one Episcopacy part of which every Bishop holds with full Authority and Power that all these Bishops are but one body who are bound to live in Communion with each other and to govern their respective Churches where need requires and where it can be had by mutual Advice and Consent and therefore that no Bishops are absolutely Independant but are obliged to preserve the Unity of the Episcopacy or Episcopal College as Optatus calls it which words our Author leaves out as being afraid of naming the Authority of any Father in the case whereon the Unity and Communion of the Catholick Church depends Thus far our Author recites my words and here breaks off but I shall beg leave to go on For it is impossible the Catholick Church should be one Body or Society or one Communion if it be divided into as many Independent Churches as there are absolute and independent Bishops For those Churches must be independent which have an independent Power and Government as all those must have which have independent Governors and Bishops and independent Churches can never make one Body and one Catholick Communion because they are not Members of each other and thus the Unity of the Catholick Church must be destroyed unless we assert One Episcopocy as well as One Church One Evangelical Priesthood as well as One Altar all the world over Here I must stop a little for here he seems to lay his Foundation whereon to erect his Papal Monarchy or his Soveraign Power of General Councils that I assert That Bishops are not absolutely independent and therefore he supposes That they must be subordinate too to some higher Power and Jurisdiction How far I am from asserting any such Supreme Power over the whole Church I have already shown and now I must vindicate this Principle That Bishops are not absolutely Independent from any such consequence which is no very difficult task if men will consider what I mean by the independency of Bishops and for what reason I asserted That Bishops are not absolutely independent For the independency I deny is such an independency as is opposed to the unity of the Episcopacy and to their obligation to live in Communion with each other for because there is but one Episcopacy because all Bishops are but one body therefore I assert they are not absolutely independent but are obliged to preserve the unity of the Episcopacy or Episcopal College for absolute Independency excludes all necessary obligations to Unity and Communion as well as to Subjection An absolute independent Soveraign Prince is no more bound by the Laws of Soveraignty to live in Unity than to own subjection to neighbour Princes now Bishops indeed as to subjection are independent for there is no superior Authority in the Church over them as I have always asserted but they are not independent as to Unity and Communion for the fundamental Laws of one Episcopacy oblige them to Unity and Communion and that obliges them to govern their Churches by mutual advice without which this Unity cannot be preserved I am sure St. Cyprian lays so much stress on this that he expresly asserts That He cannot have the Power nor the Honour of a Bishop who will not maintain the Unity and the Peace of the Episcopacy Now I cannot think such Bishops absolutely independent tho they are subject to no superior Authority who depend upon preserving the Unity and Peace of the Episcopacy for the very Power and Dignity of Bishops I deny such an independency of Bishops as makes their Churches independent which destroys Catholick Communion as I showed in those words which our Author suppressed That Unity of the Catholick Church depends upon the Unity of the Episcopacy For it is impossible the Catholick Church should be one Body or Society or one Communion if it be divided into as many independent Churches as there are absolute and independent Bishops for those Churches must be Independent which have an Independent power and government as all those must have who have Independent Governours or Bishops and Independent Churches can never make one Body and one Catholick Communion because they are not Members of each other Now this Independency of Churches which I condemn is not opposed to a superior Jurisdiction for so Churches as well as Bishops are originally Independent but it is opposed to their being such distinct and separate Bodies as are not Members of each other which destroys Catholick Communion or makes it Arbitrary And this is the Independency of Bishops which I deny such an Independency as overthrows the unity of the Episcopacy and consequently the unity of the Church Nay I further deny the Independency of Bishops as that signifies an exemption from all censures in case of Heresie and Schism and Idolatry and such like evil practises which does not infer a superior authority of one Bishop over another but only an authority in the Church to censure such crimes whoever be guilty of them as I have already explained it at large So that my Notion of the Independency of Bishops will do no service at all to the Pope or General Council 5. He proceeds in his charge The power of every Bishop in his own Diocess is not so absolute and independent but that he is bound to preserve the unity of the Episcopacy and to live in Communion with his Collegues and fellow Bishops for this is the foundation of Catholick Communion without which there can be no Catholick Church This has been accounted for already and whoever observes that the reason of all is laid upon the preservation of Catholick Communion will easily guess how little this makes for an Universal Power and Empire over the Church He proceeds The whole authority of a Bishop or Council over other Bishops is founded on the Laws of Catholick Communion which is the great end it serves and therefore it does not prove a Supreme governing Head over the Church and therefore they have no proper authority but only in such matters as concern the Unity of the Episcopacy or the peace and Communion of the Catholick Church This also has been sufficiently explained before Again this unity of the Episcopacy is the foundation of these larger combinations and confederacies of Neighbour Churches which make Archiepiscopal or National Churches For since there is but one Episcopacy it is highly reasonable and necessary so far as it is practicable they should all act and govern their respective Churches as one Bishop with one consent which is the most effectual way to secure the peace and unity of the Episcopal Colledg and to promote the edification and good government of the Church Nay this unity of the Episcopacy is the foundation of that authority which Neighbour Bishops have over their Collegues in case of Heresy and Schism or any other notorious wickedness for they being Bishops of the Universal Church have an Original right and power to take care that no part of the Church which is within their reach
consisting of particular Churches as of integral Parts But now the Apostle makes every particular Church to be such an organized Body consisting of all the integral Parts of a Church a Bishop Presbyters Deacons and faithful People and therefore particular Churches are not properly organized Parts of the Catholick Church as the hands or legs are of a humane Body which is made up of several other members of a different nature but as organized wholes every particular Church being a complete and entire Church not a part of a Church and the Catholick Church is considered as one not so much by uniting all particular Churches considered as particular Churches which is to unite a great many wholes together to make one whole which is perfectly unintelligible but by uniting the several parts of which each particular Church consists into one they being the same in all and this makes one organized Catholick Church of the same nature and constitution the same Officers and Members with every particular organized Church As for instance A particular organized Church as I have now observed consists of a Bishop Presbyters Deacons and faithful People and the whole Catholick Church consists of the same Parts and can have no other and yet there are no Bishops Presbyters Deacons Christian People to make up this Catholick Church but what belong to some particular Churches and yet particular Churches are not Parts of a Church but compleat entire Churches as having all the integral Parts of a perfect Church and therefore particular organiz'd Churches cannot make up a whole Church as the several Parts make a whole Body because they are each of them a whole where then shall we find Bishops Presbyters Deacons People to make up one Catholick Church Now in this case there can be no other Notion of the Catholick Church but the Union of the same Parts of all particular Churches into One and then the Union of all these united Parts into one Body makes the one Catholick Church As to explain this briefly St. Cyprian tells us that there is but one Episcopacy or one Bishoprick as I have already shown and therefore all the Bishops who are now dispersed over all the World and have the Supream Government of their particular Churches must be reckoned but one Bishop for thô their natural Persons are distinct they are but one Ecclesiastical Person their Office Power and Dignity being one and the same not divided into Parts but exercised by all of them in their several Churches with the same fulness and plenitude of Power and thus we have found out one Bishop for the one Catholick Church all the Bishops in the World being but one for thô they are many distinct Persons they are but one Power and exercise the same Office without Division or Multiplication And thus all the Presbyters in the World who are under the Direction and Government of their several Bishops are but one Presbytery of the Catholick Church for if the Episcopacy be but one the Presbytery must be but one also in subordination to this one Episcopacy the like may be said of Deacons and of Christian People that they are but one Body and Communion under one Bishop Where there is but one Bishop there can be but one Church and therefore one Episcopacy unites all Christians into one Body and Communion How this is consistant with the many Schisms and Divisions of the Christian Church shall be accounted for else-where This is a plain intelligible account how all the particular Churches in the World are but one Church because all the Parts and Members which answer to each other in these particular Churches are but one by the Institution of Christ All their Bishops but one Bishop all their Presbyters but one Presbytery all the Christians of particular Churches but one Body and Communion and thus the Catholick Church is an organized Body consisting of the same parts that all particular Churches consist of Just as if Five Thousand Men whose Bodies have all the same Members should by a coalition of corresponding Parts grow up into one Body that all their Heads their Arms their Legs c. should grow into one which would make a kind of Universal organized Body of the same nature with what every single individual Man has And that there can be no other Notion of the Catholick Church as considered in this World Ethink is very plain from this that there is but one Notion of a Church and therefore the Catholick Church and particular Churches must have the very same Nature and integral Parts If a Bishop Presbyters and Christian People make a particular Church there must be the very same parts in the Catholick Church or you must shew us two distinct Notions of a Church and that the Catholick and particular Churches differ in their essential Constitution If the Notion be the same and all particular Churches constitute the Catholick Church then these particular Churches must constitute the Catholick Church just as they are constituted themselves that is of Bishops Presbyters and People and therefore all the Bishops of particular Churches must make but one Catholick Episcopacy all the Presbyters but one Presbytery all the Christian People but one Body and Communion and then the Catholick Church and particular Churches are exactly the same one Body of Bishops Presbyters and People And this utterly destroys all subordination between Bishops for if to the Notion of the Catholick Church all Bishops must be considered as one than every Bishop must be equal for an inferior and superior Bishop cannot be one And if the Notion of the Catholick Church did require one Supream Oecumenical Pastor to whom all particular Bishops are subordinate then the Catholick and particular Churches are not of the same Species for the one has a soveraign the other a subordinate Head and therefore is not a compleat and perfect Church nor of the same kind with the Church which has the soveraign Head. And thus I think I might safely dismiss all our Author's Criticisms about the several kinds of Totums which he has transcribed from the Independent Copy excepting some peculiar Absurdities of his own For the Catholick Church properly speaking is no Totum at all with respect to particular Churches which are not properly Parts of the Catholick Church considered as particular organized Churches but the Catholick Church is one Church by the Union of all the corresponding Parts of particular Churches which we have no example of that I know in Nature nor is it to be expected to find the exemplars of such Mystical Unions in Nature which depend not upon Nature but upon Institution but it may not be amiss briefly to show our Author 's great skill in such matters He takes it for granted that the Church Catholick must be some kind of Totum or whole and therefore undertakes to prove that in all Totums there must be a Subordination of parts and therefore there must be a Supreme Oecumenical Pastor in the Catholick
