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
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
prepassessed by our Bishops must make the Schism and the erection of Altar against Altar imputable to them by the Principles now mention'd For theirs must be the Bishops which are Consecrated into full Sees Theirs therefore in the Reasoning of St. Cyprian ' s Age must be foras must be alieni must be not secundi but nulli And therefore the Communion which has since owned them must be divided from the true peculiar People and from all solid Claim to the Priviledges of that People § XXXIII BUT to return from whence I digressed to the Case of our Protestant Bishops true Antiquity was so far from allowing defects in Originals to invalidate Successions at such a distance as ours is from the beginning of the Reformation that they thought it not only most prudent but most just to silence such Disputes when the Persons injured were deceased and their Right extinguished with them having left no Succession behind them that might perpetuate their first Original Right In this Case they thought the Possession it self a sufficient Title to Right where there was none out of Possession that could pretend a better Right And that so as to look on it as just before GOD and as obliging the Consciences of the Subjects who had it in their Power to rebell not to do so This seems to be the ground of allowing Prescription by the Law of Nations sufficient to make a Cause just that had not been so otherwise It is indeed the Interest of Mankind in general which seems to have been the ground of this Law of Nations that all Controversies should at length have an end And it is agreeable to the same Interest that process of time and such a peaceable Possession as has no Rival that has a better Right should be allowed as an Expedient for ending Controversies concerning Right and therefore for determining the Right it self The Mischief to the Publick in disturbing a present Possession is more than can be recompensed by a Right that is no more than equal to that which has Possession already And there is no Succession in the World but in a Revolution of many Ages has some unjustifiable turns which must make its present Settlement litigious if such distant Injuries must be allowed on equal terms to do so This therefore makes it the common Interest to allow Prescription on such terms for a determination of Right And there is reason to believe that GOD who as Governour of the World is determined by the Publick Interest will judge it so and punish such as violate it accordingly Nor is there any thing in the Nature of Ecclesiastical Government as it is a Government of external Bodies and managed by Men of the like infirmities with those who are engaged in the Civil Government that can secure it against the like Violences of ambitious and unreasonable Men who will judge too partially in their own Case But it is no way probable that GOD will make any Souls but their own Responsible for such consequences as are by others unavoidable Yet such violences upon the Government may sometimes make a Breach in the due Succession and affect the direct conveyances of that Authority from GOD which is requisite for giving a Title to those Spiritual benefits to Souls which are the great designs of Ecclesiastical Communion When therefore this falls out to be the Case there will be reason to believe that GOD who judges himself as much obliged by the equity of his Covenants as Men usually think themselves obliged by the letter of theirs will perform what his Covenant would in Equity oblige him to perform notwithstanding any failings on Mans side which by the common Nature of such a visible Body as he has been pleased to constitute in his Church are unavoidable to truly diligent and Pious Communicants For this being a necessity of his own making in Constituting his Church such a Body when he might have made it otherwise his equity is more concerned to provide for the consequences of it And there is reason to believe that he has done it the same way as he has done in other visible Bodies of the like constitution As therefore by confirming present settlements where no better claim is in view GOD by the Law of Nations has taken care for the Bodies of Subjects in Secular Societies that they may not miscarry by ignorance of the duty justly expected from them in the station wherein he has placed them So there is reason to believe that he has not taken less care for the more valuable Interest of their Souls that they may not fail of the Favours designed for them by a necessity of his own contrivance and by them perfectly unavoidable And seeing he has warned us of no other 't is highly reasonable to presume he has Secur'd the validity of his conveyances by the Spiritual the same way he has done in the Secular Government by ratifying the present Constitution when it is not injurious to a better Title notwithstanding any faileurs unknown and unavoidable by the Subjects on account of the station which he has given them in it § XXXIV ACCORDINGLY it was Observable that even the two great Factions of the Donatists whose whole Schism was grounded upon an Extravagant Zeal for Discipline when they charged each other as it should seem very truly with being Traditors both of them being equally guilty they agreed to let the Controversy fall and refer it to GOD without ingaging in any farther Schism upon it Yet the Delivering up their Bibles to be Burnt was in their opinion at least such an Act of Communion with the Devil as had made the Persons who had really been guilty of it uncapable not only of Episcopal but also even of lay-Lay-Communion which incapacity had it been proved might have made all their following Episcopal Acts questionable and justifyed