corrupted and degenerated it doth still retein a Communion not onely with the Catholick Church and with all Orthodox Members of the Catholick Church but even with that corrupted Church from which it is separated except onely in corruptions We may well inlarge the former ground that if two particular Churches shall separate themselves one from another And the one retein a communion with the Universal Church and be ready to submit to the determinations thereof And the other renounce the Communion of the Universal Church and contumaciously despise the Jurisdiction and the decrees thereof the former continues Catholick and the later becomes Schismatical To shew that this is our present condition with the Church of Rome is in part the Scope of this Treatise They have subjected Oecumenical Councels which are the Soveraign Tribunals of the Church to the Jurisdiction of the Papal Court And we are most ready in all our differences to stand to the judgment of the truly Catholick Church and its lawful Representative a free general Councel But we are not willing to have their virtual Church that is the Court of Rome obtruded upon us for the Catholick Church nor a partial Synod of Italians for a free general Councel Thirdly there may be an actual and criminous separation of Churches which formerly did joyn in one and the same Communion And yet the Separaters be innocent and the persons from whom the separation is made be nocent and guilty of Schisme because they gave just cause of separation from them It is not the separation but the cause that makes the Schisme Saint Paul himself made such a separation among his disciples And Timothy is expresly commanded that if any man did teach otherwise and consented not to wholsome words even to the words of our Lord Iesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to godlinesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 withdraw thy self stand aloof or separate thy self from such persons It is true that they who first desert and forsake the Communion of their Christian brethren are Schismaticks but there is a moral defection as well as local It is no Schisme to forsake them who have first themselves forsaken the common faith wherein we have the confession of our adversaries They who first separated themselves from the primitive pure Church and brought in corruptions in faith practice Leiturgy and use of Sacraments may truly be said to have been hereticks by departing from the pure faith and Schismaticks by dividing themselves from the external communion of the true uncorrupted Church It is no Schisme to separate from hereticks and Schismaticks in their heresie and Schisme This is all the Crime which they can object to us The Court of Rome would have obtruded upon us new articles of faith we have rejected them They introduced unlawful rites into the Leiturgies of the Church and use of the Sacraments we have reformed them for our selves They went about to violate the just liberties and priviledges of our Church we have vindicated them And for so doing they have by their Censures and Bulls separated us and chased us from their communion where lies the Schisme Fourthly to withdraw obedience from a particular Church or from a lawful Superiour is not alwaies criminous Schisme Particular Churches may sometimes erre and sometimes clash with the universal Church Patriarchs and other subordinate Superiours may erre and sometimes abuse their authority sometimes forfeit their authority sometimes disclaim their authority or usurp more authority then is due unto them by the Canons They would perswade us that obedience is to be yeelded to a Church determining errours in points not fundamental But they confound obedience of acquiescence with obedience of conformity They forget willingly that we acknowledge not that they ever had any lawful authority over us par in parem non habet potestatem Equals have no Jurisdiction over their equals The onely difficulty is that this seems to make Inferiours Judges of their Superiours the flock of their Pastour the Clergy of their Bishop the Bishop of his Metropolitan the Metropolitan of his Patriarch whereas in truth it onely gives them a Judgment of discretion and makes them not to be Judges of their Superiours but onely to be their own Judges salvo moderamine inculpatae tutelae to preserve themselves from sin or heresie obtruded upon them under the specious pretences of obedience and Charity This is not deficere but prospicere not to renounce due obedience to their lawful Superiours but to provide for their own safety Some things are so evident that the Judgment of the Church or a Superiour is not needfull Some things have been already judged and defined by the Church and need no new determination If a Superiour presume to determine contrary to the determination of the Church it is not rebellion but loyalty to disobey him When Eunomius the Arrian was made Bishop not one of his flock rich or poor young or old man or woman would communicate with him in the publick service of God but left him to officiate alone When Nestorius did first publish his heresie in the Church in these words If any man call the Virgin Mary the Mother of God let him be accursed the people made a noise run out of the Church and refused ever after to communicate with him Valentinian the Emperour shunned the communion of Sixtus the third Many of the Roman Clergy withdrew themselves from the communion of Anastasius their Bishop because he had communicated with the Acatians Rusticus and Sebastianus two of the Popes chiefest Deacons did not onely themselves forbear the Communion of Vigilius but drew with them a good part of the Church of Rome and other Occidental Churches It cannot be denied but that among many examples of this Lyne some are reprehensible not because they did arrogate to themselves a liberty which they had not but because they abused that liberty which they had either by mistaking the matter of fact or by presuming too much upon their own judgments To prevent which inconveniencies â—he eighth Synod decreed not by way of censure but of caution as a preservative from such abuses for the future that no Clerk before diligent examination and Synodical sentence should separate himself from the communion of his proper Bishop no Bishop of his Metropolitan no Metropolitan of his Patriarch Then what is Schisme Schimse signifies a criminous scissure rent or division in the Church an Ecclesiastical Sedition like to a mutiny in an Army or 〈◊〉 in a State Therefore such ruptures are called by the Apostle indifferently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Schismes or seditious segregations of an aggregate body into two opposite parties And there seems to me to be the same difference between heresie properly so called and Schisme which is between an inward sicknesse and an outward wound or ulcer Heresie floweth from the corruption of faith within
the reformation and the Church of England after the reformation are as much the same Church as a garden before it is weeded and after it is weeded is the same garden or a vine before it be pruned and after it is pruned and freed from the Luxuriant branches is one and the same vine yet because the Roman Catholiques do not object Schisme to the Popish Church of England but to the reformed Church Therefore in this question by the Church of England we understand that Church which was derived by lineal succession from the Brittish English and Scottish Bishops by mixt ordination as it was legally established in the daies of King Edward the sixth and flourished in the raigns of Queen Elizabeth King Iames and King Charles of blessed memory and now groanes under the heavy yoke of persecution whether this Church be Schismatical by reason of its secession and separation from the Church of Rome and the supposed withdrawing of its obedience from the Patriarchal Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop As for other aspersions of Schisme of lesser moment we shall meâ—â— with them in our answers to their Objections CHAP. III. That the separation from Rome was not made by Protestants but by Roman Catholicks themselves THis being the state of the Question I proceed to examine the first ground or proposition That the English Protestants were not the first authors of the separation but principall Roman Catholiques great Advocates in their dayes and Pillars of the Roman Church Whether the Act or Statute of Separation were operative or declarative creating new right or manifesting or restoring old right whether the power of the Roman Court in England was just or usurped absolute and immutable or conditional and changeable whether the possession thereof was certain and settled or controverted and unquiet though no man throughly versed in our Lawes and Histories can reasonably doubt of these things This is undeniably true that the secession and substraction of obedience was not made by our reformers or by any of their friends or favourers but by their capital Enemies and persecutors by Zelots of the Roman Religion And this was not done secretly in a corner but openly in the sight of the Sun disputed publickly and determined before-hand in both our Universities which after long deliberation and much disputation done with all diligence zeal and conscience made this final resolution and profession Tandem in hanc sententiam unanimiter convenimus ac concordes fuimus videlicet Romanum Episcopum majorem aliquam Iurisdictionem non habere sibi à deo collatam in sacra Scriptura in hoc Regno Angliae quam alium quemvis externum Episcopum That the Roman Bishop had no greater Iurisdiction within the Kingdome of England confeâ—red upon him by God in holy Scripture then any other forrein Bishop After this the same was voted and decreed in our National Synods and lastly after all this received and established in full Parliament by the free consent of all the Orders of the Kingdom with the concurrence and approbation of four and twenty Bishops and nine and twenty Abbats then and there present To passe by many other Statutes take the very words of one of the main Acts it self That England is an Empire and that the King as Head of the body politick consisting of the spirituality and temporalty hath plenary power to render final Iustice for all matters c. First England is that is originally not shall be by vertue of this Act what is it an Empire If it be an Empire then the Soveraignes thereof have the same priviledges and prerogatives within their own Dominions which the old Emperours had in theirs If the King be head of the body politick consisting of the spiâ—ituality and temporalty then in England the King is the political head of the Clergy as well as of the Laity So he ought to be and not he onely but all the Soveraign Princes throughout the World by the very Law of Nature What becomes now of that grand exception against Protestants for making their King the Head or Soveraign Governour for these two are convertible terms of the English Church or Clergy A title first introduced by Roman Catholicks and since waved and laid aside by Protestants not so much for any malignity that was in it as for the ill sounds sake because it seemed to intrench too much upon the just right of our Saviour and being subject to be misunderstood gave offence to many well affected Christians And what doth this Law say more then a great Cardinal said not long after One that was as near the Papacy as any that ever mist it and was thought to merit the Papacy as well as any that had it in his daies I mean Cardinal Pool in his Book de concilio Hoc munus Imperatoribus Christi fidem professis Deus ipse Pater assignavit at Christi filii dei vicaâ—ias partes gerant God the Father hath assigned this office to Christian Emperours that they should act the part of Christ the Son of God in General Councels And yet more fully in his answer to the next question Pontifex Romanus ut caput sacerdotale Vicarias Christi veri capitis partes gerit at Caesar ut caput regale c. The Pope as a Priestly head doth execute the Office of Christ the true Head but we may also truly say that the Emperour doth execute the office of Christ as a Kingly Head And so he concludeth Christ said of himself All power is given me both in heaven and earth In utraque ergo potestate c. Therefore we cannot doubt but Christ hath his Deputies for both these powers The Pope in the Church the Emperour in the Common-Wealth Thus writes the Popes own Legate to his Brother Legates in the Tridentine Councel when he desired to favour his Master as much as he could But I proceed to our Statute The King of England hath that is already in present by the fundamental constitution of the Monarchy not shall have from henceforth plenary power without the License or help or concurrence of any forrain Prelate or Potentate pleâ—ary not solitary To render final Iustice that is to receive the last appeales of his own Subjects without fear of any review from Rome or at Rome for all matters Ecclesiastical and temporal Ecclesiastical by his Bishops Temporal by his Judges There is great difference between a Kings administring Justice in Ecclesiastical causes by himself and by his Bishops Listen to the Canon of the Milevitan Councel It hath pleased the Synod that what Bishop soever shall request of the Emperour the cognisance of publick judgment in some cases he be deprived of his honour But if he petition to the Emperour foâ— Episcopal judgment that is to make Bishops his Deputies or Commissioners to hear it it should â—not prejudice him They forbid a Bishop of his own accord in these daies and in some cases to make his first
as in justice he is bound he is not to be reputed a Schismatick If men might not be saved by a general and implicite repentance they were in a woful condition for who can tell how oft he offendeth Cleanse thou me from my secret faults And if by general and implicite repentance why not by general and implicite faith why not by general and implicite obedience So as they do their uttermost indeavours to learn their duties and are ready to conform themselves when they know them God looks upon his creatures with all their prejudices and expects no more of them then according to the talents which he hath given them If I had books for that purpose I might have cited many Lawes and many Authors to prove that the final separation from Rome was made long before the reformation of the Church of England But it is a truth so evident and so undeniable by all these who understand our affaires that I seem to my self to have done overmuch in it already I do expect that it should be urged by some that there was a double separation of the Church of England from Rome The former from the court of Rome The second from the Church of Rome The former in point of discipline The latter in point of Doctrine The former made in the daies of Henry the Eighth The other in the daies of Edward the sixth That if the Protestants were not guilty of the former yet certainly they were guilty of the later To this I give two answers first that the second separation in point of Doctrine doth not concern this question Whether the Church of England be Schismatical but another whether the Church of England be Haereticall or at least Heterodox for every error doth not presently make an haeresy which cannot be determined without discussing the particular differences between the Church of Rome and the Church of England It is an undeniable principle to which both parties do yeeld firm assent that they who made the first separation from the primitive pure Church and brought in corruptions in faith Leiturgy or use of the Sacraments are the guilty party Yea though the separation were not local but onely moral by introducing errours and innovations and making no other secession This is the issue of our controversie If they have innovated first then we are innocent and have done no more then our duties It is not the separation but the cause that makes a Schismatique Secondly I answer that as Roman Catholicks not Protestants were the authors of the Separation of England from the Court of Rome so the Court of Rome it self not Protestants made the Separation of England from the communion of the Church of Rome by their unjust and tyrannical censures excommunications and interdictions which they thundred out against the Realm for denying their spiritual Soveraignty by divine right before any reformation made by Protestants It was not Protestants that left the communion of the Church of Rome but the Court of Rome that thrust all the English Nation both Protestants and Roman Catholicks together out of their doores and chased them away from them when Pope Paul the third excommunicated and interdicted England in the daies of Henry the eighth before ever any reformation was attempted by the Protestants In that condition the Protestants found the Church and Kingdom of England in the daies of Edward the sixth So there was no need of any new separation from the communion of the Church of Rome The Court of Rome had done â—hat to their hands So to conclude my first Proposition Whatsoever some not knowing or not weighing the state of our affaires And the Acts and Records of those times have rashly or ignorantly pronounced to the contrary it is evident that the Protestants had no hand either in the separation of the English Church from the Court of Rome or in their separation from the Church of Rome The former being made by professed Roman Catholicks the later by the Court of Rome it self both before the reformation following in the dayes of Edward the sixth both at a time when the poor Protestants suffered death daily for their conscience upon the six bloody Articles CHAP. IV. That the King and Kingdom of England in the separation from Rome diâ— make no new Law but vindicate their ancient Liberties THe second Conclusion upon examination will prove as evident as the former that Henry the eighth and those Roman Catholicks with him who made the great separation from the Court of Rome did no new thing but what their predecessors in all ages had done before them treading in the steps of their Christian Ancestors And first it cannot be denyed but that any person or Society that hath an eminent reputation of learning or prudence or piety or authority or power hath ever had and ever will have a great influence upon his or their neighbours without any legal Jurisdiction over them or subjection due from them Secondly it is confessed that in the primitive times great was the dignity and authority of the Apostolical Churches as Rome Antiâ—ch Ephesus Hierusalem Alexandria which were founded by the Apostles themselves And that those ancient Christians in all their differences did look upon the Bishops of those Sees as honourable Arbitrators and faithful Depositaries of the genuine Apostolical traditions especially wherein they accorded one with another Hence is that of Tertullian Constat omnem doctrinam quae cum illis Ecclesiis Apostolicis matricibus et originalibus conspi at c. Whatsoever doctrine agrees with those Apostolical original mother Churches is to be reputed true And in this sense and no other Saint Cyprian a great admirer and imitater both of the matter and words of Tertullian whom he honoured with the title of his Master doth call the Church of Rome a Matrix and a root But if the tradition varied as about the observation of Easter between Victor Bishop of Rome and Polycrates Bishop of Ephesâ—s the one prescribing from St. Peter and S. Paul the other from S. Iohn The respective Churches did conform themselves to their Superiours or if they were free as the Britannique Churches were to their own judgment or to the example of their neighbour Churches or kept them to the tradition delivered unto them by their first converters As in this very controversie about Easter and some baptismal rites the Brittish and Scottish Bishops alwaies adhered to the Eastern Church A strong presumption that thence they received the faith and were not subordinate to the Patriarchal See of Rome But yet all this honourable respect proceeded from a free prudential compliance without any perpetual or necessary subjection Afterwards some Churches lost some gained the place and dignity of Apostolical Churches either by custome so Ephesus lost it or by the Canons of the Fathers so Constantinople did get it or lastly by Imperial priviledges so Iustiniana and Carthage obtained it Thirdly it