among us are better known by the name of Arminian Controversies now suppose they thought fit to give a latitude of Sense in their defining these Controversies have they positively defined nothing Has not the Church of Rome in express terms decreed the Doctrine of Transubstantiation of worship of Saints and images of the Adoration of the Host of Seven Sacraments of Purgatory c. And has not the Church of England as positively determined against them And where is the agreement then between the Two Churches The truth is there cannot be a worse thing said of any Church than what this Author charges both upon the Church of England and the Church of Rome that they purposely penn'd their Decrees in such loose terms that men of different Opinions might expound them to their own sense Which is to make a show of deciding a Controveesy with an intention all the while to leave it undecided which is such a juggle as unbecomes the Sincerity of a Christian Church There may be a great many nice Philosophical disputes which a wise Church may think necessary to leave undecided but there never can be any good reason instead of determining Controversies to lay the foundation of endless disputes between the Members of the same Communion by doubtful and ambiguous expressions And therefore I absolutely deny that the Church of England has done this or ever intended to do it She has indeed used that temper and moderation in those Articles which relate to the Five points as only to determine what is substantial in them and necessary to be believed by all Christians without deciding those Niceties whereon the Controversie between the Calvinist and the Arminian turns and therefore both of them may subscribe these Articles because the Controversies between them are determined on neither side and the appeasing such heats as may be occasioned by those Disputes is left to the prudence of Governours which was thought a better way than a positive decision of them This I think I could make appear were it a proper place for it and therefore have always thought that the Church of England was wronged on both sides while both the Calvinist and Arminian have forced her to speak their own sense when she intended to speak neither And no man can blame this conduct who remembers that this is only a reviving that old Philosophical dispute about Necessity and Fate which always has been a dispute and is likely to continue so and though these different Opinions have very different effects on our minds and form very different apprehensions in us of Almighty God which may be a just reason to prefer one before the other yet they are both consistent with the belief of all the fundamental Doctrines of Christianity as I have shewed at large in that Book to which this Author so often refers But now the Church of Rome has truly used this art which this Author charges her with such a latitude of expression and ambiguous terms as might satisfie their differing Divines that the cause was determined on their side when there was no other way to end their disputes and allay their heats and that in many concerning points too as any one may see who reads Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent and if this be intolerable in a fallible Church it is much more intolerable in a Council which pretends to Infallibility Certainly they distrusted their own Authority either did not believe themselves to be Infallible or knew that their Divines did not think them so for otherwise the Authority of the Council might have over-ruled their Disputes and there had been no need of cheating them into an assent But what expectation is there that the decrees of those men should be Infallible who so often intended to decree nothing This is a Mystery which I suppose our Author would not so freely have confessed at another time but it was necessary to allow this latitude of sense in the Decrees of the Trent Council now to bring off Mr. De Meaux and the Representer who do indeed expound the Decrees of the Council to a great latitude of sense But it is not a little matter will help them out the latitude of one side of the Line will not do but it must reach from Pole to Pole. There is another ingenious confession of this Author which is worth the noting That among the Romanists about the great Doctrine of Predetermination there are the Durandists Dominicans Jansenists Molinists and Scotists that very much differ in Opinion and yet are still of the same Church and yet these are the men that quarrel at the reformation because there are differing Opinions among them when there are the same Disputes among themselves managed with as great heat and contention These are the men who tell us that we must have an infallible Judg to end our disputes when an infallible Pope and infallible Councils dare not undertake to end theirs but as for what he adds that there are in the Church of England Calvinists Arminians Socinians and Antinomians who subscribe the same Articles of Religion as terms of Unity and Peace As for Calvinists and Arminians I will grant they may both subscribe our Articles whether any Socinians do I know not no more than they know when a secret Iew or one who does not believe Transubstantiation is receiv'd into holy Orders by them but I am sure an honest Socinian cannot subscribe our Articles unless he can subscribe the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds but this was only designed to propagate that groundless calumny That the Divines of the Church of England are infected with Socinianism Having thus as well as he could delivered himself from ingaging in that Dispute about our agreement in doctrinal Points which he knew he could make nothing of he says He will confine himself to the agreement there is between both Churches about Government and Worship and threatens to show how we have disputed against Dissenters upon Roman-Catholick Principles both in proving their Obligation to Communion with us and in vindicating the terms of our Communion from being sinful This is what he undertakes to prove and we are bound to hear him Answer to SECT 1. Concerning the Church of Englands Closure with a Roman Catholick Principle about the Government of the Church in proving the Dissenter to lie under an Obligation of holding Communion with her AND now we are come to the main seat of the Controversy about Catholick communion which our Author has very dexterously improved into Catholick Power and Empire I need give him no hard words to expose his manifest and wilful prevarications in this matter will be thought hard enough if he be capable of blushing Now to make this as visible as the light I shall 1. Shew wherein he pretends the Agreement between the Two Churches consists that is between my principles of Communion and the Church of Rome for I am the only person here concerned and if I cannot
his own Diocess who cannot be compelled by other Bishops to govern his Church by such Rules and Laws as he himself does not assent to and therefore that such Combinations and Councils of Bishops are not originally for direct acts of Government and superiority over each other but only for mutual Counsel and Advice For these are two very different things To have Authority to compel a Bishop to govern his Church by such Laws as he himself in his own conscience does not approve and to have Authority to fling a notorious Heretical or Schismatical Bishop out of their Communion and to command and exhort his Presbyters and People not to own him St. Cyprian I am sure thought these two cases very different for the first he utterly rejects as an usurpation on the Episcopal Authority that it was to make themselves Bishops of Bishops which he thought a great impiety the other he practised himself in the case of Basilides and Martialis For the first is a direct Authority over Bishops in the exercise of their Episcopal Function the second is only an Authority to censure Heresie and Schism and to preserve the Communion of the Church pure and to defend the Flock from such Wolves in Sheeps Clothing But it may be it will be Objected That this comes much to one for the Authority of deposing Heretical and Schismatical Bishops infers an Authority of declaring Heresie and Schism and that of making or declaring Articles of Faith and Laws of Catholick Communion for how can they depose Hereticks or Schismaticks without an Authority of declaring what Heresie and Schism is And this is as much Authority as the Council of Trent it self would have desired and therefore it seems very absurd and contradictious to deny a Council Authority to oblige their Collegues by their Decrees of Faith or Manners or Catholick Unity and to give Authority to neighbour Bishops to depose or censure any Heretical or Schismatical Bishop To this purpose our Author argues p. 32. 33. According to their Doctrine the Bishops of Spain France Italy and Germany being Bishops of the Catholick Church tho' ordinarily their Power is confined to their particular Churches yet having an Original right with relation to the whole Catholick Church are bound by the Laws of Communion to re-assume their Original right and assemble and summon before them the Bishops of the Church of England who in their opinion are fallen into a great Schism and Heresy in which matters these Bishops have a direct Authority over the Bishops of the Church of England and may proceed against them and depose them and ordain others in their room and oblige the People to withdraw from the communion of the deposed Bishops in which case the foreign Bishops being the governing part have as much authority over the English Bishops as the English Bishops have over the Dissenters in England He should have said as the English Bishops have over the Popish bishops of France Spain or Italy and then he had come pretty near the matter He adds The larger combination of Bishops the greater is their Power and Authority And therefore if the English Bishops have a direct Authority over the Dissenters in England so has this greater combination of Bishops over the dissenting English Bishops that is if Bishops have Authority over their own Flocks then the Bishops of France and Spain have Authority over English Bishops if Bishops must govern their own Churches other Bishops may govern them an inference which I believe our Author is the first man that ever made And as the English Bishops insist on their Authority in decision of Controversies and the Dissenter must submit so may this greater College of Bishops urge their Authority and the Dissenting English Bishops must submit and may not be admitted to exercise their own judgment or pretend Conscience there no more than the English Protestant Dissenter may do it here It must be carefully observed that by these Gentlemen the Power is lodged with the College of Catholic Bishops and so long as the Church of England acknowledges the Bishops of these Countries to be Catholick Bishops as now they do just as we acknowledg the Church of Rome to be part of the Catholick Church but a very corrupt and schismatical part of it they cannot question their power that they must acknowledg And by the Laws of Catholick Communion must obey a College of them and appear before them when Summoned The greatest thing that they can with any pretence insist on is the justness of their cause of which they are no more competent judges before this College than the Dissenters are when before these Bishops here What happy days would the Church of Rome see were things brought to this pass but how impertinent all his talk of the College of Bishops is has been already shown and will be more in what follows All that I observe at present is how he turns the power of deposing and censuring heretical and schismatical Bishops into a power of declaring Heresy and judging whether they be Hereticks or not by such a final and uncontroulable power as Hereticks themselves are bound to submit to And which is more ridiculous than that if one Church agrees to accuse another Church of Heresy the accusers alone must be judges and the accused are very incompetent Judges of it because forsooth they are accused But this matter may be stated without setting up such a Soveraign Tribunal for judging of Heresies For 1. That Heretical Bishops may be deposed I think all agree in 2. And there is as little question but that Orthodox and Catholick Bishops who have the care of the Church committed to them have this power of deposing That is of casting such a Bishop out of their Communion and exhorting his People to withdraw Communion from him and to accept of a Catholick Bishop in his stead which is all that the Ecclesiastical power of deposing signifies 3. There is no question neither but that all Bishops will call that Heresy which they themselves think to be so and will judg those to be Hereticks who profess such Doctrines as they call Heresy 4. But it does not hence follow that any Bishops or any number of Bishops however assembled have such an Authority to define Articles of Faith or to declare Heresy as shall oblige all men to believe that to be Heresy which they decree to be so 5. And therefore the effects of these Censures must of necessity depend upon that Opinion which People have of them Those who believe the Censure just will withdraw themselves from the Communion of such a Bishop those who do not believe it just will still communicate with him For who ever pronounces the Sentence excepting the interposing of Secular power the People must execute it and if they will still adhere to their Bishop he may defic his Deposers and all their power As the English Bishops and People do all the Anathemaes of the Church of Rome 6.
Head on Earth for with respect to Christ who is the true and only Head of his Church we will allow it to be one Kingdom and Family in this sense I say let any man judge of this who understands Consequences If our Author did not see this the Reader may judg of his understanding if he did he may judg of his honesty And thus his foundation is gone and then all the superstructure is but a Castle in the Air For if the Universal Church be not one Organized politick body as according to my Principles it is not then it cannot be subjected to one governing Head neither to the Pope nor a General Council His third charge is that I make somewhat more necessary to Catholick Communion than an Agreement in the same Faith the same Rules of Worship and right Administration of the Sacraments that is Catholick Communion is our union in one body and communicating in this one body is the exercise of Catholick Communion which those who do not if there be not a just and necessary cause for it are Schismaticks for all that whatever their Faith and Worship be and Schism is a damning sin But how does this make any thing more necessary to Catholick Communion than the same Faith the same Worship the same Sacraments These are all the Catholick terms of Catholick Communion but if these do not unite us into one body we are not united for all that Not that any thing else is wanting to make this union but because through the lusts and vices and passions of men an union does not follow upon it but he was sensible that Catholick Communion alone would not do his business would not prove the necessity of one Supreme governing-head whether the Pope or a General Council over the whole Church and therefore he insinuates that I make something else the necessary terms of Catholick Communion besides the true Christian Faith Worship and Sacraments and what should that be do you think but subjection to one Supreme Head which you shall see how learnedly he proves For he adds 4. That what is further necessary to Catholik Communion is a Catholick Government namely the Episcopal Now all these words I have used upon one occasion or other but there is no such proposition as this in all my Book I do allow Episcopacy to be an Apostolical Institution and the truly Ancient and Catholick Government of the Church of which more hereafter but yet in this very book I prove industriously and at large that in case of necessity when Bishops cannot be had a Church may be a truly Catholick Church and such as we may and ought to communicate with without Bishops in vindication of some foreign reformed Churches who have none and therefore I do not make Episcopacy so absolutely necessary to Catholick Communion as to unchurch all Churches which have it not But the Remainder of his quotations referring to the Unity of the Episcopacy I must briefly explain what my Notion is about it and truly I have proceeded all along upon St. Cyprian's Principles and he must answer for it if he have misled me S. Cyprian taught me that there is one Episcopacy part of which every Bishop holds with full authority and power where by one Episcopacy St. Cyprian understands one Bishoprick that is the Universal Church which as it is but one Church is but one Bishoprick also it being all under the Government of the Episcopal power But then this Bishoprick is divided into parts into particular Diocesses and every Bishop has a part of this Universal Bishoprick which he has in solidum that is he has his part to govern with the fulness and plenitude of the Episcopal power without any Superior authority or jurisdiction over him This I take to be the plainest and easiest interpretation of St. Cyprian's words for though all learned men have agreed in the same sense yet the Phrase has a little puzled them for if by one Episcopacy we understand one Episcopal office and power tho' the sense will be the same yet the expression is very obscure for how can every Bishop have but part of the Episcopal office in Solidum that is part of the office and the whole power But if by one Episcopacy we understand one Bishoprick and the universal Church may as properly be called one Bishoprick as one Church and one Sheepfold then it is all plain that there is but one Bishoprick of which every Bishop has part in which he exercises the whole Episcopal authority and power Another Principle of St. Cyprian's is that this one Episcopacy or one Bishoprick is preserved one by the concord and agreement of Bishops for if the Bishops disagree who have the Supreme government of their own Churches this must of necessity divide the Bishoprick and the Church but this one Bishoprick is spread over the World by the consenting multitude of many Bishops which as I observed he calls the Unity and Peace of the Episcopacy And for the same reason Optatus calls it the Episcopal College and Bishops are called Collegues And St. Cyprian tells us The-Catholick Church is not rent nor divided but united and coupled by the cement of Bishops who stick close together Another Principle is That no Bishop nor Colledg of Bishops have a direct authority or jurisdiction over their Collegues to compel them to submit to their decrees and definitions against their own Judgment and Conscience That none of them pretended to be Bishops of Bishops which he abhors as a Tyrannical Usurpation as we see in his Preface to the Council of Carthage Another Principle is That since there is but one Episcopacy or Bishoprick every Bishop besides the Supreme Government of his own particular Diocess has such a relation to the whole Church that he is to take care as much as in him lies to see that no part of the Church suffer by the Heresies or Schisms of their Bishops which is the reason as I observed before St. Cyprian gives Why there are so many Bishops in the Christian Church That if any of our Colledg i. e. any Bishop should endeavour to broach any new Heresie or to tear and spoil thâ— Flock of Christ the rest may come in to their help and like good and merciful Pastors gather again the Sheep of Christ into their Fold These are the Principles I learnt from St. Cyprian and if our Author can find a supreme Head of the Universal Church whether Pope or General Council in this Scheme I am sure St. Cyprian could not who disowns any such superior Authority to Bishops Let us then now return to our Author who observes that I assert That all the Bishops of the Church are but one also which a little differs from one Bishops being all invested with the same Power and Authority to govern the Church for which I quoted St. Cyprian tho he thinks fit to leave him out That as St. Cyprian tells us there is but
