the reformation and the Church of England after the reformation are as much the same Church as a garden before it is weeded and after it is weeded is the same garden or a vine before it be pruned and after it is pruned and freed from the Luxuriant branches is one and the same vine yet because the Roman Catholiques do not object Schisme to the Popish Church of England but to the reformed Church Therefore in this question by the Church of England we understand that Church which was derived by lineal succession from the Brittish English and Scottish Bishops by mixt ordination as it was legally established in the daies of King Edward the sixth and flourished in the raigns of Queen Elizabeth King Iames and King Charles of blessed memory and now groanes under the heavy yoke of persecution whether this Church be Schismatical by reason of its secession and separation from the Church of Rome and the supposed withdrawing of its obedience from the Patriarchal Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop As for other aspersions of Schisme of lesser moment we shall meâ—â— with them in our answers to their Objections CHAP. III. That the separation from Rome was not made by Protestants but by Roman Catholicks themselves THis being the state of the Question I proceed to examine the first ground or proposition That the English Protestants were not the first authors of the separation but principall Roman Catholiques great Advocates in their dayes and Pillars of the Roman Church Whether the Act or Statute of Separation were operative or declarative creating new right or manifesting or restoring old right whether the power of the Roman Court in England was just or usurped absolute and immutable or conditional and changeable whether the possession thereof was certain and settled or controverted and unquiet though no man throughly versed in our Lawes and Histories can reasonably doubt of these things This is undeniably true that the secession and substraction of obedience was not made by our reformers or by any of their friends or favourers but by their capital Enemies and persecutors by Zelots of the Roman Religion And this was not done secretly in a corner but openly in the sight of the Sun disputed publickly and determined before-hand in both our Universities which after long deliberation and much disputation done with all diligence zeal and conscience made this final resolution and profession Tandem in hanc sententiam unanimiter convenimus ac concordes fuimus videlicet Romanum Episcopum majorem aliquam Iurisdictionem non habere sibi à deo collatam in sacra Scriptura in hoc Regno Angliae quam alium quemvis externum Episcopum That the Roman Bishop had no greater Iurisdiction within the Kingdome of England confeâ—red upon him by God in holy Scripture then any other forrein Bishop After this the same was voted and decreed in our National Synods and lastly after all this received and established in full Parliament by the free consent of all the Orders of the Kingdom with the concurrence and approbation of four and twenty Bishops and nine and twenty Abbats then and there present To passe by many other Statutes take the very words of one of the main Acts it self That England is an Empire and that the King as Head of the body politick consisting of the spirituality and temporalty hath plenary power to render final Iustice for all matters c. First England is that is originally not shall be by vertue of this Act what is it an Empire If it be an Empire then the Soveraignes thereof have the same priviledges and prerogatives within their own Dominions which the old Emperours had in theirs If the King be head of the body politick consisting of the spiâ—ituality and temporalty then in England the King is the political head of the Clergy as well as of the Laity So he ought to be and not he onely but all the Soveraign Princes throughout the World by the very Law of Nature What becomes now of that grand exception against Protestants for making their King the Head or Soveraign Governour for these two are convertible terms of the English Church or Clergy A title first introduced by Roman Catholicks and since waved and laid aside by Protestants not so much for any malignity that was in it as for the ill sounds sake because it seemed to intrench too much upon the just right of our Saviour and being subject to be misunderstood gave offence to many well affected Christians And what doth this Law say more then a great Cardinal said not long after One that was as near the Papacy as any that ever mist it and was thought to merit the Papacy as well as any that had it in his daies I mean Cardinal Pool in his Book de concilio Hoc munus Imperatoribus Christi fidem professis Deus ipse Pater assignavit at Christi filii dei vicaâ—ias partes gerant God the Father hath assigned this office to Christian Emperours that they should act the part of Christ the Son of God in General Councels And yet more fully in his answer to the next question Pontifex Romanus ut caput sacerdotale Vicarias Christi veri capitis partes gerit at Caesar ut caput regale c. The Pope as a Priestly head doth execute the Office of Christ the true Head but we may also truly say that the Emperour doth execute the office of Christ as a Kingly Head And so he concludeth Christ said of himself All power is given me both in heaven and earth In utraque ergo potestate c. Therefore we cannot doubt but Christ hath his Deputies for both these powers The Pope in the Church the Emperour in the Common-Wealth Thus writes the Popes own Legate to his Brother Legates in the Tridentine Councel when he desired to favour his Master as much as he could But I proceed to our Statute The King of England hath that is already in present by the fundamental constitution of the Monarchy not shall have from henceforth plenary power without the License or help or concurrence of any forrain Prelate or Potentate pleâ—ary not solitary To render final Iustice that is to receive the last appeales of his own Subjects without fear of any review from Rome or at Rome for all matters Ecclesiastical and temporal Ecclesiastical by his Bishops Temporal by his Judges There is great difference between a Kings administring Justice in Ecclesiastical causes by himself and by his Bishops Listen to the Canon of the Milevitan Councel It hath pleased the Synod that what Bishop soever shall request of the Emperour the cognisance of publick judgment in some cases he be deprived of his honour But if he petition to the Emperour foâ— Episcopal judgment that is to make Bishops his Deputies or Commissioners to hear it it should â—not prejudice him They forbid a Bishop of his own accord in these daies and in some cases to make his first
that â—aught them this lesson certainly their prudence to prevent dangers was very commendable A third custome was that the revenues of all Ecclesiastical dignities belonging to the Kings demeisne during the vacancy were to be received by the King as freely as the rents of his own demeisnes Tell me who was then the Patron and Political Head of the Church A fourth Custome was that when an Arch-Bishoprick Bishoprick Abbacy or Priory did fall void the election was to be made by such of the principal dignitaries or members of that respective Church which was to be filled as the King should call together for that purpose with the Kings consent in the Kings own Chappell And there the person elected was to do his homage and fealty to the King as to his Liege Lord. That later form of Dei Apostolicae sedis gratia had taken no root in England in those daies The rest are of the same nature as that Controversies concerning Advowsons ought to be determined in the Kings Court Benefices belonging to the Kings patronage could not be appropriated without his grant When a Clergy man was accused of any Delinquency the Kings Court ought to determine what part of his accusation was of Civil and what part of Ecclesiastical cognisance And the Kings Justice might send to the Ecclesiastical Court to see it ordered accordingly None of the Kings Servants or Tenants that held of him in capite might be excommunicated nor their Lands interdicted before the King was made acquainted When it was questioned whether a Tenement were of Ecclesiastick or Lay fee the Kings Justice was to determine it by the oathes of twelve men All Ecclesiasticall persons who held any possessions from the King in capite were to do suit and service for the same as other Barons did and to joyn with the Kings Barons in the Kings Judgments untill it came to sentence of death or diminution of member To this memorial all the Nobility and Clergy of the English Nation did swear firmly in the word of truth to keep all the customes therein contained and observe them faithfully to the King and his heires for ever Among the rest Thomas Becket the Archbishop of Canterbury himself was carried along with the crowd to take this Oath Though shortly after he fell from it and admitted the Popes absolution By the Statute of Carlile made in the daies of Edward the first it was declared That the holy Church of England was founded in the estate of Prelacy within the Realm of England by the Kings and Peeres thereof And that the several incroachments of the Bishop of Rome specified in that Act did tend to the annullation of the state of the Church the disinheriting of the King and the Peeres and the destruction of the Lawes and rights of the Realm contra formam collationis contrary to the disposition and will of the first founders Observe in the estate of Prelacy not of Papacy within the Realm not without it By the Kings not by the Popes of whose exorbitant and destructive usurpations as our Ancestors were most sensible so they wanted neither will nor power to remedy them To corroborate this Law by former presidents and thereby to shew that our Kings were ever accounted the right Patrons of the English Church King Edelwalk made Wilfride Bishop of the South Saxons now Chichester King Alfrede made Assertie Bishop of Sherburn And Oenewulphus Bishop of Winchester Edward the Confessor made Robert Archbishop whom before from a Monk he had made Bishop of London Thus the Saxon Kings in all ages bestowed Bishopricks without any contradiction The Norman Kings followed their example No sooner was Stigand dead but William the Conquerour elected Lanfrank Abbat of Saint Stephens in Caen to be Archbishop William Rufus upon his death-bed elected Anselme to be Archbishop of Canterbury And untill the daies of Henry the first the Popes never pretended any right nor laid any claim to the Patronage of the English Churches The Articles of the Clergy do prescribe that elections be free so as the Kings conge d'eslire or License to elect be first obtained and afterwards the election be made good â—y the Royal assent and confirmation And the Statute of provisors Our Soveraign Lord the King and his heires shall have and enjoy for the time the collations to the Archbishopricks and other dignities elective which be of his Advowry such as his progenitors had before free election was granted Sith the first elections were granted by the Kings progenitors upon a certain form and condition as namely to demand License of the King to choose and after choise made to have his Royal assent Which condition not being kept the thing ought by reason to return to its first nature Further by the same Statute of provisors it is declaratively enacted That it is the right of the Crown of England and the Law of the Realm that upon such mischiefs and dammages happening to the Realm by the incroachments and oppressions of the Court of Rome mentioned in the body of that Law The King ought and is bound by his oath with the accord of his people in Paâ—liament to make remedy and Law for the removing of such mischiefs We find at least seven or eight such Statutes made in the Raigns of several Kings against Papal provisions reservations and collations and the mischiefs that flowed from thence Let us listen to another Law The Crown of England hath been so free at all times that it hath been iâ— no earthly subjection but immediately subjected to God in all things touching its regality and to no other and ought not to be submitted to the Pope Observe these expressions free at all times free in all things in no earthly subjection immediately subjected to God not to be submitted to the Pope And all this in Ecclesiastical affaires for of that nature were all the grievances complained of in that Law as appears by the view of the Statute it self Then if the Kings of England and the representative body of the English Church do reform themselves according to the word of God and the purest Patterns of the primitive times they owe no account to any as of duty but to God alone By the same statute it is enacted That they who shall procure or prosecute any popish Bulls and excommunications in certain cases shall incurre the forfeiture of their estates or be banished or put out of the Kings protection By other statutes it is enacted That whosoever should draw any of the Kings Subjects out of the Realm to Rome in plea about any cause whereof the cognisance belongeth to the Kings Court or should sue in any forrain court to defeat any judgment given in the Kings court That is by appealing to Rome they should incur the same penalties The body of the Kingdom would not suffer Edward the first to be cited before the Pope Henry the sixth by the Councel of Humphry