under pain of Excommunication or suspension or degradation or any spirituall punishment But to affirm that they cannot make Ecclesiasticall constitutions under a civill pain or that they cannot especially with the advise and concurrence of their Clergy assembled in a National Synod reform errours and abuses and remedy incroachments and usurpations and innovations either in faith or discipline and regulate the new Canons or Customes of Intruders and Upstarts by the old Canons of the primitive Fathers is contrary to the sense and practise of all antiquity King Solomon deposed Abiathar from the high Priesthood and put Sadoc in his place Nor want we Presidents of Popes themselves who have been convented before Emperours as Sixtus the third before Valentinian though Platina mince the matter a little too much damnatur Bassus calumniator iniquus annuente Valentiniano c. Leo the third before Charles the great That have been banished by Emperours as Liberius unjustly banished by Constantius and more unjustly restored Sylverius justly banished by Iustinian That have been imprisoned by Soveraign Princes as Pope Iohn the first by Theodoric That have been deposed by them As Iohn the twelfth by Otho the great and Gregory the sixth by Henry the second Henricus secundus in Italiam cum magno exercitu veniens habita Synodo cum Benedictum novum Sylvestrum tertium Gregorium sextum tanquam tria teterrima monstra abdicare se magistratu coegisset c. Henry the second coming into Italy with a great army having convocated a Synod when he had compelled Benedict the Ninth Sylvester the third and Gregory the sixth as three most filthy monsters to quit their government he created Syndeger Bishop of Bamberge afterwards Clement the second Pope Of old when any Schisme did infest the Roman Church as I think no See in the World hath been oftner rent asunder by pretenders to the Papacy the Emperours when they pleased did assume unto themselves the cognisance thereof and determine the succession either by themselves or by their Exarch or Delegates as Honorius between Boniface the first and Eulalius Theodoric the King between Symmachus and Laurentius The Exarch of Ravenna between Sergius the first and Paschalis Otho the third between Iohn the Seventeenth and Gregory the fifth But when these imperiall acts are done in Synods they are more authentique and more conform to Antiquity Thirdly our learned and ingenuous countryman Davenport under the name of Franciscus à Sancta Clara far be it from me to censure Christian charity and moderation for lukewarmnesse or Atheistical neutrality like those whose chief religion consists in crying up a faction I rather wish he had been more universally acquainted with our English Doctrine in his paraphrastical exposition of our English Articles to this question How and whether it be lawful in points of faith to appeal from the Pope and to decline his Iudgment cites the resolution of Gerson in these words following Hoc etiam practicatum est per quoscunque Reges et Principes c. This also hath been practised by all Kings Princes who have withdrawn themselves from the obedience of those whom such or such did Iudge to be Popes which substractions neverthelesse were approved by the sacred Councell of Constance some expressely some implicitly The most Christian King Lewis the twelfth convocated a Nationall Councell of the French Church at Towers wherein sundry Articles were proposed deliberated of and concluded touching these affaires The third Article was that if the Pope should invade another Prince in an hostile manner and excite other Princes to invade his territories whether that Prince might not lawfully withdraw himself from the obedience of such a Pope where observe that though this case alone be specified as being fitted to that present controversy between the King of France and the Pope yet all other cases of the same nature or consequence are included And conclusum est per Concilium principem posse ab obedienâ—ia Papae se subducere ac substrahere non tamen in totum et indistincte sed pro tuitione tantum ac defensione jurium suorum temporalium It was concluded by the Councel that the Prince might withdraw himself from the obedience of the Pope yet not totally nor indistinctly but onely for the defence of his temporal rights The fourth proposition was when such a substraction was lawfully made what the Prince and his subjects more particularly Prelates and other Ecclesiastiques ought to do in such things for which they had formerly no recourse to the Apostolique See And conclusum est per concilium servandum esse jus commune antiquum et pragmaticam Sanctionem regni ex deeretis Sacro-Sancti concilii Basiliensis desumptam It was concluded by the Councell that the ancient common right was to be preserved and the pragmaticall Sanction of the Kingdom taken out of the Decrees of the Sacred Councell of Basil. The eighth proposition was if the Pope proceeding unjustly and by force should pronounce any censures against such a Prince whether they ought to be obeied And conclusum est unanimiter per concilium talem sententiam nullam esse nec de jure vel alio quocunque modo ligare It was concluded unanimously by the Councell that such a Sentence was of no force not binding in law or any other way which opinion or resolution of theirs the above-menâ—tioned Authour saith he ought not to condemne whilest the Church doth tolerate it Behold a principall cause of the separation of the English Church from the Pope the usurpations and incroachments of the Roman Court upon the Politicall rights of the Crown which they would not let go until they were quite shaken off Anthonius de Rosellis a zealous assertour of the Papall authority concludes that the Pope being an heretick or an Apostate though but in secret it is lawful without any sentence or declaration preceding for any of his Subjects that know it Especially for Kings and Princes to depart from him and withdraw themselvs from under his power by that naturall right which they have to defend themselves This may well be doubted of in the case of private persons before sentence by those who believe him to be constituted by Christ the Soveraign Monarch of the Universall Church But in the case of Soveraign Princes with Provincial Councells when Generall Councells cannot be had and much more when General Councells have given their sentence formerly in the case as the Councells of Constance and Basil have done concerning the Papacy And with us who are sufficiently resolved that St. Peter had no preheminence above his fellowes but onely principality of order and the begining of unity And that whatsoever power the Bishop of Rome hath more then any other Bishop it is meerly from the customes of the Catholique Church or from the Canons of the Fathers or from the Edicts of Princes and may be taken away upon sufficient grounds by equall authority to
the time of his health and upon his death-bed for which he was stiled Romanorum malleus The hammer of the Romans whereby he so much irritated the Pope that he would have deposed him and accursed him in his life time if he had not been disswaded by his Cardinals in respect of the learning and holinesse and deserved reputation of the Bishop And after his death would have had his Corps disinterred and buried in a dunghill but that the Bishop appeared to him the night before and gave him or seemed to give him such a shrewd remembrance partly with words and partly with his crosier staffe that the Pope was much terrified and half dead so that he could neither eat nor drink the day following The Pope excommunicated Sewalus the Archbishop of York with Bell Book and Candle But non curavit voluntati papale relicto Iuris rigare muliebriter obedire Quapropter quantâ— magis praecipient Papa maledicebatur tanto plus a populo benedicebatur tacite tamen propter metum Romanorum He cared not to submit womanishly to the Popes will leaving the streight rule of the Law wherefore the more he was accused by the Popes command the more he was blessed of the People but secretly for fear of the Romans In his last sicknesse he summoned the Pope before the Tribunall of the high and incorruptible Judge and called Heaven and Earth to be his witnesses how unjustly the Pope had oppressed him Dixit Dominus Petro c. The Lord said unto St. Peter feed my sheep not clip them not flea them not unbowell them not devoure them They who desire to know what opinion the English had of the greedinesse and extortion of the Court of Rome may find them drawn out to the life by Chaucer in sundry places Such thriving Alchymists were never heard of in our daies nor in the daies of our fore-Fathers that with such ease and dexterity could change an ounce of lead into a pound of gold So they had great reason to say of England that it was a Well that could not be drawn dry And England had as much reason to whip these Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple This complaint is neither new nor particular as we shall see further in due place The second ground of our Ancestors separation of themselves from the Court of Rome were their most unjust usurpations and daily incroachments and intrenchments and extream violations of all sorts of rights civill and Ecclesiastical sacred and prophane They indeavoured to rob the King of the fairest flowers of his Crown As of his right to convocare Synods and to confirm Synods within his own dominions of his Legislative and judiciary power in Ecclesiasticall causes of his Politicall Jurisdiction over Ecclesiastical persons of his Ecclesiasticall Feuds and Investitures of Bishops of his just Patronages of Churches founded by his Ancestors and of the last appeals of his subjects And as if all this had been too little taking advantage of King Iohns troubles they attempted to make the royall Scâ—pter of England Feudotary and tributary to the Crosier staffe of Rome at the annuall rent of a thousand marks Neither is this the case of England alone seeing they make the like pretensions in matter of fact almost to all Europe To say nothing now of that Dominion which some of them have challenged indirectly others directly over Soveraign Princes Nos imperia regna principatus et quicquid habere mortales possunt auâ—erre et dare posse We have power to take away and to give Empires Kingdoms Principalities and whatsoever mortal men can have because I confesse that it is not generally received by the Roman Church Mr. Blackwell made Archpriest of England by Clement the eighth cites Cardinall Allen with much honour to his memorie but much scandalized at his doctrine that none can be admitted King of England without the Popes leave His words are these Without the approbation of the See Apostolique none can be lawfull King or Queen of England by reason of the ancient accord made between Alexander the third the year 1171. and Henry the second then King when he was absolved for the death of St. Thomas of Canterbury That no man might lawfully take that Crown nor be accounted as King till he were confirmed by the Soveraign Pastor of our souls which for the time should be This accord afterwards being renewed about the year 1210. by King Iohn who confirmed the same by oath to Pandulphus the Popes Legate at the speciall request and procurement of the Lords and Commons as a thing most necessary for preservation of the Realm from unjust usurpation of Tyrants and avoiding other inconveniences which they had proved and might easily fall again into by the disorder of some wicked King To which he adds with the like disapprobation a like testimony of Stanislaus Christa novic a Polonian author who infers upon the former ground that the Pope may depose the King of England as being but a tributary King his words are these Illud impie Legislatores per jusjurandum extorquent a Catholicis c. The law-makers do impiously by an oath extort this from Catholicks to deny that the King may be deposed by the Pope and his Kingdomes and Countries by him disposed of For if by an Honourable and pious grant the Kingdome hav become tributary to the Pope why may he not dispose of it Why may he not depose the Prince being refractory and disobedient Thus a bold stranger altogether ignorant of our histories and of our lawes shoots his bolt at all adventures upon the credit of a shamefull fiction but from whom did they learn this lesson even from the Pope himself Bishop Grosthead had been a little bold with the Pope for his extorting courses calling him Antichrist and murtherer of Souls and comparing the Court of Rome to Behemoth that putteth his mouth to the river Jordan thinking to drink it up and stiling the oppression of the English Nation an Aegiptian Bondage He had good reason for the Court of Rome in those daies was grown past shame rubore deposito and consequently past grace The Pope irritated with this usage breaks out into this passionate expression Nonne Rex Anglorum noster est Vasallus et ut plus dicam mancipium Is not the King of England our Vassal or rather our Slave Or rather are these fit guests to be entertained in a Kingdom that make no more of our Soveraign Princes then their Vassals and Slaves who can neither be admitted to the Crown without their leave nor hold it but by their grace This relation of Cardinal Allen brings to my remembrance the question of Neoptolemus to Vlisses when he should have taught him the Art of lying how it was possible for one to tell a lie without blushing The Arch-Priest is much more ingenuous affirming that the assertions touching both the said Kings for matter of fact
indowed being by provisions from Rome frequently conferred upon strangers which could not speak one word of English nor did ever tread upon English ground Insomuch that at one time there were so many Italians beneficed in England that they received more money yearly out of it then all the revenues of the Crown to the high disservice of Almighty God the great scandal of Religion the decay of hospitallity and the utter ruine of the English Church But the least share of their oppressions did not light upon the Bishops who by their dispensations and reservations of cases and of pensions and exemptions and inhibitions and visitations and tenths and first fruits and provisions and subsidiary helps were impoverished and disabled to do the duties of their function They take their aime much amisse who look upon Episcopacy as a branch of Popery or a device of the Bishop of Rome to advance his own greatnesse Whereas the contrary is most certain that the Pope is the greatest Impugner of Bishops and the Papacy it self sprung from the unjust usurpation of their just rights Let it be once admitted that Bishops are by divine right and instantly all his dispensations and reservations and exemptions and Indulgences and his Conclave of Cardinalls and the whole Court of Rome shrink to nothing This was clearly perceived by both parties in the ventilation of that famous question in the Councel of Trent concerning the divine right of Bishops proposed by the Almaines Polonians and Hungarians seconded bravely by the Spaniards prosecuted home by the French owned by the Archbishop of Paris as the doctrine of Sorbone and onely crossed by the Italian faction to preserve the glorie of their own country and the advantages which that nation doth reap from the Papacy By whose frowardnesse and prevarication in all probability the re-union of the Church and the universal peace of this part of Christendom in necessary Truths was hindred at that time I presume the case was not so very ill in forrain parts but yet ill enough Or otherwise St. Bernard would not have made so bold with Eugenius adding that if the daies were not evil he would speak many more things Why do you thrust your sickle into other mens harvest c. He complaines of the confusion of appeals how they were admitted contrary to law and right besides custom and order without any distinction of place or manner or time or cause or person He complaines further of the exemption of Abbats from their Bishops Bishops from their Archbishops Archbishops from their Primates And this he stiles Murmur communem querimoniam Ecclesiarum The murmuring and common complaint of the Churches Lastly they cheated and impoverished the people by their dispensations and commutations and pardons and indulgences and expeditions to recover the holy Land and Jubilees and pilgrimages and agnus Dei's and a thousand pecuniary Artifices So as no sort of men escaped their fingers The third ground of their separation from Rome was because they found by experience that such forreign Jurisdiction so exercised was destructive to the right ends of Ecclesiastical discipline which is in part to preserve publick peace and tranquillity to retein subjects in due obedience and to oblige people to do their duties more conscienciously Farre be it from any Christian to imagine that policy is the Spring-head of Religion There never was yet any one Nation so unpolitick and brutishly barbarous but they had some Religion or other they who obeyed no governors but their parents paid religious duties to some God they who wanted Clothes to their backs wanted not their sacred Ceremonies they who were without municipal Lawes were subject of themselves to the law of conscience But where Religion hath lost its influence and vigour by contempt and much more where the influence of Religion is malignant where Policy and Religion do not support one another but interfere one with another Societies are like Castles builded in the air without any firm foundation and cannot long endure like as that single Meteor Castor appearing without Pollux portends an unfortunate voyage Let us flatter our selves as much as we please said Tully to the Romans we have not overcome the Spaniards in Number nor the Galles in Force nor the Carthaginians in Craft nor the Grecians in Art nor the Italians in Vnderstanding but the advantage which we have gained over them was by Religious piâ—ty So great an influence hath Religion upon the body Politique Wherefore our Ancestors having seen by long and costly experience that the tyrannical Jurisdiction of the Roman Court instead of peace and tranquillity did produce disunion in the Realm factions and animosities between the Crown and the Miter intestine discord between the King and his Barons bad intelligence with Neighbour-Princes and forreign Wars Having seen a stranger solicited by the Pope either to destroy them by War or to subdue them to the obedience of the Roman Court. Having seen their native Country given away as a prey to a forreign Prince Philip of France And the Pope well near seated in the Royal Chair of Estate for him and his successours for ever to the endlesse dishonour of the English name and Nation by the cheating tricks of Pandolphus his Legate having seen English Rebels canonized at Rome and made Saints it was no marvel if they thought it high time to free themselves from such a chargable and dangerous guest Fourthly besides the former bad influence of forreign Jurisdiction upon the body Politique they found sundry other inconveniences that incited them to separate from Rome They must have been daily subject to have had new Creeds and new Articles of faith obtruded upon them They must have been daily exposed to manifold and manifest peril of Idolatry and sinning against God and their own consciences They must have forsaken the Communion of three parts of Christendom which are not Roman to joyn with the fourth They must have approved the Popes apparent rebellion against the supream Ecclesiastical power that is a general Councel And their Bishops must have sworn to maintain him in these his rebellious usurpations whether they should prefer their native and Christian liberty or give them up for nothing whether they should preserve their Communion with the Catholique Church or with the Court of Rome whether they should desert the Pope or involve themselves in Rebellion Schisme Sacriledge and Perjury the choice was soon made Lastly they see that the Popes had disclaimed all that just power which they had by humane right and challenged to themselves a spiritual Monarchy or Sovereignty by divine right whereby their sufferings which in themselves were unsupportable were made also irremediable from thence Wherefore they sought out a fit expedient for themselves being neither ignorant of their old Britannick exemption and liberties of the English Church nor yet of the weaknesse of the Roman pretences Our progenitors knew well enough that their authority extended not to take away