Schisms in opposition to them by the same Principles by which both those Factions Defended their common Schism against the Catholick Church for the pretended Traditions of Caecilian and Felix And in this case these early Schismaticks are the more to be regarded because the Catholicks agreed with them in it that such Cases being left to GOD would not though the Facts had proed true prejudice the consequent Authority and Communion with GOD when no injury was done nor any Schism formed upon it So far they were of their minds in this particular that it is the professed Subject of those who wrote against them that such Personal crimes as these which if debated between Persons might have given one Person the advantage over another could not involve Posterity in the same guilt when there was no injury committed by it So far I say they were of their mind in this particular that they turn their Practice in this Case into an Argument against themselves as a professed condemnation of those Principles on which themselves proceeded in dividing from the Catholick Church Not much unlike this was
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
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
recommend arbitrators She knew none of their differences nor dividing Opinions and therefore cannot be suspected of partiality And it was withal an Argument of her being constituted agreeably to the mind of her blessed Lord that she was so perfectly one Communion as he designed her And the acquiescence of particular Churches in her decision is easier and less mortifying than it would be to any other Arbitrator To return to her is indeed no other than to return to what themselves were formerly before their Divisions or dividing Principles So that indeed for modern Churches to be determined by Antiquity is really no other than to make themselves in their purest uncorruptest condition Judges of their own Case when they have not the like security against impurities and corruptions I cannot understand therefore how even on account of Authority our late Brethren can excuse their pretended Zeal for even our common Mother the Church of England when they presume to oppose her Authority to that of the Catholick Church and of the Catholick Church in the first and purest Ages I am sure we have been used to commend her for her deference to Antiquity and to have the better opinion of any thing in her Constitution as it was most agreeable to the Patern of the Primitive Catholick Church Here by the way I think it not amiss to take notice of a mistake common to Dr. Hody and the other Answerer to the Vindication of the deprived Bishops The rather because it is introduced by them both with some insulting triumph The Vindicator had charged his Adversaries with Heresie in regard of their singular opinions on which they insisted so far as to found their Schism upon them This they both retort upon the Vindicator himself as grounding his Defence on opinions now singular and different from the greatest numbers of our present Churches I should have thought their retortion just if the Vindicator had grounded his Defence on Opinions singular in the first Ages of Christianity But they might both of them have observed that the Vindicator did not grant this to have been his own Case He did pretend the Principles insisted on by himself to have been generally received as fundamental to all the Discipline that was practised in the first and purest Ages What was generally received then and therefore to be presumed true because it was so cannot change its nature by being afterwards as generally either forgotten or deserted in later degenerous Ages And as the Vindicators Cause did not so neither did his design nor Topick of Reasoning from the Sense of the Primitive Catholick Church oblige him to be concluded by a generality in these later degenerous Ages But this is again another instance of their advancing the sense of our particular modern Church as a standard of Primitive Catholick Antiquity But this is a deference too great not only for our own Mother but indeed for any particular Church whatsoever at such a distance from Primitive Originals § IV. HERE therefore we cannot be of our Adversaries mind But as for the Duty owing to our particular modern Church which is consistent with her Subordination we still profess as great a Zeal for her as themselves can and are ready to strive with them in a generous Aemulation who shall best express their affection to her and their zeal for her preservation Indeed our difference from them is wholly grounded on such Principles as we should think in all other parallel Cases would be taken for Arguments of a greater affection We are willing for a Vindication of her Rights to expose our selves to all the effects of the displeasure not only of her Adversaries but even of her own late Children and our own late Brethren This is a glory wherein our present Adversaries cannot pretend to rival us Whatever they pretend of good will to her they cannot pretend to suffer any thing for her So far they are froin that that they are not contented to be neuter and at least to connive at their Brethren asserting their common Mothers Rights They defend the Magistrates encroachments on their Ecclesiastical Liberties Even the Ecclesiasticks do so whilst the Magistrate has the disposal of the Ecclesiastical Revenues The Doctor has indeed wisely postponed the Vindication of the Magistrates Right for doing what has been done though nothing short of that can satisfie the Consciences of Ecclesiastical Subjects as to the lawfulness of acquiescence and submission to the Invaders of those Rights which they are by the Constitution obliged to defend as unwilling to expose himself an Ecclesiastick to the odium of betraying them He