in that Church for sincere and true members of Christ by the searcher of their hearts and ours we trust by mutual offices of Prayer and Charity we hold Communion in the General And a particular rent or schism cannot be conceived without some particular Vnion or Subjection preceeding and it sufficiently appears â—ow little there was of old between Rome and Brittain for how can an Arm be out of joynt from that part with whom it was never In. They themselves who accuse first are Schismaticks unavoidably especially our deluded English and Brittish and Irish Roman-Catholicks born under the same Allegiance believing in the same Christ that refuse to joyn in communion and worship with their own Mother Church much more Ancient and pure than that of Rome which were it less corrupt than it is they unworthily prefer before her against proverb and practice for home is homely be it never so homely and you shall not meet a child of that folly that will prefer a pompous Countess before his poor Mother But so truly Catholick and Apostolick and free from all foul and loathsome Idolatries and Superstitions are the Sacraments of our own Church that if they once tasted with us the milk of their own chast Mother they would never covet Forreign breasts that have an ill name any more nor be so earnest with us to prefer manifest poison before it And the cause of their delusion that should nevertheless be so zealous to persevere in such unnatural ignoble obstinacy and disobedience so destructive to themselves must needs be more than humane 2 Thess 2.11 But our Communions and separations are not in our own power but we are to take and leave as God directs and God directs to hold the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Eph. 4.3 The unity of the Spirit and not the unity of the Flesh that is to select such for our Christian Brethren to associate with them in dear fellowship who express by their Conversation that they are dead to this present World and self ends by their Faith and conformity to the cross of Christ and live in Heaven by their holy conformity to his Ascention which is a state of the Spirit and Grace and the right Catholick Church But to avoid and separate as much as may be in this World from such as are Earthly carnal sensual selfish scandalous and especially if such by their Doctrine policy profession designe and principle for such are enemies to the cross of Christ and a state of confederacy with the flesh wholly asymbolical and contrary to the nature of such a Church a Christian is to hold Communion with so St. Paul explains and expressly decides this case Phil. 3.17 18 19. shewing that such whose God is their belly whose Glory is their shame who mind Earthly things are not to be followed but shunned be their brags never so Christian and Catholick and why are they to be shunn'd because they are enemies to the Cross of Christ which they abuse and profane to compass Worldly ends and grandeur and Christs subjects ought not to correspond with his enemies not only upon the score of Loyalty but Interest and safety for the end of both will be destruction v. 19. And the reason why he and such as walk'd as he did were to be followed and embrac'd is because he followed Christ in his Cross as is implyed by the contrary Antithesis v. 17 18. because he also followed him in his Resurrection and Heavenly life as it is expressed in these words v. 20. For our Conversation is in Heaven from whence we look for the Saviour This is the Catholick Church where all that will joyn with it shall be sure to find Salvation by it And in like manner he directs the Romans 16 17 18. Now I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the heart of the simple A prophetical Description of the Roman Church Apostatizing into Roman Catholick and preferring Titles befere Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or good words presignifiing their meek and holy and publick pretensions and title of servant of servants Fathers Confessors Apostolick See c. and their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faire speeches or rather blessings their easie Absolutions and innumerable Indulgences Ceremonious crossings of all things and persons The like rule is given to Timothy and to all Bishops and every Christian in him If thou observe any make a Trade and Merchandize of the Gospel Supposing gain to be godliness from such withdraw thy self 1 Tim. 6.5 Which markes and characters of true or false Christians though they are less heeded and regarded by the guides of the Church of Rome and their credulous Disciples than by their more observing neighbouring Churches who know that Simon Magus the Father of the old Gnosticks pointed at by the Apostle v. 20. was more certainly at Rome and left his successors behind him than Simon Peter The wonder is the less because gifts and lusts more blind the eyes of the receivers and Actors than the standers by Neither do these Apostolical warnings alone but the woful experiences that back them deterr us from their communion above any other We held communion heretofore with the Eastern Church and that of Jerusalem without spiritual hurt or damage to our selves and our communion with the Ancient Gallican Church in the West added strength and comfort to us The Churches of Scotland and Ireland though by Civil Governments they were under different Kings and them not often friends yet by the Christian faith they were one piece with our Brittish Church defending our cause against Rome and Augustine with equal concern But when we began to acquaint our selves with Rome when it was better than now it is we gain'd nought but wounds and defilements and misfortunes by it There Pelagius with Celestius had his fall and ruine when with like good intentions as some other learned men in after Ages he went about to alter Divinity into a moral Philosophy to fit the needs of Christians there who lived short of men and were but hardned the more in their sins by the Evangelical Doctrines of free grace an evident symptom of their ripeness for Divine vengeance as appeared by the dismal sacking of Rome shortly after Anno 410 †Inter Augustinianas Epist 142. Hieronymianas which he elegantly describes in his Epistle to Demetriades There Wilfrid imbib'd the principles of avarice and ambition wherewith he corrupted his Brittish Institution and brought troubles upon himself as well as others and more disturb'd than promoted the plantation of the Gospel amongst the Saxons carried on then by Brittish industry There St. Patrick and Palladius Sons of the Brittish Church and of contrary Doctrines and Customes to Rome as appeared in their plantations yet
had the name and imputation of being Missionaries of Rome for the Conversion of Ireland and Scotland say their Legends for Politicians love ever to have holy and good men for their tooles and instruments and pretences for so St. Peter and St. Paul their 's name are as often us'd and applyed in the Courts of Rome to countenance their carnal policies and designes as John Doe and Richard Roe in ours to vouch suites and though they make the cross of Christ their Antipodes and re-exalt the World with its pomp into its old zenith and meridian yet no where is the material cross adored and worship'd with that excess of Reverence as by these enemies of the Spiritual What gain'd our Saxon and Norman Kings by their generous respects towards them bearing then the name of a Church in chief but the exhausting of their Subjects and the clipping of their own Prerogatives and Supremacies and to be made their Engineers and Executioners to suppress and destroy the Ancâ—â—â—â— Church of Brittain its Metropolitan Sees of York and London by the means of the first and St. David of the last Neither will it suffice to plead the whole English Brittish Church was once under the yoak and Jurisdiction of Rome for a long space of a time and that it was Schisme therefore and rebellious disobedience in them to shake off their Government For this yoak and imposition was early protested against by the Brittains as unchristian and unjust and kept off with their utmost power as long as they could and the Nation made often entries in so many Statutes of provisors and premunire's against it and the endeavours of Wickleff and Lollards who could expect no other than ill names for it and they were fully evicted out of it at last in Henry 8. of Brittish descent by wonderful providence Was it a Schism against the Cromwellian party who pretended to as much holiness as Rome it self and more for our Soveveraign to return to his own Throne from whence he and his Father were so wrongfully kept out and so long If they know not Gods usual method to give his own people over into the hands of their enemies for their sins and to redeem them from them upon their repentance by miraculous deliverance they erre not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22.29 nor the power and Discipline of God nor the patience and priviledges of his servants Their own Church of Rome lay in captivity under the Exarchs or the Constantinopolitan Emperours Vice-Royes residing at Ravenna from the year 568. to 743. and some of their Popes for their refractoriness have been coursely us'd by them in the Streets of Constantinople yet they held it no Schism to recover their Ancient liberty though by very ill means by dividing the Empire and hazarding Christendom and strengthning the Turk as the poor Greeks to this day complain And may not we without Schism enjoy our Ancient rights and freedom recovered by lawful means and in Gods time without wrong to any and with and not against the rights and wills of our Soveraigns as they by the contrary in all respects yet it was more excusable in them to gratifie the Turk and subvert Christendom to preserve their own Chair then joyn with Pagans to invade the Chaires of other Churches as a thief that steals for his necessity is more to be pardoned than an Adulterer that wrongs his neighbour for his lust but the Romish Popes shewed themselves devoid of all conscience and honour and fear of God in that they combin'd to deprive us of our liberty then about 596. when themselves lay groaning for the loss of their own being worse than robbers under the Gallowes or the thief that reviled our Saviour being himself under the same condemnation which together with the violation of the Canons is the reason the Brittains in Bede esteemed these Roman-catholicks and their Disciples no better than Pagans usque hodie moris est Britonum fidem Anglorum pro nihilo habere nec in aliquo communicare quam cum Paganis lib. 2. c. 20. Yea they were more reconcilable to the Pagan Saxons that rob'd them of their Countrey as appears by their leagues and friendships and intermarriages reproved as afore by Lupus and Germanus than with Inhuman Christians that us'd Pagan assistance to rob them of their Faith and tread down their Church for they valued Truth above their Territory And they would not admit any of the Romish into their Brittish communion Å¿ Usher Rell of the Ancient Irish c. 10. under 40 dayes pennance as the Romanists to serve their designes denyed the validity of the Brittish Ordinations as they do still that of our English so that the Church of England now as the old Brittish Church heretofore stand upon the same points of difference from Rome those of Mission and Superstition and Supremacy upon which three most of the rest depend which leads to give a more particular character and description of Augustine and his Roman Faith as it then stood in opposition that the state of the Controversy and the merit of both Churches and Causes may the more fully appear SECTION VIII The face of the Roman Church about the same time and of Augustin's Qualification and method for his pretended propagation of the Gospel amongst the English and that the Nation are under no Obligation to Rome for his work here but bound by their Christianity to abhorre and detest it TO this end I shall only briefly recount some passages out of Bede 1. Touching his qualification for the pretended Conversion of the Saxons 2. His method of propagating his Roman Faith amongst them That several of the English Nation as well Learned as Unlearned and Romanists as well as Protestants may review and consider how this Augustine can be ever own'd for an Apostle of the English without wrong and disparagement to Gods Church and the Truth and themselves 1. Touching his Qualification in respect of Learning and principles And his elocution and means of conveyance of the other to his Disciples It appears he was no great Clerk wherein yet he may far better be born with because of the rude Age he lived in not only by his insisting upon the Alexandrine Calender as afore not above an hundred years standing before his time as a Tradition of St. Peter so necessary to the right being of a Church that by Divine Revelation he prognosticated the destruction of the Brittish Doctors by hostile Arms for their dissent therein and the other two points about Baptism and preaching to the Saxons but also from his Questions and Scruples sent to his Pope Gregory much about the same size for parts though above for dignity Whose common character is that he was the worst that went before him and the best Pope of all that came after him His a Bede lib. 1. c. 28. eight interrogation and scruple is si praegnans mulier debet baptizari If a woman being with child might lawfully be baptized
wherewith they are Intrusted by God for the defence of his and their People than Popes ever could or can unsheath their Spiritual Weapons in defence of Pride and ambition and scandalous Encroachments Excommunication being intended by Christ and his Apostles to better ends than they apply it to separate between the precious and the vile between scandalous and holy Christians and to cut off putrid parts with grief and compassion to preserve the Communion of Saints and the health and honour of the whole and not to defend proud and ambitious heights and sacrilegious invasions and Usurpations over Churches more Orthodox and more ancient than themselves with Unevangelical revenge and recalcitration after fair eviction Which is the abusing of Christs Ordinance to ends contrary to what he intended and the taking of Gods name in vain for which they will not be held guilt-less yea to have Excommunicated themselves rather by humble acknowledgements and reparations to their power for their wrongs and oppressions to Christ and souls and Churches had been the right Catholick use of their keyes and the surest sign of Salvation to the best and chiefest of their Church Neither is it needful by our Hypothesis and state of our case to defend the Reformation from the charge of Schism and departure from the Catholick Church thereby as they suppose and cry aloud against us for the alteration made by Henry the Eight cannot be called the Reformation of a Religion we derived from Rome by Inferiour Authority against superiour by the daughter correcting the Mother Church Irregularly but our lawful Restoration rather to our Ancient Rights and possessions from which we were wrongfully disseis'd and barr'd The deliverance of our Brittish Church after long captivity and disfiguration to its primitive liberty and health and beauty by just means from the violent hands and Spiriting Arts of Rome much Junior to it in faith and much impurer and unsounder than the true Church of Rome for these last thousand years Our Case I say is not so much Reformation as Restoration which no man of sence or honesty or conscience can find fault with and much less they at Rome who are pleas'd with their deliverance from the long Tyranny of their Exarchs though procur'd by unlawful and pernicious means as before but we had ours through lawful Authority without any wrong or hurt to others or our Superiours and with much right to our selves much less can we be tax'd or blam'd by any at home that have been long kept out from their own rights by Tyrants or Rebels or Oppressors who are bound in all Equity and Honour and Compassion to espouse rather and Assist so just a Cause before any others whatsoever according to Dido's temper in the Poet making the Case of Aeneas in Exile her own Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco The Pope had no more Original right and title to our Brittish Sees how long soever Usurped than Cromwell had to the Brittish Crown Whoever else may envy or hinder or undermine our recovery of our just freedom and liberty they that through Gods mercy have had the like Restoration and deliverance ought not either in Honour or Civility or Humanity to do it nor if themselves appear to have the greatest share and benefit therein without manifest hazard of their Judgement for by revolt to Popery Princes quit no less their external Supremacy in holy Church the choycest Jewel in their Crown than by Apostacy to Heathenism not more by the parity of the Idolatries than by their own Act and Resignation For they cannot longer hold the same in the Catholick-Roman without being Excommunicate as undutyful and they let go their hold thereof in the Protestant Christian by Excommunicating themselves as unkind and unwise Nor if after all this they be found to Act both against Gods revealed will and fate therein or the secret Decrees and discernable purposes of his Providence against it whereof the one was made as clear as the Sun before and the other will afterwards appear as clear as the Moon which is next unto it can they ever be thus unnatural to their own Church and Nation out of vain glorious kindness to forreign cheats without fighting against God as well as their friends to the certain overthrow and ruin either Temporal or Eternal or both of the weaker side Therefore the sharp and searching judgement of the great Arch-Bishop Bramhal could soon espy that the plea of the Antiquity and Independancy of our Brittish Church in the Controversy between us and Rome strikes the cause dead forever at one blow Not that being exempt from the pretences of a Junior Church once animated with Empire to step before her betters we are not bound nevertheless to hold Communion with every good Church of Christ where and when we may yea with Rome it self if it return'd to its Ancient purity and subjection to our Saviour as on the other hand to shun others as we do Rome that were guilty of the like Corruption and Apostacy which flight and distance we are wont to observe in our moral and natural Communion and converse as well as Christian embracing or shunning good or evil Company for our safety or credit as wholesome or Pestilential Air for Health as well as sound and unsound Churches out of Allegiance to Christ our common Lord or fear of scandal and partaking in their sins and judgments by our Complyance For our Communion though it be our great duty as Schisme is a great sin yet it is not in our absolute power and dispose in the general without any other Rule or reason to incline us to be of this or that Church but our own fancy and humour no we are acted by necessity in great part therein for it is a necessary tye upon us to embrace good and relinquish evil and corrupt Communion and to be guided by Christs will and not our own as our rule and standard and to shun all whom his word Excommunicates and to communicate with all whom his word approves For to approve whom Christ condemns or condemn whom Christ approves is not in the power of any Christian that ownes Christ for his Soveraign All the part that we have in our own power is the exercise of every mans Conscience and private judgment under the guidance of Christs rule which they hate the least mention of at Rome as impious and Haeretical and leading to a private spirit the root of all evil errours in the Church and comparing the lives and state of Christians and Churches by this general rule of Christ and this particular eye of our Souls to put our Communion in execution according to Christs mind and to embrace his friends and to shun his enemies and to like and dislike as we are to do all our other Affairs in him from our hearts according to my Text. For let there be no private judgment to distinguish between private good or evil or between the guides themselves we are
Nice upon which the Rights of London stood founded when they were Schismatically Invaded by a high hand from Rome and for many years wrongfully detain'd and usurp'd Or 2. to cut off all pretence and colour of subjection or dependance of this Church upon Rome and all occasion of stumbling to the weak Sons of the Church of England and Ignorant in History who are misled to believe that Rome is the Mother Church of Brittain because it was undoubtedly of Canterbury which is now the reputed Mother Church of all England And by consequence that our Reformation was Schismatical and scandalous the Daughter judging and rejecting the Mother the Inferiour the Superiour and of ill consequence to be approved by Princes Whereas Rome Originally never came to be a Mother to our Brittain so much as in pretence but only by Schisme and incroachment most fit and just to be remedied by Princes in discountenance of wrong and disobedience Because 3. The Learned of the Church of Rome dayly hit our Prelates of that See in the Teeth and the Unlearned likewise harbour evil opinions and surmises concerning them and forbear not to vent and utter them as if they were Vngrateful and Parricidial in their Actings against their first Founder and Maintainer whereby some of themselves also might be discourag'd and cool'd in their zeal against the Romish Vsurpation to which their honour'd predecessors owed Allegiance Whereas Augustine the first founder had his maintenance and dignity and ways of acquisitions from the Brittish See of London whereof Canterbury is parcel or the same and owed Canonical obedience and the rights and fortunes of his Successors to the Brittish Church to whom they are ultimately to refund if these are to refund to them as to the right and first owners Because 4. it would be a great strength and but a due and just vindication of Protestantism or the Apostolical Ancient Brittish Church after such long abuse and wrongful suffering by Rome and a New face and reviving glory to old Brittain to recover its Pristine right and condition in Church as well as State and Name and worthy of a share in those Solemn Consultations appointed as it were by providential instinct for its further Union in Laws and Government to the everlasting honour of that Prince in whose Reign it should be recorded to be accomplished Or 6. to make our chief See in Brittain hold some better proportion with the like in Neigbouring Kingdoms as Remes or Toledo whom in Universities and Colledge Endowments we far exceed to our Glory to be a fit preferment for some of our Princes or chiefest Nobles hereafter for the great support of the Church Or at least 7. that the name and memory of Monk Augustin the first Author of this disorder by his Infamous Schisms and murders which Reign'd so many hundreds of years in such glory under the darkness of Popery should set at last in due obscurity under the Sun-shine of Protestantism Which considerations are recounted not out of any design or desire of Innovation though into a Pristine right or to restore the bone into its due place with pain and danger that hath been so long out of joynt and well serves for use though not rightly set Though the whole design and plea of the Church of Rome be that a bone rightly set and settled and fully useful ought to be dislocated to the hazard and cripling of the whole to be in the wrong posture it once was for a time for their advantage and benefit But to solve scruples and unravel scandals and pluck up all misapprehensions by the roots whereby any might be deluded by any pretences of Equity or conscience or filial Reverence for a Mother-Church into a favourable opinion of Romish slavery Or if any be prick'd in conscience for the wrong done to Rome at the Reformation let the same prick reach to the wrong done before to Brittain by Romes Schismatical Invasion which no prescription of time or years could give right to and then all will be in right order as at first they were and ought to be and the first right owners shall have their due and old Trepassers their censure and rejection yea as by good providence they now are and stand for it ought to be well known and understood that the See of Canterbury as it stands Established is not a Roman but a Brittish See and consequently Exempt from all Romish Superiority or dependance by an Original Birth-right and Immunity and therefore forbiden by our Laws and Synods to use or wear any Pall or Liâ—â—â—y or Legatine power of Rome's bestowing and settled by our Brittish Soveraigns in christ-Christ-Church Canterbury as effectually and Canonically as at St. Pauls in London which all Christians of Brittain whether of Protestant or Catholick stamp and Character may now with a safe and good conscience pay due submission and obedience to as they ought without Schism or scandal or forfeiture of their Christian Dignities and Orders and Communion by the Canons of the Universal Church hereafter to be recited which before they could not For though Schism be objected by the Romanists to the Episcopals as by the Episcopals to the Presbyterians and Non-conformists yet the Pope in Brittain and his Romish Convâ—â—â—clâ—s set up by craft or â—iolence over our Churches which lay out of his Jurisdiction ever were the Original Schismaticks and the first Patterns and ill examples of disobedience against Right Superiours against so many good Laws of the Catholick Church that do Excommunicate and depose them for it And nothing in all likelyhood hath or doth more foment and châ—â—ish our remaining divisions in the Land and Sâ—â—â—s in the Church than Jealousie of Popery and it spâ—â—ted hankerings and designs to reduce men again under the old yoak of Rome so much dâ—restâ—â— and justly abhorr'd by the whole Nation If All in Trust and Eminency could fully satisfie men's fears and Suspitions of their unfeigned adherence under God and the King to their Brittish Mother-Church in opposition and detestation of all Forreign Corrivals for Superiority It were strange and justly unexpected if all parties throughout this miserably divided Nation would not soon joyn hearts and hands and Church-meetings with one another in an entire and indissolvable Union and Brotherhood to the Infinite joy and happiness of Prince and People SECTION XIV That the Primacy of Canterbury as by the Pope and Monk Augustine is Schismatical and against the Canons of the Vniversal Church and of the several Nullities of the Church of Rome in England And how their Clergy Intruding here stand depriv'd of their Orders by the Canons of all the Ancient General Councils and their Laity that abet them of their Christian Communion by the same Authority BUt the Supremacy of the See of Canterbury by the Popes Authority alone as our Romanists would have it without the Authority of the Kings of England is Infamously Schismatical and irregular and against the Canons of the universal
by Ambrosius in a solemn Assembly Cleri Populi of Parliament and Convocation to express this matter in modern Terms By which may be guessed the irregularity and invalidity of Adeodatus his Ordination which was Ordain'd only by one Bishop of his Province who had received his own from such as were no lawfull Bishops as before and of Theodorus Arch-Bishop the Restorer of the Romish Religion in England who was Ordain'd by none in all this Province and came hither with Tyrannical Power against the will of the Bishops of this Province and to displace such as were regularly Ordain'd and Consecrated by the Bishops of this Territory who had lawful Power as Ceadda Archbishop of York by name whereby himself in the sence of the Catholick Church in the Canons before recited was neither Bishop nor Priest nor within Christian Communion whereby the Authority of the rest by and after him Ordain'd and the nature of the whole roman-catholick-Roman-Catholick-Church built in this land upon such rotten Pillars may be scann'd and judg'd of with trust that there is mercy and compassion with God for the sincere in heart and Vengeance and Indignation against insolent disturbers and Tyrannical Hypocrites Which by the way might be the occasion that our Politick Popes in the Controversies heretofore berween the Sees of York and Canterbury for Priority after both sides were craftily well squeezed and lurch'd in their Purses referr'd this matter out of their moderation to be ended and detetmin'd by our own Kings as Edward the third did it under his great Seal as before whereby some Authority was by the way acquir'd to his Romish See of Canterbury which before he well knew had none at all by Church Canons by the Royal Patents of our Soveraign Kings which are favour'd by General a Con. in Trul. Can. 38. Chalc. Can. 17 Councils else for Kings to meddle in such Ecclesiastical concerns had been to touch the Apple of the Popes eye and to incurr the displeasure of St. Peter and St. Paul forever to the manifest hazard of their Crowns and Souls as there are Instances good store in matters of less offence and far more Temporal in their natures But our Popes will not stand to any Council but take themselves to be above them all which is the true reason of the Schism between the Eastern and Western Church or indeed of the Schism and departure of Rome from the whole Christian Church the true Catholick being ever govern'd by Laws and Canons but the Roman-Catholick affecting to be absolute and to Rule all Churches by its own Arbitary Will and Lust The former Arguments from General Councils though they are sufficient to satisfie all honest and right Christians yet our Popes are no more concluded by them than was Cromwell by Magna Charta unless therefore the Nullities of the Romish Church in England be prov'd from their own Rules and Principles and from their own mouths against themselves they are not prov'd home enough as to them to instance in two or three So tender are they and averse from shedding of bloud or would at least somtimes be so Accounted that their Clergy cannot be present b Con. Lateran Can. 18. at a Sanguinary Tryal but if they have the ill fate to kill a man though through mistake and chaunce they become Irregular for it and depriv'd of their holy Orders irrecoverably Much more then are they forever unclerk'd by Murder whereof if our Augustine the Monk was manifestly guilty in principal manner not towards one but towards one or two thousand Innocents no men of Arms but of the Book and Gown and Prayer then the Orders he had or conferr'd after that on others as on Justus and Mellitus made Bishops by him after this fact came all to nought as to them in fact or desert and their whole Romish Church and Ministry by consequence but that he was principally guilty of the barbarous Murder and Massacre of our Brittish Monks at Bangor as before c Juell 5 part defence 438. who by good Relation came out Bare-foot and Bare-head to beg their lives and was present at the place to encourage the slaughter for the better propagating of the Romish Faith or at the least had a great hand in this bloud is not denyed by impartial Antiquaries yea those methods us'd by Romish forgeries to palliate his crime by corrupting Bede's text and also by Enthusiastical Hypocritical praedictions to father this execrable massacre upon the Spirit of God these Arts and devices are so far from excusing that they prove and fasten it the more upon him and in a very high and nefarious manner His Orders therefore and his after Actings in the See of Canterbury were all null by their own Rules And his Communion and much more his Fatherhood in the Christian Faith to be disown'd and detested by all English Christians and true Catholicks forever in their own defence Besides Theodore Archbishop of Canterbury at a Council at Herutford pass'd this Canon which ownes and espouses the like Canons of the Ancient Church with their penalties d H. Spelman Concil p. 153. Vt nullus Episcoporum c. That no Bishop Invade the Diocess of another but rest content with the Government of his own charge But such was Brittain towards Theodore and to the Pope that sent him as well as to his Successors that followed him as before is largely and fully prov'd the Faith here being planted by the Apostles or their followers among the Brittains and by the Brittains amongst the English Therefore Theodore the restorer of the Romish Faith in England stands condemn'd he and his new Church and Successors by his own Law and sentence as well as Augustine its first founder Withall Pope Gregory himself who was the first root and contriver of our English Popery allowes not his Augustine to entrench upon the Gallican Church or the Bishop of Arles his Jurisdiction because saith he that were against Scripture and the Ancient Institution of the Fathers pointing at the several Canons of Councils before recited and to thrust one's Sickle into another mans Harvest But Brittain was a Province ever more distinct and exempt from Rome than Gallia as before is prov'd Therefore Augustine for his Intrusion stands condemn'd by his Pope And his Pope by himself for sending him And Theodore and his Successors by the same definition Withall it is observable why yet Pope Gregory subjected our Brittish but not the Gallican Church to the Romish Jurisdiction of Monk Augustine because saith he e Bede lib. 1. c. 28. ab Antiquis praedecessorum meorum temporibus Pallium Arelatensis Episcopus accepit I find the Bishops of Arles to have had their Pall from Rome in the times of my Ancient Predecessors that is because France was subject to Rome Brittain before was not Now this modest and humble Pope declares in several of his lib. 4. Epist 76 83 178. 194. Antiquitates Eccl. p. 43 45. Epistles extant
