is the Keeper of both the Tables and wee say that for the first Table the Bishops ought to be his Interpreters Thirdly as wee question not the Popes legislative or coactive power over his own subjects so we submit to the judgemeÌ„t of the Catholick church whether he ought to have a primacy of order as the successour of S. Peter and as a consequent thereof a right if he would content himself with it to summoÌ„ Councells when and where there are no Christian Soveraignes to doe it and to joyne with other Bishops in making spirituall Lawes or Canons such as the Apostles made and such as the primitive Bishops made before there were christiaÌ„ Emperours But then those Canons are the Lawes of the Church not of the Pope As those Canons in the Acts of the Apostles were the Lawes of the Apostolicall College The Apostles and Elders and Brethren not the Lawes of S. Peter Then their Lawes have no Coactive Obligation to compell Christians in the outward Court of the Church against their Wills or further then they are pleased to submit theÌ„selves All exteriour coactive power is from the Soveraigne Prince and therefore when and where Emperours and Kings are Christians to them it properly belongeth to summon Councells and to confirm their Canons thereby making them become lawes Because Soveraign Princes onely have power to License and Command their Subjects to Assemble to assign fit places for their Assembling to protect them in their Assemblyes and to give a Coactive power to their Lawes without which they may doe their best to drive away Wolves and to oppose Heriticks but it must be with such Armes as Christ had furnished them withall that is persuasions Prayers Teares and at the most seperating them from the Communion of the faithfull and leaving them to the Iudgement of Christ. The Controversy is then about new upstart Papall Lawes either made at Rome such are the decretalls of Gregory the ninth Boniface the eighth Clement the fifth and succeeding Popes Or made in England by Papall Legates as Otho and Othobone Whether the Pope or his Legates have power to make any such Lawes to bind English Subjects and compell them to obey them against their Wills the King of England contradicting it The first time that ever any Canon of the Bishop of Rome or any legislative Legate of his was attempted to be obtruded upon the King or Church of England was eleven hundred yeares after Christ. The first Law was the Law against taking Investitures to Bishopricks from a Lay hand And the first Legate that ever presided in an English Synod was Iohannes Cremensis of both which I have spoken formerly Observe Reader and be astonished if thou hast so much faith to believe it That the Pope should pretend to a legislative power over British and English Subjects by divine right and yet never offer to put it in execution for above eleven hundred yeares It remaineth now to prove evidently that Henry the eighth by his Statute made for that purpose did not take away from the Bishop of Rome any Privilege which he and his Predecessors had held by Inheritance from St. Peter and been peaceably possessed of for fifteen hundred yeares But on the contrary that eleven hundred yeares after St. Peter was dead the Bishops of Rome did first invade the right of the Crown of England to make Lawes for the externall Regiment of the Church which the Predecessors of Henry the eighth had enjoyed peaceably untill the dayes of William Rufus nemine contradicente And that the Kings Lawes were evermore acknowledged to be true Lawes and obligatory to the English Subjects but that the Popes decrees were never esteemed to be binding Lawes in England except they were incorporated in to our Lawes by the King and Church or Kingdome of England Whence it followeth by irrefragable consequence that Henry the eighth was not the Schismatick in this particular but the Pope and those that maintain him or adhere to him in his Vsurpations First for the Kings right to make Lawes not onely concerning the outward RegimeÌ„t of the Church but even coÌ„cerning the Keys of Order and jurisdiction so far as to oblige them who are trusted with that power by the Church to doe their dutyes it is so evident to every one who hath but cast his Eyes upon our English Lawes that to bestow labour on proving it were to bring Owles to Athens Their Lawes are extant made in all Ages concerning faith and good Manners Heresy Holy Orders the Word the Sacraments Bishops Priests Monkes the Privileges and Revenues of Holy Church Marriages Divorces Simony The Pope his SenteÌ„ces his oppressions and usurpations Prohibitions Appeales from Eeclesiasticall judges and generally all things which are of Ecclesiasticall Cognifance and this in those times which are acknowledged by the Romanists themselves to have been Catholick More then this they inhibited the Popes own Legate to attempt to decree any thing contrary to the Kings Crown and dignity And if they approved the decrees of the Popes Legates they confirmed them by their Royall Authority and so incorporated them into the Body of the English Lawes Secondly that the Popes decrees never had the force of Lawes in England without the Confirmation of the King Witnesse the decrees of the Councell of Lateran as they are commonly called but it is as cleare as the day to any one who readeth the eleveÌ„th the six and fortieth and the one and sixtieth Chapters that they were not made by the Councell of Lateran but some time after perhaps not by InnoceÌ„t the third but by some succeeding Pope For the author of them doth distinguish himself expresly from the Councell of Lateran It was well provided in the Councell of Lateran c. But because that statute is not observed in many Churches we confirming the foresaid statute doe adde c. Again It is known to have been prohibited in the councel of Lateran c. But we inhibiting the same moro strongly c. How soever they were the Popes decrees but never were received as Lawes in England as wee see evidently by the third Chapter That the Goods of Clergimen being convicted of Heresy be forfeited to the Church That all Officiers Secular and Ecclesiasticall should take an Oath at their Admission into their Office to their power to purge their Territories from Heresy That if a Temporall Lord did neglect being admonished by the Church to purge his Lands from Heresy he should be excommunicated And if he contemned to satisfy within a yeare the Pope should absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance And by the three and fortieth Chapter That no Ecâ—â—â—siasticall person be compelled to swear allegiance to a Lay man And by the six and fortieth Chapter that Ecclesiasticall persons be free from taxes Wee never had any such Lawes all Goods forfeited in that kind were ever confiscated to the King We never had any such Oaths Every one is to answer for himself We know
the Lawes and histories of his native Country If he had perused them diligently he might have observed how the Court of Rome and Crown of England were long upon their Gards watching one another and the one or the other gained or lost mutually according to the Vigour of their present Kings or Popes or according to the exigence of the times His seventh Objection that the like Lawes to ours in England were made in the Papacy it self but those could not be against the Popes Headship of the Church and his tenth Objection that then there never was a Papist Country in the world because equivaleÌ„t Lawes to ours were made in France Spaine Italy Sicily Gormany Poland c and his answer to my demand what law full Iurâ—sdiction could remaine to the Pope in England where such and such Lawes had force The same that remaines still to him in France Spaine Italy where the like lawes are in force in his last paragraph are a dish of unsavoury mushromes all sprung up from his own negligent mistake or wilfull Falsification let him chuse whether he will in confounding the Lawes of Mortmain with the other Lawes against the Popes Vsurpations Which I distinguished exactly both at the beginning of that discourse the Statute of Mortmain justified and at the Conclusion But to leave this Digression But besydes this grosse errour there want not other inconsequences and fallacies in his discourse as in his seventh Objection from the Popes particular Headship of his own Church to an Vniversall Headship over the Catholick Church and from an Headship of order to a Monarchicall Headship of power and in his tenth Objection from like lawes to the same Lawes from Lawes made to Lawes duely observed We had Lawes made against Non-conformists in England will he conclude thence that we have no Non-conformists in England the Argument would hold better the Contrary way Ex malis moribus bonae leges And in his last Paragraph from Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court to Iurisdiction purely Spirituall in the Court of Conscience and from Coactive Iurisdiction with the leave of the Prince to the same without Leave Wee see all Roman Catholick Countries doe stint the Popes Coactive Iurisdiction over their Subjects more or lesse according to their severall Liberties which they could not doe at all if he held it by Christs own Ordination His eighth Objection that upon this new Law made by Henry the eighth England stood at another distance then formerly from Rome is a Fallacy non causae pro causa when a false cause is assigned for a true cause Our just Lawes are not the right cause of our distance from Rome but the Popes unjust Censures and that Character which some of our Countrimen give of us But this distance is greater among the Populacy then between the Estates who do not much regard the Popes Censures either in making or observing of Leagues To his ninth Objection in his order and his last in my order that this Posiâ—â—on takes away the Question and makes all the Controvertists in England on both sides talke in the aire because it makes the Pope to have had no Authority there to be cast out I answer I wish it did but it doth not The Pope had Authority there and Authority usurped fit to be cast out notwithstanding our former good Lawes But yet I must confesse this Position doth much change the Question from spirituall Iurisdiction in the inner Court to Coactive Iurisdiction in the exteriour Court and makes him and many other such Controvertists talk in the aire who dispute onely about Headships and First Moverships when the true Controversy lieth in point of Interest and profit Sect. 4. That the Britannick Churches were ever exempted from forrein Iurisdiction for the first six hundred years and so ought to continue After I had shewed the Equality of the Apostles except onely a Priority of Order and that the Supremacy of power did not rest in any single Apostolicall College that Nationall Patriarchs were the highest Order constituted by the Apostles in the Church and how some Patriarchs came to be advanced above others with the true dignity or Preheminence of Apostolicall Churches the summe of all the rest of this Section might be reduced to a Syllogisme Those Churches which were exempted from all forrain Iurisdiction for the first 600 years cannot be subjected to any forrain Iurisdiction for the future against their own wills But all the Britannick Churches were ever exempted from forrain Iurisdiction for the first six hundred yeares The Major Proposition was proved by me undeuiably out of the first Generall Councell of Ephesus to which Mr. Serjeant hath objected nothing Next I proved the Minor First by Prescription Affirmanti incumbit probatio The burthen of the proofe in Law resteth upon the Affirmer but they are not able to shew so much as one single act of Iurisdiction which ever any Bishop of Rome did in Brittaign for the first six hundred yeares Secondly I proved it from the Antiquity of the Britannick Church which was ancienter then the Roman it self and therefore could not be subject to the RomaÌ„ from the beginning Thirdly because the Britannick Churches sided with the Eastern Churches against the Roman and therefore were not subject to the Roman Foâ—rthly because they had their Ordinations ordinarily at home which is an infallible sign of a free Church subject to no Forrein Iurisdiction Lastly because they renounced all Subjection to the Bishop of Rome I am forced to repeat thus much to let the Reader see the contexture of my discourse which Mr. Serjeant doth whatsoever he can to conceale or at least to confound and disjoint Out of this he picketh here and there what he pleaseth First he pleadeth that my Title is the Vindication of the Church of England but the Church of England can derive no title from the Britannick or Scottish Churches He never read or quite forgetteth the State of the QuestioÌ„ I will help his memory Let him read the Vindication by the Church of England we understand not the English Nation alone but the English dominion including the British and Scotish or Irish Christians So at unawares he hath yielded the Bishopricks of Chester Hereford Worcester for all these were Suffragans to Carleon Wales Cornwall Ireland Scotland with all the adjacent Ilands that is to say two third parts of the English Dominion Secondly he pleadeth that for this many hundred yeares they acknowledged the Popes Authority as well as the Church of England I answer that this will doe him no good nor satisfy the Generall Councell of Ephesus at all which hath decreed expresly in the case of the Cyprian Prelates and they Command the same to be observed in all Provinces that no Bishop occupy another Province which formerly and from the beginning was not under the power of him or his Predecessors and if any doe occupy another Province that in this case let him restore it