requires every Man 's own Judgment and his personal Assent I deny not but it may be of great Use for Christian Princes and Emperors to summon such Councils as these as Constantine and other succeeding Emperors did for there was no such thing as what we call a General Council till Constantine summoned the first Council at Nice For Christian Princes and Emperors are concerned to encourage and support the true Christian Faith and Worship and they are as much concerned not to be misguided in these Matters which instead of Nursing Fathers may make them Persecutors of the true Church And to prevent this they cannot take a better way when the Church is divided by Schisms and Heresies then to summon such a great Council where the Matters in Dispute may be freey debated but I look upon these rather to be Councils of the Empire than of the Church which have no other Authority but what either the Imperial Sanctions give them or what every Church gives them by receiving their Decrees And it is evident from Ecclesiastical Story that the bear Authority of these Councils never put an end to any one Dispute any farther than they were backed by the Imperial Power which is an Argument that they did not believe in those days such Councils to be Infallible or to be the Supream Tribunal of the Christian Church They were indeed Supream Tribunals when Princes made them so but not by any meer Ecclesiastical Authority and Jurisdiction If then a Council of Bishops be onely for mutual Advice and a Council for Advice requires the personal Presence of all Bishops and though all the Bishops of one Province or one Nation may conveniently enough meet together for Advice yet all the Bishops of the World cannot then I think it is plain that the Consequence from a National to an Oecumenical Council is not good especially 2dly Since there is no need of it to Catholick Communion The Christian Churches maintained a very strict Alliance and Communion with each other for above Three Hundred Years without it Catholick Communion was better preserved then than ever it has been since which is a demonstration that such a Supream governing Power over the whole Church is not necessary to Catholick Communnion for then Catholick Communion could never have been maintained without it and yet thus it was in St. Cyprian's days who was as Zealous an Asserter of Catholick Communion as any before or since In those days the Bishops of Neighbour Churches frequently met together to Advise about the general Concernments of the Church and if any thing hapned which concerned the Discipline of the whole Church as it did in St. Cyprian's days about the case of the lapsed and rebaptizing those who had been baptized by Hereticks they sent their Letters to Forreign Churches and took their Advice about it and by this means did more perfectly understand one anothers Judgments and Reasons and came to a better accord and agreement than they could have done had they met in a General Council consisting onely of some few Representative Bishops I am sure by this means St. Cyprian says their Decrees were confirmed by all the Bishops in the World and Optatus says that this Catholick Communion was maintained all the World over by formed and communicatory Letters It seems they did not think then that one governing Head was necessary to Catholick Communion and therefore though Catholick Communion does require the Union of Neighbour Churches into one Combined Church it does not require such an Union and Combination of all the Churches in the World. Thus I have particularly answered this Author's charge excepting his vain Repetitions of the same Cavils without giving any new force or strength to them and I think any ordinary Reader may see how far I am from setting up the supream Authority either of Pope or General Council over the Universal Church and how impossible it is to graft such consequences upon my Principles with any shew or pretence of Reason And now as for his French Popery let it be what it will I am unconcerned in it since I give no Supream Authority neither to Pope nor General Council and therefore neither agree with the Italian nor Spanish nor French nor any Popery of what denomination soever But I must add a word or two about Petrus de Marca because it seems my Honesty and Credit is very much concerned in this matter so deeply that no man ought ever to believe me more and though I suppose the Reader sees what credit he is to give to this Author yet I must speak at least a good word for my own honesty and to do that I must give a brief account of the occasion of my alleadging the Authority of Petrus de Marca I was charged by my dissenting Adversaries with a Cassandrian design for setting up as they apprehended the Authority of a General Council For there is not one word which this Author has objected against me but what was before objected by the Dissenters and answered in the Vindication Now having shewn them their mistake in this Charge that I had asserted nothing which did infer the Authority of a General Council as the Supream Regent Head of the Catholick Church I over and above shewed them how vain this Charge of Cassandrian or French Popery was though I had given such an Authority to a General Council For meerly to assert the Authority of a General Council does not make any man a Papist of no sort whatsoever unless he assert the Authority of the Pope for though there be some dispute whose Authority is greatest the Popes or the Councils yet no man is a Papist who does not own the Pope to be the Supream and Oecumenical Pastor and therefore I having expresly disowned all Authority of the Pope or Bishop of Rome though I had owned the Authority of a General Council I could be no Papist not so much as a Cassandrian or French Papist So that this is the thing I was to prove that there is no Papist but owns the Pope to be the Supream Head of the Church the Universal and Oecumenical Pastor This I proved Cassander did who asserts That to the Unity of the Catholick Church is required Obedience to One Supream Governour who succeeds Peter in the government of Christ's Church and in the Office of feeding his Sheep and that it is evident from all the Records of the Church that the chief Authority of the Universal Church has always been yielded to the Bishop of Rome as Peter's Successor who sits in his Chair This I proved also of the Councils of Constance and Basil That though they decreed the Council to be above the Pope yet they asserted the Popes Supream Pastorship That all particular men and particular Churches are bound to obey the Pope unless in such matters as are prejudicial to this holy Synod or any other which is lawfully assembled as the Council of Basil expresly teaches And
ordain without their Bishop because they are not compleat Pastors but act in subordination to and dependance on their Bishops and therefore have not such a fulness of Power in themselves as to communicate it to others 5. In the next place he argues from the chief ends of Subordination of Pastors in the Church viz. That there may be place for Appeals in matters of Controversie in Cases of Male-administration by the subordinate Clergy final Determinations of difficult Ecclesiastical Causes Correction of Heresie and Schism as also establishment of Ceremonies Schism and Ceremonies belong to the next head of Arguments where his Author placed them but this Transcriber has not Judgment enough to write after his Copy but will sometimes venture to alter thô without sense But there are as many choice passages in his pursuit of this Argument as one could wish which would make one suspect that the Independent Author himself was a well-wisher to Popery he disputes so heartily for a last Supream Judge to receive Appeals and for the Infallibility of such a Judge But there is nothing more required to answer this Argument but to give a plain state of this case of Appeals We must distinguish then between Ecclesiastical Causes and consider the original Right of Appeals As for Ecclesiastical Causes nothing is a pure Ecclesiastical Cause but what concerns the Communion of the Church who shall be received into Communion or cast out of it or put under some less Censures which confines this either to Faith or Manners But as for other causes which are called Ecclesiastical because they concern Ecclesiastical Things or Persons such as the repairs of Churches advowsance of Livings Tithes Glebe Oblations c. they are rather of a Civil than Ecclesiastical Cognizance thô Bishops and Ecclesiastical Persons are entrusted by the Civil Powers with the determination of them and in such Matters as these it is fit there should lie Appeals as there do in all other Civil Matters but then it is sit also that these Appeals should be bounded as all other Civil Appeals are within the Kingdom or Territory where the cause arises for to carry such Appeals out of the Kingdom is as great an injury to the Authority of the Prince as to the Liberties of the Subject A Soveraign Prince has all civil Power and Jurisdiction and to suffer Appeals to Foreign Bishops or Princes is to own a Superior in his own Dominions and therefore in such matters as these no Appeal can lie to an Oecumenick Bishop As for causes purely Ecclesiastical the Bishop being Supream in his own Diocess there can be no original Right of Appeal from him for there is no Appeal from the Supreme he has a free power in the Government of his own Diocess and must render an account of his actions to Christ who is the supreme Lord of the Church as St. Cyprian tells us But as notwithstanding this it is very expedient and in some degree necessary that neighbour Bishops should unite into an Ecclesiastical Body for the maintainance of Catholick Communion and the exercise of Discipline as I have already shewn so the very nature of such combinations admits and requires Appeals that if any Presbyter or private Christian be too severely censured by his Bishop or without just cause he may find relief from the Synod or Primate or in whomsoever the power of receiving Appeals is placed for Bishops are men and liable to humane Passions and frailties and it would be impossible to maintain the Authority of Church censures without such Appeals For though there be no original right of Appeals from the Sentence of one Bishop to another yet every Bishop has authority to receive whom he judges fit into the Communion of his own Church and should one Bishop depose a Presbyter or Excommunicate a lay Christian unjustly should they go into another Diocess if the Bishop of it judged them worthy of Communion he might receive them into Communion notwithstanding these censures for he is Judge in his own Church as the other was in his But how contemptible would Ecclesiastical Censures be if they reached no farther than single Diocesses and what dissensions would this create among Bishops should one receive those into Communion whom the other had cast out Which makes it highly expedient that neighbour Bishops should be made not the Judges of their fellow Bishops or their actions as it is in superiour Courts which have a direct Authority over the inferiour but Umpires and Arbitrators of such differences as may happen between the Bishop and his Clergy or People which will preserve the peace and concerd of Bishops and give a more sacred Authority to Ecclesiastical Censures But then these Appeals must be confined to this Ecclesiastical Body and not carried to foreign Churches for by the same reason that these Ecclesiastical Bodies and Communions must be confined within such limits as admit of such combinations of which I have given an account above these Appeals also must be confined to the Ecclesiastical Bodies as St Cyprian expresly affirms that the Cause should be heard there where the Crime was committed Thus we see there is no need of an Oecumenical Pastor to receive Appeals much less of an Infallible Judge for this purpose and thus I might dismiss this Argument were it possible to pass it over without observing some peculiar strains of Reason and Rhetorick in it As for Example That Appeals are to no end if there be not some Supreme Catholic Pastor to arrive at in whose determination we are bound to set down and rest satisfied As if there could be no last Appeal but to a Catholick Pastor or no man were bound to rest satisfied in any other last Appeal But I perceive the satisfaction he means is the satisfaction of having our Cause determined by an Infallible Judge who cannot Err Which it may be is the first time a Roman Catholick for I must except his Independent Original ever made the Pope an Infallible Judge not onely in matters of Faith but of all Causes which are brought before him by Appeals But why may not the last Appeal be made to any one else as well as to the Catholick Pastor No the mind of the whole Catholick Church may be had in the Principium unitatis but no other National Provincial or Diocesan Pastor have the mind of the whole Catholick Church Which I can make nothing more of but that the mind of the Catholick Paston is the mind of the Catholick Church and therefore the Catholick Pastor if he speaks his own mind speaks the mind of the Catholick Church too He is the Head and if we will know a mans mind we must resort to the Head not to the Arms or Legs where you can onely expect a dumb kick or box under the Ear as we have had enough of from our Protestant Prelates A Diocesan Provincial or Primate are but the Churches more surly and less intelligible Organs but Arms