worldly design and private ends shall be most Uncatholick and so the Catholicism of their Church is more like to fall and vanish likewise But if they call themselves Catholicks for distinction from Protestants who pass with them but for Hereticks they are again very grossly mistaken in their Criticism For Orthodox b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. tit 12. c. ◠is contrary to Heretick and Catholick to Jew which was the first and Original sense of this word upon the Gentiles being taken into the Church as well as Jews And Protestants are no more Jews than themselves as is not doubted Nor perhaps so much for they are liker to the Jews in confining Gods Church within the Roman Pale as the other did within their Palestine But we Protestants Catholickly extend and enlarge it to all Nations according to the promises made to Abraham the Catholic◠Fathe◠of many Nations as the name God gave him imports as well as the particular Father of the Jews Therefore the Title Catholick more belongs in Truth and reason to Protestants than to our Romanists who are so restrain'd and Vncatholick and Jewish-like in the bounds of their Church which they so confine to Rome And by their waving the Title Orthodoxe which had been more proper for their distinguishing design they fatally allow Protestants for such and disallow themselves They therefore are in Truth neither Orthodox nor Catholick but only New Roman or a private Earthly Church below or a modern Italian Jerusalem that is in exile and bondage with her Children Not favouring either of the Apostolical purity of the right Christian or the Orthodoxy of the Ancient Roman or the Heavenliness and Spirituality of Jerusalem which is above the Mother of all true Christians who are in Heaven by Faith They are therefore in Truth but New Roman-Catholicks as who should say an Old-New a Particular-universal a Spiritual-carnal a Heavenly-earthly Church made up of Contradiction and Hypocrisy and Earth Whose chief end and Interest is the Advancement and glory of Rome not of Christ high like Kites in their soring pretences to eye Dunghills for prey the better making silly Souls to believe the only way to be saved is to become their Spiritual Slaves and Tributaries and to go to Rome and Heaven to be all one Which with an answerable personal Holiness of life without which none can see God might well be true of the old Apostolical Rome and any other Church agreeing with it in the like sound Rule and Doctrine but it is far from true as to the Modern Apostatical for it is a great and a gross mistake to take or imagine the Church of Rome Ancient and present to be one and the same because of the same Sirname and patch'd Succession for it is not name-sake or Succession which yet goes far with superficial judgments unlike to God that by their principles neglect and lay by the heart but the same soundness of Life and Doctrine or hearts in the same Heaven not feet in the same house or Countrey that make Churches to be the same and true the want whereof or any notorious corruption in Faith or Manners by the rules of Christianity cuts off and debars the Communion of Christians Members much more the Succession of Christian Governours For how can any succeed to be Heads where by the Apostolical Law they are out of capacity to be members of a Christian Church 1 Cor. 5.11 The old Roman Church for the first 400 years before Rome was burnt and several times sack'd and brought to the dust as before did disapprove the wayes and Doctrines of the Modern and consequently its Communion as much as we Protestants for she did not Worship Saints or Images nor slight and suppress the Scriptures under colour of respect nor curtayle Sacraments and Divine Institutions Nor usurp'd upon Christ nor Crowns nor Churches nor Consciences nor upon the liberties of our Brittish Church in particular as they cannot Instance in one Pall or appeal in any Age or History Pope Gregorie's account upon diligent search above 1000 years agoe to omit other Arguments is abundant proof and certainty there was none nor endur'd to carry God about in a Cage and to create as many Christs and Saviours as there be Wafers in Churches and Cities and Altars and every one of equal Deity and Worship to our Saviour in Heaven God blessed for ever which amongst them cannot otherwise fall out as we have shewed but that a Wafer should be Christ and Christ but a Wafer by their Hypothesis which excludes the heart whereby Christ by consequence is excluded and a gross Capernaitical sense of such Spiritual Mysteries as necessarily introduc'd nor made the Authority of man more than that of Scripture the Rule of Faith and Heresie nor burnt fellow Christians for their Errours much less for the same Truths which themselves maintain'd as Protestants are or are in danger dayly to be serv'd by the present nominal Church of Rome with other innumerable Superstitions and Unchristian cruelties and loathsome Fraud and Legends and Infernal Dispensations for sins and duties But was Orthodox in her Faith and Regular and sober and Christian like in all her Church-Rites and Practices and well approved of and acccorded with by this and all Christian Churches by all brotherly love and Communion as the distance of places did permit yea with some preference of honour before many other lesser and obscurer Churches for its Imperial situation and numerous Martyrs yet without any danger of being caught in any Noose by such respect or honourable Appellations which no doubt were return'd to every Church though lesser with the like or greater humility and respect than they were given In which Christ-like victories and contests between Brethren and Churches the Christian ambition did heretofore consist but the present Church of Rome abuses and converts the Christian honour of her equals into aliment and fuel for her Pride not exalting others for their humility as God doth but concluding against them from it through the barbarous forgetfulness of her own mutual Divine and Christian part and no Eulogy shall occur in History but must bespeak Supremacy to her alone and Slavery and Subjection to the rest of Christendom like the Wolf going to School who could discern nothing but Agnus in every word and Syllable and letter pronounced unto him No this Church of Rome is no more the old than a Cock is a French-man because both are Gallus in Latine than there City or their People or their Language is the same being all of a new and a different Situation and dialect and descent The Race of Old Romans are sooner to be met and found in Venice and else-where than in Gothick Rome where more inclination not only after Roman civility but also after Ancient Roman or Protestant Orthodoxy doth appear as some of their wisest Clerks and later Historians have given a tast And the parties in this Bill and Plea for this Roman Supremacy
General Council regulates the Controversie about Easter for Peace and Unity against great traditions p. 16â— The Brittains left their Eastern observation of Easter in submission to the Council of Arles and Nice p. 164. 166. The difference between Rome and Brittain about Easter at Augustine's entrance was Astronomical not Doctrinal like our stiâ—o novo veteri saving that the Monk and his party pretended the Golden Number to have been a tradition of St. Peter p. 167. The like Ignorance Parallel'd in a modern Enthusiaâ—â— p. 168. Rome justifies the old Church of Brittain to have been Orthodox throughout because it had no more to except against it in Doctrine but this Easter difference p. 169. The Brittish Church took the 7 Churches of Asia for her Pattern in the first division of her Sees according to some of the Heathen Flamins and Archflamins according to others not so probable p. 170 All holy and good Bishops were Successors of St. Peter and all Carnal and corrupt Successors of Judas in the Brittish estimation p. 171. An account of several Ancient Customes and Traditions of the Brittish Church differing from the Roman and agreeing with the Catholick Church And Rome condemned in her Clergy and Laity in General Councils for not observing some of them 172. Of Wednesday and Friday in the Holy Week and their Brittish names and Grawys or Leâ—t ibid. Of their Plygains or solemn Carolls on Christs Nativity befor break of day still continued p. 173. What honour they had for the Cross how they Prayed for the dead their great beliefs of the Immortality of the Soul and detestation of lying ibid. Of their Eremites and Nunneries Their Monks followed the Rule of Aegypt and the East p. 173 174. Their Clergy might marry p. 174. Their Bishops were chosen by Clergy and people their Archbishops by their Kings and Synods and Parliaments p. 169 And never sought to Rome for Palls or Ordinations p. 175 They differed from Rome in their Tonsuâ—es if they had any at all p. 174. Their singular esteem of Episcopal blessing or Confirmation p. 174. 175. Their resort to the East and Jerusalem whithâ—r St. Helena went and Pelagius and St. David and Teâ—law and Paternus and the three last ordained Bishops by that Patriarch p. 176 177. The Antient Greek Fathers are Records of our Brittish Ecclesiastical Antiquities why p. 177 178. The Homilitical customes of the Brittish Church p. 178. Their respect and Loyalty to their Princes whom yet they reprov'd for their scandals and of the Brittish Valour for their Countrey and from what Principle and a Passage from K. Henry 2d to the Emperour of Constantinople concerning them p. 178 179 180. The respect of Brittish Princes and Gentry towards their Clergy p. 181 182. Of the Brittish Charity in Commerce with one another with an account of Syberw q. d. ys berw valdâ— Scaturiens Effluens and ansyberw wherein they plac'd all practical Religion and irreligion to this day and of their Cymortha's prohibited by King Henry 4th what they were with application to some of our Brittish Gentry p. 182 â—83 seqq The present Church of England profesies the same with the Ancient Brittish the people are more the same Nation than Italians are Old Romans p. 186. The Romanists have no colour to impute Schism to the Brittish Church nor to ask where was our Religion before Luther p. 187. The character of the false Apostles agrees with Modern Rome p. 189 190 198. Communion with the Church of Rome when best unsuccessful to Brittain p. 190 191. The Romanists shook off the Greek Exarchs their lawful Governours by unlawful means and blame us for doing the same to unlawful Governours by lawful means 192 193. The Brittains more offended with the Romanists their fellow Christians for Robbing them of their Sees than with the Pagan Saxons who rob'd them of their Countrey p. 193 194. SECT VIII Monk Augustine's Learning and Principles and Elocution for his Work and his Cases of Conscience sent to Rome whether a woman being with Child might be Baptiz'd c. p 195. seq Of his direction to purifie Idol Temples with Holy Water and the consequences of this errour p 197. His Elocution p. 201 His method of Propagation combination with Heathens against Christians false Miracles Massacres p 203 219. seq London averse to him and his followers why p. 205 206. His Miracles and his Companions p. 207 209. His exceptions against the Brittains 209 210. The Calumny rais'd against the Brittains of denying the Gospel to the Saxons confuted p. 210. seq And how the snare was laid p. 225. Of Gavel kind or Gavel Kent the Tenure of Kent p. 217. Of Christ-Church Canterbury an Old Church of the Brittains and Bede's partiality in concealing the Conversion of Kentish Saxons by Brittish Clergy p. 218. Who were permitted after the first storm was over to continue in England till Augustine's Arrival p. 215. Romanists Schismatics here unavoidably p. 220 221. An account of the reason of Augustine's unnatural Combination with Heathens against Christians in a Brittish Proverb p. 221 222. There was no need of Augustine's coming hither p. 223. What had been his duty p. 224. Empire and profit was Rome's design here not Religion p. 225 223. The Monks of Bangor murder'd by Augustine's procurement p. 226. seq The Brittish Princes reveng'd their deaths p. 228. The effects of an Idol set up in the heart in Christ's stead p. 229. The English cannot take Augustine for their Apostle why p 230 203. SECT IX The Gospel from its first planting never failâ—d in Wales Cornwall Cumberland Scotland p. 232 423. Conquerours destroy the Nobles and Gentry not the Communalty p. 233 The Trunk and body of the Nation was alwayes Brittish under Roman Saxon and Norman Conquerours Ibid. The Montâ—ossian Family of Brittish descent p. 234 How several parts were yielded to the Saxons upon terms p. 235. 236. 237. A Brittish Church in England under the Saxons p. 238. 239 c The Brittish tongue preserved amongst the Communalty in Wales upon the score of the Gospel p. 240 243. A Proposal of charity â—or Brittish Servants in London p. 243 244. The Saxons forward to Unite with the Brittains by Intermarriages p. 244. seqq Why more of Brittish extraction in England than of any other p. 247. more discernible in the nobility and Royal bloud p. 248 249. Invasions compared to inundations and feavers how p. 249. 250 English can succeed in Brittish rights and exemptions as well as Goths and Vandals in St. Peter's Roman Chair p. 251 252. How the English are bound in Honour as well as interest to defend the old Brittish rights p. 252. and especially our Princes p. 253. The precedent discourse summed in the words of an Anonymous writer p. 254. Some Learned men conceived not the English so safe from the pretences of Rome about their faith as the Brittains in Wales but without ground p. 254. 255 A great or most part of the English Nation converted to
the faith by Brittish Ministry before the arrival of Monk Augustine p. 255. 256 seq King Aurelius Ambrosius and Arthur zealous in propagating the faith amongst them p. 256. 257. How zealous Etbelfred was for Heathenism p 259. How God moulded the Brittains into several conditions for the Conversion of the Saxons p 260. 261. Bede taxed of partiality p. 261. 214 215 2â—8 The remainder of the English converted by Brittish Ministry proved out of Bede himself p. 263. By the assistance of King Cadwalhan or Cedwalla and Oswald and miraculous Providences regarding the Innocent bloud shed at Bangor p. 264 265 Of Oswalds Bishops Aidan Finan and Diuma and their Countrey and Principles and Brittish names p. 266. seâ—q The place of Oswald's death how remarked by providence p 2â—â— 271. 26 Counties of the North and â—â—â—rcia and East Saxon with the City of London entirely recovered to the faith by the Oswaldian Clergy and the Church of Rome had not the least hand nor finger nor pretence to offer for their conversion p. 271 seq 276. The English and Brittiâ—h Princes after some descents became friendly till Rome and Auâ—ustine interposed p 273 27â— Great numbers of Brittish Christians in the West-Saxon Kingdom conceal'd by Bede That Territory recovered to the faith by them and by Irish ann French Ministry agreeing in faith and communion with the Brittains and by Oswald's Interest and how Rome's help was nothing p. 277. seqq The like of the 4 Counties of the East-Angels p. 280. seq and South-Saxons and the Isle of Wight p. 284. seq The Roman faith in England reduced within the bounds of Kent and thence eradicated p. 286 287 205 207. The Romish Church with its See of Canterbury exstinct for 15 years till the entrance of Theodore a Graecian to be Archbishop there p. 289. The Ptimacy in Licbfeild p. 290. Archbishop Parker's Argument from old Saxons Laws and Homilies of the English having their first faith from the Brittains and not from Rome p. 291. seq To which the Brittish intermarriages with the Saxon Infidels which was their sin was by Providence made useful p. 204. SECT X. Augustine but Rector of Christ Church Canterbury or at best a naturalized Brittish Bishop by their own Principles p. 295. 296. a President of the Pope's over-ruling for the right of a Native against a Forraigner after 600 years possession p. 297 This Controversie at an end if popes would do as they would be done by or stand to their own Decisions p. 298 Brittain how great a Mother Church in Europe p. 298. The Northern Nations converted by the Germans the Germans by English and Irish all from Brittain and God's regard to the Martydom at Bangor p. 299-305 Rome had its first faith from Brittain before the arrival of the Apostles thither p. 306. seq The first Christian Congregation was in our Claudia Ruffina's House converted into a Temple which is therefore their Mother Church and not St. Peters built afterwards by our Constantine p 313 Alcuinus and Rabanus Maurus Charlemagne's Doctors their Brittish Names p. 305 315. The French if not the Gauls owe their Faith and Learning to Brittain p. 315 317 318. What words the Brittains borrowed from the Latine and what the Latine from the Brittains and why p 316 317. The Modern Roman Faith is from the Goths and why 3â—8 The resort was from Gaul to Brittain heretofore for Philosophy and Religion as much as now from England to France for meaner Accomplishments p. 318 319. Exceptions against our plantation of the Faith in Germany answered and that Rome more hinder'd than help'd p. 31â— seq The Saxons had their Learning and Characters from the Brittains p 320. Three marks of nearer Cognation to the East in our Brittains than other Western Nations p. 321. Evidences that the Ancient Greeks had their Philosophy and Letters from this Isle p. 320 3â—â— Of the Original of Peter-pence and the Colledge of Rome least the Saxons should be further instructed by the Brittains and the dismal Ignorance that ensued p. 325 326. Where was the Roman Church in England for 600 years before Monk Augustine What Rome contributed to the German Conversion p. 329 332. If Popery be a good Religion Rebellion is no great sin p. 331 332. What was true and sound in Religion Germany had it from Brittain p. 332. Charlemagne in the Franckford Council against the second Council of Nice and Pope Adrian condemned Image Worship and owed his Orthodoxy therein to Brittain p. 332 333. The Canons of that Council imbezeld and suppress'd by the Roman Hereticks as they did other Records p 333 334 335. Saxons more mild to the Brittish Clergy in Lhoâ—gr after the first Brunt till Rome's entrance p. 334 How Nations â—avour of the Faith of first Planters p. 335. How Brittain was like to the great Primitive Church in being dayly kill'd by Heathens and defil'd by Hereticks p. 336. The Agreement of the Roman Principles with Audius the Apostle of the Goths p. 336. The Female Sex have a right to Supremacy over most Churches by the Roman plea p. 337 Upbraiding Cancels Courtesies why and the Romanists destroy their pretended merits a clear offer made to them p. 338 339 340 341. The Romanists insisting upon the merits of Monk Augustine become responsible for his wrongs to this Church p. 341. How disingenious and unreasonable they are in their imputation of Schism to us p. 342. How under the Roman Usurpation Ordinations here were valid to the Brittains and yet Schismatical and null as to the Romans p. 343 344. No slavery to be shaken off by indirect means the benefit and reward of Patience p. 345. How unworthy it were to return voluntarily under the yoak of Rome ibid. SECT XI Rome promotes its Dominion 1. By giving away the rights and Kingdoms of others p. 346. 2. By politick Matches Popery recovered in England by Oswi's marrying K. Edwins Sister p. 347. seq 3. And Archbishop Theodore introduc'd p. 349 350. How he us'd Archbishop Ceadda p. 351. 4 By preferments to Ambitious parts and of Wilfrid's ill end and faults and omen at his Birth p. 349 351 352. 5. By Ignorance conâ—rary to its first pretences p. 352. seq An address to the Irish wherein they are to be commended and wherein bewail'd 354 355 356 357 358. The Papists ascribe the Priviledges of Jerusalem above to their own Church p. 359 King Cadwaladrs going to Rome out of Devotion a Monkish sorgery and fully refuted p. 359 360. Bede averse to the Brittains 361. 6. How they defeated our Princes of their Church Rights p. 362. Their opposition from our Norman Kings and from Henry the 8th set out in a comparison p. 363 SECT XII Kings can better assert their Rights with the Sword than Popes their Usurpations by Excommunication p. 364. None ought to envy our Restoration nor especially any that have suffered by Tyrants p. 365. More of the Rule of Communion and separation p. 367. Regulated Conscience is no private
OF THE HEART AND ITS Right Soveraign AND ROME no Mother-Church to ENGLAND OR AN HISTORICAL Account of the TITLE of our BRITTISH CHURCH And by what Ministry the Gospel was first Planted in every County With a Remembrance of the Rights of JERVSALEM above in the great Question Where is the true Mother-Church of Christians By T. J. of Oswestry in the County of Salop sometime Domestick and Naval Chaplain to His Royal Highness the Duke of York Rom. 8.31 If God be for us who can be against us London Printed for Edw. Foulkes and are to be Sold by T. Basset at the George in Fleet-street 1678. To His Royal Highness JAMES Duke of York and Albany c. May it please your Royal Highness AS the Peace of Kingdoms which your Royal Highness excellently knows and the duty and safety of Subjects together with the great ease of Princes consist in one short easie rule and equitable well maintain'd and practic'd The submission of the Creature to its Creator or the Obedience of Inferiours in the low condition of the one to their respective Superiours over them in the Authority and high Character of the other so it may be affirm'd that the Peace and welfare of the Church depends no less upon the like lesson and method For what are Conventicles Schismes Heresies Idolatries which disturbe the Peace and destroy the being of the one but like so many Riots Factions Seditions Treasons which alike undermine and overthrow the Constitution of the other so that in short the Disturbers of the World are those alone who disobey Superiours Who in the time and under the covert of Peace are of two sorts such as undutifully despise the right or treacherously erect a wrong Sovereign over themselves The first are those who from Avarice or Pride or Ambition by craft or force disobey the Laws and usurp and encroach upon the Rights and Prerogatives of their lawful Governours where every inconsiderable Inceptor and Puny Recusant is a Cromwel or Lucifer in his path and tendency The next those who through fear or easiness will admit or submit to any wrong pretender in his usurpations and believe the Serpent against God And then it cannot be expected but that they who mistake their Sovereign in the first place will mistake their Loyalty in the next And Allegiance misplac'd shall make men Rebels as much as the failer or subduction The prime indispensable â—charge therefore first of Heaven's King next of every King on Earth that represent him is that known Commandment Thou shalt have none other Gods but me The Peace therefore of Churches and States manifestly consists in two points 1. In the exact knowledge and discovery who are our right and lawful Superiours on Earth 2. In exact obedience perform'd to their Laws and wills and no other Nor to them acting beyond their Sphere and usurping upon Gods Rights in Heaven under whom all Earthly Superiours and Inferiours are equally fellow-subjects And not to be allowed the liberty of eyes and understanding or private judgment to discerne between right or wrong Leaders which is of such temporal concern and preservation to every man in this World nor between the will of God and his Creature where they interfere which is of such Eternal moment in the other wherein lyes the Radical errour of some Modern Christian Heathenism were to be depos'd from being men any more or reduc'd to an Eternal non-age and inability to discern between good and evil and fitter therefore to be governed than to govern either themselves or others Having therefore for the establishment of Friends and the comfort of Regular and recovery of Irregular and seduc'd sufferers for Religion bestowed endeavours to distinguish the several parts of Divine and Human Soveraignty whereon the Peace of Communities and the Salvation of Souls depends being as manifestly distinguishable as Heaven and Earth or Soul and Body and stated also and evinc'd the Title of Right Mother-Church to our own Brittain though it s known a Harlot can bid fair for a true Mother where she lights not on Solomons for Judges and where she does be willing the Child be divided into Sects and parcells which she is not like to enjoy to her self entire and sufficiently demonstrated to any whose invincible minds and Spirits are unreduc'd from their Loyalty to God and truth That Popery in its Leaders is an uniform invasion and in its followers a necessary disobedience to right Soveraigns in Heaven and Earth and Protestancy in its Principles to be safe and clear from such disorders I judg'd fit to dedicate the Argument to whom it was duty to present the first Copy to your Royal Highness my Gracious Prince and Master having afore-hand weighed and consider'd as I ought it would make for your Highness Honour and publick love either at home or abroad in the disjunctive whatever were its resentment or success At home with God and the Countrey if it serv'd in the least to fortifie your Royal Breast against temptations or at least with Forreign Lords of Celestial Crowns and Canonizations against whose Sacred Avarice and Catholick canting for Tribute and subjection and other Politick Arts which are not unknown and infallible errours and Idolatries which are not unconfuted such plain and manifest Truths from clean hands and ends could so little prevail though seconded with the sense of the whole Nation and the rights of this ancient Apostolical Church undoubtedly Senior if not Mother to Rome it self Withall the Subject being of the Heart and Conscience and comprizing as the heart doth in a narrow Room a competent stock of Divine Rules and measures to judge of Truth and about Church matters seem'd therefore the fitter present for a Prince so nigh to Soveraign who is a Nation contracted in one man And Princes like God whom they represent delight in hearts And no Prince in Story was ever the Darling of more English Hearts than your R. H. and strange and unjust it were you should suffer any abatement of that Glory for no other reason but your exalted superlative zeal for God and your Conscience above Crowns or Kingdoms being the highest strein and pitch of sublime and transcendant Honour that Mortality could ever exert or phancy and higher still if that zeal were well guided with discretion as the Apostle requires and not taken upon undue trust whereof if there were not some manifest cause to doubt or fear none were more inexcusable and worthy to be deserted forever by Your R. H. than him who having had once the honour to adhere to you in your military dangers should want a heart at last to follow you in your Ecclesiastical motions after truth my more proper Element and Profession Having therefore as I ought doubted my self not a little and reviewed my Principles upon this occasion and with best endeavours of Brain and Knee studied to know the Truth and Gods mind herein with a heart resolv'd to be of its side to my power against the
