Apostolical Rule in my Text in your own hands to measure and Judge as Solomon once did between two Mothers the true and the pretended For a Private Person with God to guide him may judge Infallibly which Church most agrees with God for a wavering eye and a trembling hand having a streight and a stable rule and line to guide it partakes of the stability and streightness that directs it the guide and guided being one and the same person by fiction and agreement And the Roman Catholick themselves as they love to be called cannot be denied to be every Mothers Son as Infallible as the Judge himself or their Church is to whom they give themselves entirely over to be guided by them take therefore in Gods name Gods clear mind and measure and judge impartially with the heart and soul and in the strength of him that guides you Your Holy Mother the Church of England hath nourished you up in a Sound and Orthodox Religion and Worship which you and your Prosterity can understand and therefore say Amen to it from your hearts because you understand it The great pretender of Rome starves her Children at Nurse and all their life time in their own Territories by Politick Ignorance and binds and enslaves their stoutest Champions in chains of darkness and of implicit faith and blind obedience the better to keep them under in Captivity and slavery to serve her unworthy and unnatural designs and to fight against the Truth as the Turk breeds up deluded Janizaries to War and subdue their own Fathers and Mothers and people which absolute and blind subjection of the heart to any man on Earth is Idolatry in the giver and the taker Is it not lamentable to consider how prophane and perfidious the guides of the Church of Rome are towards God and their people committed to their charge and in deceiving the one and mocking the other with a worship in an unknown tongue without the heart and understanding which is therefore a meer nullity by the Divine Doctrine of my Text and by common sense and therefore no worship at all but Idleness and â—â—â—â—ccation approaching to Idolatry Religion without the mind is not Religion or Worship but a shew or Stage-Play or a Counterfeit of Religion as the Scene is of Truth and History where an Actor or a Mimick stands for a Prince as here the shadow for the substance or crossing of the body for the contrition of the soul and all are able to know and understand very well the whole management in both to be a meer divertisement of the fancy only more sufferable on the Stage than in the Church in Gods presence where more sobriety and seriousness of mind is required and nothing else in point of Truth and reality because the Original Persons and parties are absent and wanting there the true Hero and here the Truth of the heart A sincere Protestant is grieved and troubled at every straggling thought and the least deviation of his heart at Prayer in Gods presence as a great and griveous affront and contempt of the Divine Majesty like turning our backs to a Prince while we are speaking to him But our confident Bigots of Rome by their Publick and common pactice maintain and defend that God is best worshipped when he is so affronted and despised and that the total absence of the heart and understanding so there be an outward Opus operatum with lip and breath is no sin at all but right Catholick Devotion most agreeing with the Deity If mumbling Pater Nosters and Ave Maries whether at Church or Closet or at Cards or Plays as Witches do Charms without knowledge or Attention or meaning make good and current Roman-Catholick Devotion then Parrots and Magpyes and Apes may commence Catholick Disciples of the Roman-Catholick Salvation And upon this score perhaps it was that one of the great and Sainted Patriarchs of an order amongst them began to bestow his pains and zeal in Preaching to Birds When men in contrariety to the Apostle in my Text judge it fanatical Innovation to Worship God as Protestants do with the heart and understanding They that so exclude the heart in the first place as needless will they not exclude the Lord likewise in the second place for these two are Correlates take away the one and take away the other also where the heart and the Lord are shut out in the first and second place will not the fear of the Lord be excluded likewise though the beginning of wisdom in the third place And where the fear of the Lord is once banisht from Religion is there any sin or Villany in Soul or Body that such Religious Atheists will boggle at to act and prepetrate at opportunity or temptation when it may with safety be committed and with impunity from the Laws of man It s well that Church exceeds all others in Pardons and Absolutions if such seives hold water for their Principles cut out work enough for Pardons and if their own allowed and best Historians are to be believed the practices of their chiefest Popes come not short of their Principles How deplorable and sad is the condition of such a Church to which no further degree of disorder and misery can be added or imagin'd Nor the Devil drive this nail further to the head than that they should strongly believe themselves to be the sole and only Catholicks salvable and infallible in such gross and damnable Errours And yet upon such holy guides such infallible Rocks the Roman-Catholick Church is built For all with them are bound to believe as the Church that is the Pope believes whom they believe to be infallible For though their lives are often frail and vicious yet their Doctrines or Testimonies for God say they are ever firm and true As if a Vicious life were not an effectual quenching and renouncing of the whole Faith of such a person during such impenitence or as if a Debauch'd person or Atheist were a fit witness for the Christian Faith much less the Judge thereof He that will be Infallible for another ought first to be Infallible for himself and his own Salvation And every man is bound upon his everlasting Peril to be as Infallible as he can for himself and his Brethren But as a Creature no man is or can be Infallible nec vox hominem Sonat but more or less he may be Infallible by help from without according as he is guided wholly or in part by God who is alone Infallible And the issue and whole state of the cause and difference between Protestants and Papists lyes in the right choice and election of their Infallible guide and judge Who this is being the great Question There is no judge under God and Christ the sole judge of quick and dead but the invict Supream Powers himself hath appointed in all Kingdoms and Churches and private breasts Invict Conscience in every private man in all Private and all Eternal concerns Invict
