist Ep. 36. In damnando generalitatis nomine saies he nostrum specialiter aliquid non amamus Neither indeed could the reasons he alledges against the Ambition of John of Constantinople consist with a pretention to such a Prerogative in favor of his own See namely b Jactantiam sumsit ita ut Universa sibi tentet adscribere omnia quae soli uni capiti cohaerent videlicet Christo per elationem pompatici sermonis ejusdem Christi sibi studeat membra subjugare cum fortasse in errore perit qui Universalis diâ—â—tur nullus jam Episcopus remansisse in statu veritatis invenitur ibid. that it is to rob Christ of his priviledg of being Head of the Universal Church that if the whole Church were subject to and depending upon one man he falling into Heresie all the Church would fall with him How foul an Aspersion Papists do cast upon this good Pope Gregory the Great saying he would claim to himself the calling he reprehended in John of Constantinople may appear by these words of his foresaid Epistle 36. written to Eulogius Bishop of Alexandria and to Athanasius Bishop of Antioch saying a Vnt per Sanctam Chalcedonensem Synodum Pontifici sedis Apostolica cui Deo disponente deservio hec Universitatis nomen oblatum est Sed nullus unquam decessorum meorum hoc tam profano vocabulo uti consensit quia videlicet si unus Patriarcha Vniversalis dicitur Patriarcharum nomen ceteris derogatur Sed absit absit hoc à Christiani mente id sibi velle quempiam arripere unde fratrum suorum honorem imminuere ex quantulacunque parte videatur The name of Universal Bishop was by the holy Council of Chalcedon offered only to the Bishop of the See Apostolic in which by Gods providence I do serve but none of my Predecessors did consent to use this profane calling For if one Patriarch or Bishop be called Universal the name of a Bishop is taken from the rest But far be this far be it from the mind of a Christian that any should assume to himself any thing which may seem to diminish in the least the honor of his brethren How can this consist with saying that Gregory did claim to himâ—elf that calling which he reprehended in John of Constantinople since he declares that his Predecessors did refuse that calling and alledges reasons which prove that none ought to admit it The same St. Gregory is the first Author I find to have accused of Anti-Christianism the pretention of the Pope to Supremacy over all Christians in the person of the foresaid John Patriarch of Constantinople of whose ambitious pretention to the like Supremacy he writes thus to the Empress Constantina b Sed in hac ejus superbia quid aliud nisi propinqua jam Antichristi esse tempora designatur quia illum videlicet imitatur qui spretis in sociali gaudio Angelorum legionibus ad culmen conatus est singularitatis erumpere dicens c. Lib. 4. Ep. 34. And what may we understand by this kind of pride but that the time of Anti-Christ is near since he imitates him who despising the social joy of Angels did endevor to rise up to the top of singularity saying I will ascend into Heaven I will exalt my Throne above the Stars of God I will sit also upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North I will ascend above the height of the Clouds I will be like the most high This singularity of the Bishops of Rome in despising a fair and brotherly society with other Bishops and pretending a Supremacy over all and an Equality with God in several of his priviledges gave occasion to such as in after Ages called them Anti-christs Certainly this Ambition of being head of the Universal Church a priviledg granted in Scripture only to Christ the boldness of preferring his own laws to the Laws of Christ whereof we gave several instances have great affinity with the qualities of Anti-christ described in Scripture And St. Gregory his prediction that the usurpation of this Supremacy would be a calamity to the Church is found to be too true All the Combustions and dismal Contentions that afflicted this Kingdom for a whole Age did proceed from the Popes pretention to Supremacy It is not the intrinsic quality of speculative doctrines of Faith controverted it is not the alterations of Ceremonies or Language in divine Service did minister fuel to this fatal fire all these things would be easily agreed upon if we did allow but Supremacy to the Pope or he did quit his pretention to it Of this we have certainty by what Sir Roger Twisden affirms out of warrantable Histories and Relations that Pope Paulus IV. finding his fierceness could not avail with Queen Elizabeth offered a Tortura torti pag. 148. to let things stand as they were