be remarked in the worst of sinners that irrefragably prove a God The first is their infinite insatiable appetite after their peculiar Lusts which is that true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Avarice which Scripture stiles Idolatry Col. 3.5 The second is that forlorn guilt and anguish that the Conscience ever meets with criminibus peractis as the Poet said as soon as the Commission of the sin is over which no Creature for the present can allay or still without either Gods pardon upon Repentance and amendment or the help of time at least to forget it whereby the heart like the skin grows more hard and senseless by its wounds ill Cur'd These two effects very evidently prove it was a Divine and an Infinite Bliss and Happiness the Soul did aim at and forfeit in all its wicked fruitions and disappointments such an unbounded manner of Pursuing and Ruing being as clear an argument as ten thousand miracles to prove the existence and nearness of the deity to mens Actions but that Vicious Souls by the habit and Custom of vice become Callous and Bedlam-like insensible and so wholly brutal and un-attentive after God as the very beasts that perish in whom we commonly observe several shadows and resemblances of our own Reason in some degree but not the least sense or footstep or inclination after Religion or Altars or Sacraments This being the peculiar imploy and prerogative of Immortal Spirits Seeing therefore our Souls cannot be without either God or Idol to serve and fear and cannot serve both or neither it is not only our duty but necessity to chuse to do all we do rightly from the heart to the true God alone to our unspeakable comfort and reward than erroneously to Worldly and private ends or Idols to our everlasting misery and ruine This is the first reason from the fundamental constitution and Genius of our Souls which were made from the beginning as Adam in Paradice to walk and converse only with God and the good lives of the best Patriarchs are remarkably compriz'd in Scripture in a phrase to the same effect That they walked with God And our own Law resolves all Crimes in her Indictments into one Cause The want of the fear of God before mens eyes And why is it that peace of Conscience can defie the frowns of the whole World and all the favour and affluence of the World cannot quiet a disturb'd mind but that the entire concern and interest of man is found by all experience to be solely and immediatly in God The second reason is implyed in the word Lord who is Christ For Christ became Lord of Christians by purchase and merit by dying for them as the Apostle Argues 2 Cor. 5.15 In whose Death and Cross this present World hath its end and period by Faith as the Old World in the deluge by Gods judgments And the Christian Church is a New raised people a new Creature springing out of the Grave of the second Adam as Eve the type of the Church from the first Adam fallen asleep and following Christ in heart and faith to the right hand of God where now he is For the Church of Christ is supposed and laid according to the Scriptures in Heaven above More fully shewed in another Discourse on Phil. 3.20 Col. 3.1 Heb. 12.22 23. and not in any Corner or City or Chair on Earth here below as some Modern Donatists or Romanists strongly fancy for their gain deceiving and being deceived And this present World with its pomps and concerns which used to allure and detain the Soul from God to be withdrawn and vanished and dead and gone Col. 3.3 1 Cor. 7.31 And all the Cob-webs of Worldly ends and lusts and transitory designes which used to bind Carnal hearts like strong Cords swept and removed out of the way and none left but Christ and the Soul alone upon the pit None for it to love or converse or set its heart upon but Christ alone Christ Personal or Christ Mystical Christ in himself or Christ in his living Images in being or to be that is his Church So like is our Restoration by Christ as Christians to our Creation at first by God as men by both we were made to converse with God alone all other things being set below us under our feet by subjection or by death By subjection by the law of the Creation and by death by the designe and fiction of the Regeneration So true is that of the Apple 1 Joh. 1.3 Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ for as the Soul could not stir out of God so neither hath the Christian any life or motion or being out of Christ Whatsoever he doth he must do it according to that general Rule of St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only in the Lord 1 Cor. 7.39 Christ hath the heart of a Christian in the first place next those that are likest in their lives and places to him He joynes in Communion with this or that Church as far as they keep Communion with Christ and no further He 'l joyn in Communion with St. Peter that Christ is the Son of the living God he 'll separate from St. Peter himself in his Abnegation and return again to his Communion upon his Repentance with bitter tears for that his Abnegation being still constant to Christ though Peter not constant to himself And no other Inferiour Pope or Church on Earth can claime Communion with or submission from us upon any other terms than as our Prime and Eternal Allegiance to Christ will give leave and permit without the guilt of Treasonable Idolatry against Heaven in our selves to give and yield it in them to take or arrogate it For whether we serve a Master or obey a Governour or chuse or approve a Church or Marry or live single or eat or drink or celebrate a Festival or whatsoever else we are to do we are to do all from the heart as unto the Lord and not unto men And so much of the Doctrinal part of my Text. Which in the first place is of infinite use and influence to the right ordering and prosperity of Societies and Communities whether those Majorum Gentium of the greater size and sort that of Church and Common-wealth or mankind in General or other particular Fraternities of a lesser compass formed after the mould and imitation of those greater For nothing ever was given more useful to the World to sodder and strengthen Societies and Corporations than Christian Charity or Love from the heart towards one another for Christs sake which adopts and Incorporates all both small and great to its Heavenly community all the members of any Company all the Companies of any City and all the Cities and States and Kingdoms of the world into an unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Men are weak and comfortless and of a narrow sphere while alone but grow strong and goodly and formidable and
or transgressors of that Law and Law-giver there is but one who can save and destroy James 4.12 The blessed Lord Jesus Judge of quick and dead at the last day whose deputies on Earth in the Interim are consciences in Private souls and Magistrates and Governours in publick bodies who are as the souls of such bodies whether Temporall in Externall or Ecclesiastical in more Internall matters and concerns who are all both Private and publick conscience Subject and accountable unto him who alone is Judge and Soveraign And therefore we can do nothing against Christ upon any mans Authority whatsoever and being found faithful to him the sole and Supreme Judge and Soveraign of our souls we trust to be found Gods Catholicks though we are but Hereticks to the Pope who is not our Judge rejoycing in mans aspersion while we have Gods Absolution to wipe it off for not he who commendeth himself is approved but whom the Lord commendeth 2 Cor. 10.8 SECTION II. Of the true Mother Church in particular to all Christians in respest of their In-side and RomesVsurpation HAving shewed that no Christian Churches or persons are subject to the Pope while himself is not subject to Christ the right Superiour and Soveraign over all nor bound to offend against Christ to please his pretended Vicar all being bound to withdraw their Communion from him who shakes off the undoubted Soveraign over all I will further shew that though the Church of Rome were sound and un-corrupt in its Doctrines and Loyalty which it is very far from yet it neither is nor was ever any mother Church to our British Church nor can have any right or title to its subjection or obedience It never had any Original motherhood or superiority over us of right nor in fact at any time but by the Concession of our Princes imposed upon by its arts which they may justly recal and take away at their pleasure as hath been done So it appears it's themselves that necessitate us to desert their Communion out of Christian Loyalty to our Saviour by them first deserted and deposed in a treasonable manner and his glorious Majesty chang'd into the similitude of a Calf or a Mortal Creature that perisheth which is the first spring and root of the rest of their desperate and monstrous Errours which bear the manifest spots and tokens of Antichristianism in the strength and infallibility of their Delusions Though we can and ought to bewail and compassionate their condition and slavery yet to return to their bosome as to a Mother Church we understand not how it is our duty or sober obedience were it sound or healthy yet we doubt not but she hath angl'd several sincere and ignorant and unwary Sons of this Church with that bait We confess we have been pin'd and stary'd under her for hundreds of years as under a hard and cruel Stepmother while harbour'd by the Fathers of our Countrey imposed upon by her inchantments whose issue by her as by a second venter upon her divorce became appurtenant to the Father and are incorporated with the first stock and Family but sure we are she never teemed of our Brittish Churches who never were the Daughters of her womb nor sucked our first milk from her breasts For whether their inside or their outside or extraction be consider'd they appear to have no descent from Rome Neither can they instance or insist upon any other point or manner of Pedegree and derivation of one Church from another For as it is with every private man if his inside and Soul and Spirit be examined whence it came it came from above from the Father of our Spirits Heb. 12.9 and to return in peace to him that gave it is its utmost aim and bliss Eccles 12.7 If the outside or his body it came from the Earth whence it was first taken and whither it must return If his intermediate descent he springs and proceeds from Fathers and progenitors of the Flesh and owns their superiority and Discipline and honours their names and memories So it is with all Churches and Christian Societies By our inside we are not from below or from beyond the Sea but from Heaven Jerusalem above being our mother and Jesus our King the King and Lord of Souls By our outside we are under our own Kings and Governours on Earth as our Nursing Fathers and Mothers according to the Holy Prophecy As to our descent Old Christian Britannia is our Mother to whom the Antient Church of Rome is Junior in the Faith and much more any of her Perking Daughters or Clergy which shall be further proved in every particular And first as to the inside of all Christian Churches and of the Church of Rome it self if she will be a Church of Christ and of thousands in her that have not bowed the heart to any but to Christ known to God There is no Mother-Church to be accounted of but one only the Spouse of Christ expressed by name in Scripture Heb. 12.22 Not the City of Rome who rather is under ill report in them but the City of the living God The Heavenly Jerusalem which Gal. 3.26 is by the Apostle Stil'd the Mother of us all and which is free and answering unto Sarah whereas Jerusalem on Earth answers Hagar in her servitude and yet Jerusalem below is more a Mother of all Christian Churches than Rome it self or any other here below for Rome her self had her extraction thence her St. Peter and his Chair and the Gospel and Christ himself she and all must derive originally from Sion And if the Mother be not free much less her Daughters for no Soul or Church can be said to be free in her exile and servitude whiles she serves any other but her own natural Prince who is Christ alone the High Priest and Bishop of our Souls who is at the right hand of God in that Heavenly City and Assembly of the Faithful For Christ is the sole Monarch and Legislator in this Spiritual Kingdom and none are free Subjects here but those who obey him alone and no other Controller His will alone is the Law and measure of good and evil and duty and transgression He enacts and repeals and dispenses and absolves he alone can search and reward and punish Souls The everlasting concerns of Eternity and the secrets of mens hearts transcend all humane authority and cognizance and reach No secular Powers are to tread within this Temple but are to stand without in the Court though Christians and in the further Court of the Gentiles if Heathen or Antichristian Christs Deputies and delegates in this Heavenly work and Province are all Bishops and Curates who by their life and Doctrine set forth his true and lively word and rightly and duely Administer his Holy Sacraments who yet have no power or property or Authority but from him Neither is the word they preach 2 Thes 2.13 nor the Sacraments they administer 1 Cor. 4.1 nor the Absolution they
or quicken either or like Pipes in an Organ Dead and Dumb as of themselves yet sounding out aloud the high praises of their God in his Church when they are filled with his Breath and Holy word and spirit However when these inward conceptions of mens spirits bud and break out in Births James 1.15 and land in another World in the Territories of Earthly Soveraigns who like God are both Omniscient and Omnipotent in their own Dominions and precincts Here the case is far otherwise Here Earthly Magistrates have their free Liberty and Authority to arrest and take as in the out-side and purliews of the soul whether they be Christian or Heathen as well the one as the other in their several capacities and Characters Heathen Kings being Gods Deacons Rom 13.4 or his Ministers in the State to preserve the peace of God and man by frowning upon all vice and sin and wicked lewdness Act. 18.14 which is spiritual Idolatry and War against God in the heart provoking his vengaence and judgement against a land and to Protect and praise them in every good work and vertue which is the amicable and loyall deportment and worship of righteous souls towards God whereby he is won to be favourable in his blessings and protections not only to them and their seed but to the whole land though less deserving for their sakes Gen. 18.32 And Christian Kings being the Fathers and Bishops of the Church and Christs undoubted Viccars on Earth in all the outward affairs of that Holy Polity to preserve its beauty and order and the holiness of its Communion against blemishes and scandals according to the Rules of Christ Christian Kings I say cannot be denyed to be the Fathers of the Church according to Gods own mind in Esa 49.23 Prophecies like to Faith being the evidence of things not seen given their right stiles and Titles to persons and degrees as yet not in being as if they were And as they are Fathers so they are Bishops and Overseers of Christs Flock the Church in things without as other Holy Bishops are in things within as it was declar'd by our Constantine the first Christian Emperour in the first and great general of Counsel of Nice of 318. Primitive and the best tried Bishops the Church ever had Nemine contradicente not one dissenting or disliking the expression either then or since but our Romish Popes of late after the Church began to slumber and degenerate And Viccars on Earth they all are severally in their own Kingdoms by the Popes own confession for so Eleutherius early declares in his Epistle to our Lucius the first Christian King in the world about the year 170. if it were the Act of Eleutherius or about the year 110. if the Act of Evaristus according to a. Usher de Britan. Eccles Primordiis p. 34. Ninius or sooner according to b. Usher de Britan. Eccles Primordiis p. 34. Paulus Jovius which though it be not Authentick in all its parts and purposes yet because some of our Kings might send to some of the Popes of Rome then Famous in the world for their uprightness to be Brotherly advised about some points of their Government unless our difference from them about Easter as well as the East might interrupt such correspondence or Communion and the Epistle passes for true and Authentick amongst many of our Romanists therefore the Testimony and citation in it touching Kings being Gods Vicars in their Territories is firm however and binding against them to the full And St. Paul doth no less in the Principles he layes down in my Text by which every master is Christs Vicar to his own Servant and by consequent proportion every King is Christs Vicar to his own Subjects for the Apostle would have tied obedience upon Subjects toward Christians Kings if they had been in his time in being in the same from and tenour as upon Christian Servants here towards their Christian Masters as is observed by a right learned Person towards whom they are to do all from the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as unto Christ himself this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as implies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as the master is is over the Servant in his Civil capacity his Civil Lord and Master so is he over him in his Christian capacity a Christian Servant as Christ is over Christians and Subjects Masters and Kings by consequence being Christs Image or similiude or Lievtenants or Viccars as the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies The same Apostle exhorting every soul to be subject to the higher Powers Rom. 13.1 amongst whom are comprehended Ecclesiastical persons as well as lay saith St. Chrysostom If those Powers become Christian as they are now with us they become the Vicars of Christ by consequence to all their Christian Subjects of the Clergy as well as Laity and were his Holiness a liege Subject of this Kingdom our King would be inevitably Christs Vicar on Earth unto him as he is undoubtedly to all English or Brittish Roman Catholicks who yet suffer themselves to be seduced by him who is no Viccar of Christ to them as such to withdraw their Christian obedience from him who truly is and Unchristianly and disloyally to disown his Supremacy over them who is as truly Christs Vicar over them in this world as he is their Christian King or they his Christian Subject Which is also agreeable to right reason as well as Scripture for there is a great difference between the Inside and the Outside of any Church or particular Christian which are in two several Kingdoms under two distinct Governments the one Heavenly and Eternal as is the soul the other Earthly or Temporal as is the body of which two they are severally made For such actions of the Soul as are concrete to the body and of use and moment in this present world only and not contrariant to Divine Institution and are circumstantiated with time and place whereby they become visible facts preceptible by mens senses and open to the view and cognizance of humane Authority though they be concerning matters Christian or deportments and behaviours and wears to be used within the Church and in time of service the same are not properly Spiritual as they are vulgarly call'd especially with them at Rome whose whole Religion is about the outside or Heavenly or Eternal and Invisible and belonging to Salvation which is equivalent but they carry a Temporal or Secular or Carnal nature in them and belong therefore to Temporal Jurisdiction to each Crown they are under and by no pretence to Rome but where Rome hath a temporal Authority to order them in her own Subjects but with us they belong to our Brittish Thrones and Tribunals and to Ecclesiastical Courts where they concern Christian and Temporal where they concern Civil Society and to the Kings Subjects as witnesses and Juries upon the place and not to any Forraign Chair or Rota or Pack of strangers to make
well as Apostatical from its right Guide and Rule as hath been shewed And the Elder and the Healthy hath some pretence to Govern the Younger but the Younger and Sickly no manner of colour to Govern his Sound and Elder Brother which brings me to the Third and Last Point to prove That the Church of Rome hath no Superiority or Mother-hood over our British Church in respect of its Extraction or first Plantation of the Gospel SECTION IV. Rome no mother Church to Brittain in respect of Extraction or Plantation of the Christian Faith but much Junior to it WHich it never had from Rome nor by its means but without it altogether and for a good space of time before it had any Chair to boast of Our Brittish Islands by remarkable Providence being exempt and distinct from all the world as to subjection though not to Communion (a) Ms. Bernesii Doctoris Pontificii apud Spelman Concil p. 28. not only in respect of its seperate scituation and the Supremacy of its Crown but the Antiquity and Independancy of its Sees But rather than to be dumb and confess and yield the cause the Romish Advocates will stand up and pretend some out of Simeon Metaphrastes that St. Peter himself made a long abode in Brittain and converted many and ordained Bishops Priests and Deacons amongst us and at the founding of Westminster his apparition and Ghost appeared to direct the Builders which Legend is not worth an answer not only for its suspected Author but for its ill conduct against its own Interest and forgetting its cause making Brittain no more Inferiour but equall and co-ordinate to Rome and Sisters from the same Spirituall Father St. Peter But others with more colour will object did not Augustine the Monk sent from Rome about the year 600 convert this land and especially the English to the Christian Faith Had they not quiet possession of their plantation for about a thousand years till they were wrongfully justled out by King Henry the Eighth in a Rebellious manner Is not the Chair of Canterbury which derives its descent from Rome and Austine Superiour by publick allowance to all the Chairs of Brittain besides to ascend higher to stop the mouths of the Ancient Brittains that plead more Antiquity in this Island than the English or Saxon can or do whose first landing here was not till about the year 449 Did not the Pope Eleutherius through Faganus and Dwywanus he sent hither with others Christen their King Lucius about the year 170 and convert and Baptize the rest of the Nation and settle Bishops and Arch-Bishops amongst them where Flamins and Arch Flamins were before as appears by their own Histories And is not this a sufficient Title that is 1500 years standing to prove the Church of Rome the fountain and Mother Church to Brittain and if a Mother where is the honour and Obedience that is due unto her But if it shall more fairly and truly appear 1 That the Church of Brittain was planted by the Immediate followers of our Saviour either Apostles or Apostolical men shortly after his Resurrection and before St. Peters Arrival at Rome whether that tradition be true or false and the same seed though sometimes in some parts of the Nation mixt with tars in other parts more purified from them continued among us without failer especially in the Northern and Western Parts of this Island from that day to this 2 If the whole passage by consequence between Eleutherius and King Lucius cannot be allowed for true which Savours of the latter Arts of Rome to compass Sveraignty contrary to the express words and tenor of Eleutherius his Epistle and answer to the King and the subsequent Practice of the Bishops of Rome for some hundreds of years after him while they continued good 3 If Augustine the Monks arrival here was a manifest Intrusion upon anothers Province without Invitation or consent of the Christians of the place to Invade and subjugate and destroy the Brittish Church by the help and means of Pagan Enemies then making War upon them as Jackcals and Vulturs follow Camps for Prey whereby he and all his Clergy stood depos'd and degraded of their Orders and all his party of Christian communion by the concurrent suffrages and Canons of all the Generall Counsels of the whole Catholick Church that went before him 4 If the Controversie between the Church of Brittain and Rome in those Early times was the same that is now maintained against it by the Protestant Church of England at this day touching its Superstitions and Arrogated Supemacy with this difference that there was no roome nor place then for those Sophismes now us'd where was your Church before Luther or Henry the Eighth but both still agreeing in their manner and temper of Proceeding now as then and then as it is now on the one side great learning and Truth and piety on the other as great Ignorance and Arrogance with lying wonders and Massacres 5 If the Gospel was Providentially planted amongst the English or Saxons by Brittish Ministry and not by Romish and the Church of Rome by its bewitching Power and Grandeur in degenerare times over all this part of the world did but invade and disturb both the English and Brittish Church and ravish their Sees and disorder their Consecrations and successions and Vnchurch it self thereby and attempt to enslave our Crown as well as Mitre 6 if Henry the Eights relief of both Crown and Church was just and Providentiall and also Brittish and not the unsettling of a Right Possessor but the lawful ejection of an old Intruder And the peace and Interest and Glory of this Nation is fairly pointed out by Providence to consist in pursuing this design 7 If the Primacy of the See of Canterbury be from the Grace and pleasure of our Kings and Laws who can alter it as they think fit and not from any Ecclesiastical Right of the Pope according to the Laws and Canons of the Universal Church but rather in contrariety unto them And Christian Subjects ought to submit to the supreme Magistrates Right and pleasure in ordering such external matters about the Church as clash not with Salvation If these seven points shall appear as clear from proof and evidence as they are in the model and supposition will it not inevitably follow that no English much less Brittish Christian subject of what perswasion soever can with any conscience or thankfulness to God renounce his Mother of Brittain to own a Forraign Church for his Mother or desert his Colours to list himself under the Conduct and Supremacy of Rome to Act against his own Church and Country without being apparently convict before God and the world as well as his conscience of being a Renegade to his Church and false unnatural to his Country and as our wise Laws upon good grounds declare and define a Perfidious Traitor against his Soveraign First then it may be affirmed what cannot and is not
one of St. Pauls Disciples one of his own bloud and extraction being the Son of Claudia Ruffina f Martial Fpigr lib. 11. Ep. 53. lib. 4. Ep. 13. a Brittish Lady admired by f Martial Fpigr lib. 11. Ep. 53. lib. 4. Ep. 13. Roman Writers for her Accomplishments not short of any then in Rome or Athens e Usher cap. 3. p. 31. seq the Wife of Pudens and Mother of Linus in whose house at Rome Baronius saith g Anno Christi 44. the Tradition goes St. Peter had his abode in Converted afterwards into a Temple but which is more certain and generally agreed on by their Writers and ours and the exceptions of one e Usher cap. 3. p. 31. seq Dissenter sufficiently answered by the most Learned Vsher they both were the same persons who are mention'd e Usher cap. 3. p. 31. seq in St. Paul's 2 Epistle to another Timothy 4.21 Pudens and Linus and Claudia greet thee and all the Brethren Who after acquaintance with St. Paul in all Probability was more instrumental to conveigh and promote more and more the Gospel into her Countrey than before pieces of Roman Wit as she was wont as is rightly inferred by the Polite and Reverend Author of Antiquitates Ecclesiasticae who yet is more industrious than need in the derivation and Roman forming of both her names Claudia from Claudius Caesar and Ruffina from Pudens Rufus a Roman Knight her Husband when her own h Hist Britt l. 2. c. 2. Brittish name might easily and without such streining be formed after the Latine Mode common with it to other Tongues to make some alterations in Forreign names which they are to pronounce in their own who being Young and newly Married with Pudens Martialls Patron stil'd Sanctus by the Poet in his Epithalamium for his Modesty and Vertue might well be the Mother of a Son that might be fit for time as well as mutual affection to Baptize our Brittish King coming over to be a Christian and probably by his means and influence for K. Lucius or Lhês lived not at that distance of time but that this might be well Effected in Anno 156. saith Geoffry h Hist Britt l. 2. c. 2. of Monmouth and sooner say Ninius and P. Jovius as before Withall there was but his Father King Coillus and Marius or Meirig his Grandfather between Lucius and Aruiragus mention'd in Roman Writers who was Contemporary with Joseph of Arimathaea and g Gwladys Ruffydh or Gryffith whence Ruffinus Ruffina Griffin The old Brittains retain'd their Maiden surnames though Married and do still amonst the communalty and pronounâ—e u as y and melt away g. bountiful to him at Glastonbury say our Histories and Lucius might be called Arviragus or Apviragus for his name in Brittish form was Lhês Coel ap Meirig i Usher p 18 And were it true that Lucius of a King became a Preacher before his end and Converted to the Faith Bavaria k Usher p 31. and Switzerland as several Authors report out of the Annals of those places as our English k Ubbo Emmius Reâ— Frisicarum Willibrord and Suidbert and Wilfrid did Holland and Frizland and Boniface or Winfrid did the Thurmgi Suevi Franci l Munster Cosm l. 3. p. 323. doth it follow they must owe an Eternal Subjection to the Church of Brittain upon that score Or did the Ancient Brittains ever pretend to a Supremacy or Jurisdiction over Ireland upon the pretence of its Conversion by their St. Patrick as is the way at Rome to insist Or were it lawful for them and in their own power to pav us or another that should upon such a score expect it such their subjection and obedience against their due Loyalty and Allegiance to their own Soveraign whose right it is but though we pretend to no rule over them nor expect any more but their love and kindness which is mutually due we may justly take it ill and unkind at their hands that they chuse rather to be guided in their Faith by Forreign Deceivers to their Misery than continue their Communion with their Ancient Christian Friends and Brethren Branach to their great felicity in Soul and Body and the happy peace of both Nations Where Christian Religion is wholly imployed and adapted to compass Worldly ends and Temporal Superiority its dignity is embased and its nature really chang'd into another kind or species and ought not by consequence to be call'd Religion For the end is better than the means and the Master than the Servant and the Building than the Scaffold And this present World Satans Kingdom is more excellent than such a Church which is wholly designed and dedicated to serve and gain it with all the end gives name and being and definition unto the means as a sum of Money imployed to relieve the poor is Charity to pay Debts Justice to Bribe an Evidence Perjury to hire an Assasinate Murder or a Building made to dwell in is a House to Grind Corn a Mill to keep off Enemies a Fort to serve God in a Church to buy and sell in a Shop and by consequence that Religion that hath Earthly Rule and advantage for its chief end and professes Earth thereby to be better than Heaven and Gospel good for nothing more than to fill Coffers cannot be call'd Christian or true Catholick Religion for the chief aime of such is the World to come but rather an Antichristian trade or craft which sets Conscience and Truth and Sacraments all at sale to make sure of this And so much may suffice touching the second point to shew that Rome is no Mother Church to Brittain neither by Conception or Education for she was neither conceived in her womb nor nourished on her breast but was a Virgin of full Age when her pretended Mother was but in her Swadling Clouts and Cradle SECTION VII The Description of the Old Brittish Church in its Doctrine Discipline and Goverment and Traditions when Augustine the Monk made his Impression here IN the third place to come to Augustine the Monkes Impression upon our Brittish Church we are to examine whether being free born she forfeited that liberty by any foul Heresie or Schisme Or the Church of Rome at that time merited Superiority over her by being a more Excellent and purer Church Or by any Act of redemption or unrequitable Courtesie which swallows liberty hath won or oblig'd it in justice and equity to be subject to her Or wherein her Title to this Supremacy lay in its first advance and setting out before any pretence or colour from prescription or possession The Face therefore and Physiognomy of both Churches at that time is to be viewed and examined in its lines and features which of the two for Doctrine and Discipline and Traditions was most Catholick and Apostolick and Primitive and Merited supposing their years and standing equal to Rule and give Law to the other Where it is to be premised