World acknowledge to be so without the Popes Canonization and the use she makes of Saints needs no Canonization which is only to bless God for them and to excite our selves to an imitation of their Vertues not to build Temples and Altars to them or to Worship them with religious Honours as our Mediators and Advocates This Canonization of Saints was a strange kind of Argument from a pretended Independent and it is such an Argument as I thought at this time of day a Romanist himself would have been ashamed of For pray what Authority has the Church to Canonize Saints and who gave her this Authority Such Consecrations and Canonizations indeed were in practice in Pagan Rome and Tertullian sufficiently scorns them for it He tells us that there was an ancient Decree that the Emperor should not Consecrate any God without the approbation of the Senate for the Emperor in those days was the Pontifex Maximus or the Oecumenick Priest. This the Father says was to make Divinity depend upon human Votes and unless the God pleases Men he shall not be a God how applicable this is to the Canonization of Saints let our Author judge and tell me whether there were any such practice known in the Christian Church in Tertullian's days To Canonize a Saint to be sure is to Vote him into Heaven and if the Oecumenick Pastor has this Authority he is somewhat more than the Head of the visible Church on Earth for his Power extends to the invisible Church too 5ly The necessity of a Catholick composure of Church Prayers i. e. That the same Liturgie should be used in all Christian Churches which never was practised in former Ages and no need it should be We prefer a Liturgie before private and extempore Prayers we think it most Uniform that a National Church should use the same Liturgie but if every Bishop who is the Supream Governour of his own Church should have a Liturgie of his own I see no hurt in it if it be a true Christian Liturgie and neither corrupt the Christian Faith nor Worship When he can give me one wise reason why the whole Christian World must use the same Liturgie and that there must of necessity be an Oecumenick Pastor to compose this Liturgie I will consider it farther His harangue about our charging Dissenters with Schism does not relate to this matter For setting aside the Civil Authority whereby our Liturgie is confirmed their Schism does not consist in using another Liturgie for they use none but in separating from the Communion of their Bishop who has Authority to appoint what Liturgie shall be used in his Church For the Liturgie being agreed on in Convocation makes it an Act of the Church confirmed by the Authority and Consent of all the Bishops besides the concurrent Votes and Suffrages of the inferior Clergy And if every particular Bishop have Authority to appoint what Form of Prayer shall be used in his Church all the Bishops of England may agree in the same Liturgie and those who deny obedience to their Bishops and separate from them upon such accounts are guilty of Schism But where there is no such subjection and obedience owing as there is none between particular Bishops and distinct National Churches they may make Liturgies and Forms of Prayer for themselves and are accountable to no Body else for it 6thly His last necessity for an Oecumenick Pastor is for calling convening and dissolving Oecumenical Councils Now if there be no such absolute necessity of Oecumenical Councils if they may and have been called by Emperors if they may meet together of themselves by Mutual Agreement then there is no necessity of an Oecumenical Pastor for this purpose But such an Assembly he says must be a Church Assembly or else it can claim no Power in the Church and all Church Assemblies are of right convened by the Pastor of the said Church in which it is as in a Diocess the Clergy is convened by the Authoritative Call of the Bishop This is the force of his whole Argument wherein there are two things supposed which we desire him to prove 1. That an Oecumenical Council is not for Mutual Advice but for direct Acts of Authority and Government 2. That a Council receives its Authority from an Authoritative Call when he has proved these two Propositions his Argument may deserve a new Consideration AN ANSWER To SECTION II. CONCERNING The Agreement between the Two Churches about some of their Imposed Terms of Communion their Ministry Ceremonies and Image-Worship 1. The MINISTRY HAving answered all their Pretences of Agreement between the Church of England and the Church of Rome concerning one Supream Oecumenical Pastor what remains will give me no great trouble and I shall give my self and my Readers no more than needs must 1. The first Agreement is about the Ministry unto which all are required to submit which is the same with that of Roman-Catholicks and maintained by the same Arguments that is concerning the Divine Institution of Bishops and subject Presbyters Now this charge we own that we do acknowledge the Divine Right of Episcopacy and that Presbyters by the Institution of their Office are subject to Bishops and if the Roman-Catholicks own this we agree with them in it and so we will in any thing else that is true and think it no injury to our cause for we do not think our selves bound to renounce what is true only that we may differ from Roman-Catholicks and yet the mischief is that in despight of his Title and design he will not suffer us to agree with them here but endeavour to prove that we do not agree with them Thus he tells us 1. Touching the difference there is between a Bishop and a Presbyter as amongst the Papists some held that they were of the same order differing only in degree and others that they were of distinct Orders so among our Clergy I perceive our Author has a mind to be a Protestant at last by his crying our Clergy there were some who in King James the First days asserted that Bishops and Presbyters were of the same Order but now it is carried for their being of two distinct Orders but what is this to the Agreement of the two Churches that there are Divines in each Church which differ about this Point If neither Church have determined this then they agree onely in not determining it but if it were the Currant Doctrine in the Council of Basil that Bishops and Priests are of the same Order and it be the avowed Doctrine of the Church of England that Bishops are a distinct and superior Order then I think the two Churches do not agree about this Point And our Author himself takes care to prove that we are not agreed For the Romanists he says do not so much stick to the Divine Right of the Episcopal Order as to hold that without a Violation of the Divine Law a Presbyter cannot
IMPRIMATUR Liber cui Titulus A Vindication of Some Protestant Principles of Church-Unity c. Nov. 16. 1687. Guil Needham R mo in Christo P. D. Wilhelmo Archiep Cant. a Sacris A VINDICATION OF SOME Protestant Principles OF Church-Unity and catholick-Catholick-Communion From the Charge of Agreement with the CHURCH of ROME IN ANSWER To a late PAMPHLET Intituled An Agreement between the Church of ENGLAND and the Church of ROME evinced from the Concertation of some of her Sons with their Brethren the Dissenters By WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Master of the TEMPLE LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun over-against St. Dunstan's-Church in Fleet-street 1688. TO THE READER I HERE Present thee with a Book which the Importunity of our Roman Adversaries has extorted from me I had rather have employed my Pen upon some moré useful Argument but in such a state as this we cannot always be our own Chusers The Design of the Book I Answer seems to be To revive some Old Disputes between us and the Dissenters and to raise New Jealousies in them if not of our Inclination to Popery yet of a great deal of Popish Leaven yet remaining among us which ought to be purged out for there is nothing such men dread more than that the Dissenters should at this time entertain any kind Thoughts of the Church of England The Plot I confess is well enough laid were not all Wise Men of both Parties aware of it and that makes it ridiculous enough and indeed the Book it self is an odd kind of mixture he gives very good words to the Dissenters and at the same time uses no other but their own Arguments against the Church of England to establish some main Points of Popery which whether it be a piece of Courtship to them or a sly Affront ought to be considered As for our Agreement with the Church of Rome if I have not sufficiently baffled that Pretence I will never write more but this of it self was too mean a Design to confute that which no body not the Objector himself believed and therefore I will be bold to say that I have abundantly confuted the Popish Supremacy from those very Principles on which this Author would found our Agreement I intended a Preface to have explained some Notions about the Church which might have been of use to ordinary Readers for the better understanding this Answer but it swell'd so much upon my hands that by the advice of some Friends I have reserved it for a distinct Treatise which shall quickly follow W. S. AN ANSWER TO THE PREFACE SINCE this Author has thought fit to single me out as an example of this pretended Agreement between the Church of England and the Church of Rome I shall undertake my own defence which will give me no other trouble but a short diversion from some better designs which I suppose is all that was hoped for from this Pamphlet For whoever this Author be which I am not curious to know I cannot think him so weak as to hope at this time of Day that he could perswade our Dissenters That the Clergy of the Church of England are not the Chief if not the only Opposers of Popery and Defenders of the Protestant Religion or that notwithstanding all their appearing Zeal against Popery they are still Papists in their hearts and are ready to embrace a Cassandrian accommodation whenever the Government pleases and therefore I could be very well contented such suggestions as these should pass without an Answer as far as I am concerned in them for let any man that knows me think me a Papist if he can I am pretty confident this Author believes me far enough from it or else I might have expected better words from him but it is fit that such little arts as these should be exposed to the scorn and contempt of Mankind and that our Dissenters should be made sensible what a mean Opinion such Writers have of them who hope to impose upon them by such mean arts For to begin with that great Cry of late that the Clergy of the Church of England are now the Chief if not the only opposers of Popery and Defenders of the Protestant Religion Is there not good reason for it Have they not defended the Church of England against all the little arts and shifts of the Church of Rome What is that then which he calls the unlucky mistake and which the unwary Readers of Books are to be warned against That those unanswerable Books which have of late been written against Popery were not writen by the Clergy of the Church of England That he dares not say What is the mistake then That these men who confute Popery are not Protestants but Papists Methinks their confuting Popery is no great sign of their being Papists especially when Papists are not able to defend their Religion against them I am sure if their Arguments will keep men from turning Papists they are notable opposers of Popery and defenders of the Protestant Religion whatever they are themselves and what hurt it would do any man to be confirmed in the Protestant Religion though it were by the Writings of concealed Papists I cannot guess Should the Pope himself write a Book against Popery if the Arguments were good I should like the Book never the worse for the sake of the Author I deny not but such things may be done Papists may write against Popery and Protestants for it with an intention to betray the Cause which they undertake to defend but if this were his rule of guessing there would be much more just cause to suspect that our late Popish Writers were Protestants than that our Protestant Writers were Papists When they are able to Answer their Books against Popery we will give them leave to call them Papists still but could they have done that they would have allowed them to have been Protestants still But what course does our Author take to undeceive unwary Readers at this time and to prove these Confuters of Popery to be Papists Why by acquainting them with the avowed Principles of some of our Clergy about those Points wherein the very life of Popery consists and on which the whole System of that Religion is founded In doing which he hath with some clearness demonstrated the agreement of Opinion between the Church of England men and the Church of Rome to be so exact and full that if the Government should so design it were but dictum factum according to their Doctrine and a Cassandrian Peace might be patch'd up presently with Rome This is a notable discovery indeed Do any of these men then embrace any Doctrines of the Church of Rome No but it seems they agree with the Church of Rome in some Fundamental Principles whereon the whole System of Popery is founded That shall be examined anon But suppose it at present Do they draw the same Conclusions from these Principles which the Church of Rome does No but they
these I take to be good substantial Protestancy And as for those things wherein we differ from the Dissenters we are so far from being Roman-Catholicks that as for my own part tho I like neither yet I think the Dissenter the better of the two setting aside the Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy I should prefer any form of Government Presbytery or Independancy rather than a Papal Monarchy it were better to have no Ceremonies at all than to see Religion transform'd into little else but outside and Ceremony for some external Indecencies of Worship which may be supplied by inward Devotions are more eligible than gross and palpable Superstitions Though I think sitting at the Lords Supper favours of too much irreverence yet I had rather see men Receive sitting than see them Worship the Host. So that our Church of England Nobility and Gentry as he adds have no reason either to embrace the name of Roman Catholick or to close with the Protestant Dissenter a Church of England Protestant is somewhat more than a name still and I hope will be so when some other names will be forgot AN ANSWER TO THE PRETENDED AGREEMENT Between the CHURCH of ENGLAND AND THE CHURCH of ROME And First to the INTRODUCTION HE begins with an Account of that late Dispute about Representing and Misrepresenting which if he had been wise he would have forgot The Papists he says complain of Misrepresentation and until this be yielded they 'l not Dispute And I commend them for their Resolution which is the wisest thing they can now do tho it had been wiser not to have complained for they complained as long as they could and now they have no more to say They will Dispute no longer as he observes That for some months there has been nothing but Answering Replying Rejoyning and Sur-rejoyning and we are still where we began That is they are Papists still and we Protestants which I suppose is all that he can mean for if they have any modesty their complaining and our trouble of answering is at an end which I think is not where we began Well so much then for Misrepresenting and now a new Scene opens In the first place a just State of the Controversie must be setled wherein the Contending Parties agree and how far they differ What they please we are contented to follow them in their own way tho it is strange this should be to settle now Our Author undertakes the first of these but does not design to encumber this Discourse with a Catalogue of Agreements in the great Doctrines of Christian Religion and matters of Opinion Tho he was more afraid than hurt here for this would not much have encumbred his Discourse for I know little we agree in but the Three Creeds but his Reason why he will not encumber his Discourse with our Agreement in Doctrines and Opinions is very surprizing viz. because there is no need of Agreement in such matters For both the Council of Trent and our English Convocation have taken especial care by a latitude of expression to obtain the assent of men who vastly differ in their opinions Which is a false account of the English Convocation but a very true tho strange account of that Infallible Council of Trent of which more presently But is not this a clever way of flinging off all disputes about Doctrines and Opinions His business is to prove the Agreement of my Principles about Church Communion with the Church of