power to name and constitute two and thirty Commissioners sixteen of the Clergy and other sixteen of the Peers and Parliament to view the Ecclesiasticall Lawes of the Kingdome and declare which were fit to be retained and which were to be abrogated The same Law is confirmed and enlarged The Sixth Law restreineth the payment of Tenths and First Fruits to the Bishop of Rome And prescribeth how Arch-bishops Bishops c. are to be elected and consecrated within the Realm without payment of any thing to Rome for Bulls and Pals c. The seventh law is an Act of Eâ—oneration of the Kings subjects from exactions and impositions heretofore paid to the See of Rome for Pensions Peterpence Licenses Dispensations Confirmations faculties c. and for having licenses and dispensations within the Realm without further suing for the same As being Vsurpations coâ—trary to the law of the land The eighth Act is Concerning the Kings Highnesse to be supreme Head of the Church of England that is Politicall head and to have Authority to redresse all Errours Heresies and Abuses in the same That is to say with externall Coactive Iurisdiction Wee never gave our Kings the power of the Keys or any part of either the Key of Order or the Key of Iurisdiction purely Spirituall but onely that Coactive power in the externall Regiment of the Church which their Predecessors had alwayes enjoyed The Ninth Act is for the annexing Tenths and first fruits to the Crown for the better supportation of the Burthens of the Commouwealth The tenth Act is au Act extinguâ—shing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome or extirpating it out of this Realm That is Not the Bishop of Romes Primacy of Order Not his beginning of Vnity Not that respect which is dne to him as Bishop of an Apostolicall See If he have not these it is his own fault This is not our quarrell It is so far from it that wee do not envy him any just legacies of Christian Emperours or Generall Councells But that which our Ancestors did extinguish and endeavour to extirpate out of England was the Popes externall Coactive power over the Kings Subjects in foro contentioso as wee shall see by and by when we come to state the quarrell rightly between us After this Act there followed au eleventh Act made for corroborating of this last Act to exclude the usurped power and Iurisdiction of the Bishops of Rome And both these Acts are backed with new Oaths as those times were fruitfull of Oaths such as they were The last Act of any moment was an Act of Ratification of the Kings Majestjes Style of Supreme head of the Church of England making it treason to attempt to deprive the King of it But as well the eighth Act which gave the King that title of the Head of the Church as this twelfth Act which makes it treason to attempt to deprive the King of it are both repealed and never were restored So are likewise the tenth Act of extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome and the eleventh act made for corroboration of that Act with both their Oaths included in them All that hath been added since of moment which concerneth the Bishop of Rome is one Act Restoring to the Crown the ancient Iurisdiction over the State Ecclesiasticall and Spirituall and abolishing all forrain power repugnant to the same Here is no power created in the Crown but onely an ancient Iurisdiction restored Here is no forrein power abolished but onely that which is repugnant to the ancient Lawes of England and to the Prerogative Royall In a word here is no power ascribed to our Kings but meerly Politicall aud Coactive to see that all their Subjects doe their Dutyes in their severall places Coactive power is one of the Keys of the Kingdome of this world it is none of the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven This might have been expressed in Words lessé subject to exception But the case is clear The Grand Act xxv Hen. 8. cap. 12 The Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth The Articles of our Chutch Art 37. doe all proclaime that this power is merely Politicall Christ gave St. Peter a Commission to preach to baptise to bind and loose in the Court of Conscience but where did he give him a Commission to give Licenses to grant Facultyes to make Lawes to dispense with lawes to receive appeales to impose Tenths and First fruits in other mens Kingdomes whether the right owner will or no Who gave him power to take other mens Subjects against their Wills to be his Officers and Apparitors That is more power then Christ himself did challenge here upon Earth And now Reader take a Stand and looke about thee See among all these Branches of Papall power which were cast out of England if thou caust find either of St. Peters Keys or his Primacy of Order or his Beginning of Vnity or anything which is purely Spirituall that hath no further influence then merely the Court of Conscience No but on the other side behold a pack of the grossest Usurpations that ever were hatched and all so late that is was above a thousand years after the death of S. Peter be fore any of his pretended Privileges did see the sun in England observe them one by one The first is a power to dispense with English Subjects for holding Plurality of Benifices contrary to the Lawes of England And for non Residents contrary to the Statutes of the Realm It had been much to have made Merchandise of his own Decrees but to Dispense with the Lawes of the Land Non auderet haec facere Viduae mulieri He durst not doe so much to a poore widow woman as he did to the Church and Kingdome of England to dispense with their Lawes at his pleasure It is but vain for the Flower of our Kingdome to assemble aud consult about healthfull Lawes if a Forrainer have power to dispense with the breach of them as it seemeth good in his Eyes They might as well sit them downquietly fall to pilling of rushes The second Branch of Papall power which was Excluded out of England was the Popes Iudiciary power I doe not mean in Controversies of Faith when he is in the Head of a councell Yet Eugeniur the fourth confesseth that in points of Faith the sentence of the councel is rather to be atteÌ„ded theÌ„ the sentence of the Pope But I mean in points of meum and tuum not onely in some rare cases between Bishop and Bishop which had been lesse intollerable and had had more shew of Iustice but generally in all cases promiscuously as if the whole nation wanted either discretion or Law to determin their own differences at home without the help of the Roman Courtier tosqueese their purses It was not Henry the eighth but the old Lawes of England which gave them this blow against Appeales to Rome The third Branch of papall
had no coactive power to compell any man against his Will The Vttermost they could doe was to separate him from their Communion and to leave him to the Comming or Iudgement of Christ. Let him be Anathema mar an atha The true Controversy then is this Whether the Bishop of Rome by his Legates have Coactive power in the exteriour Court to Convocate Synods of English Subjects in England when he will where he will whom he will without their Consents and without the leave of the Soveraign Prince or King of England The Case being thus stated determineth it self Where should the Pope appoint a place of meeting in England without the Leave of the King of England Wee see by often experience that if the Pope have a desire to summon a Councell in Italy within the Dominions of another Soveraign Prince or Republick although they be of his own Communion he must First aske leave and obtein leave before he can tell how to doe it Or how should he pretend to any Coactive power in England without the Kings grant or leave where the power of the Militia and all Coactive force is legally invested in the King Thus for point of right Now for matter of Fact First I doe utterly deny that any Bishop of Rome by his own Authority did Convocate any Synod in the Brittish Island during the First eleven hundred yeares Or preside in any by his Legates Or confirm them by his Authority If he be no table to produce so much as one instance to the Contrary he may cry guilty to the Vsurpation where of he is accused and hold his peace forever Secondly I doe confesse that after eleven hundred yeares The Bishops of Rome taking advantage of our civill combustions and prostituting the reputation of the Apostolicall See to their temporall ends did by the leave of our Kings not otherwise sometimes call Synods in England and preside in them The first Synod held in England by any of the Popes Legats was at London in the yeare 1125. by Ioannes Cremensis Which moved England into no smal indignation to see a thing till then unheard of in the Kingdome of England A Priest sitting president upon an high throne above Arch Bishops Bishops bats c. But remember my third ground or Consideration of the difference betwen affirmative and negative Presidents All which this proveth is that the King did give leave or connive at that time But it doth not prove it cannot prove a right to doe the same at other times when the King contradicteth it Further wee ought to take notice that there is a greate deale of difference between an Ordinary Synod and an English Convocation Although in truth our Convocations be Synods So called from one word in the Kings writ to Summon them Convocari facias All the Clergy of the Realm were not present at an ordinary Synod but all the whole Clergy of the Kingdome were present at a Convocation either in their Persons or by their Proctors sufficiently authorised Secondly the absent Clergy had no such Obligation to the Acts of a Papall Synod as they had to the Acts of a royall Convocation sub Hypotheca bonorum omnium under the Caution or Pledge of all their Goods and Estates Lastly to drive the naile home and to demonstrate clearly the Grossenesse of this Papall usurpation it remaineth onely to shew that by the Ancient Lawes of England the calling of Convocations or Synods belonged properly to the King not to the Bishop of Rome or his Legates And first by reason By the Lawes of England more ancient then the Popes intrusion no Roman Legat could enter into the Kingdome withont the Kings leave nor continue in it longer then he had his License as wee shall see hereafter and therefore they could not convocate any Synods nor doe any Synodicall Act without the Kings leave Secondly by Records of the English Convocation itself that the Convocations of the Clergy of the Realm of England are alwayes have been and ought to be Assembled by the Kings Writ Anno 1532. Thirdly by the Form of the Writt which hath ever been the same in all succeding Ages constantly directed from the King to the English Arch Bishops for their distinct Provinces The very Form speakes it English sufficiently For certain difficult and urgent Businesses concerning the defence and security of the English Church and the peace tranquility publik good and defence of our Kingdome and Subjects Wee command and require you by that Allegiance and Love which you owe â—o us that you cause to be convocated with convenient speed in due manner all and singular Bishops of your Province Deanes and Priors of Cathedrall Churches c. And the whole Clergy of your diocesse and Province to meet before you c. Another Writ did alwayes issue from the King for the dissolution Wee command you that you dissolve or cause to be dissolved this present Convocation this very day in due manner without any delay c. Lastly by the concurring Testimonyes of all our Historiographers That all the space of time of eleven hundred yeares wherein the Popes did neither call Councells nor Preside in them nor Confirm them and after unto the very Reformation Our Kings did both call Councells and Preside in them and Confirm them and own their Lawes as I have shewed him by the Lawes of Ercombert Ina Withred Alfred Edwerd Athelstan Edmund Edgar Athelred Canutus and Edward the Confessor in my Vindication And particularly that Theodore Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Presided in a Councell in the Presence of Iohn the Popes Legate That King Edward Assembled a Synod and Confirmed the Acts of it as Decreâ—um Regis The Kings decree That King Withred called a Councell at Becancelde and Presided in it and that the decrees of the Councell issued in his name and by his Authority Firmiter decernimus c. in my Answer to the Bishop of Chalcedon All this he pretendeth to have answered but it is with deep silence If he desire more Presidents and more witnesses he may have a cloud of Authors upon holding up his Finger to prove undeniably that King Henry did not innovate at all in challenging to himself the right to Convocate the Clergy and dissolve them and confirm their Acts with in his own Dominions but followed the steps of his Roâ—al Predecessors in all Ages from the first planting of religion untill his own dayes And not onely of his own Ancestors but his Neighbours The President of Charles the great is very conspicuous To omit all my former Allegations in this behalf In the French Synod I Charlemain Duke and Prince of the Frankes by the Advise of the Servants of God and my Princes have congregated the Bishops wich are in my Kingdome with the Priests to a Synod for the feare of Christ to Counsaile me how the Law of God and Ecclesiasticall Religion may be recovered which in the Dayes of forepassed Princes is dissipated and fallen
