hâ— said he saw many Causes why the Clergâ— should be denied Wives but then he saw morâ— and greater Causes to allow them Wives again 10. WE receive and imbrace all the Canonical Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament and we give our gracious God most hearty Thanks that he hath set up this Light for us which we ever fix our Eyes upon lest by humane Fraud or the Snares of the Devil we should be seduced to Errors or Fables We own them to be the heavenly Voices by which God hath reveal'd and made known his Will to us in them only can the Mind of Man acquiesce in them all that is necessary for our Salvation is aboundantly and plainly contain'd as Origen St. Augustin St. Chrysostom and St. Cyrill have taught us They are the very Might and Power of God unto Salvation they are the Foundations of the Apostles and Prophets upon which the Church of God is built they are the most certain and infallible Rule by which the Church may be reduced if She happen to stagger slip or err by which all Ecclesiastical Doctrines ought to be tried no Law no Tradition no Custom is to be received or continued if it be contrary to Scripture No tho St. Paul himself or an Angel from Heaven should come and teach otherwise 11. WE receive also and allow the Sacraments of the Church that is the sacred Signs and Ceremonies which Christ commanded us to use that he might by them represent to our eyes the Mysteries of our Salvation and most strongly confirm the Faith we have in his Blood and seal in our Hearts his Grace and we call them Figures Signs Types Antitypes Forms Seals Prints or Signets Similitudes Examples Images Remembrances and Memorials with Tertullian Origen St. Ambrose St. Augustin St. Jerom St. Chrysostom St. Basil and Dionysius and many other Catholick Fathers Nor do we doubt with them to call them a kind of visible Words the Signets of Righteousness and the Symbols of Grace and clearly affirm that in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the Body and Blood of our Lord is truly exhibited to Believers that is the enlivening Flesh of the Son of God the Bread that comes from above the Nourishment of Immortality the Grace the Truth and the Life and that it is the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ by the Participation of which we are quickned strengthened and fed to immortality and by which we are conjoyned united and incorporated with Christ that we may remain in him and he in us 12. WE acknowledge that there are two Sacraments properly so call'd Baptism and the Supper of the Lord for so many we see were delivered to us and consecrated by Christ and approved by St. Ambrose St. Augustin and the ancient Fathers 13. AND we say that Baptism is the Sacrament of the Remission of Sins and of that Washing which we have in the Blood of Christ and that none are to be denied that Sacrament who will profess the Faith of Christ no not the Infants of Christians because they are born in sin and belong to the People of God 14. WE say that the Eucharist is the Sacrament or visible Symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ in which the Death and Resurrection of Christ and what he did in his humane Body is in a manner represented to our eyes that we may give him thanks for his Death and our Deliverance by it and that by frequenting the Sacrament we may often renew the Remembrance of it and that by the Body and Blood of Christ we may be nourished into the Hope of the Resurrection and of eternal Life and that we may be assured that the Body and Blood of Christ hath the same effect in the feeding of our Souls which the Bread and Wine have in the repairing the Decays of our Bodies To this great and solemn Feast the People are to be invited that they may all communicate together and may publickly signifie and testifie both their Union and Society amongst themselves and that Hope which they have in Christ Jesus and therefore if there was any one heretofore before the private Mass was introduced who would be only a Spectator and yet would abstain from the Holy Communion the Bishops of Rome in the Primitive Times and the ancient Fathers would have excommunicated him as a wicked man and a Pagan Nor was there any Christian man in those times who communicated alone in the presence of others who were only Spectators So Calixtus long since decreed that when the Consecration was finished all should communicate if they would not be deprived of the Communion of the Church and be shut out of it for so saith he the Apostles ordained and the Holy Church of Rome holds And we say that both the Parts of the Sacrament ought to be given to all that come to the Holy Communion for so Christ commanded and the Apostles instituted throughout the World and all the ancient Fathers and Catholick Bishops so practised and if any one shall do otherwise saith Gelasius he commits Sacriledge and therefore our Adversaries who exploding and rejecting