natural Allegiance of his consciâ—nce towards Christ and the Truth and his outward duty to his Governours and Fathers at home violating the fift commandment with a Pharisaical corban saying to their peculiar Fathers it 's given to Rome whatsoever you might be profited by us following uncertain traditions before Gods express Law and teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men as our Saviour himself hath timely detected and forwarn'd against this Holy fraud Math. 15.5 for by the same reason that every good wife is to know her own Husband from another and every good Subject his own King from a Forreigner or Usurper and every Souldier his own Commander and Colours by the same duty and conscience every English Christian is to follow his own Church in Christ before another for obedience misplac'd is but Godly transgression or Traiterous Loyalty to the disturbance of the publick besides its own shame and prejudice And by submission to Governours and Synods they were heal'd of the Pelagian Heresie which most annoyed this Church next to Romish Inroades that trode down the whole field and sowed their tares and superstitions from year to year among our best corn this made also our Church to under go several variations about the observation of Easter as times required As for the Arian Heresie and venome which began to Breath a little in these parts upon h Usher p 197. Gratians toleration of divers opinions in Religion it found not the air to agree with it neither did Pelagius or Morgan though born in Brittain and as it is said i idem p. 207. the same day St. Augustine was born in Africk suck k idem p. 215. 224. Pelagii Epist ad Demetr or Propagate his Heresie here but fell into it at Rome by finding Christians to come short of Heathens and abusing Grace to Libertinisme and Wantonness for otherwise he was in great esteem and veneration for his learning and Sanctity with the chief l Usher 221.214 Fathers of the East and West St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom and in the East m Usher p. 215. ended his days having never return'd to his own Country but his Heresie came to be spread here nevertheless in those parts especially that were reduc'd by the Saxon Conquerour by the means of n Bed lib 1. c 17. Agricola a French man the Son of Severianus a Pelagian Bishop and in the rooting of it out amongst the Brittains left behind in Lhoegr Germanus and Lupus French-men likewise did good service as by Neutrality they were better fitted as for instance their first and main success in disputation was about o M. Westm p. 446. St. Albans where Gildas and such as he durst not approach for the Enemy as his complaint is taken notice of by p Camden in St. Albans Camden there being their chiefest Champions sent hither from the Gallican at the request of the Brittish Church signifying her distemper and troubles quaâ—primum fidei Catholicae debere succurri that the Catholick Faith should be assisted as soon as might be such was the loving Communion then between this and that Church and still might be especially with the soundest and learned'st part thereof under frown for Orthodoxy if he who now letteth were once taken fully out of the way 2 Thess 2. But it recover'd it self again after Germanus his time till St. David newly ordained Bishop by the Patriarch of Jerusalem in a publick Synod whereto he was invited held in Wales against it gave it q Usher p. 474. its final overthrow and was made Arch-Bishop of St. David in the same Synod thereupon For the Easter Controversie which was the only materiall point Augustine had to object for the other about Baptism was meer Ceremony and since lost in oblivion it consisted of two parts Doctrinal and Astronomical Doctrinal as in the early Controversie between the Churches of East and West wherein it is most probable the Brittains followed the East before the Synod of q Concil Arelat Can. 1. Arles and Nice determined otherwise and Astronomical between Augustine and the Brittains at this time being much the same difference between stylo veteri stylo novo in our days which the Ignorance of Augustine made to be a Catholick tradition derived from St. Peter and the chief ground and pretence of quarrel to disturb our Churches St. Paul dehorts Christians from observing dayes and Months and times and years Gal. 4 10 very agreeably to the Christian Hypothesis whereby this present world or the old Creation hath its end and period in the death of Christ Sacramentally to our Faith and r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys T. 5. Edit Savil. Hom. 53. p. 357. time its Concomitant twinne hath the like end and period with it by consequence Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye Subject to Ordinances for properly a Christian as a Christian lives not in this world but in Eternity or to use the Apostles expression his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Conversation and Scene of living is not on Earth but in Heaven with Christ at the right hand of God Phil. 3 20. Col. 3.1 Which Doctrine highly Suits with the nature and genius of the immortal Soul all whose Acts of vice or virtue though as born in the body within the virge of time and place they are Temporal and transitory yet as they are the free-born off-springs of the Soul they carry the features and signatures of Eternity upon them being Eternal as their Parent in the memory of their guilt or merit Not as if the old Creation wherein we still live in the flesh 2 Cor. 10.3 were wholly consumed and transubstantiated in the sight of our rational faculties which a moral Philosopher would justly deride as madness in those that should maintain it but that the whole sublunary and moral nature of all its parts is to be elevated and consecrated to Heavenly uses in this state of Grace and nearer access to God wherein the Church as a new Creature by faith now stands Rom. 5.21 2 Cor. 5.17 Therefore old things are passed away behold all things are become new We Christians eate and drink and obey and rule and mourn and rejoyce and observe dayes and times and feasts as well as the Jews or Heathens did but in another World by faith between the heart and the Lord in whom times persons and degrees and differences of persons meet in one as the whole Hemisphere in the candle of the eye or Diameters in their Center In the World men are Greeks or Barbarians bond or free Male or Female but in the Church Christ is all and in all For as in a degenerate Church or false Christian the present World or his Interest and profit is all in all and Holy Church and Religion and God and Christ and Faith and Sacraments are all Hypocritically and profanely named and used in
order and subserviency thereunto and no further so in the true Christian Religion Christ is all in all and all things besides of this World are dead things to a Christian that cannot help him forward towards Christ and the other life as the other World and Religion is an insipid story to a false Christian where they are useless to serve his ends in this Any Christian may and ought to observe and regard time as well as other things of life or death but to Christ who died and rose again that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14.6 8. much more may he observe time when commanded by Christian Governours to whom he is subject in the Lord more yet a time of Apostolical Institution to whom he and his Christian Governours are subject to obey such is that singular Lords-day mentioned in St. John Rev. 1.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the day of our Lords Resurrection or Easter which Christ himself by his own example hath recommended to his Church for perpetual observation as the lasting practice proves the first direction For on that day Christ rose from the dead founding his new Creation in one day as God did the old in a week and instructed Mary Magdalen touching the Communion and participation of Christians in his Resurrection and Adoption by it which constitutes the Christian Church and the substance of its Catechisme Say to my Brethren I ascend to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God Joh. 20.17 On the Octaves of the same day carefully noted v. 19. he appeared to his Disciples met together and Instituted the Governours of his Church with a Consecration Sermon ad clerum touching their Authority and duty As my Father hath sent me even so send I you and breathing on them said receive ye the Holy Ghost whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosoever sins ye retain they are retain'd v. 21 22. And after eight dayes again or a Disdiapason or the third day from the Resurrection he met his Disciples again and preach'd a Sermon ad populum containing the chief fundamental principle of Christianity and the blessedness of those that have not seen and yet shall believe mildly reproving the foreseen Curiosity and Infidelity of Christians in the person of St. Thomas v. 29. Expressing hereby his leading will and example for the observing of Sunday forever as a Holy day for Worship and Instruction upon the score of the Resurrection or as 51 Octaves of Easter day as the subsequent Apostolical practice of the Church hath prov'd this first Institution Act. 20.7 1 Cor. 16.2 The Jewish Sabbath being dissolved with the old Creation by Faith and the Christian Sabbath erected in its stead the new Creation requring its Sabbath as well as old because a Creation And the Church or Spiritual Israel bound by the decalogue to the observation of it in remembrance of its deliverance from Spiritual Aegypt and bondage as the Jews or Carnal Israel to the other in remembrance of such deliverance in the letter Besides the Law of Constantine and other godly Kings of New Israel for observing of the same And not against but according to our Saviours Intimation Mat. 9.15 That the Disciples should fast when the Bridegroom was taken away Wednesday and Friday preceding his passion and from thence all the Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year saving the time of Pentecost when the Bridegroom returned to his Spouse in the Comforter have been observed by the Ancient Catholick Church as a Fast in reference to his Cross as Easter and thence all the Sundays in the year as a Feast in reference to his Resurrection both the one and the other being regarded to the Lord The Church particularly training it self to the conformity of Christs death to to this World in the one as of his life in the Heavenly joyes of the other Christ in his Cross and Christ in his Resurrection being the whole lesson and both side of the leaf to the Christian Church 1 Cor. 2.2 Philip. 3.10 The Charter of Easter and its weekly repetitions or Sundays which some prefer in honour before Easter it self the Copy before the Original being so clear in Scripture in its first Institution of so great importance is Charity and condescention to the frailties of our Christian Brethren that the great Lords-day or Easter as well as the Sabbath was by Christs mind to give place unto it in some places and for some time Accordingly we find the Eastern Churches adioyning to Jerusalem to observe Easter out of its time the same day as the Jews did their Passover what day of the Week soever it fell on whether Sunday or not and also to observe Saturday as a Holy-day as well as Sunday throughout the year in complyance with the Jews But the Western would by no means yield or approve thereof but thunder'd against it with the same zeal as St. Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles did against the introduceing of Circumcision amongst the Gentiles Gal. 25.5.2 Phil. 3.2 which yet was tolerated in the Christian Jewish Church Act 21.20 21 25. And therefore St. Peter the Apostle of the Jews Gal. 2.7 is more complyant with the weak Jews in their Ceremonies whom he fear'd to offend than St. Paul who did as much fear to scandalize his weak Gentiles and reproved St. Peter to his face upon that score Gal. 2.11 and yet both the one and the other in their zeal and moderation were acted by a diversified charity but the same inspir'd directions Gal. 2.8 And the true Reason in all probability of the Roman Fast on Saturday so contrary to the Apostolical Tradition of the rest of the Christian Church what other plaister soever many may invent for this notorious Non-conformisty was the zeal of St. Paul's successors after his example and steps Gal. 2.5 strictly to assert the Christian liberty of the believing Gentiles in the West from the yoak of the Law and all seeming Judaical observation of the weekly Saturday with equal respect to the weekly Lords-day As they would by no means before veile their Annual Easter to the Annual Passover upon the like score wherein St. Peter and all Christians of the Circumcision would not have been so precise and strict as it is well known they were not to keep such exact distance from the Synagogue nor needed they at Rome to have been after the limited time of toleration to the weaker Jews was expir'd as it was no less than Schisme and disobedience in them to continue in this their needless singularity though originally generous after the Catholick Church in General Councils had declared its dislike against it Now if the first Popes of Rome as Victor with others had believed themselves to be the Successors of St. Peter they would not have raised such a bitter quarrel against the Eastern Church about the time of observing Easter for this had been to have made St. Peter fight
against himself So that Romes persisting in her Saturday Fast is an Eternal evidence and record against her self that neither her Popes were Successors to St. Peter nor she truly Catholick and Apostolical in her Traditions and that leaving her St. Paul's Bible at last for St. Peter's Keyes which belong'd not to her alone she is fallen to the ground between two Chaires and Titles Now it is well known that to the time of the Council of Nice for about 300 years after Christ the Eastern Churches and such of the Western who were for observing Easter upon a Sunday and not one the precise day of the Jewish Passover continued their difference to that height that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Epiphanius r Lib 3. Haeres Audian they did not communicate with one another The Western or the Roman taking the Resurrection for their rule and the Eastern supported by the Authority of St. John the Evangelist a long Liver and St. Peter as afore and the Bishops of the Circumcision whom they followed whose determination by Apostolical Constitution the whole World was to follow to prevent Schisme and Division in the Church as the same Father Notes They having more to say by this for their r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Title to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief Judges of Controversy in the Church than the Bishops of Rome could ever pretend to because James the just the first Bishop of Jerusalem whom they succeeded stil'd the Brother of our Lord Å¿ Idem lib. 3. Haeres Antidicomarian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the first who received the Episcopal Chaire and whom the Lord entrusted with his throne upon Earth in the formost place And it is an Argument of greater Superiority to succeed the Master as they did than to succeed St. Peter his Minister which is the utmost that Rome doth or can pretend though with more ambition than antiquity or reason of its side Now of what side the Churches of Brittain were in this early Controversie whether of the East or of the West before the Councils of Arles and Nice determin'd it is gatherable from the answer of Colman the Bishop of Lindisfarn to Wilfrid at the dispute before the King of Northumberland at Streanshall or Whitby so that their conformity to the East as will appear proves the Brittish Church by consequence to have more adher'd to St. Peter and his party than did Rome for in that solemn Synod held upon this particular point in the year 664. they say Pascha hoc quod agere solo a majoribus meis accepi qui me huc Episcopum miserunt quod omnes patres nostri viri deo dilecti eodem modo modo celebrasse noscuntur quod ne cui contemnendum reprobandum esse videatur ipsum est quod beatus Johannes Evangelista Discipulus specialiter Domino dilectus cum omnibus quibus praeerat Ecclesiis celebrasse legitur Bed l. 3. c. 25. This kind of keeping of Easter which I observe I received from my Ancestors which sent me hither a Bishop which all our Fathers belov'd of God are known to have observ'd after the same manner And least any should imagine this way to be depised or disallowed it s the very same which the blessed Evangelist St. John the Disciple specially beloved by our Lord is recorded to have observ'd himself with all the Churches that were under him And Wilfrid on the other side referr'd his way of observing it after the manner of the Roman Church to a tradition derived down from St. Peter being both in the dark about the point now in difference which was not Doctrinal but Astronomical but clearly discovering the extraction and Communion of the Brittish Church and her Daughters in the belief and perswasion of Ancestours to be from and with the East and not from Rome For so Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus in his Synodicall Epistle writ against Pope Victor as it is mentioned by St. Hierome in his Catalogue In Asia lye St. Philip and his three Daughters at Hierapolis St. John who lean'd on our Lords bosom at Ephesus and with them Polycarp Thrascas Sagaris Papyrius Melito who all kept Easter according to Evangelicall tradition and the Canon of the Church on the fourteenth day without inclining to either side And I Polycrates according to the Doctrine of my Immediate predecessors Bishops being 7 in number whereof I am the Eight have alwayes observ'd Easter when the people of the Jews keep their feast of unleavened Bread But after the Councils of Arles and Nice interpos'd and decided this Controversie between the East and West it is as clear the Brittish Church kept Easter no more upon the day of the Passover but on the t Bed l. 3. c. 25. Sunday following according to the mind and decision of the Council wherein they differ'd from the Quartadecimani who are branded for Hereticks for keeping it on the Passover day and not on Sunday and that fasting and so much is also confessed in Wilfrid's reply to Colman Johannes adlegis Mosaicae Nihil de primâ sabbati curabat quod vos non facitis qui non nisi primâ sabbati celebratis that they differ'd from St. John and the East in having so punctual a regard to the Lords-day or the first day of the week which Moses and the Synagogue and those Eastern Christians that went their way never heeded where by the way we may observe that as the Bishops of the Circumcision were of Ancient Right and Custom Superiours to Rome and all our Gentile Churches so Christian Emperours in General Counsels were Superiours to both over ruling both the one and the other to peace and unity against their several traditions and in defect of General Councils who now never meet and the Bishops of the Circumcision who are exstinct the Brittish Church becomes Supreme within it self under its own Governours being no more under Rome than Rome under it and no other left that pretends to such Superiority But if the Church of Brittain left its Eastern traditions to observe the decrees of Councils which Rome alike observ'd where then was the difference between Augustine and the Btittains there was none in Doctrine but only in Almanack Calculation For as u Usher p. 925. the learned Primate proves both Churches followed the same Paschall Cycle from about the year 382. to the time of Dionysius Exiguus who taught the Church of Rome a better about the year 500. convinceing them to be two dayes out in theit account and x Baronius An. 325. N. 30. Baronius confesses that after the Council of Nice the Bishops of Rome received their directions from year to year for the week Easter was to be kept from the Church of Alexandria where they had better Mathematicians When the Roman Church followed the Cycle of 84 yeers which the Brittains also were guided by they would not keep their Easter on the 15 â—h day of the Moon though it fell upon
the great esteem and contempt that Syberwid and Ansyberwid was and is in still amongst them that have kept their Language and Ancient Customs most free from Forreign mixtures for with such no man can fall under a worse or better character them of Syberw or Ansyberw no greater commendation have they for any man or woman than gwr or gwraig Syberw no greater note of Infamy and unworthyness than Ansyberw which they pronounce as Suber and Ansuber though writ with y which words whatever is their Etymology in their common acception carry a comprehensive signification of several good and evil qualities as ingredients And 1 it is manifest Syberw in the first surface denotes liberality as Ansyberw niggardness but then further it points at the cause and reason of both for 2 such a man is to be allowed Syberw that doth by all men as he would be done by and the contrary is Ansyberw so is he that takes greater measure to himself than he will afford to others so are all that can endure to fare richly while their Neighbours starve by them and Syberw is he that is watchful and resolute against all avaritious inequality and overreaching or unconcernedness for others that be in want and misery so that Syberw is just and mercyful as well as Liberal and Ansyberw unjust and merciless 3 It implies some inequality when a man strives to be kinder ro another than to himself and pinches himself in back and belly to be kind and liberall to many as I have known vety good Women who went habited scare above beggars and of proportionable abstinence in their diet who if they had worn all their large almes upon their backs from year to year which they valued above all gayety and good fare might have appear'd and far'd as splendid as any of their rank and know by this time they made a better choice and herein is the essence and formality of Syberwid and such an engrafted traditional honour and esteem there is for such amongst the Brittains that their names are mentioned with great and cordial dearness as if this were to be a Saint for faith and all vertues are presumed to be in that man or woman where this temper is found and though it may seem unreasonable or at least a work of Superogation to love another above himself yet they judge nothing to be a greater duty and content and blessing as indeed what is more Divine and Honourable and the source all noble actions and rewards exposeing life for Country c. and in their common bargains and measures they abhorr and dread precise and exact equality without some addition or voluntary overplus of kindness to another they deal with above the strict contract and they had rather abate of the price agteed than be disabled to give the said addition as their free guift over and above their bargain which they proverbially call rhád-duw or Gods Grace and Blessing And the giver is as Willing or rather more to give his Rhad-duw into the bargain than the other to receive it 4 It takes in conscience and the heart above all they 'l hardly receive it if it comes not from the heart and from no ends but as a free guift and he that is Ansyberw is therefore hateful with them because esteemed to have no conscience and he that is Syberw from the heart is call'd glan ei galon or clear spirited which is the loveliest Character they judge any man can deserve or receive and probably Syberw comes from Sobrius and Sobrius from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Etymology of it whereby it signifies the preservation of the mind and heart which is done they conceive by nothing more than Syberwid as the mind and soul is destroyed and corrupted by nothing more than Ansyberwid which is the same with Philauâ— or self love as appears by the premises so hateful with St. Paul and our Brittans and with all good men so that by this their imbred tradition received amongst all undegenerate Brittains both high and low they judge honesty and mercy and love to others above themselves as in the case of humility to be their self-preservation and chiefest Interest and surest method to prosper And no wonder they preferr'd this hearty Syberwid before all other vertues it being nothing else but that love which is the fulfilling of the Law or that charity from a pure heart which is the end of the commandment and the total of all Religion for what excellency or degeneracy is there in human or Christian nature that is not contain'd in Syberw and avoided in Ansyberw What is honour in Nobles honestum with Romans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Greeks humility and charity with Christians is all comprehended in Syberw And this Brittish Principle and Custom is so undoubtedly Apostolical and Primitive that nothing more is the root and cause of the Arrogance and troublesomness of Popery or of that hollowness and Hippocrisie that hath too much prevail'd in Modern Protestancy and Puritanism it self than the manifest want thereof Some of our degenerate Gentry ought to compare their ignoble and sinful constant healthing and swilling while they can hardly spare a glass of Water to Christ in their poor Neighbour with this sober and salvifical principle of their Progenitours who it is to be believed never met to r Gyrald Cambrens descript Camb. c. 9. drink but in relation to Cymmortha and these are so much Brittains they say in their servile imitations of forreign vitious Customs that the health of an Ansyberw or niggaâ—dly selfish person was never known to go round amongst them but only of the Syberw and generous This character of our Brittish Church in her Doctrines and Rites is exactly the same with that which Å¿ Epiphanius lib 3. in sine Epiphanius gives of the Primitive Catholick which the Church of England this day professes to follow and to retrive which is the same Church with the Ancient Brittish Church the Brittains and the English being the same People not only in Faith and worship but in Laws and bloud and greater alliance in Doctrine and Consanginity to be found between them than between Alexander and Clement modern Italians and Linus and Anacletus their predecessors Ancient Romans as may further appear The Brittish Church therefore appearing from undoubted evidence and their adversaries exceptions to be so sound and Ancient in the substance of her Orthodox Faith to impute schism to it for her distance or departure from the Roman her Junior or to ask where was your Church before Luther is a cavil not only ignorantly groundless but inpudently ridiculous if they pretend to be in their Sences that urge it They may with as much colour of reason object a separation in us from Prester-John or the Church of the Abyssines well known perhaps to our Fore-Fathers when they met at Jerusalem whither both resorted with whom as with all other Churches of Christendom and as many as are allowed
Pagans against Christians and to erect a private Church before the Publick Cathedral the Daughter before the Mother yea to set the Church of Canterbury before all our Ancient Metropolitans Sees then in being and several Arch-Bishops residing in them if our Roman Christians had been as kind as their Pagan Eenemies were towards them And it could not be a wreck while there was so much Christianity to be found alive in the Island neither was Augustine Lord of the Escheate To erect I say an Inferiour Church in opposition and Precedence to all its Superiours was a manifest scandalous schism in our Agustine to attempt and begin in all Roman-Catholicks to approve and promote for after Ages Though not so in Protestants to submit to by their Principles after the chief Magistrate and our Laws to whom such rights belong to here and not to the Pope had interpos'd an Establishment and Translated their Obedience from one Metropolis to another whether before in being or a new erected by them But our Roman-Catholicks are Fanaticks or schismaticks unavoidably in this point as well when they disown a Protestant or own and acknowledge any Arch-Bishop of their own Church and perswasion in that See They are Fanatically disobedient by their own Principles in the first case for to reject and disown a Protestant Arch-Bishop settled by Law as their Governour out of duty to the Pope whom they presume and believe to disallow him this is like in all proportion to the Protestant's rejecting the Pope out of duty and Allegiance to Christ the chief Soveraign of all which Papists esteem Fanatical in Protestants Though Protestants believe that Christ is to be obeyed as much before the Pope as the Pope according to them above the Archbishop or our Laws and also that the Pope in several Doctrines clashes against Christ as manifestly as any Protestant Arch-Bishop of Canterbury can ever clash against the Pope But to take Christ's will and private conscience to judge of the Pope is absolutely Fanaticall in Protestants say the Papists therefore for dissenting Papists out of their Private conscience according to the Popes will to judge and reject any Protestant Arch-Bishop of Canterbury their lawful Superiour is absolutely Fanaticall by their own Principles and sayings and opening a gap for Inferiours to judge their Governours And that they are as apparent Schismaticks in the sence of the whole Christian Church in obeying or approving any Roman-Catholick Arch-Bishop of Canterbury usurping Jurisdiction in the Diocess of others against their wills and Rights shall in due place more fully appear whereby it is manifest that our Romanists who are first at accusing cannot stir or move out of the Schismaticks themselves untill they become Brittish Protestants Neither was our Augustine and his followers guilty of Schism only but of Hostility and invasion made upon the Rights of Christian Brethren which is more than Schism as much as War and clashing is more than bare and harmless distance between Friends which should be one and the same and a War of a scandalous Insolence and a more scandalous confederacy not to be countenanced by any Prince in the first respect because commenced without provocation and tending to level all Superiority in the World making a Subject Superiour to his Soveraign the Younger to preceed the Elder the little Daughter of Canterbury to command their Greater and Ancienter Mothers of York and London but the scandal of the confederacy exceeded the Insolence and the Spiritual confusion the Temporal that was attendant to it such was his combination with Pagans against Christians to promote his wordly Pride making himself worse than a Pagan thereby to any sober judgement as if the Rector of Otranto or a Greek Priest sojourning there should combine to betray the Town to the great Turk on terms that not only that Church should be made equal to the See of Rome as was Ravenna but Metropolis to it and himself Superiour to the Pope when it and all Italy were reduc'd by Turkish Arms who could soon silence all Christian Priviledges and prescriptions for the contrary title It s in vain to make application for the Idolatrous Pride and madness of them at Rome scorns to be reduc'd and shakled by the Laws of Nations or common band of Christendome or the great Law of doing to others as they would be done by what promotes their Church and its Grandeur is Right Christianity be the means never so Turkish or Heathenish or unconscionable and what abates it in the least is Heresie or Turcism be they never so Christian or Regular All Laws and Canons and Bibles themselves are to be interpreted and regulated by their own becks and Interests according to the like character Busbeqius gives of the great Turk a Partner Antichrist nil aequum putat quod nolit nil iniquum quod velit nothing with him is just or unjust but his own will and pride The Brittains could easier brook rapacious Heathens to Rob them of their Country than holy Christians holpe by Heathens thus to Rob them of their Sees and Churches But their wonder and regret is answered in their own Proverb that reports a Gentleman who became a Highway-man when a near kinsman Rob'd by him minded him of his Birth and consanguinity for better usage to have return'd this answer to that Plea Na choelia dy gi dy hun pan gyndheiriocca trust not thy own Dog when he runs mad 2 The Btittains were not backward therefore but forward enough to Preach and promote the Gospels among their Enemies though not all so forward as the zeal of Gildas did wish by reason of their many discouragements and Impediments from Hostilities especially from Augustine and his party who 2ly came not over hither to Preach the Gospel as he pretends but to fish in troubled waters and to raise his fortune out of the misfortunes and calamities of the Brittains like those that come to steal goods when mens houses are on fire for as he could do but little good by his coming for want of learning and the Language so there was no need at all of his coming for Queen Bertha had prepar'd her Husband for Baptism as Pope Gregory intimates in his Epistle to her d Spelman Concil p. 85. Polydor Virgil lib 4. p. 63. comparing her to Queen Helena Mother of Constantine the Great for her zeal and endeavours in this affair Where by the way it is observable by the confession and tradition of Popes themselves who was the chief Instrument under God in preparing and converting the first Christian Emperours Constantius Chlorus her Husband and Constantine the Great her Son and the rest of the Emperours by consequence after their example to the Christian Faith If Rome had the like to say of any of her Daughters as Brittain of her Helena to have given the like overthrow to the Heathen World the like encouragement and exaltation to the Christian who could stand before her brags And what Queen