in England for sundry ages following that a Dean and Chapter were able to deal with them not onely to hold them at the swords point but to soile them Lastly King Henry the eighth himself had been long a suiter unto Clement the seventh to have his Predecessor Iulius the seconds dispensation for his marriage with his Brothers wife to be declared void But though the Popes own Doctors Universities had declared the dispensation to be unlawfull and invalide and although the Pope himself had once given forth a Bull privately to his Legate Cardinall Campeius for the revocation thereof wherein he declared the marriage to be null and that the King could not continue in it without sinne yet the King found so little respect either to the condition of his person or to the justice of his cause that after long delayes to try if he could be allured to the Popes will in the conclusion he received a flat deniall This was no great incouragement to him to make any more addresses to Rome So what was threatened and effected in part in the dayes of Henry the third and Edward the third was perfected in the reign of Henry the eighth when the Jurisdiction of the Court of Rome in England was abolished which makes the great distance between them and us Different opinions are often devised or defended on purpose to maintain faction if animosities were extinguished and the mindes of Christians free from prejudice other controversies might quickly be reconciled and reduced to primitive general truths The power Paramount of the Court of Rome hath ever been and still is that insana laurus which causeth brawling and contention not onely between us and them but between them and the Eastâ—rn Churches yea even between them and those of their own communion as we shall see in the next Chapter Yea the originall source true cause of all the Separations reformations made in the Church in these last ages As all the Estates of Castile did not forbear to tell the Pope himself not long since in a printed memoriall and the Kingdom of Portugall likewise To conclude this point These former Kings who reigned in England about the years 1200. and 1300. might properly be called the first Reformers and their Lawes of Proviso's and Prâ—munire's or more properly premoneres the beginning of the Reformation They laid the Foundation and Henry the Eighth builded upon it Now having seen the authority of our Reformers and the justice of their grounds in the last place let us observe their due moderation in the manner of their separation First they did not we do not deny the being of any Church whatsoever Roman or other nor possibility of salvation in them especially such as hold firmly the Apostles Creed and the faith of the four first Generall Councels Though their salvation be rendred much more difficult by humane inventions and obstructions And by this very sign did Saint Cyprian purge himself and the African Bishops from Schisme Neminem judicantes aut à jure communionis aliquem si diversum senserit amoventes Iudging no man removing no man from our communion for difference in opinion We do indeed require subscription to our Articles but it is onely from them who are our own not from strangers nor yet of all our own but onely of those who seek to be initiated into holy orders or are to be admitted to some Ecclesiastical preferment So it is in every mans election whether he will put himself upon a necessity of subscription or not neither are our Articles penned with Anathema's or curses against all those even of our own who do not receive them but used only as an help or rule of unity among our selves Si quis diversum dixerit If any of our own shall speak or preach or write against them we question him But si quis diversum senserit if any man shall onely think otherwise in his private opinion and trouble not the peace of the Church we question him not We presume not to censure others to be out of the pale of the Church but leave them to stand or fall to their own Master We damne none for dissenting from us we do not separate our selves from other Churches unlesse they chase us away with their censures but onely from their errours For clear manifestation whereof observe the thirtieth Canon of our Church It was so far from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy France Spain Germany or any such like Churches in all things which they held and practised c. that it only departed from them in those particular points wherein they were fallen both from themselves in their aâ—cient integrity and from the Apostolical Churches which were their first founders So moderate are we towards all Christians whether forreigners or domesticks whether whole Churches or single persons But because the Roman Catholicks do lay hold upon this charitable assertion of ours as tending mainly to their advantage Behold say they Protestants do acknowledge a possibility of salvation in the Roman Church But Roman Catholicks deny all possibility of Salvation in the Protestant Churches Therefore the Religion of Roman Catholiques is much safer then that of Protestants Hence proceeded their Treatise of charity mistaken and sundry other discourses of that nature wherein there are mistakes enough but little charity For answer If this Objection were true I should love my Religion never the worse Where I find little charity I look for as little faith But it is not true for when the businesse is searched to the bottom they acknowledge the same possibility of salvation to us which we do to them that is to such of either Church respectively as do not erre wilfully but use their best endeavours to find out the truth Take two testimonies of the Bishop of Chalcedon If they that is the Protestants grant not salvation to such Papists as they count vincibly ignorant of Roman errours but onely to such as are invincibly ignorant of them they have no more charity then we for we grant Church saving faith and salvation to such Protestants as are invincibly ignorant of their errours And in his book of the distinction of fundamentals and not fundamentals he hath these words If Protestants allow not saving faith Church and salvation to such as sinfully erre in not fundamentals sufficiently prâ—posed they shew no more charity to erring Christians then Catholicks dâ— for we allow all to have saving faith to be in the Church in way of salvation for so much as belongeth to faith who hold the fundamental points and invincibly erre in not fundamentals because neither are these sufficiently proposed to them nor they in fault that they are not so proposed Secondly as our separation is from their errours not from their Churches so we do it with as much inward charity and moderation of our affections as we can possibly willingly indeed in
or consecration Who so proper to chuse a Bishop as the Chapiter So was that Convent until the Reformation Who so proper to Ordain as the Bishop For neither Derry nor the Isles did ever want a Bishop from their first conversion So referendo singula singulis the words of Bede are plain the Chapiter named and the Bishop Ordained Fourthly they mistake the subjection The Abbat was the Lord of the Manour and so the Bishop was subject to the Abbat in temporalibus But the Abbat was every where subject to the Bishop in spiritualibus who did annually visite both the Abby and the Abbat as by the visitation-rolles and records if these intestine wars have not made an end of them may appear You see upon what conjecturall grounds Criticks many times build new paradoxes which one latent circumstance being known is able to disperse and dissipate with all their probable presumptions If it had not been thus It is no new thing for an Abbat to challenge Episcopal Jurisdiction or to contend with his Bishop about it What is this to meer Presbyters qua tales Lastly they contradict Venerable Bede He saith it was ordine inusitato by an unusuall order They say it was in a manner the common rule of all the English And this they say upon pretence of a decree of the Councel of Hereford that such Bishops as had voluntarily professed Monkery should perform their promised obedience Which is altogether impertinent to their purpose Doth any man doubt whether Bishops might freely of their own accord enter into a religious Order or that they were not as well obliged to perform their vow as others Some Emperours have done the same Yet no man will conclude from thence that Emperours are inferiour to Abbats Such mistakes are all their instances except they light by chance upon an unformed Church before it were well settled As if a man should argue thus There have been no Bishops in Virginia during the Reigns of King Iames and King Charles therefore the Clergy there were Ordained by Presbyters We know the contrary that they had their Ordination in England So had the Clergy in unformed Churches forreign Ordination This is part of that which we have to say for a proper Patriarchate and for our exemption from the Jurisdiction of the Roman Court from which our separation is much wider then from the Roman Church Other differences may make particular breaches but the Roman Court makes the universal Schisme between them and all the rest of the Christian world and hath been much complained of and in part shaken off by some of their own communion I could wish with all my heart that they were as ready to quit their pretended prerogatives which not we alone but all the world except themselves and a great part of themselves privately so condemn as we should be to wave our just priviledges and if need were to sacrifice them to the common peace of Christendome This was a more noble and a more speedy way to a reâ—union then a Pharisaical compassing of Sea and Land to make particular Proselytes of all those whom either a natural levity or want of judgment or discontent or despair to see the Church of England re-established or extream poverty and expectation of some supply have prepared for their baits whom they do not court more untill they have gained them then they neglect after they think they have them sure as daily experience doth teach 〈◊〉 CHAP. X. Th Conclusion of this Treatise THis is the Treatise of Schisme intimated in my answer to Monsiâ—ur de la militiere but not promised by me who know nothing of the impression nor should have judged it proper to give an English answer to a French Author Howsoever being published I own it except the errors of the Presse Among which I desire the Christian Reader to take notice especially of one because it perverts the sense It is noted in the margent They who have composed minds free from distracting cares and meanes to maintain them and friends to assist them and their books and notes by them do little imagine with what difficulties poor Exiles struggle whose minds are more intent on what they should eat to morrow then what they should write being chased as Vagabonds into the mercilesse world to beg relief of strangers An hard condition that when the meanest creatures are secured from that fear of wanting necessary sustenance by the bounty of God and nature that onely men the best of creatures should be subjected to itâ— by undeserved cruelty Peruse all the Histories of the latest wars among Dutch French Swedes Danes Spaniards Poles Tartars and Turks and you shall not meet with the like hard measure Did the King of Spain conqner a Town from the Hollanders He acquired a new Dominion but the property of private men continued the same Did the Hollanders take in a Town from the Spaniard they made provision for the very Cloisterers during their lives So did our Henry the eighth also at the dissolution of the Abbies Violent things last not long Or if Exiles can subsist without begging yet they are necessitated to do or suffer things otherwise not so agreeable to them Wherein they deserve the pity of all good men When Alexander had conquered Darius and found many Grecians in his Army he commanded to detain the Athenians prisoners because having meanes to live at Rome they chose rather to serve a Barâ—arian And the Thessalians because they had a fruitfull Countrey of their own to till But said he suffer the Theâ—ans to go free for we have left them neither a City to live in nor fields to till This is our condition When the free exereise of the Roman Religion was prohibited in Eâ—gland and they wanted Seminaries at home for the education of their youth and means of Ordination Yet by the bounty of forreign Princes and much more by the free contribution of our own Countrey-men of that communion they had Colledges founded abroad for their subsistance So careful were they to propagate and perpetuate their Religion in their native Countrey The last age before these unhappy troâ—bles was as fruitful in works of piety and charity done by Protestants as any one preceding age sinâ—e the conversion of Britaignâ— And although we cannot hope for that forreign assistance which they found yet might we have expected a larger supply from home by as much as our professours are much more numerous then theirs were Hath the sword devoured up all the charitable Obadiahs in our Land Or is there no man that layes the affliction of Ioseph to heart Yet God that maintained his people in the Wildernesse without the ordinary supply of food or rayment will not desert us untill he turn our captivity as the rivers in the South Where humane help faileth Divine begins But to draw to a conclusion We have seen in this short Treatlse how the Court of Rome hath been the cause of all the differences
and broiles between the Emperours with other Christian Princes and States and the Popes We have seen that from the excesses abuses innovations and extortions of that Court have sprung all the Schismes of the Eastern and Western Church and of the Occidentall Church within it self We have heard the confession of Pope Adrian that for some yeares by-past many things to be abominated had been in that holy See abuses in spiritual matters excesses in commands and all things out of order We have heard his promise to endeavour the Reformation of his own Court from whence peâ—adventure all the evil did spring that as corruption did flow from thence to the inferiour parts so might health and Reformation To which he accounted himself so much more obliged by how much he did see the whole world greedily desire a Reformation We have viewed the representation which nine selected Cardinals and Prelates did make upon their oathes to Paul the third That this lying flattering priâ—ciple that the Pope is the Lord of all benefices and therefore could not be Simoâ—iacall was the fountain from whence as from the Trojan horse so many abuses and so griâ—vou diseases had 〈…〉 into the Church and brought it to a desperate condition to the dâ—rision of Christian Religion and blaspâ—eming of the Name of Christ and that the cure must begin there from whencâ— the disease did spâ—ing We may remember the memorial of the King of Spain and the whole Kingdome of Castile That the abuses of the Court of Româ— gave occasion to all the Reformations and Schismeâ— of the Church And the complaint of the King and Kingdom of Portugal That for these reasons many Kingdomes had withdrawn their obedience and reverential respect from tâ—e Church of Rome These were no Protestants The first step to health is to know the true cause of our disease It hath been long debated whether the Protestant and Roman Churches be reconciliable or not Far be it from me to make my self a Judge of that Controversie Thus much I have observed that they who understand the sewest controversies make the most and the greatest If questions were truly stated by moderate persons both the number and the height would be much abated Many differences are grounded upon mistakes of one anothers sense Many are meer logomachies or contentions about words Many are meerly Scholastical above the capacity and apprehension of ordinary brains And many doubtlesse are real both in credendis and agendis both in doctrine and discipline But whether the distance be so great or how far any of these are necessary to salvation or do intrench upon the fundamentals of Religion requires a serious judicious and impartial consideration There is great difference between the reconciliation of the persons and the reconciliation of the opinions Men may vary in their judgments And yet preserve Christian unity and charity in their affections one towards another so as the errours be not destructive to fundamental Articles I determine nothing but onely crave leave to propose a question to all moderate Christians who love the peace of the Church and long for the re-union thereof In the first place if the Bishop of Rome were reduced from his universality of Sovereign Jurisdiction jure Divino to his principium unitatis and his Court regulated by the Canons of the Fathers which was the sense of the Councels of Constance and Basile and is desired by many Roman Catholicks as well as we Secondly if the Creed or necessary points of faith were reduced to what they were in the time of the four first Oecumenical Councels according to the decree of the third General Councel Conc. Eph Part. 2. Act. 6. c. 7. Who dare say that the faith of the primitive Fathers was insufficient Admitting no additional Articles bur onely necessary explications And those to be made by the authority of a General Councel or one so general as can be convocated And lastly supposing that some things from whence offences either given or taken which whether right or wrong do not weigh half so much as the unity of Christians were put out of divine offices which would not â—e refused if animosities were taken away and charity restored I say in case these three things were accorded which seem very reâ—sonable demands whether Christians might not live in an holy communion and joyn in the same publick worship of God free from all Schismatical separation of themselves one from another notwithstanding diversities of opinions which prevail even among the members of the same particular Chrches both with them and us FINIS Nothing more probably objected to the Church of England then Schisme But nothing more unjustly The method observed in this Discourse Every passionate heat not Schisme Acts 15. 〈◊〉 39. Ecclesiastical quarrels of long continuance not alwaies Schisme Hen Holden Append. de Schis Act. 1. pag 484. Infidelity unmasked Sect. 176. pag. 591. Idem pag. 516. The Separaters may be free from Schisme and the other party guilty Act. 19. 9. 1 Tim. 6. 5. Infid unmasked Ch. 7. Sect. 112. pag. 534. To withdraw obedience is not alwaies criminous Schisme Idem pag. 481. Theod. l. 4. c. 14. Cyril ep 18. ad Coelestinum Tâ—m 1. Conc. lib. Rom. Pâ—â—t in Anast. Libel ad mancit apud Bar. to 8. an 590. nu 39. 8. Syn. c. 10. What is single Schisme 1 Cor. 1. 10. 1 Cor. 3. 3 Wherein internal Communion doth consist Wherein External Communion doth consist External Communion may be suspended And withdrawn There is not the like necessity of communicating in all Externals Christian Communion â—mplies not unity in all opinions Reg. mor. tit pâ—aec decal lib. de A. P. Cons. 14. â—e unit eccl cons. 10. Lib. 2. de Rom. pont c. 29. Bar tom 10. an 878. Append. de Schismat Art 4. p. 516. The soâ—â—â— of Schisme What the Catholick Church signifies Collat. Carth. Col. 3. Each member of the Catholick Church is Catholick inclusively Schisme is changeable And for the most part complicated with heretical pravity Four waies to become heretical Who are Catholiques Aug. l. 2. cont casâ— Who are Schismaâ—cks What is understood by the Church of England Roman Catholicks first authors of the separation from Rome Act. and Mon p. 965. Râ—gist epist. Vni Oxon. ep 210. Sac. Syn. an 1530. et an 1532. 24 Hen. 8. c. 12. Romanists first gave the King the title of Head of the Church Resp. ad quaest 74. Râ—sp ad qu. 75. Conc. Mil. 2. Henry the 8th no friend to the Protestants Hist. Conc. Trid. 23. H. 8. 24. H. 8. 25. H. 8. 26. H. 8. 28. H. 8. The Authors opâ—nion of Monasteries Supplication of beggars Henry the 8th no friend to Protestants 31. Hen. 8. Much lesse those who joyned with him in the separation from Rome Act. Mon. an 1510. Conc. Tonst et Longlands Hist. aliquot mart et edit an 1550. Apol. sac Reg. pro jur fidel p. 125. England unanimous in casting out the Pope de verâ—â— obed Câ—ted
A IVST VINDICATION OF THE Church of England FROM The unjust Aspersion of Criminal SCHISME WHEREIN The nature of Criminal Schisme the divers sorts of Schismaticks the liberties and priviledges of National Churches the rights of Sovereign Magistrates the tyranny extortion and Schisme of the Roman Court with the grievances Complaints and opposition of all Princes and States of the Roman Communion of old and at this very day are manifested to the view of the World By the Right Reverend Father in God Iohn Bramhall Dr. in Divinity and Lord Bishop of Derry Pacian in ep ad Sempron My name is Christian my sirname is Catholique By the one I am known from Infidels by the other from Hereticks and Schismaticks LONDON Printed for Iohn Crook at the sign of the Ship in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1654 THE Contents of the particular CHAPTERS CHAP. I. THe Scope and summe of this Treatise Pag. 1. CHAP. II. The stating of the question what is Schisme who are Schismaticks and what is signified by the Church of England in this question p. 6. CHAP. III. That the Separation from the Court of Rome was not made by Protestants but Roman Catholicks themselves p. 31 CHAP. IV. That the King and Kingdome of England in their Separation from Rome did make no new Law but vindicate the ancient Law of the Land pag. 54. CHAP. V. That the Britannick Churches were ever Exempted from all forreign Iurisdiction And so ought to continue pag. 87 CHAP. VI. That the King and Church of England hâ—d both sufficient authority and sufficient grounds to withdraw their obedience from Rome p. 1â—6 CHAP. VII That all Kingdomes and Republicks of the Roman Communion Germany France Spain Portugal Sicilly Brabant Venice do the same thing in effect when they have occasion p. 160 CHAP. VIII That the Pope and Court of Rome are many waies guilty of Schisme and the true cause of the Dissensions of Christendome Pag. 229 CHAP. IX An Answer to the Objections of the Romanists p. 245 CHAP. X. The Conclusion of the Treatise p. 275. Courteous Reader BY reason of the Authour's Absence and difficulty of the written Copy severall Errata's have past the Presse which you are desired to amend and among the rest these following Page 7. in Margine Act. leg Art p. 13. line 17. Lyne leg kind p. 13. in marg Manrit leg Maurit p. 14 l 1 Schimse leg Schisme p. 15 l. 15 Creed leg Creeds p. 18 l. ult legemachies leg logomachies p. 21 l. 8. qui leg quis p. 22 l. 4. teach for touch p. 35 l. 8. these for those p. 39. l. 31. dele little p. 42 in margine modo for nodâ— p. 65 in margine 78 for 787 p. 67 Hesâ—is for Hosius in marg p. 74 l. 1 sepultura for sepulchra p. 79 l. 4 Asseâ—tie for Asserio p. 85 l. 30 the for his Legates p. 102 l. 25 as for or p. 113 in marg lais for Caiet p. 119 l. 2 novum for nonum p. 121 l. 11 no for had p. 140 for 138 p. 141 for 139 p. 144 for 142 p. 145 for 143 p. 914 for 149 p. 129 l. 23 chink for klink and l. 25 despensations for dispensations p. 130 l. 10 Simoniae for Simonia and l. 20 21 aliam and nummam for alium and nummum p. 131 l. 1 conscivit for consuevit p. 132 l. 16 singulta for singultu and lin 20 speculiem for speculum p. 133 l. 28 papale for papali l. 29 rigarâ— for rigore line 30 praecipient for praecipiente p. 138 l. 6. for then the oath read then that the oath p. 142 l. 5 sweare for sware And in the margent Hoops for Harps p. 153 l. 15 provisos for provisors And in the marg theops for the copy p. 164 l. 10 deest not p. 165 l. 30 thar for that p. 186 l 32 which leg wherewith p. 199 l. 14 Redimendum leg Redimendam p. 214 l. 4 leg Placaert l. 27 but for but p. 217 in marg Imprss. leg Impress A JUST VINDICATION OF THE Church of England CHAP. I. The Scope and summe of this Treatise 1. NOthing hath been hitherto or can hereafter be objected to the Church of England which to strangers unacquainted with the state of our affaires or to such of our Natives as have onely looked upon the case superficially hath more Colour of truth at first sight then that of Schisme that we have withdrawn our obedience from the Vicar of Christ or at least from our lawful Patriarch and separated our selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church A grievous accusation I confesse if it were true for we acknowledge that there is no salvation to be expected ordinarily without the pale of the Church 2. But when all things are Judiciously weighed in the Ballance of right reason when it shall appear that we never had any such forrein Patriarch for the first six hundred years and upwards And that it was a grosse Violation of the Canons of the Catholick Church to attempt after that time to obtrude any forrein Jurisdiction upon us That before the Bishops of Rome ever exercised any Jurisdiction in Brittain they had quitted their lawful Patriarchate wherewith they were invested by the authority of the Church for an unlawful Monarchy pretended to belong unto them by the institution of Christ That whatsoever the Popes of Rome gained upon us in after-ages without our own free consent was meer tyranny and usurpation That our Kings with their Synods and Parliaments had power to revoke retract and abrogate whatsoever they found by experience to become burthensome and insupportable to their Subjects That they did use in all ages with the consent of the Church and Kingdom of England to limit and restrain the Exercise of Papal power and to provide remedies against the daily incroachments of the Roman Court so a Henry the Eighth at the reformation of the English Church did but tread in the steps of his most renowned Ancestours who flourished whilest Popery was in its Zenith And pursued but that way which they had chalked out unto him a way warranted by the practise of the most Christian Emperours of old and frequented at this day by the greatest or rather by all the Princes of the Roman Communion so often as they find occasion When it shall be made evident that the Bishops of Rome never injoyed any quiet or settled possession of that power which was after deservedly cast out of England so as to beget a lawful prescription And lastly that we have not at all separated our selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church nor of any part thereof Roman or other qua tales as they are such but only in their innovations wherein they have separated themselves first from their Common Mother and from the fellowship of their own Sisters I say when all this shall be cleared and the Schisme is brought home and laid at the right door then we may safely conclude that by how much we should turn more Roman
