THE DOCTRINE OF THE Church of England Concerning the Independency of the CLERGY ON THE LAY-POWER AS To those Rights of theirs which are purely Spiritual reconciled with our Oath of Supremacy AND THE Lay-Deprivations OF THE Popish-Bishops in the beginning of the Reformation By the Author of The Vindication of the depriv'd Bishops LONDON Printed MDCXCVII THE CONTENTS § I. THE Independancy of Bishops on the State pretended to be contrary to the Oath of Supremacy P. I. § II. And contrary to the Principles on which the Popish Bishops were deprived and our present Succession depends P. III. § III. The Authority of the Primitive Catholick Church is greatâ— then that of any Modern particular one P. IV. § IV. Even with regard to our particular Church Our behaviour signifies more Love and Concern for her than that of our late Brethren does P. VII § V. We shew our greater Love to our Churcâ— particularly in not yeilding so easily as they do that she should lose her Rights on any Te 〈…〉 P. IX § VI. What we do is perfectly consistent with the Authorized explication of the Supremacy vested in the King P. XI § VII Archbishop Cranmers Opinions in Henry the VIII's and Edward the VI's time perfectly destructive of all Spiritual Authority P. XII § VIII Archbishops Cranmers Authority in these matters none at all P. XV. § IX It is not for the Interest of the Church of Reformation that his Authority in these things should be regarded P. XVII § X. His Opiniens in this matter no more agreable to the Sense of our present Adversaries than to 〈◊〉 P. XXI § XI The Supremacy and Title of Head when first assumed by Henry the VIII consistent with our Doctrine P. XXIII § XII When the King gave the encroaching Commission to Cromwell it was not yet agreeable to the true Sense of the 〈◊〉 P. XXV § XIII The Appeal allowed from the Archbishops to the Kings Commissioners in Chancery no Argument of any Spiritual Power derived from the King P. XXVII § XIV The Supremacy explained 26. H. VIII 1. not contrary to our Doctrine in this Cause P. XXVIII § XV. The Supremacy as explained 37. H. VIII 17. full to our Adversaries purpose and the sense of Archbishop Cranmer P. XXX § XVI The same notion of the Spuremacy continued also under King Edward the VI. P. XXXIII § XVII King Henry the VIII's Reign by no means to be allowed for an Age of Precedents P. XXXV § XVIII Queen Elizabeth explained the Supremacy in a sense consistent with our principles P. XXXIX § XIX That Explication discharges us now from any Obligation to believe Archbishop Cranmers Principles P. XLI § XX. What the Queen requires we can Sincerely undertake and in a Sense fully answering the Imposition of the Leg 〈…〉 ors P. XLIII § XXI The Queens Injunction excuses us from Swearing to the Supremacy over Spiritual Persons in Causes purely Spiritual P. XLVI § XXII This Injunction of Queen Elizabeth still in force P. L. § XXIII The Explication in the Injuctions Authorize by our Church in her XXXVII Article P. LI. § XXIV The same Explication of the Injunctions confirmed by Act of Parliament P. LIII § XXV It is rather supppsed than contradicted by the 2 Canon P. LV. § XXVI The Practice of the Supremacy to our times no Argument of the Imposed Sense of the Legislators against us P. LVIII § XXVII The Objection proposed that our present Protestant Succession seems to depend on the validity of the Deprivation of the last Popish Bishops which was no other than Laical P. LX. § XXVIII The Lay-Deprivations of those Popish Bishops who took out Lay-Commissions for their Episcopal Power does not by any jast consequence effect our present Case P. LXI § XXIX The Popish Bishops were of another Communion and therefore needed no other Deprivation than that of the Lay-Magistrate P. LXIII § XXX This Doctrine agreeable exactly to the Sense and Practice of Antiquity P. LXVI § XXXI If the Popish Bishops had had a better Title yet that could not have illegitimated Successors any longer than their own Lives P. LXVIII § XXXII If the Popish Bishops then had the better Title yet their discontinuance of their Succession has made their Title worse now P. LXXI § XXXIII Present Settlements give Right where no better Rights is injured by them P. LXXII § XXXIV This is proved from the Donatist and Luciferian Disputes P. LXXIV § XXXV They who took out Lay-Commissions for their Episcopal Power might yet keep their better Title P. LXXX THE DOCTRINE OF THE Church of England Concerning the Iudependecy of the Clergy on the Lay-Power as to those Rights of theirs which are purely Spiritual reconciled with our Oath of Supremacy and the Lay-Deprivaons of the Popish Bishops in the beginning of the Reformation § I. SINCE the finishing of the former Discourse I have been warned of one Prejudice ogainst the Doctrine delivered in it concerning the Independancy of Church-Power on the State very necessary to be removed in order to the preparing our late Brethren for an impartial consideration of what we have to say in it's defence That is that as our Case of Protestant Bishops set up in opposition to other Protestant Bishops deprived by an incompetent Authority is new so our Principles on which our Plea in reference to the Schism is grounded are also charged with Novelty if not with regard to the Doctrine of the first and purest Ages of the Christian Church yet at least with regard to the Doctrine of our late common Mother the Church of England and with regard to that later Antiquity which is derivod no higher than the beginning of our Reformation from Popery It is therefore pretended that our Doctrine concerning the undeprivableness of the Bishops by the Lay-Power is inconsistent with the Supremacy asserted to our Princes in all Causes as well as over all Persons that it is therefore inconsistent not only with all the Lay Acts by which the Supremacy has been asserted but also with all those Acts of the Church by with she also hath concerned her self in this Dispute with the xxxvii Article and the Injunction of Queen Elizabeth owned by an Act of Parliament in her Reign for an Authentical Interpretation of the Supremacy with the Doctrine of the Homilies and the several Injunctions of the Ecclesiasticks for explaining and recommending the same Doctrine to the Belâ—ef and Consciences of their Auditors particularly with the Second Canon which Excommunicates all those who deny the Supremacy in any of those branches wherein it was allowed either to Jewish or Christian Princes and with all those Legal Oaths for maintaning it which have been taken not only by the generality of the Laity but the Ecclesiasticks also as many of them as have been admitted to any eminent station in the Ecclesiastical Government Not now to descend so low as a particular enumeration of the suffrages of our most celebrated Writers It
is withal pretended that this Power of depriving Bishops has ever since the beginning of the Reformation been allowed in the Secular Magistrate in the Practice of this Supremacy as often as there has been occasion for it The first practice of it was lodg'd by King Henry the VIII in Cromwell a Lay-man Yet his Commission Authorized him to proceed against the highest Ecclesiasticks without exception as far as deprivation And in the same Reign Bishops were required to take out Patents from the King for even the Spirituals of their Office their Power of conferring Orders which virtually included all the Rights conveyable by Orders so conferred the Right of Preaching the Word and of Administring the Sacraments These if they were given by the Lay Power must by necessary consequence be deprivable by it also But they are sensible how little reason there is for making the Reign of that imperious and assuming Prince a Reign of Precedents in arguing that what was actually done then must therefore be presumed to have been well done and therefore fit to be done again If this were allowed they know very well that no Right whatsoever even for securing the Peoples Liberties which they pretend most zeal for who have least for those of the Clergy can be made so sacred as to restrain the Conscience of him who has by any means got the possession of an over-ruling force For he who made no Conscience of invading the Rights of those very Persons by whose intervention all other Rights were made Sacred even those of Magna Charta and the Coronation Oaths themselves not excepted could much less be terrified from invading those Rights which could pretend to no other Sacredness than what had been derived from the intervention of those same Holy Persons whose own Rights had been violated by him § II. THIS consideration therefore obliges our late Brethren to insist on the Precedents rather of King Edward the VI. and Queen Elizabeth ' s Reign which they think not so easily avoidable by us Here they tell us that all the Deprivations of the Popish Bishops were by no other than the Secular Arm. They tell us withall that the way of deprivation by Synods of Ecclesiastical Persons was in their Case perfectly impracticable No Acts could have been reputed Synodical but what had been carried by a majority of them who had been allowed votes in Synods who were only Ecclesiasticks But by this method of proceeding it was impossible that the Popish Bishops