e Bed l. 1. c. 26. Bertha had so prepar'd Luidhardus her Chaplain who attended her was well able to consummate and to Baptize the King whom he had no doubt instructed in the Faith before which he was far more qualified to do than Augustine was or could be having not the Tongue nor that guift of Miracle What came this Monk so many Miles hither for was it for the souls health of the Saxons and to Preach the Gospel to them in conjunction with the Brittains as he here pretends he should have us'd some likely means towards the attaining of this end better ingratiated himself with the Brittains than to pick quarrels about trifles and tonsures and inconsiderable Ceremonies against the General e Bed lib. 1. c. 28. Instructions of his Pope honoured them with his communion as did Bertha and Luidhardus hinder'd confederacies with Pagans against them as did f Antiyuitat p. 34. Palladius in Scotland or as Leland Roundly and solidly reproves this Italian Hypocrisie and zeal of him and his Pope in the judgement of the learned and eloquent f Antiyuitat p. 34. Arch-Bishop Parker supposed to be the Author of Antiquitates Ecclesiasticae debuerat Gregorius admonuisse Saxonas gentem perfidem ut si sincerè Christianismum admittere vellent Britanniae Imperium quod contra Sacramentum militiae per tyrannidem occupaverant justis Dominis as possessoribus restituerent Pope Gregory by his Augustine ought to have admonished the Saxons who were a perfidious Nation that if they intended to embrace the Christian Faith in sincerity and to any purpose they should restore the Scepter of Brittain to the right Lords and owners who had hir'd them for their service and defence from whom on the contrary they wrested it by force and perjury against the Faith and honour of Souldiers But Cressy objects quiet Possession for 4 or 5 descents fron Hengist as if Emrys or Aurelius Ambrosius and Vther Pendragon and Arthur as well as Young Vortimer had made no re-enties But this seemed as unsuccessful Divinity with Augustine as to desire the leave and liking of the Brittains to be Arch-Bishop of Canterbury over their heads or to be ordained and consecrated by the Brittish Bishops in order thereunto which he so far shunned that he went over Seas to France as far as Arles to g Bede lib. 1. c. 28. Etherius Arch-Bishop there to receive his consecration for Arch-Bishop of England and that saith Bede by the special directions of Pope Gregory which compar'd with the former passage of the same Pope concerning Brittain never having had a Pall from Rome and consequently never being Subject to or depending upon that See and their subsequent indefatigable Industry after Augustine's Plantation and succession was extinct of thrusting new Arch-Bishops from time to time and undervaluing all our Brittish consecrations manifestly proves the bottom of Romes design upon England that it was not Edification but Empire that was ever there aim though with the ruin of this Ancient Church if it could no other ways be compassed so Augustine had the face in a Synodical meeting of the Brittish Bishops near Worcester as before to require the Brittains to joyn with him assuming now to be an Arch-Bishop here against leave and Law and Canons to Preach the Gospel to the Saxons which was his pretext and Artifice to hook in their allowance and approbation of his unjust and Schismatical usurpation which subtile Proposal was difficult to be granted or denied but either with the Inconvenience of betraying their Church and Country and Christian communion by the Canons of the Church if they yeilded to joyn with him or having the odium of witholding the Gospel from the Saxon Pagans if they refus'd which is the true rise and State of this Infernal calumny rais'd again the Brittains of their denying to Preach the Gospel to the Saxons which induc'd the worthy and Reverend Author afore mention'd h Bed l. 2. c. 2 to conclude this meeting to have been contriv'd for a snare to get words of Indignation from them to provoke the Pagan Saxons to form a War against them to ruin the remainder of the Brittish Clergy in Wales and to cover the combination with Prophesie to Father the murder upon God to make it justice 3 And accordingly Ethelbert as Bede acknowledges h Bed l. 2. c. 2 provok'd Ethelfred King of Northumberland the chief Patron of Paganism and Enemy of the Christian Faith against them upon the score of the high words that passed between them and Augustine at that meeting and it is as easy to guess who informed and incensed his new convert King Ethelbert from his denunciation of War against them upon the place though in the form of Prophesie and Divine Revelation Si pacem cum fratribus accipere nollent bellum ab hostibus forent accepturi no small evidence with considering men i Antiquitates Ecclesiast p. 47. non conscius sed causa Belli p. 48. of this Apostles having a chief hand in the Barbarous ensuing murders and long and bloudy Wars and devastations that followed which he could so certainly fortell for these and other Saxon Kings coming with united forces against Brochwael Scythrawg Prince of Powys not so well provided for them and soon putting him to the rout at Legecestria saith Bede that is Westchester Wales being then larger than now it is and by the Brittains called Caerleon from a Roman Legion that quartered in that City sell in the next place upon the Monks that were with him in his Army and slew of them 1250. no more but fifty of them escaping Their assisting with their Prayers being made a pretence for this hostile usage by the Kings so saith Bede But the Norman Ancient M. S of Trivet in Spelman i Spelman Cnncil p. 112. saith that they were found in the City k Wheeloc not in c 2. l. 2. Bede and every one of them put to the Sword in cold bloud because they were Brittains the Latine copies of Bede add this to be done after the death of our Augustine but there is no such clause in any of the Saxon Manuscripts l Monachi pacem petentes crudeliter occisi H. Lhuid fragm Brit. p. 58. and Bishop Jewel finds Augustine's hand to several Charters signed some years after this Massacre committed in m M. Westm An. 603· 603. whereas our Augustine acording to our best Chronologers dyed not n Spelman Concil p. 93. till 613 so that He might well be present at the place of their slaughter o Jewel defense part 5. c 1. p. 438. If it was not according to some in 613. the same year that he dyed which was a bloudy Legacy encouraging their Executioners Whereby we have a tast of the Roman forgeries while they were masters of our Records and Manuscripts Nothing that seemed to make for their Church have they neglected to insert without either Art or Colour
the most considerable Saxon Kingdoms the Church of Rome had not the least Hand or pretence in their first Conversion though some of its bold seducers will not stick to affirm the English in general had no Christian Faith before Luthers time but what they received Originally from Rome and count them no less than Hereticks for adhering to the Religion of their Fathers which they undoubtedly received through Brittish Teachers from the Apostles which to deny were either great Impudence in such as know this to be true or great Ignorance in such as know it not But it is not however much to be wondered at in them for as Christ's mind and the truth with Christians so the mind of the Pope and the Interest of the Church of Rome with Roman-Catholicks is the rule and measure of their Conscience and affection and their Affirmations and the Eternal standard of good and evil verity an falsity with them incurably while Roman-Catholicks And why the men of that perswasion may not depose any thing in Tribunals against their light and private knowledge of the Truth for the Interest of their Church or at the Catholick suggestion of their guides why not sweare or conspire to any thing in point of Fact as well as believe any thing in point of Faith out of Implicit obedience to Superiours against the dictates of their conscience and the Truth which with them is but a private Spirit not to be followed against the other without danger I cannot see any reason to the contrary but the Roman-Catholick Hypothesis may well beare the consequence and Improvement provided all be carried on with a Lacedemonian skill and wariness with whom stealing was no Crime but to those alone that were caught in the Fact Hitherto we have recounted those Counties in England about 26 or 27 in number with the great City of London touching which the Church of Rome hath nothing to object or upraid the Inhabitants in their Progenitors in the least with any derivation of their first Faith from them and consequently not the least Imputation of Ingratitude or Disobedience or Schism to fasten on them in that respect any more than on the Ancient Brittains themselves Next I will instance in those Provinces wherein they have some pretence and colour out of Bede to insist on somthing to say for themselves and their title of Superiority whether it hold good or not both in the Kingdom of the West-Saxons which was a considerable Territory and in the three other of East-Angles South-Saxons and Kent more inconsiderable in comparison that it may appear to all how that somthing is meer nothing as some of their kind and learned favourers have observ'd and in part confessed For their title over the West-Saxon-Kingdom and the Counties that did belong f Usher 394. thereunto Surrey Southampton Berks Wilts Dorset Somerset Devon Cornwall they alledge that the first Christian King thereof Kinigilsus was converted to the Faith by Roman Ministry by Birinus by name sent thither from Pope Honorius and ordain'd Bishop at Genua It is answer'd this Conversion came to nothing and were it true and Regular and with the leave and liking of the Bishops of this Province yet it ended with that King and with Birinus who left no successor g Bede lib. 3. c. 7. 27. The succeeding King Kenwalch refusing his Fathers Faith was Converted afterwards by the means of Anna King of the East-Angles whither he was driven out of his Kingdom by Penda who saith Polydor g Bede lib. 3. c. 7. 27. satis constat it s sufficiently manifest were of the same Province and Kingdom with the East-Saxons though sometimes govern'd by two several Kings and London was the Royal City and Metropolis of both Nations Kenwalch's Conversion therefore falling out in a Brittish Oswaldian See cannot be well ascribed to Rome Besides Agilbert the first Bishop he used for his Instruction is stil'd by Bede g Bede lib. 3. c. 7. 27. Pontifex ex Hibernia a Bishop out of Ireland though of French descent for there he studied several years and learn't that Divinity which he preach'd to Kenwalch which was Brittish Doctrine by consequence Where it is observable by the way how the greatest Clergy of France for Agilbert afterwards was Archbishop of Paris came over hither to our Britttish Isles to Study Divinity And Wini h polyd Virg. lib. 4 p. 71. who was afterwards made a Partner with him in his Diocess was not from Rome but from h polyd Virg. lib. 4 p. 71. France with whom the Brittish Church held fair Communion as with Ireland i Brittish Bishops and Doctors Famous in France were Apud Usher Mellon first Archbishop of Roan p. 145. Mansuetus first Bishop of Toul in Lorraign p 747. St Winocus p. 1147. St. Winwalocus p 464. St. Leonorius cum 72 discipulis p. 1012. Faustus Reiensis p. 424. Paulus Leonensis p. 558. Sampson Maglorius and Maclovius Archbishops of Dole p. 73 75. Alcumus Rabamus Maurus c. sending to as well as receiving Teachers from them Besides the passage about Birinus is suspicious and Legend-like in several Circumstances and making much against them For it doth not mention what Countrey he was of which never could be known as k W. Malmesbury lib. 2. de Episc Occiden Saxon p. 137. Malmesbury notes besides King l Bede lib. 3. c. 7. Oswald being Recorded to have been at the same time a Suiter for Kinigils Daughter and Godfather to his Faither-in Law at his Baptism It looks not as Improbable that his Conversion was brought about as of most of the Saxon Kings by the zeal and Industry of King Oswald who else was too pious to have that value for Heathen Allyanee And therefore our Birinus might well be an Erinach or a Loegrian-Brittain How else if a Forreigner could he preach and instruct the King who understood nought but English unless King Oswald was a Gospel-Interpreter between them as well in the South as he used in the North and so in effect a Royal Preacher of it to the English from one end of the Land to the other and the tale of Birinus his Italian Ordination looks like the other lusty Affirmation of Bede that makes way for his feates in that Church who in contradiction to himself as well as the truth represents the West Saxons at his arrival amongst them to be l Bede lib. 3. c. 7. Paganissimos altogether Heathenish whereas most of those Counties and some to this day were Ancient Brittish Christians who had Bishops preserv'd amongst them from the time of King Lucius and the Christian Faith from the Resurrestion and the Landing of Joseph of Arimathaea in their Territory besides that the first power of the Saxons over those Counties was through Treaty and Allyance for mutual assistance between Kerdick and Mordred as afore and not by force and Conquest and their confirmation in it by King Arthur with particular
Articles for the perpetual preservation of the Christian Faith amongst them besides the union and Intermarriadges of Saxons and Brittains in this Territory especially as elsewhere whereby the Brittains in withholding the Gospel from them as they are unjustly traduc'd did but withhold it from their own flesh and bloud so that the English Loegrian Brittains of these eight West-Saxon Counties may and ought with a good Conscience account themselves members of the old Brittish Church if they will as the other 26 Counties must whether they will or not As for the three remaining Heptarchyes which were not so large and considerable as the other four either that of the East-Angles m Usher p. 394. which contain'd the Counties of Norfolk Suffolk Ely and Cambridge or the other of the South Saxons which contain'd m Usher p. 394. Sussex and part of Surry with the Isle of Wight or Kent which was the first seat of the Aliens whereof the two first were gain'd together with the East-Saxon Heptarchy dolo non ferro as Malmsbury n lib. 2. de Episc Lond. words it the last by Carnal Lure that is in the Dialect of modern Christianity not much inferiour to their Heathenism one by Pimping and the other three by Trepanning of King Vortigern whom they well knew to be an Usurper as well as dissolute Neither were the generality of the former Inhabitants thereupon all put to the Sword immediatly but accepted for Tributaries to their new Masters in all probability and serviceable perhaps thereby to their Salvation yet it is to be examined how far the English in these Counties owe their first Faith and subjection to Rome after the Archbishoprick of London wherein they stood was recovered without any long Intermission to the Brittish Church If it be alleadged that Eorpwald Son of Redwald King of the East-Angles either Father or Son or both were won over to Christianity by the means of Edwin King of Northumberland and the Romish Ministry of Kent It appears out of the same Bede o Bede l. 2. c. 15. that both Conversions ended with their persons without any erection or succession of Bishops in that Territory the one revolting to Heathenism at the perswasion of his Wife or which was far worse serving Christ and Satan at the same Altar and Eorpwald shortly after his Baptism killed by one of his own Countrey and kindred and the Kingdom lying in its old Idolatry till his Brother Sigebert succeeded in the Throne who was not Converted by the means of Rome but p Ibid. in France where he lived in exile in his Brothers time and when upon his return he was desirous to make his people partaker of the same Christian Faith We find him in Bede assisted q Ibid. by Felix a Frenchman and r Idem l. 3. c. 19. Furseus a Noble man from Ireland both Nations fairly agreeing in Communion with the Brittish Church The one being made the Bishop of the East-Angles but ordained and Consecrated in Burgundy whence he came He is said to call one Honorius then Archbishop of Canterbury and to acquaint him with his desire to Preach the Gospel who sent him to these parts neither with Ordination nor guift of Tongues nor any other token of Dependance the King himself being his Patron who probably had been the Kings old acquaintance if not his Ghostly Father and first Converter And the chiefest assistance towards the good of the people that he is particulariz'd to give King Sigebert is about the ordering of his Å¿ Bede l. 3. c. 18. School for young Children after the manner he observed in France And his successor Thomas Diaconus sent by the same Honorius after the Decease of Felix was de Girviorum or †Usher 1027. Jarrow in the North part of Aidan's plantation under King Oswald in whose time not u M. Westm An. 605· one Infidel in those parts was left unconverted In whom or him that was next Bishop the Roman Race and succession must needs have given place to Brittish Ordination how else could it be true that in x Bede l. 3. 28. Wini Bishop of Winton's time who was contemporary Bede should affirm there was no other Bishop besides him throughout this Isle of Brittain that was not of Brittish Ordination as we often have occasion to urge But the Conversion of the body of the people is chiefly and deservedly attributed to y Idem l. 3. c. 19 20. Furseus and his Companions who first founded a Monastery in the Countrey called Knobhersburgh for a Nursery to his Ministry and an example to the people of Mortification and contempt of this present World which was then their usual method in the first planting of the Gospel whose main end is to bring this World with all its pompes and self ends more out of request with men and the life to come more in view and value This St. Furseus for his quality and extraction z Bede lib. 3. c. 19. Erat de Nobilissimo genere Scotorum He was of the Princely bloud of the Scotch or Irish who with Bede are one and the same People but for his temper and education he was more noble in mind than bloud brought up to learning and sanctity from his Infancy famed far and near for his Preaching and holy living his vertues and miracles and visions He first comes from Ireland to the Brittains a lib. 3. c â—7 from them to to the East-Angels and to the Leogrian-Brittains left amongst them ill supplied with Ministers for it is observable upon Monk Augustine's arrival it was the British b Clerici vero sacerdotes mucronibus undique micantibus ac Flammis omnes simul in exterminium pelluntur tunc Archiproesul Theonus Londonnensis Thadioc Eboracensis c Math. Westm ad An. 586. Clergy their Priests and Bishops more than their Laity that with fire and Sword were hunted and driven into Wales and not left there unpursued And being honourably received by King Sigebert he fell to his wonted work of preaching the Gospel for the Irish were no strangers about this time to the English tongue as neither the English to the Irish who us'd high and low Nobiles mediocres to flock from England to c Bede l. 3. c. 27. Ireland to be instructed in the Scriptures and strict way of living c Bede l. 3. c. 27. where it cost them nothing for Instructions or Books or Diet And brought numbers of Infidels to embrace the Christian Faith or conforted and confirm'd those that had believed already by the example of his life and the power of his Doctrine leaving his Brother Foilan with other Monks and Ministers to continue what he began the whole Teritory being afterwards reduc'd and Conquered by the Kings of Mercia whose Religion we have known before to be wholly Brittish as opposed to the Roman Neither are the descendants of South-Saxons in Sussex or Surrey or the Isle of
Episc Lond. l. 2. p. 134. c. Confession of all our Historians that this Wini became a Simonaick and therefore no Bishop in Law by their own Principles A remarkable vindication of the Innocent Bloud of our Bangor Martyrs through Gods wonderful Providence who is wont to give a Victory and a new Resurrection to his Church after mortal wounds and to confound its enemies For Augustine and his Italian Successors as they never had Right so neither had they any long continuance here notwithstanding all their craft and cruelty Honorius Å¿ Idem lib. 3. c. 7. was the fift and the last of their race and number from Augustine who died Anno 653. Then the Chair began to receive most an end †Mat. Westmin A. 666. English Successors such was Deusdedit a West-Saxon d G Malmesb. de Episc Lond. l. 2. p. 134. c. whose English name was Fridona whose Ordination was void by the Canons of the Church as well as his Chair For he was not Consecrated by any Archbishop in in due manner Paulinus being dead and gone but by one single Bishop †Bede l. 3. c. 20. Ithamar Bishop of Rochester who had no more power to make an Archbishop than hath a single Presbyter to Ordain and Consecrate his Superiour Bishop Therefore all his Acts and his whole sitting for 9 years were Void and Null And Will of Malmesburie's reason e Guil. Malmesbury de Gestis Roffens for their not calling the Northern Oswaldian Bishops to their assistance is very disingenious in one that had read their Principles in Bede to be so averse against Communion with the Romish See of Canterbury Cavebant Romanorum apud Cantiam Reliquiae Ordinationes erroneorumsequi The Reliques of the Roman Church in Kent saith he were shy to admit them that err'd about Easter to have an hand in their Ordinations whereas the shyness was on the other side shunning all Communion with them as Schismaticks and Intruders upon the Brittish Church So that there was no Archbishop at all in Canterbury from the time of Honorius 653. the See continuing actually Vacant for a year and a half to Deusdedit and also Deusdedit's nine years sitting being null in Law and a while after to the time of Theodorus of Tarsus in Cilicia his coming to the Chair in 668. Of which contrivance of Rome to begin a second Usurpation over the English Brittish Church as well as their first over the Brittains more shall be observed in proper place Therefore the Church of Canterbury was manifestly extinct for those 15 years between Honorius the last Italian and Theodorus the first and last Graecian Archbishop there And we have heard before of the extinction of the See of Rochester under Putta and Willelm besides the Archbishops that succeeded Theodore seem Brittish by their Countrey and Institution Birthwaldus his next successor Anno 692. was Brothers Son to Ethelfred King of Mercia x Antiquitates Eccles p. 55. where their Faith was right Brittish Tatwin after him in 731. was likewise of y Usher p. â—055 Ex Will. Malmesbury Mercia And three of his Bishops that ordain'd him Ingwald of London Aldwin of Lichfield Daniel of Winton were not of Roman but of Brittish Sees And the last ordain'd by Birthwald z Antiquit. Eccles p. 58. Nothelmus after Tatwin 736. had been Bishop of London where he was born Cuthbert after Nothelm came from the Chair of Hereford an Ancient Brittish See belonging to the Archbishoprick of Caerleon in Wales And not to mention Bregwin a Nobleman of Saxony who succeeded Cuthbert Lambert the thirteenth Archbishop was wholly depriv'd of his Primacy by the means of Offa King of Mercia who withdrew all his Revenues and Churches in Mercia from him and got the Pope to assent thereto misit nuntios donativis conferendis praemunitos b Spelman p. 302 303. Noverat enim Rex Offa desideria Romanorum for he had treated him according to his humour with great guifts And so Aldulphus Bishop of Lichfield was made Archbishop during the Reign of Offa. The Pope notwithstanding through the great darkness that was to be for several Ages in the Church restor'd the See and maintain'd his usurpation at Canterbury to the time of Henry 8. a Brittish King who putting a full end and period to all Popish powers and pretences continued here against the Laws of the Land and the Canons of the universal Church And judging fit to continue the Primacy of Canterbury upon a new and better Authority his own pleasure and the strength of the Law the Superiority of that See became lawful ever afterwards to be submitted to in Brittain according to Church Canons Which from the suppression of the old Archbishoprick of London was all along before a manifestly uncanonical and Schismatical usurpation and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Photii Nomocanon Tit. 1. c. 20. infamous to boot in the sense of the Ancient Canons Usurpation and force and Conquest right or wrong being more comely in the field than in the Church and better to be legitimated by descent and time And this Argument of the English or Saxons receiving their first Faith from Brittain and not from Rome is further corroborated by that notable observation of the Reverend and Eloquent Archbishop Parker sometime Queen Elizabeths Latine Tutor as I am informed upon several Old d W. L'isle divers Ancient Monuments Antiquitates Ecclesiasticae p. 35 -to 47. Saxon Laws and Homilies containing several points and Articles and Suppositions in them quite contrary to those Doctrines that Augustine and his Romish successors endeavoured to sow and propagate as the Faith of Rome in England 1. Against Transubstantiation 2. For Communion under both kinds 3. And the Translations of Scripture into the Vulgar Tongue and Instances thereof before the time of Wicleff 4. Laymen to study and read the Scriptures and to learn Creed and Decalogue and Lords Prayer in the Vulgar Tongue 5. Against Invocation of Saints e Wheeloc not in c. 9. lib. 4. Bedae Antiquae Homiliae Saxonum nunquam sanctos invocant c. Worshiping of Images 6. Marriadges to be free 7. Kings to be Gods Vicars in their Kingdom 8. The Legislative Power to be in King and people Quae quidem veteris Ecclesiae Brittannicae dogmata c. Which verily saith he being the Tenets and Doctrines of the Old Brittish Church and long retain'd amongst the Ancient Saxons notwithstanding the influence and successions of their Roman Guides and Teachers to the contrary how agreeable they are both to to the word of God and our Modern Laws and Constitutions and how diametrically contrary in all respects to their way at Rome any one may with ease discern that will For as the same learned prelate again what Author did ever in his works report that Augustine did ever Preach to the English that they might come to believe by hearing that he was not capable to do it his own Pope
