Poperie stand by or else let every Doctrine insisted on by you be Popish so as withall opposite to the Religion by Law established and therein you shall do very well 12. Next in your Minor I may not suffer you to jumpe out of England into Scotland as you do in this Clause of it Our Religion and Lawes Ours whose yours in Scotland shall these men subjects of England and Members of this Church be punishable for teaching some Doctrine opposite to the Religion by Law established in Scotland when did they subscribe to your Religion or Lawes you * Scota ante aliquot Annos Anglorum Auxilus è servitute Gallica liberati Religionis Cultui Ritibus cum Anglis Communibus subscripserunt The scotish being some yeares before delivered from the slavery of the French by the Aydes of the English subscribed to the same Worship and Rite of Religion which the English used Buchan hist Scot. l. 19. have subscribed to ours as coy as you are of us now we to yours never And yet would you candidly set out even your own Lawes happily they would not refuse you upon them But if you superinduce the Bookes of Discipline or Records to them utterly unknowne y Large Declar p. 270 wonderfully preserved and now after a long silence of Time no doubt as uncorruptly exhibited by you if that must be a Canon to regulate your Church and Religion then they will recoile and desire to be tryed by their owne Lawes The summe of all is they would not have you juggle and sophisticate confound and tumble together Places Persons Things as every where you do to raise Clamour not to discover Truth In all Equity then this must be your syllogisme Whosoever in the Kings Dominions respectively spreads abroad any Doctrine opposite to the Religion by Lawes established ought to be punished But Canterburie and his Dependents being subjects of England have spread abroad Doctrines opposite to The Religion by Lawes established in England Ergo. Now if you can acquite your selfe of this Minor and carry it handsomly through your whole Booke you will doe a memorable performance But you meane no such thing and therefore I desire the Reader to do it for you upon every point to bring you to this test which he must do if he will be just and impartiall For make you up your parties as you please with reformed Divines and orthodox Preachers that wil be but to call up against you other orthodoxe Preachers and all to no purpose for nothing is punishable but by Law Simul ac a jure discesseris go you from that and either in Fact or Opinion men wil think they may use a moderate liberty 13 First touching Arminianisme in relation to Fact It is but hard measure in you to represent it presently with this Odium A * Pag. 8. dangerous innovation and such a one as was found to be the readiest Engin which had ever beene used by the Pope or Spaniard to overthrow the Church and State of Holland For were this true yet sure it could bee true by no other necessity then as Medicus cantat a Physitian may be skilfull in song but it is no intrinsecall act of his Profession An Arminian may bee a seditious Citizen but it flowes not from any of the five disputed points Divines may differ about the order of Gods Predestination and yet bee good subjects to their Prince In the meane while your selfe that make this objection living in a Monarchicall State make no bones to affirme * Postscrip p. 14. That publike Assemblies and Conventions may bee held without the authority of the Civill Magistrate * Ibid. p. 8. That subjects may beare Armes against their Soveraigne * p. 14. That there is and ought to bee in a Kingdome an Ecclesiastique Power supreme in it selfe and independent on the King These Opinions touch the life of a State and tend dangerously to the dissolution of Government yet these must be borne with in you but if men doubt of absolute Reprobation or sticke at any like rigid Doctrine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the State must looke about it is some secret Plot to betray the Kingdome to the Pope or Spaniard Ultra Sauromatas fugere hinc libet c. I take not upon me to Apologize for Arminians let them stand or fall by themselves But I thinke a dramme of equity will obtaine them thus much that they may bee as good and loyall subjects in any State or Kingdome as they which maintaine your aforesaid positions or any of them When my Lord of Canterbury that then was tooke so much care as you tell us to suppresse Barrow at Cambridge and to enact his Lambethane Articles which you ridiculously call the * Pag. 16. Synod of Lambeth the Queene even * Presat that most sacred Queene Elizabeth did not interpret it as any great service done to the State or as if the Kingdome had been thereby secured Which is plaine enough by the cold thankes shee gave him If you know not the carriage of that businesse I pray you informe your selfe better out of the story 14. The greatest Accusation that lies against my Lord of Canterbury here in this matter of Arminianisme is the preferment of men whom you suspect to encline to the opinions of Arminius wherein before you passe any Verdict you should doe well to consider First whether all Preferments be so absolutely in his Graces disposing that hee may bee truely said to preferre them all Secondly whether hee looke upon them in that Quality as they