could have been deprived at all because themselves made a majority of the Episcopal Colledge Here therefore they think that we are not at liberty to question at least the validity of what was done in this affair They think we cannot do it with any consistency with the Principles on which we insist in our Plea against the present Schismaticks They think we cannot do it without subverting the Rights of those same Fathers for whose Rights we are our selves so eagerly concern'd For if those un-synodical deprivations of the Popish Bishops then were null and invalid the Popish Bishops were still the true Bishops of their respective Dioceses to whom all the Offices of the Subjects of those Dioceses were still in Conscience due And that on the same Principles on which we pretend our deprived Fathers to be still in Conscience the Bishops of those Dioceses of which they are said to be deprived and that they have still a Title to the Episcopal Dues of the same Dioceses from those who were Subjects to them before the deprivation on account of the invalidity of their deprivation as not being Synodical This being so they think it will follow further that the first Protestant Bishops must by our Principles have been Schismaticks as having been ordained into full Sees that they must therefore not have been second Bishops but none at all according to our Reasoning on St. Cyprian ' s principles And this Nullity in the Original they conceive sufficient to affect the whole Succession derived from that Original Thus they think we cannot maintain any Right in our present Fathers if vacancies made by Lay Deprivations be not allowed sufficient to legitimate their Titles who are possessed of those Sees which are vacated by no other Power than what is Laical This I take to be the utmost of what they have to say upon this Argument § III. I should most heartily congratulate the zeal of these Objectors for our Church were it really such as it is pretended to be But I can by no means commend any zeal for any particular modern Church whatsoever in opposition to the Catholick Church of the first and purest Ages We cannot take it for a Reformation that differs from that Church which ought to be the Standard of Reformation to all later degenerous Ages at least in things so essential to the subsistence and perpetuity of the Church as these are which concern the Independence of the Sacred on the Civil Authority Nor is it for the honour of our dear Mother to own her deviation in things of so great importance from the Primitive Rule much less to pretend her precedent for over-ruling an Authority so much greater than hers so much nearer the Originals so much more Universal so much less capable of corruption or of agreement in any point that had been really a corruption It is impossible that ever the present Breaches of the Church can be reconciled if no particular Churches must ever allow themselves the liberty of varying from what has actually been received by them since the Ages of divisions the very reception thereof having proved the cause of those divisions If therefore our modern Churches will ever expect to be again united it must be by acknowledgment of errors in particular Churches at least in such things as have made the differences and which whilst they are believed must make them irreconcilable Such things could never proceed from Christ who designing his whole Church for one Body and one Communion could never teach Doctrines inconsistent â—iâ—h such Unity and destructive of Communion And why should a Church such as ours is which acknowledges her self fallible be too pertinacious in not acknowledging mistakes in her self when the differences even between Churches which cannot all pretend to be in the Right whilst they differ and differ so greatly from each other are a manifest demonstration of errors in Authorities as great as her own Nor can any such acknowledgments of actual errors be prejudicial to Authority where the decisions of the Authority are to be over-ruled not by private Judgments but by a greater Authority And if any Authority be admitted as compâ—â—â—nt for arbitrating the present differences of Communion be 〈…〉 our modern Churches I know none that can so fairly pretend to it as that of the Primitive Catholick Church Besides the other advantages she had for knowing the Primitive Doctrines above any modern ones whatsoever she has withal those advantages for a fair decision which
better Title might notwithstanding continue their old Possession upon their Predecessors death upon a more unquestionable Right without 〈◊〉 new Consecration For those Episcopal Orders which had been given them in Schism but had been given them by true Bishops sufficiently Authorized to give them though they might be Nullities at first whilst the Person ordained was incapable of receiving them that is whilst he was ordained into an Office already full and whereof there could be but one at one time might yet in process of time recover their full force as soon as the incapacity was removed which had invalidated their first collation That is as soon as the See which was before full became vacant and thereby capable of receiving a Successor Especially when not only the Impediment is removed but the first Right is ratified by all that are concerned in it not only by the unanimous reception of the Subjects of the Jurisdiction now no longer divided but united among themselves by this unanimous reception but also by the Episcopal College ratifying his Acts of Communion and Excommunication When this is the Case I know not what a new Solemnity of Consecration can add to such a Bishop beyond what he is possessed of already His being unanimously receiv'd makes him already a Principle of Unity when none can partake of the Unity of the Body who is not united to him And his ratification by the Episcopal College at least by as many of them as in this divided State of Christendom profess the same Faith and pretend to a correspondence in Communion must make his Communion as much Catholick as it can be in our present Circumstances For that would make the Case such that none who lived within his Jurisdiction could expect to be received to Communion by the rest of the Episcopal College without his Communicatory Letters and that with his Communicatory Letters they might The Consequence of these things must be that his Acts of Communion and Excommunication must both the Catholick at least as far as the Correspondence reaches and that all that are of his Jurisdiction must be obliged to maintain Communion with him under pain if they should do otherwise of being excluded from the Catholick Church And then who can doubt but that GOD will own them for his Peculiar People and CHRIST will own them for his Members whom the Body of their Authorized Representatives do judge to be so For GOD has Authorized them for this purpose that in things relating to the external Discipline of the visible Body it not being usual for him to interpose immediately their Judgment may be taken for his For this is the meaning of his ratifying in Heaven what is by them performed on Earth of his giving them the Power of the Keys and his binding and loosing in Heaven answer ably to their binding and loosing in Earth that he will admit into his Mystical Body those whom they admit into his visible Body and exclude from the Mystical Unity those whom they exclude from that which is visible This being true concerning particular Bishops may be much more securely relyed on in the Case of the Episcopal College That the Body which is owned by them all will be owned by Christ for his Mystical Body Thus it appears that the Communion of such a Bishop owned without a Rival by the Episcopal College must on that account be owned for Catholick He has therefore all already that they could give him by a repeated Consecration And being also known and owned to have it and to have it by their consent their Consecration after this can be no more necessary than it was for St. Peter to lay his hands on Cornelius in order to the giving him the Holy Ghost when he was otherwise well assured by external Manifestations that Cornelius had received the Holy Ghost already It is indeed only the Episcopal College that gives any particular Bishop the Right of having his censures ratified over all the Catholick Church And the two or three Bishops requisite for Consecrations can do it no otherwise than as by the Roman Laws the two or three represented the whole College and as the whole College had obliged themselves to ratifie what should be transacted by so small a number appointed to represent their absent Brethren also in the Solemnity This is plainly the Sense of the first and most famous General Council of Nice They require to the making of every new Bishop the consent of all the Bishops of the Province and only allow that two or three shall represent them in the Consecration when they have the consent of the Metropolitan and when no more can conveniently be present Thus it appears that the consent of the Episcopal College was that which was principally regarded in conveying the Episcopal Power I might also have shewn that the Sense of the College was allowed the same force however it was