Rome For after all his talk of the Church of England he has not one word about her unless he takes me for the Church of England which I assure him I never took my self to be but it seems one poor single Divine may pass for the Church of England since it is dwindled into a name and shadow tho it would be Misrepresentation in a Protestant to impute the Opinions and Doctrines of Popes Cardinals Doctors School-men Canonists Casuists nay of General Councils themselves if they happen to forget their Anathema's to the Church of Rome I say his design being to show the Agreement of my Principles with the Church of Rome he knew this was impossible to be done unless he laid aside the Consideration of all Doctrines and Opinions But are these of no account then in the Church of Rome Is it no matter what our Opinions are so we do but maintain the Popes Supremacy I think the Supremacy an intolerable usurpation on the Rights and Liberties of the Christian Church but I think the Popish Innovations in Faith and Worship more intolerable Corruptions of the Christian Religion and more fatal to mens souls and therefore tho men groan'd under the oppressions of the See of Rome they were other Corruptions which gave birth to the Reformation witness Luthers Reformation and tho I should suppose it possible to be perswaded for peace sake to submit to the Usurpations of the Bishop of Rome if all other Abuses and Corruptions were taken away yet while the Corruptions of Faith and Worship remain while I believe them to be such dangerous Corruptions it makes Reconciliation impossible for tho I may be contented to be oppressed in my Christian Liberties I can never be contented to be damned which is the difference between submitting to an usurped Authority and complying with a corrupt Faith and Worship for tho I hope a great many who do so will find Mercy yet those can expect none who are convinced of these Corruptions and yet comply which would be my case So that he begins at the wrong end to prove my Agreement with the Church of Rome for tho my Pinciples did prove and tho I were my self perswaded that the Bishop of Rome had a regular and Canonical Authority over all other Churches while he is a truly Catholick and Orthodox Bishop yet I should think such Corruptions in Faith and Worship sufficient to absolve all Christians from their subjection to him and therefore whatever my Principles of church-Church-Communion are there is little hope of my Agreement with the Church of Rome while these Doctrinal Corruptions last and it is a vain thing to prove an Agreement in Principles of Government unless they can prove an Agreement in Faith and Worship too There was no dispute that I know of between the Catholicks and the Arians about Principles of Government but he would have been laughed at who should hence have inferred an Agreement between them However setting aside this let us consider how he proves that Doctrines and Opinions are so little or not at all concerned in the Agreement of the two Churches viz. because both the Council of Trent and the English Convocation have taken especial care by a Latitude of expression to obtain the assent of men who vastly differ in their Opinions Has the Church of Rome then and the Church of England no positive Opinions to which they expect the Assent of their Members especially of their Clergy He instances in the Doctrine of Predetermination or which
vindicate my self I will own my own shame without casting the blame on my dear Mother the Church of England and I suppose it will be sufficient to vindicate my self if I first show him that I have in express words rejected all those Propositions wherein he pretends this Agreement consists Secondly Particularly vindicate those passages he transcribes out of my books and shew his sincerity in quoting and his skill in applying and then his French Popery may shift for it self excepting a word or two of that learned Arch-bishop Petrus de Marca As for the first He himself has collected the Particulars wherein we agree which I shall distinctly examine the Reader may find them p. 15 16. which are these 1. They both make the Catholick Church one visible governed Society Houshold or Kingdom This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first and fundamental mistake and a wilful one too for I affirm the contrary in express words in the defence of Dr. Stilling fleet 's unreasonableness of Separation p. 565 566 upon occasion of that Dispute about the constitutive Regent Head of a National Church I expresly assert That the Unity both of the National and Universal Church consists in one Communion That Consent is all that is necessary to unite a Body or Socity in one Communion That their Unity consists only in consent not in any superior Governing Ecclesiastical Power on Earth which binds them together So that I absolutely deny That the Catholick Church is one governed Society with one supreme Government over the whole P. 567. I assert That Christ hath instituted no such constitutive Regent Power of one Bishop over another in his Church and therefore the Union of particular Churches into one must be made by consent not by Superiority of Power P. 564. I affirm That tho a National Church and the Reason is stronger for the Universal Church be one Body yet it is not such a political Body as they describe and cannot be according to its original Constitution which differs from Secular forms of Government which have a supreme governing Power by that Ancient Church-Canon of our Saviours own decreeing It shall not be so among you And thus a National Church as governed by consent may be one Body in an Ecclesiastical tho not in a Civil Political Sense that is by one Communion not by one Supreme governing Power The Dean in Answer to Mr. Baxter who asserts a constitutive Regent Head of the National Church necessary to make it a Church and yet allows That there is one Catholick Visible Church and that all particular Churches as headed by their particular Bishops or Pastors are parts of the Universal Church argues thus If this Doctrine be true and withal it be necessary that every Church must have a constitutive Regent Part as essential to it then it unavoidably follows That there must be a Catholick Visible Head to the Catholick Visible Church and so Mr. B's Constitutive Regent Part of the Church hath done the Pope a wonderful kindness and made a very plausible Plea for his Universal Pastorship Where the Dean proves That a Constitutive Regent Head is not essential to the Notion of a National Church for then it must be essential to the Catholick Church too and then there must be a supreme Pastor or some supreme governing Power over the whole Church which I suppose is to deny that the Catholick Church is one visible governed Society This Argument I defended at large and added p. 576. That to deny a Church can be one without a constitutive Regent Head infers one of these two things 1. Either that many particular Churches cannot associate into one for the joynt Exercise of Discipline and Government which overthrows the very Notion of Catholick Unity and Communion Or 2. That there is and must be a power in the Church superior to the Episcopal Power which naturally sets up a Pope above Bishops Thus much for my agreement with them that the Catholick Church is one visible governed Society that is which has a supreme Power over the whole and if our Author by this time does not begin to Colour I will e'en Blush for him But by this the Reader will perceive what a hopeful Cause this Author has undertaken to prove my Agreement with the Church of Rome about the Supremacy either of the Pope or General Council when I absolutely deny that there is or ought to be any such Superior Authority and Jurisdiction over the whole Church But to proceed 2. He says They both pitch upon the Episcopal Government as distributed into the several Subordinations of combined Churches as what is by Divine Institution made the Government of the Church A combination of Diocesan Churches to make up one Provincial whose Bishops are in Subordination to their Metropolitan a combination of Provincial Churches to make up a National and the Metropolitans in Subordination to the Primate a combination of National Churches to make up a Patriarchal and the Primates in Subordination to the Patriarch and a confederacy of Patriarchal to make up one Oecumenical and every Patriarch in Subordination to the Oecumenical Bishop or chief Patriarch This is an Agreement with a Witness and if he can prove this as he says he has done of which more presently we will never dispute more with them about Church-Government let us then consider the several steps and Gradations of Church-Authority which at last centers in an Universal Bishop 1. The Subordination of Parochial Presbyters who are combined and united under the Government of a Diocesan Bishop Thus far we agree with him and acknowledg a direct Superiority of Bishops over their respective Presbyters but we go not one step farther with him 2. A combination of Diocesan Churches to make up one Provincial whose Bishops are in Subordination to their Metropolitan Such a Combination I allow of but the Subordination I deny to be the original Form of Church Associations and this one word Subordination which he has here thrust in discovers the whole Trick and spoils our Agreement quite I assert these Combinations are for Communion not for Government and therefore there is no Subordination required to such an Union he will have these Combinations to be not meerly for Communion but for Government and that indeed requires a Subordination but these two Notions do as vastly differ as a friendly Association for mutual Advice and Counsel and a Subjection to a Superior Authority And that I have not altered my Opinion but that this was always my judgment in the case I shall now show and I need to that purpose only transcribe a Page or Two out of the Defence p 577 c. It is evident from the Testimony of the earliest Ages of the Church that first the Apostles and then the Bishops as their Successors were the Supreme Governours of the Church who had no higher Order or Power over them And therefore Tertullian calls the Bishop Summus Sacerdos or the chief and
like expressions before quoted But do I not say That General Councils can have no direct Authority over any Bishops who refuse to consent unless it be in such matters as concern the purity of Faith and manners and Catholick Unity and does not this infer that they have a direct Authority over them in such matters This possibly might lie a little out of our Author's reach I not having occasion then given me to difcourse it more at large but if he had not understood this it had been more modest and ingenuous to have thought it an unwary saying or to have made a Query upon it and desired me to have reconciled this seeming contradiction rather than to charge me with such Principles as I so often expresly and positively reject But ingenuity and modesty are Virtues not to be expected from such Adversaries and therefore I shall briefly state this matter also by 1. Showing what I meant by matters which concern the purity of Faith and Manners and Catholick Unity 2. What Authority I give to bishops or a Council of Bishops over their Collegues in such cases and how this is to be reconciled with my affirming that the combinations of Churches and the Synods and Councils of Bishops are not for direct acts of Government and Superiority over each other but only for mutual advice and counsel 1. As for the first when I say That Neighbour Bishops or a Council of Bishops has Authority over their Collegues in matters which concern the purity of Faith and Manners and Catholick Unity it is plain that my meaning was not and could not be That such a Council of Bishops had Authority to make what Decrees they pleased in matters of Faith or Manners or Catholick Unity and impose them upon their Collegues by a direct and superior Authority without their own consent for this is the very thing I disputed against and yet this is the sense he would put upon my words and indeed no other sense of them can do the Church of Rome any service but let any indifferent Reader consider the whole Paragraph and freely judg whether this Author be not a very Candid Interpreter I was discoursing about General Councils That it is not likely there should ever be a Convention of Bishops from all parts of the Christian World nor if it were possible that there should be some few Bishops dispatched from all Christian Churches all the world over can I see any reason why this should be called a General Council when it may be there are Ten times as many Bishops who did not come to the Council as those who did and why should the less number of Bishops assembled in Council judg for all the rest who so far exceed them in numbers and it may be are not inferior to them in Piety and Wisdom especially considering that every Bishop has the Supreme Government of his own Church and his liberty and power to choose for himself as St. Cyprian tells us and must not be compelled to obedience by any of his Collegues which overthrows the proper Jurisdiction of General Councils which can have no direct Authority over any Bishops who refuse to consent unless it be in such matters as concern the Purity of Faith and Manners and Catholick Unity Now if Faith and Manners and Catholick Unity were considered as the Subject of Conciliary Decrees what greater Authority could the Council of Trent it self desire than this to have Authority to make Decrees about Faith and Manners and Catholick Unity which shall oblige all the Bishops in the World For I know not any thing else for a Council of Christian Bishops to make Decrees about And therefore these matters which concern Faith and Manners only relate to the Faith and Manners of the Bishop as I elsewhere expresly teach That a Bishop cannot be imposed on against his own consent by any Bishop or Council of Bishops nor can justly be deposed upon such accounts while he neither corrupts the Faith nor schismatically divides the Church So that this Authority refers not to the Decrees of Councils about Faith or Manners but is only an Authority of censuring Heretical and Schismatical Bishops 2. But that we may better understand the true state of this matter let us consider what kind of Authority this is And 1. I observe this is no act of Authority over Bishops considered a Bishops but over Hereticks and Schismaticks and no man that I know of ever denied the Churches Power to censure Heresie or Schism or to correct the Lives and Manners of Men and if Hereticks and Schismaticks wicked and profligate Persons may be flung out of the Church if any Bishops be such there is no reason their Character should excuse them for that does not lessen but aggravate their Crime 2. And therefore this is no usurpation upon the Episcopal Power and Government it is not imposing Laws or Rules on a Bishop for the Government of his Church without his consent which is an Usurpation upon the Episcopal Authority but it is only judging him unworthy to be a Bishop and committing the care of his Flock to some more fit person 3. This Authority does not result from that superior Jurisdiction which one Bishop or all the Bishops in the World have over any one single Bishop but from that obligation which every Bishop has as far as he can to take care of the whole flock of Christ as I explain it in the Vindication p. 156. That the Unity of the Episcopacy is the foundation of that Authority which neighbour Bishops have over their Collegues in case of Heresie or Schism or any notorious wickedness for they being Bishops of the Universal Church have an original Right and Power not to govern their Collegues but to take care that no part of the Church which is within their reach and inspection suffer by the heresie or evil practices of their Collegues which as I observed in the Defence p. 215 is the reason St. Cyprian gives why there are so many Bishops in the Christian Church whom he calls a copious body of Bishops coupled by the cement of concord and bond of Unity That if any of our colledg i. e. any Bishopâ— should endeavour to broach any new Heresie or tear and spoil the Flock of Christ the rest may come in to their help and like good and merciful Pastors gather again the Sheep of Christ into the fold So that this is not properly an Authority over Bishops who have originally no superior Jurisdiction over each other but an obligation on all Bishops as far as they can to see that no part of the Christian Church be corrupted with Heresie or divided by Schisms the discharge of which may impower them to remove Heretical Bishops without any direct Authority to govern Bishops So that this power of deposing Heretical and Wicked Bishops does not contradict what I before asserted That by original right all Bishops are equal and every Bishop supreme in