then we are whilest things continue in the same condition by so much we should render our selves lesse Catholique and plunge our selves deeper into Schisme whilest we seek to avoid it 3. For the clearer and fuller discussion and demonstration whereof I shall observe this method in the Ensuing discourse First to state the question and shew what is Schisme in the abstract who are Schismatiques in the Concrete and what we understand by the Church of England in this question Secondly I will lay down six grounds or propositions every one of which singly is sufficient to wipe away the stain and guilt of Schisme from the Church of England how much more when they are all joyned together My six grounds or Propositions are these First that Protestants were not the authors of the late great separation from Rome but Roman Catholicks themselves such as in all other points were chief Advocates and Pillars of the Roman Church and so many that the names of all the known dissenters might be written in a little ring Secondly that in abandoning the Court of Rome they did not make any new Law but onely declare and restore the old Law of the Land to its former Vigour And vindicate that liberty left them as an inheritance by their Ancestours from the incroachments and usurpations of the Court of Rome Thirdly that the ancient Brittish and Scottish or Irish Churches were evermore exempted from the Patriarchal Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishops untill Rome thirsting after an universal unlawful Monarchy quitted their lawful Ecclesiastical power And so ought to continue free and exempted from all forrein Jurisdiction of any pretended Patriarch for evermore according to the famous Canon of the General Councel of Ephesus which Gâ—egory the Great reverenced as one of the four Gospels Fourthly that though the Authors of that Separation had not themselves been Roman Catholicks and though the Acts or Statutes made for that end had not been meerly declarative but also operative And although Brittain had not been from the beginning both de jure and de facto exempted from Roman Jurisdiction yet the King and Church of England had both sufficient authority and sufficient grounds to withdraw their obedience as they did Fifthly that all the Soveraign Princes and Republicks in Europe of the Roman Communion whensoever they have occasion to reduce the Pope to reason do either practise or plead for the same right or both Sixthly that the Papacy it self qua tâ—lis as it is now maintained by many with universality of Jurisdiction or rather sole Jurisdiction Iure divino with superiority above General Councels with infallibility of Judgment and temporal power over Princes is become by its rigid censures and new Creeds and Exorbitant decrees in a great part actually and altogether causally guilty both of this and all the greater Schismes in Christendome 3. Lastly I will give a satisfactory answer to those objections which those of the Roman Communion do bring against us to prove us Schismaticks CHAP. 2. The stating of the question what is Schisme who are Schismaticks and what is signified by the Church of England in this question EVery suddain passionate heat or misunderstanding or shaking of Charity amongst Christians though it were even between the principal Pastors of the Church is not presently Schisme As that between Saint Paul and Barnabas in the Acts of the Apostles who dare say that either of them were Schismaticks or that between Saint Hierome and Ruffinus who charged one another mutually with Heresie Or that between Saint Chrysostome and Epiphanius who refused to Joyn in prayers Saint Chrysostome wishing that Epiphanius might never return home alive And Epiphanius wishing that Saint Chrysostome might not dye a Bishop both which things by the just disposition of Almighty God fell out according to the passionate and uncharitable desires of these holy persons who had Christian Charity still radicated in their hearts though the violent torrent of sudden passion did for the time bear down all other respects before it These were but personal heats which reflected not upon the publick body of the Church to which they were all Ever ready to submit and in which none of them did ever attempt to make a party by gathering disciples to himself such a passionate heat is aptly stiled by the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a paroxisme or a sharp fit of a feverish distemper which a little time without any other application will infallibly remedy Secondly every premeditated clashing of Bishops or Churches about points of doctrine or discipline long and resolutely maintained is not presently criminous Schisme so long as they forbear to censure and condemn one another and to expel one another from their Communion and are ready to submit to the determinations of a general Councel Such were the contentions of the Roman and African Bishops about rebaptization and appeals It were hard to say that those two blessed Saints Cyprian and Austine and all those pious Prelates who joyned with them lived and dyed Schismaticks With this general truth agrees that of Doctor Holden fully that when there is a mutual division of two parts or members of the mystical body of the Church one from the other yet both retein Communion with the Vniversal Church which for the most part springs from some doubtful opinion or lesse necessary part of divine worship quamcunque partem amplexus fueris Schismaticus non audies quippe quod universa ecclesia neutram damnarit whatsoever part one take he is no Schismatick because the universal Church hath condemned neither part Whether he hold himself to this principle or desert it it is not my purpose here to discusse But this is much sounder doctrine then that of Mr. Knott that the parts of the Church cannot be divided one from another except they be divided from the whole because these things which are united to one third are united also between themselves Which errour he would seem to have sucked from Doctor Potter whom he either would not or at least did not understand That whosoever professeth himself to forsake the Communion of any one member of the body of Christ must confesse himself consequently to forsake the whole Of which he makes this use That Protestants forsake the Communion of the Church of Rome And yet do confesse it to be a member of the body of Christ therefore they forsake the Communion of the whole Church The answer is easie that whosoever doth separate himself from any part of the Catholique Church as it is a part of the Catholick Church doth separate himself from every part of the Catholick Church and consequently from the Universal Church which hath no existence but in its parts But if one part of the Universal Church do separate it self from another part not absolutely or in Essentials but respectively in abuses and innovations not as it is a part of the Universal Church but only so far as it is
diminution Schisme for the most part is changeable and varies its Symptomes as the Chamaelion colours As it was said of the Schisme of the Donatists that the passion of a disordered woman brought it forth Ambition nourished it and covetousnesse confirmed it And therefore it is as hard a task to shape a coat for Schismaticks as for the Moon which changeth its shape every day The reason is because having once deserted the Catholick communion they find no beaten path to walk in but are like men running down a steep hill that cannot stay themselves or like sick persons that tosse and turn themselves continually from one side of their bed to the other searching for that repose which they do not find Hence it comes to passe that Schisme is very rarely found for any long space of time without some mixture of heretical pravity it being the use of Schismaticks to broach some new doctrine for the better justification of their separation from the Church Heretical errours in point of faith do easily produce a Schisme and Separation of Christians one from another in the use of the Sacraments and in the publick service of God As the Arrian heresie produced a different doxology in the Church The Orthodox Christian saying Gloâ—â— be to the Father and to the Son and to the holy Ghost And the heretical Arrian Glory be to the Father by the Son in the Spirit So of later times the opinions of the lawfulnesse of detaining the cup from the Laity and of the necessity of adoring the Sacrament have by consequence excluded the Protestants from the participation of the Eucharist in the Roman Church Thus Heresie doth naturally destroy unity and uniformity That is one Symptome of Schisme But it destroyes order also and the due subordination of a flock to their lawful Pastour nothing being more common with hereticks then to contemne their old guides and to choose to themselves new teachers of their own factions and so erect an altar against an altar in the Church That is another principal branch of Schisme So a different faith commonly produceth a different discipline and different formes of worship A man may render himself guilty of heretical pravity four wayes First by disbelieving any fundamental article of faith or necessary part of saving truth in that sense in which it was evermore received and believed by the universal Church Secondly by believing any superstitious errours or additions which do virtually by necessary and evident consequence subvert the faith and overthrow a fundamental truth Thirdly by maintaining lesser errours obstinately after sufficient conviction But because that consequence which seems clear and necessary to one man may seem weak and obscure to another And because we cannot penetrate into the hearts of men to judg whether they be obstinate or do implicitely and in the preparation of their minds believe the truth it is good to be sparing and reserved in censuring hereticks for obstinacy Fourthly by maintaining lesser errours with frowardnesse and opposition to lawfull determinations Though it be not in the power of any Councel or of all the Councels in the world to make that truth fundamental which was not fundamental or to make that proposition heretical in it self which was not heretical ever from the daies of the Apostles Or to increase the necessary Articles of the Christian faith either in number or substance yet when inferiour question 's not fundamental are once defined by a lawful general Councel All Christians though they cannot assent in their judgments are obliged to passive obedience to possesse their soules in patience And they who shall oppose the authority and disturb the peace of the Church deserve to be punished as hereticks To summe up all that hath been said Whosoever doth preserve his obedience intire to the universal Church and its representative a General Councel and to all his Superiours in their due order so far as by Law he is obliged who holds an internal communion with all Christians and an external communion so far as he can with a good conscience who approves no reformation but that which is made by lawfull authority upon sufficient grounds with due moderation who derives his christianity by the uninterrupted line of Apostolical Succession who contents himself with his proper place in the Ecclesiastical body who disbelieves nothing contained in holy Scripture and if he hold any errours unwittingly and unwillingly doth implicitely renounce them by his fuller and more firm adherence to that infallible rule who believeth and practiseth all those credenda and agenda which the universal Church spread over the face of the earth doth unanimously believe and practise as necessary to salvation without condemning or censuring others of different Judgement from himself in inferiour questions without obtruding his own opinions upon others as Articles of faith who is implicitely prepared to believe and do all other speculative and practical truths when they shall be revealed to him And in summe qui sententiam diversae opinionis vinculo non praeponit unitâ—â—tis that prefers not a subtlety or an imaginary truth before the bond of peace He may securely say My name is Christian my sirname is Catholique From hence it appeareth plainly by the rule of contraries who are Schismatiques whosoever doth uncharitably make ruptures in the mystical body of Christ or sets up altar against altar in his Church or withdrawes his obedience from the Catholique Church or its representative a General Councel or from any lawful Superiours without just grounds whosoever doth limit the Catholique Church unto his own sect excluding all the rest of the Christian world by new doctrines or erroneous censures or tyrannical impositions whosoever holds not internall Communion with all Christians and externall also so far as they continue in a Catholique constitution whosoever not contenting himself with his due place in the Church doth attempt to usurp an higher place to the disorder and disturbance of the whole body whosoever takes upon him to reform without just authority and good grounds And lastly whosoever doth wilfully break the line of Apostolical Succession which is theâ—very nerves and sinewes of Ecclesiastical unity and communion both with the present Church and with the Catholique Symbolical Church of all successive ages He is a Schismatick qua talis whether he be guilty of heretical pravity or not Now having seen who are Schismaticks for clearing the state of the Question Whether the Church of England be Schismatical or not it remaineth to shew in a word what we understand by the Church of England First we understand not the English Nation alone but the English Dominion including the Brittish and Scottish or Irish Christians for Ireland was the right Scotia major and that which is now called Scotland was then inhabited by Brittish and Irish under the names of Picts and Scots Secondly though I make not the least doubt in the world but that the Church of England before
resolutely oppose so many Sentences and Messages from Rome and condemn him twice whom the Pope had absolved Consider that Wilfride was an Arch-Bishop not an inferiour Clerk And if an appeal from England to Rome had been proper or lawful in any case it had been so in his case But it was otherwise determined by those who were most concerned Malmesbury supposeth either by inspiration or upon his own head that the King and the â— Arch-Bishop Theodore were smitten with remorse before their deaths for the injury done to Wilfride and the slighting of the Popes Sentence Letter and Legates But the contrary is moâ—â— apparently true for first it was not King Alfrede alone but the great Councel of the Kingdom also nor Theodore alone but the main body of the Clergy that opposed the Popes Letter and the restitution of Wilfride in that manner as it was decreed at Rome Secondly after Alfrede and Theodoret were both dead we find the Popes sentence and Wilfrides restitution still opposed by the surviving Bishops in the Raign of Alfredes son To clear the matter past contradiction let us consider the ground of this long and bitter contention Wilfride the Archbishop was become a great pluralist and had ingrossed into his hands too many Ecclesiastical dignities The King and the Church of England thought fit to deprive him of some of them and to confer them upon others Wilfride appealed from their sentence unto Rome The Pope gave sentence after sentence in favour of Wilfride But for all his sentences he was not he could not be restored untill he had quitted two of his Monasteries which were in question Hongesthill deane and Ripon which of all others he loved most dearly and where he was afterwards interred This was not a conquest but a plain waving of his sentences from Rome and a yeelding of the question for those had been the chief causes of the controversie So the King and the Church after Alfredes death still made good his conclusion That it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councel of the English should be restored upon the Popes Bull. And as he did not so neither did they give any assent to the Popes Legation So unfortunate were appeales to Rome in those daies And as unfrequent as unfortunate for from that time untill Anselmes daies after the Norman Conquest in the Raign of Henry the first we do hardly meet with another appeal Then Pope Paschalis the second had devised a new Oath for Arch-Bishops when they received their Pall An oath much wondered at in all places as a strange innovation Significasti reges Regni majâ—res admiratione permotos c. You signified unto me that Kings and Nobles were moved with admiration that the Pâ—ll was offered unto you by our Ministers upon condition that you should take an oath which they brought you written from us c. This oath was that which animated Anselme to contest so hotly with the King The main controversie was about this very question of Appeales to Rome The King pleaded the fundamental Lawes and Customes of the Land consuetudo Regni mâ—i est à Patrâ— meo instituta ut nullius praeter licentiam Regis appelletur Papa Qui consuetudines regni tollit potestatem quoque coronam Regis violat c. It is a custome of my Kingdome instituted by my Father that no Pope may be appealed unto without â—the Kings License He that takes away the Customes of the Kingdome doth violence to the power and Crown of the King It is to be noted that the Lawes established by his Father that was William the Conquerour were no other then the Lawes of Edward the Confessor that is to say the old Saxon Lawes So he might justly say both that it was an ancient immemorial custome of the Kingdom and also that it was instituted or established by his Father So Hoveden tells us that at last he yeelded to the request of his Barons c. that was by his authority to confirm the Lawes of King Edward But the best was that though Anselme the Archbishop was obliged by oath to the Pope yet the Bishops were not so soon brought into the same bondage And therefore the former Authour tells us that In his exequendis omnes Episcopi Angliae Primati suo suffragium negarunt In the execution of these things all the Bishops of England did deny their suffrage to their Primate So unanimous were they in this point Which unanimity of the whole Realm both Clergy and Laity doth appear yet more evidently by the Statute of Clarendon made in the Raign of the grand-child of this King when all the Prelates and Peeres of the Realm did confirm the former ancient Brittish English custome not onely by their consents but by their oathes whereof we shall have occasion to speak more hereafter And upon this custome was that Law grounded which our Histories do make mention of Si quis inventus fuerit literas vel mandatum ferens Domini Papae c. capiatur et de eo sicut de Regis traditore regni sine dilatione fiat justitia If any one be found bringing in the Popes Letter or Mandate let him be apprehended and let justice passe upon him without delay as a traitor to the King and Kingdom And generally every man is interdicted or forbidden to appâ—al to the Pope And the Legations from Rome were almost as rare as appeals to Rome during the raigns of all the Brittish and Saxon Kings untill the Norman conquest As Gregory Bishop of Ostium the Popes own Legate did confess That he was the first Roman Priest that was sâ—nâ— into those parts of Bâ—iâ—tain from the time of S. Austin And those Legates were no others then ordinary messengers or Embassadors sent from one Neighbour to another Such a thing as a Legantine Court or a Nuncios Court was not known in the Brittish world in those ages and long after It is not enough to shew that one Roman Bishop did once send over one or two Doctors to help to propagate or confirm the faith or to lend their helping hands to Religion fainting This may well set forth their devotion and our obligation But further as to the present question it signifies just nothing Favours cease to be favours when they are done on purpose to deprive men of their ancient liberties The Brittish Bishops and English also have done as much for other Nations over whom they did never challenge any Jurisdiction The French Church sent over Germanus Lupus to help to root up the relicks of Pelagianisme in Brittain yet did never pretend thereby to any authority over the Brittaines Add to this that during all the time from St. Gregory to the conquest it was usual for the Brittish Saxon and Danish Kings with their Clergy or great Councel to make Ecclesiastical lawes and to regulate the external discipline of the Church within their