the great esteem and contempt that Syberwid and Ansyberwid was and is in still amongst them that have kept their Language and Ancient Customs most free from Forreign mixtures for with such no man can fall under a worse or better character them of Syberw or Ansyberw no greater commendation have they for any man or woman than gwr or gwraig Syberw no greater note of Infamy and unworthyness than Ansyberw which they pronounce as Suber and Ansuber though writ with y which words whatever is their Etymology in their common acception carry a comprehensive signification of several good and evil qualities as ingredients And 1 it is manifest Syberw in the first surface denotes liberality as Ansyberw niggardness but then further it points at the cause and reason of both for 2 such a man is to be allowed Syberw that doth by all men as he would be done by and the contrary is Ansyberw so is he that takes greater measure to himself than he will afford to others so are all that can endure to fare richly while their Neighbours starve by them and Syberw is he that is watchful and resolute against all avaritious inequality and overreaching or unconcernedness for others that be in want and misery so that Syberw is just and mercyful as well as Liberal and Ansyberw unjust and merciless 3 It implies some inequality when a man strives to be kinder ro another than to himself and pinches himself in back and belly to be kind and liberall to many as I have known vety good Women who went habited scare above beggars and of proportionable abstinence in their diet who if they had worn all their large almes upon their backs from year to year which they valued above all gayety and good fare might have appear'd and far'd as splendid as any of their rank and know by this time they made a better choice and herein is the essence and formality of Syberwid and such an engrafted traditional honour and esteem there is for such amongst the Brittains that their names are mentioned with great and cordial dearness as if this were to be a Saint for faith and all vertues are presumed to be in that man or woman where this temper is found and though it may seem unreasonable or at least a work of Superogation to love another above himself yet they judge nothing to be a greater duty and content and blessing as indeed what is more Divine and Honourable and the source all noble actions and rewards exposeing life for Country c. and in their common bargains and measures they abhorr and dread precise and exact equality without some addition or voluntary overplus of kindness to another they deal with above the strict contract and they had rather abate of the price agteed than be disabled to give the said addition as their free guift over and above their bargain which they proverbially call rhád-duw or Gods Grace and Blessing And the giver is as Willing or rather more to give his Rhad-duw into the bargain than the other to receive it 4 It takes in conscience and the heart above all they 'l hardly receive it if it comes not from the heart and from no ends but as a free guift and he that is Ansyberw is therefore hateful with them because esteemed to have no conscience and he that is Syberw from the heart is call'd glan ei galon or clear spirited which is the loveliest Character they judge any man can deserve or receive and probably Syberw comes from Sobrius and Sobrius from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Etymology of it whereby it signifies the preservation of the mind and heart which is done they conceive by nothing more than Syberwid as the mind and soul is destroyed and corrupted by nothing more than Ansyberwid which is the same with Philauâ— or self love as appears by the premises so hateful with St. Paul and our Brittans and with all good men so that by this their imbred tradition received amongst all undegenerate Brittains both high and low they judge honesty and mercy and love to others above themselves as in the case of humility to be their self-preservation and chiefest Interest and surest method to prosper And no wonder they preferr'd this hearty Syberwid before all other vertues it being nothing else but that love which is the fulfilling of the Law or that charity from a pure heart which is the end of the commandment and the total of all Religion for what excellency or degeneracy is there in human or Christian nature that is not contain'd in Syberw and avoided in Ansyberw What is honour in Nobles honestum with Romans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Greeks humility and charity with Christians is all comprehended in Syberw And this Brittish Principle and Custom is so undoubtedly Apostolical and Primitive that nothing more is the root and cause of the Arrogance and troublesomness of Popery or of that hollowness and Hippocrisie that hath too much prevail'd in Modern Protestancy and Puritanism it self than the manifest want thereof Some of our degenerate Gentry ought to compare their ignoble and sinful constant healthing and swilling while they can hardly spare a glass of Water to Christ in their poor Neighbour with this sober and salvifical principle of their