encline to such Opinions and bee not obliged to favour them for some other eminent Abilities or Merit of particular service done in Church or State Thirdly whether some others sufficiently known to be anti-Arminians be not as high in the Church as well promoted as they Fourthly whether most men promoted in the Church are not upon your own false grounds by you causelesly suspected to be Arminians Quicquid horum tetigeris Ulcus est you are not Proofe in any of these And because the Preferments of sundry men may bee upon sundry motives by sundry Meanes and Procurements Nor can it be any thing else in you but an invidious Presumption to thinke all done by his Grace in favour of Arminianisme whereas all in that kinde is not done by him nor any with an eye of favour upon Arminianisme clamour while you please my Answer is this and it is sufficient to satisfie any honest man There is no man promoted in the Church of England with or without my Lord of Canterburies helpe but subscribes to the Articles the established Doctrine of this Church Now these Articles either they condemne the Opinions of Arminius or they doe not If they doe not then is Arminianisme either a thing set by and left at liberty neither belongs it to my Lord of Canterbury or any other trusted with the Goverment of the Church to take cognisance of any mans
upholders of Tyranny was it not enough to call them such No they are Ladensians Canterburians as if my Lord of Canterburie had led them into these Opinions when you cannot be so blinde as not to see who their Authours and Abettors are in all this as you call it Popery Examine but your owne Margin there you shall finde a P. 51. Ignatius b P. â—5 Irenaeus c P. 51 Tertullian d P. 52. Optatus e P. 5â— Basil f P. â—5 Nazianzen g P. 38 76. Chrysostome h P. 82. Epiphanius i P 3â— 57 59 65. Augustine k P. â—1 Damascen l P. â—5 Bernard and other like all vouched together by you with these moderne men Are all these Canterburians For let the reader turne I say and see if they stand not in your margin under the same condemnation all You pretend against the Pope but you are his friend many wayes especially in this a more profuse benefactor to him than Pipin Charlemaigne or any other You give him East and West the suffrage of all Christendome side and wide the consent of the best Writers in elder and later times They are all for the Pope by your Donation all involved in one common guilt of supporting his Antichristian Hierarchie The voice of the Donatists was Nos soli mansimus the whole world is apostate Our congregation remaines the onely true Church but yours must be Nos soli fuimus we are the first and before us there was never any never in all the centuries of Christianity any such doctrine or discipline to be found as you have devised And your performance here is not against the Canterburians onely but even a generall inditement of all times and ages for superstition and heresie Onely this humour of nick-naming is none of the newest whether we regard either fact or opinion Those that stuck to Iohn Chrysostome in his troubles an innocent man and refused to communicate with his unworthy successour Arsacius were called m Socrat. l. 6. c. 16. Ioannitae Iohnists forsooth And those that in the Ephesine Councell maintained the Orthodoxe Faith together with S. Cyrill against the fect of Nestorius were by that Sect termed n Apud Bin. 10.1 par 2. p. 287. Colon. 1618. Cyrilliani Cyrillians Iust thus the conformable Ministery of this Kingdome that in their books and practice maintaine the doctrine and discipline of this Church which my Lord of Canterbury doth in the prime place must be Canterburians This is the ingenuity of the title prefixed to your book dignum patinâ operculum a fit cover for such a dish 6. Now in your Preface this chimaera of the Canterburian faction and the Prelates must bee stigmatized for the authours of all the mischiefes in the world thereby to induce the high Court of Parliament to expell non Tarquinium sed Regnum not the Bishops but even the Bishopricks Which yet were not equity to blame the office for the men And whereas it hath been ever your way in your accusatory writings to shift from things to persons let mee tell you It is the knowne practice of schismaticks Me facit causam cum defecisset in causâ saies St. Austine of Petilianus When hee failes in his cause hee mistakes mee for the cause And in Lib. cont Fortunatum Alia est quaestio de Fide alia de moribus And Istae haereticorum machinae sunt c. sayes St. Hierom cont Ruff. Thus the Prelates they declare they proclaime in the Kings name they change the face of the Court you say into what shape they please They doubtlesse have some secret designe * Praef. p. 3. when both Nations by mutuall wounds are disabled for defence against the common enemy to bring in France or Spaine spightfull Nations and the hereditary enemies of our Religion and Iland and this they doe when the teares of his Majesties onely sister the desolation of her most miserable subjects the captivity and banishment of her hopefull children should command as in pity to put up all our homeward quarrels though they evere both great and many nor should we be induced by any allurement by any terrour to submit our selves as vallets and pages to the execution of