the Communion defend the private Mass and a multitude of Sacraments without the authority of the Word of God without any ancient Council without any Catholick Father without any Example of the Primitive Church and without Reason and this against the express Command of Christ and also against all Antiquity in so doing act wickedly and sacrilegiously 15. WE say that the Bread and Wine are the Holy and Heavenly Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ and that in them Christ himself the true Bread of eternal Life is so exhibited to us as present that we do by Faith truly take his Body and Blood and yet at the same time we speak not this so as if we thought the Nature of the Bread and Wine were totally changed and abolished as many in the last Ages have dreamt and as yet could never agree amongst themselves about this Dream For neither did Christ ever design that the Wheaten Bread should change its Nature and assume a new kind of Divinity but rather that it might change us and that as Theophylact saith we might be trans-elemented into his Body For what can be more perspicuous than what St. Ambrose saith on this occasion the Bread and Wine are what they were and yet are changed into another thing Or what Gelasius saith The Substance of the Bread and Nature of the Wine do not cease to be Or then what Theodoret after the Consecration the mystical Symbols do not cast off their own proper Nature for they remain in their former Substance and Figure and Species Or then what St. Augustin saith that which you see is Bread and a Cup as your Eyes inform you but that which your Faith desires to be instructed in is this the Bread is the Body of Christ and the Cup is his
number of Intercessors without any Authority of the Word of God so that as Jeremiah saith According to the number of thy Cities so are thy Gods so that miserable men know not which to apply themselves to and tho they are innumerable yet they have ascribed to each of them their Office and what was to be obtained had and received from each of them but also because they have not only impiously but impudently solicited the Virgin Mary that she would remember she is a Mother that she would be pleased to command her Son and that she would make use of the Authority she hath over him 21. WE say that Man is born and does live in Sin and that no man can truly say his Heart is clean that the most holy Man is an unprofitable Servant that the Law of God is perfect and requires of us a full and perfect Obedience and that we cannot in any way keep it perfectly in this Life and that there is no Mortal who can be justified in the sight of God by his own Deserts and therefore our only Refuge and Safety is in the Mercy of God the Father by Jesus Christ and in the assuring our selves that he is the Propitiation for our Sins by whose Blood all our Stains are washed out that he has pacified things by the Blood of his Cross that He by that only Sacrifice which he once offered upon the Cross hath perfected all things and therefore when he breathed out his Soul said IT IS FINISHED as if by these words he would signifie now the Price is paid for the Sins of Mankind 22. NOW if there be any who think not that this Sacrifice is sufficient let them go and find out a better but as as for us because we know this is the only Sacrifice we are contented with it alone nor do we expect any other and because it was only once to be offered we do not injoyn the Repetition of it and because it was full and in all its Numbers and Parts perfect we do not substitute to it the perpetual Successions of our own Sacrifices 23. THO we say there is no trust to be put in the Merits of our Works and Actions and place all the Hopes and Reason of our Salvation only in Christ yet we do not therefore say that men should live loosely and dissolutely as if Baptism and Faith were sufficient for a Christian and there were nothing more required the true Faith is a living Faith and cannot be idle therefore we teach the People that God hath not call'd us to Luxury and Disorder but as St. Paul saith Unto good Works that we might walk in them That God hath delivered us from the Power of Darkness that we might serve the living God that we should root up all the Reliques of sin that we should work out our Salvation with fear and trembling that it might appear that the Spirit of Sanctification was in us and that Christ himself dwelleth in our Hearts by Faith 24. To conclude We believe that this Body of ours in which we live tho after Death it turns to Dust yet in the last day it shall return to Life again by the Spirit of Christ that dwelleth in us and that then whatever we suffer for Christ in the interim he will wipe away all Tears from our Eyes and that then through him we shall enjoy everlasting Life and be always with him in Glory AMEN CHAP. III. Containing a plain Demonstration of the Causes why and whence Heresies arose in the