Progenitours who it is to be believed never met to r Gyrald Cambrens descript Camb. c. 9. drink but in relation to Cymmortha and these are so much Brittains they say in their servile imitations of forreign vitious Customs that the health of an Ansyberw or niggaâ—dly selfish person was never known to go round amongst them but only of the Syberw and generous This character of our Brittish Church in her Doctrines and Rites is exactly the same with that which Å¿ Epiphanius lib 3. in sine Epiphanius gives of the Primitive Catholick which the Church of England this day professes to follow and to retrive which is the same Church with the Ancient Brittish Church the Brittains and the English being the same People not only in Faith and worship but in Laws and bloud and greater alliance in Doctrine and Consanginity to be found between them than between Alexander and Clement modern Italians and Linus and Anacletus their predecessors Ancient Romans as may further appear The Brittish Church therefore appearing from undoubted evidence and their adversaries exceptions to be so sound and Ancient in the substance of her Orthodox Faith to impute schism to it for her distance or departure from the Roman her Junior or to ask where was your Church before Luther is a cavil not only ignorantly groundless but inpudently ridiculous if they pretend to be in their Sences that urge it They may with as much colour of reason object a separation in us from Prester-John or the Church of the Abyssines well known perhaps to our Fore-Fathers when they met at Jerusalem whither both resorted with whom as with all other Churches of Christendom and as many as are allowed
worldly design and private ends shall be most Uncatholick and so the Catholicism of their Church is more like to fall and vanish likewise But if they call themselves Catholicks for distinction from Protestants who pass with them but for Hereticks they are again very grossly mistaken in their Criticism For Orthodox b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. tit 12. c. ◠is contrary to Heretick and Catholick to Jew which was the first and Original sense of this word upon the Gentiles being taken into the Church as well as Jews And Protestants are no more Jews than themselves as is not doubted Nor perhaps so much for they are liker to the Jews in confining Gods Church within the Roman Pale as the other did within their Palestine But we Protestants Catholickly extend and enlarge it to all Nations according to the promises made to Abraham the Catholic◠Fathe◠of many Nations as the name God gave him imports as well as the particular Father of the Jews Therefore the Title Catholick more belongs in Truth and reason to Protestants than to our Romanists who are so restrain'd and Vncatholick and Jewish-like in the bounds of their Church which they so confine to Rome And by their waving the Title Orthodoxe which had been more proper for their distinguishing design they fatally allow Protestants for such and disallow themselves They therefore are in Truth neither Orthodox nor Catholick but only New Roman or a private Earthly Church below or a modern Italian Jerusalem that is in exile and bondage with her Children Not favouring either of the Apostolical purity of the right Christian or the Orthodoxy of the Ancient Roman or the Heavenliness and Spirituality of Jerusalem which is above the Mother of all true Christians who are in Heaven by Faith They are therefore in Truth but New Roman-Catholicks as who should say an Old-New a Particular-universal a Spiritual-carnal a Heavenly-earthly Church made up of Contradiction and Hypocrisy and Earth Whose chief end and Interest is the Advancement and glory of Rome not of Christ high like Kites in their soring pretences to eye Dunghills for prey the better making silly Souls to believe the only way to be saved is to become their Spiritual Slaves and Tributaries and to go to Rome and Heaven to be all one Which with an answerable personal Holiness of life without which none can see God might well be true of the old Apostolical Rome and any other Church agreeing with it in the like sound Rule and Doctrine but it is far from true as to the Modern Apostatical for it is a great and a gross mistake to take or imagine the Church of Rome Ancient and present to be one and the same because of the same Sirname and patch'd Succession for it is not name-sake or Succession which yet goes far with superficial judgments unlike to God that by their principles neglect and lay by the heart but the same soundness of Life and Doctrine or hearts in the same Heaven not feet in the same house or Countrey that make Churches to be the same and true the want whereof or any notorious corruption in Faith or Manners by the rules of Christianity cuts off and debars the Communion of Christians Members much more the Succession of Christian Governours For how can any succeed to be Heads where by the Apostolical Law they are out of capacity to be members of a Christian Church 1 Cor. 5.11 The old Roman Church for the first 400 years before Rome was burnt and several times sack'd and brought to the dust as before did disapprove the wayes and Doctrines of the Modern and consequently its Communion as much as we Protestants for she did not Worship Saints or Images nor slight and suppress the Scriptures under colour of respect nor curtayle Sacraments and Divine Institutions Nor usurp'd upon Christ nor Crowns nor Churches nor Consciences nor upon the liberties of our Brittish Church in particular as they cannot Instance in one Pall or appeal in any Age or History Pope Gregorie's account upon diligent search above 1000 years agoe to omit other Arguments is abundant proof and certainty there was none nor endur'd to carry God about in a Cage and to create as many Christs and Saviours as there be Wafers in Churches and Cities and Altars and every one of equal Deity and Worship to our Saviour