And whether they do right or wrong in this their own Consciences must judg in this world and God will judg in the next This is all that can be said or done in such a broken and divided state of the Church as we now see While nothing was called Heresie but the denial of some plain and acknowledged Article of the Christian Faith while there was no dispute who were Hereticks the power of deposing Hereticks was sacred and venerable and had its just authority and effect but since what is Heresie is the Controversie and the world is divided about it tho the power remains still the exercise of it grows very contemptible when a Church first coyns new Articles of Faith and then Excommunicates Censures Deposes those for Hereticks who will not believe them 4ly We are come now to the last Point wherein he says we agree viz. To give to one Bishop a Primacy for the better preserving Catholick Union and also a Superior power of Appeals and exercising some peculiar acts of Discipline under the regulation of Ecclesiastical Canons Now all this indeed I do assert and yet we are very far from agreeing in this matter For though they made no more of the Pope than a meer Primate which I doubt is not good doctrine in Rome yet there is as much difference between our Primates as there is between a National and Oecumenical Primate and consequently as much difference between our Appeals as between Appeals to Rome and to the Archbishop of Canterbury as between Appeals to the Primate of a National Church and Appeals to foreign Bishops I know he disputes very learnedly that such an Oecumenical combination of Churches and an Oecumenical Primate is more for the preservation of Cathol Unity than a National Church or Primate but this he knew I denied and therefore should not have said that I agree with them in it and who has the best reason on their side shall be examined presently By this time I suppose the Reader is satisfied how far we agree in these things I having in express words denied every thing which he has affirmed in these very Books to which he has appealed which I think is no great sign of agreement 2. It is time now to vindicate those passages which he quotes out of my Book and on which he founds this pretence of agreement between us and to do this effectually and plainly I must as I go along briefly explain some of my Principles which our Author either did not understand or did wilfully misrepresent All the sayings he has picked up and brought together from one end of the Book to t'other relate to one of these two Principles The Unity of the Church which is one Communion or the Unity of the Episcopacy 1. As for the first of these The Unity of the Church the whole mystery of it is no more but this That the whole Christian Church by the Institution of our Saviour is but one Church and this one Church is one Communion that is one Body and Society whereof all Christians are members and wherein they have a right to communicate in all Christian Priviledges and have both a right and obligation to Communicate in all Christian Duties This our Author puts in the second place tho it ought to be the first as being the Foundation of all That all Christians and Christian Churches in the world are one Body Society or Church and this is called Catholick Communion for they being all one Body they Communicate with each other in this one Body in all the Duties and Priviledges of it and what advantage he can make make of this I cannot yet guess unless he thinks that the very name Catholick being one of Bellarmin's Notes of the Church Catholick Communion must signifie the Communion of the Catholick Church of Rome My Adversaries hearing this word Communion presently concluded that I placed the Unity of the Church in some meer transient acts of Communion and disputed very earnestly against it as well they might But this mistake I rectified in my Vindication and showed them that one Communion signifies one Body and Society in which all the Members communicate with each other which I explain'd by this familiar comparison Suppose the whole World were one Family or one Kingdom in which every particular man according to his rank and station enjoys equal privileges in this case the necessity of Affairs would require that men should live in distinct houses and distinct Countries as now they do all the World over But yet if every man enjoyed the same Liberty and Priviledges wherever he went as he does now in his own House and Country the whole World would be but one House and Family or Universal Kingdom and whosoever should resolve to live by himself and not receive any others into his Family nor allow them the liberty of his House would be guilty of making a Schism in this great Family of the World And what Nations soever should deny the Rights and Priviledges of natural Subjects to the Inhabitants of other Countries would make a Schism and rent it self from this Universal Kingdom I added Thus it is here The Church of Christ is but one Body one Church one Houshold and Family one Kingdom These words our Author sets in the Front and thinks to make something of them for seeing all know that to make the whole World one Universal Kingdom it 's necessary that it be subjected under one governing Head it unavoidably follows that unless in the Catholick Church there be one Supreme Governing Head it cannot be like to an Universal Kingdom an organized politick Body Very right Had I compared the Catholick Church to an Universal Kingdom with respect to Government the consequence had been good but comparing it only with respect to Communion the consequence is ridiculous and yet this was all I intended in the Comparison as appears from the Application of it And therefore though the necessity of Affairs requires that Neighbour Christians combine themselves into particular Churches particular Congregations as the world is divided into particular Families and Kingdoms which shows that I no more subject the Church to one Governing-head than I do the World to one Universal Monarch now it is divided into particular Kingdoms yet every Christian by virtue of his Christianity hath the same Right and Priviledg and the same Obligation to Communion as occasion serves with all the Churches in the World that he has with that particular Church wherein he lives wherever he removes his dwelling whatever Church he goes to he is still in the same Family the same Kingdom and the same Church Now whether this be a good Consequence that because I make the whole Christian Church one Family and Kingdom with respect to Christian Communion that is that all true Christians have a right to Communion in all true Christian Churches in the World therefore I subject the whole Christian Church to one Supreme Governing
and inspection suffer by the Heresy or evil practices of their Collegues Here is a good long Quotation if any body knew to what purpose it served I own the Words and know not how I could say the same thing better if I were to say it again I am still of the same mind that such Combinations of Bishops for mutuāl Advice and Counsel is of great benefit and use for the good Government of the Church but if he would insinuate as that if any thing must be his design that these Combinations of Bishops are for the exercise of Authority over their Collegues this I absolutely deny They are to advise and consult with each other not as with superior Governors who are to determine them and give Laws to them but as with Friends and Collegues of the same Body and Communion as I expresly affirm Vindicat. p. 127. May not Bishops meet together for common Advice without erecting a Soveraign Tribunal to determine all Controversies and make Ecclesiastical Laws and impose them upon their Collegues without their own consent When though the least yet it may be the best and wisest part of the Council are of another Mind Is there no difference between advising with our Equals and making them our Superiors May it not be a very great fault and very near the guilt of Schism for a Bishop without any cause but meer humour and wilfulness to reject such Rules and Orders of Discipline and Government which are agreed by the unanimous consent of neighbour Bishops unless we give a Superior Authority to such Synods over their Collegues 6. His next charge is that the Collegue of Bishops may grant unto some one Bishop a Primacy for the preservation of Catholick Unity and Communion who by a general consent may be intrusted with a Superior Power of calling Synods receiving Appeals and exercising some peculiar Acts of Discipline under the Regulation of Ecclesiastical Canons This Sentence he has made up of two places in my Book above fifty Pages distant p. 127 and 184 for he durst not quote either of them entire and therefore I shall be at the pains to transcribe them both that the indifferent Reader may judge of them Vind. p. 127. There are these words This makes it highly reasonable for Neighbour Bishops at as great a distance as the thing is practicable with ease and convenience as the Bishops of the same Province or of the same Nation to live together in a strict Association and Confederacy to meet in Synods and Provincial or National Councils to order all the Affairs of their several Churches by mutual Advice and to oblige themselves to the same Rules of Discipline and Worship This has been the practice of the Church from the very beginning and seems to be the true Original of Archi-episcopal and Metropolitical Churches which were so early that it is most probable they had their beginning in the Apostles Days For though all Bishops have originally equal Right and Power in Church affairs yet there may be a Primacy of Order granted to some Bishops and their Chairs by a general consent and under the Regulation of Ecclesiastical Canons for the preservation of Catholick Unity and Communion without any Antichristian encroachments or usurpation on the Episcopal Authority For as I proceed This Combination of Churches and Bishops does not and ought not to introduce a direct Superiority of one Bishop or Church over another or of such Synods and Councils over particular Bishops Every Bishop is the proper Governour of his own Diocess still and cannot be regularly imposed on against his consent If a Bishop differ from his Collegues assembled in Synods or Provincial Councils or one National or Provincial Council differ from another in Matters of Prudence and Rules of Discipline without either corrupting the Faith or dividing the Church if we believe St. Cyprian in his Preface to the Council of Carthage they ought not to deny him Communion upon such accounts nor to offer any force to him in such matters In p. 184 I discoursed much to the same purpose That for the preservation of Peace and Order in this united Body or Confederation of Neighbour Churches one or more Bishops may by a general consent be intrusted with a Superior Power of calling Synods receiving Appeals and exercising some peculiar Acts of Discipline under the Regulation of Ecclesiastical Canons which is the Power now ascrib'd to Archbishops and Metropolitans But yet there cannot be one constitutive Ecclesiastical Regent Head in a National much less in the Universal Church not Monarchical because no one Bishop has an original Right to Govern the rest in any Nation and therefore whatever Power may be granted him by consent yet it is not essential to the Being or Unity of the Church which is one not by being united under one superior governing Power but by living in one Communion Not Aristocratical because every Bishop being Supream in his own Diocess and accountable to Christ for his Government cannot and ought not so wholly to divest himself of this Power as to be in all Cases necessarily determin'd and over-ruled by the Major Vote contrary to his own Judgment and Conscience All the Bishops in a Nation much less all the Bishops in the World cannot unite into such a Collegue as shall by a Supream Authority govern all Bishops and Churches by a Major Vote which is the form of Aristocratical Government and for the same Reason a National Church considered as a Church cannot be under the Government of a Democratical Head for if the College of Bishops have not this Power much less has a mixt College of Bishops and People Thus careful was I to secure the Episcopal Authority from such Encroachments and Usurpations as it now groans under in the Church of Rome from placing the Unity of the Church in such a superior governing Head whether Primate or Synod and now let him make the best he can of this Primacy which he should have called a Primacy of Order as I did and not absolutely a Primacy which may signifie a Primacy of Power and Authority which I positively deny he has over any of his Collegues In a body of Equals though there is no Superiority there must be Order and therefore some One must have Authority to Convene the Assembly and to preside in it and if the Synod see fit may in some Cases be intrusted with a Superior Power of executing their Decrees which involves no direct Superiority over any of his Collegues All that I intended in these Discourses was to shew what Power a National or Provincial Synod Archbishops and Metropolitans might have upon St. Cyprian's Principles without encroaching upon the Original and Essential Rights of the Episcopacy and those who will allow St. Cyprian's Principles I believe will confess that I have truly and fairly stated the Bounds of pure Ecclesiastical Authority If Archbishops and Metropolitans have a greater Power than this by the Constitutions and Laws of