were untrue That Henry the second never made any such accord with Alexander the third for ought that he could ever read in any Chronicle of Credit Then the oath which Henry the second did take for himself not for his heires was this that he would not depart from him or his successours so long as they should intreat him as a Catholick King That the fact of King John is of more probability but of as little truth which he confirmes by the testimony of Sir Thomas Moore a Lord Chancellour of England a man of Extraordinary learning of great parts of so good affections to the Roman See that he is supposed to have died for the Popes Supremacy and is commended by Cardinall Bellarmine to Mr. Blackwell as a Martyr and a guide of many others to Martyrdom cum ingenti Anglica nationis gloria certainly one who had as much means to know the truth both by view of records and otherwise as any man living Thus writeth he If he the author of the beggars supplication say as indeed some writers say that King John made England and Ireland tributary to the Pope and the See Apostolique by the grant of a thousand Markes we dare surely say again that it is untrue and that all Rome neither can shew such a grant nor ever could And if they could it were nothing worth For never could any king of England give away the Realm to the Pope or make the Land tributary though he would As to that of Henry the second without doubt the Archpriest had all the reason in the world for him Cardinall Allen did not write by inspiration and could expect no more credit then he brought authority There is a vast difference between these two that no man shall be accounted King of England untill he be confirmed by the Pope And this other that the King in his own person would not desert the Pope so long as he intreated him like a Catholick King The former is most dishonourable to the Nation and Diametrally opposite to the fundamental Lawes of the Land The later we might take our selves without offence to God or our own consciences But to make our Kings their vassals aud their slaves to impoverish their Realm and to commit all those exorbitant misdemeanours against them which we have related in part and shall yet describe more fully was neither to intreat them like Catholick Kings nor like Christian Kings nor yet like political Kings And for his Saint Thomas of Canterbury we do not believe that the Popes Canonisation or to have his name inserted into the Calender in red letters makes a Saint We do abhominate that murther as Lawlesse and Barbarous to sprinkle not onely the pavements of the Church but the very altar with the blood of a Prelate And we condemn all those who had an hand in it But we do not believe that the cause of his suffering was sufficient to make him a Martyr namely to help forraignâ—rs to pull the fairest flowers from his Princes Diadem by violence and to perjure himself and violate his oath given for the observation of the Articles of Clarendon All his own Suffragan Bishops were against him in the cause and justified the Kings proceedings as appeareth by two of their letters one to himself the other to Pope Alexander the third The Barons of the Kingdom reputed him as a Traitor quo progrederis Proditor Expecta et audi judicium tuum Whither goest thou Traitor stay and hear thy judgment This is certain The first time that ever any Pope did challenge the right of investitures in England was in the dayes of Henry the first and Paschal the second was the first Pope that ever exacted an oath from any forraign Bishop above Eleven hundred years after Christ. Before that time they evermore swore fealty to their Prince de Homagiis de Feudis de sacramentis Episcoporum Laicis antea exhibitis There was great consultation about the homage and Fealty and oaths of Bishops in former ages sworn to Lay-men These new articles of faith are too young to make Martyrs Concerning the secoÌ„d instance of King Iohn though I attribute much to the authority of Sir Thomas More in that case who would never have been so confident unlesse he had supposed that he had searched the matter to the bottom yet his zeal to the Papacy and his unwillingnesse to see such an unworthy act proceed from that See might perhaps mislead him for I confesse sundry authours do relate the case otherwise That there was a Prophesie or Prediction made by one Peter an Hermite that the next day to Ascension sunday there should be no King in England That Pope Innocent the third being angry with King Iohn excommunicated him interdicted the Kingdom deprived him of his Crown absolved his subjects from their allegiance animated his Barons and Bishops against him gave away his Realm to Philip King of France sent Pandolphus as his Legate into England to see all this executed The King of France provides an Army accordingly But the crafty Pope underhand gives his Legate secret instructions to speak privatly with King Iohn And if he could make a better bargain for him and draw him to submit to the sentence of the Pope he should act nothing against him but in his favour They do meete King Iohn submits The Pope orders him to resign his Crown and Kingdomes to the See of Rome so they say he did and received them the next day of the Popes grace as a feudatary at the yearly rent of a thousand Marks for the Kingdoms of England and Ireland And did homage and swear fealty to Pope Innocent But whereas the Cardinal adds upon his own head that this was done at the special request and procurement of the Lords and Commons it is an Egregious forgery and well deserves a whetstone for all the three Orders of the kingdom Bishops Barons and Commons did protest against it in Parliament notwithstanding any private contract that might be made by King Iohn And that they would defend themselves by arms from the temporal Jurisdiction of the Pope But the other answer of Sr. Thomas More is most certain and beyond all exception that if either Henry the second or King Iohn had done any such thing it was not worth a rush nor signified any thing but the greedinesse and prophanenesse of these pretended vicars of Christ who prostituted and abused their Office and the power of the Keies to serve their base and avaritious ends and lets the world see how well they deserved to be thrust out of doores What That no man might be crowned or accounted King of England untill he were confirmed by the Pope By the Law of England Rex non moritur the King never dies And doth all acts of Soveraignty before his Coronation as well as after They robbed the Nobility of their patronages Those Churches which their Ancestours had founded and
A IVST VINDICATION OF THE Church of England FROM The unjust Aspersion of Criminal SCHISME WHEREIN The nature of Criminal Schisme the divers sorts of Schismaticks the liberties and priviledges of National Churches the rights of Sovereign Magistrates the tyranny extortion and Schisme of the Roman Court with the grievances Complaints and opposition of all Princes and States of the Roman Communion of old and at this very day are manifested to the view of the World By the Right Reverend Father in God Iohn Bramhall Dr. in Divinity and Lord Bishop of Derry Pacian in ep ad Sempron My name is Christian my sirname is Catholique By the one I am known from Infidels by the other from Hereticks and Schismaticks LONDON Printed for Iohn Crook at the sign of the Ship in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1654 THE Contents of the particular CHAPTERS CHAP. I. THe Scope and summe of this Treatise Pag. 1. CHAP. II. The stating of the question what is Schisme who are Schismaticks and what is signified by the Church of England in this question p. 6. CHAP. III. That the Separation from the Court of Rome was not made by Protestants but Roman Catholicks themselves p. 31 CHAP. IV. That the King and Kingdome of England in their Separation from Rome did make no new Law but vindicate the ancient Law of the Land pag. 54. CHAP. V. That the Britannick Churches were ever Exempted from all forreign Iurisdiction And so ought to continue pag. 87 CHAP. VI. That the King and Church of England hâ—d both sufficient authority and sufficient grounds to withdraw their obedience from Rome p. 1â—6 CHAP. VII That all Kingdomes and Republicks of the Roman Communion Germany France Spain Portugal Sicilly Brabant Venice do the same thing in effect when they have occasion p. 160 CHAP. VIII That the Pope and Court of Rome are many waies guilty of Schisme and the true cause of the Dissensions of Christendome Pag. 229 CHAP. IX An Answer to the Objections of the Romanists p. 245 CHAP. X. The Conclusion of the Treatise p. 275. Courteous Reader BY reason of the Authour's Absence and difficulty of the written Copy severall Errata's have past the Presse which you are desired to amend and among the rest these following Page 7. in Margine Act. leg Art p. 13. line 17. Lyne leg kind p. 13. in marg Manrit leg Maurit p. 14 l 1 Schimse leg Schisme p. 15 l. 15 Creed leg Creeds p. 18 l. ult legemachies leg logomachies p. 21 l. 8. qui leg quis p. 22 l. 4. teach for touch p. 35 l. 8. these for those p. 39. l. 31. dele little p. 42 in margine modo for nodâ— p. 65 in margine 78 for 787 p. 67 Hesâ—is for Hosius in marg p. 74 l. 1 sepultura for sepulchra p. 79 l. 4 Asseâ—tie for Asserio p. 85 l. 30 the for his Legates p. 102 l. 25 as for or p. 113 in marg lais for Caiet p. 119 l. 2 novum for nonum p. 121 l. 11 no for had p. 140 for 138 p. 141 for 139 p. 144 for 142 p. 145 for 143 p. 914 for 149 p. 129 l. 23 chink for klink and l. 25 despensations for dispensations p. 130 l. 10 Simoniae for Simonia and l. 20 21 aliam and nummam for alium and nummum p. 131 l. 1 conscivit for consuevit p. 132 l. 16 singulta for singultu and lin 20 speculiem for speculum p. 133 l. 28 papale for papali l. 29 rigarâ— for rigore line 30 praecipient for praecipiente p. 138 l. 6. for then the oath read then that the oath p. 142 l. 5 sweare for sware And in the margent Hoops for Harps p. 153 l. 15 provisos for provisors And in the marg theops for the copy p. 164 l. 10 deest not p. 165 l. 30 thar for that p. 186 l 32 which leg wherewith p. 199 l. 14 Redimendum leg Redimendam p. 214 l. 4 leg Placaert l. 27 but for but p. 217 in marg Imprss. leg Impress A JUST VINDICATION OF THE Church of England CHAP. I. The Scope and summe of this Treatise 1. NOthing hath been hitherto or can hereafter be objected to the Church of England which to strangers unacquainted with the state of our affaires or to such of our Natives as have onely looked upon the case superficially hath more Colour of truth at first sight then that of Schisme that we have withdrawn our obedience from the Vicar of Christ or at least from our lawful Patriarch and separated our selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church A grievous accusation I confesse if it were true for we acknowledge that there is no salvation to be expected ordinarily without the pale of the Church 2. But when all things are Judiciously weighed in the Ballance of right reason when it shall appear that we never had any such forrein Patriarch for the first six hundred years and upwards And that it was a grosse Violation of the Canons of the Catholick Church to attempt after that time to obtrude any forrein Jurisdiction upon us That before the Bishops of Rome ever exercised any Jurisdiction in Brittain they had quitted their lawful Patriarchate wherewith they were invested by the authority of the Church for an unlawful Monarchy pretended to belong unto them by the institution of Christ That whatsoever the Popes of Rome gained upon us in after-ages without our own free consent was meer tyranny and usurpation That our Kings with their Synods and Parliaments had power to revoke retract and abrogate whatsoever they found by experience to become burthensome and insupportable to their Subjects That they did use in all ages with the consent of the Church and Kingdom of England to limit and restrain the Exercise of Papal power and to provide remedies against the daily incroachments of the Roman Court so a Henry the Eighth at the reformation of the English Church did but tread in the steps of his most renowned Ancestours who flourished whilest Popery was in its Zenith And pursued but that way which they had chalked out unto him a way warranted by the practise of the most Christian Emperours of old and frequented at this day by the greatest or rather by all the Princes of the Roman Communion so often as they find occasion When it shall be made evident that the Bishops of Rome never injoyed any quiet or settled possession of that power which was after deservedly cast out of England so as to beget a lawful prescription And lastly that we have not at all separated our selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church nor of any part thereof Roman or other qua tales as they are such but only in their innovations wherein they have separated themselves first from their Common Mother and from the fellowship of their own Sisters I say when all this shall be cleared and the Schisme is brought home and laid at the right door then we may safely conclude that by how much we should turn more Roman