the lusts the furies and outragious counsels of Canterbury and his dependers since the maine grievances both of Church and State have no other originall no other fountaine on earth but those men All which is a Libell even against common sence and needes no other answere Besides this mans falshood had bin much more tolerable if he had kept himself within civill language for possibly That might proceed from misinformation but This must needs be too much his owne All this ado he sayes is but for the bearing up of Prelates tailes for the execution of the Mandamus of Bishops Might he not as well have said in case hee had thought so which I hardly beleeve he doth That all this adoe was upon a misapprehension That Regall power in a Christian Monarchy cannot well stand without Episcopall which if it bee indeed a misapprehension it arose not from Bishops This knowne axiome No Bishop no King was not invented by a Bishop Neither was he a Bishop but a States-man and a Iudge and a witty man in his time who advised King Iames by all meanes you must keepe up the Bishops because it is written Mutato sacerdotio mutabifer lex Heb. 7.12 The Priesthood being changed there must follow of necessity a change also of the Law So hee in allusion to that Text. But for your selfe if it were your minde to lay all the blame of this quarrell upon the Bishops not taking notice of his Majesties interests or the preservation of his royall Authority yet you might have given good words What meane such expressions as these The lusts and furies of Canterbury malepert Canterbury effronted impudence the touch of his Graces panton and many like besides the perpetuall venome of your stile ever when you have said the worst you can devise leaving a sting and suspition in the Readers minde as if somewhat worse might bee said As here in the Preface Men whose open profession in their printed books beside secret practises leads to wicked ends c. S. Paul exhorts us Eph. 4.15 to speak the truth in love But where we finde neither truth nor love neither probable matter nor charitable speeches pretend you never so much to Gods calling and revelations and reformations and what you please this we are sure of Mat. 12.34.35 Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Bonus homo de bono thesauro profert bona malus homo de malo thesauro profert mala For the things themselves you have put together here a long beadroll of untruths purposely to raise hatred against my Lord of Canterbury whereof you bring no proofe at all and therefore you are faine to lubricate them with some oyle of Rhetorick to make
haereseos c. Sander de schism Angl. adversaries cannot but Confesse hath beene the strongest sinew and support of our Reformation To revile Bishops now that were then prime Martyrs as if their very calling were wicked to whom even b Scio instaurationem ecclesiae Anglicanae eversionem Papismi post Deum Reges deberi praecipue Episcoporum doctrinae industriae Quorum etiam nonnulli martyrio c. Pet. Moli n. Ep. 3. Strangers give this Testimonie that they were then the Chief Instruments of planting pure Religion among us and have beene of conserving it ever since We must be mad now and cut off our right hand with our left or else England is gone off you say from her zeale to the true Religion But leave this wicked vanitie Mocke not God the World and your owne Conscience Doe not parallell persons and things so extreamly different Prov. 17.15 to justifie the Wicked and condemne the just are both Abominations to the Lord. 11. In your first Chapter you seeme to seare the World is mistaken in your Quarrell and doth not understand it to be so extensive as it is being as you say not only that which a P. 2. properly concerneth your selves but that which rubbeth upon other Churches not the Booke Canons and Episcopacie only but many notable wrongs and affronts openly done to the reformed Religion Experience teacheth us to understand your meaning b P 12. you found in your generall assembly you say the cockle of Arminianisme comming up apace in many furrowes of your field which being cast over the dyke it was at once received and replanted in England in too good a soyle Were it so truly you have followed it so fast into that good soyle that it is likely to take no very deepe roote though how it has beene received or replanted here I know not except it offend you that your expulsed Bishops and Clergie were permitted fire and water or so much as livelyhood among us But we aske not quo Warranto by what Authority you take upon you this large Visitation to set right the Church of England Nor are we very solicitous to informe our selves of the extent of your quarrell This we are sure of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The end and beginning of Businesse appeares not together especially of Contention which Salomon saith Prov. 17.14 is like the letting out of Water it will not alwayes stop where men think But whereas you are so charitable to judge * P. 4. sundry Bishops of the Isle to be innocent and very free of these Mischiefs and such as would readily purge themselves if only my Lord of Canterbury and his dependants were in any way to receive from the Kings justice some part of their Deservings Herein we cannot but challenge you of injustice that some