SCHISME GARDED and beaten back upon the right owners Shewing that our great controversy about Papall power is not a quaestion of faith but of interest and profit not with the Church of Rome but with the Court of Rome wherein the true Controversy doth consist who were the first innovators when and where these Papall innovations first began in England with the opposition that was made against them By JOHN BRAMHALL D. D. Bishop of Derry Act. 25. 10. I stand at Caesars judgmēt seate where I ought to be judged Psalm 19. 2. Dies diei eructat verbum nox nocti indicat scientiam GRAVENHAGH Imprinted by JOHN RAMZEY Anno M.DC.LVIII To the CHRISTIAN READERS especially the Roman-Catholicks of England CHristian Reader the great Bustling in the Controversy concerning Papall power or the discipline of the Church hath been either about the true sense of some Texts of holy Scripture As thou art Peter and upon this rocke will I build my Church and to thee will I give the Keies of the Kingdome of heaven and feed my sheepe Or about some privileges conferred upon the Roman See by the Canons of the Fathers and the Edicts of Emperours but praetended by the Roman Court and the mainteiners thereof to be held by divine right I ēdevour in this Treatise to disabuse thee and to shew that this challenge of divine right is but a Blind or Diversion to withhold thee from finding out the true State of the Quaestion So the Hare makes her doubles and her iumpes before she come to her Forme to hinder Tracers from finding her out I demonstrate to thee that the true controversy is not concerning St. Peter we have no formed difference about St Peter nor about any point of faith but of interest and profit nor with the Church of Rome but with the Court of Rome and wherein it doth consist namely in these quaestions VVho shall conferre English Bishoprickes who shall convocate English Synods who shall receive tenths and first fruites and Oathes of Allegiance and Fidelity VVhether the Pope can make binding Lawes in England without the consent of the King and Kingdome or dispense with English Lawes at his owne pleasure or call English Subjects to Rome without the Princes leave or set up Legantine Courtes in England against their wills And this I shew not out of the opinions of Particular Authors but out of the publick Lawes of the Kingdome I prove moreover out of our fundamentall Lawes and the writings of our best Historiographers that all these branches of Papall power were abuses and innovations and usurpations first attempted to be introduced into England above eleven hundred yeares after Christ with the names of the Innovators and the praecise time when each innovation began and the opposition that was made against it by our Kings by our Bishops by our Peeres by our Parliaments with the groanes of the Kingdome under these Papall innovations and extortions Likewise in point of doctrine thou hast been instructed that the Catholick faith doth comprehend all those points which are controverted betvveene us and the Church of Rome vvithout the expresse beliefe vvhereof no Christian can be saved vvhereas in truth all these are but opinions yet some more dangerous then others If none of them had ever bene started in the vvorld there is sufficient to salvation for points to be believed in the Apostles Creed Into this Apostolicall faith professed in the Creed and explicated by the foure first Generall Councells and onely into this faith vve have all been baptised Farre be it from us to imagine that the Catholick Church hath evermore baptised and doth still baptise but into one half of the Christian faith In summe doest thou desire to live in the Communion of the true Catholick Church So do I. But as I dare not change the cognisance of my Christianity that is my Creed nor enlarge the Christian faith I meane the essentialls of it beyond those bounds vvhich the Apostles have set So I dare not to serve the interest of the Roman Court limit the Catholick Church vvhich Christ hath purchased vvith his blood to a fourth or a fifth part of the Christian vvorld Thou art for tradition So am I. But my tradition is not the tradition of one particular Church contradicted by the tradition of another Church but the universall and perpetuall tradition of the Christian vvorld united Such a tradition is a full proofe vvhich is received semper ubique ab omnibus alvvaies every vvhere and by all Christians Neither do I looke upon the oppositiō of an handfull of Heretickes they are no more being compared to the innumerable multitudes of Christians in one or two ages as inconsistent vvith universality any more then the highest mountains are inconsistent vvith the roundnesse of the earth Thou desirest to beare the same respect to the Church of Rome that thy Ancestours did So do I. But for that fullness of power yea coactive power in the exteriour Court over the subjects of other Princes and against their vvills devised by the Courte of Rome not by the Church of Rome it is that pernicious source from vvhence all these usurpations did spring Our Ancestours from time to time made Lavves against it and our reformation in pointe of discipline being rightly understood vvas but a pursueing of their steppes The true controuersy is vvhether the Bishop of Rome ought by divine right to have the externall Regiment of the English Church and coactive jurisdiction in English Courtes over English Subjects against the vvill of the King and the Lavves of the Kingdome SCHISME GARDED and beaten back upon the right owners Or A cleare and CIVIL ANSWER to the railing accusation of S. W. in his late Booke called SCHISME DISPAT'CHED Whatsoever S. W. alias Mr. Serjeant doth intimate to the contrary for he dare not cough out it is a most undeniable truth that no particular Church no not the Church of Rome it self is exempted from a possibility of falling into errours in faith When these errours are in Essentials of faith which are necessary to salvation necessitate medii they destroy the being of that Church which is guilty of them But if these errours be in inferiour points such as are neither absolutely necessary to Salvation to be known nor to be believed before they be known such an Erroneous Church erring without obstinacy and holding the truth implicitly in praeparatione animi may and doth still continue a true member of the Catholick Church and other coordinate Churches may and ought to maintein Communion with it not withstanding that they dissent in opinion But if one Church before a lawfull determination shall obtrude her own Errours or Opinions upon all other Churches as a necessary condition of her communion or after Determination shall obtrude doubtful opinions whether they be Erroneous or not as necessary Articles of Christian faith and so not onely explain but likewise enlarge the Ancient Creeds she becommeth Schismaticall As on the
phantastick Persons who have been great pretenders to demonstration but always succeslesse and for the most part ridiculous They are so conceitedly curious about the premisses that commonly they quite mistake their conclusion Causes encombred with Circumstances and those left to the election of free agents are not very capable of demonstration The Case in difference between us is this as it is stated by me Whether the Church of England have withdrawn themselves from Obedience to the Vicar of Christ and seperated from the Communion of the Catholick Church And upon those Termes it is undertaken by him in the words immediatly following And that this Crime is justly charged upon his Church not onely with Colour but with undeniable Evidence of fact will appeare by the position of the Case and the nature of his exceptions We have the State of the Controversy agreed upon between us Now let us see how he goeth about to prove his intention What Church soever did upon probable reasons without any neeessary or convincing grounds break the Bonds of Vnity ordained by Christ in the Gospell and agreed upon by all true churches is guilty of Schisme But the Church of England in Henry the eightâ—s dayes did upon probable reasons without any necessary or convincing grounds break the Bonds of Vnity ordained by Christ in the Gospell and agreed upon by all true churches therefore the church of England is guilty of Schisme I doe readily assent to his Major proposition and am ready to grant him more if he had pleased to insert it That that Church is Schismaticall which doth breake the Bonds of Unity ordained by Christ in his Gospell whatsoever their reasons be whether convincing or probable and whosoever doe either consent to them or dissent from them But I deny his Minor which he endeavoureth to prove thus Whatsoever Church did renounce or reject these two following Rules or Principles first that The doctrines which had been inherited from their Forefathers as the Legacyes of Christ and his Apostles were solely to be acknowledged for Obligatory and nothing in them to be changed Secondly that Christ had made St. Peter first or chief or Prince of his Apostles who was to be the first mover under him in the Church after his departure out of this World and to whom all others in difficulties concerning Matters belonging to Universall faith or Government should have recoâ—rse and that the Bishops of Rome as Successors from St. Peter inherited from him this privilege in respect of the Successors of the rest of the Apostles That Church did breake the Bonds of Vnity ordained by Christ in his Gospell and agreed upon between the Church of England and the Church of Rome and the rest of her communion But the Church of England did all this in Henry the eyghts dayes that very yeare where in this unhappy Separation began upon meerly probable no convincing grounds Therefore c. To his former Proposition I made this exception That he would obtrude upon us she Church of Rome and its dependents for the Catholick Church Uppon this he flyeth out as it is his Custome into an invective discourse telling me I looke a squint at his position of the case He will not find it so in the conclusion And that I strive Hocus-pocus like to divert my Spectators eyes With a great deale more of such like froath where in there is not a syllable to the purpose except this that he did not mention the word Catholick in that place The greater was his fault It is a foule Solecisme in Logick not to conclude contradictorily I did mention the Catholick Church in the State of the Question Whether the church of England had separated it self from the communion of the Catholick Church And he had undertaken in the words immediatly following to charge that very Schisme upon us with undeniable Evidence And in his very first Essay shuffles out the Catholick Church and in the place thereof thrusts in the Church of Rome with all the rest of her communion He might have known that wee doe not looke upon the Church of Rome with all the rest of her Communion as the Catholick Church Nor as above a fifth part of the present Catholick Church And that wee doe not ascribe any such in fallibility in necessary truths to the Roman Church with all her dependants as wee doe to the true Catholick Church Nor esteem it alwayes Schismaticall to seperate from the modern Roman Church Namely in those points wherein shee had first seperated both from the primitive Roman Church and from the present Catholick Church But wee confesse it to be alwayes Schismaticall to seperate from the Communion of the Catholick Church united Thus much he ought to take notice of and when he hath oecasion hereafter to write upon this Subject not to take it for granted as they use to doe that the Catholick Church and the Roman Church are convertible Termes or tell us a Tale of a Tub what their Tenet is that these Churches which continue in Communnion with the Roman are the onely true Churches We regard not their Schismaticall and uncharitable Tenets now no more then we regarded the same tenets of the donatists of old They must produce better authority then their Owne and more substantiall proofes then he hath any in his Budget to make us believe that the Roman Church is the Catholick Church It is charity to acknowledge it to be a Catholick church inclusively but the greatest uncharitablenesse in the world to make it the Catholick church exclusively that is to seperate from Christ and from hope of Salvation as much as in them lieth all Christians who are not of their own communion Howsoever it is well that they who used to vaunt that the Enemy trembled at the name of the Catholick church are now come about themselves to make the Catholick Church to be an appendix to the Roman Take notice Reader that this is the first time that Mr. Serjeant turns his back to the question but it will not be the last My next taâ—ke is to examine his two Rules or Bonds of Unity And first concerning his Rule of faith I doe not onely approve it but thanck him for it and when I have a purpose to confute the 12 new Articles of Pius the fourth I will not desire a better medium then it And I doe Cordially subscribe to his Censure that the Transgressors there of are indeed those who are truly guilty of that horrid Schisme which is now in the Christian world To his second Rule or principle for Government that Christ made Sâ— Peter First or Chiefe or Prince of his Apostles who was to be the first mover under him in the church after he departed out of this world to whom all others should have recourse in greater Difficulties If he had not been a meer Novice and altogether ignoranâ— of the Tenets of our English Church he might have known that wee have no controversy
deposited at Rome as a stock for defence against the Turk and no otherwise But the time is effluxed since and the Princes have learned by Experience that the moneys have not been imployed againsâ— the Turkes but converted to other Vses c. The Emperour Charles the fifth was not of the same mind as appeareth by his Letter to Pope Adrian the sixth where in he reciteth the same fraud and requireth that the Tenths may be detained in Germany for that Vse for which they were first intended Lastly Henry the eighth and the Church and Kingdome of England were not of that mind nor intended to indure such an egregious cheat any longer so extremely contrary to the Fundamentall Lawes of the Kingdome and destructive to them By which Lawes the King himself who onely hath Legislative power in England may not compell his Subjects to pay any such Pensions without the Good will and Assent of the Arch-Bishops Bishops Earls Barons Knights Burgesses and other Freemen of the land Much lesse can a forrain Prince or Praelate whatsoever he be impose any such payments by his own Authority This is that which is so often Condemned in our Statutes of Provisors Namely the imposing Pensions and exporting the Treasure of the Realme The Court of Rome is so far from any Pretense of Reparation that if their Predecessors were living they were obliged to make restitution These are all the Differences that are between us concerning the Patronage of the Church of EnglaÌ„d Yet now least he should urge that these Lawes alledged by mee are singular obsolete Lawes not Consonant to the Lawes of other Christian Kingdomes I will Paralell them with the Lawes and Liberties of France which he him self acknowledgeth to be a Catholick Country as they are recorded in two Authentick Bookes One of the Rights and Libertyes of the Gallican Church The Other The Defence of the Court of Paris for the Liberty of the Gallican Church against the Roman Court both printed by Authority First for the Patronage of the Church The fourth Liberty is The King hath power to Assemble or cause to be Assembled Synods Provinciall or Nationall and therein to treat of such things as concern Ecclesiasticall Order The seventh Liberty is The Prelates of the French Church although commanded by the Pope for what cause so ever it be may not depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings Commandement aâ—d License The eleventh Liberty is The Pope cannot impose Pensions in France upon any Benifices having Cure of Soules Nor upon any other but according to the Canons c. The Fourteenth Liberty is Ecclesiasticall persons may be Convented Iudged and sentenced before a secular Iudge for the First enormious Crime or for lesser offences after a relapse The fifteenth Liberty is All the Prelatest of France are obliged to swear Fealty to the King and to receive from him their Investitures for their Fees and Manours The nineteenth Liberty is Provisions Reservaâ—ioÌ„s expectative graces have no place in FraÌ„ce This is the brief summe of those Liberties which concern the Patronage of the Gallican Church agreeing perfectly with our old English Customes I shall shew him the same perfect Harmony between their Church Liberties and our English Customes the Assise of Clarendon the