Church with Instances of all sorts in all Times THESE are the horrible Heresies for which a considerable part of the World at this day are condemn'd by the Pope unheard it had been better to have entered a Contest with Christ the Apostles and holy Fathers for they it was who did not only give a beginning to these Doctrines but commanded them unless they of the Church of Rome will say as perhaps they will that Christ did not institute the Holy Communion that it might be distributed amongst the Faithful or that the Apostles of Jesus Christ or the ancient Fathers said private Masses in all the corners of their Churches sometimes ten and at other twenty in one day or that Christ-and the Apostles deprived the People of the Cup or that That which they now do and that with that eagerness that whoever will not comply with them in it is by them condemn'd for an Heretick is not call'd Sacriledge by one of their own Popes Gelasius or that those are not the Words of Ambrosius Augustinus Gelasius Theodoret Chrisostom and Origen That the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament remain what they were before that that which is seen on the Holy Table is Bread that the Substance of the Bread doth not cease to be nor the nature of the Wine that the Substance and Nature of the Bread is not changed that this very Bread as to what concerns the Matter of it goes down into the Belly and is cast out by the Draught or that Christ and his Apostles and the Fathers did not pray in that Tongue which was understood by the People or that Christ by that one Oblation which he once offered hath not perfected the Work of our Redemption or that this Sacrifice was so imperfect that we need another Either they must say all these things or else they must aver which perhaps they had rather say that all Right and Justice is inclosed in the Cabinet of the Popes Breast and as one of his Followers and Flatterers once said that he may dispense against the Apostles against the Councils and against the Apostolical Canons and that he is not bound by those Examples Institutions and Laws of Christ 2. THUS we have been taught by Christ by the Apostles and Holy Fathers and we do faithfully teach the People of God the same things and for so doing we are called Hereticks by the great Leader and Prince of Religion O immortal God! What have Christ and his Apostles and so many Fathers all erred What are Origen Ambrose Augustin Chrysostom Gelasius and Theodoret Apostates from the Catholick Faith Was the Consent of so many Bishops and Learned men nothing but a Conspiracy of Hereticks or that which was commendable in them is it now blameable in us And that which was Catholick in them is it by a Change in the Wills of Men become schismatical in us Or that which was once true is it now because it displeaseth them become false Let them then produce a new Gospel or at least set forth their Reasons why those things which were so long publickly observed and approved in the Church ought now at last to be recall'd We know that the Word which was reveal'd by Christ and propagated by the Apostles is sufficient to promote our Salvation and all Truth and to convince all Heresies Out of it alone we condemn all sorts of ancient Heresies which they
IOHANNES IEWEL S. T. D. Episcopus Sarisburiensis THE APOLOGY OF THE Church of England AND An Epistle to one Seignior Scipio a Venetian Gentleman Concerning the Council of Trent Written both in Latin By the Right Reverend Father in God JOHN JEWEL Lord Bishop of Sarisbury Made English by a Person of Quality To which is added The LIFE of the said Bishop Collected and written by the same Hand LONDON Printed by T. H. for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1685. THE PREFACE TO THE READER THE ensuing Discourses are all designed for the Good and Service of the Religion by Law established and two of them are so excellently adapted to that end by their Author that if I have not spoiled them by an ill version there can be no doubt made but they will be of great use Of the Third I beg leave to give somewhat a larger Account because I am a little more concerned in it THE Life I have collected from Mr. Humfrey's who wrote Bishop Jewel's Life at large in Quarto 2. The English Life put before his Works which was pen'd about the Year 1609. 