in Heaven God blessed for ever which amongst them cannot otherwise fall out as we have shewed but that a Wafer should be Christ and Christ but a Wafer by their Hypothesis which excludes the heart whereby Christ by consequence is excluded and a gross Capernaitical sense of such Spiritual Mysteries as necessarily introduc'd nor made the Authority of man more than that of Scripture the Rule of Faith and Heresie nor burnt fellow Christians for their Errours much less for the same Truths which themselves maintain'd as Protestants are or are in danger dayly to be serv'd by the present nominal Church of Rome with other innumerable Superstitions and Unchristian cruelties and loathsome Fraud and Legends and Infernal Dispensations for sins and duties But was Orthodox in her Faith and Regular and sober and Christian like in all her Church-Rites and Practices and well approved of and acccorded with by this and all Christian Churches by all brotherly love and Communion as the distance of places did permit yea with some preference of honour before many other lesser and obscurer Churches for its Imperial situation and numerous Martyrs yet without any danger of being caught in any Noose by such respect or honourable Appellations which no doubt were return'd to every Church though lesser with the like or greater humility and respect than they were given In which Christ-like victories and contests between Brethren and Churches the Christian ambition did heretofore consist but the present Church of Rome abuses and converts the Christian honour of her equals into aliment and fuel for her Pride not exalting others for their humility as God doth but concluding against them from it through the barbarous forgetfulness of her own mutual Divine and Christian part and no Eulogy shall occur in History but must bespeak Supremacy to her alone and Slavery and Subjection to the rest of Christendom like the Wolf going to School who could discern nothing but Agnus in every word and Syllable and letter pronounced unto him No this Church of Rome is no more the old than a Cock is a French-man because both are Gallus in Latine than there City or their People or their Language is the same being all of a new and a different Situation and dialect and descent The Race of Old Romans are sooner to be met and found in Venice and else-where than in Gothick Rome where more inclination not only after Roman civility but also after Ancient Roman or Protestant Orthodoxy doth appear as some of their wisest Clerks and later Historians have given a tast And the parties in this Bill and Plea for this Roman Supremacy
denying our implicit obedience and submission to him But if Christ be God than we are safe and have the truth of our side and their errours are the more dangerous And both these Masters especially of contrary wills as it evidently appears cannot be obeyed together for there cannot be two Kings in the same Kingdom nor two Suns in the same Firmament nor two immortal Souls in the same man But it will be alledged as a Salve 1. That Gods commands in Scripture or Conscience bind not Christians but through the Pope who is to interpret them for us least we mistake and where they seem to cross his will to explain them otherwise to us or to dispense with our obedience in that Case which is an usual practice at Rome though it makes but one Master out of two and the Pope to be chief alone and Christ to stand but for a Cypher or as a Minor whose will is involv'd in his Guardian Viccar hereby the Sun is measured by the Dyal and not the Dial by the Sun It makes Conscience and Scriptures the greatest gifts of Heaven useless to Christians unless the Pope stand by in every place of the World to be consulted with by every Soul which is Christs mind in all cases and scruples And sets up man instead of Christ and confesses the Idolatry and gives up the Cause This contrivance of assuming power to interpret the mind and word of God against the plain sense thereof being the first known invention of Satan in Paradice who was the Father of Antichrist for which our Romanists ought to suspect themselves in the Imitation least they discover themselves too much 2. The second Salve will be that out of obedience to Christ who is in Heaven afar off they yield this obedience to the Pope as his Viccar on Earth as a more near and visible officer under him over them supposing not granting this feigned trust and Deputation It 's against the nature of any trust for him that is trusted to act contrary to the Interest of him that trusted him and to be followed against his Principal St. Paul would be followed by others as far as he followed Christ and no further 1 Cor. 11.1 The Radical cause of Popery lyes in the exclusion of the heart and Judgment and taking the outside to be the man and the measure of all concerns and values which by consequence must be Earthly and Carnal and answering only to the outward man But where the heart which is the man is the chief measure and faith in the heart the only evidence to judge by Christ in Heaven in his Majesty is more near and visible to such a Soul than his Holiness on Earth can be to any Roman Catholick doing Reverence to his Toe for the private end or principle that suggests this respect is nearer to his Soul than his person is to whom it is performed For our Conceptions within are nearer to us than the objects without and our actions proceed immediatly from our conceptions Princes respects and dread would be scant and inexpedient if their persons were no greater in our reasons and conceptions than they are to the eye and sense And were it true and certain that if such a Vicar were set by Christ over his whole Church which can never be proved yet out of obedience to the Soveraign we ought not to obey but shake off such an Officer that should lead us to Rebellion against him that is over him and us The Souldiers under command ought not to obey