by the favour of the country carried the cause So as the Pope was forced to Recall him to Lincolne Having mentioned the statutes of Mortmain I cannot but do my native country and the Church of England that right to clear it from an heavy accusaâ—ion framed against it upon mistaken grounds That the English protestants had made a Law to maintain and patronize Sacriledge that no man how penitent soever could restore any thing to the Church which had been formerly taken from it God forbid First the statutes of Mortmain were not made by Protestants but in the daies of Henry the third Edward the first and Richard the second between the last of which and Henry the eighth there raigned six Kings successively That is one great mistake Secondly the Statutes of Mortmain did not at all concern the restitution of any thing that had been taken away There was no use for that in those daies The onely scope of those Lawes was to restrain the first donation of Lands to the Church without royal assent That is another mistake Thirdly these very Lawes of Mortmain are not so incredible nor so hard to be believed nor so altogether destitute of presidents and examples as that authour doth imagine so as posterity should scarcely believe that ever any such Law had been made He might have remembred the Proclamation of Moses when the people had already offered abundantly for the adorning of the Sanctuary Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the Sanctuary So the people were restrained from bringing He might have called to mind a like law of Theodosius a godly Emperour and propitious to the Church to moderate the peoples bounty and the Clergies covetousness Which Law Saint Ambrose and Saint Hierome do so much complain of not against the Emperour who made the Law but against the Clergy who deserved to have such a Law made against them He might have found the like Law made by Nicephorus Phocas and afterwards revived by Emanuel Comenus He might have remembred that the troubles between the Pope and the Venetians did spring partly from such a Law Briefly with a little search he might have found like Lawes in Germany Poland France Spain Italy Sicily And if he will trust Padre Paâ—lo in the Papacy it self The Prince cannot wrong his Subject that is an owner or possessour of Lands or haereditaments in a well ordered State Then why should it be in the power of a Subject that is an owner to wrong his Prince and his Country But by such alienations of Lands to the Church in an excessive and unproportionable measure the Prince loseth his right that is both his tribute and his military service and fines upon change of Tenants The Common-Wealth loseth its supportation and due protection Therefore they were called the Lawes of Mortmain because Lands so aliâ—nated to the Church were put into a dead hand from whence they never returned And so in time the whole Signioury should be the Churches as it is elegantly expressed by the Venetian Oratour to Paul the fifth Nè fortunis omnibus exuantur ne quicquid sub coelo Veneto homines arant ferunt aedificant omnia veluti quodam oceano Ecclesiae absorbeantur â—ihilque sibi reliqui fiat unde Rempublicam patriam tecta templa aras focos sepultura majorum defendere possint Lest the Citizens should be turned out of their estates lest all which men plow sow build under the Vâ—netian heaven should be swallowed up into the Ocean of the Church And nothing be left where with to defend the Common-Wealth their Country their houses their temples their altars their fires and the sepulchers of their Ancestors To prevent this great inconvenience the Lawes of Mortmain were devised prudently to ballance the spiritualty and the temporalty that the one do not swallow up the other to which all wise Legislators have ever had ought to have a special regard In France no man can build a new Church without the Kings License verified in Parliament A new Monastery builded in Genua without License is to be confiscated In Spain without License Royal no new Religions can enter into the Kingdome The Fathers of Saint Francis de Paula began to build a Church in Madrid upon their own heads but they were stopped So aequitable so necessary hath this Law of Mortmain been thought to all Nations But to leave this digression and to come up closer to the direct point without any consequences In the Reign of King Henry the second some controversies being likely to arise between the Crown and Thomas Bâ—cket Archbishop of Canterbury The King called a general Assembly of his Archbishops Bishops Abbats Priors and Peers of the Realm at Clarendon where there was made an acknowledgment or memorial cujusdam partis consuetudinum libertatum Antecessorum suorum Regis videlicet Henrici avi sui aliorum quaeobservari debebant in Regno ab omnibus teneri of a certain part of the Customes and Liberties of his predecessors that is to say his Grand-father Henry the first son of the Conquerour and other Kings A parte but ex ungue Leonem from the view of this part we may conclude of what nature the rest were of the customes The customes of England are the Common Law of the Land of his predecessors that is to say the Saxon Danish and Norman Kings successively And therefore no marveil if they ought to be observed of all This part of their ancient customes or liberties they reduced into sixteen Chapters or Articles To which all the Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks with all the Peeres and Nobles of the Realm did not onely give their acknowledgment and consent but also their oathes for the due observation of them It would be tedious and impertinent to relate them all I will onely cull out some of them One was that all appeales in England must proceed regularly from the Arch-Deacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and if the Archbishop failed to do justice the last complaint must be to the King to give order for redresse that is by fit Delegates But there might be no further or other Appeales without the consent of the King whereby the Nunciatureâ— and Legantine Court and the Court of Rome it self are all at the Kings mercy Wherein did the Popes great strength lie in those dayes when his hands were fast tied both at home and abroad Another Custome was that no Ecclesiasticall person might depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings License no not though he were summoned by the Bishop of Rome And if the King permitted them to go yet if he required it they must give caution or security to act nothing hurtful or prejudicial to the King or Kingdome in their going thither abiding there aâ—d returning home You see our Ancestors were jealous of Rome in those daies Whether it was their providence or their experience
Duke of Glocester the Protector protested against Pope Martin and his Legate That they would not admit him contrary to the lawes and liberties of the Realm and dissented from whatsoever he did So we see plainly that the King and Church of England ever injoyed as great or greater liberties then the Gallican King and Church And that King Henry the eighth did no more in effect then his progenitors from time to time had done before him Onely they laboured to damme up the stream and he thought it more expedient to stop up the fountain of papal Tyranny not by limiting the habitual Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop which was not in his power to do but by substracting the matter and restraining the actual exercise of it within his own dominions And it is observable that in the greatest heat of these contentions the Praelates of the Realm being present in Parliament disavowed the Popes incroachments and offered the King to stand with him in these and all other cases touching his Crown and regality as they were bound by their allegiance That is according to the law of Feâ—ds according to their homage done and according to the oath which they had taken at their Investitures into their Bishopricks Indeed of later daies during those bloudy wars between the houses of York and Lancaster the Popes sometimes invaded this undoubted right of our Kings de facto not de jure as was easie for them to do And tendered to the Bishops at their investitures another oath of their own making at first modest and innocent enough that they should observe regulas Sanctorum Patrum the rules of the Holy Fathers But after they altered the oath and falsified their Pontificall as well as their faith changing regulas Sanctorum Patrum into Regalia Sancti Petri that they should maintain the Royalties of St. Peter A shamelesse forgery and admitting them to be the interpreters of their own forms opening a gap to rob Kings of the fairest Jewels of their crownes and Bishops not onely of their Jurisdictions but also of their loyalty and allegiance to their lawful Soveraigns unlesse they take the oath with a protestation as our Arch-Bishop Cranmer did That he would not bind himself to any thing contrary to the Lawes of God or the Realm or the benefit thereof Nor yet limit himself in the reformation or Government of the Church Before which time two opposite and repugnant oathes were administred to the Bishops as Henry the eighth made it appear plainly in Parliament Many things in prudence might be done but for fear of such like alterations and incroachments Our Kings gave Peterpence to Rome as an almes But in processe of time it was exacted as a tribute The Emperours for more solemnity chose to be sworn by the Pope at Rome as the Kings of France at Rhemes and the Kings of England at Westminster And this was misinterpreted as a doing homage to the Pope Rex venit aâ—te fores jurans prius urbis honorâ—â— Post homo fit Papae sumit quo dante coronam The King doth come before the gate first swearing to the Cities state The Popes man then doth he become And of his gift doth take the Crown Poets might be bold by authority But it rested not there Good Authors affirm the challenge in good earnest And Clement the fifth in one of his Canons or Decrees doth conclude it declaramus juramenta praedicta fide litatis existere eâ— cerseâ—i debere We declare that the aforesaid oathes are and ought to be esteemed oathes of allegiance Lay these particulars together Our Kings from time to time called Councels made Ecclesiastical Laws punished Ecclesiastical persons and see that they did their duties in their callings prohibited Ecclesiastical Judges to proceed received appeals from Ecclesiastical Courts rejected the Lawes of the Pope at their pleasure with a nolumus we will not have the Lawes of England to be changed or gave Legislative interpretations of them as they thought good made Ecclesiastical corporations appropriated benefices translated Episcopal Sees forbid appeales to Rome rejected the Popes Bulls protested against his Legates questioned both the Legates themselves and all those who acknowledged them in the Kings Bench I may adde and made them pay at once an hundred and eighteen thousand pounds as a composition for their estates condemned the excommunications and other sentences of the Roman Court would not permit a Peer or Baron of the Realm to be excommunicated without their consents enjoyed the patronage of Bishopricks and the investitures of Bishops inlarged or restrained the priviledge of Clergy prescribed the indowment of Vicars set down the wages of Priests and made acts to remedy the oppressions of the Court of Rome What did King Henry the eighth in effect more then this He forbad all suites to the Court of Rome by proclamation which Sanders calls the beginning of the Schisme divers Statutes did the same He excluded the Popes Legates so did the Law of the Land without the Kings special License He forbad appeals to Rome so did his predecessors many ages before him He took away the Popes dispensations what did he in that but restore the English Bishops to their ancient right and the Lawes of the Country with the Canons of the Fathers to their vigour He challenged and assumed a political Supremacy over Ecclesiastical persons in Ecclesiastical causes So did Edward the Confessour govern the Church as the Vicar of God in his own Kingdome So did his predecessours hold their Crowns as immediately subjected to God not subjected to the Pope On the other side the Pope by our English Lawes could neither reward freely nor punish freely neither whom nor where nor when he thought fit but by the consent or connivence of the State He could neither do justice in England by the Legates without controllment nor call English men to Rome without the Kings License Here is small appearance of a good legal prescription nor any pregnant signs of any Soveraign power and Jurisdiction by undoubted right and so evident uncontroverted a title as is pretended I might conclude this my second proposition with the testimonies of the greatest Lawyers and Judges of our land Artists ought to be credited in their own Art That the lawes made by King Henry on this behalf were not operative but declarative not made to create any new law but onely to vindicate and restore the ancient law of England and its ancient Jurisdiction to the Crown There had needed no restitution if there had not been some usurpation And who can wonder that the Court of Rome so potent so prudent so vigilant and intent to their own advantage should have made some progresse in their long destined project during the raigns of six or seven Kings immediately succeeding one another who were all either of doubtful title or meer usurpers without any title Such as cared not much for the
flowers of the Crown so they might but hold the Diademe it self from their competitors Therefore our Ecclesiasticall law was called the Kings law because the edge and validity of it did proceed from authority royal our Ecclesiasticall Courts were stiled the Kings Courts by his Judges It is true the habitual Jurisdiction of Bishops flowes from their Ordination But the actual exercise thereof in Publick courts after a coercive manner is from the gracious concessions of Soveraign Princes In a word the law being meerly intended as a remedy against usurpation it cannot be a new Law but onely a Legislative declaration of the Old Common Law of England I will conclude this Chapter with the words of Bishop Bilson As for his Patriarchate by Gods law he hath nonâ— in this Realm for Six hundred years after Christ he had nonâ— for the last Six hundred years looking after greater matters he would have none Above or against the Princes Sword he can have none to the Subversion of the Faith or oppression of his Brethreâ— he ought to have none you must seek further for Subjection to his Tribunall This Land â—weth him none CHAP. V. That the Britanick Churches were ever exempted from forraign Iurisdiction for the first six hundred years And so ought to continue THirdly supposing that the reformed Church of England had separated it self from Rome and supposing that the municipal laws of the Realm then in force had not warranted such a separation yet the British Churches that is the Churches of the British Islands England Scotland and Ireland c. by the constitution of the Apostles and by the solemne sentence of the Catholique Church are exempted from all forraign Jurisdiction and cannot be Schismatical in the lawful vindication of a just priviledge so well founded for the clearer manifestation whereof let us consider First that all the twelve Apostles were equall in mission equall in commission equall in power equall in honour equal in all thingâ— except priority of order without which no Society can well Subsist So much Bellarmine confesseth that by these words As my father sent me so send I you Our Saviour endowed them with all the fulnesse of power that mortall men were capable of And therefore no single Apostle had Jurisdiction over the rest par in parem noâ— habet potestatem but the whole Colledge of Apostles to which the supream Mesnagery of Ecclesiasticall affaires did belong in common whether a new Apostle was to be ordained or the office of Deaconship was to be erected or fit persons were to be delegated for the ordering of the Church as Peter and Iohn Iudas and Sylas Or informations of great moment were to be heard as against Peter himself Though Peter out of Modesty might condescend and submit to that to which he was not obliged in duty yet it had not become the other Apostles to sit as Judges upon their Superiour placed over them by Christ. Or whether the weightier questions of the calling of the Gentiles and circumcision the law of Moses were to be determined still we find the Supremacy in the Colledge Secondly that drousy dream that the plenitude of Ecclesiastical power and Jurisdiction was given by Christ to Saint Peter as to an ordinary Pastour to be derived from him to his Successours but to the rest of the Apostles as delegates for tearm of life to die with themselves as it is lately and boldly asserted without reason without authority either divine or humane so it is most repugnant to the doctrine of the Fathers who make all Bishops to be the Vicars and Embassadours of Christ not of the Pope and successours of the Apostles indifferently Vicaria ordinatione who make but one Episcopacy in the world whereof every Bishop hath an equal share St. Peter was a Pastor and the Pastoral office is of perpetual necessity in the Church True But so were all the rest of the Apostles Pastors as well as he And if we examine the matter more narrowly cui bono for whose advantage this distinction was devised it was not for S. Peters own advantage who setting aside his principallity of order is confessed to have had but an equall share of power with his fellow Apostles but fo rs the Popes advantage and the Roman courts whom they desire to invest solely with the key of all originall Jurisdiction And if we trace on this Argument a little further to search out how the Bishop of Rome comes to be Saint Peters heire ex assâ— to the exclusion of his Elder Brother the Bishop of Antioch they produce no authority that I have seen but a blind ill grounded legend out of a counterfeit Hegâ—sippus of Saint Peters being about to leave Rome and Christs meeting him upon the way and admonishing him to return to Rome where he must be crucified for his name which reason halts on both sides The foundation is Apocryphal and the superstruction is weak and unjointed without any necessary connexion Thirdly it appeareth not to us that the Apostles in their daies did either set up any universall Monarchy in the Church or so much dilate the borders or bounds of any one mans single Jurisdiction as to subject so great a part of the Christian World as the Western Patriarchate to his obedience The highest that they went if any of those Canons which bear their names be genuine was to nationall or provincial Primates or Patriarchs for a Protarch or Primate and a Patriarch in the language of the ancient Church signified one and the same thing in whose praeheminence there was more of order and care then of single Jurisdiction and power Read their three and thirtieth Canon It behooves the Bishops of every distinct Nation to know him who is their first or Primate and to esteem him as their head And to do nothing that is of difficulty or great moment contrary to his opinion But neither let him do any thing without the opinion of all them This Nationall Primacy or Protarchatâ— or Patriarchate under which the Britannique Churches flourished for many ages is the very same which we contend for Fourthly it is worthy of our inquiry how in processe of time some Primates did obtain a much more eminent degree of honour and a larger share in the government of the Church then others And of this their adventitious Grandeur we find three principal fountaines First ancient customes Secondly the Canons of the Fathers And thirdly the edicts of Christian Princes First ancient customes Upon this ground the first generall Councel of Nice settled the authority and priveledges of the three Patriarchal Sees of Rome Alexandria and Antioch Let ancient customes prevail And these customes commonly proceeded either from the memory of the Apostles who had founded such Churches from whence as from Apostolical fountaines their neighbours did fetch sound doctrine and reciprocally paid to them due respect So