then we are whilest things continue in the same condition by so much we should render our selves lesse Catholique and plunge our selves deeper into Schisme whilest we seek to avoid it 3. For the clearer and fuller discussion and demonstration whereof I shall observe this method in the Ensuing discourse First to state the question and shew what is Schisme in the abstract who are Schismatiques in the Concrete and what we understand by the Church of England in this question Secondly I will lay down six grounds or propositions every one of which singly is sufficient to wipe away the stain and guilt of Schisme from the Church of England how much more when they are all joyned together My six grounds or Propositions are these First that Protestants were not the authors of the late great separation from Rome but Roman Catholicks themselves such as in all other points were chief Advocates and Pillars of the Roman Church and so many that the names of all the known dissenters might be written in a little ring Secondly that in abandoning the Court of Rome they did not make any new Law but onely declare and restore the old Law of the Land to its former Vigour And vindicate that liberty left them as an inheritance by their Ancestours from the incroachments and usurpations of the Court of Rome Thirdly that the ancient Brittish and Scottish or Irish Churches were evermore exempted from the Patriarchal Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishops untill Rome thirsting after an universal unlawful Monarchy quitted their lawful Ecclesiastical power And so ought to continue free and exempted from all forrein Jurisdiction of any pretended Patriarch for evermore according to the famous Canon of the General Councel of Ephesus which Gâ—egory the Great reverenced as one of the four Gospels Fourthly that though the Authors of that Separation had not themselves been Roman Catholicks and though the Acts or Statutes made for that end had not been meerly declarative but also operative And although Brittain had not been from the beginning both de jure and de facto exempted from Roman Jurisdiction yet the King and Church of England had both sufficient authority and sufficient grounds to withdraw their obedience as they did Fifthly that all the Soveraign Princes and Republicks in Europe of the Roman Communion whensoever they have occasion to reduce the Pope to reason do either practise or plead for the same right or both Sixthly that the Papacy it self qua tâ—lis as it is now maintained by many with universality of Jurisdiction or rather sole Jurisdiction Iure divino with superiority above General Councels with infallibility of Judgment and temporal power over Princes is become by its rigid censures and new Creeds and Exorbitant decrees in a great part actually and altogether causally guilty both of this and all the greater Schismes in Christendome 3. Lastly I will give a satisfactory answer to those objections which those of the Roman Communion do bring against us to prove us Schismaticks CHAP. 2. The stating of the question what is Schisme who are Schismaticks and what is signified by the Church of England in this question EVery suddain passionate heat or misunderstanding or shaking of Charity amongst Christians though it were even between the principal Pastors of the Church is not presently Schisme As that between Saint Paul and Barnabas in the Acts of the Apostles who dare say that either of them were Schismaticks or that between Saint Hierome and Ruffinus who charged one another mutually with Heresie Or that between Saint Chrysostome and Epiphanius who refused to Joyn in prayers Saint Chrysostome wishing that Epiphanius might never return home alive And Epiphanius wishing that Saint Chrysostome might not dye a Bishop both which things by the just disposition of Almighty God fell out according to the passionate and uncharitable desires of these holy persons who had Christian Charity still radicated in their hearts though the violent torrent of sudden passion did for the time bear down all other respects before it These were but personal heats which reflected not upon the publick body of the Church to which they were all Ever ready to submit and in which none of them did ever attempt to make a party by gathering disciples to himself such a passionate heat is aptly stiled by the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a paroxisme or a sharp fit of a feverish distemper which a little time without any other application will infallibly remedy Secondly every premeditated clashing of Bishops or Churches about points of doctrine or discipline long and resolutely maintained is not presently criminous Schisme so long as they forbear to censure and condemn one another and to expel one another from their Communion and are ready to submit to the determinations of a general Councel Such were the contentions of the Roman and African Bishops about rebaptization and appeals It were hard to say that those two blessed Saints Cyprian and Austine and all those pious Prelates who joyned with them lived and dyed Schismaticks With this general truth agrees that of Doctor Holden fully that when there is a mutual division of two parts or members of the mystical body of the Church one from the other yet both retein Communion with the Vniversal Church which for the most part springs from some doubtful opinion or lesse necessary part of divine worship quamcunque partem amplexus fueris Schismaticus non audies quippe quod universa ecclesia neutram damnarit whatsoever part one take he is no Schismatick because the universal Church hath condemned neither part Whether he hold himself to this principle or desert it it is not my purpose here to discusse But this is much sounder doctrine then that of Mr. Knott that the parts of the Church cannot be divided one from another except they be divided from the whole because these things which are united to one third are united also between themselves Which errour he would seem to have sucked from Doctor Potter whom he either would not or at least did not understand That whosoever professeth himself to forsake the Communion of any one member of the body of Christ must confesse himself consequently to forsake the whole Of which he makes this use That Protestants forsake the Communion of the Church of Rome And yet do confesse it to be a member of the body of Christ therefore they forsake the Communion of the whole Church The answer is easie that whosoever doth separate himself from any part of the Catholique Church as it is a part of the Catholick Church doth separate himself from every part of the Catholick Church and consequently from the Universal Church which hath no existence but in its parts But if one part of the Universal Church do separate it self from another part not absolutely or in Essentials but respectively in abuses and innovations not as it is a part of the Universal Church but only so far as it is
addresse for Justice to a secular Magistrate But they do not forbid him to appear before a secular Magistrate being cited And they allow him in all cases though of pure Ecclesiastical cognisance to seek to a Soveraign Prince for an equal indifferent hearing by Bishops delegated and authorised by him The testimony of this Statute is so clear and authentick in it self that it need not be corroborated with any other acts of the same kind Yet three things are urged against it First that Henry the Eighth at this time was a favourer of the Protestants Secondly that he cared not for Religion but looked onely to the satisfaction of his own humours and lusts Thirdly that to withhold due obedience is as Schismatical as to withdraw it And that the reformed Church of England may be innocent of the one and yet guilty and accessary to the other To the first exception I reply That Henry the eighth was so far both then and long after from being a friend or favourer of the Protestants that he was a most bitter persecutor of them After this the Pope himself though he was not well pleased to lose so sweet a morsel as England was so well approved of Henry the Eighth's rigorous proceedings against the Protestants that he proposed him to the Emperour as a pattern for his imitation Insomuch as some strangers in those daies coming into England have admired to see one suffer for denying the Popes Supremacy and another for being a Protestant at the same time So though they looked divers waies yet like Sampsons Foxes each had his firebrand at his taile But to clear this point home there needs no more but to view the order of the Statutes made concerning Religion and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the raign of that King The Act for no person to be cited out of his own Diocesse except in certain cases The Act prohibiting all appeales out of England to the Court of Rome The Act for the submission of the Clergy to the King The Act for payment of first fruits to the Crown An Act for Exoneration from all exactions of the Court of Rome The Act declaring the King to be Supream Head of the Church of England An Act against Popish Bulls Faculties and Dispensations And the Act for utterly extinguishing the usurped authority of the Roman Bishop were all or the most of them enacted before the eight and twentieth year of Henry the Eighth And if my notes fail me not for we are chased from our books they were all received and established in Ireland the very same year the Lord Gray being then Lord Deputy of Ireland All this while there were no thoughts of any reformation All this while the Protestants found little grace from King Henry nor indeed throughout his whole raign ordinarily As for the suppression of Monasteries in his time I shall deal clearly and declare what I conceive to be the judgment of moderate English Protestants concerning that Act. First we feare that covetousnesse had a great oare in the boat and that sundry of the principal Actors had a greater aime at the goods of the Church then at the good of the Church Or otherwise why did they not as they pretended and gave out preserve the spoiles of the cloisters for publick and charitable uses as the foundation of Hospitalls and freeing the common Wealth from a great part of its necessary charges why did they not restore the appropriated or as we call them truly impropriated tythes to the Incumbents and lawful owners who had actuall cure of souls from whom they had been unjustly withheld especially considering that in some parishes the poore vicars stipend was not sufficient to maintain a good Plow-man The Monks pretended that they had able members to discharge the cure of souls and what difference whether the Incumbent were a single person or an aggregated body But what meer Lay-men could pretend is beyond my understanding Secondly we examine not whether the abuses which were then brought to light were true or feined but this we believe that foundations which were good in their original institution ought not to be destroyed for accessary abuses or for the faults of particular persons So we should neither leave a Sun in heaven for that hath been adored by Pagans nor a spark of fire or any eminent creature how beneficial soever upon earth for they have all been abused Therefore Licurgus is justly condemned because out of an hatred to drunkenness he cut down all the Vines in Sparta whereas he should have brought the fountaines of water nearer Thirdly when the Clergy in a Kingdome are really and not upon the feined pretenses of Sacrilegious persons grown to that excessive Grandeur that they quite overballance the Laity and leave the common wealth neither sufficient men nor sufficient means to maintain it self it is lawful by prudent lawes to restrain their further growth as our Ancestors and all the nations of Europe have done by prohibiting new foundations of Religious houses and the alienation of Lands to the Church without special License As we shall see hereafter And if the excesse be so exorbitant that it is absolutely and evidently destructive to the constitution of the common wealth it is lawfull upon some conditions and cautions not necessary to be here inserted to prune the superfluous branches and to reduce them to a right temper and aequilibrium for the preservation and well-being of the whole body Politick It hath been alwayes held lawful in some cases to alienate some things that had formerly been given to the Church as for the redemption of Christian Captives for the sustenance of poor Christians who are living Temples in the daies of famine and for preservation of the Church it self from demolition But Eradication to pluck up good institutions root and branch is not reformation which we professe but destruction To conclude this digression So as Monasteries were moderated in their number and in their revenues So as the Monks were restrained from medling between the Pastor and his flock that is the Bark and the Tree as it was of old Monachus in oppido Piscis in arido a Monk in a great town was thought like a little fish upon dry land So as the abler sort who are not taken up with higher studies or weightier imployments were inured to bestow their spare howers from their devotions in some profitable labour for the publick good that idlenesse might be stripped of the cloak of contemplative devotion So as the vow of perpetuall coelibate were reduced to the forme of our English Vniversities so long a fellow so long unmarried or of the Canonesses Biggins on the other side the Seas which are no longer restrained from wedlock then they retain their places or habits So as their blind obedience were more inlightened and secured by some certain rules and bounds So as their mock poverty for what is it else to professe want and