Statutes of Provisors and Premunire through out Either Mr. Serjeant must make the Gallican Church Schismaticall which he dare not doe and if I conjecture rightly hath no mind to doe or he must acknowledge our English Lawes to be good Catholick Lawes for Company Sect. I. Cap. VI. The next Vsurpation which offereth it self to our Consideration is the Popes Legislative power ouer the Church and Kingdome of England either in his person or by his Legates For the clearer understanding whereof the Reader in the first place may be pleased to take notice that we receive the ancient Canons of the Catholick church and honour them more then the Romanists themselves as being selected ouâ— of the Canons of Primitive Councells before the Roman Bishops did challenge any plenitude of Legislative power in the Church And especially of the first four General Councells of which King Iames said most truly that Publica Ordinum nostrorum Sanctione recâ—pta sunt They are received into our Lawes We acknowledge that just Canons of Councells lawfully Congregated and lawfully proceeding have power to bind the Conscience of Subjects as much as Politicall Lawes in themselves not from themselves as being humane lawes but from the Ordinance of God who commandeth Obedience of Subjects to all sorts of Superiours We receive the Canons of other Primitive Councells but not with the same degree of Reverence as wee doe the first four generall Councells No more did S. Gregory of old No more doth the Pope now in his solemne Profession of his Faith at his election to the Papacy according to the decree of the Councell of Constance That which restrained them restraineth us I am more troubled to thinke how the Pope should take himself to be an Ecclesiasticall Monarch and yet take such a solemne Oath In the Name of the Holy and undivided Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost to keep the Faitâ— of the Councell of Chalcedon to the least Tittle What the faith of the Fathers of Chalcedon was in this greate Controversy about the Papacy may appeare by the six teenth Session and the Acclamation of the Fathers to the Sentence of the Iudges Haec justa Sententia haec omnes dicimus haec omnibus placent c. This is a just Sentence These things wee all say These things please us all c Secondly we acknowledge that Bishops were alwayes esteemed the proper judges of the Canons both for composing of them and for executing of them but with this caution that to make them Lawes the confirmation of the Prince was required and to give the Bishop a coactive power to execute them the Princes grant or concession was needfull The former part of this caution is evident in Iustinians confirmation of the fifth Generall Synod Haec pro communi Pace Ecclesiarum Sanctissimarum statuimus haec sententiavimus sequentes Sanctorum PatruÌ„ dogmata c. These things wee ordaine these things wee have sentenced following the opinion of the Holy Fathers c. Quae Sacerdotio visa sunt ab Imperio confirmata Which were approved by the Clergy and confirmed by the Emperour The second part of the caution is evident out of the Lawes of William the conquerour Qui decimam deâ—inuerit per justitiaÌ„ Episcopi Regis si necesse fueriâ— ad soluttioneÌ„ arguatur c. Who shall detain his Tythe Let him be convinced to pay it by the justice of the Bishop and if it be needfull of the King For these things S. Austin preached and taught and these things that is both Tythes and jurisdictioÌ„ were granted froÌ„ the King the Barons and the People So hitherto there is no difference betweeÌ„ us they acknowledge that the King
he peradventure never read it But what doth he thinke of the Councells of Constance and Basile who professe themselves every where to be qualified to reform the Church tam in Capite quam in membris as well in the head as in the members They escape fairly if he doe not censure them as Protestants for they were great Reformers and they were no great Papists placing the Soveraign power under Christ in the Church and not in the first Mover I might well call the Reformation in Henry the eights time their Reformation the Papists Reformation rather then ours if the Reformers were more Papists then Protestants as it most evident I pressed him that if the Renunciation of the Bishop of Romes absolute vniversall Monarchy by Christs own Ordination be the essence of a Protestant then the Primitive Church were all Protestants He answereth it is flatsy false I am contented to be silent for the present but when time serveth it may be made appeare to be flatly true and that all that the Primitive Fathers did attribute to the Bishop of Rome was no more them a Primacy of Order or beginning of Vnity and that an absolute Monarchy by Christ Ordination is absolutely repugnant to the Primitive Discipline I proceeded then all the Graecian Russian Armenian Abyssen Christians are Protestants this day He answereth that it it is partly true and partly false and serveth onely to prove that the Protestants have fellow Schismaticks And why partly true and partly false when all the world seeth that all these Churches doe disown and disclaime the Popes Monarchy This is just the old condemned Tenet of the Schismaticall Donatists who did most uncharitably limit the Catholick Church to their own Party excluding all others from hope of Salvation as the Romanists doe now The best is we must stand or fall to our owne Master But by this means they have lost one of the notes of their Church that is multitude for they exclude three or four times more Christians out of the Communion of the Catholick Church then they admit into it I proceeded yet higher then we want not store of Protestants even in the bosome of the Roman Church it self His answer is that to speake moderately it is an impudent falshood and a plain impossibility for whosoever renounceth the Substance of the Popes Authority and his being head of the Church becomes totally disunited from the Church Good words His groundworke is to weake to support the weight of such an heavy accusation A Primacy of Order implyeth an headship as well as Supremacy of power neither is it destitute of all power It hath some power essentially annexed to it to congregate sub paena purè spirituali to propose to give sentence according to the votes of the College It may have an accessary power to execute the Canons according to the Constitutions of Councells and Imperiall Sanctions and Confirmations But all this commeth far short of that headship which he asserteth a Soveraign Monarchicall Headship of absolute power above the whole Church by Christs Ordination This is that Headship which he mainteineth against me every where This is that Headship which the Primitive Church never acknowledged This is that Headship which the Grecians Russians Armenians Abyssines and the Church of England renounce at this day This is that Headship which many of his own Communion who live in the bosome of the Roman Church do not believe as the Councells of Constance and Basile and Pisa the Schoole of Sorbon and very many others every where who do all reject it some more some lesse The maine difference and almost the whole difference between him and me is concerning Coactive power in the Exteriour Court over the Subjects of other Princes against their wills this is so far from being vniversaly believed throughout all places of the Roman Communion that it is practically received in few or no places further then it seemeth expedient to Soveraign Princes If the Pope himself did believe that he had such an absolute Soveraignty of Monarchicall power in the exteriour Court by Christs own Ordination to him and his Successors How could he alienate it from his Successors almost wholy to the Princes of Sicily and to their Heirs for ever within that Kingdome Or how could the Princes retein it If the King and Kingdome of France did believe that the Pope had such an absolute Monarchicall power in the Exteriour Court by Christs own Ordination how could the King of France forbid the Popes Legates without his License or restrain their Legantine Commissions by his Parliaments or sweare them to act nothing contrary to the Liberties of the Gallican Church and to cease to execute their Commissions whēsoever the King and Kingdome should prohibit them or reject Papall decrees further then they are received in that Kingdome Or if the Councell of Brabant did believe it how could they forbid the Subjects to repaire to Rome out of their own Country upon the Popes Summons All men know that there is no Privilege or Prescription against Christs own Ordination Qui pauca considerat facile pronunciat This is ever the end of his Contradictions Lastly he Chargeth me for omitting to answer to his reason that the renouncing the Pope is essentiall to Protestantisme Truly I neither did nor do hold it worth answering Cannot he distinguish between the whole Essence of any thing and one Essentiall He might as well affirm that he who believeth but one Article of his Creed is a Christian. This requireth no great skill to explicate it but I have remitted this Controversy to the Reader as fittest for his determination Sect. III. That Henry the 8. made no new Law But onely vindicated the ancient Liberties of England CHristian Reader thou hast seen hitherto how Mr. Serjeant hath failed altogether to make good his pretensions and in stead of those great mountains of Absurdities and falsifications and Contradictions which he promised hath produced nothing worthy of so weighty a cause or an ingenious Schollar but his own wilfull ridiculous mistakes We are now come to his third Section wherein thou maiest see this young Phaeton mounted in his Triumphant Chariot driving the poore Bishop as a Captive before him now expect to see him tumbling down headlōg with a fall answerable to his height of pride and insolence He professeth himself willing to stand to the Award of the most partiall Protestant living who hath so much sincerity as to acknowledge the Suns shining at noone day or that the same thing cannot both be and not be at once If after this lowd confident bragge he be not able to make any thing good that is of weight against me he hath forfeited either his Iudgement or his ingenuity and deserveth not to be a writer of Controversies I need no partiall Iudges but appeale to the indifferent Reader of what communion soever he be he needeth but to compare my Vndication his Answer my Reply his Rejoinder and my
of Peaces Closet And yet he is as confident as Gawen the best Statute he could pick out you may be sure How doth he know that We all see he never read it nor knoweth whether it be a Statute or no. Then he telleth us there is not a Syllable in it concerning Spirituall Iurisdiction Well guessed by Instinct but for once his Instinct hath deceived him if Excommunication be any part of Spirituall Iurisdiction there is more then one Syllable of Spirituall Iurisdiction in it But concerning our English Statutes both ancient and new which concern the casting of Papall Authority out of the Kingdom I have given him a full satisfactory account formerly to which I refer him We have seen how carelesse he is in reading over Lawes before he answer them Now let us observe the same Oscitance or want of Ingenuity towards his Adversary that he may learn what he gets by his Falsifications Nempe hoc quod Veneri donatae a virgine puppae Reall falsifications retorted upon him instead of his feigned ones He answered that to limit an Authority implyes an admittance of it in cases to which the Limitation extends not I replyed that these ancient Lawes of England did not onely limit an Authority but deny it that is deny it in such and such cases mentioned in the Lawes deny it Coactively in the exteriour Court without the leave of the Soveraign Prince So the Lawes may differ the restraints may differ the leave may differ in degrees according to the difference of places notwithstanding this denyall That which he beateth at is this that we deny all Papall power whatsoever but other Churches do onely limit it I answer we doe not deny the Bishop of Rome all manner of power We deny him not the power of the Keys we deny him not any power purely Spirituall we deny him not his beginning of Vnity if he could he contended with it but we deny him all Coactive power in the Exteriour Court over the Subjects of other Princes without the Soveraigns leave If some Princes give more leave then others as finding it more expedient for their affaires we doe not envy it But he urgeth that I do not deny equivalent Lawes in France Spain Germany Italy I neither deny it nor affirm it or I affirm it onely in part Yes there are some such Lawes in all these places by him mentioned perhaps not so many but the Liberties of the French Church are much the same with the English Some such Lawes not so many much the same are no proofes of Equivalence or if he will call them Equivalent it is onely secundum quid not simpliciter respectively in some cases not vniversally in all cases But he hath another place which striketh home where I affirm that the likâ— lawes may be found in Germany Poland France Spaine Italy Sicily and if we will trust Padre Paolo the Papacy it self But did either I or Padre Paolo speak of those ancieÌ„t English lawes by me cited made to restraine the Vsurpations of the Bishops of Rome So he saith but it is a grosse Falsification I did neither speake of them in that place nor Padre Paolo but we both speake of another Law of a quite different nature from these that is the Law of Mortmain a Law meerly Politicall to restrain men from giving Lands to the Church without License Of this I said there are found like Lawes to it in Germany Poland France Spain Italy Sicily and Padre Paolo addeth in the Papacy it self What an Adversary have I to deale with who either understandeth not what the Law of Mortmain is or regardeth not how he falsifieth his Adversaries words But from these mistaken and mishapen premisses he draweth ten Conclusions every one of them driving me to a Contradiction or Absurdity at least The first second third and fourth are the same in effect or all comprehended in the first that it is opposite to the generall opinion of the whole world Catholicks Protestants Puritans Secondly that it is against the profession of the Protestants who extoll that happy time when England was freed from the yoke of Rome Thirdly that it contradicts our Reformation in the point of the Popes Supremacy there could be no Reformation of that which was not otherwise before and therefore Henry the eighth added something of his own to these ancient Lawes Fourthly he saith that Doctor Hammond acknowledgeth that Papall power was cast out of England in Henry the eights dayes And the sixth is that this Position is particularly opposite to the Common â—onsent of the Catholick Countries who all looked on Henry the eighth and the Church of England ever since as Schismaticall Doubtlesse he meaneth Roman Catholick Countries Was it not enough to say that it was Contrary to the Generall opinion of the whole world unlesse he added Protestants and Reformers and Doctor Hammond and Roman Catholicks as if they were none of the world Reader I undertooke to prove that HeÌ„ry the eighths Lawes against the Vsurpations of the Roman Bishop were no new Lawes but ancient Lawes of England I have done it by producing the ancient Lawes themselves five or six hundred yeares old and I am yet ready to shew further that they were no new Lawes then but the Fundamentall Lawes of England derived from the first founding of the British and English Churches as to the substance of them To all my premisses or particularities as he calleth them he hath been able to answer nothing but leaves them to the Canon and Secular Lawiers to scuffle about them but he utterly denyeth my Conclusion what an absurdity that is he is not ignorant But alas what doth the world know of the Municipall Lawes of England untill we instruct them better and what Opinion can Forreiners have of us but what they learn from him and his Fellowes We acknowledge with Doctor Hammond that Papall Vsurpations were cast out of England in Henry the eights time but we adde not by the Creation of new Lawes but by the vigorous execution of the ancient Lawes being first renewed and confirmed by himself We acknowledge that Henry the eighth did finally shake of the yoke of Rome which could not have been done if there had been nothing to have been shaken of or reformed but this doth not hinder but that his Predecessors did attempt to shake it of long before even at the first appearing of it yea and did actually shake it of for a time in a great part His fifth Objection is that according to me the Lawes made by Henry the eighth did no more then the former Lawes Where did I say so untill he is able to shew it me which I shall expect at the Greek Calends I shall score it up among his lesser Falsifications And for his inference which he makes that he never heard it pretended that they did shake of the Roman yoke in part or for a time therefore they did it not it sheweth but his ignorance in