of them being innocent you would make it the Concluding vote of your Booke that all without exception should be rid away Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked But yet your charity we are readie to compensate and tell you we believe there are involved in the Covenant many honest Hearts many well meaning Soules and that they are not all so blame-worthy as you their spirituall Misleaders are nay we believe divers of them were they truly taught the nature of this Action you have put them into would gladly purge themselves and leave you to receive from the King's Iustice some part of your deserving 12. You have brought us next a long Syllogisme which is to be the touchstone of your whole discourse and summarily is this P. 5. Whoever in the Kings Dominions spreads abroad Poperie or any Doctrine opposite to the Religion and Lawes of the Land now established ought to be punished But Canterbury and his Dependants have spread abroad in the Kings Dominions Doctrines opposite to our Religion and Lawes and especially Points of grossest Popery Ergo. Where I hope you will give me Leave to scruple two or three things without Offence and first touching your Major Let me tell you it is ever a lurching Tricke to Complicate many Termes in one Proposition as here be two Spreading abroad Poperie and spreading abroad any Doctrine opposite to the Lawes established It is a Fallacie Multarum Quaestionum to which the Respondent cannot very advisedly give his Answere at once for it may be halfe true and halfe false Know then one you must leave out by the Law of Art unlesse you will affirm them to be both one or convertible which I thinke you will not Let me Counsell you then to leave out the Word Poperie and that because it is an Ambiguous Word about which you and your Opposites are very little agreed and in all Controversies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Principium est Nomen First you must agree upon the Cleare Meaning of your Terms or else instead of Disputing you will but beate the Ayre As heere in this Case you will urge them with some Doctrines and call them Poperie They will acknowledge the Doctrines but deny the Popery then you must revert to dispute what is Popery a thing that by all reason should have beene cleared at first You seeme to define it by Tenets of Reformed Churches and Tenets of reformed Divines as if what crosseth these were Poperie But this is to define it by uncertainties for Churches differ in their Tenets not to goe from home * P. 98. you tell us you could never in Scotland be induced to follow so much of the Masse as we retained in England Divines differ in their Tenets What thing more knowne He that followes not Calvin in the Point of Praedestination may yet follow Melancthon And he a man as a Pietas ordinum c. Hugo Grotius very truly saith never a whit inferiour to him Shall the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of Rome be Poperie that will not be universally true for there was a Time when S. Paul commended both their a Rom. 1.8 Faith and b Rom. 16.19 Obedience Shall the Customes and usages of that Church be Poperie not all For they had many in Common with the whole Catholike Church which cannot without great scandall and falshood be taxed of Poperie You of all men have made this word Poperie such an ambulatory word that we know not where to fixe it Arminianisme shall be Poperie if you please to call it so to refuse the oathes of allegeance and supremacie shall not be Poperie if you please not to call it so Our English liturgie with you is a Popish masse our Ceremonies Popish ceremonies Now should your adversaries be so unadvised to grant themselves punishable for teaching and maintaining Popery admitting it ever in your acception In the meane while to say they are punishable for teaching any doctrine opposite to the Religion by Law established is to say a Consequent and undeniable truth which will they or nill they they must submit to Now then let this undefined thing
judgement in those points Or if those Points bee comprehended in the Articles and not condemned belike they are approved there But if the Articles doe condemne Arminianisme all men promoted in the Church subscribe to the Articles They professe fully and heartily to assent to the Doctrine there set downe which Profession is as valid as an oath and an * Heb. 6.16 Oath for confirmation is an end of all strife So that to affirme his Grace keepes a constant course in promoting Arminianisme as a Sect offensive to this Church is but a meere calumny Their subscription being as great and apparant a Purgation of any their adherence to heterodox Opinions as they can possibly exhibit or hee require of them And should he require more he could not justifie it 15. That which brought up Arminianisme among you was you say * P. 11. a gentle ayre from Court which were it true as it is undoubtedly false yet it leaves no reall Aspersion upon those Opinions The Court does not alwayes cherish the evill seeds it is the voice of Schismaticks sometimes a Optat. l. 1. Aug. Ep. 48. Quid Episcopis cum palatio The Arrians and Donatists did often complaine they were borne downe by favour at Court and so do you now and so did alwayes all unquiet Spirits when they could not have there what themselves