swim in abundance were changed into a competent maintenance And lastly So as all opinion of satisfaction and supererogation were removed I do not see why monasteries might not agree well enough with reformed devotion So then Henry the eighth at the time of his secession from Rome and long after even so long as he lived was neither friend nor favourer of the ensuing reformation nor ordinarily of Protestants in their persons As may yet more manifestly appear by that cruel statute of the Six Articles which he made after all this in the one and thirtieth year of his raign as a trap to catch the Lives of the poore Protestants A Law both writ in blood and executed in blood But suppose that Henry the eighth had been a friend to Protestants what shall we say to all the Orders of the Kingdom what shall we say to the Synods to the Universities to the four and twenty Bishops and nine and twenty Abbats who consented to this Act were all these Schismaticks were Heath Bonner Tonstall Gardiner Stokesley Thurleby c. all Schismaticks If they were then Schismaticks were the greatest opposers of the reformation the greatest enemies of the Protestants and the greatest pillars and upholders of the Roman religion These were they that granted the Supremacy to King Henry the eighth Archbishop Warham told him it was his right to have it before the Pope These were they that preached up the Supremacy of the King at S. Paul's Crosse and defended his Supremacy in printed books These consented to the Acts of Parliament for his Supremacy and the extinguishing of the power of the Roman Bishop in England These were they who helped to make the oath of Supremacy and took it themselves and all others of any note throughout England except onely Fisher Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas Moor who were in prison before it was enacted for opposing the Kings Marriage and the succession of his Children to the Crown after it was ordained in Parliament And wise men have thought that the former had taken it if he had not been retarded by the expectation of a Cardinals hatt which was come as far as Calice Or rather what shall we say to the whole body of the Kingdome if we may believe the testimony of Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester a learned person of very near relation to King Henry and in all other things a great Zelot of the Roman Catholick party in his book of true obedience published with a Preface to it made by Bishop Bonner Thus he No forrein Bishop hath authority among us All sorts of people are agreed with us upon this point with most stedfast consent that no manner of person bred or brought up in England hath ought to do with Rome A full confession of an able adversary to which I see not what can be excepted unlesse it be said of him as it was of Aeneas Sylvius Stephanus probavit Wintoniensis negavit Doctour Gardiner approved it but the Bishop of Winchester retracted it Admit it were so as it was indeed what is that to the stedfast unanimous consent of the whole Kingdome which appears not onely from hence but from Tonstal's Epistle to Cardinal Pool and Bekenshaws Commentary of the Soveraign and absolute power of Kings As likewise of the difference between Kingly and Ecclesiastical power And lastly and principally by a book set forth by the English Convocation called The Institution of a Christian man And to shew yet further that Ireland was unanimoâ—â—â—â—erein with England we find in the three and thirtieth year of Henry the eighth which was before all thoughts of reformation not the Irish only as the O Neales O Relies O Birnes O Carols c. but also the English Families as the Desmonds Barries Râ—ches Bourks whose posterities do still continue Zealous Romanists did make their submissions by Indenture to Sir Anthony Sellenger then chief Governour of that Kingdom wherein they acknowledged King Henry to be their Soveraign Lord and confessed the Kings Supremacy in all causes and utterly renounced the Iurisdiction of the Pope So the Bishop of Winchester might well say that there was an Universal and stedfast consent in the separation from Rome The second exception weighes so little that it scarce deserveth an Answer Admitting but not granting that any or all the calumnies of that party against Henry the eighth were true whereof divers by their impossibility and by the contradiction of their authors do carry their own condemnation written in their foreheads And although Henry the eighth had been our Reformer as he was not yet all this would signifie nothing as to this present question God doth often good works by ill agents Iehu's heart was not upright towards the Lord yet God used him as an Instrument to reform his Church and to punish the worshippers of Baal We have heard of late of an aggregative treason not known before in the world But never untill now of an aggregative Schisme The addition of twenty sins of another nature cannot make that to be Schisme which is not Schisme in it self We are sorry for his sins under a condition that is in case they were true which for part of them we have no great Reason to believe But we are absolutely without condition glad of our own liberty The truth is God Almighty did serve himself of a most unlawful dispensation granted by the Pope to King Henry the eighth to marry his brothers Wife as an occasion of this great work I say unlawful because it was after judged unlawful by the Universities of England France Italy after mature deliberation and some of them upon oath and by above an hundred forrein Doctours of principal reputation for learning The coales of the Kings suspicion were kindled in Spain France and Flanders no enemies to the Pope and blown by Cardinal Wolsey for sinister ends But it was Cranmer that struck the nail home And God disposed all things to his own glory To their third exception That to withhold obedience is Schismatical as well as to withdraw it I answer first that they cannot accuse us as accessaries to Schisme until they have first condemned their own great Patrons Champions and Confessours for the principal Schismaticks Did Roman Catholicks themselves find right and sufficient reason to turn the Pope out of England at the foredoor in fair daylight as an intruder and usurper And do they expect that Protestants who never had any relation to him should let him in again by stealth at the back-door Turpius ejicitur quam non admittitur hospes It is true Queen Mary afterwards gave him houseroom again in England for a short time But he raged so extreamly and made such bonefires of poor innocent Christians in every corner of the Kingdome that it is no marvail if they desired his room rather then his company I have often wondred how any rational man could satisfie himself so as to make
Dominions Witnesse the lawes of Ercombert Ina Withred Alfrede Edward Athelstan Edmond Edgar Athelred Canutus and Edward the Confessor among whose lawes one makes it the office of a King to govern the Church as the Vicar of God Another implyes a power in the King and his Judges to take cognisance of wrong done in Ecclesiastical Courts It was to this Holy King Edward the Confessor that Pope Nicholas the second by his bull for him and his Successours granted this ensuing priviledge to the Kings of England for ever Namely the Advocation and protection of all the Churches of England and power in his stead to make just Ecclesiastical constitutions with the advise of their Bishops and Abbats This grant is as full or fuller then that which Vrban the second made to Roger Earl of Sicily from whence the Kings of Spain at this day do not onely Challenge but enjoy in a manner all Ecclesiastical power in Sicily If the Pope had ever had any such right as he pretends this onely Bull were sufficient to justifie our Kings But they injoyed this very power from the beginning as an essential flower of their Crownes without any thanks to the Pope To make just Ecclesiasticall constitutions in the Popes stead saith the Bull. To govern the Church as the Vicar of God saith the law of the Land The Bishops of Rome have ever been very kind in granting those things which were none of their own and in making deputations and delegations to them who stood in no need of their help being lawfully invested before hand by another title in that power and dignity which the Popes pretended out of their goodnesse to confer upon them but in truth did it onely for the reputation of their See and for maintaining the opinion of their own Grandeur Whether the deputation were accepted or not they did not much trouble themselves So they dealt with 〈◊〉 president in the Councell of Nice So they dealt with the Patriarch of Iustiniana Prima so they served Good King Edward and many others This Legislative power in Ecclesiastical causes over Ecclesiasticall persons the Norman Kings after the conquest did also exercise from time to time with the advice and consent of their Lords spiritual and temporal Hence all those Statutes concerning Benefices Tythes Advowsons Lands given in Mortmain prohibitions consultations praemunires quare Impedits priviledge of Clergy extortions of Ecclesiasticall courts or officers and regulating their due fees wages of Priests Mortuaries Sanctuaries Appropriations and in summe all things which did belong to the externall subsistence regiment and regulating of the Church and this in the raigns of our best Kings long and long before the reformation Othobone the Popes Legate under Vrban the fifth would have indowed Vicars upon appropriated Rectories but could not But our Kings by two Statutes or Acts of Parliament did easily effect it With us the Pope could not make a Spiritual corporation but the King The Pope could not exempt from the Jurisdiction of the ordinary but the King who by his charter could convert Seculars into Regulars The Pope could not grant the Priviledge of the Cistercians and other orders to be free from the payment of Tyths but the King The Pope could not appropriate Churches but the King we find eight Churches appropriated to the Abby of Crowland by the Saxon Kings three Churches appropriated to the Abby of Battell by the Conquerour and twenty by Henry the first to â—â—e Church of Sarisbury The King in his great Councel could make void the certificates of Ordinaries in cases of Ecclesiasticall cognisance and command them to absolve those persons who were judged by his authority to be unjustly excommunicated The Pope could not translate an Arch Bishoprick or a Bishoprick but the King The disposition of Ecclesiastical preferments upon lapse accrued not to the Pope but to the King a plain evidence that he was the Lord Paramount And the King onely could incurre no lapse Nullum tempus occurrit Regi because the law supposed that he was busied about the weightie affaires of the Kingdom The revenewes of a Bishoprick in the vacancy belonged not unto the Pope but to the King which he caused to be restored sometimes from the time of the first vacancy sometimes from the time of the filling of the Church with a new Incumbent according to his good pleasure The Canons of the Pope could not change the Ecclesiastical Lawes of England but the King whose lawes they were He had power in his great Councel to receive the canons if they were judged convenient or to reject them and abrogate them if they were judged inconvenient When some Bishops proposed in Parliament the reception of the Ecclesiastical Canon for the Legitimation of Children born before marriage without such a reception the Canon was of no force in England All the Peers of the Realm stood up and cryed out with one voice Nolumus leges Angliae mutari We will not have the lawes of England to be changed The King and Parliament made a Legislative exposition of the Canon of the Councel of Lyons concerning Bigamy which they would not have done unlesse they had conceived themselves to have power according to the fundamental constitutions of the kingdom either to receive it or reject it Ejus est legem interpretari cujus est condere He that hath authority to expound a law Legislatively hath power to make it The King and Parliament declared Pope Vrban to be the right Pope in a time of Schisme that is in relation to England their own Kingdom not by determining the titles of the Popes but by applying the matter to the one and substracting it from the other All these are so many evidences that when Popery was at the highest the Bishops of Rome had no such absolute Ecclesiasticall Soveraignty in the Church and Realm of England And that what power they exercised at any time more then this was by connivence or permission or violent usurpation And that our Primates had no forraign Superiour Legally established over them but onely the King as he was the Supream head of the whole body politick To see that every one did his duty and injoyed his due right Who would not suffer one of his Barons to be excommunicated from Rome without his privity and consent No Legate de latere was allowed by the law in England but the Archbishop of Canturbury And if any was admitted of courtesy he was to take his oath to do nothing derogatory to the King and his Crown If any man did denounce the Popes excommunication without the assent of the King by the law he forfeited all his goods Neither might any man appeale to Rome without the Kings License In the year 1420 the Pope translated the Bishop of Lincolne to York But the Dean and Chapter absolutely refused to admit him and justified their refusal by the Laws of the Land And