therefore here proceeds on the Supposition that the Rights of the Church are invaded not only injuriously but invalidly and pretends to prove after his way of proving by naked Facts that we not only may but must submit to the Usurpers Upon this he pretends what the Vindicator says for disproving the Right of the civil Magistrate for doing what has been done to have been impertinent To what end is all this but that he may avoid the Odium of betraying the Rights of his own Function and of defending laical Encroachments on them But I cannot conceive how this will excuse him from this charge He promises in another Book to defend professedly what he is yet so willing to be excused from even the Right of the Magistrate for such Invasions He even here makes all asserting such Rights impracticable and unavailable for preserving them He makes the Bishops whose Rights are invaded obliged in Conscience to yeild as often as they are invaded when the substituted Successor is not a Heretick that is as often as there is no other question but only that concerning Right And what can a Plea of Right signifie for preserving Right that must never be insisted on We know all Laws make frequent cessions of Right at length to extinguish the Right it self Much more that must do so which is perpetual as often as a stronger hand is pleased to invade it Much more that which must be perpetually yielded on obligations in Conscience And what can restrain the Laity from invading them as often as they please when they are told before that the Persons whose Rights they are must not 〈◊〉 ought not oppose them in it if they will be true to Obligations of Conscience When they are told also that this very consideration of an irresistible force is alone sufficient to oblige them to it Suppose notwithstanding the Bishops not satisfied with what he says to prove their obligation to recede yet he makes it impossible for them to assert their Rights for he discharges the Subjects from Duty to them whether they will or no. He pretends the irresistible force sufficient for this purpose whether the Ecclesiastical Superiors will or no. And how then is it possible for such Ecclesiasticks to assert their own Rights when they are oppressed by the irresistible force and deserted by their own Subjects He allows
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
they could they did so it being notorions in those Primitive Times that they had no more consent of the Civil Magistrate for the one than for the other and yet exercised both and were seconded by God in their Acts of Discipline which supposed their claim to both of them But by Archbishop Cranmer ' s Principles the Apostles themselves could lay no claim to either of them without the consent of the Civil Magistrate and therefore could derive no such Rights to Successors claiming from them that could be undeprivable by the Civil Magistrate Had this Doctrine been true Bishops deprived by a lawful Magistrate cou'd have claim'd no longer But even our Adversaries themselves seem sensible now not only how contrary those Paradoxes were to the Sense of truly Catholick Antiquity but also how little agreeable they are to the prevailing Opinion of them who cordially espouse the Cause of Religion in general and of the Church of England in particular even in this present degenerous Age. This being so our Adversaries themselves cannot be displeased at us for disowning a Supremacy explained by and grounded on such Doctrines as even themselves dare not undertake to defend § XII AND such indeed was the Supremacy as it was first introduced by King Henry the VIII and as it was continued under King Edward the VI. Then as much was challenged as could be allowed by even those licentious Principles of Archbishop Cranmer I mean so much was challenged by the Kings themselves and by the Laity who made a majority in the Legislative Power by the Constitution So much was plainly the design of King Henry to whom Cranmer so effectually recommended himself by these Opinions as our Historian observes And the Sense of the Legislative Power cannot be better proved â—â—an from the Expressions of the Laws themselves T 〈…〉 st Law is more modest and though it do own the King for Head of the Body Politick consisting of Spiritualty and Temporalty yet withal it clearly distinguishes their two Jurisdictions and does not make them interfere any further than as that perhaps might be meant by making the King the common Head of both of them For so the words of the Act run The body Spiritual whereof having power when any cause of the Law Divine happened to come in question or of Spiritual learning that it was declared interpreted and shewed by that part of the said Body Politick called the Spiritualty now usually called the English Church which always hath been reputed and also found of that sort that both for knowledge integrity and sufficiency of number it hath been always thought and is also at this hour sufficient and meet of it self without the intermeddling of any exterior Person or Persons to declare and determine all such doubts and to administer all such Offices and Duties as to their rooms Spiritual doth appertain c. And the Laws Temporal for tryal of Property of Lands and Goods and for the conservation of the People of this Realm in Unity and Peace without rapin or spoil was and yet is administred adjudged and executed by sundry Judges and Ministers of the other part of the said Body Politick called the Temporalty And both their Authorities and Jurisdictions do conjoyn together in the due administration of Justice the one to help the other Accordingly it is afterwards enacted that all Causes concerning our Dominions be finally and difinitively adjudged and determined within the Kings Jurisdiction and Authority