3. Mr. Fuller's Church History 4. Dr. Heylyn's Ecclesia Anglicana restaurata and others who wrote any thing that related to those times and fell into my hands in that short time I had to finish it in Mr. Humfrey's alone would have been sufficient if he had observed an exact Method in Writing this Life or been altogether free from Affections But tho he tell us Bishop Jewel kept a Diary of his Life and that he had assistance from Dr. Parkhurst Bishop of Norwich Aegidius Lawrence Mr. John Jewel the Bishops Brother and one Mr. John Garbrande and others and Printed his Piece in the Year 1573. Which was not much above two years after the Death of Bishop Jewel yet he has not observed any exact order or method in the History of his Life and he no where tells us in what Year he was made a Fellow or received Orders nor from whom only he tells us Mr. Harding took his Orders at the same time Nor has he acquainted us when Mr. Harding published his first or second Antapologies nor when the Bishop went to Padua nor how long he staid there nor who were his Partners in his Visitation for the Queen Nor has he marked almost any of the principal Actions of his Life when they were done and tho he mentions a Sermon at Paul's Cross and a Conference with the Dissenters not long before his death yet he neither tells us the time or occasion of either of them but instead of these runs out into Discourses against Harding and others of that Perswasion which were nothing or very little to his purpose THE English Life before his Works is only an Extract out of Mr. Humfrey's Latin Work but yet was helpful to me in many Particulars being done by a wise Man and who doth not seem to have been biassed as the former was who makes it his business to represent both the Church of England and Bishop Jewel as wonderous Friends to the Churches of Switzerland that is to the Calvinists because he Good Man was one himself tho not so mad as those that followed and upon this very account I do suspect he has left out many things that he might have related and would have afforded great light to the Church History of those times and especially to Bishop Jewel's Life Fuller is barren in his Relations of those times the Bishop lived after his Consecration tho he afforded me some good helps Dr. Burnett has continued his History but a little way in Queen Elizabeths time and Dr. Heylyn ended his with the beginning of the Year 1566. which was about Five Years before the death of Bishop Jewel and I have neither time nor leisure nor Interest to search the Records of those times and compare the Editions of Books and other things by which this Life might have been put into a better Method as to the timing of things And besides all this it were perhaps indecent to put a long Life before two such small Tractates as I am to entertain my Reader with but yet I hope the Life such as it is will give some light to the Discourses and raise a venerable Idea of this good Bishop in the Readers mind which were the things I chiefly aimed at in the Writing of it As to the Pieces the first of these the Apology was written in Latin in the beginning of the Year 1562. or the latter end of the foregoing Year and was occasioned by Pope Pius the Fourth his calling the Council of Trent and sending his Nuncio Martiningo to invite the Queen to it and the interposition of most of the greatest Princes of Christendom who wrote to the Queen to entertain the Nuncio and submit to the Council Whereupon it was thought but reasonable to give the World an account of what we had done in the preceding Parliament and the reasons of it and to retort the many Accusations brought against our Church by the Papists And therefore it was but reasonable that it should be in Latin that being the most common Language and understood by the Learned Men of all Nations and accordingly it found entertainment in all places and was read in them Which is more perhaps than can be said of any other Book written for our Church since the Reformation Mr. Harding had a great Quarrel against it because it was not inscribed neither to the Pope nor to the Council But there being no reason to make them our Judges and they having no right to claim that Authority over us it had been a great oversight to have made any such Inscription which would have been a kind of making them what they had neither right nor reason to expect to be and from whom we could expect no Justice The Natives had without doubt a great desire to see what was in this Book which then made so great a noise in the World and the Learned Men being then otherwise imployed a Lady who was one of the most Learned of the Age undertook that task and made a very Faithful and perhaps Elegant Version of it for the time when it was made She was then Wife to Sir Nicholas Bacon Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England second Daughter to Sir Anthony Cooke Knight one of the Tutors to King Edward the Sixth who being an excellent Scholar had taken care to improve his Five Daughters so much in Learning that they became the Wonders of the Age and were sought in Marriage by great Men more for their natural and acquired Endowments and Beauty than for their Portions tho they did not want that neither Mildred the eldest married William Cecil Lord Treasurer of England Anne the second was this Lady Bacon Katherine the third married Sir Henry Killigrew Elizabeth the fourth married Sir Thomas Hobby the fifth whose name is lost married Sir Ralph Rowlet all three Knights