Gregorie's Epistles extant plainly shew he verily was an Apostle of Roman rites and ceremonies not of the Christian Faith or the word of God to the English Nation he taught them how to be Romans and Papists more than to be Christians or Believers And by the points in such hot and bloudy contest between him and the Brittains where there was little or nothing insisted on touching soundness of Doctrine or purity of life but all touching the domination and power of Rome and Romish rites and tonsures it plainly appears he was but a meer man of straw and f Ceremoniosus non relligiosus ceremony more than of God and Religion Where to stop the mouths of Ignorant Romanists that make a brag as if the English had received their faith from Rome he likewise shewes at large that Pope Gregory himself was no better than his Apostle Augustine for that he was not so good a man for life and pen as the Papists would pretend And g Antiquitates Ecclesiasticae p. 36. g Ibdem p. 36. again valde dolendum Anglorum conversionem in ista tempora incidisse in quibus collapsa Ecclesiae Doctrine atque disciplina c. It was a great misfortune that the English conversion fell out to be at such a time wherein the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church was quite fallen to the ground and wholly degenerated from its primitive purity and sobriety into vanity of errour and superstition and the matter it self proclaims too loud let Bede say what he please to the contrary that Augustine's chief work and business here was to instill some Roman Ceremonies amongst our Ancestors and not the Christian Faith yea Rome it self about that time and by the particular influence and endeavours of Pope Gregory was the spring and fountain of all such superstitions not only among us in England but in the rest of the World beside of which he makes a large proof with Instances Irrefragable of their superstition and ambition their Holy Water and Dreams and Legends and Divine lyes and Golden Vessells and a wooden Priesthood not that decent ceremonies that take not the heart from God are in themselves unlawful in Gods service as Christ himself hath shewed in the Institution of visible Sacraments as also of their pride and Antichristian design to enslave Kings and Churches and Nations under them and when all was done and they mounted themselves as high as they would or could the effect and product of all was no more but that ambition outed all good rule and Government Luxury good living Dreams and legends the Preaching of the word lamentable superstition Catholick Religion And that their first adventure and attempt to erect their Roman supremacy over souls and Churches was here in England and Augustine the Monk their forlorn hope that their ungodly success and Victory was about its height about the time of Charlemain about 140 years after lasting about 800 years to the the time of our Henry the eight h Antiq. Eccles p. 37. Et sane illa prima de Romanis ritibus per Augustinum excitata contentio quae non nisi clade sanguine Innocentium Britannorum poterat sedari ad nostra recentiora tempora cum simili pernicie eladeque Christanorum pervenit And verily that first and early contention and strife for rites and ceremonies begun here by Augustine which could not be exstinguished or abated but with the bloud and desolation of the Innocent Brittains is evidently carried down to our own times with fresh and daily tydings at our doors of the like destruction and Massacre of Christians for the like cause Thus that Eloquent and Judicious prelate an i Norwich Antiq. Eccl. p. 39. East-Angel by birth and a chief Father of our Church by place and merit And it is additionally remarkable that several of those Saxons Laws and Homilies bore date before the arrival of Augustine to this Land there being k M. Westm Anno 596. about 147 or 150 years from the Saxon invasion to his coming as before was said which is an invincible Argument that the Brittains as they had any opportunity Preach'd the Gospel in those dayes to the Saxons though their bloudy and perfidious Enemies to which those alliances and Intermarriages with them in their infidelity for which they stand blamed in story might by the ordering of Providence be Instrumental yet are taxed by Gildas if the passage be Authentick for neglect that they were not more vigorous and diligent in Communicating the Gospel to them whereby may be conjectured how great the Christian zeal of Gildas was and the Brittish Ministers of his stamp and Inclination as he confesses there were several who were so thirsty for the Salvation of the souls of their Enemies who thirsted for nothing more than their Lands and bloud SECTION X. That all or most of the Kingdoms and Churches in this part of Europe and Rome it self received their first Faith from Brittain yet Brittain pretends to no Supremacy over them upon that account and the Romanists Feloes de se in that kind of Plea IF the Church of Rome hath no better evidence for her propagation of the Faith and Supremacy thereby over other Churches of the world than is produc'd for Brittain it is plain and easy to discern its title is not founded in any reality or merit but a disease of the fancy only and that high-mindedness whereof she was early forwarn'd by her rejected Apostle Rom. 12.3 or a malady like that of the Athenian Merchant who imagin'd all the Ships that arrived at Harbour to be his own whose cure from this distemper had been their imaginary beggery and undoing The French Church at the Savoy or the Lutheran amongst us might far better pretend to a Primacy over York and Canterbury being more Orthodox and Learned and better understood by several that resort to them and acting with the leave of our Province and its Lawful Governours and not siding Barbarously with Pagan Enemies against Christian Brethren to destroy or adulterate the true Faith as did Monk Augustine who at least could be but Rector of christ-Christ-Church Canterbury under his mighty Patron Ethelbert in defiance of his rightful Metropolitan Theonus which yet he could not supply himself for want of the tongue nor by any other by reason of the Schism and Irregularity Or to suppose more than can be asked or expected that Ethelbert who was King of Kent only was King also of Mercia and the East and the South and West-Saxons and compleate Lord over the whole Arch-Bishoprick of Canterbury or London which then reached from Humber to Severn and Cornwall and now further over Wales and that he in such a right had lawfully nominated and elected our Augustine for his Arch-Bishop who thereupon had been regularly Consecrated and Install'd by the Clergy of the Province according to the Canons of the Church and by the consent and voluntary Cession of Theonus his predecessor without the help of Heathen
without strein as several Instances are given in Cambden and Bochartus And the Inhabitants of Galatia to whom St. Paul writ his Epistle were observed by St. Hierome h Pref. Epist ad Galat. to speak the same Language he heard spoken at Treviri or Treves which Town fairly bears a Brittish Etymology Tref-Hir signifying a long Town or Trefor a great Town as that needs must be where Maximus from Brittain fix'd his Imperial Seat with his Brittish Legions about him as Brennus also is known to have reduc'd Galatia by his Armes from whom very probably the Brittains called a King Brenhin ever after like Winnin from Winne as before as the Romans did their Caesars and the Persians their Arsacidae and the Aegyptians their Phaaro's and as the Irish to this day call the Brittains Branach q. d. The men of Brennus Yet no such affinity can be observ'd between the Modern French and our Brittish Language in one word of 100. which is some Argument the other is extinct unless it be in some Ancient words resembling the Latine in both which the Latines rather borrowed from them than they from the Latines for though it must not be denyed but that such words in our Brittish Tongue as savour of the Roman Conquest were derived from the Latine as Lheon from Legio Mis Aust from the month of Augustus Emrodwr from Imperator as also such other words as crept in from Communion with Churches as Eglwys from Ecclesia or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mynwent from Monumentum a Church-yard Ffydh from fides Lhîth from Lectio â—endith from Benedictio as the Modern English and French dayly borrow for ornament in abundance yet there is no reason that the rest of our Ancient Brittish words that border upon the Latine should be said to be borrowed from it as Aur Aurum Tâ—r Terra Mor Mare Marw Mori Cîst Cista Celh Cella Lhâ—dh Clades Alt Altum Mur Murus Calch Calx Culhelh Cultellus Fenest Fenestra Gwydr Vitrum Pont Pons Sych Siccus Porth Porta Pysg Pisces Aradr Aratrum Medhig Medicus c. No more than Trimarchia or tri march tres equi or Petoritum Pedwar Râ—yd quatuor vada or Pimpedula Pimp-deilen quinque folia c. But there is good reason and proof that the Latines rather borrowed such words from the Gallick and consequently from the Brittish which is suppos'ed to be the same for so i lib. 1. c. 5. Quintilian a Competent Judge of his own Language puts this matter past doubt when he affirms the Latine Tongue to have plurima Gallica very many Gallick words intermingled in it which was occasion'd by the neighbourhood of the Celtae saith k Jo. Vossius Praef. de vitiis serm Vossius and the Highlanders call the Southern Brittains Cealt to this day to which may be added the Victories of Brennus as another good cause Seeing therefore the Old Gauls were suppressed in all respects by their French or German Conquerours for haâ—dly any Nation escaped so entire and distinct in People and Language without mixture or alteration under the Chastisements of Christendom by Goths and Saxons and Normans as our Brittains The French Christianity now must have the same Original and derivation with the German which we before shewed either more Anciently or Modernly to be from Brittain though Lucius or Willibrord or Winifrid As likewise by the same reason the modern Faith of Rome is to be derived from the Audian Schismaticks from whom the l Epiphan in Audianis Audius being banished into Scythia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Instructed many Goths changing the names of Christians from Christ into Audians from Audius Goths who fully Conquer'd them and chang'd their place and people and Language derived theirs And so it were with the Modern Inhabitants of Lhoegr or England if it were not well known and proved that the Saxons who subdued them had not their first Faith from any other Nation but from hence And the French or German Christianity of Gallia was chiefly Nurs'd upon Brittish breasts as it remotely proceeded from a Brittish womb for thither went St. Leonorius m Usher p. 1012 a Bishop of our Brittain to King Childebert the Son of Clodovaeus the first Christian King of the French with 72 Disciples to propagate the Gospel among his people being received with great Honour by the King his Queen Vltrogodi and the Peers of his Realm for his good design Hither their Kings from time to time did use to send for supply of Learned Teachers for themselves n Ubbo Emmius lib. 4. p. 126. c. and Neighbours as did the Pipins and Martell and Charlemagne who being the favorite of the Pope and so great and Learned an Emperour had not sent hither for Teachers Tutors and Professors for his Universities if from any other parts of Europe he could have been better furnish'd To these Isles their Students flocked as we instanced in Agilbert Arch-Bishop of Paris out of Bede lih 3. c. 7. to study sound Divinity to feed their flocks at home as did their Predecessors the old Gauls to our Druides to learn Philosophy and Law c. or as now-a-days our Modern Gentry repair to them to learn Ceremony and Complement and by consequence a Tacit dread and Reverence by degrees for their Nation for the Giver or Master is more excellent than the Receiver or Disciple whether it be Pearls or Pebbles that they deal in which any Ignorant or willful fancy can give equall price and value to as to it self To answer therefore the exceptions before against the full Plantation of the Gospel in Germany by Winifrid c. which Rome claims a greater right to because though their extraction was from England yet either their learning and knowledge or at least their Mission and Commission to Preach and reward and dignity for it was from Rome To answer to the first if those English Doctors had their knowledge and learning from Rome It was either before or after the arrival of Monk Augustine hither Pope Gregorie's Lamentation over them for their darkness when he met the English Youths in the Roman marker and the confession of their own Historians that they were Populus Barbarus Et armorum tantum gnarus a wild and a rude People skilful at nothing but the Club is enough to disprove the first if after either from himself or Successors we shall not so farr distrust our Character before of his parts and learning out Bede as to magine any can believe so large and Divine a stream as water'd Europe over after the Gothish drought and desolation could proceed from such a pumice if from his successors o Ubbo Emmius l. 3. p. 109. either from those that preceeded or suceeded Arch-Bishop Theodore The first we proved to be soon worn out and all Chairs amongst the English before Theodores entrance to be filled by the Brittains and at his entrance it was too late for them to learn having set for Holland about
its destructive contrary which they rightly understood The toleration and mixture whereof within it would be confusion without a Metaphor The Christian Church whose life and being consists in Holiness can never be more destroyed and stifled than when Scandalous and Licentious lives are consistent with its Profession Nor the Roman whose summum bonum is dominion over their Brethren and Kingdoms and Churches but where Kings and Consciences and Scriptures would have their wills against the Pope And happy were it if Christians were as zealous and skilful Druids to excommunicate all vice and sin as the Papists who are firm to their Idol to excommunicate all Heretical Truths and private judgments and secular Supremacies inconsistent with their pride Whereby the Brittains by this Divine principle in the general were better fitted and prepar'd for Christianity than many others and accordingly received it before all other Nations in these parts as soon as Christ had dislodg'd their Idols they were perfect and regular Christians the former Rules and practices of their Druids serv'd presently as Church Canons to them to walk by which probably is the reason they held our intruding Romanists so close to the other express Canons of the Christian Church as to adjudge and conclude them justly to be no better than Pagans in Christian shape for their manifest violations of them as shall hereafter appear This last as well as the other instances clearly argue a great and near correspondence they had and Traditional participation of Oriental Patriarchal Mysteries and customes and the Hierogliphical meaning of the first dayes work of the Creation wherein light was separated from darkness whence Christian Communion and Excommunication had its exemplar and Idea as the Apostle intimates 2 Cor. 6 14. in which two words and parts the work and whole History of the Primitive Christian Church was compriz'd as is well known to the learned but not to digress Much less could our English Apostles receive their learning from Theodore's successors being entred a good while before upon their work and Province and the course that Rome hereafter takes that the English should be no more instructed or corrupted in their sence by their Neighbouring Brittains but by Rome alone least their Roman Replantation should be again worn out and baffled as it far'd with their first clearly proves that they conceived the Brittains to have been that way too busie I shall set down a Record out of Math. Westm. worthy the consideration of all Generous sober English men as well Roman Catholicks as Protestants that have a love for God or their Countrey whether they consider the design or the event that followed z M Westm Anno 727. Erant Doctrina Scholae Anglorum per Romanos Pontifices interdictae c. There was an interdict upon the learning and Schooles of the English by the Popes of Rome from the time of Augustine by reason of the daily Heresies which sprung up in Brittain from the first arrival of the English whilst Pagans mingled with Christians which defaced the beauty of the holy Conversation of Christianity a Ibid. Vnde Ina consensu voluntate Gregorii Papae c. which discovers near about what time this conscientious Interdict began whereupon Ina by the will and consent of Pope Gregory built an Edifice in the City of Rome which they call the School of the English to which the Kings of England and the Royal Bloud and Bishops and Priests and Clerks should repair to be Instructed in the Catholick Faith and Doctrine lest any thing should be taught awry in the Church of England or contrary to the Catholick Faith that thereby being well settled in the stable Faith they might return afterwards to their people And it was also ordained that Rome-scot or Peter Pence should thence forward be annually paid to St. Peter and the Roman Church that the English there abiding might have wherewithall to subsist A neat device to make England Tributary and that for a gross abuse and blindness brought upon the whole Nation to the end they might the easier be Governed by the Ignorance of Rome according to that Brittish Proverb Brenhin iw un-lhygeidiawg ymyfg deilliaid One eye is a King amongst the stark blind for so it proved in the event not long after as we shall have anon an account of this Paternal Roman care from King Alfred about 100 years after for Ina built this School in 727 Alfred flourished in 860 Willibrord c. Preached to the Germans in 690 in whose time there was scarce an English Clergy-man left in all the land that could understand his Latine Breviary b Spelman Concil 167. That if Pipin or Charlemain had sent hither for Wilfrids and Winfrids and Alguins to teach their Countrey such as were of Romes pure bringing up they might have been as well furnished with Apostles from among the Heathen Boors of Boetia as then from England which was not long after this Roman Reformation of our English education In so much that K. Alfred was fain to send to the Brittains for their helping hand which they and the Irish who were more Neutral were always ready to do †Bede l. 3. ◠27. for nothing though they paid dear to Rome for their Ignorance under the colour and fascination of being Orthodoxly taught which Tribute and Cittadel of shameful Ignorance and slavery the English Nation was by Catholick Arts cajoled to pay and maintain at their own proper charge for about 700 years till Henry the Eight a Brittish Prince discharged and blew it up and whipt the cheats into their own Country for which Providential Relief and Honour to our Church and Nation some drowsie stupid and Enchanted Roman-Catholicks are hardly thankful or contented to this day So it manifestly appears á priori and à posteriori that neither before or after Augustine or Theodore either the English had their learning from Rome but only from our Brittish Church But it is again objected that it is clear and evident from History that the English as also the Irish at this time of the German Propagation and before had come over from the Church of Brittain to the Church of Rome who therefore hath chief right and Title to this Plantation which was effected under its Supremacy and Government I answer It is then as clear that they were of the Church of Brittain before they went over to Rome and we in these days shall confess unto them where our Church was the worst 800 years before Luther if they will confess unto us where there Roman Church was in Brittain or Ireland the best 600 years before Augustine the Monk or Theodore For Titius taken by the Turk at 20 and kept a slave for 30 years among them and recovering his liberty in 50 is the same free man now as at first being always the same man not bound to return to slavery because it hath more years to shew then his freedom of birth hath for it
Christians for another surname as is the stile of all Roman-Catholicks And 2 likewise for no m 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordinary voluntary Austerity of life which is most of the Religion of the best of them Col. 2.23 And 3. n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan in Audianis for separating from the communion of their betters which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most grievious and dreadful miscarriage of all So that Brittain the Mother Church to Europe was made like in several parts both for sufferings and relief to Sion the Mother Church of the whole World as small circles have the genius and similitude of the greater for as the opposition and greate Combate of the one was from the Sword of the Heathen World resolving to destroy it from without and the leaven of Nicholaitans and other Hereticks combineing from within to defile and shame it which was the greater molestation and Indignity so in like manner was the Case of the other for the Primitive Brittish was permitted to be kill'd all the day long by Pagan Saxons on the one hand and hindred and pestered all along in all its good works with Roman-Catholick Gnosticism on the other which was the greater and the unworthyer Nusance yet both prevailing through their oppression The death of Brittain bringing life and Salvation to English and Germans as the seed grows by dying or as the Jews rejection was the Gentile's reconcilation in some likeness of Christ himself their first Pattern who became the life of all the World by his death and as the one had its Constantine after some time and Theodosii to vindicate and take its part so had the other it s Arthurs and Charlemagne and Henry the eight in some like proportion aâ—d Christ himself in the end to make it alike partaker in glory with him as it was in sufferings and in the mean while to live in them for whom it dyed as he doth in his Church and as Fathers live in their posterity that take their place Neither is it hence Inferrible according to Roman Logick and Sophistry that Europe therefore ought to pay such obedience for ever to Brittain upon this spiritual score as the Roman expects from other Churches which were against the Law of Nations and the Rights of Kings in their several Dominions whose respective subjects are to own and regard no other Superiour but their own Prince and as much against the Laws and Canons of the Catholick Church and the Immunities of Bishops and Metropolitans within their several Provinces by them and as much against the Law of nature likewise and the express ordinance of God himself who hath placed the woman in subjection under the man and yet by the strength and consequence of this Argument that order must be Inverted And where women have had the first hand in the Conversion of Kings and Kingdoms to the Faith there they ought by this Roman Topick to be Supreme in spirituals if they have impartial right and justice done them as they must of necessity be in England in several respects either in the right of Queen Bertha who first disposed her Husband Ethelbert to the Faith whereby Monk Augustine and Popery had their first entrance Or of Eanfled Oswi's Queen by whose zeal and diligence Theodore and Popery had its re-entrance and more durable establishment after it had been once banisht and extinct Or Anne Fulleâ—gne to whom according to the Romanists is owing its mortal wound and total overthrow and the setting up of Protestancy instead Or in France to Queen Clotildis who brought Clodoveus their first Christian King to embrace the Faith or to Mâ—esâ—o's Queen who did the like in Poland c. Or over the whole Christian World in the right of Mary Magdalen who brought the first tydings of the Resurrection to the Apostles themselves which would be a great relief to the fame of Pope Joan and the credit of her History so unjustly question'd No the English who are nearer home were they now a distinct People from the Ancient Brittains as it hath been proved they are not ow not such a debt or Tribute to the Posterity of the Ancient Brittains by whose Ancestors we have likewise prov'd they were undoubtedly fiâ—st Converted For such kind of Preaching of the Gospel on the side of the Brittains and such believing and complying with the grace of God for Salvation on the side of the English or Saxon were the personal duties and merits of both Progenitours for which both have had their full reward and payment from God long ago in rest and glory and both posterities mutually acquitted and released and remitted to seek after the like glory by the like means for indeed the just retribution and compensation for the unvaluable benefit of Gospel and Salvation belongs to God alone both to discharge and to receive instead of the one and the other party because two great a debt and obligation for a Creature to undergo or the hearer to requiâ—e or the â—reaâ—â—er to demaund and insist on besides the mâ—â—dâ—â— and telling another of our good turns towaâ—ds him Cancels Courtesies especially those between Souls because it bankrupts and annihilates by fiction him whose requital we expect For the giver representing God the receiver a Creature unless Gods proxy absent and hide his glory by a fiction of forgetfulness the Creatures proxy will appear to be nothing and consequently insolvent so near his rayes as the Sun must set that Stars may shine for while too near the presence and comparison of the greater obscures and destroys the weaker light If therefore the Generous posterity of the Saxons on the one hand believe kindness to be due to the posterity of the Brittains on the score of first Faith the Brittains on the other dare not own any such debt to be due unto them lest they wrong the merits and duties of their Progenitors but what honour or favour is forced upon them they will acknowledge it free guift without any previous merit calling for a requital and return with due increase and multiplied proportion where there is power and where that is wanting for a constant acknowledgement and rememberance and repayments in the heart through the aid of God by prayers and blessings And this were as much the duty of the Roman Church towards the English were it true that their Ancestors had received their Faith from Rome and that Faith had been pure and sound and right according to that of our Saviour freely ye have received freely give Math. 19.8 If they intend to act as men and Christians and Gentlemen of education and breeding and not as those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that had their hearts or their minds and consciences putrified and corrupted 1 Tim 6.5 as too many of their principles and practices afford apparent Symptons of such a malady For in the matter and commerce of Courtesies that forgetfulness should be the part of the Giver and remembrance of the Receiver
only is an acknowledg'd duty and an indelible behaviour and Instinct in the Souls and Consciences of Heathens as they may be satisfied at large by Seneca without fear of any Heretical Pravity But seeing it is made evident they did not receive their Religion from the Romanists but from the Brittains or Irish and Scotch of Brittish Institution and extraction and what they did receive was not Corn but Tares not sound food of the Soul but poison rather That they nevertheless against truth and modesty and Breeding are ever minding and upbraiding our English Nation with this no Courtesie of theirs or their Progenitors and calling for everlasting Tribute and perpetual obedience and subjection from us for their endless molestations and corruptions This use however may at lest be made of this their disingenuity and impatience That as on the one hand they through folly and impertinence Cancel their own supposed merits by their minding and dunning and that with such frequency and loudness enough to make men deaf with such depredations and reprisals and plagiums or Soul-stealing and other revengeful attempts and distresses upon us for want of their supposed due Rent enough to make the meekest their enemies out of Indignation being guilty thereby of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-felony against themselves and their Interest overthrowing their title of Supremacy by their own Act through unskilful management so on the other it is matter of much content and gladness and ease of heart unto us that our Ancestors some descents agoe have return'd back unto them all the Errours and Superstitions we ever here received or had them thrust upon us to silence the cause if not the impudence and conscience if not the cry And if I rightly guess at the minds of our Superiours by their designes and the profession of some of our late chiefest a Dr. Hammond of Shism p. 160. Pillars we will give them leave to search every Corner of our Church and where they find any one Doctrine or Rite or Article that hath not a Brittish Apostolical stamp and mark upon it but bears the mark or Armes of the Goods and Chattels of Monk Augustine on them or any of his intruding Successors we are content for quietness sake for who can endure everlasting dunning and upbraiding and that without any cause or colour that they seise and take them to themselves with all our hearts and we shall not think our selves poorer or further from Salvation by it but pray God that they may be nearer Neither is it very advisable in them to keep such a din with the little or noe merits of their Ancestors lest they become thereby responsible in all equity for their great wrongs and mischiefs for reparations of injuries may be demanded where returnes for Courtesies cannot as it is more consonant to nature for Creatures to complain than for God to upbraid or for weak Children to cry upon the least cause than for Parents to complain for the greatest and for their monstrous pride and hypocrisie and scandalls and murthers and Schismatical usurpations and the utter destruction what in them lay which ill became Christians and Catholicks of the Ancient Orthodox Apostolical Faith among the Brittains and of the same afresh after replanted among the English or Saxons by Brittish Ministry and the Corruption of our Rites Customes Ordinations Manners with their Roman-Catholick mixtures and Superstitions The Invasion of our Brittish Sees Dignities Monasteries and Ancient Ecclesiastical endowments b Apud Usher p. 125. by our Brittish Kings though the preheminence and influence of their New See of Canterbury settled and continued here by force and Schism as to them against all Laws and Canons and Civilities and Christian same to the extinction or suppression of our Ancient Archiepiscopal Brittish Sees of London and York and St. Davids at last which kind of attempt upon their Ancient Chaire of Rome would they have brooked with patience And not rather attempted the removal or prevention by any means though indirect and Rebellious and Hellish to the endangering of all Christendom rather then fail as is too well known by experience And which further aggravates their Diabolical Impudence and unconscionable Antichristian encroachments is their pretending at last their unjust usurpations which every day and year they continued were multiplied into new wrongs by time and Age to have changed their Nature and to be become a righteous title Bonae Fidei of unquestionable Supremacy which for the oppress'd to shake off by lawful means and the miraculous assistance of Divine Providence respecting in his own time the groans and cryes of harrass'd Innocence is no less than the great Crime of Schisme and Ecclesiastical Rebellion and Pollution of our Land in departing from the Catholick Faith And that a Thief by smothering his light and holding fast his Stollen Goods against his Conscience becomes an Honest-man at last and the Honest-man a Villain for challenging or recovering his own by just and lawful means That Mahomet by so many years prescription by his Sword and Imposture hath now good right and title to his Domination and Tyranny over the Eastern Churches and that it were an ungodly Schisme in the poor Graecians to accept of any deliverance from their long and miserable slavery either from Cod or man For we do not and cannot deny Romes Intrusion and inroads upon our Brittish Church and the consequent corruption of several of our Traditions and Ancient Rites in publick at lest and for a time when they swayed our Chairs and soil'd and disturb'd our Ordinations and Successions with their Roman mixture for well it was if our Ancestors were able within door then and in their hearts to retain their Ancient Rites and principles by Orall Tradition as they term it from devout Parents to their Sons yet our Ordinations received from them in such times were as good and as valid as any they had or now have amongst themselves but we have reason to count them our ill fate and grievance for otherwise our own had continued pure and regular and Brittish from the Resurrection to this present And yet their violent Imposition of hands in those dayes in the place and right of our Brittish Bishops was their guilt not ours who resisted it while we were able and greatly rejoyce at our deliverance from it and by no means if it be Gods will would return under it any more And God measures all by the heart especially in matters of Church and Religion according to my Text it s the sincerity and untaintedness of the heart makes the best Catholick 1 Tim. 1.5 And what was done unjustly stands undone and what by force and necessity was yielded to against the heart and will was not yielded to in reason For id sit quod jure fit is a Law Maxime and Tyrants are but great Lords of Nullities by the exemption of the will and Soul from and the frown of Heaven upon all bruitish unjustice and