Subjection at all to another Church They all agree in this the Britons were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all waies ordained at home independent upon any forrain Prelate ought no subjection to Rome And there fore it is no great wonder if Pope Gregory did not know when he was the favourite both of the Pope and people not long before his own promotion to the Papacy whether the Ilanders of Britain were Pagans or Christians To the same purpose speaketh Nicolas Trevet who having commended this Dinoth for a learned and a prudent man he addeth that Austin meeting him did demand that they should performe subjection to him as a Legate sent into this Land by the Pope and Court of Rome and demanded further that he would help him in preaching but he denied the one and the other Still Subjection is denied With these Baleus writing of Dinoth and the life of Austin in Sr. Henry Spellman and all our Antiquaries doe agree exactly And none of our Historiographers that I know doe disagree from it in the least who write upon that subject though some set it down more fully then others Iudge now Reader of Mr. Serjeants Knowledge or Ingenuity who telleth the so Confidently that the right of Subjection never came into play and when I said the British Clergy did renounce all obedieÌ„ce to the Bishop of Rome citing Bede and all others telleth me so confidently that I belied Bede and all our Historiographers at once I challenge him to name but one Historiographer who affirmeth the contrary to that which all these doe affirm if he be not able as he is not I might safely say without asking him leave that it striketh the Question dead His third Exception that it appeareth not that Sr. Henry Spellman found any other Antiquity in that Welsh Manuscript worth mentioning is so dull and unsignificant a piece that I will neither trouble myself nor the Reader with it And such like are his other Obâ—ections which helpresseth not but toucheth gently the Heads of them will not merit a repetition having been answered already by Doctor Hammond But when he is baffeld in the cause he hath a Reserve that Venerable Bede and Gildas and Fox in his Acts and Monuments do brand the Britons for wicked men making them as good as Atheists Of which Gang if this Dinoth were one he will neither wish the Pope such Friends nor envy them to the Protestants What needed this when he hath got the worst of the cause to revenge himself like a Pinece with a stinke We read no other Character of Dinoth but as of a pious learned and prudent man If Gildas or Bede have spoken any thing to the prejudice of the Britons it was not intended against the whole Nation but against particular persons There were St. Davids St. Dubricius's St. Thelaâ—s's St. Oudoceus's and Dinoths as well as such persons as are intended by Gildas or Beda What have they said more of the Britons then God himself and his Prophets have spoken of his own people or more then the Saxons have said one of another or more then maybe retorted upon any NatioÌ„ in Europe Have Gildas or Beda said more of the Birions theÌ„ St. Bernard and others have said of the Irish and yet Ireland was deservedly called the Island of Saints The Question is whether the British Church did ever acknowledge any Subjection to the Bishop of Rome Let him adorn this Sparta and leave other impertinencies Sect. V. That the King and Church of England had sufficient Authority to withdrawe their obedience from Rome The sixth Chapter of my Vindication comprehended my fourth ground consisting of these three particulars That the King and Church of England had sufficient Authority to reform the Church of England That they had sufficient Grounds for doing it And that they did it with due moderation His Rejoinder to this my fourth ground is divided into three SectioÌ„s whereof this is the first Whatsoever he prateth in this Section of my shuffing away the whole Question by balking the Bishop of Romes divine right to his Soveraignty of power to treat of his Patriarchall right which is humane is first vain For I alwayes was and still am ready to joine Issne with him concerning the Bishop of Romes divine right to a Monarchicall power in the Church saving alwaies to myself and my cause this advantage That a Monarchy and a Patriarchate of the same person in the same Body Ecclesiasticall are inconsistent And this right being saved I shall more willingly join issue with him about the Popes Monarchy then about his Patriarchate Secondly as it is vaine so it is altogether impertinent for my Ground is this that a Soveraign Prince hath power within his own Dominions for the publick good to change any thing in the externall Regiment of the Church which is not of divine Institution but the Popes pretended Patronage of the English Church and his Legislative Iudiciary and dispensative power in the exteriour Courtes of the same Church doe concern the externall Regiment of the Church aud are not of divine Institution Here the Hindge of our Controversy doth move without encombring our selves at all with Patriarchall Authority Thirdly I say that this discourse is not onely vaine and extravagant but is likewise false The Popes Protopatriarchall power and the Authority of a Bishop of an Apostolicall Church as the keper of Apostolicall Traditions deposited in that Church are the fairest flowers in his Garland Whatsoever power he pretendeth to over the whole Church of Christ above a Primacy of Order is altogether of humane right and the Application of that Primacy to the Bishop of Rome is altogether of humane right And whatsoever he presumeth of the Vniversall Tradition of the Christian Church or the Notion which the former and present world and we our selves before the Reformation had of the Papacy that is of the Divine right of the Popes Soveraignty is but a bold ratling groundlesse bragge I did and doe affirm that the Pope hath quitted his Patriarchichall power above a thousand yeers since not explicitly by making a formall Resignation of it but implicitly by assuming to himself a power which is inconsistent with it I was contented to forbeare further disputing about Patriarchall rights upon two Conditions one that he should not presume that the Pope is a Spirituall Monarch without proving it The other that he should not attempt to make Patriarchall Privileges to be Royall Prerogatives This by one of his peculiar Idiotisms he calleth Bribing of me If he had had so much Civility in him he might rather have interpreted it a gentle forewarning of him of two Errours which I was sure he would Commit After all his Bravadoes all that he hath pretended to prove is but a Headship a First Movership a Chief Governourship about which we have no Difference with them and all the proofe he bringeth even of that is a bold presumption that there
Vnity in Faith and Government errours and Falshoods If any of our Preachers being exasperated 〈◊〉 some such Boutifeus as himself have in theiâ— Pulpits used any Virulence or Petulancâ— against the Church of Rome Let him makâ— use of his stile against them who wilâ— furnish him with Lettuce suitable to hiâ— Lips What is that to the Church of England what is that to us Quid immerentes hospites vexat Canis Ignavus adversus lupos Let him but observe what Liberty be himself taketh without any maÌ„ner of Provocation But as for my self he doth me notorious wrong I did not mention any Principles of Vnity in this place nor so much as dream of them but that he must needs bring them in by head and shoulders in every Paragraph All I said was this That we doe not separate from other Churches but from their Accidentall Errours but some men are like Nettleâ— touch them gently and they sting you The first part of our Moderation was not to censure other Churches for no Churches nor deny them possibility of Salvation nor thrust them from our Communion which I shewed in the Example of St. Ciprian In answer to this he sheweth the unlawfulnesse of Communicating with Idolaters which is reconciling Christ with Anti-Christ Was not this impertinent if he himself were Iudge I said it might be very lawfull in some cases to communicate with materiall Idolaters Hereticks aÌ„d Schismaticks that is such as erre through ignorance and frailty not obstinacy in Religious Duties And for proofe hereof I produced the instaÌ„ce of the Primitive Christians communicating in some cases with the Hereticall Arrâ—ans and the Schismaticall Novatians He demands first who forbids them to goe visit the sick I adde or pray with them also which was as much as I said there but because he falleth with such Violence upon the point I will now take the Liberty to expresse my self more fully First it is to be remembred that I did speake onely of Materiall Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks not Formall SecoÌ„dly of pious Offices not of Idolatrous Acts nor any thing favouring Heresy or Schisme Thirdly I do new exclude case of Scandall for just scandall may make that Act to be unlawfull which in it self is Lawfull Fourthly I except cases of Just Obedience the prohibition of a lawfull Superiour Civill or Ecclesiasticall may make that Act to be unlawfull which was Indifferent Lastly I distinguish between persons Learned and grounded in Religion and persons unlearned and ungrounded the former may and ought to communicate with Idolaters Hereticks and Schismaticks as far as they can with a good Conscience to gain them to the truth the latter are obliged not to come over near to pitch least they be defiled The Question being thus stated I believe the main point hath no great Difficulty in it For they who are Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks onely materially not formally that is against their meanings resolutions and intentions are no Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks in the eyes of God or discerning men neither are they out of the Pale of the Church or out of the way of Salvation as the Bishop of Chalcedon saith most truely VVe allow all those to have saving Faith to be in the Church in way of Salvation for so much as belongeth to Faith who hold the Fundamentall points and invincibly erre in not Fundamentalls But all Idolaters Hereticks and Schismaticks who are onely materially Idolatrous Hereticall or Schismaticall doe erre invincibly for if they erred vincibly then they were formall Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks Thus much I lay down for certain the rest I onely propose that although they were formall Hereticks or Schismaticks yet they are not altogether out of the Pale of the Church but onely in part Ex ea parte in texâ—urae compage deâ—inentur in caeâ—era scissi sunt So farre they are woven into the web for the rest they are divided as St. Austin saith And Bellarmâ—ne out of him acknowledgeth that they are absolutely in the Church untill they goe out of it by Obstinacy which they who ate onely materially Hereticks or Schismaticks do not and after they are gone out of the Church by Obstinacy yet they are still in the Church secundum aliquid non simpliciter not absolutely but respectively or in part And after he hath vapoured a long time to no purpose thus much is acknowledged by himself as long as Schismaticks are not hardened into an Obstinacy as no Schismaticks are who are onely materially Schismaticall there is a prudentiall Latiâ—ude allowed by the Church delaying her Censures as long as she can possibly without wronging her Government as was de facto practised in England till the 10 of Queen Elizabeth This is full as much as I said that it may be lawfull to communicate in some cases with materiall Schismaticks And whatsoever I said was rather to make a Charitable Construction of their materiall Idolatry then out of fear that they should be able to attaint us of any Schisme either materiall or formall if he had any thing of reality to object against us he would be ashamed to intimate our inclinations to favour Arrianisme which he himself knoweth our soules abhorre and which he himself knoweth to be expresly condemned in the second Article of our Church He may find my Instances of the Primitive Christians communicating with the Arrians and Novatians in Church Offices in my answer to the Bishop of Chalcedons Preface pa. 36 if he have any thing to say to them Neither was it at the first sprouting of the Arrian Heresy but after they had formed severall Doxologies to themselves nor at the First beginning of the Novatian Schisme but towards the Conclusion of it I cited St. Cyprian for no other purpose but to shew that his moderation in absteining from censuring did preserve him free from Schisme although he was in an errour When Optatus called the Donaâ—ists his Brethren he did not mean his Brethren in Adam but his Brethren in Christ and wonders why his Brother Parmenian a Donatist would ranke himself with Heretieks who were falsifiers of the Creed If this be the infallible marke of an Heretick Let Pius Quartus and his party looke to themselves I disliked a position of his which the Reader shall have in his own words I cannot say my Religion is true but I must say the Opposite is false mine is good but I must say the Opposite is naught mine necessary but I must Iudge that which is inconsistent carries to damnation Therefore who does not censure a Contrary Religion holds not his own certain that is hath none Upon this he pursueth me with a full Crye that the Common Principle of Nature if any thing be true the Opposite is false or a thing cannot both be and not be at once is denyed by the Bishop Stay Mr. Serjeant be not so fierce the Bishop knoweth as well as your self that the disjunction of Contradictories is eternall and