by these gentle and mild ways of Correption the Dissenters of those times treated him for it with as little respect as Mr. Harding and his Confraternity had before as Bishop Whitgift assures us his words are these They the Dissenters will not stick saith he in commending themselves to deface all others yea even that notable JEWEL whose both Labour and Learning they do envy and amongst themselves deprave as I have heard with mine own ears and a number more besides For further proof whereof I do refer you to the report that by this faction was spread of him after his last Sermon at Paul's Cross because he did confirm the Doctrine before preached by a famous and learned man touching obedience to the Prince and Laws It was strange saith he to me to hear so notable a Bishop so learned a Man so stout a Champion of true Religion so painful a Prelate so ungratefully and spitefully used by a sort of wavering wicked and wretched Tongues but it is their manner be you never so welll learned never so painful so zealâ—us so vertuous all is nothing with them but they will deprave you rail on you back-bite you invent lyes of you and spread false rumours as though you were the vilest Persons in the whole earth THUS writes that venerable Arch-bishop in his Defence of the Answer to the Admonition p. 423. upon occasion of a Paper written also about this time by Bishop Jewel upon certain frivolous Objections against the Government of the Church of England made by Thomas Cart wright which the Bishop had confuted and Cartwright writing against him Whitgift defended them in this place and by the by shews how ill the good Bishop was treated for his last Sermon at Paul's Cross by this generation of Vipers which extorted from him that Protestation he made on his Death-bed of which I shall give an account hereafter BEING naturally of a spare and thin Body and thus restlesly trashing it out with reading writing preaching and travelling he hastened his death which happened before he was full fifty years of Age of which he had a strange Perception a considerable time before it happened and wrote of it to several of his Friends but would by no means be perswaded to abate any thing of his former excessive Labours saying A Bishop should die preaching THO he ever governed his Diocess with great diligence yet perceiving his death approaching he began a new and more severe Visitation of it correcting the Vices of the Clergy and Laity more sharply injoyning them in some places tasks of Holy Tracts to be learned by heart conferring Orders more carefully and preaching oftener HAVING promised to preach at Lacock in Wiltshire a Gentleman who met him going thither observing him to be very ill by his looks advised him to return home assuring him it was better the People should want one Sermon than to be altogether deprived of such a Preacher But he would not be perswaded but went thither and preached his last Sermon out of the fifth to the Galat. Walk in the Spirit c. which he did not finish without great labour and difficulty THE Saturday following being the 22d of September 1571. he piously and devoutly rendered up his Soul into the Hands of God having first made a very devout and Christian Exhortation to those that were about him and expressing much dislike of one of his Servants who prayed for his Recovery He died at Monketon farly when he had been a Bishop almost twelve years and was buried almost in the middle of the Quire of his Cathedral Church and Aegidius Lawrence preached his Funeral Sermon He was extreamly bewailed by all men and a great number of Latin Greek and Hebrew Verses were made on this occasion by learned men which are collected and printed by Mr. Lawrence Humfrey Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxon in the end of his Life written in Latin by the order of that University nor has his name been since mentioned by any Man without such Elogies and Commendations as befitted so great so good so learned and laborious a Prelate HAVING thus brought him to his Grave my Reader may be pleased to permit me to collect some particular things which could not so well be inserted into the History of his Life without breaking the thread of it HE had naturally a very strong Memory which he had strangely improved by Art Mr. Humfrey gives several Examples of this but I will instance in two only John Hooper Bisop of Glocester who was burnt in the Reign of Queen Mary once to try him writ about forty Welsn and Irish words Mr. Jewel going a little while aside and recollecting them in his Memory and reading them twice or thrice over said them by heart backward and forward exactly in the same order they were set down And another time he did the same by ten Lines of Erasmus his Paraphrase in English the words of which being read sometimes confusedly without order and at other times in order by the Lord Keeper Bacon Mr. Jewel thinking a while on them presently repeated them again backward and