to trust then Mahomet shall pass for as good a Prophet as St. Peter and the Alcharon be equal to the Bible for to the blind all colours are the same But regulated Conscience is not a private Spirit wherein God himself speaks who is greater than all the World where it is kept pure from Worldly ends and Idols for nothing is more publick and Catholick than Conscience or reason or right or duty or holiness or justice which are synonymous and carry universality and eternity in their conceptions by reason of the Divine Impression and Authority they partake and answer to And nothing constitutes more a private Spirit than private ends and carnal designs and self advantage and profit and filthy lucre made chief ingredients in duties Doctrines and Religions with which Worldly and sordid mixtures the Roman Faith in all its parts is too well known to abound which unworthy copulations are discernable by the weakest judgments and condemn'd and hated by the most universal suffrages and censures of God and men An Infant can discerne them in his neglectful Nurse an Elephant in his unjust Feeder Clownes in States-men and Politicians and are abhorr'd and declaim'd against by Heathen Philosophers in their Schools and Christian in Pulpits and are those moral wild beasts that all Laws humane and Divine and right Discipline and education and all rules of honour are mainly bent to discover and hunt and chase out of all Societies and converse and hearts Besides a private Conscience proceeding in all its converse according to Christs mind Interest and direction and doing nought that is disallowed by him is Christ himself by fiction personated and acted and defended which is as far from a private Spirit as the East is from the West or the will of God from the ends and lusts of man It being not more natural and congruous in Christ himself to delight in good men and to abhorre the Congregations of the wicked and carnal and scandalous than it is for his faithful Servants and Trustees and Representatives who bear their Masters person and concern and holiness upon them by such a fiction to express and imitate by their own Communion and election of Societies the mind and Inclination of their Lord and soon to discern who are his Friends or Enemies or Traitors and Loyal Subjects in his Kingdom and vigorously and and indispensably to embrace the one and shun the the other for Servants act according to an accountable trust the Master being Lord of his own rights to remit or indulge out of favour as he pleases which is not lawful for the Servant to presume And this skill and instinct and shadows of private judgment to discerne friends from strangers to their Masters is visible in Domestick Creatures emblemes of fidelity who are Courteous to acquaintance but severe and unsociable to such as are not so till by converse and familiarity they prove their unity and friendship and take away private judgment and discretion the distinction and difference between faithful and unfaithful Servants Subjects Christians Churches wholly falls to the ground and Christians and Catholicks are set below the Irrational Creatures And for the Church of Rome to blast good Consciences that find out its faults as private Schismatical Spirits and to extol their own Carnal designes and Trade and Merchandize of godliness as Catholick Religion holy pure and publick and eternal is too visibly one of the uniform symptomes of their Antichristianism whereby they confound Heaven and Earth the Church and the World and reconcile yea change Mammon into Christ and Christ into Mammon Withall equal and coordinate Churches or Christians as we now suppose Rome and Brittain to be are not judges of one another where they separate from one another for Par in parem non habet potestatem is a rule in Law but act severally therein according to their respective duties and allegiance to their own liege and Superiour who is Christ the head and judge of both in the other World and in this also by a free and general Council which both parts ought for peace and unity to submit to which thereby becomes Superiour to both either by Divine Institution and custom Ecclesiastical or by their own consent and agreement as in the Case of Arbitrators And accordingly such general Synods have censur'd and sentenced and Excommunicated persons Churches Provinces Priests Bishops Patriarchs and Popes themselves when they walk'd awry from Christ's Rule As the first General Council at Nice against Arrius Priest of Alexandria The second at Constantinople against Macedonius Arch-Bishop of that See The third at Ephesus against Nestorius another Constantinopolitan Arch-Bishop the fourth at Chalcedon against Eutyches Dioscorus c. Priests and the fift at Constantinople against Diodorus and Theodorus Bishops reviving Origens errours and the sixth Oecumenical or general Council in Trullo at Constantinople against other Bishops and amongst them against the whole Church of Rome its Clergy and Laity for departing from the Catholick tradition of the Church about their Saturday fast wherein the Brittish Church was ever Orthodox with the rest of the Ancient Christian World as was shewed But the Church of Rome will allow of no Council or Canons or Fathers that shall offer to check its errours nor Scripture it self but with its own sence and Interpretation thereof whereby it shall be sure not to cross its Interest Being a manifest and notorious example therein of disobedience and Irregularity to all its Superiours and the most Schismatical Church in the Christian World for Baronius a Spondan An. 692. n. 5. cannot deny that the Greek writers declare their sence that the breach of Communion between the Greeks or Eastern and the Latine or Western Church of Rome was upon the disobedience of the Popes to yield and submit to the Council in Trullo wherein it had all other Churches of the World and the Canons of the Apostles of its side and undoubted Apostolical tradition mentioned in most of the Ancient Fathers as b Idem An. 34. n. 47. Baronius cannot and doth not deny A Church therefore that deserves to be shun'd and disown'd as scandalous for that and its other innumerable corruptions and infamous Usurpations and gross Idolatries and particularly its Blind Obedience and Implicit Faith that allows and directs to put confidence in man the head and fountain of all its damnable errours and superstitions whereof all that communicate with it must be approvers and partakers by the terms and Injunctions of its Communion which requires them to be all receiv'd as Catholick Articles and Doctrines and all contrary Truths to be abjur'd as Heresies whereby it becomes impossible for any understanding sober Christian to be at the same time within her Communion and pale and out of the curse of God Esa 1.5 20. Therefore it were lost and needless labour as to them or our selves to go about to disprove all their imputation and charge of Schism against us or to prove on the
either in Scripture or Ancient Fathers or Councils is it express'd that the Pope of Rome is this Chief that all Churches and Provinces are Bound to know and own for such for then this controversy of Supremacy were decided past all further dispute But what Metropolitan or Patriarch then is recommended to us in Scripture or Tradition to know and obey for such My Text and the 34 Canon of the Apostles answers this Question and resolves us whom we are to look upon as our chief both in Heaven and Earth For Christ is that Invisible Chief in Heaven we are to know and serve in all we do from the heart And on Earth the Primate of every Province and not the Pope over all was Him that all Christians in the Ancient and truly Catholick Church were bound to Know and own and obey as their head before Magistrates became Christians And the Pope of Rome is there quite forgot and not mention'd in the lest and at such a time as his Authority and Supremacy had been by all means to be salv'd or heeded if it had been then but a point of any right or order in the belief of the Apostolical Church which is now so great a point of Faith in the Roman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Bishops of every particular Nation ought to Know Him who is Chief amongst themselves and to count Him as their Head And to do nothing beyond their particular concern and duty without Him nor he either to do any thing without the advice of them all for so peace and concord shall be attain'd and preserv'd and God shall be glorified Whereby is evident that the Primitive Ecclesiastical state of Christendom was as its present civil is Aristocratical and not Monarchical where several Provinces had their several Bishops or Primates for their Ecclesiastical Princes As now-a-dayes several Kingdoms are under their own several Kings and States and no one Prince Supream or as a civil Imperial Pope over all the rest But in comparison of one another all were equals and unsubordinate to one another as to power and subjection though not to order and precedency And in their own Territories Monarchical or supream within themselves And if the State of the Church was so and so to be preserv'd by this Canon although the state civil was different and Monarchical all Christian Kingdoms and Provinces being then under one Emperour as he that hath read St. Cyprian or St. Hierome can make but little doubt what reason is there that the State Civil and Sacred being now equally Aristocratical the harmony should be dissolv'd and all should become slaves against right and Laws and Canons to please the Pride and sin of one He that drives at an Universal Monarchy is and ought to be taken by every Prince and State as a publick enemy The reason is the same in Church as well as State Yea there is president for Universal Monarchy in States but none in the external Church but only Prophecyes and warnings of Antichrist that should be such Now for Rome to be Soveraign as she pretends and every Metropolitan Church to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Chief and unsubordinate within its own Province according to right and Ancient customes is a manifest contradiction and inconsistency Both cannot be true together but the last was proved to be most true by as great a testimony and suffrage as Earth can afford the consent of several General Councils the greatest that ever met and in the best and purest times And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Per omnia autem manifestum est This is universally manifest is the manner of wording of this point in this Canon as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Manifestum namque est quod per singulas quasque Provincias in the other like unto it both in the Originals and their own Roman Translations Therefore if the one be so manifestly true the other of Rome's Supremacy is as manifestly false Let them shift off the consequence of Antichristianism as they can Yet Baronius a Spondanus An. 325. n. 32. would prove the Supremacy of Rome out of this very Canon as what will they not venter before they 'l part with their chiefest Idol but his offers are meer Cavil and Petitio Principii or begging of the Question contrary to the context and the design of this great Council and contrary also to the text in whole and in part The design being to strengthen the Authority of the Bishop of Alexandria against Meletius and Arrius who ordain'd Bishops for themselves within his Province against his will and consent which Consecrations were as Schismatical being done against his License in Egypt as the like were if done at Rome or Italy against the Authority of the Pope Both of Ancient custom having the like Authority within their proper Province and the Foundation of the Decree being the equality of Alexandria with Rome as likewise with Antioch in this respect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where equality is suppos'd its absurd to imagine the same in the same respect to be subject and supream for that were inequality and contradiction Besides the union and strength of the Churches Government and Discipline that whosoever is excommunicate in one Province should stand so with all the rest is not grounded upon the necessary Dominion of One over all the rest which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Popery and one of its Master errours against the mind of our Saviour and the known state of the Primitive Church and the union and the peace of all Christendom but upon the Brotherly love and communion suppos'd amongst all Christian Churches in the 5th Canon of Nice wherein appears the difference between Ecclesiastical and Civil Polities of those times and this The Laws and Sentences of these being of force only within their own Territories by right of Empire but of those every where without through the bond and union of love And they at Rome bound to observe the decrees of their neighbouring Churches as well as these of It which imports mutual subjection to one another by mutual humility and excludes the proud conceit of Soveraignty in any one over the whole The whole Church in this respect being as one Province by the fiction of love and unity which in other respects was several and distinct by local limits as before One not by the dominion and supremacy of any one over all the rest which is the Carnal aime and Antichristian Tyranny of Rome but by the submission of all the parts to the Interest of the whole which is right Christian liberty and the harmonious Communion of Saints The act and deed of one being as the act and deed of all where the publick weal of the Church of Christ was concern'd And the ambitious swelling Supremacy of Rome is as much contrary to the Text of this Canon both in whole and in its parts as it was to the connexion and
which how they were imputable to them alone who were the faulty Original Causes and how avoidable by the Innocent and Sincere in Gods Account who measures all our Actions by our hearts was explain'd a Sect. 10. p. 344. before To the like effect is the 13 Can. of the Council of Antioch that whosoever enters upon another's Diocess 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless he be Invited by the letters of the Metropolitan together with the other Bishops of that place upon whith he enters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. All that he hath done is void and nul and himself is forthwith deposed by this holy Synod as a just recompence of his disorder and unreasonable aggression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Scholiast upon this Canon it gives cause and occasion of much scandal commotion in a land for one Bishop to enter upon anothers Province And Canon 22. of the same Council what Priest or Deacon soever he shall offer to ordain the Ordination shall be void and himself to be punished by the Synod And this Council though at first a Provincial yet being confirm'd by a general Council it partakes of the same Authority and Force And Augustine and Theodore and there Successors who were never invited hither by our Brittish Bishops or their Letters or assent stand fully condemn'd by it as also by the second Canon of the second General Council at Constantinople upon the same Subject matter extending the Prohibition not only to Ordination but any other b Bals in Can. 2 Con. Con. 35. Can. Apost Ecclesiastical Act whatsoever to be done by him in anothers Diocess which the Scholiast Construes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he ought not to break disorderly into another's Territory as a Robber but with the good leave and liking of the Bishop of the place for theives are frown'd upon by other Canons and being taken are by the 25 Canon of the Apostles to be excluded from the Ministry though not from all Christian Communion Yea to Preach in publick in another's Diocess against leave Degrades a Bishop to the Lower degree of a Presbyter by the 20. Can. in Trullo And there is hardly any shift or pretence for a colour to this Invasion but it is prevented and censur'd by other Canons will he say the Diocess was Vacant when he came in and Theonus the Archbishop of London was not to be heard off when he entred upon Canterbury this is met by other Canons 37. of the 6th General Council in Trullo The Impression of Heathens upon a See makes no Vacancy though the Bishops are forc'd to flee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Council would by no means allow that Ecclesiastical rights should be abolished by Heathen Invasion And the 18th Canon of Antioch is to the same effect But suppose the place really and honestly Vacant without Heathens or Augustine himself or his Pope being the evil cause yet the entrance of him and his Successors stands eondemned by the 16th of Antioch and Sardyc Can. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If any Bishop unprovided of a Bishoprick thrust himself into a Vacant Church and Usurp its Throne without the consent of a perfect lawful Synod which requires the presence of the Metropolitan he is to be rejected though all the People whom he so entred upon should unanimously Elect or force him saith the 14th Canon of the Apostles By these Canons the consent or Invitation or Force of the People avails not to excuse this Trespass If the Invitation of some Potentate in the place and Territory be pretended which comes nearer to our Augustine's Case though by Bede it appears he came hither altogether uninvited out of meer Commiseration kindled in Pope Gregory by the fair English Youths sold at Rome in the Market it will not much mend the matter as appears by the 30th Canon of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any man through the help of Secular Princes possesses himself of a Church or See belonging to another let him be deposed from his degree and Ex-Communicated both he and all that joyn with him This further increases the nullity of our Roman Catholick Church in England whereby Augustine stood Degraded from his Episcopal Dignity and all that favour'd him Excommunicate and all are a Brethren in Iniquity to Simonaicks as appears by the near conjunction of this Canon to the Precedent observed by the Scholiasts and what Church can that be where both Head and Members are all either deposed or Excommunicated from the Catholick Church of so little use and benefit is the Invitation of Infidel Princes to the wrong of Christian Prelates upon the place were it allowed and granted that Augustine settled here at the request of Ethelbert who was not King of England nor of all the Archbishoprick of London or Canterbury which Reached from Humber to Cornwall and Severn And what ever were the right of Ethelbert to Invite it was the manifest sin of Augustine and Gregory to accept the Primacy to the prejudice of the Christian Prelates in the same Province and in Wales that was not yet subdued For though the Canons approve of Charity yet to the breach and violation of Justice and Vnity amongst Christian Brethren or of obedience to Superiours it will by no means admit thereof Therefore their Priests and Inferiour Pastors if they had any are in no better condition than their Superiour Clergy both equally Degraded from their Orders for contempt of the Brittish Bishops who in this Province were to be owned by them as their just Superiours unless they had other guess exceptions against them than that the Infidels were too hard for them The 30th Canon of the Apostles saith If any Presbyter or Minister gather Conventicles apart in despite and contempt of his own Bishop and set up an Altar in his Diocess having nought to charge his Bishop in point of Holiness or honesty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let him be deposed for his Pride and Ambition for such a one is seditious or next door to a Tyrant And whoever of the Clergy or Laity joyn with him the one to be deposed the other to be Excommunicated after one or too Monitions which was not in any probability omitted to Augustine and his Clergy in the first and second Synodical Meetings given him as before by the Learned Unblemished Brittish Bishops and their Associates For as at home for the Inferiour Clergy to confederate to suppress their Superiours were Schism and Ecclesiastical Rebellion in them by this Canon so for any from abroad of the same Christian Communion to Erect Chairs above the Chairs of the Bishops of this Province were such an Impudent Invasion of the rights of Lawful Superiours and an account will follow of that Epithite as if the French or any Forreign Church at London should go about to exalt it self above the See of Canterbury or London that gives it Harbour Yea whosoever shall attempt or cause himself to be made a
Bishop in a Diocess belonging to another whereby it should fall out that two Metropolitan Bishops should be in one and the same Diocess though he effect his purpose not by the help of Heathens or Tyrants as did Augustine but by the Royal Patent and Authorities of Christian Kings and Emperours who had greater Power allowed herein by Christian Councils by the 12 Canon of the General Council Chalcedon he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as Balsamon a Balsamon Zonar in Can. 12. Concil Chalcedon explains it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was to be deposed and laid aside from his degree and any Bishop that was so made before the ratifying of this Canon were to be Nominal and Titular only and the whole Right and Power to remain in the Ancienter Metropolitan who was also to Ordain and Judge the other as the Arch-Bishops of Constantinople were Ordain'd notwithstanding their Grandeur by the Bishops of Heraclea where the See had been before though they through their Vicinity and Interest in Court were freed from this necessity by the favour and Prerogative of after Emperours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to their Power given them from above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many are the Canons that Prohibit one Bishop to enter upon the Bishoprick of another saith the Scholiast upon the second Canon of the second General Council in Constantinople To pass by the 12 Canon of the second general Council of Carthage confirm'd in the general Council in Trullo and the 37. of the third confirmed in like manner and the third Canon of the 7th general Council or second at Nice which though it deviated in other points is firm in this and nulls the Election of Bishops made by secular power and not by the Bishops of the Province according to the mind of the first Council of Nice though it decreed awry touching the Adoration of Images in detestation of those that like Jews abus'd them too far on the other hand I shall content my self in the last place with the Decrees of the Council of Sardyca the most favourable to the Church of Rome and to the memory of St. Peter there of any other Council whatsoever whose judgment therefore it may be justly hoped they will stand to as they tender their own Interest which is wrap'd up in the same third Canon that secures our liberties Where in the case of a Bishop condemned by all his Brethren of the same Province from whose Sentence there was no Appeal by the 15th Canon of Antioch who yet believing his cause to be right was allowed this remedy that upon a state of his case to be transmitted from the Bishops that were Judges to Pope Julius their fellow Bishop of Rome Canon 10. the Pope had power repos'd in him either to order a re-hearing of the cause by other Bishops of the next Province saith the Scholiast a Balsamon in Can. 3. Concil of Sardic else the Bishop of Thessalonica might be summon'd to appear at Rome or by one sent from himself to represent his person and to joyn with them or else to confirm the former sentence according as he thought good Which Inch was made an Ell by the wonted ambition of the Roman See and two pretences for Rome's Soveraignty fram'd there from First that by this Canon all Bishops whatsoever throughout the World were to appeal to Rome Whereas it was only intended for such Provinces as were subject to Rome as several were in the West saith another Scholiast and what is said of Rome belong'd as well to the Archbishop of Constantinople for the Provinces under it a Scholia in Can. 3. Sardyc 31 Carthag apud Synodicon Edit Beveregii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of its equal Priviledges with Rome by several Canons Secondly that this Canon was one of the famous Council of Nice that went some years before to give it greater Authority which gave occasion to the Council of Carthage to examine this high Allegation and to send to the East for the Original Records of Nice and to detect the forgery in the face of the whole Council as afore where the Popes Legate was present and to decree against all Transmarine Appeals from Africa under pain of Excommunication through all the Churches of that Province as before Nor could Africa be more exempt from Rome than was our Brittain was also shewed Yet supposing Rome's right of Arbitration were no way hurt or forfeited by this device as good Titles may be lost when forgeries are us'd to support them and what was done out of choice and honour to the excellent Popes that Rome had in those dayes must be done to its modern Monsters forever by Authority of this Council yet themselves must own its Canons to be in force if they insist that others should and if so by the third Canon which contains this grant of honour to them Monk Augustine's entrance and setlement here in Brittain is greatly unsetled unless he had been call'd and invited hither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Bishops of this Province and their Brethren that is by the unanimous desires of the Brittish Clergy for want whereof see his danger Canon 1 and 2. He was to be depos'd from his Episcopal dignity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Balsamon as a very impudent person for this Intrusion and to be denyed all Christian Communion not only amongst the Clergy but also amongst them of the Laity and his pretence of being invited by the people to serve him in no stead and finally not to be capable so much as of lay-Lay-Communion at his death the highest deprivation of a mans Christian state that could be worded A severity the Church never us'd but towards the highest misdemeanours against Christ and his Church that could be imagin'd or conceived If therefore they claim the benefit and priviledge design'd for them by this Council they must first quit all pretences to this Province and make what reparations they are able for their long and unjust usurpations maintain'd by their several Popes as Principals as well as by Augustine and his Successors as Instruments and Legates who else by this Canon are not to be reckoned amongst Christians as the old Brittains urg'd much less amongst Bishops or Popes For what impudence were it otherwise for persons who stand Excommunicate by a general Council which themselves most approve to clamour for obedience and subjection where none is due yea when no Christians can afford them so much as their Communion under such faults by the Canons of the Church for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the 10th Canon of the Apostles if a man pray with a person outlawed from Communion so much as in his house himself is to be excommunicated and Clergy also that shall do the same with Clergy depos'd are themselves to be depos'd from their Ministry together with them Canon 11. Or where is their honour and fidelity to their Countrey which vulgar breasts seldom