by the favour of the country carried the cause So as the Pope was forced to Recall him to Lincolne Having mentioned the statutes of Mortmain I cannot but do my native country and the Church of England that right to clear it from an heavy accusaâ—ion framed against it upon mistaken grounds That the English protestants had made a Law to maintain and patronize Sacriledge that no man how penitent soever could restore any thing to the Church which had been formerly taken from it God forbid First the statutes of Mortmain were not made by Protestants but in the daies of Henry the third Edward the first and Richard the second between the last of which and Henry the eighth there raigned six Kings successively That is one great mistake Secondly the Statutes of Mortmain did not at all concern the restitution of any thing that had been taken away There was no use for that in those daies The onely scope of those Lawes was to restrain the first donation of Lands to the Church without royal assent That is another mistake Thirdly these very Lawes of Mortmain are not so incredible nor so hard to be believed nor so altogether destitute of presidents and examples as that authour doth imagine so as posterity should scarcely believe that ever any such Law had been made He might have remembred the Proclamation of Moses when the people had already offered abundantly for the adorning of the Sanctuary Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the Sanctuary So the people were restrained from bringing He might have called to mind a like law of Theodosius a godly Emperour and propitious to the Church to moderate the peoples bounty and the Clergies covetousness Which Law Saint Ambrose and Saint Hierome do so much complain of not against the Emperour who made the Law but against the Clergy who deserved to have such a Law made against them He might have found the like Law made by Nicephorus Phocas and afterwards revived by Emanuel Comenus He might have remembred that the troubles between the Pope and the Venetians did spring partly from such a Law Briefly with a little search he might have found like Lawes in Germany Poland France Spain Italy Sicily And if he will trust Padre Paâ—lo in the Papacy it self The Prince cannot wrong his Subject that is an owner or possessour of Lands or haereditaments in a well ordered State Then why should it be in the power of a Subject that is an owner to wrong his Prince and his Country But by such alienations of Lands to the Church in an excessive and unproportionable measure the Prince loseth his right that is both his tribute and his military service and fines upon change of Tenants The Common-Wealth loseth its supportation and due protection Therefore they were called the Lawes of Mortmain because Lands so aliâ—nated to the Church were put into a dead hand from whence they never returned And so in time the whole Signioury should be the Churches as it is elegantly expressed by the Venetian Oratour to Paul the fifth Nè fortunis omnibus exuantur ne quicquid sub coelo Veneto homines arant ferunt aedificant omnia veluti quodam oceano Ecclesiae absorbeantur â—ihilque sibi reliqui fiat unde Rempublicam patriam tecta templa aras focos sepultura majorum defendere possint Lest the Citizens should be turned out of their estates lest all which men plow sow build under the Vâ—netian heaven should be swallowed up into the Ocean of the Church And nothing be left where with to defend the Common-Wealth their Country their houses their temples their altars their fires and the sepulchers of their Ancestors To prevent this great inconvenience the Lawes of Mortmain were devised prudently to ballance the spiritualty and the temporalty that the one do not swallow up the other to which all wise Legislators have ever had ought to have a special regard In France no man can build a new Church without the Kings License verified in Parliament A new Monastery builded in Genua without License is to be confiscated In Spain without License Royal no new Religions can enter into the Kingdome The Fathers of Saint Francis de Paula began to build a Church in Madrid upon their own heads but they were stopped So aequitable so necessary hath this Law of Mortmain been thought to all Nations But to leave this digression and to come up closer to the direct point without any consequences In the Reign of King Henry the second some controversies being likely to arise between the Crown and Thomas Bâ—cket Archbishop of Canterbury The King called a general Assembly of his Archbishops Bishops Abbats Priors and Peers of the Realm at Clarendon where there was made an acknowledgment or memorial cujusdam partis consuetudinum libertatum Antecessorum suorum Regis videlicet Henrici avi sui aliorum quaeobservari debebant in Regno ab omnibus teneri of a certain part of the Customes and Liberties of his predecessors that is to say his Grand-father Henry the first son of the Conquerour and other Kings A parte but ex ungue Leonem from the view of this part we may conclude of what nature the rest were of the customes The customes of England are the Common Law of the Land of his predecessors that is to say the Saxon Danish and Norman Kings successively And therefore no marveil if they ought to be observed of all This part of their ancient customes or liberties they reduced into sixteen Chapters or Articles To which all the Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks with all the Peeres and Nobles of the Realm did not onely give their acknowledgment and consent but also their oathes for the due observation of them It would be tedious and impertinent to relate them all I will onely cull out some of them One was that all appeales in England must proceed regularly from the Arch-Deacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and if the Archbishop failed to do justice the last complaint must be to the King to give order for redresse that is by fit Delegates But there might be no further or other Appeales without the consent of the King whereby the Nunciatureâ— and Legantine Court and the Court of Rome it self are all at the Kings mercy Wherein did the Popes great strength lie in those dayes when his hands were fast tied both at home and abroad Another Custome was that no Ecclesiasticall person might depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings License no not though he were summoned by the Bishop of Rome And if the King permitted them to go yet if he required it they must give caution or security to act nothing hurtful or prejudicial to the King or Kingdome in their going thither abiding there aâ—d returning home You see our Ancestors were jealous of Rome in those daies Whether it was their providence or their experience
as in justice he is bound he is not to be reputed a Schismatick If men might not be saved by a general and implicite repentance they were in a woful condition for who can tell how oft he offendeth Cleanse thou me from my secret faults And if by general and implicite repentance why not by general and implicite faith why not by general and implicite obedience So as they do their uttermost indeavours to learn their duties and are ready to conform themselves when they know them God looks upon his creatures with all their prejudices and expects no more of them then according to the talents which he hath given them If I had books for that purpose I might have cited many Lawes and many Authors to prove that the final separation from Rome was made long before the reformation of the Church of England But it is a truth so evident and so undeniable by all these who understand our affaires that I seem to my self to have done overmuch in it already I do expect that it should be urged by some that there was a double separation of the Church of England from Rome The former from the court of Rome The second from the Church of Rome The former in point of discipline The latter in point of Doctrine The former made in the daies of Henry the Eighth The other in the daies of Edward the sixth That if the Protestants were not guilty of the former yet certainly they were guilty of the later To this I give two answers first that the second separation in point of Doctrine doth not concern this question Whether the Church of England be Schismatical but another whether the Church of England be Haereticall or at least Heterodox for every error doth not presently make an haeresy which cannot be determined without discussing the particular differences between the Church of Rome and the Church of England It is an undeniable principle to which both parties do yeeld firm assent that they who made the first separation from the primitive pure Church and brought in corruptions in faith Leiturgy or use of the Sacraments are the guilty party Yea though the separation were not local but onely moral by introducing errours and innovations and making no other secession This is the issue of our controversie If they have innovated first then we are innocent and have done no more then our duties It is not the separation but the cause that makes a Schismatique Secondly I answer that as Roman Catholicks not Protestants were the authors of the Separation of England from the Court of Rome so the Court of Rome it self not Protestants made the Separation of England from the communion of the Church of Rome by their unjust and tyrannical censures excommunications and interdictions which they thundred out against the Realm for denying their spiritual Soveraignty by divine right before any reformation made by Protestants It was not Protestants that left the communion of the Church of Rome but the Court of Rome that thrust all the English Nation both Protestants and Roman Catholicks together out of their doores and chased them away from them when Pope Paul the third excommunicated and interdicted England in the daies of Henry the eighth before ever any reformation was attempted by the Protestants In that condition the Protestants found the Church and Kingdom of England in the daies of Edward the sixth So there was no need of any new separation from the communion of the Church of Rome The Court of Rome had done â—hat to their hands So to conclude my first Proposition Whatsoever some not knowing or not weighing the state of our affaires And the Acts and Records of those times have rashly or ignorantly pronounced to the contrary it is evident that the Protestants had no hand either in the separation of the English Church from the Court of Rome or in their separation from the Church of Rome The former being made by professed Roman Catholicks the later by the Court of Rome it self both before the reformation following in the dayes of Edward the sixth both at a time when the poor Protestants suffered death daily for their conscience upon the six bloody Articles CHAP. IV. That the King and Kingdom of England in the separation from Rome diâ— make no new Law but vindicate their ancient Liberties THe second Conclusion upon examination will prove as evident as the former that Henry the eighth and those Roman Catholicks with him who made the great separation from the Court of Rome did no new thing but what their predecessors in all ages had done before them treading in the steps of their Christian Ancestors And first it cannot be denyed but that any person or Society that hath an eminent reputation of learning or prudence or piety or authority or power hath ever had and ever will have a great influence upon his or their neighbours without any legal Jurisdiction over them or subjection due from them Secondly it is confessed that in the primitive times great was the dignity and authority of the Apostolical Churches as Rome Antiâ—ch Ephesus Hierusalem Alexandria which were founded by the Apostles themselves And that those ancient Christians in all their differences did look upon the Bishops of those Sees as honourable Arbitrators and faithful Depositaries of the genuine Apostolical traditions especially wherein they accorded one with another Hence is that of Tertullian Constat omnem doctrinam quae cum illis Ecclesiis Apostolicis matricibus et originalibus conspi at c. Whatsoever doctrine agrees with those Apostolical original mother Churches is to be reputed true And in this sense and no other Saint Cyprian a great admirer and imitater both of the matter and words of Tertullian whom he honoured with the title of his Master doth call the Church of Rome a Matrix and a root But if the tradition varied as about the observation of Easter between Victor Bishop of Rome and Polycrates Bishop of Ephesâ—s the one prescribing from St. Peter and S. Paul the other from S. Iohn The respective Churches did conform themselves to their Superiours or if they were free as the Britannique Churches were to their own judgment or to the example of their neighbour Churches or kept them to the tradition delivered unto them by their first converters As in this very controversie about Easter and some baptismal rites the Brittish and Scottish Bishops alwaies adhered to the Eastern Church A strong presumption that thence they received the faith and were not subordinate to the Patriarchal See of Rome But yet all this honourable respect proceeded from a free prudential compliance without any perpetual or necessary subjection Afterwards some Churches lost some gained the place and dignity of Apostolical Churches either by custome so Ephesus lost it or by the Canons of the Fathers so Constantinople did get it or lastly by Imperial priviledges so Iustiniana and Carthage obtained it Thirdly it