forward in their right order and in the wrong just as they were read to him and he taught his Tutor Mr. Parkhurst the same Art THO his Memory were so great and so improved yet he would not intirely rely upon it but entered down into Common place Books whatever he thought he might afterwards have occasion to use which as the Author of his Life informs us were many in number and great in quantity being a vast Treasure of Learning and a rich Repository of Knowledge into which he had collected Sacred Profanne Poetick Philosophick and Divine Notes of all sorts and all these he had again reduced into a small piece or two which were a kind of General Indexes which he made use of at all times when he was to speak or write any thing which were drawn up in Characters for brevity and thereby so obscured that they were not of any use after his Death to any other person And besides these he ever kept Diaries in which he entered whatever he heard or saw that was remarkable which once a year he perused and out of them extracted what ever was more remarkable AND from hence it came to pass that whâ—â—â—eas Mr. Harding in that great Controversie they had abounded only in Words Bishop Jewel overwhelm'd him with a cloud of Witnesses and Citations out of the ancient Fathers Councils and Church Historians confirming every thing with so great a number of incontestableo Authorities that Mr. Harding durst never after pretend to a second perfect and full Answer but contented himself with snarling at some small pieces the truth is as Dr. Heylyn observes all the following Controversies were in this point beholding to the indefatigable Industry of this great Leader YET he was so careful in the use of his own Common place Books that when he was to write his Defence of
SO we therefore because we are taken by them for mad-men and are traduced as if we were Hereticks and as if we had nothing to do with Christ nor with the Church of God have thought it not unreasonable or unprofitable to propound openly and freely the Faith in which we stand and all that Hope which we have in Christ Jesus that all may see what we think of every part of the Christian Religion and so determine with themselves whether that Faith which they must needs perceive to be consonant to the Words of Christ and the Writings of the Apostles and the Testimonies of the Catholick Fathers and which is confirmed by the Examples of many Ages be only the Rage of a sort of mad-men and a Combination or Conspiracy of Hereticks CHAP. II. Containing the Doctrine received in the Church of England WE believe that there is one certain Nature and Divine Power which we call GOD and that this is distinguished into three equal Persons the Father Son and Holy Ghost all of the same Power of the same Majesty of the same Eternity of the same Divinity and of the same Substance and altho' these three Persons are so distinguished that the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Holy Ghost or Father yet there is but one GOD and that this one God created Heaven and Earth and whatever is contain'd within the Circumference of the Heavens 2. WE believe that Jesus Christ the only Son of the eternal Father as it had been decreed before the beginning of all things when the fulness of time came took our Flesh and perfect Humane Nature of that blessed and pure Virgin that he might reveal to Men that hidden and secret Will of his Father which was conceal'd from all former Ages and Generations and that in this humane Body he might finish the Mystery of our Redemption and might nail to his Cross our Sins and the Obligation which lay against us 3. FOR we believe that for our sakes he died was buried descended into Hell and the third day by a Divine Power returned to Life and arose and after forty days in the sight of his Disciples ascended into Heaven that he might fill all things and that the very Body in which he was born in which he convers'd in which he was despised in which he had suffered most grievous Torments and a most direful Death in which he rose and now ascended to the right hand of his Father was placed above all Principalities and Power and every Name which is mentioned not only in this World but in that which is to come in Majesty and Glory And we believe that he doth now sit there and shall sit there till all things are fulfil'd and altho the Majesty and Divinity of Christ is diffused every where yet his Body as St. Augustine saith ought to be in one place we believe that tho Christ added Majesty to his Body yet he took not from it the Nature of a Body nor is Christ to be so asserted to be God that we should deny him to be Man and as the Martyr Vigilius said Christ left us as to his Humane Nature but he hath not left us in his Divine Nature and tho he is absent from us by the Form of a Servant yet he is ever with us by the Form of God 4. AND from thence we believe Christ shall return to exercise a general