to ruine c. And by the Counsaile of my Clergy and princes we have ordained Bishops through out the Cities and constituted over them Arch-bishop Boniface the Popes Legate Qui est missus Sancti Petri. Andâ—we have decreed every Yeare to congregate a Synod that in our Presence the Canonicall Decrees and the Rights of the Church may be restored and Christian Religion Reformed And in the Synod of Arles held under the said Emperour they begin the Synod with a solemne prayer for the Emperour The Lord of all things establish in the Conservation of his Faith our Most Serene and religious Lord the Emperour Charles by whose Command wee are here congregated And they conclude the Synod with a submission to him These things which wee judged worthy to be amended wee have briefly noted and decreed them to be presented to our Lord the Emperour beseeching his Clemency that if any thing be here waâ—tinâ— it may be supplied by his Prudence if any thing be amisse it may be amended by his Iudgement if any thing be reasonably taxed it may be perfected by his help through the assistance of the Divine Clemency So the Councell of Toures begin their Synodicall Acts That which was enjoined us by so great a Prince we accomplished in meeting at the time and place appointed Where being congregated wee noted such things by Chapters as needed to be amended according to the Canonicall Rule to be shewed to our most serene Emperour So they conclude their Acts These things wee have ventilated in our Assembly but how our most pious Prince will be pleased to Dispose of them wee his faithfull servants are ready at his beck and pleasure with a willing mind Lastly the Synod called Synodus Cabilonensis in the dayes of the said Emperour beginneth thus Our Lord Iesus Christ assisting us and the most renowned Emperour Charles commanding us c. We have noted out certain Chapters wherein reformation seemed necessary to us which are hereafter inserted to be presented to our said Lord the Emperour and referred to his most sacred Iudgement to be confirmed by his prudeÌ„t examination of those things which wee have reasonably decreed and wherein wee have been defective to be supplied by his Wisdome So they conclude We have ventilated these things in our Assembly but how it shall please our most pions Prince to dispose of them we his fathfull servants with a willing mind are ready at his beck and pleasure One Egge is not liker to another then these Synodicall Representations are to our old English Customes Yet these were Catholick times when Kings convocated Synods of their own Subjects and either confirmed or rejected their Acts as they thought meete for the publick good aud did give the Popes own Legate his power of presiding in them by their Constitutions who joined with the rest in these Synodicall Acts. I proceed to the third Branch of the Popes first usurpation concerning the tying of English Prelates by Oath to a new Allegiance to the Pope No man can serve two supreme Masters where there is a possibility of clashing one with another It is true one is but a Politicall Soveraign and the other pretendeth but a Spirituall Monarchy Yet if this supposed Spirituall Monarch shall challenge either a direct power and Iurisdiction over the Temporall in the exteriour Court as Pope Boniface did Nos nos imperia regna principaâ—us quicquid habere mortales possunt auferre dare posse Wee even Wee have power to take away and give Empires Kingdomes Principalities and what soever morâ—all men are capable of Or challenge an indirect power to dispose of all temporall things in order to spirituall good which is the opinion of Bellarmine and his party Or lastly shall declare those things to be purely spirituall which are truly Politicall as the Patronage of Churches and all Coactive power in the exteriour Court of the Church In all such cases the subject must desert the one or the other and either suffer justly as a Traitour to his Prince or be subjected unjustly to the Censures of the Church and be made as an Heathen or Publicane This is a sad case But this is not all If this poore subject shall be further perswaded that his Spirituall Prince hath Authority to absolve him from all Sinnes Lawes Oaths knowing that his temporall Prince doth challenge no such extravagant power what Emperour or King can have any assurance of the Fidelity of his own naturall subjects It is true a Clerk may sweare allegiance to his King and Canonicall obediente to his Bishop but the cases are not like No Canonicall obedience either is or can be in consistent with true allegiance The law full Canons oblige without an Oath And all that Coactive power which a Bishop hath is derived from the Prince and Subjected to the Prince The question then is not whether a Pastor may enjoine his Flock to abstaine from an unjust oath An oath of allegiance to a naturall Prince is justifiable both before God aÌ„d man Nor yet whether the Clergy have immunities orought to enjoy immunities such as reÌ„der them more capable of serving God alwayes the first Article in our Great Charter of England Let the Churâ—h injoy her Immunities The question is not whether Clergy men transgressing of the Canons ought to be tryed by Canonicall Iudges according to the Canons especially in the first instance For by the Law of England the Delinquent was alwayes allowed the liberty to appeale to Caesar. But the question is whether the Pope by any Act or decree of his can acquit English Subjects or prohibit them to do homage aud sweare Allegiance to their King according to the Ancient Lawes of the Realme because they are Clergymen And can Command them whether the King will or not to take a new Oath never heard of or practised formerly An Oath of Allegiance aud Obedience to himself So it is called expresly in the Edition of Gregory the thirteenth Electo in Archiepiscopum sedes Apostolica Pallium non tradet nisi prius praestet fidelitatis Obedientiae Iuramentum The Apostolicall See will not deliver the Pall to an Archbishop elect unlesse he first take aâ— Oath of Fidelity aud Obedience Wee have seen already how Henry the First was quietly seised aud possessed of the Homage of his Prelates aud their Oaths of and their Oaths of Fidelity and his Predecessors before him So wee have heard Platina confessing that before the Popedome of Paschalis the second the Homage and Feudall Oaths of Bishops were performed to Lay Men that is to Kings not Popes Thus much Eadmerus and Nauclerus and William of Malmesbury and Hoveden and Iorvalensis doe all assure us This agreeth sweetly not onely with the Ancient Law of Feuds from whence they borrowed the name of Investitures but also is confirmed by the decrees of ancient Councels as diverse Toletan Councells and that of Aquisgrane which who so desireth to see may find
no such power in the Pope to absolve Subjects from their allegiance in our Law With us Clergymen did ever pay Subsidies and taxes as well as lay men This is one Liberty which England hath not to admit of the Popes Lawes unlesse they like them A second Liberty of England is to reject the Popes Lawes in plaine termes The Pope made a Law for the Legitimation of Children borne afore Matrimony as well as those borne in Matrimony The Bishops moved the Lords in Parliament that they would give their consent to the Common Order of the Church But all the Earles and Barons answered with one voice that they would not change the Lawes of the Realm which hitherto had been used and approved The Popes legislation could not make a Law in England without the concurrence of the three Orders of the Kingdome and they liked their own old Lawes better then the Popes new Law A Third Liberty of England is to give a legislative Interpretation to the Popes Lawes which the Pope never intended The Bishop of Rome by a constitution made at the Councell of Lions excluded Bigamists men twice Married from the Privilege of Clergy that is that should Marry the second time de futuro But the Parliament made an Act that the constitution should be understood on this wise that whether they were Bigamists before the constitution or after they should not be delivered to the Prelates but Iustice should be executed upon them as upon other Lay people Ejus est Legem Interpretari cujus est condere They that can give a Law a new sense may abrogate it if they please A fourth Liberty of England is to call the Popes Lawes Vsurpations Encroachments Mischiefs contrary to and destructive of the Municipall Lawes of the Realme derogatory to the Kings Regality And to punish such of their Subjects as should pursue them and obey them with Imprisonment with Confiscation of their Goods and Lands with outlawing them and putting them out of the Kings Protection Witnesse all those noble Lawes of Provisors and Premunire Which we may truely call the Palladium of England which preserved it from being swallowed up in that vast Gulfe of the Roman Court made by Edward the first Edward the third Richard the second and Henry the fourth All those Collations and Reservations and Provisions and Privileges and Sentences which are condemned in those Statutes were all grounded upon the Popesâ—Lawes and Bulls and Decrees which our Ancestors entertained as they deserved Othobon the Popes Legate in England by the Command of Vrban the fifth made a Constitution for the endowment of Vicars in Appropriations but it prevailed not whereas our Kings by two Acts of Parliament did easily effect it No Ecclesiastical Act is impossible to them who have a Legislative power but many Ecclesiasticall Acts were beyond the Sphere of the Popes Activity in England The King could make a spirituall Corporation but the Pope could not The King could exempt from the Iurisdiction of the Ordinary but the Pope could not The King could Convert Seculars into Regulars but the Pope could not The King could grant the Privilege of the Cistercians but the Pope could not The King could Appropriate Churches but the Pope could not Our Lawes never acknowledged the Popes plenitude of Ecclesiasticall power which was the ground of his legislation Euphemius objected to Gelasius that the Bishops of Rome alone could not condemne Acatius ab uno non potuisset damnari Gelasius answered that he was condemned by the Councell of Chalcedon and that his Predecessor was but the Executor of an old Law and not the Author of a new This was all the ancient Bishops of Rome did challenge to be Executors of Ecclesiasticall Lawes and not single Law makers I acknowledge that in his Epistle to the Bishops of Dardania he attributeth much to the Bishops of Rome wich a Councell but it is not in making new Lawes or Canons but in executing old as in the case of Athanasius and Chrysostome The Privileges of the Abby of Saint Austin in EnglaÌ„d granted by the Popes were condemned as null or of no validity because they were not ratified by the King and approved by the Peers William the Conquerer would not suffer any man within his Dominions to receive the Pope for Apostolicall Bishop but by his command nor to receive his letters by any meanes â—nlesse they were first shewed to him It is â—ikely this was in a time of Schisme when there were more Popes then one but is sheweth how the King did interest himself in the affaires of the Papacy that it should have no further influence upon his subjects then he thought fit He who would not suffer any man to receive the Popes letters without his leave would much less suffer them to receive the Popes lawes without leave And in his prescript to Remigius Bishop of Lincolneâ— know ye all Earles and Viscounts that I â—ave judged that the Episcopall or Ecclesiasticall lawes which have bene of force untill my time in the Kingdome of England being not well constituted according to the praecepts of the holy Canons should be amended in the common assembly and with the Counsaile of my Arch-Bishops and the rest of the Bishops and Abbats and all the Princes of my Kingdome He needed not the helpe of any forreine Legislation for amending Ecclesiasticall Canons and the externall regiment of the Church Now let us see whether the Libertyes of France be the same with our English Privileges The second Liberty is this The Spirituall Authority and power of the Pope is not absolute in Franee if it be not absolute then it is not singly Legislative but limited and restreined by the Canons and ancient Councells of the Church If it be limâ—ted by Ancient Canons then it hath no power to abrogate Ancient Canons by new Canons Their ancient Canons are their Ecclesiasticall Lawes as well as ours and those must be received in that Kingdome They may be excellent Advisers without reception but they are no Lawes without publick reception Canons are no Canons either in England or in France further then they are received The third Liberty is No Command whatsoever of the Pope Papall decrees are his chief Commands can free the French Clergy from their Obligation to obey the Commands of their Soveraign But if Papall power could abrogate the ancient Lawes of France it did free their Clergy from their Obedience to their Soveraign Prince The sixteenth Liberty is The Courts of Parliament have power to declare null and voide the Popes Bulls wheÌ„ they are found contrary to the Liberties of the French Church or the Prerogative Royall The twentieth Liberty The Pope cannot exempt any Church Monastery or Ecclesiasticall Body from the jurisdiction of their Ordinary nor erect Bishopricks into Arch Bishopricks nor unite them nor divided them without the Kings license England and France as touching their Liberties walk hand in hand To conclude the Popes