Princes since the Church is incorporated into the State that I meddle not with for it is not a pure Ecclesiastical Authority but must be accounted for upon other Principles Well! but I assert that Catholick Communion is a Divine Institution and then the Combination of Churches for Catholick Communion is Divine also and thus National Churches Archbishops Metropolitans Primates are of Divine Institution but had our Author transcribed the whole Sentence every Reader would easily have seen how little it is to his purpose The words are these The Patriarchal or Metropolitical Church-Form is an Ecclesiastical Constitution and therefore certainly not an immediate Divine Institution though not therefore accidental according to the Phrase of my Dissenting Adversary but Catholick Communion is a Divine Institution and therefore the Combinations of Churches for Catholick Communion is Divine also though the particular Forms of such Combinations may be regulated and determined by Ecclesiastical Prudence which differs somewhat from what we call meer Humane Prudence because it is not the result of meer Natural Reason but founded on and accommodated to a Divine Institution So that here is no Archbishop no Primate no particular Forms of Combinations of Churches of Divine Institution they are Ecclesiastical Constitutions which may be regulated and altered by Ecclesiastical Prudence but Catholick Communion is a Divine Institution and therefore that Bishops and Churches should unite for the preservation of Catholick Communion is Divine though the particular Forms of such Combinations may be determined by Ecclesiastical Prudence which is somewhat more Sacred than Humane Prudence because it is founded on and accommodated to a Divine Institution I suppose the Reader is by this time very well satisfied about our Author's Justice in his Quotations as the Prefacer speaks 7. He observes that I teach that a compliance with the Order Government Discipline and Worship as well as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church is necessary to Catholick Communion For all Christians and Christian Churches are but One body and are thereby obliged to all Duties Offices and Acts of Christian Communion which are consequent upon such a Relation The Catholick Church is one Body and Society wherein all the Members there of have equal Right and Obligation to Christian Communion This he puts all together as One entire Reasoning though the parts of it are above three hundred Pages distant as he owns in the Margin and belong to very different things which is a very honest way of Quoting by which means we may make any Author speak what we please as the History of the Gospel has been described in Virgil's Verse The latter part of these words concern the Obligation of all Christians to Catholick Communion which what it is I have already explained In the former part he would insinuate that I make it necessary to Catholick Communion that all Churches should observe the same particular Orders Forms of Government Rites and Modes of Discipline and Worship and makes me give a very senseless Reason for it because all Christians and Christian Churches are but one Body and are thereby obliged to all Duties Offices and Acts of Christian Communion which are consequent upon such a Relation As if Christian Churches could maintain no Communion with each other unless they used the same Liturgy the same Rites and Ceremonies and were all governed by the same Ecclesiastical Canons whereas we know that all Churches in all Ages have had peculiar Liturgies peculiar Rites and Ceremonies peculiar Fasts and Feasts peculiar Canons and Rules of Discipline of their own as there are in many Cases to this day in the Church of Rome especially among their Religious Orders In the place from which he quotes these words I was Vindicating the Terms of Communion in the Church of England to be truly Catholick P. 392. There are these words For the Terms of our Communion are as Catholick as our Church is Diocesan Episcopacy Liturgies and Ceremonies have been received in all Churches for many hundred Years and are the setled Constitution of most Churches to this Day and this is the Constitution of the Church of England and the Terms of our Communion and must be acknowledged to be Catholick Terms if by Catholick Terms he means what has actually been received by the Catholick Church After much more of this Argument I add the words he quotes That though it be hard to determine what is in its own Nature absolutely necessary to Catholick Communion yet I can tell him de facto what is viz a Compliance with the Order Government Discipline and Worship as well as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church He who will not do this must separate from the Catholick Church and try it at the last day who was in the right I am content our Dissenters should talk on of unscriptural Terms of Communion so they will but grant that the Church of England is no more guilty of imposing unscriptural Terms than the Catholick Church it self has always been and when they have confidence enough to deny this I will prove it and shall desire no better Vindication of the Church of England than the practise of the Catholick Church This is so plain that I need say nothing more to explain it that if we will live in Catholick Communion we must own Episcopacy Liturgies Ceremonies which has been the ancient Government Worship Discipline of the Church and those who upon pretence of unscriptutural Terms separate from the Church of England for the sake of such Catholick Practices by the same reason must have renounced the Communion of the best and purest and most Catholick Churches since the Apostles Days But how far I ever was from thinking that the particular Rites and Modes of Worship must be the same in all Churches and that there can be no Communion without this any man may satisfie himself who will be pleased to read some few Pages in the Vindication beginning at p. 372 where I shew how impossible it is to maintain Catholick Communion between distinct Churches without allowing of such diversity of Rites which are and always were practised in different Churches Thus I have done with our Authour's Quotations and what Agreement there is between us the Reader must judge And now he pretends to draw up my Argument against the Dissenters which he says proceeds upon Roman-Catholick Principles But I shall not trouble my self to examine whether my Arguments against the Dissenters were good or no for I have no Dispute with them now and will have none but if they ever were good they are not Roman-Catholick Principles which make them so for I have no Roman-Catholick Principle in all my Book As for what he so often triumphs in the late King's Paper I tell him once for all I will have no Dispute with Kings but if he have any thing to say let him fetch his Arguments whence he will without alledging the King's Authority to make them good and he shall have an
Answer And now from quoting our Author falls to disputing me into an Agreement which methinks argues that we are not agreed or at least that I do not know we are for what need of disputing if as the Title of his Book says we are agreed already but however the Dispute is like to be but short and therefore we will patiently bear it Now to trace us to St. Peters Chair he thus begins For by their making the Catholick Church one Body one Houshold one Kingdom or governed Society that has a governing and governed Part they must necessarily be for a Catholick Hierarchy as what alone is a fit Government for so great a Body Politick that is if the whole Church be one Body Politick over which there must be one Supream governing Head then we must acknowledge the Authority of the Pope or general Council over the whole Church which is a demonstration But if we do not make the whole Church one such Organiz'd Politick Body but only one Communion as it has appeared we do not then there is no necessity of one Supream Government over the whole Church but it is sufficient if the Church be governed by Parts by Bishops who have all equal Authority but agree in the same Communion and govern their particular Churches by common Advice and in this case there is a governing and a governed Part but no one Supream Head. And thus all his reasoning is at an end for destroy this one Principle that the whole Catholick Church is one Politick Organiz'd Body with one Supream Power over the whole and there is an end of the Authority both of Popes and general Councils But he will not give up the Cause thus for says he Let us therefore a little more clearly observe what these Church of England Clergy-men affirm and we shall find their Notion about Church Government exactly formed according to the Roman Model Well Sir watch us as narrowly as you can and see the end of it For says he they say there can be no one Catholick Communion without one Catholick Government But what does he mean by one Catholick Government One superior Power over the whole Catholick Church And who ever said this and where We say that the Unity of the Episcopacy or the Communion and good correspondency of Bishops is necessary to preserve Catholick Communion among their several Churches but we never said that one Catholick Government or superior Power over the whole Church is necessary to this end He proceeds And that Catholick Unity and Communion may be the more securely preserved the Combination of Churches considered as pure Ecclesiastical Societies into Archiepiscopal and National Churches is necessary Not absolutely necessary but highly expedient but then our Authour must remember withal that these Combinations of Churches are not for a superior Authority and Government over Bishops but only for mutual counsel and advice and then let him make his best of it And so he will make what he can of it for he adds So that the great end of the Combination of Diocesan into Provincial and National Churches is the preserving Catholick Communion Right remember that that it is for Communion not for Government and all is well Which cannot be but by raising the Combination higher and extending it much farther even unto Patriarchial and at last into one occumenical combined Church for this alone is commensurate to Catholick Communion Well! suppose then that all the Bishops in the World could meet together for counsel and advice as the Bishops of a Province or Nation can and had just such an Oecumenical as there are national Primates what service would this do the Church of Rome For here is no Supream Power all this while over the Universal Church neither Pope nor general Council Here is no Oecumenical Pastor no Supream Tribunal which all the World is bound to obey For as I have already shown we do not make a Primate or National Synod the constitutive Regent Head of a National Church but only a great Council for mutual Advice and therefore were there such an Oecumenical Primate and Oecumenical Council yet it would as vastly differ from the Roman Model as a Council for Advice and a Council for Government as an Oecumenical Head and Pastor and the President of an Oecumenical Council and the Church of Rome is at a very low ebb if it can be contented with such a Primate and such a Council as this which essentially differ from what the Councils of Constance and Basil themselves attribute to Popes and Councils But besides this if such an Oecumenical combination of Bishops and Churches cannot be and there be no need of it to Catholick Communion then I suppose our Authour will grant that the Argument from a National combination of Churches and a National Primate to an Oecumenical Combination of Churches and an Oecumenical Primate is not good 1. Then this cannot be and that for this plain Reason because all the Bishops of the Christian Church cannot meet together from all parts of the World and if they could they ought not to forsake their Churches for so long a time as such a Journey and such a Consultation requires But you 'l say every Nation may spare some Bishops to send with full Authority to the Council as the Representatives of all the rest This I take to be next to a Moral Impossibility I am sure it was never yet done there never was such a Council as had some Bishops in it from all parts of the Christian World. But suppose this could be done these Bishops who meet in Council could represent No-body but themselves and therefore can make no such Decrees as by their own Authority shall oblige all the other Bishops who were not present For a Bishop is not a representable Person He is the Supream Governour in his own Diocess and cannot and ought not to be imposed on without his own consent his Trust and Office and Power is Personal and so is his account and therefore he can no more be represented in a Council than he can at the Day of Judgment every Man's Conscience and Soul must be in his own keeping and therefore can be represented by no Man. Had the Representatives of the Catholick Church a Divine Authority superior to all particular Churches and Bishops to oblige them to stand to their Decrees as the Church of Rome asserts a general Council has then indeed some few Bishops chose by their National and Provincial Bishops to go to the Council and to Act as the Representatives of such Churches might have a plenary Authority to debate and determine all Matters in Dispute whether relating to Faith or Worship or Discipline But such an Authority as this he knows we absolutely deny and assert that Councils are only for mutual Advice and can oblige no Bishops without their personal assent and this makes it ridiculous to talk of Representatives in giving and taking Advice which is a personal Act and
thought to be the true Liberties of the Gallican Church and this surely was reason enough for me to say as he himself says in the Title of his Book and as the French King and the Court of Rome thought he did that he wrote for the Liberties of the Gallican Church how our Author will defend himself for saying that he wrote against them with any modesty and reverence for the Honesty Learning and Judgment of that great man he had best consider I cannot pretend to understand the Gallican Liberties so well as to say who is in the Right but I would still prefer the Judgment of De Marca who was both a great Lawyer and a great Divine before any of his Adversaries And yet I was not concerned to judge of this matter whether De Marca or the Pragmaticks were in the right where they differ from each other all that I alleadged his Authority for as I observed before was to prove that the Gallican Liberties did not exclude the Authority of the Pope as Christ's Vicar and St. Peter's Successor in the Government of the Church This is what the Council of Basil it self owns and to deny it would be an Ecclesiastical Liberty with a witness but not a Popish but a Protestant Liberty This is my Crime which he says Ought to be a caution to all Readers how they take up any thing upon trust from me and though I have done nothing to forfeit my Credit yet I do not desire any Readers should trust me but see with their own Eyes and if they would serve us all so I know what would become of such Writers as this Author And he wishes it may be a means to engage me to more modesty and an abatement of my contemptuous way of writing if I write any more for the time to come I perceive he thought this discovery would have broke my heart for ever but I have ventured to write once more and may do so again and very modestly too when I meet with modest Adversaries I thank God I contemn no man living but it is a little in my nature to contemn Knavery and Nonsence and therefore if our Author tasts a little of it still I must beg his pardon for I cannot help it As for what follows I have nothing to say to it it is all a Dispute against the Popes Supremacy which I like very well only I wonder if he be in good earnest why the Oath of Supremacy should stick in his teeth I have only one Request to him to tell me which was the Infallible Council that of Basil or Trent for the first subjects the Pope to a Council the last makes him superior to it and it were very strange if Contradictions should be Infallible AN ANSWER TO THE Necessity of AGREEMENT Between the Church of England AND THE CHURCH of ROME c. BEfore I proceed to Answer his second Section of the Agreement between the two Churches about some of their imposed Terms of Communion I shall in a few words rid my hands of that terrible Appendix which the Prefacer ascribes to another Author to prove the Necessity of an Agreement between the Church of England and the Church of Rome evidenced from the Nature and Constitution of a National Church Episcopally Established Thus first they prove that we are agreed and then they prove that there is a necessity we should agree But what need to prove that we must agree did they believe that we were already agreed So that this Appendix is indeed a confutation of the Book which he Entitles An Agreement between the Church of England and Church of Rome Whereas this proves that of necessity we ought to agree if we will be true to our Principles which supposes that whatever our Principles are we are not yet agreed How well he has proved our Agreement I have already shewn and now shall briefly examine how he proves our Necessity of Agreement But I must observe by the way that though the Prefacer does ascribe this learned Piece to another Author yet he has concealed the true Father His other Author is a good Roman Catholick who disputes in good earnest from the Subordination of Pastors in the Church to prove the Supremacy of an Oecumenic or Universal Pastor but the true Author was an Independent Protestant from whom this honest Romanist borrows every Argument and