difficulties rendring the Mystery more hard to be believed but that the contrary is to be held for the declaration of the Church Cajetan said that only the said declaration could make the words of our Saviour alledged for Transubstantiation appear convincing to that purpose And Suarez tells us his saying was commanded by Pope Pius the V. to be expunged An old Copy of Ocham I found in Dublin Library was more fortunate in escaping their blurs In his 5th quodlibet q. 30. he relates three opinions touching the Bread in the Eucharist The first saying that the Bread which was before is the Body of Christ after Consecration of which opinion he delivers this censure Prima est irrationalis that it is an unreasonable opinion The second opinion saies he is that the substance of Bread and Wine ceases to be and only the Accidents do remain and under them begins to be the Body of Christ Of this opinion he saies Est communis opinio quam tenâ—o propter determinationem Ecclcsiae non propâ—â—r aliam rationem That to this opinion he consems for the declaration of the Church in favor of it and not for any reason assisting it The third opinion related by him is that the substance of Bread and Wine remains after Consecration and of this he saies Tertia opinio esset multum rationabilis nisi esset determinatio Ecclesiae in contrarium That this opinion were very rational if the determination of the Church were not contrary to it So that it is not any reason nor any ground they saw for it in Scripture made these and many other very Learned men consent to the doctrine of Transubstantiation but only a blind Obedience to Innocents Decree in the Lateran Council Bellarmin wishes we should all have this submission to the Autority of the Church and I wish with all my heart that both we and he and his party and all Christians should have due submission to the Church truly Catholic Primitive and Apostolic declaring to us the Word of God by Canonical Scripture and Universal Tradition in which Fountains of Truth neither Transubstantiation will be found nor any of their Errors which I pointed out for motives of my forsaking their Communion Neither is I. S. more fortunate in his attemt of putting a terror upon me as if I had shock'd the Hierarchy of the Church of England by saying its rashness to give divine Adoration to a Wafer wherein they cannot be sure Christ to be Present this depending according to their own Principles upon the Priests intention to Consecrate his due Ordination and of the Bishop that gave him Orders his intention and due Ordination and so upward of endless requisites impossible to be certainly known And what has all this to do with shocking the Hierarchy of the the Church of England When I saw the man begin with so great a clap and sounding already a triumph I expected the story of the Nags-head or some other of their old Engines against the Legality of the Protestant Clergy should come down but all he brings is that we do also allow some things to be essentially requisite for the validity of a Sacrament the defect of which nullifies the Sacrament As for Baptism water is requisite and the form of words I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost The Minister may vitiate this form and utter somewhat in lieu of it or omit some words of it or add some other that would destroy the form The same may happen in the Ordination of a Minister or Bishop and there is no certainty that no error of these should have happen'd in any one of the whole train of our Ordainers and if it was wanting in any all the Ordinations derived from him are null Therefore we can have no Assurance of our Hierarchy I leave the Judicious Reader to see what singular exploit this man hath done herein against the Church of England his reasons alledged of doubting the Legality of its Ministers doth prove so much for rendring doubtful the Legality of the Roman Clergy by his own confession but much more for what I am to add first that we do not make the effects of Sacraments to depend so much upon the intention and quality of the Ministers as Papists do We entertain a better opinion of Gods goodness that he will not have pious Souls lose the fruit of their sincere Endeavors and will supply to that effect the defect of the Minister secondly that their practice of muttering the words in a Language unknown to the People and in a voice not audible especially in the consecration of the Eucharist is more subject to errors and fraud then the way of our Church where the Minister is to pronounce loudly and intelligibly the words of the form But chiefly touching the subject of our present discourse from which our Adversary seems willing to divert I mean the use and Adoration of the Sacrament of the Eucharist who run more hazard the Papists or we In case a defect should happen touching the consecration we enjoy the fruit of a spiritual Communion and are not at the loss that Papists are in the like case who make the main fruit depend upon the real and corporal presence of Christ in the host We run no danger of Idolatry material or formal giving the worship of Divinity to a thing that is not God as Papists do giving that kind of worship