SCHISME GARDED and beaten back upon the right owners Shewing that our great controversy about Papall power is not a quaestion of faith but of interest and profit not with the Church of Rome but with the Court of Rome wherein the true Controversy doth consist who were the first innovators when and where these Papall innovations first began in England with the opposition that was made against them By JOHN BRAMHALL D. D. Bishop of Derry Act. 25. 10. I stand at Caesars judgmēt seate where I ought to be judged Psalm 19. 2. Dies diei eructat verbum nox nocti indicat scientiam GRAVENHAGH Imprinted by JOHN RAMZEY Anno M.DC.LVIII To the CHRISTIAN READERS especially the Roman-Catholicks of England CHristian Reader the great Bustling in the Controversy concerning Papall power or the discipline of the Church hath been either about the true sense of some Texts of holy Scripture As thou art Peter and upon this rocke will I build my Church and to thee will I give the Keies of the Kingdome of heaven and feed my sheepe Or about some privileges conferred upon the Roman See by the Canons of the Fathers and the Edicts of Emperours but praetended by the Roman Court and the mainteiners thereof to be held by divine right I ēdevour in this Treatise to disabuse thee and to shew that this challenge of divine right is but a Blind or Diversion to withhold thee from finding out the true State of the Quaestion So the Hare makes her doubles and her iumpes before she come to her Forme to hinder Tracers from finding her out I demonstrate to thee that the true controversy is not concerning St. Peter we have no formed difference about St Peter nor about any point of faith but of interest and profit nor with the Church of Rome but with the Court of Rome and wherein it doth consist namely in these quaestions VVho shall conferre English Bishoprickes who shall convocate English Synods who shall receive tenths and first fruites and Oathes of Allegiance and Fidelity VVhether the Pope can make binding Lawes in England without the consent of the King and Kingdome or dispense with English Lawes at his owne pleasure or call English Subjects to Rome without the Princes leave or set up Legantine Courtes in England against their wills And this I shew not out of the opinions of Particular Authors but out of the publick Lawes of the Kingdome I prove moreover out of our fundamentall Lawes and the writings of our best Historiographers that all these branches of Papall power were abuses and innovations and usurpations first attempted to be introduced into England above eleven hundred yeares after Christ with the names of the Innovators and the praecise time when each innovation began and the opposition that was made against it by our Kings by our Bishops by our Peeres by our Parliaments with the groanes of the Kingdome under these Papall innovations and extortions Likewise in point of doctrine thou hast been instructed that the Catholick faith doth comprehend all those points which are controverted betvveene us and the Church of Rome vvithout the expresse beliefe vvhereof no Christian can be saved vvhereas in truth all these are but opinions yet some more dangerous then others If none of them had ever bene started in the vvorld there is sufficient to salvation for points to be believed in the Apostles Creed Into this Apostolicall faith professed in the Creed and explicated by the foure first Generall Councells and onely into this faith vve have all been baptised Farre be it from us to imagine that the Catholick Church hath evermore baptised and doth still baptise but into one half of the Christian faith In summe doest thou desire to live in the Communion of the true Catholick Church So do I. But as I dare not change the cognisance of my Christianity that is my Creed nor enlarge the Christian faith I meane the essentialls of it beyond those bounds vvhich the Apostles have set So I dare not to serve the interest of the Roman Court limit the Catholick Church vvhich Christ hath purchased vvith his blood to a fourth or a fifth part of the Christian vvorld Thou art for tradition So am I. But my tradition is not the tradition of one particular Church contradicted by the tradition of another Church but the universall and perpetuall tradition of the Christian vvorld united Such a tradition is a full proofe vvhich is received semper ubique ab omnibus alvvaies every vvhere and by all Christians Neither do I looke upon the oppositiō of an handfull of Heretickes they are no more being compared to the innumerable multitudes of Christians in one or two ages as inconsistent vvith universality any more then the highest mountains are inconsistent vvith the roundnesse of the earth Thou desirest to beare the same respect to the Church of Rome that thy Ancestours did So do I. But for that fullness of power yea coactive power in the exteriour Court over the subjects of other Princes and against their vvills devised by the Courte of Rome not by the Church of Rome it is that pernicious source from vvhence all these usurpations did spring Our Ancestours from time to time made Lavves against it and our reformation in pointe of discipline being rightly understood vvas but a pursueing of their steppes The true controuersy is vvhether the Bishop of Rome ought by divine right to have the externall Regiment of the English Church and coactive jurisdiction in English Courtes over English Subjects against the vvill of the King and the Lavves of the Kingdome SCHISME GARDED and beaten back upon the right owners Or A cleare and CIVIL ANSWER to the railing accusation of S. W. in his late Booke called SCHISME DISPAT'CHED Whatsoever S. W. alias Mr. Serjeant doth intimate to the contrary for he dare not cough out it is a most undeniable truth that no particular Church no not the Church of Rome it self is exempted from a possibility of falling into errours in faith When these errours are in Essentials of faith which are necessary to salvation necessitate medii they destroy the being of that Church which is guilty of them But if these errours be in inferiour points such as are neither absolutely necessary to Salvation to be known nor to be believed before they be known such an Erroneous Church erring without obstinacy and holding the truth implicitly in praeparatione animi may and doth still continue a true member of the Catholick Church and other coordinate Churches may and ought to maintein Communion with it not withstanding that they dissent in opinion But if one Church before a lawfull determination shall obtrude her own Errours or Opinions upon all other Churches as a necessary condition of her communion or after Determination shall obtrude doubtful opinions whether they be Erroneous or not as necessary Articles of Christian faith and so not onely explain but likewise enlarge the Ancient Creeds she becommeth Schismaticall As on the
power which was turned out of England by Henry the eighth was the Popes Legislative power especially in making new Heresies by his own Authority and for his own Interest prescribing the punishment as if all the world were his Subjects Mr. Serjeant may be pleased to inform himself better that the Popes Canons and decretalls never had since the First Conversion of England the force or power of Lawes in England untill they were received by the Nation nor then any further then they were received The fourth Branch is the Soveraign patronage of the English Church with all those rights aud appurtenances which belong thereunto as to convocate the clergy and Dissolve their Assembly To exempt their persons from secular Iudgement To have the Disposition of Ecclesiasticall Dignityes and the Custodium of them in the Vacancy But these things are so notoâ—ious to all those who are acquainted with the Ecclesiasticall Customes of England that there can be no manner of Qnestion of it The Convocation was alwayes called and dissolved by the absolute and precise Mandate of the King to the Arch-Bishop Yea even when the Arch-Bishop was the Popes legate and when he might have challenged another right if the Pope had had any pretense The temporaltyes of the Bishopricks in the Vacancy were ever sèised into the hands of the King untill he granted out his Writ of Manum amoveas or Oster la main If ordinary Patrons did not present in due time to a benefice it devolved to the Ordinary and from him to the King there it stayed Nullum â—empus occurrit Regi The fifth Privilege was the receiving of Tenths and First fruits which were a late encroachment of the Bishop of Rome upon the Clergy without any just ground and upon that score were condemned in the Councells of Constance and Basile and now were seised into the Kings hand towards the discharge of the Ecclesiasticall Burthens of the Kingdome The last perqnisire whith the Pope lost was all the profits of his Court by Bulls and Palls and Pensions and Reservations and Exemptions and Licenses and Dispensations and Consirmations and Pardons and Indulgences and an hundred other pecuniary Artifices practised in his Court at Rome and in his Legantine Courts and Nunciatures abroad But this abuse is so foule that the Popes own selected Cardinalls doe cryshame upon it as much as wee and lay-down this genera Rule That it is not lawfull to make any gain by the exercise of the Keys seing wee have the firm word of Christ freely ye have received freely give c. For as the use which now prevaileth doth disgrace the See of Rome and disturbeth Christian people so the contrary practice would bring much honour to this See and marveilously edify the people These are the reall differences between the See of Rome and the Church and Kingdome of England concerning the papacy all these altercations which wee have about Thou art Peter and the Keys given to St. Peter and Feed my Sheep and I have prayed for thee are but like to the tinkling of Cybeles Priests upon their Cymballs on purpose to deafe the eares of the Spectators and to conceale the Cryes and ejulations of poore oppressed Christians To reduce them into a little better Method then they lye in the Statutes The maine quaestious are or may be reduced to four heads The first grand quaestion is concerning the Soveraignty of the English Church in respect of the externall Regiment thereof This hath four subordinate Branches First who is the right Patron of the English Church under God the King or the Pope Secondly who hath power to Convocate Synods of the Kings subjects within England The King or the Pope Thirdly whether the Pope have justly imposed new Oaths upon the Arch Bishops and Bishops fourthly whether Tenths and first fruits in England be due to the See of Rome The second question is concerning the Popes legislative power Whether the Canon law or the decretalls have been anciently esteemed binding lawes in England or ought to be so esteemed except they be received by the English Nation and metriculated among our lawes The third is concerning his judiciary power Whether the Bishop of Rome can receive Appeales from England by the Ancient lawes of that Land and send for whom he pleaseth to Rome 2. Whether Bulls and Excommunications from Rome can be lawfully executed in England except the King give leave for the execution of them 3. Whether the Pope can send Legates and set up Legantine Courts in England by the Ancient lawes of that Realme The fourth Difference is concerning the popes dispensative power whether the Pope can dispense with the lawes of England 2. Whether we stand in need of his dispensations In every one of these diffeâ—ences wee maintein that the Bishop of Rome and the Court of Rome have been guilty of most grosse Vsurpations Sect I. Cap V. To begin with the first If it were necessary to call in any forreyn subsidiary Supplies for the further fortifying of the King of Englands Soveraign Patronage under God of the Church within his Territories I might find strong recruits from the Greek Emperours to shew that they alwayes practised this power within their Dominions to place Bishops in vacant Sees and that the Contrary was hactenus inauditum never heard of in S. Gregoryes dayes To them I might adde the French and Germane Emperours who not onely injoyed the same privilege by ancient Custome but to whom the Roman Bishops disclaimed it with all their Clergy Iudges and Lawiers Adrian the first to Charles the greate Anno 774. And Leo the eighth to the Emperour Otho Anno 964. I might produce the presidents of the Spanish Monarchs Conc. Tolet 12. cap. 6. It were a most unreasonable thing that Soveraign Princes should be trusted with the Government of their people and have their Bishops who must participate in the Government by informing the consciences of their Subjects be obtruded on them by Strangers I cannot omit the observation of a Learned Bishop That Quacunque ratione ad pontificatum pateret ingressus nemo Apostolicae Cymbae gubernacula capessebat ni prius Imperatoris authoritas inâ—ercessisset By what way soever the Election of the Pope was made And Bellarmine mentioneth seven changes in the manner of choosing the Pope Yet no man was ever admitted to the actuall Government of the Apostolicall See without the Emperours confirmation But our case is strong enough without twisting any forrein presidents with it William the conquerour William Rufus and Henry the first did injoy the right of placing in vacant Sees by the tradition of a Ring and of a Crosier staffe without ever seeking for Forrein approbation or ordination or confirmation as their Predecessors Kings of England and Brittain had done before them Els it had been very strange The Roman Roâ—a will give decisive Sentence for him to be Patron of a Church who first builded it and endowed it But then