that General that went about to depose his Prince But if it could be supposed that a Prince did or could intrust any Officer with such absolute power as to interpret all commands and orders directed to him in his own sense against their plain and common meaning and to over-rule all his subjects against all the parts of their Allegiance at his pleasure to act against the known will of his Soveraign and neither to be accountable for such Treasons then the case were much altered for such a King had resigned his Crown in effect to such an Officer who were now to be absolutely obeyed without reservation of Allegiance to another And in such manner the Pope becomes Soveraign to such instead of Christ who believe he is to be obeyed against the Laws of God and men And St. Paul was mistaken in his Doctrine that Christ alone was that Lord and Soveraign and no other man but not mistaken however in his early praediction and warning that the time should come when there should be a falling away and a man of sin revealed who should exalt himself above all that is called God and as God sit in the Temple of God whereof every Christian Soul wherein Christ dwells by his Holy Spirit is so much the more for that the body of a Christian is Gods Temple 1 Cor. 6.19 and more yet the Christian Church which comprizes both And he manifestly St. Pauls Antichrist who sits and Lords it in such a Temple To trample under feet the Glories of this present World to despise the frowns and favours of Princes to adhere to God and Truth all must allow and confess to be highly pious and praise worthy and superlatively Heroick but to hazard all upon a Religion that is a manifest Irreligion and to make Conscience to act against Conscience and Truth to jar with Truth and God to be contrary to himself This were to fall into the like detestable abominations with them of old in St. Paul Who did evil that good might come of it whose damnation is just saith he Rom. 3.8 A fearful sentence from so mild a mouth or of some late zealots in our days who subverted our Laws and Government to exalt Christs Kingdom This were not courage or magnanimity but inconsiderate ignominious rashness condemnable in Shops and Markets This were not Catholick zeal or good Conscience but liker the strong Delusion of Antichrist 2 Thes 2.11 An Omen and fore-runner of further wrath and destruction to be inflicted by the jealousie and indignation of Heaven upon such as forget their Allegiance to their Redeemer preferring a deceiver before him who ought not to have been compared to the Son of God at all or the first mention of his blasphemous pretences to the Perogatives of Christ and his Soveraignty in mens hearts ought to have been attended rather with renting of cloaths and a suddain horrour and indignation and-a-God-forbid but that the needs of deluded souls which himself Redeemed with his precious bloud required the matter to be laid open and enlarged for their rescue and undeceiving but that daily experience teacheth as well as Antient memories that any lust or Avarice or Ambition or revenge or self end or the Sun and Moon or stocks and stones without keeping due watch and ward upon our hearts may and have often invaded and domineer'd in Christ Throne in the soul when deserted by God as much as this Romish perkin Warbeck whose
profit of the difference and laugh at the follies and credulity of the appellants The Supremacy of the King in all Causes and over all Persons as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal being that which hath been learnedly evinced by our Writers and is solemnly recogniz'd every day in Gods presence in Prayers and Oaths according to the settlement of our Laws by the Wisdom of the Nation But though this inside of the Church be properly Secular and Temporal because visible yet the Secular Causes which belong to the determinations of Christian Secular Authorities are well and orderly distinguishable into Ecclesiastical and Christian or Temporal and Civill as the whole Commonwealth may be considered either as a Society of men or a Society of Christian men or Church In the first respect as men all are Subject to their own Kings and Laws in matters of life limb and property whether they be Christian or Holy or Heathen and Antichristian as they were before Christ came into into the World and must be to the Worlds end For Magistracy is Gods Ordinance whom all men therefore are to be subject to from the heart which alwayes attends what God appoints though manag'd by a Claudius who was weak and infamously credulous or Nero who for his cruelty was believed by many to be Antichrist for to such the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul command obedience and subjection not only for fear of wrath and power but for Conscience sake and the fear of God Rom. 13.5 1 Pet. 2.14 16. For they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Rom. 13.2 Yet on this undoubted unforfeitable right of Earthly Kings and Governours according to their several Constitutions by the Laws of their Kingdoms the Pope like a fift Monarch hath ever and still doth affect and design new incroachments as before upon the King of Heaven and spiritual pretences of Superiority Not only by exempting his Subjects and Clergy from secular subjection assuming to be the mother of the Child that 's not her own but also through his Emissaries and influence in the time of his Reign and Power in bringing the Lives of Subjects to the Stake and their States into Forfeiture from their Posterity for Opinions and the Heads and Crowns of Kings themselves to the like danger for the like insufficient cause Absolving Subjects of their Allegiance which Christ binds on every Soul and leading them into perjury and Rebellion which God forbids and damns being not only Traytors against Heaven and Earth therein but which is infinitly worse Traitor-makers as Satan is worse than a sinner and as many