Judgment as well upon those he shall then find alive as upon all that are then dead 5. WE believe that the Holy Ghost who is the third Person in the Holy Trinity is true God not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding from both that is from the Father and the Son in a way neither known to Mortals nor possible to be expressed by them We believe that it is He who softens the Hardness of Mans Heart when he is received into their Hearts by the saving preaching of the Gospel or by any other way whatsoever that it is He who inlightens them and leads them to the Knowledge of God into all the ways of Truth into a perfect newness of Life and a perpetual hope of Salvation 6. WE believe that there is one Church of God and that not consin'd as it was heretofore to the Jewish People in one Angle or Kingdom but that it is Catholick and Universal and so diffused or spread over the Face of the whole Earth that there is no Nation which can justly complain that it is excluded and cannot be admitted into the Church and People of God that this Church is the Kingdom the Body and Spouse of Christ that Christ is the only Prince of this Kingdom that there is in the Church divers Orders of Ministers that there are some who are Deacons others who are Presbyters and others who are Bishops to whom the Instruction of the People and the Care and Management of Religion is committed And yet that there neither is nor is it possible there should be any one man who has the care of this whole Catholick Church for Christ is ever present with his Church and needs not a Vicar or sole and perfect Successor and that no mortal Man can in his mind contain all the Body of the Universal Church that is all the parts of the Earth much less can he reduce them into an exact Order and rightly and prudently administer its Affairs That the Apostles as St. Cyprian saith were all of equal Power and Authority and that all the rest were what St. Peter was that it was said to all alike Feed To all go ye into all the World To all teach ye the Gospel And that as St. Jerome saith All Bishops wheresoever they are setled whether it be at Rome or Eugubium at Constantinople or Rhegium they are of equal Worth and of the same Priesthood And as St. Cyprian saith there is but one Episcopacy and each of them hath a perfect and intire share of it And that according to the Judgment and Sentence of the Council of Nice the Bishop of Rome hath no more Authority in the Church of God than the other Patriarchs viz. the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch That the Bishop of Rome who now endeavours to draw all the Ecclesiastical Authority to himself alone if he doth not his Duty that is if he doth not administer the Sacraments if he doth not instruct the People Admonish and Teach he is not to be call'd a Bishop or indeed a Presbyter for as St. Augustin saith Bishop is the Name of a Work or Office and not a Title of Honour so that he who would usurp an unprofitable Preheminence in the Church is no Bishop But then that the Bishop of Rome or any other Person should be the Head of the whole Church or an universal Bishop is no more possible than that he should be the Bridegroom the Light the Salvation and the Life of the Church for these are the Priviledges and Titles of
Christ alone and do properly and only belong to him nor was there ever any Bishop of Rome who would suffer so insolent and proud a Title to be given him before the Times of Phocas the Emperor who as we very well know aspired to the Empire by a most detestable Villany the Murther of Mauritius the former Emperor his Soveraign that is till the year of Christ 613. That the Council of Carthage expressly decreed that no Bishop should be called the highest Pâ—ntiff or chief Priest But the Bishop of Rome because he now desires to be so call'd and usurps a Power which belongs not to him besides that he acts directly against the ancient Councils and the Fathers if he dares believe St. Gregory one of his own Predecessors he has taken upon him an arrogant prophane sacrilegious antichristian Title and is therefore the King of Pride Lucifer one that sets himself above his Brethren who has denied the Faith and is thereby become the fore-runner of Antichrist 7. WE say that a Minister ought to have a lawful Call and be duly and orderly preferred in the Church of God and that no Man ought at his own Will and Pleasure to intrude into the sacred Ministry So that a very great Injury is done us by them who so frequently affirm that nothing is done decently and in order with us but all things are managed confusedly and disorderly and that with us all that will are Priests Teachers and Interpreters 8. WE say that Christ has given to his Ministers the Power of Binding and Loosing of Opening and Shutting And we say that the Power of Loosing consists in this that the Minister by the preaching of the Gospel offers to dejected Minds and true