to any host reputed to be duly consecrated which if it happens not to be so indeed their act of worship is at least a material Idolatry in their own confession and to expose themselves to a known danger of committing such kind of Idolatry cannot chuse but be criminal as it is generally reputed to be a sin for one to expose himself to a danger of committing a sin The parity of one honoring his Father not knowing certainly him to be his true Father is impertinent and undecent A bad opinion he must have of his Mother who doubts his reputed Father to be such in truth But what if he were in a material error it is not a sin but a duty to pay respect unto him that adopts or owns him for a Son I will conclude this matter with letting Mr. I. S. see his rashness in pretending I was rash in saying its intolerable boldness in some of his fellows to say there is the same reason for the adoration of the host as for adoring Christs Divinity And he pretends I should seem thereby not to understand their doctrine Sir I am not to enter with you in comparison which of us understands better the Doctrine of both Churches what I see evidently is that either you do ignorantly misunderstand or maliciously misrepresent the state of the Question that wanting an answer to my Arguments in their proper terms you may fashion them so as your impertinent Discourses may seem to strike at something which is properly hostem tibi
1. opusc tract 8. q. 4. says the foresaid testimonies are without doubt to be understood of a remission to be given by way of Sacraments not of the remission of pains in the other life as the Pope doth practice in the giving of Indulgences and finally gives for the only reason the Authority of the Church and of Pope Leo then governing which he tells us must suffice tho no other reason should appear by these remarkable words Absque hasitatione aliquâ etiamsi nulla adesset ratio fatendum est dicti Thesauri dispensationem non solùm per Sacramenta quoad merita Christi sed aliter quam per Sacramenta qnoad merita Christi Sanctorum commissam esse Praelatis Ecclesiae praecipuè Papae hoc tanto magis fatendum est quanto per Leonem decimum determinatum est We are to believe without staggering tho no reason appear for it that the dispensing of the Treasure of the Church not only by way of Sacraments as to the merits of Christ but otherwise then by Sacraments as to the merits of Christs and the Saints is committed to the Prelates of the Church and especially to the Pope And this is so much the more to be confessed because it is so determined by Leo X. A very special reason to convince Luther and the rest of the World that do not believe the Pope to be Infallible Suarez tom 4. in 3. partem disp 49. sect 1. delivers his opinion of the foresaid Testimonies of Scripture to be insufficient to prove the doctrine of Indulgences Of that of Joh. 20. he says the same that Cajetan above mentioned Of the other touching the power of binding and loosing Matth. 18.18 he says the literal sense of those words to be the power of binding by Laws and Censures and of absolving from Censures and dispensing in Laws And finally in the number 17. of the same Section he concludes there is no place in the Gospel whence the giving of this power may be concluded if it be not Joh. 21.16 where our Savior said to S. Peter feed my Sheep in which words Suarez doth pretend the power Universal and Supremacy over all the Church to have bin given to S. Peter and under that Universalïty the power of Indulgences to have bin given to him But as S. Peter did never receive such an Universal power over the Church as the Bishops of Rome do now usurp so did he never pretend it nor ever troubled Thomas in India or Andrew in Achaia or James in Jerusalem or any other of his Fellow-Apostles and Bishops in their respective Provinces about a power over them or a dependance of them upon him all and eaâ—h one of them complying faithfully with their Ministry without incroaching one upon the other nor staining the repute of Christian holiness with the profane spirit of Ambition which in Rome did grow to the confusion and distraction of Christendom But tho such a Supremacy would have bin granted to the Pope and to the succeeding Bishops of Rome farr must Suarez go for a consequence of the doctrine of Indulgences to be inferred from such a grant If the power of dispensing those immense Treasures of the merits of Christ and all Saints was given to S. Peter in those words of our Savior commending to him the feeding of his Sheep how came he and the other succeeding Bishops of Rome for so many Ages to neglect the use of this power to the benefit of Souls and great advantage of the Roman Church as now is practised Suarez did easily perceive the weakness of his argument from this testimony and so betook himself in the second Section following to the common refuge of the use and autority