signified whether in Synods or Separately and Extrajudicially The greatest part by far of the 300 Bishops mentioned by Athanasius in favour of himself were such as were not at the Sardican Council but who had given him their suffrages by separate Subscriptions By all which it appears that the Invalidity if any had been in the Deprivation of the Popish Bishops cannot affect our Succession now so long after the decease of the injured â—ersons though we had not had the other exception already insisted on of our being even then different Communions § XXXII I grant indeed upon that Supposition it had been in the Power of the Popish Bishops to have perpetuated the Invalidity of our Succession if themselves had pleased That might have been by keeping up a Succession down to our times of their own which on that Supposition had been the better Title For by the same reason as the Title of their first Persons in their Succession had been better than the Title of the first in our Succession their whole Succession also which had been nothing but a propagation of that same first better Title had been better than ours which had been also a like continuation of the same Title which originally had been the worse of the two And therefore as the confessedly better Title in the first Persons in their Succession had made the first Persons in our Succession Schismaticks by the same reason the better Title of their whole Succession had also made our whole Succession Schismatical But since they have let fall their Succession and left our Bishops without any Rivals in the sole possession of their respective Jurisdictions the same Reasoning which upon supposition that we had been of one Faith and one Communion would have been favourable to them in the Case now mentioned will proceed against them as strongly now Since our Bishops have been left in the sole possession of the Diocesane Jurisdictions their endeavours to keep up a distinct Communion and sometimes to set up distinct Bishops in the same Dioceses fairly and Canonically
could hinder the Bishops and the People too who were rightly informed concerning the nature of the Spiritual Society from judging Consecration necessary for obtaining that Power which is purely Spiritual And it 's being thought necessary by the Bishops was enough to oblige the Consecrating Bishops to give and the Consecrated Bishops to receive that Spiritual Power which in their Opinion could not be had otherwise then by their Consecration And intending to give and receive it what could hinder their Intentions from the usual Success when the same Solemnities were used by Persons equally Authorized to give it with those who had been used to give it formerly Nor could the Magistrate expect that to gratify him they shou'd defraud themselves of any Priviledges or Powers received by their Ancestors and convey'd as before from Persons empower'd to administer the Solemnities and Rites of Consecration Such a Singular obsequiousness and self-denial is this He could not I say either in Conscience or Equity pretend to expect unless He had secur'd it in express Terms and exacted a particular Profession a Profession that might make it inconsistent with the Bishops Veracity to give or receive the usuall Power as by the same Solemnities and Authority it had been given and received by their Ancestors Rather on the contrary the Permission of the samâ— Solemn Rites and the same Authority in administring them as before without any new Security against the usual effect is an Argument the Prince left it to their Liberty to intend the giving and receiving the same Spiritual Power from CHRIST as had been usually conveyed by the same Ministry He therefore contented him self with the Security given him by the Patents that from whomsoever they received the Right of being Bishops in regard to Conscience yet they should not be Bishops in Law intitled to Baronies and revenues any longer than he pleased This being so it will follow that what they did before Deprivation was valid in Conscience and in Law also but what they did afterwards though that might also be valid in Concsience yet it was not to be vaild in Law Our first Consecrations were of the former sort and therefore were not the less valid in Conscience for having the accession of a validity in Law Thus our first Consecrations might derive a Title to our Present Fathers in Conscience not deprivable at the pleasure of the Civil Magistrate with regard to Conscience GOD awaken the zeal of our late Fathers and Brethern for asserting these Rights in Conscience which are so essential to their being our Fathers and our Brethren and for the Religion and Communion of our late common Churches in these Kingdoms And may our common LORD plead the Cause of his distressed and deserted Spouse THE END The Independency of Bishops on the Sate pretended to be contrary to the Oath of Supremacy * Injunct Q. Eliz. An. 1559. 5 †Eliz. 1. In App. to Bishop Burnet's 〈◊〉 of Refor And contrary to the Principles on which the Popish Bishops were deprived and our present Succession depends The Authority of the Primitive Catholick Church is greater than that of any modern particular one * P. 14. †Defence of the Church of England p. 20 21 22. Even with regard to our particular Church our behaviour signifies more love and concern for her than that of our late Brethren does We shew our greater 〈◊〉 to our Church particularly in not yielding so 〈◊〉 as they do that she should lose bee Rights on any terms What we do is perfectly consistent with the Authorized explication of the Supremacy vested in the King Arch-â—p Cranmers Opinions in 〈◊〉 cury the VIII and Edw. the VI. time perfectly destructive of all Spiritual Authoâ—â—â— See those Papers published by Bishop Stallingfleet Iren. c. ult and by Bishop Burnet Hist. of Resor Part. I. Collect. n. XXI B. III. Part II. Collect. Num. 2. Archbishâ—p Câ—â—â—mer's Au 〈…〉 〈◊〉 these matter noâ— at all Vol. I. Book III p. 267. It is not for the Interest of the Church or the Reformation that his Authority iâ— these things should be regarded Part. I. B. III. p. 204. Part. II. B. II. p. 243. His Opinions in this matter no more agreeable to the sense of our present Adversaries than to ours P. I. B. III. p. 267. The Supremacy and Title of Head when first assumed by Henry the VIII consistent with our Doctrine 24 Hen. VIII 12. When the King gave the encroaching Commission to Cr 〈…〉 it was not 〈◊〉 â—greeable to the tru 〈…〉 of the Legis 〈…〉 Vol. I. B. III. R. 278. The Appeal allowed from the Archbishops to the Kings Commissioners in Chancery no Argument of any Spiritual Power derived from the King 25 H. VIII 10. The Supremacy explained 26 H. VIII 1. not contrary to our Doctrine in this Cause Addend to the First Vol. Num. V. The 〈◊〉 as explained in 37 H. VIII 17. full to our Adversaries purpose and the sense of Archbishop Cranmer 25 II. VIII 〈◊〉 19. The same Notion of the Supremacy continued also under King Edw. the VI. Bishop Burnet Vol. II. Col. B. II. The Kings Re 〈…〉 Pap. 2. King Henry the VIIIths Reign by no means to be allowed for an Age of Precedents Queen Elizabeth explained the Supremacy in a Sense conâ—stent with our Principles Bishop Burnet p. 11. B. 111. Col. num 2. 1 Eliz. 1. Injunct by Queen Esâ—z Edition by Bishop Sparrow p. 77. 78. That Explication discharges'us now from any obligation to believe Archbishop Cranmer's Principles Resor Leg. Eccl. de Excom c. 2. De offic Jurisd omn. Judic What the Queen requires we can sincerely undertake and in a sense fully answering the Imposition of the Legislators â—he Queen's Injunction excuses us from swearing to the Supremacy over Spiriritual Persons in Causes purely Spiritual This Injunction of Queen Elizabeth still in force The Explication in the Injunctions authorized by our Church in her XXXVIIth Article The same Explication of the Injunctions confirmed also by Act of Parliament 5 Elizab. 1. It is rather supposed than contradicted by the second Canon The Practise of the Supremacy to our times no argument of the imposed sense of the Legislators against us Can. 12â— The Objection proposed that our present Protestant Succession seems to depend on the validity of the Deprivation of the last Popish Bishops which was no other than Laical The Lay Deprivations of those Popish Bishops who took out Lay Commissions for their Episcopal Power does not by any just consequence affect our present Case Vid. Specimen against Bishop Burnet p. 52 53. The Popish Bishops were of another Communion And therefore needed no other Deprivation than that of the Lay Magistrate This Doctrine agreeable exactly to the Sense and Practise of Antiquity If the Popish Bishops had had a better Title yet that could not have illegitimated Successors any longer than their own Lives If the Popish Bishops then had the better Title yet their discontinuance of their Succession has made their Title worse now 〈◊〉 Settle 〈…〉 give Right â—â—ere no better â—iâ—ht is injured by them This is proved from the Donatist and Luciferian Disputes Opt. Milev cont Parmenian L. 1. Artem. Onâ—ir 〈◊〉 1. c. 14 Adv. Euciferian They who took out Lay-Commissions for their Episcopal Power might yet keep their better Title Part. II. §. LV. p. 133. Ib. p. 131.