challenge a Jurisdiction not upon us who deny it Men are not put to prove negatives Let them produce their Registers and shew for the first six hundred years what Ecclesiastical Courts the Roman Bishops or their Legates have held in Brittain what causes they have removed from thence to Rome upon appeals what sentences given in Brittain they have repealed there what British subjects they have excommunicated or summoned to appear at Rome let them shew what Bishopricks they have conferred in Brittain in those daies what British Bishops did then intitle themselves to their Bishopricks by the Grace of God and of the Apostolique See let them declare to the world how many of our British Primates or Patriarchs of York London or Caerleon have constantly or at all repaired to Rome to be ordained or have received Licenses or dispensations thence for their ordination at home or elsewhere for ordinationis jus caetera jura sequuntur He who is necessarily by law obliged to have recourse to a forraign Prelate for his ordination is thereby implyed to be inferiour or subject to his ordainer If they can say nothing to any of these points they may disclaime their Patriarchall right in Brittain and hold their peace for ever The reasons why I set York before London in the order of our British Patriarchs or Primates are these First because I find their names subscribed in that order in the Councel of Arles held in the year 314. consisting as some say of 200. as others say of 600. Bishops convocated by Constantine the great before the first Councel of Nice to hear and determine the appeal of the Donatists from the sentence of the Imperiall delegates whereof Melchiades the Bishop of Rome was one It were a strange sight in these daies to see a Pope turn Legate to the Emperours in a cause of Ecclesiasticall cognisance Secondly for the same reason that Rome and Constantinople in those daies of the Roman Puissance were dignified above all other Churches because they were then the seats of the Emperours York was then an Imperial City the Metropolis of the chief Britannick Province called at that time maxima Caesariensis where Severus the Emperour died and had his funerall pile upon Severs hill a place adjoyning to that City where Constantine the great was born in domo Regali vocata Pertenna in the Royal Palace whereof some poor remainders are yet to be seen then called Pertenna now a small part of it called vulgarly Bederna a very easy mistake if we consider that the Brittish Pronounce P. for B. and T. like D. situate near Christs Church in Curia Regis or in the Kings Court on the one hand and extending it self near to St. Helens Church upon the walls now demolished on the other hand Although their silence alone to my former demand at least of so many whom I have seen that have written upon this Subject be a sufficient conviction of them and a sufficient vindication of us yet for further manifestation of the truth Let us consider first that if we compare the ages and originals of the Roman and Britannique Churches we shall find that the Britannique is the more ancient and Elder Sister to the Roman it self The Britannique Church being planted by Ioseph of Arimathea in the raign of Tiberius Caesar where as it is confessed that Saint Peter came not to Rome to lay the foundation of that Church untill the second year of Claudius secundo Claudii anno in Italiam venit So if we look to the beginning according to the direction of the Councel of Ephesus the Britannique Church in its first original was free from the Jurisdiction of the Bishop and Court of Rome where there was neither Bishop nor Court nor Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction at that day Secondly that it continued free in ensuing ages appears evidently by that opposition which the Church of Britain maintained against the Church of Rome siding with the Eastern Churches about the question of those times concerning the observation of Easter and the administration of Baptisme wherein Austine about the six hundreth year laboured to conform them but in vain Is it credible that the whole Brittish and Scottish Church should so unanimously have dissented from Rome for many hundred years together if they had been subject to the Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop as of their lawfull Patriarch or that the Bishop of Rome in all that time should never so much as question them for it if they had been his Subjects Even then when Pope Victor durst attempt to deny or withdraw his communion from all the Asiatick Churches about the same businesse Neither were the Brittish Churches at last conformed to Rome by any Patriarchall power but by many conferences by the necessity of their civill affaires and by long tract of time some sooner some later A long tract of time indeed when some in the most Septentrionall parts of these Provinces were not reduced until a little before the late reformation Thirdly among the principal priviledges of patriarchall power is the right of ordination That all Metropolitans at least should either be ordained by the Patriarch or by License from the Patriarch This appears clearly in the dispute between the Patriarch of Antioch and the Cyprian Bishops But where the Bishops were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 independent upon not subject unto any forrain Prelate there they ordained at their own pleasures needed no License Such were our British Primates ordained alwaies or ordinarily at Rome according to the Cyprian priviledges creating new Bishopricks ordaining new Bishops at their own pleasures without giving any account to Rome So we read of St. Telaus who had been driven out of his own Country by an Epidemical sicknesse for a long time that at his return he consecrated and ordained Bishops as he thought fit That he made one Hismael Bishop of St. Davids And in like manner advanced many other men of the same order to the same degree sending them throughout the country and dividing the parishes for the best accommodation of the Clergy and of the People And if there were no other proofe of our exemption but onely the small number of the Bishops that were ordained by all the succeeding Popes for about the first three hundred years untill the death of Marcellinus It were sufficient to shew that the Bishops of Rome in those daies had little or nothing to do out of their owne Province and that their jurisdiction extended nothing near so far as Britain Saint Peter Ordained but three in his supposed five and twenty years that is Linus and Cletus ut sacerdotale Ministerium Romano populo advenis benè sentientibus exhiberent and Clement to whom he bequeathed his Episcopal Chair Linus but eleven Clement but fifteen Anacletus but six Evaristus but five Alexander but five Sixtus but four c. These were few enough for their own Province and none to
spare for Britain In the whole term of three hundred years there were few above two hundred Bishops Ordained at Rome Italy alone may brag well near of as many Bishops at one time as many succeeding Popes did ordain in all their ages Let them not tell us of the scarcity of Christians in those dayes The writings of Tertullian and Saint Cyprian and the Councels held within the time limited do evince the contrary No the first badge of their Patriarchal authority in Britain was sending of the Pall as the onely badge during the times of the Britons and Saxons And the first Pall that came into Britain was after six hundred years But this doth yet appear much more clearly from the answer of Dionothus the Reverend and learned Abbot of Bangor which according to the manner of those times was an University or Seminary of Learning and piety among the Britons and he the well deserving Rector of it made in his own name and in the name of the Britons when they pressed him to submit to the Romaen Bishop as his Patriarch that he knew no obedience due to him whom they called the Pope but the obedience of love And that under God they were to be governed by the Bishop of Caerleon Observe first what strangers the Britons were to the Papacy That man whom you call the Pope Secondly that they acknowledged no subjection or subordination no obedience whatsoever due from them to Rome but onely the reciprocal duty of love that was just the same that Rome did owe to them Thirdly that under God that is immediatly without any Forrein Prelate or Patriarch intervening they were to be governed by the Bishop of Caerleon as their onely Primate and Patriarch Which priviledge continued to the succeeding Bishops of that See for many ages afterwards saving that the Archiepiscopal Chair was removed from Caerleon to St. Davids in the Raign of King Arthur And lastly observe the time when this answer was made after the first six hundred years were expired So it is a full demonstrative convincing proof for the whole term prefixed But lest any man should cavil and say that Dionothus was but one man and that the body of the British Clergy might be of another mind that which followes strikes the question dead That Austin Saint Gregories Legate proposing three things to the Britons First that they should submit to the Roman Bishop Secondly that they should conforme to the customes of the Roman Province about the observation of Easter and the administration of Baptisme And Lastly that they should joyn with him in Preaching to the Saxons all the British Clergy assembled themselves together Bishops and Priests in two several Synods one after another to deliberate hereupon and after mature consideration they rejected all his propositions Synodically and refused flatly and unanimously to have any thing to do with him upon those terms Insomuch as St. Austin was necessitated to return over the Seas to obtain his own consecration and after his return to consecrate the Saxon Bishops alone without the assistance of any other Bishops They refused indeed to their own cost twelve hundred innocent Monks of Bangor shortly after lost their lives for it Rome was ever builded in blood Howsoever these words quamvis Augustino prius mortuo have since been forged and inserted into venerable Bede to palliate the matter which are wanting in the Saxon Copy The concurring Testimonies of all our Historiographers witnessing the absolute and unanimous refusal of the Britons to submit to Rome and the matter of fact it self do confirm this for an undoubted truth beyond all exception So clear a truth it is that the British Churches for the first three hundred years neither ought nor paid any subjection to Rome Whence might well proceed that answer of Elutherius to King Lucius if that Epistle be not counterfeit when he desired him to send over a Copy of the Roman Lawes That he should chuse a Law Ecclesiastical out of holy writ by the Councel of his Kingdom that is principally of his Bishops for saith he you are the Vicar of Christ in your Kingdom The same in effect which is conteined in the Lawes of Edward the Confessor Hence it is that both our Histories and our Lawes do stile our Archbishops Priâ—ates which in the Language of the Primitive times signifies as much as Patriarchs And sometimes call them expresly by the very name of Patriarchs it self Hence Vrban the second intertained and welcomed Anselm our Archbishop of Canterbury into the Councel of Barre tanquam alterius orbis Papam as the Pope of another world Or as others relate the passage as the Apostle of another world and a Patriarch worthy to be reverenced CHAP. VI. That the King and Church of England had both sufficient authority and sufficient grounds to withdraw their obedience from Rome and did it with due moderation SO from the persons who made the separation from the Lawes and Statutes of our Realm which warranted the separation and from the ancient Liberties and priviledges of the Britannick Churches I proceed to my fourth ground drawn from the Imperial prerogatives of our Soveraign Princes That though we should wave all the other advantages yet they had power to alter in the external discipline and regiment of the Church whatsoever was of humane institution for the benefit and advantage of the body politick Doctor Holden proposeth the case right by way of Objection But peradventure the Protestants will say that the King or supream Senate of every Kingdome or Common-Wealth have power to make Lawes and statutes by which either directly or at least indirectly as well the Clergy as the Laity of that Kingdom or Common-Wealth are bound to reject all forrain Iurisdiction superiority and dependance And that his Legislative power is essentially annexed to every Kingdom and Commonwealth seeing that otherwise they cannot prevent those dangers which may spring and issue from that fountain to their destruction and ruine The Protestants do say indeed without all peradventure upon that very ground which is alledged in the objection Neither do the Protestants want the suffrage of Roman Catholicks therein Because humane nature saith one cannot be destitute of necessary remedies to its own preservation And another To whom a Kingdome is granted of necessity all things are esteemed to be granted without which a Kingdome cannot be governed And a Kingdom cannot be governed unlesse the King enjoy this power even over Clerks c. Necessary remedies are no remedies unlesse they be just but worse then the disease And being just the Subject is obliged to active obedience But let us see what the Doctour pleads in answer to his own objection First he passeth by the native power of civil Soveraign Empire which ought not to have been omitted for therein consists the main force of the argument But as to the Ecclesiastical part he saith he could
indulgences and other Alchymistical devices out of his Kingdoms until time should teach them to content themselves with moderate things which endure long Or untill either a free Oecumenical Councel or an Europaean Synod should settle controversies and tune the jarring strings of the Christian world In the mean time we pitty their errours pray for their amendment and long for a re-union Now the just grounds of such subduction or separation are of two sorts either the Personal faults of the Popes or their Ministers as in the case of Simony and Schisme which ought in justice to reflect upon none but the persons who are guilty Or else they are faulty principles and rules as well in point of Doctrine as of Discipline such as the obtruding of new Creeds the pressing of unlawful oathes and the palpable usurpation of the undoubted rights of others And these do justifie and warrant a more permanent separation that is untill they be reformed Wherefore having taken a view of the sufficiency of the authority of our Princes to reform In the next place it is worthy of our serious consideration what were the true grounds of the separation of the Kingdom and Church of England from the Court of Rome And secondly whether in the subduction or substraction of their obedience or Communion they observed due moderation The grounds of their separation were many first the intolerable extortions and excessive Rapine of the Court of Rome committed in that Realm by their Legates and Nuncios and Commissioners and Collectors and other inferiour Officers and harpies enough to impoverish the kingdom and to drain out of it all the treasure that was in it and leave it as bare as a Grashopper in winter by their indulgences and pardons for all kind of sin at a certain rate Registred in their penitentiary taxe Yea as Ticelius the Popes pardoner made his bragg in Germany though a man had ravished the Mother of God yet so soon as the money did but chink in the bottom of the Bason presently the soul flew out of Purgatory To these we may add their despensations of all sorts and Commutations and Absolutions and Contributions and Reservations and Tenths and first Fruits and Appeals and Palles and a thousand other Artifices to get money As Provisions Collations Exemptions Canonisations Divolutions Revocations Unions Commendams Tolerations Pilgâ—images Jubilees Nulla hic arcana revelâ— saith Mantuan Venalia nobis Templa Sacerdotes altaria Sacra coronae Ignis thura preâ—es coelum est venale deusqque Temples Priests Altars Myters holy Orders Prayers Masses Heaven and God himself are salable at Rome It is no marvel they that buy must sell And whilest I am writing these things comes fresh intelligence of a Book lately set forth de Simoniae praesentis Pontificis they say not penned but dictated by such as know right well the most secret Cabales and Intriques of the Conclave Nam propius fama est hos tangere Divos which I can easily impute more to the fault of the place then of the man The oblation of the body and blood of Christ is sold fastings and penitentiary works are sold qui non potest jejunare per se potest jejunare per aliam vel potest darâ— nummam pro jejunio The merits of the Saints being alive are sold their relicks being dead are sold Scapulars and Monastick garments are sold. The Iewes with their Oxen Sheep and Doves were but petty Merchants in comparison of these great bankers Did any man desire a pall the Law it self did direct them what to do pallium non datur nisi fortiter postulanti The Pall would not be given but to those that knocked hard with a silver hammer Was any man a Suppliant to the Court of Rome Matthew Paris puts him into a right way Tunc sedes clementissima quae nulli deâ—sse conscivit dummodo albi aliquid vel rubei intercedat prescriptos Pâ—ntifices Abbates ad pristinas dignitates misericorditer revocavit Then the most pittiful See which is not accustomed to be wanting to any suppliants so they bring white or yellow advocates along with them did mercifully restore the said Bishops and Abbats to their former dignities It is almost incredible what a masse of treasure they collected out of England in a short time onely from investitures and some other exactions from Bishops in foure years no lesse then an hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling as was â—ound by inquisition Archbishop Cranmer paid for his Bulles that concerned his Consecration and Pall nine hundred Ducats To such an height were the extortions of the Roman Court mounted Ex ungue leonem Judge by this what the Popes yearly income or revenue out of England might be by all these arts which we have formerly mentioned and many more Sometimes under pretense of recovering the holy Land Sometimes to relieve the poverty of the Roman Court Sometimes in palfries Sometimes in forged bills of Exchange Sometimes in extorted subsidies Sometimes to a certain summe Sometimes to the fift part of their goods Sometimes to the third part of Residents and the half of non-residents Sometimes in yearly revenues as two Prebends of every Bishop and the value of the maintenance of two Monks from every Abbat Sometimes out of the goods of rich Clergy men who died intestate Sometimes a years wages for paiment of Souldiers some five some ten some fifteen according to their estates Sometimes in Jewels of all which he that desires to be more fully informed needs but to read Matthew Paris who describes the abuses and extortions of the Roman Bishops Graphically throughout his History And in one place he bemones the condition of England in these words Erat igitur videre dolorem praecordialem genas sanctorum irrigare querelas erumpere suspiria multiplicare dicentibus multis cum singulta cruentato melius est nobis mori quam videre malagentis nostrae Sanctorum Vae Angliae quae quondam princeps provinciarum domina gentium speculiem Ecclesiae religionis exemplum nunc facta est sub tributo conculcaverunt eam ignobiles facta est in praedam de generibus c. Therrfore a man might see sorrow of heart water the eielids of holy men complaints break out and grones multiplied many saying with bloody sighs It is better for us to die then to see the misery of our Nation and of holy persons Wo be to England which once was the Princess of Provinces the Lady of Nations the glasse of the Church a pattern of Religion but now is become tributary Ignoble fellowes have troden her under foot And she is made a prey to base persons Neither was this the complaint of the Vulgar onely All conscientious men were of the same mind Who hath not heard of the bitter complaints and free declamations of Grosthead the learned and Religious Bishop of Lincolne against the Tyranny and Rapine of the Roman Courts both in