Penitents through the Merits of Christ Absolution and doth assure them of a certain Remission of their Sins and the hopes of eternal Salvation Or secondly reconciles restores and receives into the Congregation and Unity of the Faithful those Penitents who by any grievous Scandal or known and publick Offence have offended the Minds of their Brethren and in a sort alienated and separated themselves from the common Society of the Church and the Body of Christ And we say the Minister doth exercise the Power of Binding or Shutting when he shuteth the Gate of the Kingdom of Heaven against Unbelievers and obstinate Persons and denounceth to them the Vengeance of God and eternal Punishment or excludeth out of the Bosome of the Church those that are publickly excommunicated and that God himself doth so far approve whatever Sentence his Ministers shall so give that whatsoever is either loosed or bound by their Ministry here on Earth he will in like manner bind or loose and confirm in Heaven The Key with which these Ministers do shut or open the Kingdom of Heaven we say with St. Chrysostom is the Knowledge of the Scripture with Tertullian is the Interpretation of the Law and with Eusebius is the Word of God We say the Disciples of Christ received this Power from him not that they might hear the private Confessions of the People and catch their whispering Murmurs as the Popish Priests every where now do and that in such a manner as if all the force and use of the Keys consisted only in this but that they might go and Preach and Publish the Gospel that so they might be a savour of Life unto Life to them that did believe and that they might be also a savour of Death unto Death to those that did not believe that the Minds of the Pious who were affrighted with the sense of their former ill Lives and Errors after they beheld the Light of the Gospel and believed in Christ might be opened by the Word of God as doors are with a Key And that the wicked and stubborn who would not believe and return into the Way might be left shut up and locked and as St. Paul expresseth it might wax worse and worse this we take to be the meaning of the Keys and that in this manner the Consciences of Men are either bound or loosed We say that the Priest is a Judge but then we say with St. Ambrose that he hath not the Right of any Dominion and therefore Christ reprehended the Scribes and Pharisees with these words that he might reprove their Negligence in teaching Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees for you have taken away the Key of Knowledge and shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men. Seeing then the Key by which a Passage is opened for us into the Kingdom of Heaven is the Word of the Gospel and the Interpretation of the Law and the Scriptures where there is no such Word there is no Key And seeing the same word was given to all and the Key which pertains to all is but one we say that the Power of all Ministers as to binding and loosing is one and the same and we say that even the Pope himself notwithstanding his Flatterers do so sweetly sooth him up with these words I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven as if they belonged to him and to no other Mortal under Heaven except he makes it his Business to bend and subdue the Consciences of Men to the Word of God we deny that even he as I said can either open or shut or hath at all the Keys and altho he â—oth teach and instruct the People which I wish he would sometimes do truly and at last be perswaded to believe it is at least some part of his Duty and Office but yet if he did so his Key would be neither better nor greater than that of others for who made that difference Who taught him to open more learnedly or absolve more powerfully than his Brethren 9. WE say that Marriage is Honorable and Holy in all degrees of Men in Patriarchs in Prophets in Apostles in Holy Martyrs in the Ministers of the Churches and in the Bishops and that as St. Chrysostom saith it is both lawful and just that he should ascend the Episcopal Throne with it and we say as Sozomen did of Spiridion and Nazianzen did oâ— his own Father that a pious and industriouâ— Bishop is nothing the worse for being married buâ— rather much the better and more useful in his Ministery And we say that the Law which by force taketh away this Liberty from Men anâ—ties them to a single Life against their Wills is as St. Paul stiles it the Doctrine of Devils and that from hence as is confessed by thâ— Bishop of Augusta Faber the Abbot of Paleâ—mo Latomus the tripartite Work which 〈◊〉 joyned to the second Tome of the Councilâ— and other defenders of the Papal Party and which is apparent from the thing it self and confessed by all Histories an incredible imâ—purity of Life and Manners and horriblâ— Debaucheries in the Ministers of God havâ— sprung and arisen so that Pius the secondâ— Bishop of Rome was not out when