of the Church That there is such a use says he is not denied we see it that it is not an abuse but a lawful use is proved first by the authority of the Council of Trent last Session where is added that this use hath bin approved by the autority of sacred Councils for which purpose are wont to be related the Council of Nice Can. 11. of Carthage 4.75 of Neooaesarea ch 3. of Laodicea Can 1.2 but in these Councils says Suarez we only find that it was lawful for Bishops to remit some of the public Penitences enjoined by Canons for divers crimes but that such a remission should be extended to a pardon of penalties due in the Tribunal of God may not be inferred from those Councils Another main argument for the Antiquity of Indulgences they fetâ—h out of 2. Cor. 2.10 where S. Paul remits a part of the penalty due to an incestuous Person whom he had formerly punished saving To whom you forgave any thing I forgive also for if I forgive anâ— thing to whom I forgave it for your sakes forgave I it in the pâ—rson of Christ From these latter words in the person of Christ they pretend to infer that the practice of Indulgences now used in the Roman Church had its beginning from Christ and that S. Paul did practise it in the occalion now mentioned by autority received from Christ This Argument Suarez proposes in the above mentioned second Section num 3. but from the following fourth Number to the 11. he doth most vigorously prove the inefficaciousness of that argument That the remission given by S. Paul to that incestuous man did only relate to an exterior penalty due by course or Canon of Ecclesiastical Government not to penalties of the other life depending from Divine Justice that the words in the person of Christ only proves it to be an act of Jurisdiction or power received from Christ which may be sufficiently verified by a remission of an exterior temporal penalty due by the common course of Ecclesiastical human power and finally concludes that there is no warrantable history or testimony extant by which it may be convinced that the practise of Indulgences now used in the Roman Church was known before the times of Gregory the great of whom he says is reported that he gave a Plenaâ—y Indulgence tho even of this says Suarez I find no written History but a public report in Rome and other places And finally what Suarez says with resolution is only that this practise is now in use in the Church so as they are reputed heretics who reprehend such a custome and it is impossible that the Universal Church should err herein for it were says he an intolerable moral error in practise If the Universal Church indeed did practise now and always from the beginning and in all places this custom according to the rules of Apostolic lawful Tradition delivered by Lyrinensis and S. Augustin l. 4. de Baptismo cap. 24. we would look upon this argument as of force But Suarez himself doth acknowledg and confess that this practise is neither so ancient nor Universal And therefore it may not be taken for Apostolic tradition but ranked among the modern Institutions of the present Romish Church to stand or fall
posterity with false records And on the other side the Romish party is found guilty by uncessant experiences of aspersing without measure or regard of truth the protestant cause and all defenders of it Whereof the story of Ordination at the Nags-head confidently revived of late by one of a great calling and confuted to his shame and confusion by the Lord Primate Bramhall may be a conspicuous evidence To which I could add not a few more of my own experience and certain knowledg They got a great Person to relate in Dublin that I was struck Dumb at making of my Declaration in the Church of Cashel and that I fell suddainly Dead soon after going in the Street A miracle I suppose is put by this time into the annual letters of Rome and Indies to terrify others from following my Example An other Person of like quality was emploied to testifie that after my foresaid Declaration made at Cashel an extraordinary concourse of People being present at it I went to a Noble-Mans House where my habitation was formerly and said Mass in it whereas I was not out of the Arch-Bishops company from that day until I came to Dublin with a considerable number of Men and Arms to guard me And after some Months constant retirement in the Colledg of Dublin without ever lying out of it or going abroad but seldom to the Castle and few houses of the chief Prelates and Nobility an Irish Papist told confidently to one of my Lord Chancellors Gentlemen who related it to me after that he saw me few daies before saying Mass at Kilkullen Bridg where I was not in some years before that time after my public Sermon of Recantation at Dublin and the Gentleman asking how that could possibly be so I being in their sight and company and never out of Dublin all that time he took