Traitor-makers by their Doctrine and what lyes in them as there are Subjects or Polls in any Kingdom they would absolve and seduce Which made the Nation joyn unanimously against their methods not only by Acts of Treason since the Reformation but of premunire long before A very Apostolical and comely deportment in a chief Professor of Christian Holiness and vertue that he and his Missionaries should deserve to be thrust and shoulder'd out like Pests by a wise and a Religious people and their Friends and the door made fast against them with the strongest Barricadoes that could be thought of Hanging and Drawing and Quartering Yea many of his own Confessors and Martyrs our Native Roman-Catholicks to this day who sincerely adhere to all his other Doctrines though Flead Alive with penalties and inconveniences for it yet disclaim and desert his infallible guidance in this particular and would be ready to venter Lives and Fortunes for their Laws and Countrey against any Invasion of the Land though countenanc'd or authoriz'd by the Pope for though such Loyalty be looked upon at Rome with an evil eye as hath lately appeared in the Irish Excommunications for the like principle and profession of Allegiance yet they are resolved to be true to their King let who will call them Hereticks for being honest Subjects And this their Resolution must be grounded either upon Policy or vain glory to avoid the danger as well as the Infamy of Rebellious principles or upon Conscience to God which only is true honour I am apt if I do no wrong to believe the last and to acknowledge and own all such by Consequence as true English Protestants as any in our own Church for preferring Conscience before the Pope which as I have proved is the chief point in difference between Papists and Protestants And the rather if they deal alike with the rest of their opinions which set us at distance from one another by the same rule which if it be good and right must hold in the rest as well as this dismissing all other Tenets that are excepted against and have no support from God or Conscience or the Scripture but the bare Authority of the Pontifical Chair For being so dangerously and perfidiously deceived while trusting to its judgement and of right interpreting in a case so evident and plain and Important as Neck and Estate and Salvation can amount to If they will suffer themselves again to be over-rul'd to differ from their Brethren upon no reason of Conscience but this bare Authority alone whereof they have had tryal of its fidelity and the old sophisme of believing as that Church believes This cannot be counted worthy and filial piety and well weighed Religion in them but a negligent unadvisedness equivalent to plain fault and folly especially there being present suffering and future hazard in the Case according to the known Proverb The Friend that deceives me once it is his fault twice it is my own All differences in our Religion being thus easily compos'd between us if they stand constant to their good principle throughout its consequences as reason binds them to and there will be no reason else to believe or trust their Loyalty what a day of bliss would it be to them and us to go hand in hand together like Christian as well as English brethren to their Churches and ours what peace to themselves in their concerns both within and without what tears of joy would it cause in their Protestant Tenants and dependants who would willingly resigne their lives to see that blessed day what acclamation and bone-fire throughout the Nation for the restoration of its strength and Union what Ecchoes and Halelujahs amongst the Angels of Heaven that delight in mens Salvation and return from Errour But should they offer to make themselves and us and the Nation happy with such a Festival How must they expect to be well lash'd for this by their Old Friends for Hereticks and Schismaticks and Apostates from the Holy See besides the ignobleness of changing and being unconstant to which I shall not now reply But those of them that through Gods Grace assisting them nowithstanding such discouragements and obstacles that will be leaders and examples to their brethren in such paths of Peace and Life and count it Glory and magnanimity to adhere to truth through shame and calumny and but an Heathenish
Pagans against Christians and to erect a private Church before the Publick Cathedral the Daughter before the Mother yea to set the Church of Canterbury before all our Ancient Metropolitans Sees then in being and several Arch-Bishops residing in them if our Roman Christians had been as kind as their Pagan Eenemies were towards them And it could not be a wreck while there was so much Christianity to be found alive in the Island neither was Augustine Lord of the Escheate To erect I say an Inferiour Church in opposition and Precedence to all its Superiours was a manifest scandalous schism in our Agustine to attempt and begin in all Roman-Catholicks to approve and promote for after Ages Though not so in Protestants to submit to by their Principles after the chief Magistrate and our Laws to whom such rights belong to here and not to the Pope had interpos'd an Establishment and Translated their Obedience from one Metropolis to another whether before in being or a new erected by them But our Roman-Catholicks are Fanaticks or schismaticks unavoidably in this point as well when they disown a Protestant or own and acknowledge any Arch-Bishop of their own Church and perswasion in that See They are Fanatically disobedient by their own Principles in the first case for to reject and disown a Protestant Arch-Bishop settled by Law as their Governour out of duty to the Pope whom they presume and believe to disallow him this is like in all proportion to the Protestant's rejecting the Pope out of duty and Allegiance to Christ the chief Soveraign of all which Papists esteem Fanatical in Protestants