fourth Custome was this that when an Arch Bishoprick Bishoprick Abbacy or Priory did fall void the Election was to be made by such of the Principall Dignitaryes or Members of that respective Church which was to be filled as the king should call together for that purpose with the kinges consent in the kings own Chappell And there the person elected was to doe his Homage and Fealty to the King as to his Liege Lord The Pope had no part to Act neither to collate nor consent nor confirm nor Institute nor induct nor ordeine The Second Law is the Statute of Carlile made in the time of Edward the First The summe of it is this That the king is the Founder of all Bishopricks and ought to have the Custody of them in the Vacancyes and the right of Patronage to present to them And that the Bishop of Rome usurping the Right of Patronage giveth them to aliens That this tendeth to the annullation of the State of holy Church to the Disinheriting of Kings and the Destruction of the Realm And they ordained in full Parliament that this is an Oppression that is as much as an entroachment or Vsurpation and should not be suffered The third law was made in the 15th yeare of Edward the third called the Statute of Provisors wherein they affirm that Elections were First granted by the Kings Progenitors upon a certain form or Condition to demand Licenfe of the King to chuse and after the Election to have his Royall Assent Which Conditions not being kept the thing ought by reason to resort to his First nature And there fore conclude that in case Reservation Collation or Provision be made by the Court of Rome of any Arch Bishoprick c. Our Soveraign Lord the King and his Heirs shall have and enjoy the Collations for the same time to the said Arch Bishopricks Bishopricks and other dignityes Elective which be of his Aavowre such as his Progenitors had before the free Election was granted They tell the King plainly that the Right of the Crown of England and the Law of the Land is such that the King is bound to make remedyes and Lawes against such mischiefes And they acknowledge that he is Advowée Paramont immediate of all Churches Prebends and other Benifices which are of the Advowry of holy Church That is as much as Soveraign Patron of the Church Where no Election can be made without the Kings Congé d' Estire or leave antecedent nor stand good without his subsequent consent it is all one as if the Crown did Collate I come next to the second Branch of the First Question about the Patronage of the Church Who hath power to Convocate and Dissolve Ecclesiasticall Assemblyes and whether the Crown or the Pope have usurped one upon another in this particular I cannot tell whether Henry the eighth or Paul the third did mistake more about that Aiery title of the head of the english church Henry the eight supposing that the right to convocate and dissolve Ecclesiasticall Assemblyes and to receive Tenths and First fruits did esseÌ„tially follow this Title And Paul the third declaringe it to be Hereticall and Schismaticall To be head of the English Church is neither more nor lesse then our Lawes and Histories ancient and Modern doe every where ascribe to our English Kings To be Governers of Christians To be the Advocates of the Church To be Patrons and Advowées Paramont of all Churches To be Defenders of the Faâ—h there Professed And to use the Words of the Convocation it self Ecclesiae Anglicanae Protectores singulares Vnicos Supremos Dominos The same body may have severall heads of severall kinds upon Earth as Politicall and Ecclesiasticall and then that which takes care of the Archirectonicall end to see that every member doe his Duty is alwayes Supreme That is the Politicall head This truth Cardinall Poole did see clearly enough and reconcile the seeming difference by distinguishing between a Regall head and a Sacerdotall head This truth the French Divines see wel enough and doubt not to call their King the Terrene head of the Church of his Realme without attributing to him any Sacerdotall right Wee had our Sacerdotall heads too in EnglaÌ„d without seeking for theÌ„ so far as Rome As the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Reigns of our English Monarchs who of old was Nullius unquam Legati ditioni subjectus Never subject to the Iurisdiction of any Legate When the Pope sent over Guy Archbishop of Vienna into England as his Legate throughout Britaigne for the Apostolicall See It was received with wonder and Admiration of all men Inauditum scilicet in Britannia cuncti scientes quemlibet hominum super se vices Apostolicas gerere nisi solum Episcopum Cantuariae All men did know that it was never heard in Britagne that any Man whatsoever had Apostolicall power over them but onely the Archbishop of Canterbury And accordingly the new Legate did speed so it followeth Wherefore as he came so he returned received as Legate by no man nor having exercised any part of his Legantine power This was the ground of that Letter of the English Bishops to the Pope That the Church of Canterbury might not be deprived of its dignity in his times and that he would neither Diminish it him self nor suffer it to be diminished As appeareth by the Popes acknowledgment in his answer But to come up close to the Difference The Question is not whether â—he Bishop of Rome have Authority to call Synods He is a Bishop a Metropolitan a Patriarch a Prince in his own Dominions As a Bishop he may Convocate his Diocesse As a Metropolitan his Province As a Patriarch his Patriarchate under the pain of Ecclesiasticall Censure more or lesse compulsory according to that Degree of Coactive power which hath been indulged to him in these Distinct Capacities by former Soveraigns And as a Prince he may convocate his Subjects under Politicall paines The more these two powers are united and complicated the more terrible is the Censure And therefore our kings would have their Bishops denounce spirituall paines also against the Violaters of their great Charters Spirituall paiues are more heauy then Politicall but Politicall most commonly are more speedy then Spirituall And more certain Spirituall paines doe not follow an erring Key but Politicall doe Neither will I dispute at praesent whether the Bishop of Rome by his reputed Primacy of Order or Beginning of Unity may lawfully call an Oecumenicall or Occidentall Councell by power purely Spirituall which consists rather in Advise then in Mandates properly so called or in Mandates of Courtesy not Coactive in the Exteriour Court of the Church considering the Division and Subdivision of the ancient Empire and the present Distractions of Christendome it seemeth not altogether in convenient Wee see the Primitive Fathers did Assemble Synods and â—ake Canons before there were any christian Emperours but that was by aurhority meerly spirituall they
Church of England Lastly these Papall Oaths doe necessarily suppose a Voiage to Rome either to take the Oath there or if the Oath was sent them into England one Clause in the Oathâ—was that they should come to Rome in person to receive the Popes Commands within a prefixed time But this is directly contrary to the Lawes of England which allow no Subject Clergiman or other to goe to Rome without the Kings Leave Thus much both the Prelates and Peers of the Realm told Anselm when he had a miâ—d to visit the Pope Thus much wee find attested by the Generall Assembly of the Kingdome in the Statute or Assise of Clarendon where one of the Customes or Lawes of the Kingdome is That No Ecclesiasticall person might depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings License No not though he were expresly summoned by the Bishop of Rome And at a Parliament held at Northampton in the Reign of Henry the third it was enacted that if any persons departed out of the Kingdome un lesse they would return within a prefixed time and answer it in the Court of our Lord the King let them be outlawed This was the unanimous complaint of the whole Kingdome to the Pope That the English were drawn out of the Realm by his authority contrary to the Customes of the Kingdome No Clergy man may goe to Rome without the Kings License say the ancient Lawes of the Realm Every English Prelateâ— shall come to Rome upon my command saith the Pope What Oedipus can reconcile the English Lawes and Papall mandates Commonly good Lawes proceed from evill manners and abuses doe ordinarily precede their Remedies But by the Providence of our Ancestors our English Remedies were preexistent before their Vsurpations Non remittitur Peccaâ—um nisi restituatur ablatum Vntill they restore those rights whereof they have robbed the King and Kingdome Wee may pardon them but they can hope for no forgivenesse from God I will conclude this point with an ancient Fundamentall Law in the Britannick Island anotherâ—Prince â—Prince professing Fidelity and obedience to any one besides the King Let him lose his head I come now to the last Branch of the first Papall Vsurpation Tenths and First fruits If Christ be still crucifyed between two Thieves it is between an old overgrown Officer of the Roman Court and a Sacrilegious Precisian The one is so much for the Splendour of Religion and the other for the Purity of Religion that between themâ— thâ—y destroy Religion Their Faces like Samsons Foxes locke contrary wayes but both of them have Firebrands at their tailes both of them prate of Heaven altogether both of them have their hearts nailed to the Earth On the one side if it had not been for the Avaricious Practises of the Roman Court the Papacy might have beeÌ„ a great advantage to the ChristiaÌ„ world in point of Order and Vnity at least it had not been so intolerable a BurtheÌ„ It is feared these will not suffer an Eugenius an Adrian or an Alexander to be both honest and long-lived On the otherside these Counterfeit Zelots do but renew the Policy of the two old Sicilian Gluttons to blow their Noses in the dishes that they might devour the meate alone that is cry down Church Revenues as Superstitious and Dangerous because they gape after them themselves If it were not for these two factioÌ„s wee might hope to see a reconciliation Self interest and self profit are both the procreating and conserving cause of Disunion Who would Imagin that the large Patrimony of St. Peter should not conteÌ„t or suffice an old Bishop abundantly without preying upon the poore Clergy for Tenths and First fruits and God knowes how many other waies The Revennes of that See were infinite yet the Bishops of ten complained of Want Gods blessing did not goe along with these Ravenous Courses So Pharohs lean Kine devoured the fat yet were nothing the Fatter them selves The first Tenth which the Pope had from the English Clergy was onely a single Tenth of their moveable Goods not by way of Imposition but as a Benevolence or free gift out of Courtesy But the Roman Bishops having once tasted the sweet meant not to give over so Non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris â—irudo The next step was to impose Tenths upon the Clergy not in perpetuity or as a certain Revenue due to the Papacy but for a fixed number of yeares as a stock for the Defence of Christendome against the incursions of the Turke About the same time First fruits began to be exacted not generally but onely of the Popes own Clerkes as a Gratuity or in plain English as a handsome Cloak of Simony But he that perfected the Work and made both Tenths and First fruits a certain annuall Revenue to the See