desired * P. 11. Dr. Wederburne you tell us was made Bishop of Dunblane and that Bishop is alwayes Deane of the Chappell Royall and a society of twenty foure Chaplaines was erected the fittest that could be found in the whole Kingdome to preach to the State the Deanes Arminian Tenets Where it may be all the offence is that your selfe was none of the number 16. Passing over into Ireland you question there * P. 15. P. 21. Who holds downe the head of that Orthodoxe Primate Which complaint after three or foure pages you resume againe thus What fray makes that worthy Primate Vsher to foretell oft to his friends his expectation to be sent over sea to die a Pedant teaching boyes for his bread by the persecution of this faction Where this strange expression from your pen Orthodoxe Primate made me almost forget the maine of your complaint For say in good earnest is Episcopacie a wicked and Antichristian calling So you teach sometimes And sure if a simple Bishop be a limb of Antichrist a Primate must be a very principall member how then Orthodoxe primate Or why care you who holds downe his head Were it in your power would you advance it You that have howted all Ecclesiasticall Dignities quite out of your Countrey You tell us plainly that a totall ejection of the Bishops * Postscrip p. 28. would much increase the joy and prosperity of all the three dominions We have just reason to think then that if this Orthodoxe Primate were in your Power you would divide betwixt his Orthodoxie and his Primacie by such a kind of distinction as that was of old b Platin. in vit Ioan. 24. Gibellinorum bona Guelfa the Man might be Orthodoxe but the Primacie with what belongs to it his Rents and Revenues would be found all Antichristian so that he must be content indeed to die a Pedant teaching boyes for his bread But to the maine of your Complaint take his Answer which upon sight of this passage in your booke he made with his owne mouth This is notoriously false I never said any such thing I never thought it and I am in my particular beholding to my Lord of Canterbury I had the happinesse to be by when my Lord Primate spake this 17. Your aptnesse to misconstrue even the best actions appeares by the censure you put upon His Majesties Declaration before the Articles You make it but a crafty trick in his Grace then Bishop of London by the Duke his Patron you say to perswade that course of silence purposely to give * Their crafty leader seeing the sâ—…t of opposition and sinding it meet a little to hold in c. p. 19. advantage to the Arminians It were a happy thing if in all emergent controversies men would carrie themselves with that temper and prudence as that no such declarations might be needfull But when the fire of contention begins to burne and endanger the peace of Church and State it is then time for Kings who are nutritii Ecclesiae to interpose their power and suppresse the flame What our gracious Soveraigne did was done more majorum after the example of all godly Princes In the time of Theodosius the elder every mans tongue ran upon the Trinity nothing could be heard but perpetuall wrangling about those high mysteries whereupon that pious Prince forbad all disputing thereabout c Sozom. l. 7. c. 6. latâ lege paenâ constitutâ Had you lived then you would have said This was but the tricke of some Prelate to give advantage to the Sabellians Photinians Arrians and the like In these very questions blessed King Iames both counselled and approved a pacificatory edict devised and published in Holland to make peace there which indeed was variously carped at But God forbid that at such exigences for the misprision of some disaffected spirits Kings and Princes should lay by their care whose office it is to suppresse Schisme and Faction in Church as well as theft homicide or like crimes in State as d Ep. 50. cont Crescon 3. c. â—1 S. Austin tels us But what advantage did the Arminians make of this edict I pray Yes * P. 23. Many Doctors you say in both Universities and over all the Land boldly gave out their minde to all they met with for the advancement of the new way Boldly gave out their minde But did they print as boldly I am sure some of the contrary part as boldly gave out their mindes otherwise your intelligence had not been so good And what know you but that many books like to be offensive in this kinde were and are suppressed by my Lord of Canterburies care I am sure you can keepe no tale of them no more than Diagoras his friend could of those that were drowned quia nusquam picti sunt for they appeare not 18. Needs will you make the world believe in this quarrell of Arminianisme my Lord of Canterburies Predecessour Archbishop Abbot was so farre * P. 21. wrought out of grace with the King that he remained some yeares before his death well neare confined to his house at Lambeth and that for the same cause is caged up in the Tower that great and learned Bishop of Lincolne Where touching the first in good time said you well neare confined For certainly no other confinement lay upon him at Lambeth some yeares before his death but by that which serves an arrest upon all the sonnes of men age and infirmity And for the second that Arminianisme is any way concerned in my Lord of Lincolnes affaire is more than I ever understood