Commission to the same purpose As little reason I can see why he should say that Cranmer was once of that opinion as if he had afterwards retracted it The Papers upon the Consult were written in Henry the VIIIth's time in the year 1540. And then even by the Bishops observation the change of his Opinion had lost his interest with the King if is Interest had been grounded on that Opinion But Cranmer kept to the same Opinions in the Reign of K. Edward the VIth Then it was he took out his Commission The young King himself seems to have been of the same Opinion in his 2d Paper of the Bishops Collections which I can ascribe to nothing more probably than to the Instructions of his Godfather Nor does it appear the ABp chang'd his mind afterwards The only thing insisted on by our Historian to prove it is his subscribing a Book set out soon after which teaches the contrary But having already shewn that he still retained the same opinion in the time of Edward the VIth his subscription cannot prove any change of his opinion but that he complyed whatever his Opinion was when he found his non-complyance could not hinder the contrary Opinion from being acceptable But indeed that Book was not so clear in that point that his subscribing it would argue any change from his former Opinions But our Historian says that when Cranmer maintained that opinion he did it out of Conscience Perhaps it might have been so But I am sure it is but an ill Argument to prove it so that his interest in the King was so visibly promoted by it Yet if he had frequently followed Opinions contrary to worldly Interest that I grant might have been an Argument that though his Interest was indeed promoted by this Opinion yes that might have been no inducement to him why he did embrace it But on the contrary in the great actions of his Life it was the serviceableness of his Opinions to the Princes designs that principally recommended him It was notoriously his Opinion for the divorce from Q. Katharine that first brought him into the Court and into the Kings knowledge Nor is it denyed by our Historian that it was so And in the Case of presuming consummation of Marriage from bedding he gave contrary Judgments concerning the Marriage with Queen Katharine and that with Anne of Cleve exactly according to the Kings inclinations and his own Interests in gratifying them In Queen Katharin ' s Case he allowed it for a good presumtion but not so in the Case of Anne of Cleve Nay when the Protestant Reformation it self was against his Interest with the Prince then in Possession he renounced even that and was the only Bishop of our Church who did so Nor did he recant that recantation at least he gave no publick signification of his recanting it till he was assured by Dr. Cole in a Sermon before him at St. Maries that even his compliance should avail him nothing for the saving of his Life And even in that compleater Collection published by Bishop Burnet none of the other Bishops or Divines consulted on that occasion is so perpetually thorough-paced for the Kings inclinations as he was Which singularity alone not only against the Interests but the suffrages of his function in favour of Encroachments sufficiently shew how far he was from being impartial in Questions of this nature And it is but a poor recommendation of him as a Friend of our Church that he made a Conscience of maintaining Opinions by which she might be ruined by which she must be ruined and her Enemies obliged in Conscience to ruine her § IX FAR be it from me to disparage the glory of his Martyrdom His Repentance how late soever will excuse the scandal of his fall And his Martyrdom however involuntary at first will not lose its reward with him who mercifully considers his servants frailties though it may justly diminish his Authority in comparison of others who were more forward and withal more constant in suffering for the same Cause For be it from me in the least to detract from whatever was praise worthy in him Our Historian may freely commend him for his constancy to his deolining friend and for his diligence in collecting and examining the Testimonies of Antiquity upon the Points wherein he was consulted But certainly an Historian ought to distinguish between particular and general commendations if he would indeed benefit Mankind by his Histories Just Characters are not to be denied those whose Examples are otherwise proposed as fit rather to be abhorred than imitated if they have at least some few commendable qualities among many other very bad ones deserving imitation But none are to be commended simply none are to have Elogies bestowed on them none are to be represented as Heroes as Patterns and Standards of the Age they lived in and as Copies for Posterity but they whose Virtues were greater than their Vices whose Virtues were particularly signal and remarkable in the History of their Times and greatly contributive to the good events of it and therefore fit to be imitated by generous Posterity when the like Exigencies shall return and the like Cases are again to be transacted Particularly in a History of the Reformation of Religion none ought to be commended but such as had a great zeal for Religion and whose abilities and prudence greatly contributed to the Promotion of it Nay even they who did indeed promote Religion will not all of them deserve commendation for it St. Paul observed those in his own times who preached Christ out of contention and was glad of the event that Christ was preached even on those terms as being no doubt sensible of the good success it had But he does not therefore think it becoming him to bestow Encomiums on those who were indeed accessary to good events but with very ill intentions Such there were also many in those Reigns under which the Reformation was transacted who very much promoted the Reformation but with no good designs on Religion or Reformation I need not instance in the King himself who begun it Next the King himself none had a more active part in the Reformation than Cromwell whom notwithstanding the Bishop observes to have declared himself of the Roman Communion at his Execution The like also was the Case of the Duke of Northumberland He had also pretended a great zeal for the Reformation in setting up the Lady Jane Grey Yet at his death he also declared that he had always been in his heart a Romanist Had it therefore been fit to set up these Persons as Heroes and Patterns fit for imitation Our Historian himself did not think fit to do so Their Case was not indeed the same with that of the Archbishop Nor do I produce them as such All I design in mentioning them is only to shew that his having actually promoted the Reformation is not alone sufficient to make him praise-worthy for
promoting it This will therefore put us further upon examining whether the part acted by Cranmer was really contributive to a Reformation Had Reformation been nothing else but a Negative a removal of Papal Tyranny that to be sure was sufficiently ruined by those Principles But Reformation is a mean between Anarchy on one side as well as Tyranny on the other and is therefore equally ruined by either of the Extreams For if we consider that it is the Church which was to be reformed and that the Church as a Church is a Society it can be no Reformation which reduces it to either of the Extreams But of the two that will less deserve the name which perfectly destroys the Government of the Church and thereby dissolves the Society that was the thing to be reformed And these are the plain consequences from those Principles by which Archbishop Cranmer acted If they freed the Church from the Tyranny then in being they naturally introduced a Tyranny of more pernicious consequence than that which had been ejected by them a Tyranny of another Body of Interests frequently inconsistent with hers and withal deprived her of all security from what further Invasions soever the Lay Magistrate should be pleased to make upon her Indeed they deprived her of all possible security for her very being And though these Principles might make those who were acted by them do her kindnesses whilst her disorders lay in excess yet when that Reformation which was advanced by them had reduced her to a just mediocrity whatever should be attempted further would be Injury not Reformation Which ought by all means to make Prudent and well-meaning Historians wary how much soever they might like the things of recommending the Example to Posterity To do so is to encourage Enemies for the future and to commend them for being so when they shall be tempted to think themselves therein to follow the Examples of celebrated Heroes Archbishop Cranmer particularly could upon neither account deserve such Elogies His Principles were not naturally such as were likely to benefit the Church but to ruine her Nor were those Principles consistent with any probability of good meaning to her when he shewed himself so partial to the Magistrate against her not only against the majority of his own Order but against the Principles of his own Education upon so very small appearances on that side and against so great evidence to the contrary As little reason there is for that advantageous Character our Historian gives his other Hero the Duke of Somerset He it was that advanced the Sacriledge of the former Reign against Monasteries and now in the time of his own Protectorship against the Universities themselves Our Historian himself has published a very angry Letter of his to Bishop Ridley for opposing his designed beginnings of it in the suppression of Clare-Hall If it must be represented as Heroical to betray the Rights and rob the Revenues of the Church if it be represented so by Ecclesiasticks themselves how naturally must this tend to the encouraging the like Practices for the future How little does this become the Office of an Ecclesiastical Historian who ought to make the true Interests of the Church the Standard of his censures as they are indeed in themselves the greatest that can be by all Rules of just Estimation I heartily and seriously recommend these things to the second thoughts of that able Author not only as to his Panegyricks upon the Enemies of the Church but as to his frequent Satyrs on his own Order His meaning in both I will not take upon me to censure But let himself judge of the obvious tendency of them in this unhappy Irreligious Age we live in wherein men greedily lay hold on such Authorities as his for countenancing their wicked designs against the Church and Religion in general For my part I cannot see how the Duke of Somerset could reconcile any true zeal for Religion and the Church with his Sacrilegious designs against that very same Church whose Communion was owned by him § X. BUT to return to Archbishop Cranmer I know none of even our present considering Adversaries who either proceed on these Principles as true or who