of Rome was Boniface the ninth or Iohn the two and twentieth his Successor so saith Platina And with him almost all other writers doe agree This Boniface lived about the year fourteen hundred whom Turselline maketh to have been the restorer of Papall Majesty whose prudence did transcend his Age for he was but thirty yeares old He was the Vsurper that tooke away from the Romans the free choise of their Magistrates Iohn the two and twentieth lived in the time of the Councell of Constance some thing above the fourteen hundreth yeare It was he that called the Councell and was him self deposed by the Councell for grievous Crimes and the payment of First fruits abolished For neither the paiment of Tenths nor First fruits did agree with the palate of the Councells of Constance and Basile Notwithstanding their gilded pretences The Councell of Constance decreed that it was not lawfull for the Bishop of Rome to impose any Indictions or Exactions upon the Church or upon Ecclesiasticall persons in the Nature of a Tenth or any other way Which Decree was passed in the nineteenth Session though it be related afterward According to this Decree Pope Martin issued out his Mandate Wee Command that the Lawes which prohibit Tenths and other Burthens to be imposed by the Pope upon Churches and Ecclesiasticall persons be observed more Strictly And the Councell of Baâ—ill Commandeth that as well in the Roman Court as elswhere c Nothing be exacted for Tenths or Firstfruits c. But for all this the Popes could not hold their Hands Leo the tenth made a new imposition for three yeares Ad triennium proxime futurum for the old ends And it should seem that their mind was that thence forward as the cause lasted so should the imposition But the Germane Nation were not of the same mind who made this their nineteenth Grievance for as much as concerneth Tenth which Ecclesiasticall Prelates paid yearely to the Pope which the Germane Princes some yeares since did consent unto that they should be paid to the See of Rome for a certain time upoÌ„ Condition that this money should be
deposited at Rome as a stock for defence against the Turk and no otherwise But the time is effluxed since and the Princes have learned by Experience that the moneys have not been imployed againsâ— the Turkes but converted to other Vses c. The Emperour Charles the fifth was not of the same mind as appeareth by his Letter to Pope Adrian the sixth where in he reciteth the same fraud and requireth that the Tenths may be detained in Germany for that Vse for which they were first intended Lastly Henry the eighth and the Church and Kingdome of England were not of that mind nor intended to indure such an egregious cheat any longer so extremely contrary to the Fundamentall Lawes of the Kingdome and destructive to them By which Lawes the King himself who onely hath Legislative power in England may not compell his Subjects to pay any such Pensions without the Good will and Assent of the Arch-Bishops Bishops Earls Barons Knights Burgesses and other Freemen of the land Much lesse can a forrain Prince or Praelate whatsoever he be impose any such payments by his own Authority This is that which is so often Condemned in our Statutes of Provisors Namely the imposing Pensions and exporting the Treasure of the Realme The Court of Rome is so far from any Pretense of Reparation that if their Predecessors were living they were obliged to make restitution These are all the Differences that are between us concerning the Patronage of the Church of EnglaÌ„d Yet now least he should urge that these Lawes alledged by mee are singular obsolete Lawes not Consonant to the Lawes of other Christian Kingdomes I will Paralell them with the Lawes and Liberties of France which he him self acknowledgeth to be a Catholick Country as they are recorded in two Authentick Bookes One of the Rights and Libertyes of the Gallican Church The Other The Defence of the Court of Paris for the Liberty of the Gallican Church against the Roman Court both printed by Authority First for the Patronage of the Church The fourth Liberty is The King hath power to Assemble or cause to be Assembled Synods Provinciall or Nationall and therein to treat of such things as concern Ecclesiasticall Order The seventh Liberty is The Prelates of the French Church although commanded by the Pope for what cause so ever it be may not depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings Commandement aâ—d License The eleventh Liberty is The Pope cannot impose Pensions in France upon any Benifices having Cure of Soules Nor upon any other but according to the Canons c. The Fourteenth Liberty is Ecclesiasticall persons may be Convented Iudged and sentenced before a secular Iudge for the First enormious Crime or for lesser offences after a relapse The fifteenth Liberty is All the Prelatest of France are obliged to swear Fealty to the King and to receive from him their Investitures for their Fees and Manours The nineteenth Liberty is Provisions Reservaâ—ioÌ„s expectative graces have no place in FraÌ„ce This is the brief summe of those Liberties which concern the Patronage of the Gallican Church agreeing perfectly with our old English Customes I shall shew him the same perfect Harmony between their Church Liberties and our English Customes the Assise of Clarendon the Statutes of Provisors and Premunire through out Either Mr. Serjeant must make the Gallican Church Schismaticall which he dare not doe and if I conjecture rightly hath no mind to doe or he must acknowledge our English Lawes to be good Catholick Lawes for Company Sect. I. Cap. VI. The next Vsurpation which offereth it self to our Consideration is the Popes Legislative power ouer the Church and Kingdome of England either in his person or by his Legates For the clearer understanding whereof the Reader in the first place may be pleased to take notice that we receive the ancient Canons of the Catholick church and honour them more then the Romanists themselves as being selected ouâ— of the Canons of Primitive Councells before the Roman Bishops did challenge any plenitude of Legislative power in the Church And especially of the first four General Councells of which King Iames said most truly that Publica Ordinum nostrorum Sanctione recâ—pta sunt They are received into our Lawes We acknowledge that just Canons of Councells lawfully Congregated and lawfully proceeding have power to bind the Conscience of Subjects as much as Politicall Lawes in themselves not from themselves as being humane lawes but from the Ordinance of God who commandeth Obedience of Subjects to all sorts of Superiours We receive the Canons of other Primitive Councells but not with the same degree of Reverence as wee doe the first four generall Councells No more did S. Gregory of old No more doth the Pope now in his solemne Profession of his Faith at his election to the Papacy according to the decree of the Councell of Constance That which restrained them restraineth us I am more troubled to thinke how the Pope should take himself to be an Ecclesiasticall Monarch and yet take such a solemne Oath In the Name of the Holy and undivided Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost to keep the Faitâ— of the Councell of Chalcedon to the least Tittle What the faith of the Fathers of Chalcedon was in this greate Controversy about the Papacy may appeare by the six teenth Session and the Acclamation of the Fathers to the Sentence of the Iudges Haec justa Sententia haec omnes dicimus haec omnibus placent c. This is a just Sentence These things wee all say These things please us all c Secondly we acknowledge that Bishops were alwayes esteemed the proper judges of the Canons both for composing of them and for executing of them but with this caution that to make them Lawes the confirmation of the Prince was required and to give the Bishop a coactive power to execute them the Princes grant or concession was needfull The former part of this caution is evident in Iustinians confirmation of the fifth Generall Synod Haec pro communi Pace Ecclesiarum Sanctissimarum statuimus haec sententiavimus sequentes Sanctorum PatruÌ„ dogmata c. These things wee ordaine these things wee have sentenced following the opinion of the Holy Fathers c. Quae Sacerdotio visa sunt ab Imperio confirmata Which were approved by the Clergy and confirmed by the Emperour The second part of the caution is evident out of the Lawes of William the conquerour Qui decimam deâ—inuerit per justitiaÌ„ Episcopi Regis si necesse fueriâ— ad soluttioneÌ„ arguatur c. Who shall detain his Tythe Let him be convinced to pay it by the justice of the Bishop and if it be needfull of the King For these things S. Austin preached and taught and these things that is both Tythes and jurisdictioÌ„ were granted froÌ„ the King the Barons and the People So hitherto there is no difference betweeÌ„ us they acknowledge that the King
is the Keeper of both the Tables and wee say that for the first Table the Bishops ought to be his Interpreters Thirdly as wee question not the Popes legislative or coactive power over his own subjects so we submit to the judgemeÌ„t of the Catholick church whether he ought to have a primacy of order as the successour of S. Peter and as a consequent thereof a right if he would content himself with it to summoÌ„ Councells when and where there are no Christian Soveraignes to doe it and to joyne with other Bishops in making spirituall Lawes or Canons such as the Apostles made and such as the primitive Bishops made before there were christiaÌ„ Emperours But then those Canons are the Lawes of the Church not of the Pope As those Canons in the Acts of the Apostles were the Lawes of the Apostolicall College The Apostles and Elders and Brethren not the Lawes of S. Peter Then their Lawes have no Coactive Obligation to compell Christians in the outward Court of the Church against their Wills or further then they are pleased to submit theÌ„selves All exteriour coactive power is from the Soveraigne Prince and therefore when and where Emperours and Kings are Christians to them it properly belongeth to summon Councells and to confirm their Canons thereby making them become lawes Because Soveraign Princes onely have power to License and Command their Subjects to Assemble to assign fit places for their Assembling to protect them in their Assemblyes and to give a Coactive power to their Lawes without which they may doe their best to drive away Wolves and to oppose Heriticks but it must be with such Armes as Christ had furnished them withall that is persuasions Prayers Teares and at the most seperating them from the Communion of the faithfull and leaving them to the Iudgement of Christ. The Controversy is then about new upstart Papall Lawes either made at Rome such are the decretalls of Gregory the ninth Boniface the eighth Clement the fifth and succeeding Popes Or made in England by Papall Legates as Otho and Othobone Whether the Pope or his Legates have power to make any such Lawes to bind English Subjects and compell them to obey them against their Wills the King of England contradicting it The first time that ever any Canon of the Bishop of Rome or any legislative Legate of his was attempted to be obtruded upon the King or Church of England was eleven hundred yeares after Christ. The first Law was the Law against taking Investitures to Bishopricks from a Lay hand And the first Legate that ever presided in an English Synod was Iohannes Cremensis of both which I have spoken formerly Observe Reader and be astonished if thou hast so much faith to believe it That the Pope should pretend to a legislative power over British and English Subjects by divine right and yet never offer to put it in execution for above eleven hundred yeares It remaineth now to prove evidently that Henry the eighth by his Statute made for that purpose did not take away from the Bishop of Rome any Privilege which he and his Predecessors had held by Inheritance from St. Peter and been peaceably possessed of for fifteen hundred yeares But on the contrary that eleven hundred yeares after St. Peter was dead the Bishops of Rome did first invade the right of the Crown of England to make Lawes for the externall Regiment of the Church which the Predecessors of Henry the eighth had enjoyed peaceably untill the dayes of William Rufus nemine contradicente And that the Kings Lawes were evermore acknowledged to be true Lawes and obligatory to the English Subjects but that the Popes decrees were never esteemed to be binding Lawes in England except they were incorporated in to our Lawes by the King and Church or Kingdome of England Whence it followeth by irrefragable consequence that Henry the eighth was not the Schismatick in this particular but the Pope and those that maintain him or adhere to him in his Vsurpations First for the Kings right to make Lawes not onely concerning the outward RegimeÌ„t of the Church but even coÌ„cerning the Keys of Order and jurisdiction so far as to oblige them who are trusted with that power by the