to pervert as many as they can not to sow good seed in the Lords Field but to superseminare or sow Tares above the wheat We should thank them more to stay at home then to compasse Sea and Land to gaine Proselites as the Pharisees did and made them twofold more the Children of Hell then themselves He saith that this is the solemne Custome of their Church every Good Friday Let it be so but they have not the same incentive and provocation which we have we do not curse and Anathematise theÌ„ the day before as they doe us This Advantage we have over them that we render blessing for cursing which they doe not He addeth that they cannot be understood under the notion of Hereticks first because we acknowledge theirs to be a true Church and therefore not hereticall Secondly they are of Christs Flock already and therefore not reductble to his Flock To the First â— answer that a particular Church which is onely materially Hereticall not formally doth still continue a true Church of Christ. The Bishop of Chalcedon understood these things much better then himself this is confessed by him in the place formerly alleged A particular Church may be really Hereticall or Schismaticall and yet morally a true particular Church because she is invincibly ignorant of her Heresy or Schisme We agree with him wholy in the sense onely we differ in the expression What he calleth really Hereticall we stile materially Hereticall and what he calleth morally a true Church we use to stile Metaphysically a true Church that is by truth of Entity not of Morality Secondly I answer that the Flock of Christ is taken variously sometimes more largely sometimes more strictly more largely for all those that are In domo by outward profession more strictly for those who are Ex domo so in the Church that they are also of the Church by inward Sanctification And our Collect hath reference to this later acception of this word Flock So Fetch them home blessed Lord to thy Floek that they may be saved He taketh it ill that our Church hath chaÌ„ged these words in the Missall recall them to our Holy Mother the Catholick and Apostolick Church into this dwindling puling puritanicall expression of one Floek and one Fold under one Shepheard Whether it be because he hath a Pick against Scripture phrases as sounding too preacherlike or rather because our Church did presume to name the right Shepheard Iesus Christ and not leave it to their Glosses to entitle the Pope to that Office But certainly the Authority of the Catholick Church is not formidable at all to any Genuine Sonnes of the Church of England I doe readily acknowledge that it is the duty of each Orthodox Church to Excommunicate Formall Hereticks and them who swerve from the Apostles Creed as the rule of Faith but this doth not oblige the Church of England to Excommunicate all materiall Hereticks who follow the dictate of their conscience in inferiour Questions which are not Essentialls of Faith and do hold the truth implicitly in the preparation of their minds Neither do I ever know that the Church of England did ever excommunicate Papists in grosse qua tales but onely some particular Papists who were either convicted of other Crimes or found Guilty of Contumacy It were to be wished that the Court of Rome would use the same Moderation and remember how Ireneus reproved Pope Victor that he had not done rightly to cut of from the Vnity of the Mysticall body of Christ so many and so great Churehes of God This is that great nonsense which this egregious Prevaricatour hath found in our Collect that the English Church cannot reconcile her doctrine and her practise together Let him not trouble his head with that but rather how to recoucile himself with his own Church He will have prayers to be onely words no works but his Church maketh Prayer Fasting and Almes to be three satisfactory works My third proofe of our Moderation was that we doe not challenge a new Church a new Religion or new holy Orders but derive our Church our Religion our Holy Orders from Christ and his Apostles by an uninterrupted Succession we obtrude no Innovations upon others All this is quite omitted by this great pretender to Sincerity and yet he knoweth or may know that there have been pretended Reformers who have committed all these excesses But he catcheth hold of two words of my defence that we have added no thing I wish they could say as much nor taken away any thing but Errours To the former part he excepteth that he who positively denies ever addes the contrary to what he takes away He that makes it an Article there is no Purgatory no Masse no prayers to Saincts hath as many Articles as he who holds the Contrary I have taken away this answer before and Demonstrated that no negative can be a Fundamentall Article or necessary Medium of Salvation because it hath no Entity That there are an hundred greater disputes and Contradictions among them selves in Theologicall Questions or in these things quae sunt fideâ— materialiter then those three are between us and them Yet they dare not say that either the Affirmatives or Negatives are Articles of Faith The ChristiaÌ„ Church for fifteen hundred yeares knew never more then 12. old Articles of Faith untill Pius the 4th added twelve new Articles And now this young Pythagoras will make us more then 1200. Articles affirmative Articles and Negative Articles Fundamentall Articles and Superstructive Articles Every Theologicall truth shall either be a Fundamentall Article or an indifferent and unconcerning Opinion He saith our 22. Article defineth the Negative to Purgatory yet I like an ill tutored Child tell my old Crasy Mother the Church of England that she lies I hope by this time the Reader knoweth sufficiently that his penne is no slander If the Church of England did ever ill it was when she begot him Neither doe I tell the Church of England she lies nor dissent in the least from the Definition of the Church of England neither doth the Church of England define any of these Questions as necessary to be believed either necessitate medâ—i or necessitate praecepti which is much lesse but onely bindeth her sonnes for peace sake not to oppose them But he himself can hardly be excused from lying where he telleth us the good simple Ministers did sweare to maintein them Perhaps he was one of the simple Ministers did he ever sweare to maintein them did he ever know any man who did sweare to maintein them For him to urge such falshoods after they have been so often detected is double Effronterie Periisse puto â—ui pudor periit He inferreth further By the Bishops Logick these propositions that there are not two Gods that the devills shall not be saved nor the Saints in Heaven damned that there is no Salvation but through Christ must cease to be Articles of Faith and
well tell us that it is impossible to make a crooked line with a leaden Rule Particular Tradition is flexible and is often bended according to the interests and inclinations of particular ages and places and persons He saith that there can be no encroachments so as men adhere to this method that is immediate Tradition He telleth us that they did adhere to this Method and that there was such immediate Tradition and yet we have seen and felt that encroachments and vsurpations and abuses did not onely creep into the Church but like a Violent Torrent did beare down all opposition before them I produce but two Witnesses but they are beyond exception The one is Pope Adrian the sixth in his Instructions to his Nuncio Franciscus Cheregatus when he sent him to the German Princes at the diet of Nuremberg Wee know that in the holy See for some yeares past many things have been to be abhominated Abuses in Spirituall things Excesses in Mandates and all things changed perversly Neither is it to be marveiled at if sicknesse descend from the head to the members from the Chiefest Bishops to other inferiour Prelates c. And againe Wherein for so much as concerneth us you shall promise that wee will doe our uttermost endeavour that in the first place this Court from whence peradventure this evill hath proceeded may be reformed that as the Corruption flowed from thence to all inferiours so likewise the health and reformation of all may proceed from thence Pope Adrian Confesseth abominable abuses and excesses and perverse mutations and corruptions and yet Mr. Serjeant would make us believe that where this Method of Orall and immediate Tradition is used there can be no changes Either this Method was not used or this Method is not a sufficient preservative against innovations both wayes his demonstration falleth to the ground My other Witnesse is the Councell of nine cheife Cardinalls who upon their Oaths delivered up as their veredict a bundle of abuses grievons abuses abuses not to be tolerated they are their own words ye a Monsters to Paul the third in the yeare 1538 beseeching him that these spots might be taken away which if they were admitted in any Kingdome or Republick would streight bring it to ruine Never any man did make encroachments and innovatious to be impossible before this man His assumtion is as false as his major proposition But these two Rules whereof this is one part that the Bishops of Rome as Successors of S. Peter did inherit from him this privilege to be the first or Chiefe or Princes of Bishops c. Were agreed upon unanimously between the church of Rome and its dependents and the church of England and delivered from hand to hand in them all by the Orall and immediate Tradition of a World of Fathers to a World of children successively as a Rule of discipline received from Christ and his Apostles c. If all this were true it concerneth us nothing we may perhaps differ from them in judgmeÌ„t but have no formed quarrell with them about this that I know of We are willing to submit not onely to the Ordinances of Christ bâ—t to the just ordinances of man and to yeeld for the common Peace and Tranquility of Christendome rather more then is due then lesse But otherwise how was that unanimously agreed upon between the Churches of Rome and England and so delivered by Fathers to Children as a thing accorded whereof the Church of Rome is no better accorded within it self unto this day I mean concerning the divine right of the Bishop of Rome to all the privileges of St. Peter when the Popes greatest Champions maintein it so coldly as a thing that is not improbable that peradventure may be peradventure may not be as grounded upon a fact of St. Peter that is as much as to say not upon the Mandate of Christ And though wee should be so kind-hearted as to suppose that there is some part of Papall power in the abstract not in the concrete which is of Christs own institution Namely The beginning of Vnity that is a power to Convocate the Church and to preside in the Church and to pronounce the sentence of the Church so far and no further then power purely spirituall doth extend although there be no speciall mandate of Christ to that purpose for one to be the successour of S. Peter or any prime or chiefe of all other Bishops yet in the Iudgement even of the greatest opposers of Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy it is the dictate of nature that one should preside over the rest Ex dei ordinatione perpetua necesse fuit est erit ut in Presbyterio quispiam loco dignitate primus actioni gubernandae praesit Yet what is this to that great Bulke of Ecclesiasticall Authority which hath been conferred upon that See by the decrees of oecumenicall councells and by the Civill Sanctions of Christian Emperours which being Humane Institutions may be changed by Humane Authority Can one scruple of divine right convert a whole masse of Humane right into divine Wee see Papall power is not equall or alike in all places but is extended or contracted variously according to the different Privileges and liberties of severall Churches and kingdomes We see at this day the Pope hath very little to doe in Sicily as I have shewed in my Vindication of the Church of England by reason that one of his Predecessors long since hath alienated in a manner the whole Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction to the Soveraign Prince of the Country and to his Heirs Wee may call it by deputation or delegation but this is plain it is to him and his Heâ—res for ever This is certain divine right cannot be extended or contracted There is no Privilege or prescription against divine right That which belongeth to one person by divine right cannot be alienated to another person by humane right for then Humane right should be stronger then divine right In summe although there be some colour or pretext of divine right for a beginning of Vnity wheresoever the Catholick Church should fix it yet it appeareth evidently by the Vniversall practice of the Christian world in all ages that there is no Colour nor so much as a shadow of divine right for all the other Branches of papall power and those vast Privileges of the Roman Court. In the Councell of Constance they damned most of the Articles of Iohn Wickliffe down right without hesitation but when they came to the one and fortieth Article It is not necessary to Salvation to believe that the Roman Church is supreme among other Churches they paused and used some reservation It is an errour if by the Roman Church he understood the Vniversall Chureh or a Generall Councell or for as much as he should deny the primacy of the Pope above other particular Churches Their judgement is clear enough they yeilded to the Pope primatum not suprematum A primacy of