have attempted to reconcile them with the Interests of the Church or the Reformation Even the Historian himself censures them as singular Opinions in the Archbishop And so they were even in the sense of the Bishops of those times as appears from that number of them who were concerned in that Consult Few of them were for those Opinions so much for the Interest of the Secular Prince and none so thoroughly as he Nor wou'd the Court venture to trust the tryal of these Opinions to a Synod of the Bishops This made Bonner ' s Commission who perhaps gave the first Precedent of such a Commission have so few Followers that took out the like Commissions even in those unhappy times Afterwards in the latter end of the Reign of King Henry the VIII and the beginning of King Edward the VI. some more of the Court Faction imitated him There was one of a Bishop of Worcester in the beginning of King Edward ' s time transcribed for our Historians use though not published by him in the same Stile with that of the Archbishop But this might have been a consequence of that Thought of the young King himself expressed in his second Paper for not trusting the Bishops with the entire exercise of the Ecclesiastical Power and perhaps of an Order of Council pursuant to it or at the utmost of the Act made in the last year of King Henry the VIII which we shall mention hereafter But their little constancy in obliging all the Bishops to do so is a great Presumption of the difficult reception these Sacrilegious Principles met with even in those Ages But whatever reception they wet with then it is very manifest that they are singular now Our Historian himself observes that Bonner after his taking out this Commission might well be called one of the Kings Bishops Intimating that he did not deserve the name of Christ ' s. And our Adversaries who have yet appeared against us in this Question have generally owned even our deprived Fathers themselves as valid Bishops as ever both as to the Episcopal Character and as to all exercises of Spiritual Power relating to the Catholick Church notwithstanding the pretended Deprivation They only deny that they have now any Right to their particular districts and Dioceses which being vacated by the Lay Power may therefore excuse their Successors from Intrusion and Usurpation But the Hypothesis of Archbishop Cranmer would better have accounted for all that their Cause obliges them to defend For if the Apostolical Predecessors could derive a Power to our Bishops undeprivable by the Civil Magistrate they might consequently derive to them a Right to districts confined to the exercise of that Spiritual Power as independent on him as the Spiritual Power it self And if
Authority was not supposed derived from him it will not follow that it was deprivable by him And if it were not then all the obligation the King could lay upon the Bishops to do as he would have them could not be in Conscience but in Interest so far only as they thought the inconveniences they might incur by his displeasure greater than those the Church might suffer by that imposition on their liberty This therefore might be born with by the Bishops so far as they might judge it reconcilable with the Churches interests And that indeed no more could be intended appears from a Paper published by Bishop Burnet from a Cottonian M S. For there is a full acknowledgment of a distinct Authority in the Bishops from the Potestas gladii lodged in the King Yet it is signed by Cromwell and that after his second and more ample Commission because he signs before the Archbishops And long after this Act between the years 1537. and 1538. as the Bishop himself conjectures Thus far therefore Cromwell himself was not very positive in that Opinion no nor Cranmer who here subscribes among the rest which makes the Spiritual Authority derived from the King So far it was then from being the Authorized Sense of the Legislators But I cannot by any means think it commendable in the Prince to impose even so far though the Right of external force be indeed his Should the Church follow his example she has as good a Right to impose on his Actings in Temporal Causes by her Spiritual Censures as he can pretend to for his interposing in her Spiritual Affairs by his Temporal Force For he cannot pretend to a more immediate Title from God for his Temporal Force than she can for her Right of inflicting Spiritual Censures And if it should be thought reasonable for either of them to make use of that Right of coercion which justly belongs to them both for imposing on the other in matters not belonging to them it would certainly be more reasonable for the Spiritual Power to impose on the Temporal in order to Spirituals than for the Temporal Power to impose upon the Spiritual in order to Temporals For my part I would rather that both would keep within their own bounds that as we must render to God the things that are Gods so we may also render to Caesar the things that are Caesars But whether the Laity did in this Act assume more than what was really their due I am not so much coâ—cerned at present It is sufficient that what was assumed by them was not sufficient either directly or by any necessary consequence to put it in their power to deprive our Bishops of their Spiritual Authority § XV. HOWEVER though hitherto they did not yet at length our Legislators of those times did advance the Supremacy as high as Archbishop Cranmer ' s Principles would warrant them But it was not before the later end of that Sacrilegious Reign In the seven and thirtieth year of it there was a scruple started concerning the Lay Doctors of the Civil Law by whom the Discipline of the Ecclesiastical Courts was managed after the death of Cromwell on account of their being Lay-men whether the Spiritual Censures issued out by such could have any effect with regard to Conscience This scruple being raised on that account of their being Lay-men was conceived by the Parliament by manifest consequence to affect the Kings Power also for such Censures because he also was a Lay-man This could not have been if they had not intended to assert such a Right in the King though a Lay-man even for Spiritual Censures For had they intended no more than that the King by his Lay Power should only oblige Spiritual Persons to do their duty in exerting that Spiritual Power which they had received not from him but from God himself in this case the consequence objected against the Supremacy had been out of doors and that which had signified nothing would have needed no remedy When therefore to prevent this consequence they assert the Supremacy in such a Sense as may qualifie the King though a Lay-man to a Right to inflict such Censures they must consequently mean it so as to assert this Right to him as a Supream Magistrate though not invested with any Power from God distinct from that of the Sword Accordingly they tell us that his most royal Majesty is and hath always justly been by the Word of God Supream Head in the Earth of the Church of England and hath full Power and Authority to correct punish and repress all manner of Heresies Errors Vices Sins Abuses Idolatries Hypocrisies and Superstitions sprung and growing within the same and to exercise all other manner of Jurisdictions commonly called Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction They tell us withal the occasion of this Objection That though the Decrees and Constitutions by which the exercise of Spiritual Jurisdiction had been confined to Holy Orders had been utterly abolished by the Act of the five and twentieth year of this same Reign yet because the contrary is not used nor put in practise by the Archbishops Bishops Archdeacons and other Ecclesiastical Persons who have no manner of Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical but by under and from your Royal Majesty it addeth or at least may give occasion to some evil disposed Persons to think and little to regard the Proceedings and Censures Ecclesiastical made by your Highness and your Vicegegerent Officials Commissaries Judges and Visitors being also Lay and married men to be of little or none effect or force And Forasmuch as your Majesty is the only and undoubted Supream Head of the Church of England and also of Ireland to whom by Holy Scripture all Authority and Power is wholly given to hear and determine all manner Causes Ecclesiastical and to correct all Vice and Sin whatsoever and to all such Persons as your Majesty shall appoint thereunto Therefore it is enacted that Doctors of the Civil Law though Lay and married being put in office by any one having Authority under the King his Heirs and Successors may lawfully execute all manner of Jurisdiction commonly called Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and all Censures and Coercions appertaining or in any wise belonging unto the same Here the Bishops are denied to have any manner of Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical but by under and from the Prince Here all Authority and Power is said to be wholly given him to hear and determine all manner Causes Ecclesiastical Here he is said by the Word of God to have full Power and Authority to exercise all manner of Jurisdictions commonly called Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And all this is asserted as their Sense of the Title of Head and of the Prerogative of Supremacy If so the Bishops can have no Power but what is derived from the Lay Magistrate for all this is challenged to him as he is a Lay-man and therefore none but what must be supposed deprivable by him Then after their deprivation their Character is gone