Church to doe their dutyes it is so evident to every one who hath but cast his Eyes upon our English Lawes that to bestow labour on proving it were to bring Owles to Athens Their Lawes are extant made in all Ages concerning faith and good Manners Heresy Holy Orders the Word the Sacraments Bishops Priests Monkes the Privileges and Revenues of Holy Church Marriages Divorces Simony The Pope his SenteÌ„ces his oppressions and usurpations Prohibitions Appeales from Eeclesiasticall judges and generally all things which are of Ecclesiasticall Cognifance and this in those times which are acknowledged by the Romanists themselves to have been Catholick More then this they inhibited the Popes own Legate to attempt to decree any thing contrary to the Kings Crown and dignity And if they approved the decrees of the Popes Legates they confirmed them by their Royall Authority and so incorporated them into the Body of the English Lawes Secondly that the Popes decrees never had the force of Lawes in England without the Confirmation of the King Witnesse the decrees of the Councell of Lateran as they are commonly called but it is as cleare as the day to any one who readeth the eleveÌ„th the six and fortieth and the one and sixtieth Chapters that they were not made by the Councell of Lateran but some time after perhaps not by InnoceÌ„t the third but by some succeeding Pope For the author of them doth distinguish himself expresly from the Councell of Lateran It was well provided in the Councell of Lateran c. But because that statute is not observed in many Churches we confirming the foresaid statute doe adde c. Again It is known to have been prohibited in the councel of Lateran c. But we inhibiting the same moro strongly c. How soever they were the Popes decrees but never were received as Lawes in England as wee see evidently by the third Chapter That the Goods of Clergimen being convicted of Heresy be forfeited to the Church That all Officiers Secular and Ecclesiasticall should take an Oath at their Admission into their Office to their power to purge their Territories from Heresy That if a Temporall Lord did neglect being admonished by the Church to purge his Lands from Heresy he should be excommunicated And if he contemned to satisfy within a yeare the Pope should absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance And by the three and fortieth Chapter That no Ecâ—â—â—siasticall person be compelled to swear allegiance to a Lay man And by the six and fortieth Chapter that Ecclesiasticall persons be free from taxes Wee never had any such Lawes all Goods forfeited in that kind were ever confiscated to the King We never had any such Oaths Every one is to answer for himself We know
which ought to have been done in a Legall Appeale But the successe was so contrary to the Popes Interest and the Resolution of the King Church and Kingdome of England so unanimous That they could not assent to the Popes Legation because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councell of the English should be restored upon the Popes Letter that England was never troubled with any more appeales to Rome untill after the Conquest Neither Durst the Pope send any Bulls or Mandates then but a plain Letter The next Appellant was Anselm a Stranger who knew not the liberties of England in the Dayes of Henry the first as succeslesse as Wilfrid had bene Will you trust the Testimony of a King And I know not why a King should not be trusted for the Customes of his own Kingdome Hear King Henry the First the Sonne of the Conquerour It is a Custome of my Kingdome instituted by my Father instituted indeed but not first instituted for it was an old Saxon Custome that no Pope be appealed to without the License of the King Another Law of the same King was By all meanes wee discharge forrain Iudgements If you will not trust the King trust the whole Kingdome upon their Oaths in the Dayes of Henry his Grandchild The First English Custom recited in the Assise of Clarendon is this That all Appeales in England must proceed regularly froÌ„ the Archdeacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Arch Bishop and if the Arch Bishop failed to doe Iustice the last coÌ„plaint must be to the King to give order for redresse If wee will not trust the King and Kingdome Yet lâ—t us trust the Pope him self thus Paschal the secoÌ„d writeth to our Henry the first The Popes Nuncioes and Letters doe find no reception within thy Iurisdiction There are no Complaints from those parts no Appeales are destined to the Apostolick See The Abbat of Thorney found this true by experience who lay long in prison notwithstanding his Appeale to Rome The Case is so plaine that I shall not cite one Authority more in it but onely one of our Statute Lawes made not onely by the Assent as is usnall but upon the prayer and grievous and clamorous Complaints of the Peers and Commons That because People are Drawn out of the Realm to answer things the Cognisance whereof belongeth to the Kings Courts and the Iudgements of the Kings Courts are impeached in another Court the Court of Rome to the disinheriting of the king and his Crown and the undoing â—and destruction of the Common Law of the Land Therefore it is ordeined that whosoever shall draw a man out of the Realm in Plea if he doe not appeare upon Summons and conform to the sentence of the kings Court he shall forfeit Lands and Goods be outlawed and imprisoned Against such Fortifications grounded upon Prescription and Imperiall Lawes the Canon of the Councell of Sardica will make no great Battery Take the Councell of Sardica at the best waving all exceptions yet certainly it was no generall Councell If it were it had been one of the four first If it had been a generall Councell it self three succeeding Popes were much to blame to Father the Canons of it upon the first Generall Councell of Nice The Canons of the Councell of Sardica did not bind the Africans of old much lesse bind us now Secondly the Canon of Sardica doth onely give way to Appeales to Rome in cases between two Bishops but the Court of Rome admitteth Appeales from inferiour Clergy men from Lay men from all sorts of men in all sorts of Causes that are of Ecclesiasticall Cognisance Thirdly the Canon of Sardica is a meer permission no precept what may be done in discretion not what ought to be done of necessity it was proposed with a Si vobis placet If it please you and the ground of it is a Complement Let us honour the Memory of S. Peter Fourthly There is one great Circumstance in our Case which varieth it quite from that proposed by Osius to the Sardican Fathers that is that our King and the Lawes of the Realm do forbid Appeales to Rome If there had been such an Imperiall Law then doe wee thinke that the Fathers of Sardica would have been so disloyall or so simple to thinke to abrogate the Imperiall Lawes by their Canons which are no Lawes but by the Emperours Confirmation No the Fathers of that Age did know their duty too well to their Emperour and if they could have foreseen what avaricious practises and what grosse Oppressions would have sprung in time from this little seed of their Indulgence they would have abhominated them Lastly supposing the Sardican Councell had been of more Authority and the Canon thereof of more Extent then it was and more peremptory and that there had been no such intervening impediment why English Subjects could not make use of that Remedy yet the Councell of Sardica can give but humane right And a contrary Prescription for a thousand years is a sufficient Enfranchisement from all pretence of humane right The second branch of this Vsurpation is as cleare as the former concerning Papall Bulls and Excommunications That by our ancient Lawes they cannot be executed in England without the Kings Leave In the Assise of Clarendon this is found to be one of the ancient Customes of England That none of the Kings Servants or Tenents that held of him in Capite might be excommunicated or their Lands interdicted before the King was made acquainted There was a severe Lawe made in the Reign of the same King If any man be found bringing in the Popes Letter or Mandate Let him be apprehended and let justice passe upon him without delay as a Traitour to the King and Kingdome It seemeth that the first and second Henryes were no more propitious to Rome then Henry the eighth Take one Statute more it was enacted in full Parliament by Richard the secoÌ„d that if any did procure or pursue any such Processesâ—or excommunications in the Court of Rome as are there meÌ„tioned that is concerning presentatioÌ„s to benefices or dignities Ecclesiasticall and they who bring them into the realm or receive them or execute them shall be put out of the Kings protection their Lands Goods and Chattells be confiscated to the King and their Bodies attached They had the same respect for the Popes Bulls as often as they did not like them in Henry the fourths time as wee see by the Statute made against those who brought or prosecuted the Popes Bulls granted in favour of the Cystercians By the Law of England if any man denounced the Popes Excommunication without the assent of the King he forfeited al his Goods And it is recorded in particular how the Kings writ issued out against the Bishops of London and Norwich as being at the Kings Mercy because contrary to the Statute of
Clarendon by the Popes Mandate they had interdicted the Lands of Earl Hugh and had published an Excommunication without the Kings License which the Pope had given out against him All these Lawes continued still in force and were never repealed in England neither before Henry the eighth began the reformation nor since by Queen Mary but have ever continued iu full force untill this day Lastly for Legates and Legantine courts there could be no Appeale in Eugland to any Legate or Nuncio without the Kings leave but all Appeales must be from the Archdeacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop from the Archbishop to the King as we see expresly by the statute of Assise of Clarendon formerly cited The Kings of England did ever deem it to be an unquestionable right of the Crown as Eadmerus testifieth to suffer none to excercise the Office of a Legate in England if the King him self did not Desire it of the Pope upon some great quarrell that could not be so well Determined by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops Which Privilege was consented unto by Pope Calixius By the Lawes of England if a Legate was admitted of Courtesy he was to take his Oath to doe nothing Derogatory to the King and his Crown Henry the sixth by the counsaile of Humphry Duke of Gloster the Protector protested against Pope Martin and his Legate that they would not admit him contrary to the Lawes and Libertyes of the Realm and dissented from whatsoever he did And when the Pope had recalled Cardinall Pooles Commission of Legate for England and was sending another Legate into England Queen Mary being very tender of her Kinsmans Honour for all her good affection to Rome was yet mindfull of this point of old English Law to cause all the Seaports to be stopped and all Letters Briefs and Bulls from Rome to be intercepted and brought to her Shee knew this was an old English not a new protestant Privilege Neither would she ever admit the new Legate to appeare as Legate in her presence Now let us see how these old English Customes doe agree with the French Liberties The Pope cannot send a Legate a latere into France with power to Reform Iudge Collate dispense except it be upon the desire or with the Approbation of the most Christian King Neither can the Legate execute his Charge untill he hath promised the King under his Oath upon his holy Orders to make no longer use of the Legantine power in the Kings Dominions then it pleaseth him That he shall attempt nothing Contrary to the Liberties of the Gallicane Church And it is lawful to Appeale from the Pope to a future Councell Another Liberty is The Commissions and Bulls of Popes are to be viewed by the Court of Parliament and registred and published with such Cautiōs as that Court shall Iudge expedient A third Liberty is Papall Bulls Sentences Excommunications and the like are not to be executed in France without the Kings command or Permission Lastly neither the King nor his Realm nor his Officers can be Excommunicated nor Interdicted by the Pope And as England and France so all the seventeen Provinces did enjoy the same Privileges as appeareth by the Placaet of the Councell of Brabant dated at Bruxelles May 12 An. 1653. Wherein they declare that it was notoriously true that the subjects of those Provinces of what State or Condition soever that is the Clergy as well as the Laity cannot be cited or convented out of the Land no not before the Court of Rome it self And that the Censures Excommunications c of that Court might not be published or put in execution without the Kings Approbation It seemeth that if the Pope had any judiciary power of old he must seek it nearer Home People had no mind