Though Protestants believe that Christ is to be obeyed as much before the Pope as the Pope according to them above the Archbishop or our Laws and also that the Pope in several Doctrines clashes against Christ as manifestly as any Protestant Arch-Bishop of Canterbury can ever clash against the Pope But to take Christ's will and private conscience to judge of the Pope is absolutely Fanaticall in Protestants say the Papists therefore for dissenting Papists out of their Private conscience according to the Popes will to judge and reject any Protestant Arch-Bishop of Canterbury their lawful Superiour is absolutely Fanaticall by their own Principles and sayings and opening a gap for Inferiours to judge their Governours And that they are as apparent Schismaticks in the sence of the whole Christian Church in obeying or approving any Roman-Catholick Arch-Bishop of Canterbury usurping Jurisdiction in the Diocess of others against their wills and Rights shall in due place more fully appear whereby it is manifest that our Romanists who are first at accusing cannot stir or move out of the Schismaticks themselves untill they become Brittish Protestants Neither was our Augustine and his followers guilty of Schism only but of Hostility and invasion made upon the Rights of Christian Brethren which is more than Schism as much as War and clashing is more than bare and harmless distance between Friends which should be one and the same and a War of a scandalous Insolence and a more scandalous confederacy not to be countenanced by any Prince in the first respect because commenced without provocation and tending to level all Superiority in the World making a Subject Superiour to his Soveraign the Younger to preceed the Elder the little Daughter of Canterbury to command their Greater and Ancienter Mothers of York and London but the scandal of the confederacy exceeded the Insolence and the Spiritual confusion the Temporal that was attendant to it such was his combination with Pagans against Christians to promote his wordly Pride making himself worse than a Pagan thereby to any sober judgement as if the Rector of Otranto or a Greek Priest sojourning there should combine to betray the Town to the great Turk on terms that not only that Church should be made equal to the See of Rome as was Ravenna but Metropolis to it and himself Superiour to the Pope when it and all Italy were reduc'd by Turkish Arms who could soon silence all Christian Priviledges and prescriptions for the contrary title It s in vain to make application for the Idolatrous Pride and madness of them at Rome scorns to be reduc'd and shakled by the Laws of Nations or common band of Christendome or the great Law of doing to others as they would be done by what promotes their Church and its Grandeur is Right Christianity be the means never so Turkish or Heathenish or unconscionable and what abates it in the least is Heresie or Turcism be they never so Christian or Regular All Laws and Canons and Bibles themselves are to be interpreted and regulated by their own becks and Interests according to the like character Busbeqius gives of the great Turk a Partner Antichrist nil aequum putat quod nolit nil iniquum quod velit nothing with him is just or unjust but his own will and pride The Brittains could easier brook rapacious Heathens to Rob them of their Country than holy Christians holpe by Heathens thus to Rob them of their Sees and Churches But their wonder and regret is answered in their own Proverb that reports a Gentleman who became a Highway-man when a near kinsman Rob'd by him minded him of his Birth and consanguinity for better usage to have return'd this answer to that Plea Na choelia dy gi dy hun pan gyndheiriocca trust not thy own Dog when he runs mad 2 The Btittains were not backward therefore but forward enough to Preach and promote the Gospels among their Enemies though not all so forward as the zeal of Gildas did wish by reason of their many discouragements and Impediments from Hostilities especially from Augustine and his party who 2ly came not over hither to Preach the Gospel as he pretends but to fish in troubled waters and to raise his fortune out of the misfortunes and calamities of the Brittains like those that come to steal goods when mens houses are on fire for as he could do but little good by his coming for want of learning and the Language so there was no need at all of his coming for Queen Bertha had prepar'd her Husband for Baptism as Pope Gregory intimates in his Epistle to her d Spelman Concil p. 85. Polydor Virgil lib 4. p. 63. comparing her to Queen Helena Mother of Constantine the Great for her zeal and endeavours in this affair Where by the way it is observable by the confession and tradition of Popes themselves who was the chief Instrument under God in preparing and converting the first Christian Emperours Constantius Chlorus her Husband and Constantine the Great her Son and the rest of the Emperours by consequence after their example to the Christian Faith If Rome had the like to say of any of her Daughters as Brittain of her Helena to have given the like overthrow to the Heathen World the like encouragement and exaltation to the Christian who could stand before her brags And what Queen