and all their Power as Bishops of the Catholick Church is gone and all they do after the Lay Magistrate has deprived them will be perfect Nullities till they be again confirmed by Power derived from the Civil Magistrates This Hypothesis supposing the Legality of the Civil Power will indeed serve our Adversaries designs to the full But it is as notoriously false as it is notoriously true that there was even in the Apostles time a Discipline exercised independent on the Civil Magistrate And our Adversaries dare not stand by it § XVI THIS extravagant Notion of the Supremacy continued through the next Reign of King Edward the VI. Not only as that same Act continued still unrepealed but as the same Practice which supposed it continued and as no better Explication of the Supremacy was substituted in stead of it Now it was that Archbishop Cranmer took out his new Commission from the King for his Archbishoprick in the style formerly used by Bishop Bonner perfectly adapted to his own singular Opinion Now it was that the Bishop of Worcester took out the like Commission in the very beginning of this Reign Though Bishop Burnet observes that no such form was imposed on Bishop Ridley nor on Bishop Thirlby who were consecrated in the year 1550. In that same year it was that the young King himself expresses his own Opinion in these words But as for Discipline I would wish no Authority given generally to all Bishops but that Commission be given to those that be of the best sort of them to exercise it in their Dioceses By which we may easily understand that Bishop Ridley who did put out Injunctions had singular favour shewn him in that he was permitted to do so So that no general Inferences are to be gathered from his Case Yet even he and such as he were to Act by Commission which is perfectly consistent with the Hypothesis that was so destructive of the Churches Authority The only difference between him and others was that he was to hold his Authority for Life they only during the Princes pleasure But for proving the sense of the Law-makers of those times I rather chuse to insist on the expressions of the Laws themselves And those are very home to this purpose In the Statute 1 Edw. VI. c. 2. They say that all Authority of Jurisdiction Spiritual and Temporal is derived and deducted from the Kings Majesty as Supream Head of these Churches and Realms of England and Ireland They therefore enact that all Processes Ecclesiastical should run in the King's name only that the Teste should be in the name of the Archbishop Bishop or other having Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction who hath the Commission and grant of the Authority Ecclesiastical immediately from the Kings Highness They add withal that the Seal of Jurisdiction was to have the Kings Arms on it as an Acknowledgment from whom the Jurisdiction was derived There are indeed some exceptions in that same Act wherein the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops are allowed to use their own Seals But considering that the reasons given for their using the King's Arms are general such as extend to all Archbishops and all Spiritual Jurisdictions whatsoever those exceptions cannot argue any independence of the Spiritual Jurisdiction even in the Cases so excepted The Archbishop had a liberty of using his own Seal in Cases of smaller consequence which were not likely to be exempted from the Secular Power when the greater were not and in Dispensations to be granted to the King himself where though the Power had been in general originally derived from the King yet it had not been decent in the Dispensation it self to express its being so For that had been to the same purpose as if the King by his own Authority had dispensed with himself Yet the Power might have been derived from him as that of our ordinary Judges is when they give Sentence against the King in favour of a Subject by virtue of their Commission from the Crown empowering them to do so And the Cases wherein other Bishops are there allowed to use their own Seals are only such wherein their own inferiors are concerned who derive their Power from them which is very consistent with their own deriving their Power from the King Especially when this liberty is granted them by that very Power which pretended to be the Original of all their Episcopal Spiritual Power I mention not now the several Acts sufficiently frequent in this Reign requiring Clergymen to admit to Communion and empowering them to punish by Spiritual Censures though these do also proceed on the same supposal when they are not in execution of Canons made before by Ecclesiastical Authority that even such Spiritual Authority is originally vested in the Lay Magistrate For my design at present is not to enquire how far the Lay Power even the Legislative Power has encroached on the Rights of the Clergy actually but how far they have declared their encroachments included in the Sense of the Supremacy for maintenance of which the Oath was made and which must therefore be maintained by them who would then take the Oath veraciously according to the true meaning of the Legislators But what I have insisted on from this Act shews the Legislators sense of the Supremacy it self § XVII YET though this impious notion of the Supremacy was continued in the Reign of this excellent Prince who did not live to that maturity of his own Judgment that might otherwise have enabled him to have seen the falshood and all tendency of these ill Principles which had been instilled into him by his Godfather who was always the most forward promoter of them yet they were first introduced in the Sacrilegious Reign of King Henry the VIII And why should any Posterity have regard for such an Age as that was which had themselves so little for all the Acts of their own Ancestors Why should any who regard Religion have any for them who brought in principles so destructive to all Religion and to the very Fundamentals of the Church as it is a Society and a Communion Atheists themselves who have no concern for the Truth of Religion yet cannot chuse but be concerned for the security Religion gives them in their present enjoyments by the Opinions of those who do in earnest believe it true and for the restraint it lays on such not to molest them in their possessions of what they are Legally intituled to when it is otherwise in their Power forcibly to dispossess them That wicked generation broke even this security All that could have been done had been done by their Ancestors for the security of Magna Charta and the Rights of the Clergy concerned in it as the first and sacredest part of it It had been confirmed by solemn and frequently repeated grants of all the Parties who had a Right to confirm it Not only so but all the Obligations for observing it were laid on their
particulars of it were that our Church does not tell us here Yet without an enumeration of particulars none can tell what particulars were intended But these are rather to be judged of by other passages where the same Church tells us what that Authority was which she thought the Godly Kings had amongst the Jews This she her self tells us expresly in the Article She there tells us that the only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers If this Right of ruling the Ecclesiasticks be all that is asserted to the Prince by the Supremacy in Spirituals and that very ruling be only a restraining them with the Civil Sword these two things are so very exactly agreeable to our Doctrine that we can by no means be concerned in the censures mentioned in the Canon I might withall mention what I have already insisted on the approbation of the Explication in the Injunction in the same Article by which we are excused from believing that the Lay Magistrate has any Right to deprive Bishops of their Spiritual Power or from believing any thing from whence that may be solidly inferred For why should we not interprete the sense of our Church of England in her Canons by her sense in her Articles Why should we suspect she meant to Excommunicate her Members by her Canons where no particulars are expressed for particularly disowning that extent of secular Authority in Spirituals which in her Articles where she states the Question and tells us what she takes to be the Rights of Princes as expressed in the Scriptures she does not mention as a Right of the Jewish Kings nor consequently of our own We deny not our Kings a Right of driving Bishops away by the Civil Sword if no more be insisted on from the Case of Solomon and Abiathar And no more can be pretended to be the Right of our Kings by this Explication in the Article This is in truth an antient Right of the Supream Power even before it was Christian. The Emperor Aurelian had it though then a Pagan and afterwards a Persecutor and practised it with the approbation of the Primitive Church against Samosatenus Exile and imprisonment and confinement to a certain place such as that was of Abiathar to Anathoth we grant to be Temporal Punishments in the Power and Right of him whoever he be who has the Right of managing the Civil Sword But it is very plain by this Interpretation of the Queens Injunction allowed in this Article that our Church did not oblige to the rigour of some mens private opinions and particularly not to these of Archbishop Cranmer concerning the dependence of the Sacordotal Power on the Prince And therefore though there have been those who from that Case of Abiathar have inferred the deprivableness of the Episcopal Power by the Lay Magistrate there is no reason to believe that ever our Church in that Canon intended to exclude all such from Communion who could not come up to the heights of these private Oâ—â—â—ators The rather this is credible because I have already shewn that even in the times of King Henry the VIII and of King Edward the VI. when these Opinions were believed by the Legislators themselves they notwithstanding had not the confidence to impose them How much less were they likely to 〈◊〉 under King James the 〈◊〉 when these Opinions were generally disbelieved I am sure those Fathers who made those Canons could not with the least likelihood pretend that in those Times of the Primitive Church when the first Christian Emperors governed this Opinion was believed that all Spiritual Power was derived from the Emperor and was therefore deprivable by him Yet if they did not they could not give this Right of depriving Bishops of their Spiritual Power to our Kings considering that in this very same Canon they do not pretend to give our Kings any other Rights than what were owned in the first Christian Emperors by the Primitive Christians § XXVI WELL. But however our Adversaries think that the sense of the Legislators as explained by the Practise is against us that Laymen have been permitted the use of Spiritual Censures Such was that Case of Cromwell Such that of the Lay Civilians still permitted by the Spiritual Courts and defended by the Act of Parliament Such the late Commission Court empowered to suspend and deprive the Bishop of London consisting of Laicks mixt with Ecclesiasticks and a Lay President But Facts alone do by no means signifie the mind of the Legislators unless they be approved and agreeable to Principles Much less can they pretend to be Rules in Conscience to the Obedience of the Subjects For Princes do many things upon exigencies of state which even themselves do not approve when they are free from those exigencies So far they would be even themselves from imposing them generally on their Subjects Consciences And the Facts we are speaking of have been so rare and discontinued that even that is suffiâ—ient to shew that even the Princes themselves have done them unwillingly and with regret and under the necessity of those very exigencies I need not repeat what I have already observed to this purpose in the Reigns of King Henry the VIII and King Edward the VI. As for the Commission Court it is no wonder if King James the II. took the utmost liberty that Protestant Lawyers allowed as Law It is rather to be admir'd that Protestant Lawyers should help him to an Expedient so hurtful to their own Communion and that upon such slender grounds as a few Facts which they were pleased upon so little probability to allow as Precedents The Bishop of London then when it was his own case did not think the Laymen his competent Judges in order to his suspension or deprivation from Spirituals And those Lawyers who had so much zeal not as to pervert them but keep them equal and unbiassed between both extreams did think his Plea not only equitable in conscience but warrantable in Law It were well his Lordship and those Lawyers would recollect how applicable those things are to our present case which themselves so zealously defended then As for the Act in favour of the Lay Civilians it self complains of the rareness of such Examples then because of the averseness of the Bishops to imploy such persons on such affairs That is sufficient to shew how much it was even then against the sense of the Ecclesiasticks who were the only competent Judges of Right in matters of this nature with regard to Conscience Since that time it has been still more disagreeable though the Practice has continued on account of that Act in favour of it Yet it has furnished the Non-conformists with an Objection and that such an one