to goe over the Alpes to seek for Justice And that Ordinance of Sainct Cyprian had place every where among our Ancestours Seing it is decreed by all and it is equall and just that every mans cause be heard there where the Crime was committed and a Portion of the Flock is assigned to every Pastor which he may rule and govern and must render an account of his Actions to the Lord It behoveth those whom wee are over not to run up and down nor to knock Bishops who agree well one◠against another by their Cunning and deceitfull Rashnesse but to plead their Cause there where they may have both Accusers and Witnesses of their Crime Vnlesse the Authority of the African Bishops who have Iudged them already seem lesse to a few desperate and lost persons c. To say S. Cyprian meant not to condemne appeales but onely the bringing Causes out of Africk to Rome in the first Instance is a shift as desperate as that of those Fugitives For St. Cyprian telleth us plainly that the cause was already Iudged and sentence given in Africk The first Instance was past and this Canon was made against Appeales out of Africa to Rome Sect I. Cap VIII So from his Iudiciary power I come to Papal dispensations the last of the grosser Vsurpations of the Bishops of Rome Where I have a large Field offered me to expatiate in if I held it so pertinēt to the present Controversy The Pharisees did never dilate their Philacteries so much as the Roman Courtiers did their dispensative power The Pope dispenseth with Oathes with Vowes with Lawes he looseth from Sinnes from Censures from Punishments Is not this a strange Key which can unlock both sinnes and censures and Punishments and Lawes and Oaths and Vowes where there are so many and so different wards It is two to one that it proveth not a right Key but a Picklock Their doctrin of Dispensations was foule enough especially in such cases as concern the Law of God or Nature as Oaths Vowes Leagues Marriages Allegiance For either they make the dispensation to be onely Declarative and then the Purchaser is meerly Cheated who payes his money for nothing Or else they make all Contracts Leagues promises to be but Conditionall If the Pope approve them which destroyeth all mutuall trust and humane Society Or thirdly they make the Popes Dispensations to be a taking away of the matter of the Vow or Oath that is the Promise as if the Papall power could recall that which is past or make that to be undone to day which was done yesterday or that not to be promised which was promised Or lastly they doe dispense with the Law of God and Nature as they doe indeed what soever they pretend to the Contrary or all this kind of dispensations signify nothing But the Practise of Dispensations was much more foule Witnesse their Penitentiary Taxe wherein a man might see the Price of his Sin before hand Their common Nundination of Pardons Their absolving Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Their loosing of Princes from their solemne Leagues of Married people from the Bonds of
Matrimony of Cloysterers from their Vowes of Celibate of all sorts of persons from all Obligations Civill or sacred And whereas no Dispensation ought to be granted without just cause now there is no cause at all inquired after in the Court of Rome but onely the Price This is that which the nine choise Cardinalls laid so close to the conscience of Paul the third How Sacred and Venerable the Authority of the Lawes ought to be how unlawfull and pernicious it is to reape any gaine from the exercise of the Keys They inveigh sadly throughout against dispeÌ„satioÌ„s and among other things that Simoniacall persons were not affraid at Rome first to commit Simony and presently to goe buy an AbsolutioÌ„ and so reteine their Benefice Bina Venena juvant Two grosse Simonies make a title at Rome Thankes to the Popes dispensations But I must contract my discourse to those Dispensations which are intended in the Lawes of Henry the eight that is the power to dispense with English Lawes in the Exteriour Court Let him bindor loose inwardly whom he will whether his Key erre or not we are not concerned Secondly as he is a Prince in his own Territories he that hath power to bind hath power to loose He that hath power to make Lawes hath power to dispense with his own Lawes Lawes are made of Common Events Those benigne Circumstances which happen rarely are left to the dispensative Grace of the Prince Thirdly as he is a Bishop whatsoever dispensative power the ancient Ecclesiasticall Canons or Edicts of Christian Emperours give to the Bishop of Rome within those Territories which were subject to his Iurisdiction by Humane right we do not envy him So he suffer us to enjoy our ancient Privileges and Immunities freed from his encroachments and Vsurpations The Chief ground of the Ancient Ecclesiasticall Canon was Let the Old Customes prevaile A Possession or Prescription of eleven hâ—ndred yeares is a good ward both in Law and Conscience against humane Right and much more against a new pretense of divine right For eleven hundred yeares our Kings and Bishops enjoyed the â—ole dispensative power with all English Lawes Civill and Ecclesiasticall In all which time he is not able to give one Instance of a Papall Dispensation in England nor any shadow of it when the Church was formed Where the Bishops of Rome had no Legislative power no Iudiciary power in the Exteriour Court by necessary consequence they could have no Dispensative power The first reservation of any Case in England to the Censure and absolution of the Pope is supposed to have been that of Albericus the Popes Legate in an English Synod in the yeare 1138. Neque quisquam ei praeter Romanum Pontificem nisi mortis urgente periculo modum paenitenttae finalis injungat Let no man injoyn him the manner of finall Pennance but the Bishop of Rome except in danger of death But long before this indeed from the beginning our own Bishops as the most proper Iudges who lived upon the place and see the nature of the Crime and the degree of the Delinquents Penitence or Impenitence did according to equity relaxe the rigour of Ecclesiasticall Canons as they did all over the Christian world before the Court of Rome had usurped this gainfull Monopoly of Dispensations In the Lawes of Alured alone and in the conjoint Lawes of Alured and Guâ—thrun we see how many sortes of Ecclesiasticall crimes were dispeÌ„sed withall by the sole authority of the King and Church of England and satisfaction made at home to the King and to the Church and to the Party grieved or the Poore without any manner of reference at all to the Court of Rome or to any forrein Dispensation The like we find in the the lawes of some other Saxon Kings There needed no other paenitentiary taxe Dunstan the Arch-Bishop had Excommunicated a great Count He made his Peace at Rome and obteined the Popes Commaund for his restitution to the bosome of the Church Dunstan answered I will obey the Pope willingly when I see him paenitent But it is not Gods will that he should lie in his sinne free from Ecclesiasticall discipline to insuâ—t over us God forbid that I should relinquish the law of Christ for the cause of any mortall man Roman dispensations were not in such Request in those daies The Church of England dispensed with those Nunnes who had fled to their Nunneries not for the love of religioÌ„ but had takeÌ„ the veile upon them meerly for feare of the French and this with the counseile of the King in the daies of Lanfranke and with Queene Maud the wyfe of HeÌ„ry the First in the like case in the daies of Anselme without any suite to Rome for a forreine dispensatioÌ„ There can be nothing more pernicious then where the sacred Name of Law is prostituted to avaricious ends Where Statutes or Canons are made like Pitfals or Traps to catch the Subjects by their purses where profitable faults are cherished for private Advantage by Mercinary Iudges as beggers doe their sores The Roman Rota doth acknowledge such ordinary avaricious Dispensations to be Odious things The Delected Cardinalls make them to be sacrilegious things an unlawfull selling of the power of the Keys Commonly they are called Vulnera Legum The woâ—nds of the Lawes And our Statutes of Provisers doe stile them expresly the undoing and Destruction of the Common Law of the Land The King the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and the whole Common wealth of England complained of this abuse as a mighty Grievance Of the frequent comming among them of this infamous Messenger the Popes Non Obstante that is his Dispensations by which Oaths Customes Writings Grants Statutes Rights Privileges were not onely weakened but exinanited Sometimes these Dispensative Bulls came to legall Tryalls and were condemned By the Law of the Land the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was Visiter of the Vniversity of Oxford Boniface the eyght by his Bull dispeÌ„sed with this law and exeÌ„pted the Vniversity from the Iurisdiction of the Arch-Bishop Whereupon there grew a Controversy and the Bull was decreed voide in Parliament by two succeding Kings as being obtained to the Prejudice of the Crown the weakning of the Lawes and Customes of the Kingdome in favour of Lollards and hereticks and the probable Ruine of the said Vniversity How the Liberties of France and the Lawes and Customes of England doe accord in condemning this Vsurpation wee have seen formerly The power of the Pope is not absolute in France but limitâ—ed and restrained by the Canons of Ancient Councells If it be Limitted and restrained by Ancient Canons then it is not Paramount above the Canons then it is not dispensative to give Non Obstante's to the Canons And the Popes Legate may not execute his Commission before he have promised under his Oath upon his holy Orders that he will not attempt any thing in the exercise of his Legantine power to
the Prejudice of the Decrees of Generall Councells or the Privileges of the French Church Then he must give no Dispensarions against the Canons or Contrary to those Privileges Thus we have viewed all the reall differences between the Church of Rome and us concerning Papall power which our Lawes take notice of There are some other petâ—y Abuses which we complain of but they may be all referred to one of these four heads The Patronage of the Church of England The Legislative The Judicary and Dispensative powers Other differences are but the Opinions of particular Persons But where no Law is there is no Transgression Wee have seen evidently that Henry the eighth did cast no Branch of Papall power out of England but that which was diametrally repugnant to the Ancient Lawes of the Land made in the Reign of Henry the fourth Richard the second Edward the third Edward the first Henry the third Henry the second And these Lawes ever of Force in England never repealed no not so much as in Queen Maryes time when all the Lawes of Henry the eighâ—h and Edward the sixth which concerned the Bishop of Rome were repealed So that I professe clearly I doe not see what advantage Henry the eighth could make of his own Lawes which he might not have made of those ancieÌ„t lawes except onely a gawdy title of Head of the English Church which survived him not long and the Tenths and first fruits of the Clergy which was so late an usurpation of the Pope that it was not in the nature of things wheÌ„ those ancient lawes were made And since I have mentioned the Novelty of that upstart Vsurpation give me leave to let you see how it was welcommed into England whilest it was but yet hatching with the shell upon the Head of it By a Law of Henry the fourth about an Hundred yeares before Henry the eyghth so late this Mushrom began to sprout up For the grievous Complaints made to the King by his Commons in Parliament of the horrible Mischiefs and Damnable Custome which is introduced of new in the Church of Rome that none could have Provision of an Archbishoprick untill he had compounded with the Popes Chamber to pay great excessive summes of money as well for the First fruits as other lesser Fees and Perquisites c The King ordeineth in Parliament as well to the Honour of God as to eschew the Dammage of the Realm and perill of soules That whosoever shall pay such summes should forfeit all they had or as much as they might forfeit Wherein are Henry the eights Lawes more bitter against the Bishop of Rome or more severe then this is To conclude we have seen the precise time when all these Weeds did first begin to peep out of the earth The very first Introduction to the intended Pageant was the spoiling of Christian Kings of the Patronage of the Church which Bellarmine confesseth that they held Per non breve tempus For a long time A long time indeed so long as there had been Christian Princes in the world from Constantine the Great to Henry the fourth in the Empire and yet longer with us in Brittaine from King Lucius to Henry the First The Clergy of Liege say Nimium effluxit tempus quo haeâ— consuetudo incepit e. It is too long since this Custome of swearing