respect of their errours and especially their tyrannical exactions and usurpations but unwillingly and with reluctation in respect of their persons and much more in respect of our common Saviour As if we were to depart from our fathers or our brothers house or rather from some contagious sicknesse wherewith it was infected Not forgetting to pray God daily to restore them to their former purity that they and we may once again enjoy the comfort and contentment of one anothers Christian Society We pray for their conversion publickly in our Letany in general And expressely and solemnly upon Good Friday though we know that they do as solemnly curse us the day before If this be to be Schismaticks it were no ill wish for Christendome that there were many more such Schismaticks Thirdly we do not arrogate to our selves either a new Church or a new Religion or new holy orders for then we must produce new miracles new revelations and new cloven tongues for our justification Our Religion is the same it was our Church the same it was our holy orders the same they were in substance differing onely from what they were formerly as a garden weeded from a garden unweeded or a body purged from it self before it was purged And therefore as we presume not to make new Articles of faith much lesse to obtrude such innovations upon others so we are not willing to receive them from others or to mingle Scholastical opinions with fundamental truths Which hath given occasion to some to call our Religion a negative religion Not considering that our positive articles are those general truths about which there is no controversie Our negation is onely of humane controverted additions Lastly we are ready in the preparation of our mindes to believe and practise whatsoever the Catholick Church even of this present age doth universally and unanimously believe and practice Quod apud multos unum invenitur non est errâ—tum sed traditum And though it be neither lawful nor possible for us to hold actual communion with all sorts of Christians in all things wherein they vary both from the truth and one from another yet even in those things we hold a communion with them in our desires longing for their conversion and re-union with us in truth CHAP. VII That all Princes and Republiques of the Roman Communion do in effect the same thing when they have occasion or at least do plead for it SO we are come to our fifth Conclusion That whatsoever the King and Church of England did in the separation of themselves from the Court of Rome it is no more then all Sovereign Princes and Churches none of whatsoever communion excepted do practise or pretend as often as they have occasion And first for all Protestant Kings Princes and Republicks it admits no deniall or dispute Secondly for the Grecian and all other Eastern Churches it can be no more doubted of then of the Protestants since they never acknowledged any obedience to be due from them to the Bishop of Rome but onely an honourable respect as to the prime Patriarch and beginning of unity Whose farewell or separation is said to have been as smart as ours and upon the same grounds in these words We acknowledge thy power we cannot satisfie thy covetousnesse live by your selves But my aim extends higher to verifie this of the Roman Catholick Princes and Republicks themselves as the Emperour the most Christian and Catholick Kings the Republick of Venice and others To begin with the Emperours I do not mean those ancient Christian Primitive Emperours who lived and flourished before the daies of Gregory the Great Such a Court of Rome as we made our secession from was not then in being nor the Colledge of Parish Priests at Rome turned then into a Conclave of Cardinals as Ecclesiastical Princes of the Oecumenical Church So long there was no need of any separation from them or protestation against them But I intend the later Emperours since Gregorie's time after the Popes sought to usurp an universal Sovereignty over the Catholick Church and more particularly the Occidental that is to say the French and German Emperours Yet the Reader may be pleased to take notice that the case of our Kings is much different from theirs in two respects First they believed the Roman Bishop to be their lawful Patriarch whether justly or not is not the subject of this present discourse But we do utterly deny his Patriarchal authority over us And to demonstrate our exemption do produce for matter of right that famous Canon of the General Councel of Ephesus made in the case of the Cyprian Bishops and for matter of fact the unanimous Votes of two British Synods and the concurrent testimonies of all our Historiographers Some have been formerly cited We might adde to them the ancient British history called by the Author thereof Brutus wherein he relates this answer of the British to Augustine Se Caerleonensi Archiepiscopo obedire voluisse Augustino autem Romano Legato omninâ— noluisse nec Anglis inimicis paulò antè Paganis à quibus suis sedibus pulsi erant subesse se qui semper Christianifuerunt voluisse That they would obey the Archbishop of Caerleon that was their British Primate or Patriarch but they would not obey Austine the Bishop of Romes Legate Neither would the Britanes who had evermore been Christians from the beginning be under the English who were their enemies and but newly converted from Paganisâ—e by whom they had been driven out of their ancient habitations The same history is related by sundry other very ancient Authours A second difference between our English Kings and the later German Emperours is this that our Kings by the fundamental constitutions of the Kingdome are hereditary Kings and never die So there is an uninterrupted succession without any vacancy But the Emperours are elective and consequently not invested in the actual possession of their Sovereignty without some publick solemnities Whereof some are essential as the votes of the Electours some others ceremonial as the last Coronation of the Emperour by the Bishop of Rome which was really and is yet titularly his Imperial City But the Popes who had learned to make their own advantage of every thing sacred or civil took occasion from hence to make the world believe that the Imperial Crown was their gift and the Emperours their Liegemen So Adrian the fourth doubted not to write to Frederick Barbarossa the Emperour Insigne corona beneficium tibi contulimus which was so offensively taken that as the German Bishops in their letter to the same Pope do affirm the whole Empire was moved at it the eaâ—es of his Imperial Majestie could not hear it with patience nor the Princes endure it nor they themselves either durst of could approve it Whereupon the Pope was forced to expound himself that by beneficium he meant nothing but bonum factum a good deed and by contulimus
Thirdly the King of Spain when he pleaseth and when he sees his own time doth not onely pretend unto but assume in his other Dominions that self-same power or essential right of Sovereignty which I plead for in this treatise It is not unknown to the world how indulgent a Father Vrban the eighth was sometimes to the King and Kingdom of France and how passionately he affected the interest of that Crown And by consequence that his eares were deaf to the requests and remonstrances of the King of Spain The Catholique King resents this partiality very highly and threatens the Pope if he persist to provide a remedy for the grievances of his Subjects by his own power Accordingly to make good his word he called a general Assembly of all the Estates of the Kingdome of Castile to consider of the exorbitancies of the Court of Rome in relation to his Majesties Subjects and to consult of the proper remedies thereof They did meet and draw up a memoriall consisting of ten Articles containing the chiefest abuses and innovations and extortions of the Court of Rome in the Kingdom of Castile His Majestie sends it to the Pope by Friar Domingo Pimentell as his Ambassadour The Pope returned a smart answer by Senior Maraldo his Secretary The King replied as sharply All which was afterwards printed by the special command of his Catholick Majesty The summe of their complaint was first concerning the Popes imposing of pensions upon dignities and other benefices Ecclesiastical even those which had cure of soules in favour of strangers in an excessive proportion to the third part of the full value That although benefices were decayed in many places of Spain two third parts of the true value Yet the Court of Rome kept up the Pensions at the full height That it was contrived so that the Pensions did begin long before the beneficiaries entred upon their profits insomuch as they were indebted sometimes two years pensions before they themselves could taste of the fruits of their benefices And then the charge of censures and other proceedings in the Court of Rome fell so heavy upon them that they could never recover themselves And further that whereas all trade is driven in current silver onely the Court of Rome which neither toiles nor sweats nor hazards any thing will be paid onely in Duckates of Gold not after the current rates but according to the old value That to seek for a remedy of these abuses at Rome was such an insupportable charge by reason of three instances and three sentences necessary to be obtained that it was in vain to attempt any such thing This they cried out upon as a most grievous yoak They complained likewise of the Popes granting of Coad jutorships with future succession whereby Ecclesiastical preferments were made hereditary persons of parts and worth were excluded from all hopes and a large gap was opened to most grosse Simony They complained of the Popes admitting of resignations with reservation of the greatest part of the profits of the benefice insomuch that he left not above an hundred Duckats yearly to the Incumbent out of a great benefice They complained most bitterly of the extortions of the Roman Court in the case of dispensations That whereas no dispensation ought to be granted without just cause now there was no cause at all inquired after in the Court of Rome but onely the price That a great price supplied the want of a good cause That the gate was shut to no man that brought money That their dispensations had no limits but the Popes will That for a matrimonial dispensation under the second degree they took of great persons 8000. or 12000. or 14000 Duckats They complained that the Pope being but the Churches Steward and dispenser did take upon him as Lord and Master to dispose of all the rights of all Ecclesiastical persons That he withheld from Bishops being the true owners the sole disposing of all Ecclesiastical preferments for eight monthes in the year That he ought not to provide for his own profit and the necessities of his Court with so great prejudice to the right of Ordinaries and Confusion of the Ecclesiastical order whilest he suffers not Bishops to enjoy their own Patronages and Jurisdictions They cite St. Bernard where he tells Pope Eugenius that the Roman Church whereof he was made Governour by God was the Mother of other Churches but not the Lady or Mistris And that he himself was not the Lord or Master of other Bishops but one of them They complained that the Pope did challenge and usurpe to himself as his own at their deaths all Clergymens estates that were gained or raised out of the revenue of the Church That a rich Clergyman could no sooner fall sick but the Popes Collectors were gaping about him for his goods And guards set presently about his house That by this means Bishops have been deserted upon their deathbeds And famished for want of meat to eat That they have not had before they were dead a Cup left to drink in nor so much as a Candlestick of all their goods It is their own expression That by this means Creditors were defrauded processes in Law were multiplied and great estates wasted to nothing They complained that the Popes did usurp as their own all the revenues of Bishopricks during their vacancies sometimes for divers years together all which time the Churches were unrepaired the poor unrelieved not so much as one almes given And the wealth of Spain exported into a forreign Land which was richer then it self They wish the Pope to take it as an argument of their respect to the See of Rome that they do not go about forthwith to reform these abuses by their own authâ—â—ity in imitation of other Provinces So it was not the unwarrantablenesse of the act in it self but meerly their respect that did withhold them They complained of the great inconveniences and abuses in the exercise of the Nuncio's office That it is reckoned as a curse in holy Scripture to be governed by persons of a different language That for ten Crowns a man might purchase any thing of them That the fees of their office were so great that they alone were a sufficient punishment for a grievous crime They added that self-interest was the root of all these evils That such abuses as these gave occasion to all the Reformations and Schismes of the Church They added That these things did much trouble the mind of his Catholique Majestie And ought to be seriously pondered by all Sovereign Princes qui intra Ecclesiam potestatis adeptae Culmina tenent ut per eandem potestatem disciplinam Ecclesiasticam muniant Behold our Political Supremacy They proceeded that often the heavenly Kingdome is advantaged by the earthly That Church-men acting against faith and right discipline may be reformed by the rigour of Princes Let the Princes of this world know say they that they
owe an account to God of the Church which they have received from him into their protection For whether peace and right Ecclesiastical discipline be increased or decayed by Christian Princes God will require an account from them who hath trusted his Church unto their power They tell his Holinesse it was a work worthy of him to turn all such Courtiers out of his Court who did much hurt by their persons and no good by their examples Adding this distich Vivere qui sanctè cupitis discedite Roma Omnia cum liceant non licet esse bonum And for remedy of these abuses they proposed that the Popes Nuncio's should not meddle with the exercise of Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction but be meerly in the nature of Ambassadours That all Ecclesiastical causes should be determined at home according to the Canons That the Pope should delegate the dispensation of matters of grace to some â—it Commissioners within the Kingdome That Ecclesiastical Courts or Rota's should be â—rected within the Realm wherein all causes should be finally determined without recourse to Rome except in such cases as are allowed by the ancient Canons of the Church Lastly they represented that his Majestie was justly pressed by the continual clamours and reiterated instances of his Subjects to whose assistence and protection he was obliged to contribute whatsoever he was able as their Natural Lord and King to procure their weal with all his might by all just means according to the dictates of natural reason And to remedy the grievances which they â—uffered in their persons and in their goods by occasion of such like abuses not practised in other Kingdomes Especially this propositâ—on being so conformable to the Apostolical precepts and to the sacred Canons of Councels They tell the Pope that their first addresse is to him to whom as universal Pastour the Reformation thereof doth most properly belong that there might be no need to proceed to other remedies prescribed by the Doctours of the Church And in the margent they cite more then twenty several Authours to shew what the Magistrate might do in case the Pope should refuse or neglect to reform these abuses So you see they confessed plainly that there were other lawful remedies And intimated sufficiently that they must proceed to the use of them in case the Pope refused or neglected to do his duty That was for the Sovereign Prince with his Bishops and Estates to ease his Subjects and reform the abuses of the Roman Court within his own Dominions And this by direction of the Law of nature Upon our former ground that no Kingdom is destitute of necessary remedies for its own preservation But they chose rather to tell the Pope this unwelcome Message in the names and words of a whole cloud of Roman Catholick Doctours then in their own In fine the Pope continued obstinate And the King proceeded from words to deeds And by his Sovereign power stopped all proceedings in the Nuncio's Court. And for the space of eight weeks did take away all intercourse and correspondence with Rome This was the first act of Henry the eighth which Sanders calls the beginning of the Schisme untill the Pope being taught by the costly experience of his predecessours fearing justly what the consequents of these things might be in a little time was conâ—ented to bow and condescend to the Kings desires To shew yet further that the Kings of Spain when they judge it expedient do make themselves no strangers to Ecclesiasticall affaires we read that Charles the fifth renewed an edict of his predecessours at Madril That Bulls and Missives sent from Rome should be visited to see that they contained nothing in them prejudicial to the 〈◊〉 or Church of Spain which was strictly observed within the Spanish Dominions I might adde upon the credit of the Portugueses how Alexander Castracan was disgraced and expelled out of Spain for publishing the Popes Bulls and that the Papal censures were declared void And how the Popes Delegates or Apostolical Judges have been banished out of that Kingdom for maintaining the priviledges of the Roman Court. And when the King of Spain objected to the Pope the Pensions which he and his Court received yearly out of Spain from Ecclesiastical benefices and dignities The Popes Secretary replied that all the Papal Pensions put together did scarcely amount to so much as one onely pension imposed by the King upon the Archbishoprick of Siville Neither did the King deny the thing but justifie it as done in favour of an Infante of Castile And did further acknowledge that it was not unusual for the Kings of Spain to impose pensions upon Ecclesiastical preferments to the fourth part of the value except in the Kingdom of Galiâ—a This was more then ever any King of England attempted either before or after the reformation Before we leave the Dominions of this great Prince let us cast our eyes a little upon Brabant and Flanders who hath not heard of a Book composed by Iansenius Bishop of Ypres called Augustinus And of those great animosities and contentions that have risen about it in most Roman Catholick Countreys I meddle not with the merit of the cause whether Iansenius followed Saint Austine or Saint Austine his Ancients or whether he be reconciliable to himself in this question I do willingly omit all circumstances but onely those which conduce to my present purpose So it was that Vrbane the eighth by his Bull censured the said Book as maintaining divers temerarious and dangerous positions under the name of St. Austine forbidding all Catholicks to print it sell it or keep it for the future This Bull was sent to the Archbishop of Mechline and the Bishop of Gant to see it published and obeyed in their Provinces But they both refused And for refusing were cited to appear at Rome And not appearing by themselves or their Proctours were suspended and interdicted by the Pope and the copy of the sentence affixed to the door of the great Church in Brussels Although in truth they durst not publish the sentence of condemnation without the Kings Licence And were expresly forbidden by the Councel of Brabant to appear at Rome under great penalties as appeareth manifestly by the Proclamation or Placaâ—t of the Councel themselves dated at Brussels May 1â— 1653. Wherein they do further declare that it was Kennelick ende noâ—oix c. Well knowâ— and notoriously true that the Subjects of those Provinces of what state or condition soever could not be cited nor convented out of the land neither in person nor by their proctour selveroock niet voor het hoff van Roomen no not by the Court of Rome it self And further that the provisions spiritual censures excommunications suspensions and interdictions of that Court might not be published or put in execution without the Kings approbaâ—ioâ— after the Councels deliberation And yet further they do ordain that the said defamatory writing So they call the Copy of
the Roman Church to be a top-â—ranch unlesse it may be the root of Christian Religion or at least of all that Jurisdiction which Christ left as a Legacy to his Church In all which claime by the Church of Rome they understand not the essential Church nor yet the representative Church a Roman Synod but the virtual Church which is invested with Ecclesiastical power that is the Pope with his Cardinals and Ministers When any member how eminent soever scorns its proper place in the body whether Natural or Political or Ecclesiastical and seekes to usurpe the Office of the head it must of necessiâ—y produce a disorder and disturâ—ance and confusion and schisme of the respective members This is one degree of schismatâ—cal pravity But in the second place we presse the crime of schisme more home against the Court of Rome then against the Church of Rome It is the Court of Rome which partly by obtruding new Creeds and new Articles of faith And especially this doctrine That it is necessary for every Christian under pain of damnation to be subject to the Bishop of Rome as the vicar of Christ by divine Ordination upon earth that is in effect to be subject to themselves who are his Councel and Officers yea even those who by reason of their remotenesse never heard of the name of Rome without which it will profit them nothing to have holden the Catholick faith intirely And partly by their tyraninical and uncharitable censures have seperated all the Asiaâ—ick African Grecian Russian and Protestant Churches from their communion not onely negatively in the way of Christian discretion by withdrawing of themselves for fear of infection But privatively and authoritatively by way of Jurisdiction excluding them so much as in them lieth from the Communion of Christ Though those Churches so chased away by them contain three times more Christian souls then the Church of Rome it self with all its dependents and adherents many of which do suffer more pressures for the testimony of Christ then the Romanists do gain advantages and are ready to shed the last drop of their blood for the least known particle of saving truth Onely because they will not strike topsaile to the Popes crosse-keys nor buy indulgences and such like trinkets at Rome It is not passion but action that makes a schismatick to desert the communion of Christians voluntarily not to be thrust away from it unwillingly For divers years in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths reign there was no Recusant known in England But even they who were most addicted to Roman opinions yet frequented our Churches and publick assemblies and did joyn with us in the use of the same prayers and divine offices without any scruple untill they were prohibited by a Papal Bull meerly for the interest of the Roman Court This was the true beginning of the schisme between us and them I never yet heard any of that party charge our Leiturgy with any errour except of omission that it wanted something which they would have inserted I wish theirs as free from exception to trie whether we would shunne their communion in the publick service of God Charity would rather chuse to want something that was lawful then willingly to give occasion of offence But to lay the axe to the root of schisme in the third place the Papacy it self quâ— talis as it is now maintained by many with superiority above general Councels and a Sovereign power paramount to confirme or reject their sanctions is the cause either procreant or conservant or both of all or the most part of the schismes in Christendom To rebell against the Catholick Church and its representative a general Councel which is the last visible Judge of controversies and the supreme Ecclesiastical Court either is grosse schisme or there is no such thing as Schismatical pravity in the world I say the Bishops of Rome have exempted themselves and their Court from the Jurisdiction of an Oecumenical Councel and made themselves Sovereign Monarches and universal Bishops in totius Ecclesiae injuriam discissionem to the wrong of the Church and renting it in peeces making themselves to be not onely fathers but Masters of all Christians It is the Popes own expression in his letter to his Legate Contrary to their former professions of obedience to the Ecclesiastical constitutions of Sovereign Princes and Synods contrary to their own Lawes which allow appeales from them so often as they transgress the Canons and subject them to the judgment of the Church not onely in case of heresie which the most of themselves do acknowledge and Schisme and Simony which many of them do not deny But also of Scandal contrary to so many appellations from them by Christian Princes Prelates and Universities contrary to the judgement of almost all the Cisalpine Prelats Spanish French Dutch assembled at Trent contrary to the decrees of so many Councels both general and provincial which have limited their Jurisdiction set down the true reason of their greatnesse rescinded their sentences forbidden appeales to them condemned their pragmatical intrusion of themselves into the affairs of other Churches as being contrary to the decrees of the Fathers which have judged them and condemned them of heresie schisme Simony and other misdemeanours which have deposed them by two or three at â— time whereof one was undoubtedly the true Pope These things are so obvious in the history of the Church that it were vanity and lost labour to prove them But especially contrary to the Councel of Constance and Basile which have decreed expresly that the Pope is subject to a General Councel as well in matter of faith as of manners So as he may not onely be corrected but if he be incorrigible â—e deposed This is determined in the Councel of Constance and confirmed in the Councel of Basil with this addition that whosoever opposeth this truth pertinaciously is to be reputed an heretick This decree of the Councel wounds deep because it is so evident and clear in the point and because the decrees thereof were confirmed by Martine the fifth But the Romanists have found out a salve for it That Pope Martine confirmed onely those decrees which were conciliarly made that is with the influence and concurrence of the Pope As the condemnation of Wickliff and Hus But not those decrees which were not conciliarly made that is which wanted the influence of the Pope As the decree of the Superiority of the Councel above the Pope Which ought to be understood say they onely of dubious Popes For clearing of which doubt I propose several considerations First that it is not material whether the decree were confirmed by the Pope or not There are two sorts of confirmation Approbative and Anthoritative Approbative confirmation is by way of testimony or suffrage or reception And so an inferiour may confirm the acts of his Superiour As it is said that the Saints shall judge the world