and not elsewhere in such Courts Spiritual and Temporal of the same as the natures conditions and equalities of the Cases and matters aforesaid in contention or hereafter happening in contention shall require Thesâ— things plainly shew the State wherein that assuming Princes â—ound things when he began his Innovations and which all o 〈…〉 to endeavour to restore who desire that the antient bounds of Magna Charta should be preserved inviolable For what security can it give us in our present Settlements if former violations of it in others by not being repealed must be allowed to pass into Precedents for new and future violences when any are possessed of force sufficient to attempt them But this will directly overthrow the Legality of what has been done for depriving our Holy Fathers by a Lay Authority even supposing it Legal It is indeed probable that when this Act was made the King himself designed no such exercise of purely Spiritual Authority by Lay Persons Bishop Burnet himself observes that in Cromwell ' s first Commission as no such Precedency was granted him as was afterwards next the Royal Family so neither was any Authority at all granted him over the Bishops And this Act now mentioned shews plainly that the Case was so All Appeals here of private Persons in Spiritual Causes are ultimately to the Archbishops saving the Prerogative of the Archbishop and See of Canterbury And in Causes wherein the King should be concerned the ultimate Appeal is to the Spiritual Prelates and other Abbots and Priors of the upper House assembled and convocated by the Kings Writ in the Convocation being or next ensuing within the Province or Provinces where the same matter of contention is or shall be begun Thus far therefore it is very plain that neither the Title of Head nor the Supremacy could oblige us to own any Lay Authority whatsoever to be sufficient for a Spiritual Deprivation even interpreted according to the Sense of the Legislators themselves So all the Right that the King as a common Head could pretend to over the Clergy in Causes purely Spiritual was not a Right to give them any Power which they were not supposed to have Antecedently to any exercise of the Kings Authority over them but a Right to oblige them to make a good Use of that Power which they had already received from God But on this Supposition as he can give them no new Power in these matters so neither can he take that Power from them which he never gave them Which will alone be sufficient to ruine the validity of Lay Deprivations § XII HOWEVER Archbishop Cranmer ' s Opinion being so grateful to the King and the Laity who made the majority in the Legislative Power did accordingly prevail But being withal as singular among the Clergy who were notoriously the only competent Judges of Spiritual Rights it prevailed in such a way as one would expect an Opinion labouring under such a disadvantage of true Authority would do that it was urged to the height when either elation of success or an exigence of affairs urged them to such odious extremities otherwise the practise of it was intermitted when cooler thoughts took place as having great presumptions against it that it was unwarrantable and those good ones even in the Opinion of the Governours themselves who having now intirely subdued the Clergy were no longer under any other restraint than that which was from their own Consciences Accordingly after the surrendry of the Clergy when now
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
give them Nor did they receive their Power in Spirituals at first from any Donation of the Civil Magistrate That is an Opinion antiquated now and not likely to have been the sense of those Bishops from whom they received their Consecration Nor is it likely that our Succession depends on any who had even then betrayed his Spiritual Rights by taking out Lay Commissions Archbishop Cranmer did not live to the Consecrations of Queen Elizabeth ' s time And Bishop Bonner had nothing to do with them Nor do any who were concerned in the Consecration of our first Protestant Bishops appear in the Catalogue of those who took out the like Commissions in King Henry the VIIIths time as we may learn from the Collections of Dr. Yale mention'd by Anthony Harmer The Act of Council in the beginning of King Edward the VI concerned such especially as were least trusted as appears by the King 's own Paper These were the Popish Bishops rather than the Protestants And the Act of Parliament made for it in the later end of the same year may be capable of the like Interpretation The King had then more liberty in the execution even of Acts of Parliament than ordinary Nor is it probable that any of those who perswaded Queen Elizabeth to let alone the Title of Head and to moderate the Supremacy it self would take out such Commissions They seem generally to have been the Popish Bishops who were guilty of it I mean those of King Henry's Faction Those therefore might be deprived and their Sees vacated by Lay Deprivations and their Protestant Successors entituled to them without any Consequence that can be drawn thence to the prejudice of our present Fathers or in favour of our present Lay Deprivations § XXIX BUT we need not as I said insist on this Yet for driving away I have already acknowledged the Magistrates Right to external force sufficient And that was all that was requisite in the Case of the Popish Bishops They were then notoriously of another Communion different from that of the Protestants They had burnt the Protestants as Hereticks and condemned their Doctrine as Heretical and imposed on them forms of reception and reconciliation to their own Communion as perfectly distinct from the Communion wherein they had been before So also on the other side the Protestants