a Book into his hand and swore by it that what he said was true At this very instant it hapned that I should come out of Christ-Church from Praiers in company of an other Gentleman of the Colledg and my Lord Chancellors Gentleman seeing me asked of the swearer whether he did know me if he saw me he answered yea and asking whether I was of those two that went by he said no. But being told I was one of them he confessed that he never saw me before So punctual as this are their reports of us If they were but seldom we might take them for mistakes but seeing them so frequent and continual we have too much ground for suspecting a set purpose of imposing upon us especially their most creditable Doctors teaching them that t is lawful to raise false testimonies in defence of their credit that their opposers may not be believed The authors of this godly Doctrine confessors and Preachers to Emperours and Princes you may see quoted by John Caramuel Titular Bishop of Misia in Theologia fundamentali fundamento 55. n. 1589. This being so it appears how little credit is due to their testimonies against our cause and persons I premise secondly that by sacred orders a character indelible is given to the person ordained whether Bishop Priest or Deacon that is to say a spiritual sign or ability to certain functions uncapable of being taken away by humane power or accident So t is defined in the Council of Trent sess 7. can 9. Si quis dixerit in tribus sacramentis Baptismo sc Confirmatione Ordine non imprimi characterem in anima hoc est signum quoddam spirituale indelibile unde ea iterari non possunt anathema esto If any shall say that in these three Sacraments Baptism Confirmation and Order a character is not left in the Soul viz. a spiritual and undelible sign which is the cause they may not be repeted let him be anathema It is not my present business to dispute with the Council upon what account it calls Confirmation and Order Sacraments but to note that by it is defined that sacred orders do leave a character indelible and that they ought not to be reiterated upon the same person The same Doctrine is delivered again in the 23. sess 3. can of the same Council adding that who was once a Priest can never be made a Layman And in the eighth Council of Toledo cap. 7. and in the Council of Florence under Eugenius the 4th in decre de unione Hence follows saies Bellarmine that no superiour power can hinder a Bishop from confirming and ordaining if he pleases to do it And Peter Sotus saies that doubtless no Heresie excommunication or even degradation takes away the power of Orders tho the use of them may be unlawful so as tho a Heretic excommunicated or degraded person sin in giving Orders or administring Sacraments yet the actions are valid for where such a character is saies Bellarmine God in force of a Covenant doth concur to produce a supernatural effect to wit to give an other Character even Episcopal * Bellarmine de confir cap. 12. * Peter Soto lect 5. de inst Sacer. lin 5 fol. 279. edit diling an 1560. * Ubicunque est talis character Deus ex pacto concurrit ad effectum supernaturalem producendum Bellar. de Sacramentorum effectu lib. 2. c. 19. These two premises supposed for examining the matters of fact which is the ground and foundation of this work we are to rely upon the public authentic Records of the Church of England faithfully produced by Mr. Francis Mason and truly examined at the request of Mr. Fitz Herbert who seeing a mortal wound given to the Romish calumnies against the lawful ordination of English Clergy by this narrative of Mr. Mason desired that those Records related by Mr. Mason should be shown to some learned persons of the Romish communion which was accordingly don by the most Reverend Father in God George Arch-Bishop of Canterbury who having read this challenge in Fitz. Herberts Book called to him Mr. Collington then reputed Archipresbyter Mr. Laithwait and Mr. Faircloath Jesuits and Mr. Leagume a secular Priest All these being brought before the Arch-Bishop the 12. of May 1614. in presence of the Right Reverend Bishops of London Dunelm Ely Bath and Wells Lincolne and Rochester the said Records were given to them to see feel read and turn and having considered all exactly they declared that no exception could be taken against that Book in their opinion and the Arch-Bishop desiring them to signify so much by letters to Fitz Herbert they promised to do it as Mr. Champney relates the story And the same Records are at this day and alwaies to be seen if men will not be satisfied otherwise then by eye-sight Fitz Herbert Append. n. 13. The Records produced by Mr. Mason being thus justified we will take our measures by them to cleer this point First our adversaries allow us that the Bishops ruling in England at the beginning of Henry the Eighth his Reign were lawful Bishops and legally ordained according to