almost every word excepting such little variations as a Papist must of necessity make in an Independent's Writing without ever confessing his Benefactor or owning from whence he had it The Title of the Book is The Catholick Hierarchie or the Divine Right of a Sacred Dominion in Church and Conscience truly Stated Asserted and Pleaded Printed for Sam. Crouch at the Princes Arms in Pope's Head-Alley in Cornhil and Tho. Fox at the Angel in Westminster-hall 1681. In the 14 Chap. of which Book p. 76. being a Digression concerning the Subordination of Pastors whoever has the curiosity may find this entire Treatise of the Necessity of Agreement between the Church of England and the Church of Rome onely with this difference that the Independent disputes against the Subordination of Pastors by this very Argument That the Asserting the Subordination of Pastors in the Church doth by all good consequence infer the Supremacy of an Oecumenical or Universal Pastor This Popish Plagiary takes his Book and makes a quite contrary use of it to prove from the subordination of Pastors which is and ought to be in the Church as the Church of England owns the necessity of owning an Oecumenical Pastor they both indeed dispute against the Church of England but the first Author disputes for Independency the Plagiary for Popery Now why might not the Independent had he not had more Wit than his Transcriber have entitled his Chapter The Necessity of Agreement between the Church of England and Independents because they both agree in rejecting an Oecumenical Pastor and therefore ought to agree in rejecting the subordination of Pastors which infers an Oecumenical Pastor as well as this Author calls it A Necessity of Agreement between the Church of England and Church of Rome because they both agree in the subordination of Pastors and therefore as he thinks ought to agree in an Oecumenical Pastor Nay he had but served his Independent Authour right had he stiled it The Necessity of Agreement between the Independents and the Church of Rome because they both agree in this Principle that if there be a subordination of Pastors there ought to be an Oecumenical Pastor which is the nearest Popery of any Principle I know for there is nothing to be done in order to this Agreement but to prove a subordination of Pastors which is a thousand times easier than to make good that Consequence from a subordination of Pastors to an Oecumenical Pastor But let this Authour make the best he can of his Independent Arguments and call his Book what he pleases my business is only to show that there is
human Capacity may mistake and Err and so did St Peter but not fundamentally yet as Supream Head in his Catholick Capacity quatenus in Cathedra Catholica comparative to all inferior subordinate Pastors he hath a kind of Infallibility which is a Power intrusted in him by the Catholick Church to pass a final Iudgment of Determination in all Causes and Controversies to be a Ne plus ultra to all Appeals and Litigations in the Church So that in the first place he is not infallible in his human Capacity and yet he founds his Infallibility on his Wisdom Holiness and Justice which are human and personal Perfections In his publick Capacity he would have him Infallible in the Chair but yet it is but a comparative Infallibility which is none at all Then his Infallibility is not an Infallibility in judging but a Power to make a final Determination whether it be right or wrong and any Man might have this Power as well as the Pope especially since he is not entrusted with this Power by Christ but by the Catholick Church that is too only by the Church of Rome for no other Church entrusts him with it and thus he quits all Divine Claims to Infallibility and the Pope is no more Infallible than the Church can make him by entrusting him with a final decision of Controversies at all Adventures And therefore he adds We are not bound to believe his Iudgment is infallibly true but are to subscribe to it as the last because we can have no further and higher Appeal on Earth That is we must subscribe to it whether we believe it true or not which is an admirable sort of Infallibility Thus he says the English Clergy Subscribe the 39 Articles not that they believe them as they commonly say to be true and Orthodox but because they be the last Resolutions of the Church of England in those Points they sit down satisfied to subscribe them as Instrumenta pacis unitatis but indeed Maxime emcolumenti by which what he means cannot guess but am very much of his Mind that upon the same ground were there no other reason of Subscriptions they may subscribe to the Council of Trent But this is a Scandal on the Clergy of the Church of England we subscribe to the Truth of the Doctrines and for my part I would not subscribe did I not think them true and this is false with reference to the Church of Rome which Anathematizes all Persons who do not own and acknowledge and believe all the Articles of the Council of Trent However Infallibility is at a low ebb in the Church of Rome when they can exact Submissions and Subscriptions onely upon Protestant Principles who pretend to no Infallibility at all I have examined this Argument a little more at large to make him sensible how dangerous a thing it is to write after an Independent Copy for had any man intended to have burlesqued Infallibility as possibly his Author from whom he Transcribes did he could not have done it more effectually than by such Principles as these 6. His sixth Argument in Catholick Hierarchy the seventh for he has dropt one from the Nature of the Church which he made an Introduction of and there it has been considered is that this Catholick Headship is inseparable from an Ecclesiastical Body made up of subordinate Pastors and Churches may be abundantly evidenced from these following enumerated Church necessities The necessity 1. Of a Catholick judgment of Schism 2. Of a Catholick interpretation of Scriptures 3. Of a Catholick determination of Ceremonies for order and decency 4. For a Catholick composure of Forms of Prayer 5. For a Catholick Canonization of Saints 6. A Catholick Call and Convention of Councils Oecumenic Which are Word for Word the Argument of the Independent Author I shall briefly consider them all 1. The necessity of a Catholick judgment of Schism i. e. that there should be some Judges who are Schismaticks for otherwise 1. Patriarchal or National Churches may be Schismatical and no competent remedy found for the said Schism 2. There can be no determination of a Schism from the Catholick Church nor any proportionate punishment of it For a Patriarch or National Primate cannot be judicially proceeded against but by an Oecumenic Pastor which I think is the same with the first for a National Schism must be a Schism from the Catholick Church or none since National Churches among us depend on no foreign Patriarchs 3. Because superiour Churches are to judge the inferiour no particular Church has an absolute definitive Power in it self but there lies an Appeal against it to the Catholick Church and Pastor Which instead of proving that there is such a Catholick Pastor supposes that there is one for else there can lie no Appeal to him 4. That particular Churches will never agree about Schism but the very disputes about Schism will make Schisms without end Now suppose a man should turn the Tables and prove by this Argument that there is no Catholick Pastor nor Catholick Judge of Schism because there are and always have been Schisms in the Christian Church which it is impossible there should be did the Church know of such a Catholic Judge For how could there be any such dispute about Schism if there were such a Judge If you say that it is the not owning such a Judge which makes the Schisms That may be true but it is true also that it is a sign the Christian World does not know of any such Judge for if they did they would own him and put an end to their Schisms If it be necessary there should be such a Catholick Judge of Schism I am sure it is necessary he should be known or else as Experience testifies the disputes about such a Judge will make more Schisms than such an unknown and disputable Judge can ever end Now since there either is no such Catholick Judge of Schism or he is not sufficiently know to all Christians methinks it proves that there is no need of such a Catholick Judge of Schism for there is as much need â—e should be known in order to put an end to Schisms as that there should be such a Judge and if the necessity of ending Schisms proves that there should be such a Judge I am sure the continuance of Schisms proves as plainly that he is not known because he cannot end them It is ridiculous to imagine that there should be any such thing as Schism were there a known Oecumenical Pastor and Judge and it is as ridiculous to prove that there is such a Judge from the necessity of such a Judge to end Schisms when it is demonstrable from the continuance of these Schisms that the Christian World knows of no such Judge And it is very strange that Christ should appoint such a Judge and not take care that he should be known Good Arguments must convince Schismaticks in this World and Christ will judge them in
be intrusted with the Episcopal Insignia and ordinary Iurisdiction yet it s the avowed Doctrine of the Church of England that the giving the Power of Conferring Orders to a Presbyter is so contrary to the Divine Law that its ipso facto null and void and in pursuance of this Doctrine she Re-ordains all those who have had onely a Presbyter's Ordination even whilst she is against a Re-ordination And thus he has himself confuted his first Point The Agreement of the two Churches about the Ministry for a disagreement about the Power of Orders is so concerning a Point in the Ministry that there can be little agreement after it This determines the Dispute that Bishops do not differ in Order but onely in Degree from Presbyters for if Bishops by a Divine or Apostolical Institution were a distinct and superior Order Presbyters could never be intrusted with the ordinary Power and Jurisdiction of a Bishop such as the Power of conferring Orders is much less that a Presbyter should have Power to Consecrate Bishops and Bishops should be subject to Presbyters as he affirms of the Abbot of Hy This overthrows the Essential Constitution of the Ministry if Bishops are by Institution a Superior Order to Presbyters that Presbyters should have Authority to Consecrate and Govern Bishops and overthrows one of the principal Arguments for an Oecumenic Pastor as it is urged by our other Author from the power of conferring Orders which he says cannot be done but by a superiour Pastor and surely Presbyters though soveraign Abbots are not superiour Pastors to Bishops nor to Presbyters neither And yet the Church of England does not deny but that in case of necessity the Ordinations of Presbyters may be valid and upon this Principle justifies the Presbyterian Orders of Foreign Churches while such unavoidable necessity lasts as I have also done at large in the Vindication to which this Author so often refers But the case of Schism is a different thing and I believe our Author himself though he grants a Power to the Pope to entrust Presbyters with the power of conferring Orders will not say that Schismatical Presbyters may take this Power or that their Ordinations are valid if they do And this is the case between us and our Dissenters they ordain in a Schism and though necessity may make an irregular Act valid yet Schism will not And I would desire to know what reason it is for which they Null the Protestant Reformed Ministry which he says is so much less severe than the Principles of the Church of England The artifice of all this is visible enough to heighten and inflame the difference at this time between the Church of England and Dissenters but in vain is the Snare laid in the sight of any Bird. But that the Reader may better understand the Mystery of all this I shall briefly shew why the Church of Rome is so favorable to that Opinion that Bishops and Presbyters are of the same Order and differ onely in degree why they allow the Ordinations of Abbots Soveraign who are but Presbyters to be both valid and regugular that they are exempted from the Iurisdiction of the Diocesan and have in themselves Episcopal Authority whereby they can Ordain Correct Suspend Excommunicate and Absolve nay exercise this Jurisdiction over Bishops themselves as this Author tells us of the Abbot o Hy Which will shew how far we are from agreeing with the Church of Rome about Episcopal Power The plain Account of which in short is this That they distinguish their Orders in the Church of Rome with relation to the Sacrament of the Eucharist and since the Doctrine of Transubstantiation prevailed which is such a wonderful Mystery for a Priest to Transubstantiate the Elements into the Natural Flesh and Blood of Christ this is looked upon as the highest act of Power in the Christian Church and therefore that must be the highest Order which has the highest Power and since a meer Priest has this power of Consecration which is as high an Act as any Bishop can do therefore they conclude that Episcopacy is not an higher Order than the Priesthood but differs onely in Degrees with respect to the power of Jurisdiction And the competition between Popes and Bishops to serve their several Interests did mightily incline them to favour this Opinion The Papal Monarchy could never arrive at its utmost greatness without depressing and lessening the Authority of Bishops and therefore aspiring Popes granted Exemptions Dispensations and Delegations to Presbyters that there was no part of the Episcopal Office but what a Presbyter might do by Papal Delegations which made Presbyters equal to Bishops but advanced the Pope vastly above them When by these Arts which were often complained of the Pope's Power grew boundless and infinite and it was thought necessary to bring it lower it could not be done without calling in the assistance of Presbyters and allowing them to Vote in the Council For the majority of Bishops were engaged by Interest and Dependance to maintain the Papal Greatness and therefore if these matters must have been determined by the major Votes of Bishops there could be no remedy against the Papal Usurpations For which reason in the Council of Basil those Bishops who were devoted to the Interest of the Pope and knew they were able to secure the Cause if none but Bishops might Vote insisted on this That according to the Presidents of former Councils all matters might be determined onely by the Votes of Bishops and now the equality of Order between Bishops and Presbyters was trumpt up to serve another turn to prove their right to Vote in Councils to assist those Bishops who groaned under Papal Usurpations in some measure to cast off that Yoke and vindicate their own Liberties To this original the equality of Order between a Bishop and Presbyter is chiefly owing in the Church of Rome from this Authority the Abbots Soveraign derive their Power which is a subversion of the Supream Authority of Bishops has no president and would never have been allowed in the Primitive Church and therefore as for the Dispute about the Abbot of Hy what the matter of fact is which those learned men whom he assaults I doubt not are able to defend were there a just occasion for it is nothing to our purpose If it were as he says it is an intolerable encroachment upon the Episcopal Authority and void in it self We who deny Transubstantiation and disown any such Authority in the Pope to delegate the Episcopal Power to meer Presbyters do not I suppose very exactly agree with the Church of Rome in this matter 2. Much at the same rate we agree in asserting the difference between a Bishop and Presbyter to be of an immediate divine Right This indeed we do constantly affirm that the Institution of Episcopacy is by immediate divine Right but is this the currant Doctrine in the Church of Rome That he knew was false and therefore had