behaved themselves as a distinct Communion They refused their Masses and Confessions and lived in open defiance of the Popish Bishops and Canons and this by Principles Many of them suffered Martyrdom for their avowed disobedience which they cou'd not have justify'd if they had been of the same Communion So clear it was that even in Queen Mary ' s days each Party looked on the other as a different Communion This being so it plainly appeared that the Protestants did not own the Popish Bishops as Bishops of their own Communion Suppose we therefore that the Lay Deprivation as proceeding from the Lay Power only was as invalid and null with regard to Conscience as our Principles suppose it to be All that will follow thence will only be that with regard to Conscience they were still as much Bishops as they were before that is they were still to be owned for Bishops by them who had owned them formerly that is that still they were to be owned for Bishops by them who professed themselves of the Popish Communion But then as the Lay Deprivation took no Spiritual Right from them which they had before so neither could it give them any Right in Conscience which before they had not As therefore they were not Bishops of the Protestant Communion before the Deprivation so neither were they after it and therefore could not challenge any Duty as owing them from Protestants with regard to Conscience The Protestants therefore owing them no Duty in Conscience their Sees were already before the Deprivation vacant in Conscience with respect to the Protestants who might therefore without danger of Schism set up other Bishops of their own Communion in opposition to them as soon as they could do it at least as soon as the Magistrate would protect the Bishops substituted into their Sees All therefore that â—was requisite for the substitution of Protestant Bishops was the dispossessing of the Popish Bishops by force for which the Lay Magistrate who had the Right of forcing was sufficiently furnished That was exactly the Case of the expulsion of Paulus Samosatenus by the Emperor Aurelian Samosatenus had before that been deprived of his Spiritual Episcopal Rights by the Synods which had condemned and deposed him Only by the favour of Zenobia who had then the possession of Antioch he still kept possession of the Episcopal Palace till the Emperor was prevailed on to interpose his own Secular Authority in dispossessing him of the House which belonged to his Episcopal Office So it was requisite and very proper for Quâ—en Elizabeth to make use of her Secular Power for a Legal Dispossession of the Popish Bishops of the Temporals annexed to their Spiritual Office This no doubt she had a Right to do as a Lay Princess And the Effect of this Deprivation was that whatever they might still pretend as to Conscience they should notwithstanding be no more taken for Legal Bishops who should be intitled to the Honours and Priviledges and Revenues annexed by the Secular Laws to the Spiritual Function And for this the Queen's Deprivation was every way competent The Effect was a Deprivation only of their Temporals things properly belonging to the disposal of the Temporal Prince The Cause was also a Temporal Crime properly belonging to her Jurisdiction their refusing the Duty they owed her for maintaining her Temporal Jurisdiction over Spiritual Persons Yet this Lay Deprivation was necessary for making the Protestant Bishops Legal Bishops and to intitle them as such to the enjoyment of the Temporalties by the Laws annexed to their Spirituals A Legal vacancy of the Sees was as necessary to make way for a Legal Successor as a vacancy in Conscience was for a Successor with regard to Conscience And the Magistrate has a Right to make a Legal vacancy though he has none to make one with regard to Conscience nor to discharge the Spiritual Subjects from that Duty to which they are obliged in Conscience And this has been always the Practise of the Catholick Church Bishops of another Communion notoriously and professedly so were never thought to fill Sees or to need Canonical Deprivations The Catholicks in Constantinople and Antioch never scrupled the substituting a Catholick Successor whensoever the Catholick Bishop deceased though there was at the same time another Heretical Bishop and in Constantinople a Novatian Bishop also in the same See Nor did they nor the Catholick Emperors concern themselves for the Synodical Deprivation of Heretical or Schismatical Bishops after the Heresie and Schism had formed a difference in Communion Nor did they think the substituting other Bishops in such Sees without a previous Synodical
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
Privileges to or act by Jurisdiction upon another where there was no Common Government acknowledg'd no Legal Commerce or Subordination nothing but profess'd and notorius Hostility betwixt them And this whatever our modern Latitudinarians may fancy the Catholick Church has always taken to be the Case of opposite Communions And the generality of the Bishops being then involved in the Arian Schism though in the Heresy they were no otherwise involved than as the Schism did by Interpretation make them liable to the charge of the Heresy with which they Communicated there was no solemn reconciliation of them who were by their Office the Persons to whom reconciliation ought Ordinarily to have been made It was hard to expect it when the Bishops who had escaped the Contagion were so very small a number in comparison of those who were involved in it Yet these Practices must have occasioned many real Nullities if GOD had not been thought obliged in Equity to supply such defects where no injury followed to any Person living And the Catholick Church when she condemned the Luciferians for