as has put the Defenders of the Church rather on Excuses than Defences A plain token they would rather have wished it otherwise if the Lay Powers who had introduced this custom would have given leave None have been more zealous in this particular than our modern Latitudinarians a Party which has been of late as taking among our Lay Nobility and Gentry as among the Ecclesiasticks themselves Accordingly there has been a shift found that the censures adjudged by the Lay Civilians should be published by Presbyters that so the Censures themselves might seem to proceed from the purely Spiritual Authority The like care is taken in the Canons made in the time of King James the I. that when a Sentence of Deprivation or Deposition is to be pronounced against a Minister it be pronounced by the Bishop himself with the assistance of his Chancellor the Dean if they may conveniently be had and some of the Prebendaries if the Court be kept near the Cathedral Church or of the Archdeacon if he may be had conveniently and two others at the least grave Ministers and Preachers to be called by the Bishop when the Court is kept in other places The less these things agree with the Private not as I have shewn imposed sense of the Legislators in that Act which was by asserting directly the Right of such Authorized Lay Doctors for inflicting such Consuâ—es to assert consequently the Right of the King though a Layman also for being a Fountain and Original of all Spiritual Power the more they shew the sense of our late Princes and all that are concerned in the Practice of these Lay Judges in Spirituals now since these Canons are Authorized that this Practise as it is continued now cannot argue any design of the Legislators to oblige Persons who take the Oath to mean any such â—enchroaching notion of the Supremacy But let the most that can be be made of this Argument from Practise it is notwithstanding certain that as none but allowed Practise can be fairly suppos'd to prove the sense of Authority so that Practise which is most agreeable to allowed Doctrines and Explications has the fairest Pretensions to be taken for allowed And such Practise I have shewn to be in favour of ours rather than our Adversaries Opinions by shewing that we take no more liberty than what we were allowed to take by Authorized Explications § XXVII BUT there will be no need of proving Archbishop Cranmer ' s Principles to be the Doctrine of our times if our present succession cannot be maintained without defending them And that is thought to be our present Case For an Invalidity in the Original must affect all those later Orders that are derived from the same faulty Original For if the first Ordainer could convey no Power to the Person Ordained by him neither can the second who has himself received no Power give any Power to a third nor that third for the same reason to a fourth nor much less to any remoter degree of distance from the same Original If therefore the Deprivation of the Popish Bishops which was no other than Laical was invalid then their Protestant Successors in the same Sees yet full if the Deprivation was invalid were not second Bishops but none by the Doctrine of St. Cyprian ' s Age defended by us which will affect all the Titles since derived from those Successors It is thought to affect the Right of all who have succeeded them in the same Sees who deriving their Right from the first Successors then have no better Right than they had from whom they derived all they pretend to have and therefore can have none if the others had none to give them Nor is it thought only to affect them but all those other Bishops also who have been since Consecrated into other Sees by those who being themselves no Bishops could no more Consecrate Bishops into other Sees than keep up a Succession in their own Either therefore we must allow the validity of that first Lay Deprivation or we cannot in our Adversaries Opinion defend any Right in our present deprived Fathers For if they have any our Adversaries think it must be founded on the validity of that Lay Deprivation of the Popish Bishops which could not otherwise legitimate the Title of their first Predecessors of the Reformation For unless this Act of the State was entirely valid they think their Title must fall to the ground And if a Lay Deprivation could vacate Sees for the first Predecessors of our Fathers now concerned our Adversaries think the like Lay Deprivation may now also vacate our present Fathers Sees so as to legitimate Successors in them But if we should upon that supposed Invalidity of the Lay Deprivation of the Popish Bishops make the first Protestant Bishops in the same Sees uncapable of receiving the Episcopal Power then they think we cannot assert our deprived Fathers ever to have had any Right even before the Deprivation And then it will be of no consequence whether this Lay Deprivation be valid or not We cannot in that Case as they think pretend any Right our Fathers can have now though the Lay Deprivation had been as invalid as we conceive it to be § XXVIII I need not here insist on the Royal Commissions taken out by Bishop Bonner and as many as followed his Example for their Spiritual Power in the licentious Stile of Archbishop Cranmer Yet these will afford a sufficient reason for the validity of the Lay Deprivations of as many as concerned themselves in such Commissions which notwithstanding will not be applicable to the Case of our Fathers now For by taking these Commissions from the King they might in Law be supposed to have renounced the better Title they had to their Spirituals from Christ and his Apostles If this be true they could thence-forward have no more Power than what the Lay Magistrate could confer upon them Euher therefore they did really receive Power from the Magistrate or they received none If they did receive Power from him then no doubt what Power he could give them of that he was able by the same Right to deprive them If they received none all that can be gathered from the Invalidity of the Lay Deprivation is only that it must leave them in the same Right in which it found them If therefore they had no Power before the Lay Deprivation it is no matter whether the Lay Deprivation were valid or not As they lost no Power by an Invalid Deprivation so neither to be sure could they gain any by it Having none before they had none to be deprived of and therefore could have none that could oblige the Consciences of Subjects to stand by them against even an Invalid Deprivation But this cannot be pretended to be our present Fathers Case They have not God be prais'd betrayed their better Title to their Spirituals by taking out a Commission from a Power which had no Right to
Deposition of the Heretical or Schismatical Incumbent to be liable to the charge of Schism as it would have been in Case the Incumbents had been Bishops of the same Communion For the Popish Bishops therefore the Lay Deprivation alone was sufficient there being on account of their difference of Communion no Duty owing to them from the Protestant Subjects of those Dioceses even Antecedently to the Deprivation But this cannot be pretended to be the Case of our present Deprived Fathers Our Adversaries themselves have acknowledged them for Bishops of the same Protestant Communion with themselves If therefore the Lay Deprivation prove Invalid they cannot excuse themselves from the same Duties which oblige them still with regard to Conscience § XXX THIS Answer will abundantly clear the disparity between our present Lay Deprivation and that of the Popish Bishops in the beginning of the Reformation And we may the more securely rely on it because it depends on no private opinions of ours first thought of now and sitted to our present Case but proceeds as the rest of our Reasonings in this affair generally do on the Sense and Practise of unquestionable Antiquity A new Schism indeed or a new Heresie I confess was allowed a Synodical Hearing And there was reason for it because it might well be supposed not yet sufficiently manifest whether Heresie or Schism was indeed concerned in the Case or at least whether of the two Parties between whom the Dispute was raised was guilty of the Charge But when the Case was once adjudged and the difference of Communion which must necessarily follow on the pertinaciousness of the Criminals was once formed then the Church never troubled her self to inflict new Censures on every new Instance of the same Case And there was reason for it From the time that they constituted a distinct Communion she reckoned them without and with such St. Paul himself denies her to have any thing to do And it is plain that all the Church's Canons are only for maintaining a Correspondence between the several Jurisdictions of the same Communion that they may not interfere among themselves This is the reason why one Bishop must be deprived before another can be Canonically introduced because till the first be deposed the Duty of the Subjects of that Jurisdiction belongs to him and cannot without Schism be paid to any besides him But Duty was never thought owing unless in the same Subordination which cannot be but in the same Body and in the same Communion Where therefore there is no Duty in Spirituals owing to any other there it can be no undutifulness to set up a new Spiritual Body with a new Spiritual Jurisdiction any more than in a Case of a wast To be sure it can be no Schism where there is no common Body that can be said to be divided by it and where there is but one only Government to which the Obedience of the Subjects can be pretended in Conscience due What need therefore can there be of a Spiritual Deprivation