Order not a supremacy of power They made him a beginning of Vnity to all particular Churches Yet subjected him to the Vniversall Church They looked upon him as Highest Bishop and Successour of St. Peter but they believed that a Generall Councell had power to shake his Candlestick and remove it if they found it expedient for the good of Christendome If he come so far short of divine right in his faire pretensions by what right will he seek to justify all his foule Vsurpations and enchroachments which have no decree of any Oecumenicall councell to warrant them no Imperiall Institntion to authorise them which have no foundation but the Popes own decretalls But â— reserve a full account of this for the next part of my Answer Onely Reader be pleased to take notice that it behooved Mr. Serjeant to have proved his Traditions clearly and distinctly as to those parts of Papall power which are controverted between us in earnest with the Vniversality of it and the perpetuity of it This he neither doth nor attempteth to doe nor in deed is he or any other able to doe but meerly presumeth it and slubbereth over the mater in deceitfull Generalls Sect. I. Cap. III. Wee are come now to the last part of his demonstration which was the Minor or Assumtion of his former Syllogisme That the Church of England in Henry the eighths dayes did breake these Rules of Vnity upon probable reasons not convincing grounds Which being the main question he should have fortifyed with proofes but he according to his Custome thinkes to carry it with confidence and clamours Does not all the World grant and hold that King Henry denyed the Popes Supremacy Does not all the World see that the pretended Church of England stands now otherwise in Order to the Church of Rome then it did in Henry the sevenths dayes c. Was Papall power cast out before was it not in actuall force till and at that time Wee beg nothing gratis but begin our Processe upon Truth acknowledged by the whole World What Papall power king Henry did cast out and what Papall power we hold out I shall demonstrate to the World not confusedly but distinctly by such proofes as are not to be gainsaid for matter of fact But before I gird my self to the worke it will not be amisse for the freeing of the Cause from future Cumber about them to give Satisfaction to his two Circumstances that wee did it onely upon probable reasons And in the dayes of king Henry the eighth For the first he keepeth a great stirre and bustling every where about our probable reasons and tbe nature of our Exceptions And he would make his reader believe that I have omitted this part of his wordâ— Guâ—lefully All which discourse is superfluous and impertinent For if he could make good his Conclusion that wee have cast out that which Christ himself did ordein in holy Scripture no reasons nor exceptions can be sufficient or so demonstrative and convincing as to justify a wilfull violation of Christs own ordination Every Plant saith our Saviour which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooâ—ed up But if this be Christs own Plant which he himself hath planted to goe about to root it up were plainly to fight against God We renounce all reasons and all exceptions against Christs own ordination His very intimation that wee might doe what we did upon demonstrative reasons is an implicit Confession that it was not against Christs own ordination There was no need why I should meddle wich mine own exceptions here That was his office in the position of the Case That case is meanly and partially stated which is stated but on one side he ought to have included my Exceptions in his case Besides I was sure to meet wich my exceptions in every Section and therefore reserved them for their proper-places as being loath to offend the Reader wich twice sodden Coleworts But let him not feare that I will relinquish my Exceptions I shall maintain them to be demonstrative of the Popes Vsurpations in England and leave them freely to try it out with his Demonstrations The second Circumstance is concerning the time when the breach is supposed to have been made In the dayes of Henry the eighth And it is thus far true that then the breach was declared and the War proclaimed to all the World but this breach was making long before Henry the eighth was born form the dayes of Pope Hildebrand for about four hundred yeares There was no open hostility indeed between the Court of Rome and the Church and Kingdome of England but they were still upon their Gards and still seeking to gaine ground one upon another as appeareth by the decrees and Lawes and Machinations of those times A breach in a strong Tower is long making before the Walls tumble visibly down A Scathfire is long kindling before it breake out in an universall flame A Cronicall disease is long gathering and forming before the certain Symptoms there of doe appeare We use to say the second blow makes the fray but the first blow makes the Battery and the guilt All that time that they were forcing their grosse usurpations upon us the Breach was making I have done wich his two Circumstances The Substance of his Assumtion remaineth But before I grapple with him about that give me leave to lay down four grounds or Considerations so indifferent that no rationall man can deny them The first is that every one who is involved materially in a Schism is not a formall Schismatick no more then â—hee that marrieth after long expectation believing and having reason to believe that her former Husband was dead is a formall Adultresse or then he who is drawn to give divine Worship to a creature by some misapprehension yet addressing his devotions to the true God is a formall Idolater A man may be Baptisatus voto as S. Ambrose said baptised in his desire and God Almighty doth accept it why may he not as wel Communicate in his desire and be accepted with God likewise If S. Austin say true of Heresy that He who did not run into his Errour out of his own overweening presumption nor defends it pertinaciâ—asly but received it from his seduced parents and is carefull to search out the truth and ready to be corrected if he find it out he is not to be reputed among Hereticks It is much more true of Schism that he who is involved in Schism through the errour of his Parents or Predecessors who seeketh carefully for the Truth and is prepared in his mind to embrace it whensoever he finds it he is not to be reputed a Schismatick This very Bond of Vnity and preparation of his mind to peace is an implicit â—enunciation and abjuration of his Schism before God This is as comfortable a ground for ignorant Roman Catholicks as for any persons that I know Who are hurried hoodwinked in to
no such power in the Pope to absolve Subjects from their allegiance in our Law With us Clergymen did ever pay Subsidies and taxes as well as lay men This is one Liberty which England hath not to admit of the Popes Lawes unlesse they like them A second Liberty of England is to reject the Popes Lawes in plaine termes The Pope made a Law for the Legitimation of Children borne afore Matrimony as well as those borne in Matrimony The Bishops moved the Lords in Parliament that they would give their consent to the Common Order of the Church But all the Earles and Barons answered with one voice that they would not change the Lawes of the Realm which hitherto had been used and approved The Popes legislation could not make a Law in England without the concurrence of the three Orders of the Kingdome and they liked their own old Lawes better then the Popes new Law A Third Liberty of England is to give a legislative Interpretation to the Popes Lawes which the Pope never intended The Bishop of Rome by a constitution made at the Councell of Lions excluded Bigamists men twice Married from the Privilege of Clergy that is that should Marry the second time de futuro But the Parliament made an Act that the constitution should be understood on this wise that whether they were Bigamists before the constitution or after they should not be delivered to the Prelates but Iustice should be executed upon them as upon other Lay people Ejus est Legem Interpretari cujus est condere They that can give a Law a new sense may abrogate it if they please A fourth Liberty of England is to call the Popes Lawes Vsurpations Encroachments Mischiefs contrary to and destructive of the Municipall Lawes of the Realme derogatory to the Kings Regality And to punish such of their Subjects as should pursue them and obey them with Imprisonment with Confiscation of their Goods and Lands with outlawing them and putting them out of the Kings Protection Witnesse all those noble Lawes of Provisors and Premunire Which we may truely call the Palladium of England which preserved it from being swallowed up in that vast Gulfe of the Roman Court made by Edward the first Edward the third Richard the second and Henry the fourth All those Collations and Reservations and Provisions and Privileges and Sentences which are condemned in those Statutes were all grounded upon the Popesâ—Lawes and Bulls and Decrees which our Ancestors entertained as they deserved Othobon the Popes Legate in England by the Command of Vrban the fifth made a Constitution for the endowment of Vicars in Appropriations but it prevailed not whereas our Kings by two Acts of Parliament did easily effect it No Ecclesiastical Act is impossible to them who have a Legislative power but many Ecclesiasticall Acts were beyond the Sphere of the Popes Activity in England The King could make a spirituall Corporation but the Pope could not The King could exempt from the Iurisdiction of the Ordinary but the Pope could not The King could Convert Seculars into Regulars but the Pope could not The King could grant the Privilege of the Cistercians but the Pope could not The King could Appropriate Churches but the Pope could not Our Lawes never acknowledged the Popes plenitude of Ecclesiasticall power which was the ground of his legislation Euphemius objected to Gelasius that the Bishops of Rome alone could not condemne Acatius ab uno non potuisset damnari Gelasius answered that he was condemned by the Councell of Chalcedon and that his Predecessor was but the Executor of an old Law and not the Author of a new This was all the ancient Bishops of Rome did challenge to be Executors of Ecclesiasticall Lawes and not single Law makers I acknowledge that in his Epistle to the Bishops of Dardania he attributeth much to the Bishops of Rome wich a Councell but it is not in making new Lawes or Canons but in executing old as in the case of Athanasius and Chrysostome The Privileges of the Abby of Saint Austin in EnglaÌ„d granted by the Popes were condemned as null or of no validity because they were not ratified by the King and approved by the Peers William the Conquerer would not suffer any man within his Dominions to receive the Pope for Apostolicall Bishop but by his command nor to receive his letters by any meanes â—nlesse they were first shewed to him It is â—ikely this was in a time of Schisme when there were more Popes then one but is sheweth how the King did interest himself in the affaires of the Papacy that it should have no further influence upon his subjects then he thought fit He who would not suffer any man to receive the Popes letters without his leave would much less suffer them to receive the Popes lawes without leave And in his prescript to Remigius Bishop of Lincolneâ— know ye all Earles and Viscounts that I â—ave judged that the Episcopall or Ecclesiasticall lawes which have bene of force untill my time in the Kingdome of England being not well constituted according to the praecepts of the holy Canons should be amended in the common assembly and with the Counsaile of my Arch-Bishops and the rest of the Bishops and Abbats and all the Princes of my Kingdome He needed not the helpe of any forreine Legislation for amending Ecclesiasticall Canons and the externall regiment of the Church Now let us see whether the Libertyes of France be the same with our English Privileges The second Liberty is this The Spirituall Authority and power of the Pope is not absolute in Franee if it be not absolute then it is not singly Legislative but limited and restreined by the Canons and ancient Councells of the Church If it be limâ—ted by Ancient Canons then it hath no power to abrogate Ancient Canons by new Canons Their ancient Canons are their Ecclesiasticall Lawes as well as ours and those must be received in that Kingdome They may be excellent Advisers without reception but they are no Lawes without publick reception Canons are no Canons either in England or in France further then they are received The third Liberty is No Command whatsoever of the Pope Papall decrees are his chief Commands can free the French Clergy from their Obligation to obey the Commands of their Soveraign But if Papall power could abrogate the ancient Lawes of France it did free their Clergy from their Obedience to their Soveraign Prince The sixteenth Liberty is The Courts of Parliament have power to declare null and voide the Popes Bulls wheÌ„ they are found contrary to the Liberties of the French Church or the Prerogative Royall The twentieth Liberty The Pope cannot exempt any Church Monastery or Ecclesiasticall Body from the jurisdiction of their Ordinary nor erect Bishopricks into Arch Bishopricks nor unite them nor divided them without the Kings license England and France as touching their Liberties walk hand in hand To conclude the Popes
Clarendon by the Popes Mandate they had interdicted the Lands of Earl Hugh and had published an Excommunication without the Kings License which the Pope had given out against him All these Lawes continued still in force and were never repealed in England neither before Henry the eighth began the reformation nor since by Queen Mary but have ever continued iu full force untill this day Lastly for Legates and Legantine courts there could be no Appeale in Eugland to any Legate or Nuncio without the Kings leave but all Appeales must be from the Archdeacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop from the Archbishop to the King as we see expresly by the statute of Assise of Clarendon formerly cited The Kings of England did ever deem it to be an unquestionable right of the Crown as Eadmerus testifieth to suffer none to excercise the Office of a Legate in England if the King him self did not Desire it of the Pope upon some great quarrell that could not be so well Determined by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops Which Privilege was consented unto by Pope Calixius By the Lawes of England if a Legate was admitted of Courtesy he was to take his Oath to doe nothing Derogatory to the King and his Crown Henry the sixth by the counsaile of Humphry Duke of Gloster the Protector protested against Pope Martin and his Legate that they would not admit him contrary to the Lawes and Libertyes of the Realm and dissented from whatsoever he did And when the Pope had recalled Cardinall Pooles Commission of Legate for England and was sending another Legate into England Queen Mary being very tender of her Kinsmans Honour for all her good affection to Rome was yet mindfull of this point of old English Law to cause all the Seaports to be stopped and all Letters Briefs and Bulls from Rome to be intercepted and brought to her Shee knew this was an old English not a new protestant Privilege Neither would she ever admit the new Legate to appeare as Legate in her presence Now let us see how these old English Customes doe agree with the French Liberties The Pope cannot send a Legate a latere into France with power to Reform Iudge Collate dispense except it be upon the desire or with the Approbation of the most Christian King Neither can the Legate execute his Charge untill he hath promised the King under his Oath upon his holy Orders to make no longer use of the Legantine power in the Kings Dominions then it pleaseth him That he shall attempt nothing Contrary to the Liberties of the Gallicane Church And it is lawful to Appeale from the Pope to a future Councell Another Liberty is The Commissions and Bulls of Popes are to be viewed by the Court of Parliament and registred and published with such Cautiōs as that Court shall Iudge expedient A third Liberty is Papall Bulls Sentences Excommunications and the like are not to be executed in France without the Kings command or Permission Lastly neither the King nor his Realm nor his Officers can be Excommunicated nor Interdicted by the Pope And as England and France so all the seventeen Provinces did enjoy the same Privileges as appeareth by the Placaet of the Councell of Brabant dated at Bruxelles May 12 An. 1653. Wherein they declare that it was notoriously true that the subjects of