is not to be doubted of but that after the year six hundred after that Pope Boniface had quitted his Patriarchal dignity by assuming a more lofty title of universal Bishop The succeeding Popes by the connivence leave or consent of our Kings did sometimes more sometimes lesse upon pretence of their universal Jurisdiction by degrees thrust in their sickle into the Ecclesiastical affaires of England Whosoever shall ponder duly with what a depth of prudence the Roman Court hath mesnaged all occasions and occurrences to the advantage and advancement of that See and consequently to the improvement of their own authority whosoever shall weigh seriously with what art and cunning the Papacy as it now is was tacked into the Church contrary to wind and weather and how their beginning of unity was scrued up to an omnipotence and universality of power whosoever shall duly consider what advantage they made to that See and therein to themselves by the onely countenancing of Phocas his base and bloody murther or of Charles Mà rtel his more glorious and successeful revolt will not wonder to observe how they did watch their times when we had Princes of weak Judgments or necessitous or superstitious or of unjust or Litigious titles to wind themselves into Britain Nay rather he will admire that they did not radicate themselves more deeply and more firmly therein which without doubt they had effected but for their exorbitant rapines whilest they thought that like Foxes they might prey most boldly farthest from their own Kennel Anglia verè hortus noster deliciarum puteus inexhaustus est ubi multa abundant multa de multis extorqueri possunt That England indeed was his garden of delight a Well that could not be drawn dry And where many things did abound out of much much might be extorted But first this intrusion was manifest usurpation and tyranny This was the Gangrene of the Church which no subsequent possession or submission could warrant no tract of time or prescription sufficiently confirm Quod ab initio fuit invalidum tractu temporis non convalescit That which is not onely unjust but invalid in its beginning can never be made valid by the empty pretense of a following custome or prescription Neither do I find in truth that any of the petite Saxon Kings or their Subjects though some of them indebted to S. Gregory for their first conversion and all of them much weakned by their Sevenfold division for at first of Seven Kings there was but onely one who was a Christian namely the King of Kent Neither was it any of his progeny who did afterwards unite the Heptarchy into a Monarchy much lesse that any of the succeeding Kings of England or of great Brittain united did ever make any Solemne formal or obliging acknowledgment of their submission to the Bishop of Rome But on the contrary when Austin first arrived in England he staied in Isle of Thanet untill he knew the Kings pleasure and offered not to preach in Kent until he had the Kings License for him and his followers to preach throughout his Dominions So not onely their Jurisdiction but even the exercise of their pastorall function within that Realm was by the Kings leave and Authority The donation and resignation of King Iohn whereby he went about to make a free Kingdom servile and feudatary to the Pope did concern the Crown more then the Miter and was soon hissed out of the world to the perpetual shame and infamy of such mercenary Pastors yet to obtain this Ludibrious act the power of the Keyes was abused and the Kingdom of England stood interdicted by the space of six years and three Months The Popes in later times had some power in England of courtesy not of Duty but never that omnipotence which they gaped after Sometimes they sent their Nuncios or Legates into England So they did of old into other Patriarchates Sometimes they admitted appeales from England to Rome So they did of old from Africk Sometimes they excommunicated the English Subjects So did Pope Victor long since excommunicate all the Asiaticks But neither Asia nor Africk for all that did acknowledge the Popes Jurisdiction On the other side sometimes their Legates were not permitted to enter into the Realm or after their arrival thrust out of the Realm unless they woâ—ld give caution by oath for their good demesnour Sometimes their Bulls and excommunications were slighted or damned and they who procured them soundly punished for their labours Sometimes all appeales to Rome were prohibited under most severe penalties and their decrees rejected All this while our Kings and Bishops called Councells the one under civil punishments the other under Ecclesiastical made Ecclesiastical lawes and constitutions in their Synods and Parliaments yea expresse constitutions against the Court of Rome it self with as much tartnesse and vehemency as King Henry the Eighth And with this onely difference that they indeavoured to draw the people out of the Popes clawes at home and he thought it more expedient to throw the Pope over the Brittish Sea once for altogether The old and lawful Patriarchal power of the Roman Bishops within their own destricts had been renounced long before by themselves Their new universal Monarchy erected by themselves was not capable of prescription or if it had yet such a dubious unquiet possession as the Popes did hold in England at the mercy and discretion of the right owners was not sufficient to make a legal prescription or to justifie their pretended title or to render them bonae fidei possessores lawful and conscionable possessours This is that which I am now to demonstrate in this second ground The most famous I had almost said the onely appellant from England to Rome that we read of before the Conquest was Wilfride Arch-Bishop of York who notwithstanding that he gained sentence upon sentence at Rome in his favour And notwithstanding that the Pope did send expresse Nuncios into England on purpose to see his sentence executed yet he could not obtain his restitution or the benefit of his sentence for six years during the Raignes of King Egbert and Alfrede his son Yea King Alfrede told the Popes Nuncios expresly That he honoured them as his Parents for their grave lives and honourable aspects but he could not give any assent to their Legation Because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councel of 〈◊〉 English should be restored upon the Popes Letter If they had believed the Pope to be their competent Judge either as universal Monarch or so much as Patriarch of Brittaine or any more then an honourable Arbitrator which all the Patriarchs were even without the bounds of their proper Jurisdictions how comes it to passe that two Kings successively and the great Councels of the Kingdome and the other Arch-Bishop Theodore with all the prime Ecclesiasticks and the flower of the English Clergy did so long and so
flowers of the Crown so they might but hold the Diademe it self from their competitors Therefore our Ecclesiasticall law was called the Kings law because the edge and validity of it did proceed from authority royal our Ecclesiasticall Courts were stiled the Kings Courts by his Judges It is true the habitual Jurisdiction of Bishops flowes from their Ordination But the actual exercise thereof in Publick courts after a coercive manner is from the gracious concessions of Soveraign Princes In a word the law being meerly intended as a remedy against usurpation it cannot be a new Law but onely a Legislative declaration of the Old Common Law of England I will conclude this Chapter with the words of Bishop Bilson As for his Patriarchate by Gods law he hath nonâ— in this Realm for Six hundred years after Christ he had nonâ— for the last Six hundred years looking after greater matters he would have none Above or against the Princes Sword he can have none to the Subversion of the Faith or oppression of his Brethreâ— he ought to have none you must seek further for Subjection to his Tribunall This Land â—weth him none CHAP. V. That the Britanick Churches were ever exempted from forraign Iurisdiction for the first six hundred years And so ought to continue THirdly supposing that the reformed Church of England had separated it self from Rome and supposing that the municipal laws of the Realm then in force had not warranted such a separation yet the British Churches that is the Churches of the British Islands England Scotland and Ireland c. by the constitution of the Apostles and by the solemne sentence of the Catholique Church are exempted from all forraign Jurisdiction and cannot be Schismatical in the lawful vindication of a just priviledge so well founded for the clearer manifestation whereof let us consider First that all the twelve Apostles were equall in mission equall in commission equall in power equall in honour equal in all thingâ— except priority of order without which no Society can well Subsist So much Bellarmine confesseth that by these words As my father sent me so send I you Our Saviour endowed them with all the fulnesse of power that mortall men were capable of And therefore no single Apostle had Jurisdiction over the rest par in parem noâ— habet potestatem but the whole Colledge of Apostles to which the supream Mesnagery of Ecclesiasticall affaires did belong in common whether a new Apostle was to be ordained or the office of Deaconship was to be erected or fit persons were to be delegated for the ordering of the Church as Peter and Iohn Iudas and Sylas Or informations of great moment were to be heard as against Peter himself Though Peter out of Modesty might condescend and submit to that to which he was not obliged in duty yet it had not become the other Apostles to sit as Judges upon their Superiour placed over them by Christ. Or whether the weightier questions of the calling of the Gentiles and circumcision the law of Moses were to be determined still we find the Supremacy in the Colledge Secondly that drousy dream that the plenitude of Ecclesiastical power and Jurisdiction was given by Christ to Saint Peter as to an ordinary Pastour to be derived from him to his Successours but to the rest of the Apostles as delegates for tearm of life to die with themselves as it is lately and boldly asserted without reason without authority either divine or humane so it is most repugnant to the doctrine of the Fathers who make all Bishops to be the Vicars and Embassadours of Christ not of the Pope and successours of the Apostles indifferently Vicaria ordinatione who make but one Episcopacy in the world whereof every Bishop hath an equal share St. Peter was a Pastor and the Pastoral office is of perpetual necessity in the Church True But so were all the rest of the Apostles Pastors as well as he And if we examine the matter more narrowly cui bono for whose advantage this distinction was devised it was not for S. Peters own advantage who setting aside his principallity of order is confessed to have had but an equall share of power with his fellow Apostles but fo rs the Popes advantage and the Roman courts whom they desire to invest solely with the key of all originall Jurisdiction And if we trace on this Argument a little further to search out how the Bishop of Rome comes to be Saint Peters heire ex assâ— to the exclusion of his Elder Brother the Bishop of Antioch they produce no authority that I have seen but a blind ill grounded legend out of a counterfeit Hegâ—sippus of Saint Peters being about to leave Rome and Christs meeting him upon the way and admonishing him to return to Rome where he must be crucified for his name which reason halts on both sides The foundation is Apocryphal and the superstruction is weak and unjointed without any necessary connexion Thirdly it appeareth not to us that the Apostles in their daies did either set up any universall Monarchy in the Church or so much dilate the borders or bounds of any one mans single Jurisdiction as to subject so great a part of the Christian World as the Western Patriarchate to his obedience The highest that they went if any of those Canons which bear their names be genuine was to nationall or provincial Primates or Patriarchs for a Protarch or Primate and a Patriarch in the language of the ancient Church signified one and the same thing in whose praeheminence there was more of order and care then of single Jurisdiction and power Read their three and thirtieth Canon It behooves the Bishops of every distinct Nation to know him who is their first or Primate and to esteem him as their head And to do nothing that is of difficulty or great moment contrary to his opinion But neither let him do any thing without the opinion of all them This Nationall Primacy or Protarchatâ— or Patriarchate under which the Britannique Churches flourished for many ages is the very same which we contend for Fourthly it is worthy of our inquiry how in processe of time some Primates did obtain a much more eminent degree of honour and a larger share in the government of the Church then others And of this their adventitious Grandeur we find three principal fountaines First ancient customes Secondly the Canons of the Fathers And thirdly the edicts of Christian Princes First ancient customes Upon this ground the first generall Councel of Nice settled the authority and priveledges of the three Patriarchal Sees of Rome Alexandria and Antioch Let ancient customes prevail And these customes commonly proceeded either from the memory of the Apostles who had founded such Churches from whence as from Apostolical fountaines their neighbours did fetch sound doctrine and reciprocally paid to them due respect So