where nothing is already due Indeed what can they deprive him of who has no Power which can intitle him to the Duty of the Catholick Subjects of his Jurisdiction What such a Heretical or Schismatical Bishop may pretend over the Consciences of his own Heretical or Schismatical Communicants is not the Catholick Church's Interest or Duty to intermeddle in So in the many Sees of Africa wherein it appears by the Conference at Carthage that there were Catholick and Donatist Bishops the Catholicks took no more notice of the Donatist Incumbents whenever a Predecessor failed than the Donatists did of the Catholick Bishops of the same Sees It was Peace and Reunion that was designed in the Proposals that were made for discontinuing the like distinction of Successions for the future The like was the Case of the many Arian Bishops in the time of Constantius and downwards Where there were no Bishops but such the Catholicks acted as if there were no Bishops at all They expected no sentence of Deprivation against them yet acted in the mean time what they could not have justified without such a sentence if it had been necessary Lucifer Calaritanus a Western Bishop had no Jurisdiction at Antioch Yet finding no other Bishop there but such as he judged Arian if not in Opinion yet at least in Communion as having been Consecrated by those of the Arian Communion he took upon him to substitute another and to assist at his Consecration as a Catholick Bishop may do where there is no Bishop at all I am not now concerned how rightly he judged so who afterwards did things to extreams in his zeal against that Heresie However that Example shews how far his Catholick Principles would have warranted him to have proceeded in Case the Incumbent had been as bad as he supposed him to be § XXXI YET besides this I may add further that suppose the Popish Bishops on account of the Invalidity of their Lay Deprivations retained a Right in Conscience over the Protestants themselves yet it will not thence follow that the error if any had been in that Age could affect the Titles of our present Bishops It might indeed have made the first Protestant Bishops Schismaticks if they had been immediately before of the same Communion But this could last no longer than the Persons lived who were injured by the Substitution So long as they lived the Duty had been owing to those who had been Invalidly deprived and therefore could not have been paid to their substituted Rivals without Schism After their decease this reason perfectly failed The Duty to them had been extinguished with their Lives So that thence forward their Successors were alone Then there could be no pretence of Injury to their Predecessors when their Title to Duty was at an end Nor could there be any danger of Schism when the Duty was payable only to one who had no Rival in his Claim to it And in that Case the Interest of Mankind in general which is an Argument of Right has always allowed the Title of the Possessor where there is none other living who can pretend a better Title Nor have they ever stood upon new Solemnities of investing them with the same honours they had before when upon the death of their Predecessors they who before had an ill Title were judged to have a good claim afterwards to the Duty and Obedience of the Subjects The tacit consent of all Persons whether Subjects or others concern'd in the Election or Investiture and by consequence in Legitimating the Title was thought sufficient to give those a good Title from that time forward who had none before As therefore Kings who had at first an ill Title whilst those who had a better were living have continued their old Possession which from that time was not thought doubtfull without any new Coronation or Inthronization so Bishops who were at first Consecrated in Schism whilst those were living who had a
the Case that occasioned the Schism of the Luciferians The reason why they also were so very severe in disowning the Communion of so many Catholick Bishops was that they thought them guilty tho' not of the Arian Opinion yet of the Arian Communion For the Question with many of those who opposed Athanasius did only concern Communion Arius and Euzoius had under Constantine the Great made a pretended Recantation of their Haeresy and were thereupon received into Communion by Eusebius of Nicomedia and his Party This made that Party another Communion though the Recantation had been sincere till the Bishop of Alexandria for the time being had first received them because they were both of them Originally of the Jurisdiction of Alexandria and had been excommunicated for their Heresie by their Ordinary the Bishop of Alexandria who then was Alexander For the rules of Ecclesiastical Commerce then observed were that no Bishop could admit a Subject of another Bishop to his Communion without the Communicatory Letters of his Ordinary to whose Jurisdiction he belonged If he did he thereby broke the Rules of Commerce and thereby cut himself off from the Body of the Episcopal College who could no longer maintain Communion with him by giving Communicatory Letters to him or by receiving any from him This was in the Sense of that Age to out himself from the Catholick Communion and from the Catholick Church because the Communicants of such a Bishop would have Communion refused them over all the Catholick Church Such a Bishops Letters would not anywhere else intitle them to Communion and his Communicants could not be received without them by the common rules of Ecclesiastical Commerce There was also in this case something peculiar to make the Bishop of Alexandria's Communion Catholick It had been ratified in the General Council of Nice This made them who received those Alexandrian Presbyters to Communion without the consent of Athanasius their Ordinary guilty of rescinding their own Act as well as of the rule of the general Ecclesiastical Commerce However because they were received upon a pretended Recantation of their Heresy this involved many who were otherwise Orthodox in their Doctrine that they also were engaged in the Schism Especially those who rather Scrupled the Uncripturalness of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than the sense of the Catholick Church in useing it For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was thought Equivalent with the Catholick notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And when they enumerated the particulars included in the Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And accordingly they used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which and the forementioned expressions they might very well mean a Son by Nature and by Univocal Generation not only a Factitious Son and by Adoption which seemed to be the most that was admitted by the first and most truly Heretical Arians This appears from the several Creeds of those times And though the true Arians had insidious meanings under those plausible terms as Athanasius and Hilary shew yet many of those who by that uncanonical reception of those dissembling Hereticks were engaged in the Heretical Communion had meanings also sufficiently reconcilable with the design of the Church in the Censures of Alexander ratifi'd by the Nicene Council for condemning the Original Doctrine of those two Hereticks I say the Original Doctrine as it had been taught by them when they began their disturbances for we are to observe that they did not seem to stand by their first Prevarications Arius himself was looked on as an Apostate from his own Heresy by Aetius and Eunomius so capable the Terms he used afterwards were of an Orthodox meaning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 allowed by the Catholicks themselves who were more intent on the sense than the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as signifying an Univocal natural Son So I am sure Artemidorus expresses it Speaking of one who dreams of his being Born he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 includes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first and principal place And this Heathen Author who lived before those Disputes is a very competent witness how that Expression was used commonly then when there could be no design on the Dispute that was raised afterwards Lucifer therefore taking all for Arians who had been any way engaged in the Arian Communion comprehended under that name a great number of those who were notwithstanding very Orthodox in their Doctrine He took in those who Communicated with Arius and Euzoius rather as Penitents than as believing rightly He took in also all those who had been any way engaged in any Act of Communion with such as those were who had never been in their own Judgment otherwise than Orthodox He took in not only those who joyned with them not only in condemning Athanasius but all who had received any Orders from them that was the Case of Meletius of Antioch against whom he set up an Anti-Bishop though Meletius was even then in Exile for his Orthodoxy and all who had Communicated in any Sacraments administred by Persons so Ordained This must indeed have included a great number in the West where Lucifer was Bishop where though they were generally Orthodox yet since they had been reconciled to Valens and Ursacius on the belief of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no doubt understood by those VVestern Bishops who received it in the Council of Ariminum in a good sense there were very few remaining free from the Contagion of the Arian Communion on some of the terms now mentioned So Faustinus and Marcellinus plainly suppose the Case to have been They hardly excuse Hilary himself hardly any but Lucifer and perhaps Eusebius Vercellensis Into so narrow a compass they contracted the Catholick Communion even in the VVest where notwithstanding the Catholick Doctrine was most universally received In this regard it was that St. Jerom says that the whole world admired at it self for becoming Arian This Admiration principally belongs to the Case of those who being Conscious to themselves of their being Orthodox in opinion might therefore the more justly admire at their being involved unawares in the Contagion of the Arian Communion In this regard St. Jerom might well call Hilary the Deacon who then continued the Luciferian Schism a new Deucalion in regard of the very small number which had escaped the Arian deluge upon so severe a test as this was of Communion Yet it can't be denied that this Contagion of Communion was in rigour Sufficient to have made them who had been involved in it judged as members of the Arian Communion till they had been reconciled as solemnly as they had Apostatized And whilst they were of another Communion all their Acts of Authority were justly questionable as to their Validity in another Body and Communion distinct from their own For how could one opposite Body convey