those Provinces of what State or Condition soever that is the Clergy as well as the Laity cannot be cited or convented out of the Land no not before the Court of Rome it self And that the Censures Excommunications c of that Court might not be published or put in execution without the Kings Approbation It seemeth that if the Pope had any judiciary power of old he must seek it nearer Home People had no mind to goe over the Alpes to seek for Justice And that Ordinance of Sainct Cyprian had place every where among our Ancestours Seing it is decreed by all and it is equall and just that every mans cause be heard there where the Crime was committed and a Portion of the Flock is assigned to every Pastor which he may rule and govern and must render an account of his Actions to the Lord It behoveth those whom wee are over not to run up and down nor to knock Bishops who agree well one◠against another by their Cunning and deceitfull Rashnesse but to plead their Cause there where they may have both Accusers and Witnesses of their Crime Vnlesse the Authority of the African Bishops who have Iudged them already seem lesse to a few desperate and lost persons c. To say S. Cyprian meant not to condemne appeales but onely the bringing Causes out of Africk to Rome in the first Instance is a shift as desperate as that of those Fugitives For St. Cyprian telleth us plainly that the cause was already Iudged and sentence given in Africk The first Instance was past and this Canon was made against Appeales out of Africa to Rome Sect I. Cap VIII So from his Iudiciary power I come to Papal dispensations the last of the grosser Vsurpations of the Bishops of Rome Where I have a large Field offered me to expatiate in if I held it so pertinēt to the present Controversy The Pharisees did never dilate their Philacteries so much as the Roman Courtiers did their dispensative power The Pope dispenseth with Oathes with Vowes with Lawes he looseth from Sinnes from Censures from Punishments Is not this a strange Key which can unlock both sinnes and censures and Punishments and Lawes and Oaths and Vowes where there are so many and so different wards It is two to one that it proveth not a right Key but a Picklock Their doctrin of Dispensations was foule enough especially in such cases as concern the Law of God or Nature as Oaths Vowes Leagues Marriages Allegiance For either they make the dispensation to be onely Declarative and then the Purchaser is meerly Cheated who payes his money for nothing Or else they make all Contracts Leagues promises to be but Conditionall If the Pope approve them which destroyeth all mutuall trust and humane Society Or thirdly they make the Popes Dispensations to be a taking away of the matter of the Vow or Oath that is the Promise as if the Papall power could recall that which is past or make that to be undone to day which was done yesterday or that not to be promised which was promised Or lastly they doe dispense with the Law of God and Nature as they doe indeed what soever they pretend to the Contrary or all this kind of dispensations signify nothing But the Practise of Dispensations was much more foule Witnesse their Penitentiary Taxe wherein a man might see the Price of his Sin before hand Their common Nundination of Pardons Their absolving Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Their loosing of Princes from their solemne Leagues of Married people from the Bonds of
whole Circuit of Cathage with a Bulls hide by her art so he within his First Movership can comprehend the Patronage of the English Church and the right to Convocate and dissolve and confirm English Synods and to invalidate old Oaths and to impose new Oaths of Allegiance and to receive Tenths and first fruits and all Legislative Judiciary and dispensative power Coactively in the exteriour Court of the Church over English Subjects He cannot plead any Charter from England we never made any such Grant and althoâ—gh we had yet considering how infinitely prejudiciall it is to the Publick Tranquility of the Kingdome we might and ought more advisedly to retract what we unadvisedly once resolved And for Prescription he is so far to seek that there is aâ— cleare Prescription of eleven hundred Yeares against him So there is nothing remaineth for him to stick to but his empty pretense of divine Right which is more ridiculous then all the rest to claime a divine right of such a Soveraign power which doth branch it self into so many particulars after eleven hundred Yeares which for so many Ages had never been acknowledged never practised in the English Church either in whole or in part We cannot believe that the whole Christian world were Mole-eyed or did sit in darknesse for so many Centuries of years untill Pope Hildebrand and Pope Paschalis did start up like two new Lights with their Weapons in their hands to thumpe Princes and knock them into a right Catholick beliefe And indeed this Answer to his pretended demonstration by a reall demonstration where the true Controversie doth lye and who are the true innovators doth virtually answer whatsoever he hath said So I might justly stop here and sâ—spend my former paines but that I have a great mind to try if I can find out one of those many Falsifications and Contradictions which he would make ns believe he hath espied in my discourse if it be not the deception of his sight First he telleth us that our best Champions doe grant that our faith and its grounds are but probable Surely he did write this between sleeping and waking when he could not well distinguish between necessary points of faith and indifferent Opinions concerning points of faith Or to use Cajetans expression between determinare de fideformaliter and determinare de eo quod est fidei Materialiter Between points of faith necessary to be believed And such Questions as doe sometimes happen in things to be believed As for Essentialls of faith the Pillars of the Earth are not founded more firmly then our beliefe upon that undoubted Rule of Vincentius Quicquid ubique semper ab omnibus c. Whatsoever we believe as an Article of our faith we have for it the Testimony and Approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and therein the Church of Rome it self But they have no such perpetuall or Vniversall Tradition for their twelve new Articles of Pope Pius This Objection would have become me much better then him Whatsoever we believe they believe and all the Christian World of all Places and all Ages doth now believe and ever did believe except condemned Hereticks But they endeavour to obtrâ—de new Essentialls of faith upon the Christian World which have no such Perpetuall no such Vniversall Tradition He that accuseth another should have an eye to himself Does not all the World see that the Church of England stands now otherwise in order to the Church of Rome then it did in Henry the sevenths dayes He addeth further that it is confessed that the Papall power in Ecclesiastical affaires was cast out of EnglaÌ„d in Henry the eights dayes I answer that there was no Mutation concerniâ—g faith nor concerning any Legacy which Christ left to his Church nor concerning the power of the Keys or any Iurisdiction purely Spirituall but concerning coactive power in the exteriour Court concerning the Politicall or Externall RegimeÌ„t of the Church concerning the Patronage or civill Soveraignty over the Church of EnglaÌ„d and the Legislative Iudiciary and Dispensative power of the Pope in EnglaÌ„d over English Subjects Which was no more then a Reinfranchisement of ourselves from the upstart Vsurpations of the Court of Rome Of all which I have shewed him expresly the first source who began them when and where before which he is not able to give one instance of any such Practises attempted by the Bishop of Rome and admitted by the Church of England Who it is that lookes asquint or awry upon the true case in Controversy between us let the ingenuous Reader Iudge I doe not deny nor ever did deny but that there was a reall separation made yea made by us from their Vsurpations but I both did deny and doe deny that there was any SeparatioÌ„ made by us from the Institution of Christ or from the Principles of Christian Vnity This Separation was made long since by themselves when they first introduced those novelties into the Church and this Seperation of theirs from the pure Primitive Doctrine and Discipiine of the Church doth acquit us and render them guilty of the Schisme before God and man And therefore it is a vain and impertinent Allegation of him to tell us that Governours may lawfully declare themselves publickly and solemnly against the renouncers of their Authority by Excommunication unlesse he could shew that the Bishop of Rome hath such an absolute Soveraignty over us as he imagineth extending it self to all those Acts which are in Controversy between us And that in the exercise of the power of the Keys they proceded duely in a legall manner And especially that they did not mistake their own Vsurpation for the Institution of Christ as we affirm and know they did His whole Discourse about immediate Tradition is a bundle of uncertain presumptions and vain Suppositions First he supposeth that his Rule of so vast a multitude of Eye-witnesses of Visible things is uniform and vniversall but he is quite mistaken the practiâ—e was different The Papalms made Lawes for their Vsurpations and the three Orders of the Kingdome of England made Lawes against them To whom in Probability should our Ancestors adhere to their owâ— Patriots or to Strangers Secondly he presumeth that this uniform practise of his Ancestors was invariable without any shadow of Change but it was nothing lesse First Investitures were in the Crown and an Oath of Fidelity made to the King without any Scruple even by Lanfranke and Anselm both Strangers Afterwards the Investitures were decried as profane and the Oath of Fidelity forbidden Next a new Oath of Allegiance was devised of Clergimen to the Pope First onely for Archbishops then for all Prelates And this Oath at first was moderate to observe the Rules of the holy Fathers but shortly after more Tyrannous to maintain the Roâ—alties of Sainct Peter as their own Pontificalls the old and the new do witnesse First when they tooke away Investitures from the Crown they were all
for free Elections but shortly after there was nothing to be heard of but Provisions and such Simoniacall Arts. It is as easy to shape a Coat for the Moone which alteretb every day as to fit one constant Tradition to all these diversified Practises Thirdly he supposeth that all Parenâ—s have Iudgement to understand aright what they see and to penetrate into the secret Caballs and Practises of their times And Ingenuity void of self Interest to relate it rightly to their posterity But herein also he will fall much short of his aime Most Parents know what is acted publickly but they know little what is done in their retiring Roome They know who is their Bishop But who invested him what Oathes he hath made they are to seeke Most Parents see a Bishop fit in his Consistory But by what authority he sits whether meerly by the power of the Keys or partly by Concession of the Soveraign Prince they know nothing What doe thy understand of any distinction between Iurisdiction Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall and Politicall What Legends of Fopperies have been broughâ— into the Church by this Orall Tradition and the Credulity of Parents And if all Parents had Iudgement to understand these things Yet who shall secure us that they are void of Self interest The Philosopher found that all the people forsooke him so soone as the market Bell began to ring Lastly he supposeth one constant succession of Truth upon this Tenour or Method throughout many Ages Why doe wee heare words when we see deeds We see them change dayly if they had not changed we had had no need to leave their CoÌ„pany I have shewed him wheÌ„ and where and by whom all these changes wherein they and wee differ concerning discipline did come into the Church of EnglaÌ„d at least all those which made the Breach between us Immediate Orall Tradition without any further Corroboration is but a â—oy Perpetuall and Vniversall Tradition is an undeniable Evidence or so Vniversall for time and place That the Opposers have been censured in a manner Vniversally for Hereticks or Heterodox In a chaine if one linke be loose or have a notorious Crack or Flaw there is little trust to be reposed in it Then what Credit is to be given to the pretended Chaine of Tradition where the eleven first Linkes are altogether divided from the rest and fastened to the hand of the Soveraign Prince beyond the Popes reach The four next Linkes are full of Cracks and Flawes the Pope pulling at the one end and the Prince holding at the other The last Linke of all in England is put again into the hand of the Prince Where so many Centuries are wanting he is like but to maintain a poor TraditioÌ„ All this while I speake onely of the externall Regiment of the Church But it is a wonder to me why he of all others should so much magnify this MediuÌ„ of Immediate TraditioÌ„ as an inâ—allible Rule For if I be not misinformed by some FrieÌ„ds his Fathers chalked out another way to him by their Examples and Instructions to hold himself in the Communion of the Church of England But let that passe as not much materiall If he reduce his Argument into any Form he will quickly find that it halteth on both sides Whatsoever we received by immediate Tradition from our Fathers as the Legacy of Christ is infallibly true But we received those points of discipline wherein we differ by immediate Tradition from our Fathers as the Legacies of Christ. I deny both his Propositions my reasons he will find formerly at large I charged him for making two distinct Rules of Vnity whereas one would have served his Turne that he might have more opportunity to shuffle the later Vsurpations of the Popes into the ancient discipline of the Church For this I am lashed as a man that cannot or will not write common sense with a deale of such poore stuffe not worth repeating Cannot a man abandon his Religion unlesse he abandon his Civility also He might remember that I had the honour to be a Doctor in the Vniversity I think assoone as he was a Schooleboy in the Country The first part of my Charge is confessed by him self that his first Principle doth also include the truth of the second If his second Principle be comprehended in the first then it is no new distinct Principle but either an inference or a Tautologie But let him carve and mince his Principles into shreds if he please rather then I will draw the Saw of Contention about the dream of a Shadow To the second part of my Charge he answereth that Neither I nor any man else can instance of any Vsurpation which did ever come in either in Secular or Ecclesiasticall Government pretending that Tenour or could come in so long as men adhered to that Method Doth not he pretend to that Tenour Or indeed taketh it for granted and would make us believe they doe adhere to that Method If they doe not his demonstration doth not weigh a Graine Yet I have shewed him heaps of usurpatioÌ„s more perhaps theÌ„ he is desirous to see Some men have made the Pope infallible in point of faith formerly but he is the first that ever made him uncapable of usurping and I thinke will be the last if he can perswade us with reason to be thus mad he deserveth to have his head stroked Go Go Mr. Serjeant Learn better there are more wayes of erring in point of Tradition either reall or supposed then the Conspiracy of a World of Fathers to tell a World of Children this Lye that ten yeares agoe they practised that which all the World besides knoweth they did not practise Of all men Juglers pretend most to perspicuous Evidence I was contented to admit both his Rules in Generall to try what use he could make of them against us but whether I use sharpnesse or blandishments he is still waspish See Reader the right Protestant Method which is to bring the Controversy from a Determinate State to Indetermination and Confusion I feare he will rather dislike my being too distinct and particular I have shewed him expresly what Branches of Papall power we have altogether rejected and what we are not unwilling to acknowledge for peace sake if that would content him which is more then he hath done hitherto as much as he will doe and I feare more then he dare doe They are not free from their Jealousies and Dissensions at home among them selves Hitherto he hath not adventured to let us know into what Church he himself resolveth his Faith whether the Virtuall Church that is the Pope or the Representative Church that is a Generall Councell or the essentiall Church that is the whole multitude of Believers whose Approbation is their reception And in this very PaÌ„ragraph he hath one passage that pointeth at the last opinion making the consent of Catholick Fathers immediatly attesting that they received this Doctrin from