spare for Britain In the whole term of three hundred years there were few above two hundred Bishops Ordained at Rome Italy alone may brag well near of as many Bishops at one time as many succeeding Popes did ordain in all their ages Let them not tell us of the scarcity of Christians in those dayes The writings of Tertullian and Saint Cyprian and the Councels held within the time limited do evince the contrary No the first badge of their Patriarchal authority in Britain was sending of the Pall as the onely badge during the times of the Britons and Saxons And the first Pall that came into Britain was after six hundred years But this doth yet appear much more clearly from the answer of Dionothus the Reverend and learned Abbot of Bangor which according to the manner of those times was an University or Seminary of Learning and piety among the Britons and he the well deserving Rector of it made in his own name and in the name of the Britons when they pressed him to submit to the Romaen Bishop as his Patriarch that he knew no obedience due to him whom they called the Pope but the obedience of love And that under God they were to be governed by the Bishop of Caerleon Observe first what strangers the Britons were to the Papacy That man whom you call the Pope Secondly that they acknowledged no subjection or subordination no obedience whatsoever due from them to Rome but onely the reciprocal duty of love that was just the same that Rome did owe to them Thirdly that under God that is immediatly without any Forrein Prelate or Patriarch intervening they were to be governed by the Bishop of Caerleon as their onely Primate and Patriarch Which priviledge continued to the succeeding Bishops of that See for many ages afterwards saving that the Archiepiscopal Chair was removed from Caerleon to St. Davids in the Raign of King Arthur And lastly observe the time when this answer was made after the first six hundred years were expired So it is a full demonstrative convincing proof for the whole term prefixed But lest any man should cavil and say that Dionothus was but one man and that the body of the British Clergy might be of another mind that which followes strikes the question dead That Austin Saint Gregories Legate proposing three things to the Britons First that they should submit to the Roman Bishop Secondly that they should conforme to the customes of the Roman Province about the observation of Easter and the administration of Baptisme And Lastly that they should joyn with him in Preaching to the Saxons all the British Clergy assembled themselves together Bishops and Priests in two several Synods one after another to deliberate hereupon and after mature consideration they rejected all his propositions Synodically and refused flatly and unanimously to have any thing to do with him upon those terms Insomuch as St. Austin was necessitated to return over the Seas to obtain his own consecration and after his return to consecrate the Saxon Bishops alone without the assistance of any other Bishops They refused indeed to their own cost twelve hundred innocent Monks of Bangor shortly after lost their lives for it Rome was ever builded in blood Howsoever these words quamvis Augustino prius mortuo have since been forged and inserted into venerable Bede to palliate the matter which are wanting in the Saxon Copy The concurring Testimonies of all our Historiographers witnessing the absolute and unanimous refusal of the Britons to submit to Rome and the matter of fact it self do confirm this for an undoubted truth beyond all exception So clear a truth it is that the British Churches for the first three hundred years neither ought nor paid any subjection to Rome Whence might well proceed that answer of Elutherius to King Lucius if that Epistle be not counterfeit when he desired him to send over a Copy of the Roman Lawes That he should chuse a Law Ecclesiastical out of holy writ by the Councel of his Kingdom that is principally of his Bishops for saith he you are the Vicar of Christ in your Kingdom The same in effect which is conteined in the Lawes of Edward the Confessor Hence it is that both our Histories and our Lawes do stile our Archbishops Priâ—ates which in the Language of the Primitive times signifies as much as Patriarchs And sometimes call them expresly by the very name of Patriarchs it self Hence Vrban the second intertained and welcomed Anselm our Archbishop of Canterbury into the Councel of Barre tanquam alterius orbis Papam as the Pope of another world Or as others relate the passage as the Apostle of another world and a Patriarch worthy to be reverenced CHAP. VI. That the King and Church of England had both sufficient authority and sufficient grounds to withdraw their obedience from Rome and did it with due moderation SO from the persons who made the separation from the Lawes and Statutes of our Realm which warranted the separation and from the ancient Liberties and priviledges of the Britannick Churches I proceed to my fourth ground drawn from the Imperial prerogatives of our Soveraign Princes That though we should wave all the other advantages yet they had power to alter in the external discipline and regiment of the Church whatsoever was of humane institution for the benefit and advantage of the body politick Doctor Holden proposeth the case right by way of Objection But peradventure the Protestants will say that the King or supream Senate of every Kingdome or Common-Wealth have power to make Lawes and statutes by which either directly or at least indirectly as well the Clergy as the Laity of that Kingdom or Common-Wealth are bound to reject all forrain Iurisdiction superiority and dependance And that his Legislative power is essentially annexed to every Kingdom and Commonwealth seeing that otherwise they cannot prevent those dangers which may spring and issue from that fountain to their destruction and ruine The Protestants do say indeed without all peradventure upon that very ground which is alledged in the objection Neither do the Protestants want the suffrage of Roman Catholicks therein Because humane nature saith one cannot be destitute of necessary remedies to its own preservation And another To whom a Kingdome is granted of necessity all things are esteemed to be granted without which a Kingdome cannot be governed And a Kingdom cannot be governed unlesse the King enjoy this power even over Clerks c. Necessary remedies are no remedies unlesse they be just but worse then the disease And being just the Subject is obliged to active obedience But let us see what the Doctour pleads in answer to his own objection First he passeth by the native power of civil Soveraign Empire which ought not to have been omitted for therein consists the main force of the argument But as to the Ecclesiastical part he saith he could
any the least particle of divine right if there had been any such Nor could they justly be accused of violating that humane right which had been quitted long before nor be blamed rightly for denying obedience to him from whose Jurisdiction they were exempted by the Canon of an Oecumenical Councel and who had himself implicitely renounced that Ecclesiastical right which he held from the Church Perhaps some may conceive a defect in the manner of proceeding of the King and Church of England that they did not first make a Remonstrance of their grievances and seek redresse of the Pope himself So the Councel of Towers thought it fit Visum est tamen Concilio ante omnia mittendos Legatos ad D. Papam Julium c. It seemeth good to the Councel that in the first place messengers be sent from the French Church to the Pope who may admonish him with brotherly love and according to the Evangelical form of correction to desist from his attempts and to imbrace peace and concord with the Princes But if he will not hear the messengers let him be demanded to convocate a free Councel according to the decrees of the holy Councel of Basile And this being done and his answer received further provision shall be made according to right To this I answer first That it had been reasonable and just indeed that we had made our first addresse to the Pope if we acknowledged the Roman Bishop to be our lawful Patriarch But the same respect is not due to an usurper Secondly we have seen by frequent experience how vain and fruitlesse such addresses have proved from time to to time According to the former advise of the Councel of Towers the King of France sent Ambassadors to Rome but the Pope refused to hear them or to convocate any Councel and before his death Anathematized Maximilian King of the Romans the Kings of France and of Navarre and divers other Princes Cardinals and Bishops deprived the Kings and Princes of their respective Realms and Principalities the Bishops of their dignities and benefices and gave their Kingdoms and Principalities to the first that could take them from which sentence they appealed to a future Councel The most ancient arbitrary imposition of the Popes upon the British Churches was the Pall an honourable and at first innocent ensign of an Archbishop otherwise of no great moment first introduced in the reigns of the Saxon Kings after the six hundreth year of Christ But in process of time it became vendible and a great summe was exacted for it whereof Canutus long since complained at Rome and had remedy promised as he well deserved of that See But how well it was observed the experience of after-ages doth manifest when both the price was augmented and withall an oath of allegiance to the Pope imposed Electo in Archiepiscopum sedes Apostolica pallium non tradet â—isi prius praesteâ— fidelitatis et obedientiae juramentum The See Apostolique will not deliver the Pall to an elect Archbishop unlesse he first swear fidelity and obedience to the Pope what was become of their old oath of allegiance to their King In the year 1245. the King the Lords spiritual and temporal and the whole Common-Wealth of England joyned together unanimously in a complaint and exhibited their grievances to Rome that the Pope extorted more then his Peter-pence out of the Kingdom contrary to law that the Patrons of Churches were defrauded of their rights strangers preferred souls endangered their bullion exported the Kingdome impoverished provisions made pensions exacted That the English were drawn out of the Realm by the authority of the Pope contrary to the customes of the Kingdom They complained of the coming among them of the Popes infamous messenger non obstante by which oaths customes writings grants statutes rights priviledges were not only weakened but exinanited They complained of collections without the Kings leave that hospitality was not kept the poor not sustained the Word not preached Churches not adorned the cure of souls neglected divine offices not performed and Churches ruined by the abuses of the Papal Court I cannot omit one clause in the letter of the Lords to the Pope Nisi de gravaminibus domino Regi et regno illatis Rex et râ—gnum citiùs liberentur oportebit nos ponere murum pro domâ— Domini et libertate regni Quod quidem ob Apostolicae sedis reverentiam hucusque facere distuliâ—us Vnlesse the King and Kingdom be quickly freed from these grievances we must make a wall of defence or partition for the house of the Lord and the liberty of the Kingdom which we have hitherto forborn to do out of our reverend respect of the Apostolique See They seem to allude to that wall which Severus made to save the Kingdom from the incursions of the Scots and Picts Surely that was not more necessary then than that wall of partition which Henry the eighth made afterwards to save the Realm from the affronts and extortions and injuries of the Roman Court. Neither did they make their addresses to the Pope alone but to the Councel of Lyons by the Procters of the whole Nobility and Commonalty of England for redresse of the violent oppressions intolerable grievances and impudent exactions which were practised in England by meanes of that hateful clause non obstante too often inserted in the Popes letters They represented that there were so many Italians for the most part ignorant and unlearned that understood not one English word nor did ever tread upon English ground beneficed among them that their yearly revenue exceeded the revenue of the Crown Neither did they complain onely but threaten and swear that they would not permit such abuses for the future But what ease did the poore English find by complaining to the Pope either in Councel or out of Councel Martine the Popes Commissioner for he could not send a Legate without the Kings consent extorts excommunicates interdicts the Pope himself is angry because like sturdy children they durst cry and whimper when they were beaten and perswades the King of France to invade England and either to depose the King or subject him to the Court of Rome which lost the Pope the heart of the English The King told them that their King began to kick against him and play the Frederick And they threatened that if he persisted they should be forced to do that which would make his heart ake After this Edward the third made his addresses likewise to Rome for remedy of grievances in the year 1343. How did he speed No better then his Great grandfather Henry the third The Pope was offended and termed his modest expostulation rebellion But that wise and magnanimous Prince was not daunted with words to requite their invectives he made the statutes of Provisoes and praemunire directly against the incroachments and usurpations of the Court of Rome Whereby he so abated their power