I answer that obedience to a just Patriarch is of no larger extent then the Canons of the Fathers do injoyn it And since the division of Britaigne from the Empire no Canons are or ever were of force with us further then they were received and by their incorporation became Britannique Lawes Which as they cannot noâ— ever could be imposed upon the King and Kingdome by a forreign Patriarch by constraint so when they are found by experience prejudiciall to the publick good they may as freely by the same King and Kingdome be rejected But I shall wind up this string a little higher Suppose that the whole body of the Canon Law were in force in England which it never was yet neither the Papall power which we have cashiered nor any part of it was ever given to any Patriarch by the ancient Canons and by consequence the separation is not Schismatical nor any withdrawing of Canonical obedience What power a Metropolitan had over the Bishops of his own Province by the Canon Law the same and no other had a Patriarch over the Metropolitans and Bishops of sundry Provinces within his own Patriarchate But a Metropolitan anciently could do nothing out of his own Diocesse without the concurrence of the Major part of the Bishops of his Province Nor the Patriarch in like manner without the advice and consent of his Metropolitans and Bishops Wherein then consisted Patriarchal authority In ordaining their Metropolitans for with inferiour Bishops they might not meddle or confirming them or imposing of hands in giving the Pall in convocating Patriarchal Synods and presiding in them in pronouncing sentence according to the plurality of voices That was when Metropolitical Synods did not suffice to determine some emergent difficulties or differences And lastly in some few honorary priviledges as the acclamation of the Bishops to them at the latter end of a General Councel and the like which signifie not much In all this there is nothing that we dislike or would seek to have abrogated Never any Patriarch was guilty of those exactions extortions incroachments upon the civil rights of Princes and their Subjects or upon the Ecclesiastical rights of Bishops or of those provisions and pensions and exemptions and reservations and dispensations and inhibitions and pardons and indulgences and usurped Sovereignty which our Reformers banished out of England And therefore their separation was not any waies from Patriarchal authority I confesse that by reason of the great difficulty and charge of convocating so many Bishops and keeping them so long together untill all causes were heard and determined And by reason of those inconveniencies which did fall upon their Churches in their absence Provincial Councels were first reduced from twice to once in the year and afterwards to once in three years And in processe of time the hearing of appeales and such like causes and the execution of the Canons in that behalf were referred to Metropolitans untill the Papacy swallowed up all the authority of Patriarchs and Metropolitans and Bishops Serpens serpentem nisi ederet non fieret draco Peradventure it may be urged in the fourth place That Gregory the Great who by his Ministers was the first converter of the English Nation about the six hundreth year of our Lord did thereby acquire to himself and his Successours a Patriarchal authority and power over England for the future We do with all due thankfulnesse to God and honourable respect to his memory acknowledge that that blessed Saint was the chief instrument under God to hold forth the first light of saving truth to the English Nation who did formerly sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death whereby he did more truly merit the name of Great then by possessing the chair of Saint Peter And therefore whilest the sometimes flourishing now poor persecuted Church of England shall have any being Semper honos nomenque suum laudesque manâ—bunt But whether this benefit did intitle Saint Gregory and his Successours to the Patriarchate of all or any part of the British Islands deserves a further consideration First consider that at that time and untill this day half of Britaigne it self and two third parts of the Britannique Islands did remain in the possession of the Britons or Scottish and Irish who still continued Christians and had their Bishops and Protarchs or Patriarchs of their own from whom we do derive in part our Christianity and holy orders and priviledges Without all controversie the conversion of the Saxons by Saint Gregory could not prejudice the just liberties of them or their Successours Secondly consider that the half of Britaigne which was conquered and possessed by the Saxons was not soly and altogether peopled by Saxons A world of British Christians did remain and inhabit among the Conquerours For we do not find either that the Saxons did go about to extirpate the British Nation or compell them to turn Renegadoes from their Religion or so much as demolish their Churches But contented themselves to chase away persons of eminency and parts and power whom they had reason to suspect and fear And made use of vulgar persons and spirits for their own advantage This is certain that Britaigne being an Island whither there is no accesse by land all those who were transported or could have been transported by Sea on such a suddain could not of themselves alone in probability of reason have planted or peopled the sixth part of so much land as was really possessed by the Saxons And therefore we need not wonder if Queen Bertha a Gallâ—ise and a Christian did find a Congregation of Christians at Canterbury to joyn with her in her Religion and a Church called Saint Martins builded to her hand And stood in need of Lethargus a Bishop to order the affaires of Christian Religion before ever Saint Austine set foot upon English ground Neither did the British want their Churches in other places also as appears by that Commission which the King did give to Austine among other things to repair the Churches that were decayed These poor subdued persons had as much right to their ancient priviledges as the rest of the unconquered Britons Thirdly consider That all that part of Britaigne which was both conquered and inhabited by the Saxons was not one intire Monarchy but divided into seven distinct Kingdoms which were not so suddenly converted to the Christian faith all at once but in long tract of time long after Saint Gregory slept with his fathers upon several occasions by several persons It was Kent and some few adjacent Counties that was converted by Austine It is true that Ethelbâ—rt King of Kent after his own conversion did indeavour to have planted the Christian faith both in the Kingdomes of Northumberland and the East Angles with fair hopes of good successe for a season But alas it wanted root Within a short time both Kings and Kingdoms apostated from Christ and forsook their Religion The Kingdoms of the West Saxons
the Revelation ordained in the infancy of Christianity as a remedy against Schisme And we blesse God that we have a clear succession of it Our matter and form in the Ordination of Presbyters is imposition of hands And these words Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou doest forgive they are forgiven And whose sins thou doest retain they are retained Be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word and Sacraments The form most agreeable to the Gospel practised throughout the Occidentall Church for a thousand yeares approved by the Fathers and by the most found and learned Roman Catholicks themselves The form of Ordination in the Greek Church is no more but this Imposition of hands and these words The Divine Grace which alwaies cureth that which is infirm doth create or promote A. B. a venerable sub-Deacon to be a Deacon or a venerable Deacon to be a Priest or a Priest beloved of God to be a Bishop And yet no man ever doubted of the validity of their Ordination but they did alwaies and do at this day execute their functions in the Roman Church And discharge all duties belonging to their respective orders as freely as in the Greek Church it self We have the same matter that they have we have the form more fully then they have the Romanists themselves being Judges Then what madnesse is it to allow of their Ordination and dispute of ours and upon a pretended defect in matter or form to drive men to be re-ordained Is not this to have the faith of our Lord Iesus Christ in respect of persons These grounds are over-weighty to be counterbalanced by the tradition of the patine and of the chalice An upstart custom or innovation confirmed but the other day by the decree of Eugenius the 4th A time too late in conscience for introducing either a double matter and form or a new matter and form of that which is acknowledged by them and not denied by us in a larger sense to be a Sacrament All we say is this That it is not a Sacrament generally necessary to salvation as Baptisme and the holy Eucharist are Neither do we draw or derive any spiritual Jurisdiction from the Crown But either liberty and power to exercise actually and lawfully upon the Subjects of the Crown that habitual Jurisdiction which we received at our Ordination Or the inlargement and dilatation of our Jurisdiction objectively by the Princes referring more causes to the cognisance of the Church then formerly it had Or lastly the increase of it subjectively by their giving to Ecclesiastical Judges an external coercive power which formerly they had not To go yet one step higher In cases that are indeed spiritual or meerly Ecclesiastical such as concern the doctrine of faith or administration of the Sacraments or the ordaining or degrading of Ecclesiastical persons Sovereign Princes have and have only an Architectonical power to see that Clergy-men do their duties in their proper places But this power is alwaies most properly exercised by the advice and Ministery of Ecclesiastical persons And sometimes necessarily as in the degradation of one in holy Orders by Ecclesiastical Delegates Therefore our Law provides that nothing shall be judged heresie with us denovo but by the high Court of Parliament wherein our Bishops did alwaies bear a part with the assent that is more then advice of the Clergy in their Convocation In summe we hold our benefices from the King but our offices from Christ. The King doth nominate us but Bishops do ordain us I touch these things more briefly now because I have handled them more at large in a full answer to all the objections brought by S. N. Doctour of Theology in the twentieth Chapter of the guide of faith or the third part of his Antidote against our holy Orders our Jurisdiction and power to expound Scripture Which if God send opportunity may if it be thought convenient perhaps one day see the light The confounding of those two distinct acts intimated by me in this paragraph that is nomination or election with ordination or consecration hath begotten many mistakes in the world on several sides Among which the respect I owe to the British Churches will not permit me to passe by one untouched I have read related but confusedly out of venerable Bede sundry Histories by very learned authours of Aidan a Scottish Bishop sent to Oswald King of Northumberland for the conversion of his people from the Island of Hy wherein was one of the principal Monasteries of the Nâ—rthern or Ulster Scots c. Sicque eum ordinantes ad praedicandum miserunt So the Colledge ordaining him Bishop sent him to preach As likewise of Columbanus his coming into Britaigne where he had assigned unto him the Island Hy or Iona for the building of a Monastery Habere autem solet ipsa insula rectorem semper Abbatem Presbyterum cujus juri omnis Provincia ipsi etiam Episcopi ordine inusitato debeant esse subjecti That Island used to have a Governour an Abbat a Presbyter to whose jurisdiction both the whole Provincee and the Bishops themselves by an unusual order ought to be subject These testimonies they account so clear as to be able to inlighten the dullest eye And hence they conclude not onely that Presbyters may ordain Bishops and be their spiritual Governours but that it was communis quodammodâ— Anglorum omnium regula a common rule of all the English in a manner that Bishops being Monks should be subject to their Abbats I honour Bede as the light of his age who justly gained to himself the name of Venerable throughout the Occidental Church And I doubt not but he writ what he heard But certainly he could not have such clear distinct knowledge of particular circumstances as they who have been upon the place and seen the records thereof First there is a great mistake in the person Columba and Columbanus lived both in the same age but Columbanus was much the younger who propagated Christian Religion much but it was in other parts of the world It was not Columbanus but Colâ—mba that converted the British Scots and founded both the Bishoprick of Derry by another name and the Abby of Derry And likewise the Bishoprick of the Isles in Scotland and the Abby of Iona he whom the Irish call to this day Columkill quia multarum cellarum Pater as his own Scholar gives the reason in the description of his life because he was the Father or founder of many Churches or Celles Secondly they confound the places the Abby of Derry or Derrimagh quod lingua Scotorum significat campum roborum saith Bede which in Irish that was the ancient Scottish signifies a field or plain of Oakes which was indeed situated in the territories of the Northern Vlster Scots with the Abby of Iona situated in Britaigne Thirdly they confound the actions mission which is no more then nomination or election with Ordination
by King Iames in his triplici modo triplex cunâ—us print an 1609. p. 125. and Ireland Councel book of Ireland 32 33 34. of Henry 8th The pretended Crimes of Hen. 8. no blemish to the Reformation Holins in Hen. 8. p. 923. Hall 22. H. 8. p. 199. Our Lawes are not cruel against Roman Catholicks Apol. P. 153 In Artic. 37. p. 419 420 c. Though the first separaters were Schismaticks we are free Aug. Epist. 162. Psal. 19. 12. Protestants no authors of the separation from the Church of Rome Mr. Knot Inf. num p. 534. Bulla Pauli 3. apud Sander de Schism l. 1. p. 109. Eminent persons have great influence without any Iurisdictions The dignity of the Apostolical Churchâ—s â—â—de praeser advers haeres L. 4. Epis. 8. Novel 131. c. 3. et 4. It is no marvel that the Pope winded himself into England by degrees Mat. Paâ— an 1246. No Saxon English or Brittish King ever made any obliging submission to the Pope Bedâ—l 1. c. 25. Bed l. 1. ch 26. The Popes pâ—wer in England was of courtesy Wilfride the first great Appâ—llant Spâ—lm conc an 705. De elâ—ct polest c. 4. significasti c. Bar. An. 1102. nu 8. 〈◊〉 1. de Gest. Paul Angloâ— Hoved. in Hen. 2. Malm. ibid. Math. Par. an 1164. Rog. Hoved. in Hen. 2. Legations as rare as appeals Spelm. conc an 78. Saxon Kings made Ecclesiastical Laws Chap. 15. Chap. 5. Spelm. conc An. 1066. An old Artifice of the Roman Bishops Norman Kings injoyed the same power Cap. quon de Appâ—â—pr 15. R. 2. c. 64 H. 4. c. 12. 2. H. 4. c. 3 2. H 4. c. 4. 9. H. 6. c. 11. Coâ—k Râ—port Cawdries case Canon law of no more force in England then as it was received 20. H. 3. c. 9. 4. E. 1. c. 5. Bigamy 2. R. 2. c. 6. Aedmer in initio Placit an 1. H. 7. Pl. an 1. H 7. Pl. an 32. et 34. E. 1. Ant. Brit. 279. The statute of Mortmain justified Exod. 36. 6. 〈…〉 Nicet l. 7. Consid. p. 49 Oratio ad Paul 5. pro Rep. Veneta Mat. Paâ— an 1164. 35. E. 1. Statute of Carlile Malm. de Gest. Pont. Aug. p. 257. Id. l. 2. p. 45. p. 242. Id. l. 1. p. 204. Articuli cleri 25. E. 3. 25. E. 3. 16. R. 2. C. 5. 27. E. 3. c. 1. Act. and. mon. Pontif. veâ—us Pontif. novum Ex Regist. Craâ—m P. 4. Hall in Henrico 8. fol. 206. Occh. pâ—rt 2. c. 22. de fâ—ill reâ—udic The Soveraignty of our Kings in Ecclesiastical causes over Ecclesiastical persons Antiqu. Brit. p. 325. King Henry 8. did no more then his predecessours The judgment of our English Lawyers Fitzherb Natu. brev 44. Lord Cook Cawdries â—ase The true differ Part 2. Cyp. de unit Ecclesiae Conc. Eph. in Epist. Synod ad Nâ—stor Ambr. et alij Bell de Pont. l. 4. â— C. 22. The supremacy in the whole Colledge of the Apostlâ—s Act. 1. Act. 6. â—ct 8. st 1â— Act. 11. Act. 11. Act 15. The other Apostles had Successors as well as S. Peter Why the Bishop of Rome S. Peters succâ—ssour rather then of Antioch Plat. in vita Sti. Peâ—ri The highest constitution of the Apostles exceeded not natâ—onal Primats Can. Apost 33. How some Primates came to be more respected in the Church then others Either by custom Con. Nic. Or from the Grandeur of the City Conc Chal. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Or by decrees of Councels Or by Edicts of Princes Many Prâ—mats subject to none of the five great Patriarchs Ruff. hist. Eccl. l. 1. c. 6. The case between the Patriarch of Antioch and Cyprian Bishops Conc. Ephes. part 1. Act. 7. Greg. L. 1. Ep. 24. The case of the Cyprian Bishops applyed The proof in this cause ought to rest upon our adversaries The Brittannique Church ancienter then the Roman Gild. de eâ—id et conqâ— Brit. Plat in vita Sancti Petri. Bar. an 44. The Brittannique Churches sided with the Eastern against the Roman British Bishops ordained at home Reg. Land apud Vsh. dâ—prim Eccl. Brit. p. 56. Plat. The answer of Dionothus Spelm. Conc. An. 601. Confirme by two British Synods Spel. eon an 601. Galt mon. l. 2. c. 12. Beda omnes alii Resp. Greg. ad 8. quest Bed l. 2. c. 2. Ant. Brit p. 48. Malm. prol ad lib. de gest pont Aug. Glos. juris C. Cleros dist 21. Soveraign Princes have power to alter whatsoever is of humane institution in Ecclesiastical discipline Append. de Schism Art 4. p. 526. Suar. l. 3. de prim summi Pontificis cap. 1. num 4. Morl. in Emp. jur p. 1. tit 2. Citati à Sanc. claâ— in Art 37. Append. de Schism p. 527. P. 528. Protestants in their reformation have altered no Articles of Religion nor sacred rites nor violated Charity p. 533. p. 528. p. 530. Augustine Nor swerved from the Law of nature or positive Lawes of God Ex Archivis Turris Londinensis citat author Antiquit. Acad. Cantab In cases doubtful we may not disobey the King and the Lawes Exod. 1. 17. 1 Sam. 22. 17. August Unjust commands may be justly obeyed Prâ—nces are obliged to protect their subjects from the â—yranny of Ecclesiastical Judges Paâ—s lait c. Citati a Sancta Clara in Art 37. p. 420. 421. Sancta Clara p. 146. 417. Kings may exercise exernal acts of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction by fit delegates The Emperours of old did the same Novel 83. Lib. 5. ca. pit Popes convented imprisâ—ned deposed by Emperouâ—s Platin. in Grâ—g 6. Plat. in Bon. 1. Plat. in Sym. P. 425. An. 1110 The Councel of Towers allowes to withdraw obedience from the Pope in certain cases Conc. Turon Râ—sp ad Art 3. Resp. ad Art 4. Resp. ad Art 8. In tract de potest Papae et Imperat Princes may reform new Canâ—ns by old Part. 2. Act. 6. C. 7. de resol fid l. 1. C. 8. P. 152. Patriaâ—â—hal power subject to Impâ—rial Lib. 2. Ep. 61. Emperours have changed Patriarchaâ—s Conc. Const can 3. Conc. Chalc. Can. 8. By their authority Novel 11. et Novel 131. English Kings as Soveraign â—s the Emperouâ—s Math. Paris Two sorts of grounds for sustraction of obedience Our first grouâ—d Chemnit Exa Conc. Fred. Mant. Dist. 100. C. 2. In Hâ—n 1. an 1103. Ant. Brit. pag. 326. Math. Paris an 1237. Math. Par in H. 3. an 1253. Idem An. 1254. Idem An. 1257. Id. An. 1258. Plowmans tale and else where Our second ground Episo Eleiensis Plat. in Greg. 7. Larg Exam p. 18. Admon to the Nobility by Card. Allen. 1. 8. Exam. Cathol p. 34. Math. Paris an 1244. Idem an 1253. Ro. Houed Annal. fol. 303. Ep. Card. Bell. ad G. Blackw Archpr. Supplic of souls p. 296. Hoveden Annal. p. 292. Idem Plat. in pasch 2. Math. Paris an 1212. Math. Paris an 1253. Hoops ad saecul 14. c. 5. Citat Sanct. Clara. Math. Paris in H. 3. An. 1245. Bern. L. 3. de consideratione The