our desire of Vnion yet God Almighty sets a greater value upon it He is not out of the Church who is within it in the desires of his heart and implicitly in the preparation of his mind Observe Reader who are the procreative and conserving Causes of this Schisme They frighted us from them with new Articles and Vsurpations they thrust us from them with new Censures and Excommunications and if we had a mind to return they tell us it were absurd in Government to readmiâ— us But my chiefest wonder is that he who was the other day by his own vote an Arâ—h rebell should talk so suddainly of hanging Suddain Changes are alwaies dangerous and for the most part personated He asketh whether our Ancestours did renounce the Popes Authority as Head of the Church If he mean a Head of Order they did not no more do we if he mean a Head of Soveraign power they did and so do we What I granted once I grant alwaies it is for Turncoats to take their swings I write semper idem of the same religion wherein I was baptised can he do the same But he urgeth that I make it the top of my Climax that our Ancestours threatned to make a wall of Seperation between the Court of Rome and them which sheweth that they did it not but it is evident that we have done what they onely threatned to doe and plead for our excuses that we have more experience then our Ancestours had I made it the top of my Climax indeed honest mens words are as good as deeds But doth he thinke that our Ancestours did onely make counterfeit Grimaces and threaten that which they could not Lawfully have performed Absit The Lawes and the threatning are easily reconciled Our Ancestours made very severe Lawes against the Vsurpations of the Court of Rome as I have shewed in particular throughout but they did not execute them so rigorously but connived at many innocent or not pernicious encroachments in hope the Court of Rome and their Emissaries would have kept themselves within some tolerable bounds of moderation But they found by experience and we by much longer and surer experience that all our Hopes were vaine that the Avarice of the Roman Court was not to be satiated or to be stinted that if we give them leave to thrust in their head they would quickly draw in their body after And therefore our Ancestours finding this true in a great part did threaten them to make a wall of Seperation that is to execute their Lawes rigorously to use no more indulgence or connivence to take away their Coactive power in the Exteriour Court altogether which the Lawes have taken away before sufficiently And we being confirmed by much longer and surer experience have accomplished what they threatned So this threatned Wall of Seperation is no new Law bâ—t a new Mandate to execute the old Lawes and our experience and our Ancestours materially is the same but ours is more grounded and more sure their seperation and ours was the same to point of Law but not of Execution And the reason why our Ancestours remedies were not Soveraign or sufficient enough was not want of virtue in the Remedy but want of due application Thus all Mr. Serjeanâ—s hopes are vanished and his Contradictions tumbled to Dust Great is Truth and prevaileth Yet he keepeth a great stirre and bustling about our Experience more then our Ancestours and praieth me in his scoffing manner Good my Lord tell us what this new experiment was and despairing as it were of successe in his request he addeth Since you are resolved to make a secret of this rare Experiment Now I have told him the secret what good will it doe him as much as he may put in his eye and see never a jot the worse I told him this rare secret before in these words We have more experience then our Ancestours had that their Remedies were not Soveraign or Sufficient enough that if we give him leave to thrust in his head he will never rest untill he have drawn in his whole body after whilest there are no Bonds to hold him but Nationall Lawes But I was not bound both to write him a Lecture and find him eyes Now Readers looke to yourselves out commeth the great Monster that hath been so long threatned as he phraseth it scurrilously in the likenesse of a Drunken Dutchman making Indentures with his Legges so saith he my discourse staggers now to the one now to the other far distant side of the Contradiction The Reader shall find that the fault is not in the innocent Dutchman who goeth straight enough but in the Prevaricators eyes who seeth double Either he did never know or he hath forgotten what a Contradiction is The Itch or humour of Contradicting hath so far possessed him that he regardeth not what the Rules of Contradiction are The first Contradiction is That the Lawes of our Ancestours were not remedies sufficient enough yet I maintein stoutly that in the Seperation no new Law was made That is as he collecteth the same Lawes were both sufficient and not sufficient Is this the monstrous Contradiction which he promised to shew the Readers for pence a piece The same Lawes were not sufficient in the dayes of our Ancestours and yet the same Lawes were sufficient in the Dayes of Henry the eighthâ— hath no shew of a Contradiction in it nor of any the least opposition which ought alwaies to be made according to the Rules of Logick at the same time I will shew him a hundred of these ContradictioÌ„s every day in the week for nothing Mr. Serjeanâ— was no Roman Catholick Mr. Serjeant is a Roman Catholick is just such another Contradiction or the same Plaister was not sufficient to cure such a sore at one time yet it was sufficient at another time when the Body was better disposed All his Contradictions end in smoke and laughter The second Contradiction is that I said the Lawes of other Countries were equivalent to those of England but I acknowledge elswhere that the Lawes of other Countries were sufficient and here I say that the Lawes of Eâ—gland were insufficient So they were equivalent and inequivalent Here is another Contradiction like the former The same Lawes proved sufficient to France yet proved insufficient to England It is another rule in Logick Opposition ought to have the same Subject and the same Predicate without ambiguity but here the Predicate is diverse sufficient for France not sufficient for England and ambiguity more then enough He might as well argue The same Medicine will work upon a child which will not work upon a Man therefore the same Medicine is not equivalent to it self The third Contradiction is that I say All Catholick Countries did maintein their Privileges inviolate by meanes which did not maintein them or by Lawes which were not sufficient to do it Where did I say this It is his Collection not my Assertion but let it
of his own Patriarchate yet subordinate to a Generall Councell but in a Generall Councell or in the GovernmeÌ„t of the Catholick Church he is but one of the Optimates or a Fellow governour with other Bishops He saith it was never pretended by Catholicks that the Pope was the King of the Church I wonder that he is no betâ—er acquainted with the Sorbone disputes whether the Regiment of the Church be an absolute Monarchy tempered with an Aristocracy We have a Meritorious Sacrifice that is the Sacrifice of the Crosse We have a Commemorative and Applicative Sacrifice or a Commemoration and Application of that Sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist A Suppletory Sacrifice to supply any want or defects in that Sacrifice he dare not owne and unlesse he do owne it he saith no more then we say What I spake of our Registers I intended principally of that Register of the right Ordination of Protestanâ— Bishops that he may see when he will for his love and have the Copy of any Act in it for his money but he had rather wrangle about it then take such paines if he will have a little Patience I will ease him of that Labour and Expences It is no insuperable difficulty nor any difficulty at all to us to find out that Catholick Church which we have in our Creed but to find out his Roman Catholick Church is both a Contradiction in adjecto and an Apple of Contention serving to commit him and his Friends together among themselves which he knoweth and therefore declineth it I called not the Ancient Bishop of Italy either Episcopelles or the Popes hungry Parasiticall Pensioners but the Flaâ—terers of the Roman Court and Principally those petty Bishops which were created during the Councell of Trent to serve the Popes turne If he think that Court free from such Moths he is much mistaken Neither are these expressions mine originally I learned them from the ancient Bishops of Italy themselves who gave them those very names of Episcopelles c. Neither did I taxe any man in particular He desires me to examine my Conscience whether I doe not get my living by preaching that Doctrine which I put in my Bookes which how many notorious Falsities Contradictions and Tergiversations they have in them may be judged by this present worke Yes if he and his merry Stationer may be my Iudges Now his worke is ended and answered I will make him a faire offer If he be able to make but one of all his Contradictions and Falsifications and absurdities good I will be reputed guilty of all the rest if he be not I desire him both to examine his own Conscience and Discretion what reward he deâ—erveth both at the hands of God and man for so many notorious Calumnies As for his Faults I shall rather leave them to the Iudgement of the Reader then trouble myself with the Recapitulation of them In the close of my Discourse I answered an exception of his that I cited Gerson against myself The words of Gerson or rather of the Eastern Church when they seperated from the Roman are these Potentiam tuam recognoscimus Avarâ—â—iam tuam implere non possumus Vivite per vos We know thy power we cannot satisfy thy Covetousnesse Live by yourselves They knew that he had a Patriarchall power and that he was the first or chiefe of the Patriarchs but this power we deny not that power which we deny is a Supremacy of single power and that by Christs own Ordination The Question is whether the Grecians did acknowledge such a power due to the Pope in these words That they did not I prove first by the practice of most of all the Eastern Churches who excommunicate the Pope yearly as a Schismatick for challenging this power Secondly I prove it by the Testimony of all their writers especially the modern Greeks as Hieremy and Cyrill the two succeeding Patriarchs of Constantinople and Nilus an Archbishop c. who all deny this power to the Pope in the name of the Greek Church Thirdly I prove it by his own confession in this very Chapter There is no one point produced by him which our Church lookes upon as a point of Faith in which they dissent from us and consent with the Protestants except that one of denying the Popes Supremacy How doe they grant the Popes Supremacy and deny the Popes Supremacy and yet continue the same without Variation as they have done I doe not say this is a Contradiction but let the Reader Iudge His reasons are mere Prevarications not reasons First here is no Opposition between power and covetousnesse unlesse he mean all Affirmatives and Negatives whatsoever be the Subjects or Predicates are Opposites and if they were it signifieth nothing Secondly he demands what power had the Pope over them except Spirituall Iurisdiction I answer he shewed them sufficiently at the Division of the Greek Empire and then they stood in need of his assistence against the Turke His third fourth and fifth Arguments may be reduced to one and when they are twisted they will not have the weight of one single haire The Difference was about undue Subsidâ—es and Taxes but the Demanding Subsidies seems incredible had there not been some preacknowledged power to ground such demands upon Yes there was his Protopatriarchall power and that tentered and stretched out to the uttermost extent and when he would have extended it yet higher the Grecians cast out his Vsurpations I see he doth but grope in the darke I will help him to some light Peter Steward upon Caleca tells him what these undue Subsidies and Exactions were when the Popes Legates brought yearly the Chrisme from the Apostolick See to Constantinople they would not depart from thence unlesse they had eighty pound weight of Gold besides other Gifts bestowed upon them Lastly he addeth Gerson concludes that upon this Consideration they might proceed to the Reformation of the French Churches notwithstanding the Contradiction which perhaps some of the Court of Rome would make which evidenceth that the acknowledgement of the Popes just power was reteined and encroachments on their Liberties onely denyed Concedo omnia His Protopatriarchall power was acknowledged his Soveraignty of Iurisdiction was denyed as an encroachment and this is the same Method which we observed in England And so Mr. Serjeant concludes his Rejoinder that the Bishop began like a Bowler and ends like one of those Artificers who going to mend one hole use to make other three Iust Mr. Serjeant just As your mind thinketh so the Bell clinketh If there be any of those Artificers here it is yourself whose constant Custome is to make holes where there are none and out of an eager desire of Contradicting others to plunge yourself irrecoverably into reall Contradiction With Scurrility you began this Rejoinder and with Scurrility you end it That which followeth is a Dish of thrice sodden Coleworts or a vain recapitulation of his own Imaginary Achievements which the Reader