in England for sundry ages following that a Dean and Chapter were able to deal with them not onely to hold them at the swords point but to soile them Lastly King Henry the eighth himself had been long a suiter unto Clement the seventh to have his Predecessor Iulius the seconds dispensation for his marriage with his Brothers wife to be declared void But though the Popes own Doctors Universities had declared the dispensation to be unlawfull and invalide and although the Pope himself had once given forth a Bull privately to his Legate Cardinall Campeius for the revocation thereof wherein he declared the marriage to be null and that the King could not continue in it without sinne yet the King found so little respect either to the condition of his person or to the justice of his cause that after long delayes to try if he could be allured to the Popes will in the conclusion he received a flat deniall This was no great incouragement to him to make any more addresses to Rome So what was threatened and effected in part in the dayes of Henry the third and Edward the third was perfected in the reign of Henry the eighth when the Jurisdiction of the Court of Rome in England was abolished which makes the great distance between them and us Different opinions are often devised or defended on purpose to maintain faction if animosities were extinguished and the mindes of Christians free from prejudice other controversies might quickly be reconciled and reduced to primitive general truths The power Paramount of the Court of Rome hath ever been and still is that insana laurus which causeth brawling and contention not onely between us and them but between them and the Eastâ—rn Churches yea even between them and those of their own communion as we shall see in the next Chapter Yea the originall source true cause of all the Separations reformations made in the Church in these last ages As all the Estates of Castile did not forbear to tell the Pope himself not long since in a printed memoriall and the Kingdom of Portugall likewise To conclude this point These former Kings who reigned in England about the years 1200. and 1300. might properly be called the first Reformers and their Lawes of Proviso's and Prâ—munire's or more properly premoneres the beginning of the Reformation They laid the Foundation and Henry the Eighth builded upon it Now having seen the authority of our Reformers and the justice of their grounds in the last place let us observe their due moderation in the manner of their separation First they did not we do not deny the being of any Church whatsoever Roman or other nor possibility of salvation in them especially such as hold firmly the Apostles Creed and the faith of the four first Generall Councels Though their salvation be rendred much more difficult by humane inventions and obstructions And by this very sign did Saint Cyprian purge himself and the African Bishops from Schisme Neminem judicantes aut à jure communionis aliquem si diversum senserit amoventes Iudging no man removing no man from our communion for difference in opinion We do indeed require subscription to our Articles but it is onely from them who are our own not from strangers nor yet of all our own but onely of those who seek to be initiated into holy orders or are to be admitted to some Ecclesiastical preferment So it is in every mans election whether he will put himself upon a necessity of subscription or not neither are our Articles penned with Anathema's or curses against all those even of our own who do not receive them but used only as an help or rule of unity among our selves Si quis diversum dixerit If any of our own shall speak or preach or write against them we question him But si quis diversum senserit if any man shall onely think otherwise in his private opinion and trouble not the peace of the Church we question him not We presume not to censure others to be out of the pale of the Church but leave them to stand or fall to their own Master We damne none for dissenting from us we do not separate our selves from other Churches unlesse they chase us away with their censures but onely from their errours For clear manifestation whereof observe the thirtieth Canon of our Church It was so far from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy France Spain Germany or any such like Churches in all things which they held and practised c. that it only departed from them in those particular points wherein they were fallen both from themselves in their aâ—cient integrity and from the Apostolical Churches which were their first founders So moderate are we towards all Christians whether forreigners or domesticks whether whole Churches or single persons But because the Roman Catholicks do lay hold upon this charitable assertion of ours as tending mainly to their advantage Behold say they Protestants do acknowledge a possibility of salvation in the Roman Church But Roman Catholicks deny all possibility of Salvation in the Protestant Churches Therefore the Religion of Roman Catholiques is much safer then that of Protestants Hence proceeded their Treatise of charity mistaken and sundry other discourses of that nature wherein there are mistakes enough but little charity For answer If this Objection were true I should love my Religion never the worse Where I find little charity I look for as little faith But it is not true for when the businesse is searched to the bottom they acknowledge the same possibility of salvation to us which we do to them that is to such of either Church respectively as do not erre wilfully but use their best endeavours to find out the truth Take two testimonies of the Bishop of Chalcedon If they that is the Protestants grant not salvation to such Papists as they count vincibly ignorant of Roman errours but onely to such as are invincibly ignorant of them they have no more charity then we for we grant Church saving faith and salvation to such Protestants as are invincibly ignorant of their errours And in his book of the distinction of fundamentals and not fundamentals he hath these words If Protestants allow not saving faith Church and salvation to such as sinfully erre in not fundamentals sufficiently prâ—posed they shew no more charity to erring Christians then Catholicks dâ— for we allow all to have saving faith to be in the Church in way of salvation for so much as belongeth to faith who hold the fundamental points and invincibly erre in not fundamentals because neither are these sufficiently proposed to them nor they in fault that they are not so proposed Secondly as our separation is from their errours not from their Churches so we do it with as much inward charity and moderation of our affections as we can possibly willingly indeed in
Command or permission And after permission onely by authority of the King and not by authority of the Pope to shun confusion and mixture of Jurisdictions 10. Neither the King nor his Realm nor his Officers can be excommunicated or interdicted by the Pope nor his Subjects absolved from their Oath of Allegiance 11. The Pope cannot impose Pensions in France upon any benefices having cure of soules nor upon any others but according to the Canons according to the expresse condition of the resignation or ad redimendum vexationem 12 All Bulls and Missives which come from Rome to France are to be seen and visited to try if there be nothing in them prejudicial in any manner to the estate and liberties of the Church of France or to the Royal authority 13 It is lawful to appeal from the Pope to a future Councel 14 Ecclesiastical persons may be convented judged and sentenced before a secular Judge for the first grievous or enormious crime or for lesser offences after a relapse which renders them incorrigible in the eye of the Law 15. All the Prelates of France are obliged to swear feaâ—ty to the King and to receive from him their investituâ—es for their fees and manours 16. The Courts of Parliament in case of appeales as from abuse have right and power to declare null void and to revoke the Popes Bulls and Excommunications and to forbid the execution of them when they are found contrary to sacred decrees the liberties of the French Church or the prerogative Royal. 17. Generall Councels are above the Pope and may depose him and put another in his place and take cognisance of appeals from the Pope 18. All Bishops have their power immediately from Christ not from the Pope and are equally successours of Saint Peter and the other Apostles and Vicars of Christ. 19. Provisions reservations expectative graces c. have no place in France 20. The Pope cannot exempt any Church Monastery or Ecclesiastical body from the Jurisdiction of their Ordinary nor erect Bishopricks into Archbishopricks nor unite them nor divide them without the Kings Licence 21. All those are not hereticks excommunicated or damned who differ in some things from the doctrine of the Pope who appeal from his decrees and hinder the execution of the ordinances of him or his Legates These are part of the liberties of the Gallicane Church The ancient British Church needed no such particular priviledges since they never knew any forreign Jurisdiction The English British Church which succeeded them in time in place and partly in their members and holy orders ought to have injoyed the same freedom and exemption But in the daies of the Saxon Danish and Norman Kings the Popes did by degrees insinuate themselves into the mesnagery of Ecclesiastical affaires in England Yet for many ages the English Church injoyed all these Gallicane priviledges without any remarkable interruption from the Roman Court. As in truth they do of right by the Law of nature belong to all Sovereign Princes in their own Dominions Otherwise Kingdomes should be destitute of necessary remedies for their own conservation And in later ages when the Popes having thrust in their heads did strive to draw in their whole bodies after the whole Kingdome opposed them and made Lawes against their several grosse intrusions as we have formerly seen in this discourse And never quitted these English as well as Gallicane liberties untill the Reformation But perhaps we may find more loyalty and obedience to the Court of Rome in the Catholick King Not at all Whatsoever power King Henry or any of his Successours did ever assume to themselves in England as the Political Heads of the Church the same and much more doth the Catholique King not onely pretend unto but exercise and put in practice in his Kingdome of Sicily both by himself by his Delegates whom he substitutes with the same authority to judge and punish all Ecclesiastical crimes to excommunicate and absolve all Ecclesiastical persons Lay-men Monks Clerks Abbats Bishops Archbishops yea and even the Cardinals themselves which inhabit in Sicily He suffers no appeals to Rome He admits no Nuncio's from Rome Atque demum respâ—ctâ— Ecclesiasticae Iurisdictionis neque ipsam Apostolicam sedem recognoscere hâ—bâ—re superiorem nisi in casu praevenâ—ionis And to conclude he acknowledgeth not any superiority of the Sâ—e of Rome it sâ—lf but onely in case of prevention What saith Baronius to this He complains bitterly that praetensa Apostolica authoritate contra Apostolicam ipsam sedem grande piaculum perpetratur c. Vpon pretence of Apostolique authority a grievous offence is committed against the Apostolick See the power whereof is weaknâ—d in the Kingdome of Sicily the authority thereof abrogated the Iurisdiction wronged the Ecclesiastical Lawes violated and the rights of the Church dissipated And a little after he declaimes yet higher Quid in ad ista dixeris lector What wilt thou say to this Reader but that under the name of Monarchy besides that one Monarch which all the faithful have ever acknâ—wledged as the onely visible Head in the Church Another head it risen up and brought into the Kingdome of Sicily for a Monster and a prodigy c. But for this liberty which he took the King of Spain fairly and quietly without taking any notice of his Cardinalitian dignity caused his books to be burned publickly It will be objected That the King of Spain challengeth this power in Sicily not by his Regal authority as a Sovereign Prince but by the Bull of Vrbanus the second who constituted Roger Earl of Sicily and his heires his Legates à latere in that Kingdome whereby all succeeding Princes do challenge to be Legati nati with power to substitute others and qualifie them with the same authority But first if the Papacy be by Divine right what power hath any particular Pope to transfer so great a part of his office and authority from his Successours for ever unto a Lay-man and his heires by way of inheritance If every Pope should do as much for another Kingdom as Vrbanus did for Sicily the Court of Rome would quickly want imployment Secondly if the Bull of Vrbanus the second was so available to the succeeding Kings of Sicily which yet is disputed whether it be authentick or not whether it be full or defective and mutilated why should not the Bull of Nicholas the second his predecessour granted to our Edward the Confessour and his Successours be as advantagious to the succeeding Kings of England why not much rather seeing that they are thereby constituted or declared not Legates but Governours of the English Church in the Popes place or rather in Christs place seeing that without all doubt Sicily was a part of the Popes ancient Patriarchate but Britaigne was not And lastly seeing the situation of Sicily so much nearer to Rome renders the Sicilians more capable of receiving Justice from thence then the English