that to affect to be universal Bishop and Soveraign of all Churches both name and thing was impious and Sacrilegious and Antichristian and cryed out that Antichrist was nigh coming when John Bishop of Constantinople began to usurp such a Title If therefore by Romish principles all Churches that derive their Palls from thence are thereby subject to their Chaire and those that never had Palls from thence as Brittain and other Churches by consequence in the like case were to be made subject likewise because they had none by Pope Gregories instructions to his Missionary And so by having or not having all Churches became subject by this Artifice Therefore it is manifest Gregory by this Act made himself that universal Bishop he so much abhorr'd though not in name and title yet in effect and reality which is more and Antichrist by consequence Therefore we affirm the Romish Faith in England is to be shunn'd and disown'd by all true Christians because its first plantation was from an Antichristian strein and Original by the confession of its first founder who if Popes be Infallible as they do and must believe in that Church was Antichrist Infallibly by his own Infallible determination Lastly not one but all the Popes f Apud Dr. Hammond of Schisme p. 105. of Rome at their Creation make a solemn vow and profession to observe inviolably all the Ordinances made in the eight first general Councils where nothing is more unanimously provided for and secur'd by all Anathema's imaginable than the Ancient Immunities of Provinces against Invaders and Intruders and of our Brittish Church by consequence whose Rights therefore could not be touch'd nor violated by any of them without incurring the acknowledg'd curse of the Catholick Church and the condemnation of their Holinesses themselves for Faithlesseness and Perjury out of their own mouths What temptation can there now be to any sober Christian to renounce an Ancient and Orthodox good Church and his own Mother for another in a Forreign Countrey which stands condemned by God and the whole Christian World and by it self And these condemnations too visibly executed upon it with a probatum est in a stupendious degeneracy beyond all Heathenism not only in point of Ignorance and gross deliberate errours putting out the Candle of knowledge upon themselves and all in the room for no good ends for many hundreds of years untill the Reformation But in their so liberally Licensing and dispensing in themselves and others that is making nothing of any iniquity or Incest or breach of Faith or Treason or Gods Anathema's in order to their Catholick interest and gain which office of faculties and libertinism the worst and rudest of Heathens never dreamed of Who knowing the judgment of God that they who do such things are worthy of death not only do the same themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 allow and approve that others may do them Rom. 1.32 which is so far from being Christian that no Heathens have been found or known more professedly Satanical or Antichristian Seeing therefore to contract our Argument to three undenyably positions The Catholick Church is still in being and its Canons unrepeal'd And the Church and Province of Brittain is likewise still surviving with Ancient Metropolitical Rights appertaining to it And the Clergy of Rome are dayly intruding upon us not only without the Invitation of this Province though it is their Interest and perhaps their secret practice to try by Cap or Pall or preferment what Wilfrids or Egberts or Elbods they can allure to betray Church and Countrey but against manifest and publick dissent declar'd by Laws and highest penalties What Holy Orders can such men have who are declared by the Catholick Church to be neither Clergy nor Christians for such disorder the scandalous ill consequences we have salv'd before as to the Innocent and charg'd them on their Authors or what validity or power or comfort to the Conscience can there be in their indulgences or Pardons or Consecrations any more than if Butchers or Town Bedles did absolve or Cats laid their paws upon their credulous Disciples enur'd by long custome to be abus'd SECTION XV. A short Diquisition into the Cause and character of the Roman Apostacy in its Leaders and Followers from History and Prophecy and Practice ANd though they thus refuse to be Impal'd from invading our Brittish Liberties by either Conscience or Canons or contradictions which are receiv'd bounds with all other men and Christians in the World and leaving reason seem to appeal to Club or Craft by consequence which would look very Barbarously Heretical in Protestants yet neither are they to conceive themselves Singular in such Magnanimous and Lawless adventures and usurpations for no thief ever came to the Gallows nor Traitor to the Scaffold nor cheat to the Pillory nor Malefactor to the wheel nor any sinner whatsoever to shame and damnation everlasting but for the like obstinate exaltation of their lust and Pride above the Laws of God and men only with this difference the one sin in the Night the other in the Day the one with guilt and fear and shame and somtimes with repentance but the other with open face and Catholick confidence and Sanctity Fathering all their evils upon Christ and St. Peter without hope of Repentance for to amend or change their manners would be to Apostatize from their Apostolical Faith and Principles An abominable new-found evil of Monstrous visage like a Gorgon of Pernicious influence like a Plague of hopeless Cure like a Gout for here light hath Communion with darkness which all reason and Religion and Order were Ordain'd to sever and the Wolf and the Lamb shall lie together and keep their natures and Civil and Wild and Humble and Proud and Regular and Lawless and Holy and Unconscionable and Catholick and Schismatical and Apostolical and Atheistical shall be Consistent and Church and the World and God and Mammon and Christ and Satan be of one Piece enough to distract Innocent beholders not used to monsters with so horrible a Specter and strike them dead with the Antipathy Cicero wanted words fully to express such disorder and confusion Totius autem Injusticiae nulla est capitalior quam eorum qui dum maximê fallunt id agunt ut boni viri esse videantur Of all Injustice and wrong there is none so Abominably Pernicious as that which would sanctifie it self Had he been a Christian he had allowed it the Epithite of Antichristian The like sight made another clear-spirited Heathen start beyond the Pole in his fright Vltra Sauromatas fugere hinc libet Glacialem Oceanum and chuse to be out of the World than live near the Immusical Notes and grating contradictions of debauch'd Curii dissolute Stoicks Sordid Nobles Holy Hypocrites And for its infection as nothing is more abhorr'd so nothing is sooner catching nor more seises the vitals and blunts the edge of Conscience and overthrows all the Laws of the soul The
Preach Gods word without a License sued out from their See Nor the Scriptures themselves to be Gods word without their stamp or Allowance nor any hope of Salvation to any Soul out of the Pale of their Church The Corinthians Ephesians Thessalonians Phillipians Galatians had their Gospel not from St. Peter but from St. Paul for he had it not of man nor by men Gal. 1.1 And therefore not from St. Peter if St. Peter were a man but from Jesus Christ who is therefore God as likewise the Brittains had theirs from Christs Apostles and Companions before St. Peter ever had a Chair at Rome yet all these must be no Churches with the Church of Rome which is an absolute Haeretical affront to the Article in the Creed touching the Church which they deny to be Catholick and universal by limiting it to their Roman Communion Did the Haeresie of the Donatists heretofore speak higher or plainer Or of a Epiphanius in Simonianis the Pepusians who affirmed their own City Pepusa to be Jerusalem above if the Church of Rome in St. Augustine's dayes had been so Heretical as our Modern had it escap'd the impartial zeal and censure of that Learned Father and wherein was Basilides the Ancient Gnostick worse than these Modern Who maintain'd that God reveal'd his Truth to His party only a Epiphanius in Simonianis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they alone were men all others as Swine and Dogs as Protestants are esteem'd in the Romish Territories Or wherein exceeded by Simon Magus the Father of the Gnosticks who b Idem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said he was Christ as the Pope doth in effect who a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first Worshipped Images who made all Religion and the Cross of Christ subservient to their fleshly ends and pretended themselves to have Ecclesiastical Authority above any else or St. Paul himself though they were the enemies of Christ because the enemies of his Cross and Gospel and to be shunn'd therefore by all true Christians Phil. 3.18 as the Apostle there declares Whom no Oaths also can bind no more than they could the old Heretick c Epiphanus lib. 1. p. 24. Helxas in the Jewish Church who taught it was no sin to worship Idols in time of Persecution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and although he made profession with his mouth but denyed the same with mental reservation in his heart which is a Doctrine too well known at Rome he was not guilty of any offence at all Who lastly in a word not to enumerate any more particular Heresies whom they revive are our Apsychites as before who by their Principles and pactices deny the heart and its necessary use in Religious worship and by consequence deny Christ and God and all for without the heart or soul as a body is a dead body so a Church is a dead Church in reason and but the Carcass of a Church and as the death of the body contains most of the diseases that can be nam'd Deafness Blindness Apoplexy c. so deadness in a Church through the want and absence of the heart and soul pregnantly comprizes all sorts of errours and Heresies as Arrianism Nestorianism Pelagianism Manicheism Libertinism Antichristanism Atheism c. for take away the heart and take away God and take away God you take away all Religion whatsoever as take away smelling you take away odours or take away eyes and you take away light these being correlates to one another as was shewed before For the heart being intirely for Christ as its end and correlate as was shewed at the beginning when it loses its true end it ceases to be a heart the end in such things as are ordain'd for an end being as their life and soul and being whereof when depriv'd or frustrated in fiction of reason they cease to be as an eye that cannot see or an ear that cannot hear or a foot that cannot move is in reason no eye or ear or foot though the Ball or Organ or Limb remain in visible existence to the sense In like manner where the heart is seis'd or diverted by any Idol or vanity from Christ its end and life it ceases to be a heart To honour men for Christ's sake for any likeness to him bâ— Grace or Place or Quality may be done with the heart for it is not man so much as Christ himself is so honour'd by the heart which thereby attains its end and life by conjunction with him But to honour Christ upon the score of the Pope as is the way and Principle of Romanists with whom the Pope gives Authority to Scripture and Religion and to Christ himself by consequence It is not to honour or serve Christ so much as the Pope to whom the heart is thereby Principally directed and not to Christ but rather divided from him by the interposition and presence of another And whatever it be in like manner that severs and engrosses the heart from Christ its life and proper Element whether it be lust or Interest or wordly end or any sin or man of sin destroys and choaks it It is the extinction of reason to be besides it self the extinction of the heart to be besides its Christ The corps of a Religious Action remains in all Acts of Hypocrisie and Superstition and Idolatry but the heart and soul is lost and gone And generally the form of godliness no where more abounds than where the life and Power is wanting who more for outward zeal and show of Religion than the Hypocrite who hath none who more nice and exact in all minical Ceremonies than the Superstitious who wants the substance who more complemental than the hollow-hearted Forma viros neglecta decet men of great hearts and reality are more for deeds than words Now some superficial understandings that judge all by sense and outward appearance though but skin-deep are apt to mistake busie and zealous superstition and bigottry to be sincere and sober Religion whereas these differ in specie and are no more the same than a dying man sâ—picking bed câ—oaths is Family care or hollow Complement of the lip true friendship of the heart or an fâ—bullition of worms in a putrified Corps the Restoration of its former life unto it for in like manner as the cessation of natural life brings forth an unnatural bâ—ood of maggots in dead bodies so the departure of the heart and life from any Church ends in innumerable freaks of Religious whimsies and crossings and cringings without end There are several other Characteristical marks and effects of the want and absence of the heart and conscience in the Romish Religion wherein it goes beyond common Heresies and bids fair for Antichrist And waving the Principal or Lucifer-like Pride the womb of Antichrist and Universal Supremacy according to our Pope Gregory which hath been our game and Subject all along I shall instance but in three or four genuine properties very particular to that
s insensibly received and admitted into its rest at last and then and there lost forever and found forever in the Bosom of the Immense Ocean so is it most an end with every Christian soul at the beginning and progress and end of his Christian Race who is as sure to reach to his rest and glory in the bosom of God forever as Rivers to reach the Sea which they are reaching every day nearer and nearer as they move towards it in the channel that leads unto it and is the very same Element with it To conclude if all could be perswaded and won to walk up to this short and Catholick Rule which reaches all Nations and Churches and Conditions and Vocations and degrees to discharge all their duties to one another from the heart as unto Christ there would be more truth and veracity in the World not only towards Brethren but towards enemies and strangers who have Christ in mens hearts to hold in their behalf any promise pawn'd and made unto them the violation whereof carries as much of Atheism and contempt of Christ within the heart as dishonesty without towards him it wrongs There would be more meekness and patience towards enemies and persecutors if not for their sakes yet for Christs who commands forgiveness and love to enemies More obedience or submission to all Governours to the best for Christ's sake and their own to the worst for Christ sake however being our necessary duty and their due Almes There would be more love and readiness to help one another by Counsel or Purse or Prayer instead of eating and devouring one another by Craft and Power when it shall be consider'd that every benefit or wrong we do to our Neighbour without we do both in a higher degree and greater edge to Christ himself within our hearts to our Eternal reward or reckoning This would make men true Christians and Loyal Subjects and tender Fathers and Governours and just Masters and right members in their respective Communities and Societies and trusts and Genuine Sons of the Church not only of England our Mother on Earth but of Jerusalem above the Mother of us all in Heaven to the saving of our Souls Infallibly when the whole stock of Mountebank Indulgencies shall faile to effect the Cure This little Commandment well observ'd would be the Harmony of the World set Heaven and Earth in Tune again and God at peace with his Creatures and plant joy and concord and the peace of God which passeth all understanding in every Kingdom in every City in every Family in every Breast And that Angelical Prophetical Anthem at our Saviours Birth would recover its Truth and Power in the World And Glory should be to God on high and on Earth peace and good will towards men FINIS A Particular Table of the Contents PART I. MOral experiments proving the Body to be as nothing in comparison of the Soul pag. 1 2 11. Masters and Princes Symbols of Christ how 4. How the Stature of a Christian reaches from Earth to Heaven p. 5. The Heart is never without its God p. 7. 20. Sincere Heathens and Carnal Christians compar'd and which preferr'd 7. Outside Duties in Religion necessary though nothing when compar'd to the Inside p. 8. None ought to vilifie their own Faith before a fair and open Renuntiation ibid. Sincere and dangerous mistakes arising from the comparative excellency of the Soul above the Body p. 9 Monkery and Non-conformity compar'd p. 9 10. How a thought of the Soul true or false is preferr'd before Estate Health and Life p. 11. Three properties requir'd to Act from the heart p. 12. Of force about Religion p. 13 14. Both good and bad men are for pleasure and the difference and the necessity of Divine Grace to set the will free p. 14 15. The Heart is for God and Christ and none beside why How p. 16. seqq Two reasons why the heart is so and how the Soul is Correlate to God p. 19. seqq An Irrefragable proof of the Deity from wicked mens experience and why it operates not upon some p 20 21. The Scheme and Hypothesis of the Christian Faith out of St. Paul and Creed and Fathers and Baptismal Vow p. 21 22. The right rule to chuse or avoid Communion with Churches p. 23. The Christian Hypothesis the best foundation and support of Societies p 23 24. A description of a true and right member of a Society p. 25. seq Honour is more than Life Conscience more than Honour what more than Conscience p. 27. Of a false member and of self-love how sordid and destructive of it self p. 28. seqq What makes good Men good Subjects good Rulers p. 31. seqq The great Rule of doing as we would be done by fenc'd and exalted by the Text p. 32. seq Blind obedience and implicit Faith in the Church of Rome to Superiours fairly examin'd and found unsound and unworthy p. 32. 33. seq What is Truth p. 37. Which the greater sin Tyranny or Rebellion p. 38 39. Plenitude of Soveraignty and Liberty consistent p. 40. Christs Divinity prov'd against Socinians p. 41 42. SECT I. An Exhortation to adhere to the Church of England against Rome p. 43. seqq The way to be Infallible p. 44. Worship in an unknown Tongue excludes the heart p. 44. seq Men are to be Infallible for themselves first for their Brethren next p. 47. The Controversy consists in the Election of a right or wrong Infallible guide p. 47. This Question stated in the sense of both parties p. 48 49 51. All other Controversies would end if this were decided p. 51. Obedience to the wrong is disobedience to the Right Soveraign ibid. Three Questions propos'd to find out the true p. 52. The heart cannot be without a guide Christ or sin or man of sin p. 53. The Principles of Government with the last p. 54 55 No Law of Christ or Conscience or Countrey must be heeded against his Authority and Interest p. 56 57 The Soul is Gods Temple and the Pope instead of Christ affects to be Soveraigâ— there p. 61 62. Great folly and danger to hearken to a Perkin Warheck p. 63 64. The Principles of Protestants how they prove the uniform Loyalty of the heart to Christ as the right Soveraign p. 63 64. How the Brittish Church knowes the Scriptures to be Gods word p. 64. How our Controversies about things indifferent are decidable by these Principles p 65 66. Christ is the Judge of quick and dead and who are his Depuâ—â—â—â—on Earth 47 67. And nothing to be acted against him by â—â—â—s Authority p. 67. Such as be Hereticks with the Pope but Catholicks with God are in no danger p. 67. SECT II. Rome no Mother Churâ—h to us not Loyal to Christ her Soveraign p. 68 69. Every Church may be consider'd three wayes 1. According to its Inside 2. Outside 3. Or extraction p. 69. Jerusalem above not Rome is the Mother Church to all Christians in respect of their inside
Spirit and of Rome's disobedience to general Councils p. 368. No Church more led by a private Spirit than Rome why ibid. What a needless labour it is for the Church of Brittain to defend it self against Romish imputation of Schisme clear'd by several Instances p. 372 373. The Reformation commenc'd in its causes with H. 7th p. 374. seqq His Restoration Prophecyed of p. 375. Dr. Colet Founder of St. Pauls School began to preach against Superstitions and Legends Accus'd for Heresie liked by Henry the 7th Warner had his Principles from Colet Cranmer from Warner Henry 8th from Cranmer p. 377. seqq A strange alteration of the state of the Nation with King Henry the 7th p. 379. Of the hand of God and man in the Reformation Most Instruments acted against their first intention p. 381 382. The Spirit of Henry the 8th not to be parallel'd p. 381. Excommunicated by thy Pope though a Catholick and with right of his side ibid. The favour and frown of Providence upon this Nation according to its disposition against Popery or for it observed remarkably p. 384. seqq K. Henry 8. how Great p 385. Queen Mary unfortunate Ibid. The success and Fame of Q. Elizabeth p. 386. Whence are our troubles and ill successes p. 387. Cromwells police and successes ibid. The fate and humour of this Nation against Popery p. 388. What will cure this Nation probably p 389. 435. Rome and Brittain mutually and differently fatal to one another p. 389. seq English more inexcusable than Forreign Papists p. 389. 390. SECT XIII Of our Brittish Archbishopricks London York and Caerleon or St. Davids p. 393. seq How Metropolitical Sees began p. 396. Emperours honour'd the place of their birth and Seat of Empire p. 397. 398. Of the Roman pall which at Rome gives all their Authority to Patriarchs and Archbishops And how our Brittains had no faith for it Archbishop Sampson's Pall at York was Imperial not Papal p. 402. 403. â—ees and Pals at Rome constitute a Church instead of Christ and the heart p. 404. How Rome hath Unchurch'd her self by her new Principles p 404. 405. It 's hard to determine where the Brittish Primacy was de facto easie where de jure Ibid. The reasons for York Ibid. Perterna the name of Constantine's Pallace there what it signified p. 406. The Antiquity and merits of York not Inferiour to Rome or Antioch c. 40â— How unworthy it is to advise Princes to desert the rights of their Country p. 409. The Title of London p. 410. How greatly wronged by Rome p. 411. The Title of Caerleoni Ibid. Cressy's exception against the Welsh Epistle in Sir H. Spelman invâ—ild p. 412. Where the Primacy was of right p. 413. Originally emmently Our Kings are Primates of the Temporal part of the Eternal Church and Christ of the Eternal p. 415. The practice of Sea-men decides this point Ibid. An old appetite in Mitre and Crown to reunite p. 416. The different respects of Christian and Antichristian Mitres to the Crown Ibid. The fate of this Church observed to follow that of the Crown Ibid. The Revolutions of the Primacy of York p. 417. The duration and Period of the Archbishoprick of London p 419. Why Monk Augustine did not settle his Archiepiscopal Chair at London according to the first directions of the Pope and that London suffered pobably for its adherence to the Brittish Faith p. 420. 421 206. The primacy in Henry 8. was restored to Brittain though not to London p. 422 423. Bede's testimony that the faith never failed in Brittain p. 423. Some of the Sees in Wales erected since the Saxon Invasion others from King Lucius ibid. The See of St. David never Subject to Canterbury till Henry 1. and that by force and an unjust sentence of the Pope How first brought to be under Rome 424. 425 426. Sir H. Spelman bewails the wrong of the See of St. David how it may be remedied and why p. 427. How the Pope made advantage by the contests of our Metropolitans p. 427 429. Left them at last to the decision of our Kings p. 432 Kings have power by the Canons to alter and translate Metropolitical Sees p. 431. The Primacy of Canterbury a stumbling-block to some not versed in History to believe Rome to be a Mother-Church to Brittain and consequently our Reformation to be Schismatical and not fit to be countenanced by Princes for the disobedience how answered and remedied p. 433. Papists the first Schismaticks here and the causes of our divisions and troubles p 435 SECT XIV Rome will stand to no Councils that are against it p. 437. Yet calls for Obedience to its Bulls ibid. The probable cause why the Spirit of truth hath withdrawn from the latter Councils of the Church p. 432. Cyprus exempted from Antioch by the General Council of Ephesus and how the case of Brittain as to Rome's pretence is exactly the same p. 439. seqq Of the 6 Canon of Nice Our Brittish exemption confirmed by it because our Sees were before in being and proved by Ruffinus his sence thereof who was of these parts and knew our rights 443. seqq Rome's pretence of Supremacy if true overthrowes this and all General Councils if false proves it self to be Antichristian p. 444. 438. several Churches besides Brittain supreme within themselves p. 447. â—â—wes â—orgery openly detected in the Council of Carthage and its Supremacy shut out ibid In the Church as well as State men are bound to know their Chief and who this is p. â—49 The Government of the Primitive Church was Aristocratical when that of the State was Monarchical and the Pope would have it now Monarchical when the Governments of the World are Aristocratical and co-ordinate p. 450. The difference between the Ecclesiastical and Civil Powers as to extent of Authority heretofore p. 452. The several nullities of the Roman Church in England And how their Clergy stand deprived of their holy Orders and the danger of the Laity that abet their Intrusion proved at large by undoubted Canons of General Councils and particularly their beloved Council of Sardyca by which they are not to be reckon'd amongst Christians as the Ancient Brittains in Bede stifly insisted p. 456 to 465. Of other particular Nullities in the Ordinations of Romish Bishops here p. 465. seq The truly Catholick Church was govern'd by Laws the Roman-Catholick would be above all Laws and Canons p. 4â—0 The Nullities of the Romish Church here prov'd out of their own Rules and Principles p. 470. seqq The argument against their H. Orders Contracted p. 475. SECT XV. How Christendom is infected by such lawless examples of Popes made consistent with Holiness p. 477. How they make themselves incurable p. 479. Papists are more Pope's people than Gods people ibid. The cause and occasion of their Apostacy from History and how parallel for cause and effect to the fall of Angels p. 480 489. The advice of the Wesel to the Fox had been their Cure p
Church and their own rules and principles first it is several wayes against the Canons in respect of their Invasions of the rights of other Metropolitans which was adjudg'd a Photii Nomoc. Tit. 1. p. 20. infamous and mulctable before that in the Council of Chalcedon and in Trullo power was yielded to the Emperours to erect or to translate Metropolitical Chaires and also against the Canons in respect of many Illegal Ordinations which made the Romish Church null in Law in England several wayes besides those nullities in fact and event we have before instanc'd Many are the Canons of the best and Ancientest Councils and the most general and Oecumenical that the Church of Christ ever had which condemn the first Entrance of Augustine and his Pope Gregory and the Re-entrance of Archbishop Theodore and his Successors upon our Brittish Church and Provinces under no less penalties than deposition or degradation of their Clergy from their several States and Dignities and Excommunication of their Laity from Christian Fellowship besides the making all their Ecclesiastical Acts and Ordinations to be utterly void and null to all intents If this were of any value or moment with them of the Church of Rome who boast and crack of a great respect they have above others for Fathers and Councils and Ancient Traditions but experience too much discovers it is all with Reservations and Provisoes that they offer not to touch or reflect upon their Church in any of its grossest errours or most enormous misdemeanours for if they do it in the lest the Canons of the Universal Church shall have no more respect at their hands than the Canonical Scriptures which are not allowed to have any sound or sense where they cross and disagree from the private interpretation of their Church I say private and suspicious because notoriously savouring of private ends and carnal designes and Worldly ambition and self-love above any Church or Haeresie whatsoever in all their Commentaries and Expositions and every point and Article of their Faith and Government wherein they differ from us Or they shall be openly disown'd and rejected for no lawful Councils either in whole or in part according to their liking or disliking of particulars who yet call for implicit obedience to their own petty Authorities and decrees how contrary soever to Common sense or reason while themselves dispute and contradict the power and jurisdiction of far greater Superiours acting and decreeing with the special assistance of the Spirit of God So that as to such Roman-Catholicks who are wedded and guided by their wills and Idols more than Truth or Conscience the Testimonies and Canons I shall produce will prove but Pearls ill cast yet with this advantage and satisfaction that they shall drive and force them either to submission or to rebellion either to confess and acknowledge themselves to be convict Schismaticks and Sacrilegious Robbers and Oppressors and their Popes and Missionaries depos'd and condemn'd in all their Titles Holy Orders and pretences by the Holy solemn Laws and Canons of the Universal and undoubtedly Catholick Church of Christ or manifestly detect themselves to be Antichrist in this as in their other practices and the Invaders of Gods Regiment and power in all its formes and varieties of of appearance as of God the Creator in disposing the Kingdoms of the World of God Redeemer in Lording over Souls and Consciences so of God the Holy Spirit and Sanctifier in slighting Scriptures and General Councils Which last part it is to be fear'd they 'l chuse to take as being thereto too much inclin'd by their Principles being one main cause if not perrhaps the principal that the spirit of truth and concord hath withdrawn it self in lamentable manner from Christian Churches and Councils these several last hundreds of years in whose Assemblies it cannot well appear with liberty and without diminution of its Divine Honour and Glory when its promis'd assistance to Gods Church gathered together in his name must be eftsoons check'd and controll'd by the Negative will and lust of one man that sets up himself above Both and the Interest of Rome made the mark to steer by instead of Truth and Holiness and Gods holy spirit thereby necessitated either to countenance Errour and Tyranny by its presence or to stand out whereby is left but a Carcass of a Church and not a Church for a Church without Gods spirit is but as the body without the Soul the one as ready moulders into errour and corruption as the other into stench and rottenness as is the condition of the Modern Roman Church too visibly The first Canon I shall instance in shall be the third General Council held at Ephesus than which hardly any president can be more apposite to the Case of Rome and Brittain and that Councill's determination upon the complaint of Cyprus against Antioch where three points may be observ'd 1. The state of their case and grievance 2. The sense and resentment of the Council 3. The decree and redress 1. Their complaint to the Council by Declaration and the Affirmation of their Bishops then and there present was that the Bishop or Patriarch of Antioch did send and Consecrate Bishops for the Isle of Cyprus in violation of their Ancient Rights and Customes The occasion of this encroachment was as is noted by Balsamon and Zonaras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Upon a pretence and imitation of the Duke of Antioch under the Romans sending thence a Deputy Governour for this Isle The plea of the Cypriots was as is imply'd in the Canon an Ancient immemorial right of chusing and consecrating their own Bishops among themselves On the other hand the Bishop of Antioch had his Patriarchal dignity and the Supremacy of St. Peters Chair to insist on from whom he deriv'd by undoubted Lineal Succession Now if this Controversy had come before the Pope of Rome and his Conclave or Lateran or Tridentine Council it is easie to coniecture who had gone by the worst but not so easie to know whom the prey should have been adjudg'd to whether to Antioch or rather to Rome her self although the other were the acknowledg'd Chaire of St. Peter establish'd for 7 years at Antioch at the lest before ever he arriv'd at Rome 2. But the sense and resentment of their wrong by this great Council is very remarkable who took this matter into their cognizance and Judicature though no lesâ— than the Patriarch of the East and as great as the Pope takes himself to be was one of the parties to aâ—ide their censure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus they represent the mischief and consequence of this encroachment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A new kind of Schismatical attempt in defiance of the Apostolical Laws of the Church and Canons of the Holy Fathers and striking at the common Liberty of Christendom yea the Spiritual Spiritual Liberty of men Souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Christ himself by his bloud hath purchas'd for us