their Schism on account of these Austerities and charged the Guilt of the separation made on this account on them who made it plainly supposed that this was not a Cause sufficient to justify a Separation and therefore that such Nullities in rigour not in equity did not in the least affect the next Generation when there was no better Title which might in justice oblige GOD to ratify is for the good of Government and to oblige the whole Society to do justice under pain if they neglected it of not having their Acts of Spiritual Authority ratifyed by him without whose Ratification they must be unavaylable 'T is true there might be some reason for ratifying such Nullities when the Subjects by joyning with the better Title might secure their Interest in the Peculiar People But should GOD do it when there is no other Body in which the Subjects may secure themselves it must only make the Subjects desperate It would tempt them to believe that GOD intended there should no more be a peculiar People But how can that be reconciled with the new Covenant's being an Everlasting Covenant with its Gifts being without Repentance with Gods promise never to withdraw his mercies nor to suffer his Truth to fail notwithstanding whatsoever Provocations his chosen People might be guilty of How much less can he do it for such faileurs as he knows before to be unavoidable by them And for this purpose Dr. Hody ' s Collection is full And it seems indeed the design of the Author of it only to shew that the Church did not unravel Old disputes when the Persons were dead that werâ— concerned in them so as to make Nullities of all that had been done on the faulty side after the injury was ended and when things could not now be remedied This was the case of St. Chrysostom who disswaded his own Friends from such extremities not whilst he was living but after his decease This therefore was the fault of the Joannites that they made Nullities of all that was done by his Successors for so many years after his death contrary to the good Council himself had given them This was the fault of the Arsenians that they also made Nullities of all that was done by the Josephians for so many Years after the death of Arsenius This therefore being the occasion of that Collection will shew us the design of it The Author had no occasion to concern himself in defending the tolerableness of unjust much less of invalid deprivations whilst the Persons were living but only in defending the tolerableness of preceding Nullities after the injured Titles were extinct when they could not be recalled or amended And this will suffice to shew that though there had been invalidities in the Titles of our first Protestant Bishops on account of the better Titles of the Popish Bishops of the same Jurisdictions that cannot hurt the Titles of our Protestant Bishops now since their Succession has so long failed and ours been un-interrupted though both had been as they were not of the same Communion § XXXV BUT withall neither is that so certain as it may seem at the first view that even they who took out the Lay-Commissions did thereby lose their better Title to their Spiritual Authority received by their Ecclesiastical Consecrations So far indeed it might hold as to cut all such Persons off from the confidence of pleading the invalidity of the Lay-Deprivations that even such a Deprivation might be justly valid on their principles who had owned themselves to have no Spiritual Power but what they had received from the Civil Magistrate Indeed that worthy Person who was pleased to conceal himself under the assumed name of Anthony Harmar from the Processes against the Protestant Bishops in Queen Mary's time still preserved in the Register of Canterbury tells us that a Nullity of Title was objected to them by their Deprivers on account of these Lay-Commissions So the words of that Register are ob â—ullitatem Consecrationis ejus defectum tituli sui quem habuit à Rege Edwardo sexto per literas Patentes cum hac clausulâ dum bene se gesserit This form was used on Taylor Bishop of Lincoln Hooper Bishop of Worcester and Glocester Barlow Bishop of Hereford and Farrar Bishop of St Davids The same Patents also had been taken out by the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of Chester and Bristol as the same Author informs us as it should seem out of the same Registers Probably the rest did so too after the Act in King Edwards time But for those who had received their Orders from their Consecrations in the usual way antecedently to their Patents it is justy questionable whether any Act of theirs could alienate the Power they had received from Christ. Much more it is questionable whether they could do it by an indirect Act and by way only of Interpretation which is the most that can be made of their Patent It is not pretended that they did renounce their Spiritual power received from Christ any otherwise than as their owning another Original of that same Spiritual Power in their Patents may be so Interpreted And that Interpretation is only grounded on the inconsistency of these two Originals which makes it necessary that if one be owned the other must be rejected because they cannot be both possessed at once But this inconsistency is applicable both ways and may as well make their Patents null as inconsistent with their better Spiritual Title as make their Spiritual Title null as inconsistent with their Patents And it is not in their Power whether of the two shall be a Nullity unless GOD intended that the Power should be alienable when it was first given them If it was designed unalienable all their Acts afterwards to alienate it must have been Nullities as being inconsistent with the antecedent Right of GOD
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.