Articles for the perpetual preservation of the Christian Faith amongst them besides the union and Intermarriadges of Saxons and Brittains in this Territory especially as elsewhere whereby the Brittains in withholding the Gospel from them as they are unjustly traduc'd did but withhold it from their own flesh and bloud so that the English Loegrian Brittains of these eight West-Saxon Counties may and ought with a good Conscience account themselves members of the old Brittish Church if they will as the other 26 Counties must whether they will or not As for the three remaining Heptarchyes which were not so large and considerable as the other four either that of the East-Angles m Usher p. 394. which contain'd the Counties of Norfolk Suffolk Ely and Cambridge or the other of the South Saxons which contain'd m Usher p. 394. Sussex and part of Surry with the Isle of Wight or Kent which was the first seat of the Aliens whereof the two first were gain'd together with the East-Saxon Heptarchy dolo non ferro as Malmsbury n lib. 2. de Episc Lond. words it the last by Carnal Lure that is in the Dialect of modern Christianity not much inferiour to their Heathenism one by Pimping and the other three by Trepanning of King Vortigern whom they well knew to be an Usurper as well as dissolute Neither were the generality of the former Inhabitants thereupon all put to the Sword immediatly but accepted for Tributaries to their new Masters in all probability and serviceable perhaps thereby to their Salvation yet it is to be examined how far the English in these Counties owe their first Faith and subjection to Rome after the Archbishoprick of London wherein they stood was recovered without any long Intermission to the Brittish Church If it be alleadged that Eorpwald Son of Redwald King of the East-Angles either Father or Son or both were won over to Christianity by the means of Edwin King of Northumberland and the Romish Ministry of Kent It appears out of the same Bede o Bede l. 2. c. 15. that both Conversions ended with their persons without any erection or succession of Bishops in that Territory the one revolting to Heathenism at the perswasion of his Wife or which was far worse serving Christ and Satan at the same Altar and Eorpwald shortly after his Baptism killed by one of his own Countrey and kindred and the Kingdom lying in its old Idolatry till his Brother Sigebert succeeded in the Throne who was not Converted by the means of Rome but p Ibid. in France where he lived in exile in his Brothers time and when upon his return he was desirous to make his people partaker of the same Christian Faith We find him in Bede assisted q Ibid. by Felix a Frenchman and r Idem l. 3. c. 19. Furseus a Noble man from Ireland both Nations fairly agreeing in Communion with the Brittish Church The one being made the Bishop of the East-Angles but ordained and Consecrated in Burgundy whence he came He is said to call one Honorius then Archbishop of Canterbury and to acquaint him with his desire to Preach the Gospel who sent him to these parts neither with Ordination nor guift of Tongues nor any other token of Dependance the King himself being his Patron who probably had been the Kings old acquaintance if not his Ghostly Father and first Converter And the chiefest assistance towards the good of the people that he is particulariz'd to give King Sigebert is about the ordering of his Å¿ Bede l. 3. c. 18. School for young Children after the manner he observed in France And his successor Thomas Diaconus sent by the same Honorius after the Decease of Felix was de Girviorum or †Usher 1027. Jarrow in the North part of Aidan's plantation under King Oswald in whose time not u M. Westm An. 605· one Infidel in those parts was left unconverted In whom or him that was next Bishop the Roman Race and succession must needs have given place to Brittish Ordination how else could it be true that in x Bede l. 3. 28. Wini Bishop of Winton's time who was contemporary Bede should affirm there was no other Bishop besides him throughout this Isle of Brittain that was not of Brittish Ordination as we often have occasion to urge But the Conversion of the body of the people is chiefly and deservedly attributed to y Idem l. 3. c. 19 20. Furseus and his Companions who first founded a Monastery in the Countrey called Knobhersburgh for a Nursery to his Ministry and an example to the people of Mortification and contempt of this present World which was then their usual method in the first planting of the Gospel whose main end is to bring this World with all its pompes and self ends more out of request with men and the life to come more in view and value This St. Furseus for his quality and extraction z Bede lib. 3. c. 19. Erat de Nobilissimo genere Scotorum He was of the Princely bloud of the Scotch or Irish who with Bede are one and the same People but for his temper and education he was more noble in mind than bloud brought up to learning and sanctity from his Infancy famed far and near for his Preaching and holy living his vertues and miracles and visions He first comes from Ireland to the Brittains a lib. 3. c â—7 from them to to the East-Angels and to the Leogrian-Brittains left amongst them ill supplied with Ministers for it is observable upon Monk Augustine's arrival it was the British b Clerici vero sacerdotes mucronibus undique micantibus ac Flammis omnes simul in exterminium pelluntur tunc Archiproesul Theonus Londonnensis Thadioc Eboracensis c Math. Westm ad An. 586. Clergy their Priests and Bishops more than their Laity that with fire and Sword were hunted and driven into Wales and not left there unpursued And being honourably received by King Sigebert he fell to his wonted work of preaching the Gospel for the Irish were no strangers about this time to the English tongue as neither the English to the Irish who us'd high and low Nobiles mediocres to flock from England to c Bede l. 3. c. 27. Ireland to be instructed in the Scriptures and strict way of living c Bede l. 3. c. 27. where it cost them nothing for Instructions or Books or Diet And brought numbers of Infidels to embrace the Christian Faith or conforted and confirm'd those that had believed already by the example of his life and the power of his Doctrine leaving his Brother Foilan with other Monks and Ministers to continue what he began the whole Teritory being afterwards reduc'd and Conquered by the Kings of Mercia whose Religion we have known before to be wholly Brittish as opposed to the Roman Neither are the descendants of South-Saxons in Sussex or Surrey or the Isle of