fidelity to Princes did begin Aud under this Custome Holy and Reverend Bishops have yielded up their soules to God giving to Caesar that which was Caesars and to God that which was Gods But theÌ„ rose up Pope Hildebrand otherwise called Gregory the seventh Fortissimus Ecclesiae Dei Vindex The most undaunted Vindicator of the Church of God Who feared not to revoke and defend the old Holy Ecclesiasticall Lawes With this accordeth the Church of Liege Hildehran dus Papa Author hujus Novelli Schismatis primus Levavit Sacerdotalem Lanceam contra Diadema Regni c. Pope Hildebrand the author of this new Schisme first lift up his Episcopall Lance against the Royall diadeÌ„ And a little after Si utriusque Legis totam Bibliothecam c. If I turn over the whole Library of the old and new Law and all the ancient Expositors thereof I shall not find an Example of this Apostolicall precept onely Pope Hildebrand perfected the Sacred Canons when he Commanded Maud the Marchionesse to subdue Henry the Emperour for remission of her Sinnes I take no exceptions to the person of Pope Hildebrand others have done it sufficiently Whether the Title of Antichrist was fastened upon him justly or injustly I regard not Yet it was in the time of this Hildebrand and Paschalis his Successor that the Arch-bishop of Florence affirmed by revelatioÌ„ for he protested that he knew it most certainly that Antichrist was to be revealed in that age And about this time the Waldenses of whom St. Bernard saith that if we inquire into their Faith nothing was more Christian if into their Conversation nothing was more irreprehensible made their Secession from the Bishop of Rome And not long after in the yeare 1120. published a Booke to the world that the great Antichrist was come That the present Governers of the Roman Church armed with both Powers Secular and Spirituall who under the specious Name of the Spouse of Christ did oppose the right way of Salvation were Antichrist But I cannot but wonder what are those old holy Ecclesiasticall Lawes which Bellarmine mentioneth Those Institutions of the Holy Fathers which Hildebrand himself professeth to follow Sanctorum Patrum instituta sequenâ—es Why doe they mention what they are not able to produce or pretend what they never can perform Bellarmin hath named but one poore counterfeit Canon without Antiquity without Authority without Vse without Truth If Mr. Serjeant be able to help him with a recruit it would come very seasonably for without some such helps his pretended Institutions of the Fathers will be condemned for his own Innovations and for arrant Vsurpations and the Guilt of Schism will fall upon the Roman Court. Sect. I. Cap. IX But I expect it should be objected that besides these Statutes which concern the Patronage of the English Church the Legislative the Iudiciary the Dispensative power of Popes there are two other Statutes made by Henry the eighth The one an Act for extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome The other an Act for establishing the Kings Succession in the Crown wherein there is an Oath that the Bishop of Rome ought not to have any Iurisdiction or Authority in this Realm And that it is declared in the 37. Article of our Church that the Bishop of Rome hath no Iurisdiction in this Kingdome of England And in the Oath ordained by Queen Elisabeth That no Forrein Prelate hath or ought to have any Iurisdiction or Authority Ecclesiasticall or Spirituall with in this Realm I answer this Objection three wayes First as to the two Lawes
our Church witnesse the Professions of King Iames witnesse all our Statutes themselves wherein all the parts of Papall power are enumerated which are taken away His Entroachments his Vsurpations his Oaths his Collations Provisions Pensions Tenths First fruits Reservations Palls Vnions Commendams Exemptions Dispensations of all kinds Confirmations Licenses Faculties Suspensions Appeales and God knoweth how many pecuniary Artifices more but of them all there is not one that concerneth Iurisdiction purely Spirituall or which is an essentiall right of the power of the Keys They are all Branches of the Externall Regiment of the Church the greater part of them usurped from the Crowne sundry of them from Bishops and some found out by the Popes themselves as the payment for Palls which was nothing in S. Gregoryes time but a free gift or liberality or bounty free from imposition and exaction Lastly consider the grounds of all our grievances expressed frequently in our Lawes and in other writers The disinheriting of the Prince and Peers The destruction and Anullation of the Lawes and the Prerogative Royall The Vexation of the King Liege people The impoverishing of the Subjects the draining the Kingdome of its treasure The decay of Hospitality The disservice of God And filling the Churches of England with Forreiners The excluding Temporall Kings and Princes out of their Dominions The Subjecting of the Realm to spoil and ravine grosse Simoniacall contracts Sacrilege Grievous and intolerable oppressioÌ„s and extortions Iurisdiction purely Spirituall doth neither disinherit the Prince nor the Peers nor destroy and anull the Lawes and Prerogative royall nor vex the Kings Liege people nor impoverish the Subject nor draine the Kingdome of its Treasures nor fill the Churches with Forreiners nor exclude Temporall Kings out of their Dominions nor subject the Realm to spoile and Ravine Authority purely spirituall is not guilty of the decay of Hospitality or disservice of Almighty God or Simony or Sacrilege or oppressions and extortions No No it is the externall regiment of the Church by new Roman Lawes and Mandates by new Roman Sentences and Iudgements by new Roman Pardons and dispensations by new Roman Synods and Oaths of Fidelity by new Roman Bishops and Clerkes It is your new Roman Tenths and First fruits and Provisions and Reservations and Pardons and Indulgences and the rest of those horrible mischiefs and damnable Customs that are apparently guilty of all these evills These Papall Innovations we have taken away indeed and deservedly having shewed the expresse time and place and person when and where and by whom every one of them was first introduced into England And we have restored to every Bird his own Feather To the King his Politicall Supremacy to the Peers their Patronages to the Bishops that Iurisdiction which was due to them either by Divine right or Humane right More then these Innovations we have taken nothing away that I know of Or rather it is not wee nor Henry the eighth who did take these Innovations away but our Ancesters by their Lawes three foure five hundred yeares old so soone as they began to sprout out or indeed before they were well formed as their Statutes yet extant doe evidence to the world But that filth which they swept out at the Fore doore the RomaÌ„ Emissaryes brought in again at the back doore All our part or share of this worke was to confirm what our ancesters had done I see no reason why I might not conclude my discourse upon this Subject Mutatis Mutandis with as much Confidence as Sanders did his visible Monarchy Quisquis jurabit per Viventem in aeternum c. Whosoever shall sweare by him that liveth for ever that the Church of England is not Schismaticall in respect of any Branches of Papall power which shee hath cast out at the Reformation he shall not forswear himself But Wagers and Oaths and Protestations are commonly the Arguments of such as have got the wrong end of the staffe I will shut up this long Discourse concerning Henry the eighths Reformation with a short Apostrophe to my Countrymen of the Roman Communion in England They have been taâ—ght that it is we who Apostate from the Faith of our Ancesters in this point of the Papacy that it is we who renounce the Vniversall and perpetual Tradition of the Christian world Whereas it is we who maintain ancient Apostolicall Tradition against their upstart Innovations whereas it is we who doe propugne the Cause of our Ancesters against the Court of Rome If our Ancesters were Catholick in this Cause we cannot be Schismaticall Let them take heed least whilst they fly oâ—t of a Panicall Feare from a supposed Schisme they doe not plunge themselves over head and eares into reall Schisme Let theÌ„ choose whether they will joine with their Ancesters in this cause or with the Court of Rome for with both they cannot joine If true English blood run in their veins they cannot be long deliberating about that which their Ancesters even all the Orders of the Kingdome voted unanimously That they would stand by their King and maintaine the rights of his Imperiall Crown against the Vsurpations of the Roman Court. I have represented clearly to you the true Controversy betweeÌ„ the Church and Kingdome of England and the Court of Rome concerning Papall power not as it is stated by private writers but in our English Lawes a glasse that cannot deceive us for so farre as to let us see the right Difference Let them quit these grosse Vsurpations Why should they be more ashamed to restore our lust rights then they were to plunder us of them Let them distinguish between Iurisdiction purely Spirituall and Iurisdiction in the exteriour Court which for the much greatest part of it is Politicall between the power of the Sword which be longeth to the Civill Soveraign and not to the Church further then he hath been graciously pleased to communicate it between that Obedience with procedeth from feare of wrath or from feare of Gods Revenger to execute wrath that is the Soveraign Prince and that Obedience which proceedeth meerly from conscience And then there is hope we may come to understand one another better It is true there are other Differences between us but this is the main Difference which giveth Denomination to the Parties And when they come to presse those Differences they may come to have such another account as they have now The wider the hole groweth in the middle of the Milstone Men see clearer through it Dies Diei eructat verbum nox nocti indicaâ— Scientiam The latter day is the Schollar of the former Sect. I. Cap. X. BY this time wee see that Mr. Serjeants great Dispatch will prove but a sleevelesse Errand and that his First Movership in the Church which he thought should have born down all before it is an unsignificant expression and altogether impertinent to the true Controversy between them and us Vnlesse as Dido did encompasse the
Secondly I proved it by one of the Principall Statutes themselves those terms of Law which declare old Law are not the same with those which enact new Law This proofe is demonstrative He urgeth if there were something new it was new and a Statute we Englishmen use to term a Law So if he new turn his Coat there is something new yet we English men say his Coat is and old Coat for all that Magna Charta or the great Charter of England is an old Law yet it hath been renewed or newly declared by almost every succeeding King New Statutes may declare old Lawes He saith I cite two Protestants Fitz-Herbert and my Lord Cooke both of mine owne party to speake in behalf of Protestants I cite no Protestants as Protestants nor to speak for Protestants nor as witnesses in any case in difference between Protestants and Papists but I cite two great English Iudges as Iudges to speak to the Difference between a Declarative Statute and an Enactive Statute by the Law of England and who could be so proper witnesses of the Law of England as they Secondly who told him that Fitzherbert was a Protestant No more a Protestant then himself for any thing that ever I could perceive He was a great Iudge lived in Henry the eighths time and writ sundry workes Where he setteth down the Charge against a Papist he doth it in such a manner that it can hurt no man except he will confesse himself to have done what he did obstinately and maliciously but where he setteth down the charge of a Iustice of Peace against Hereticks or Lollards he giveth it home But Mr. Serjeant hath the art to make Protestants or Papists of whom he list so it serve his present turn Thirdly though Fitzherbert and my Lord Cooke had said nothing yet the case is as cleare as the light that this very Statute is Declarative of old Fundamentall Law not Enactive of new Law And this I prove first by view of the Statute it self He that hath but half an eye in his head may easily discern the difference between an Enactive Statute and a declarative Satute An Enactive Statute looketh onely forward to the time to come and medleth not at all with the time past but a declarative law looketh both wayes backwards and forwards forward to the time to come and backward to the time past Again the very from and tenour of the words is not the same in an Enactive Statute and in a Declarative Statute An Enactive Statute regardeth onely what shall be but a Declarative regardeth what is and what hath been an Enactive Statute createth new Law by the authority of the present Lawgiver a Declarative Statute cōfirmeth old Law and is commonly grounded upon the Fundamentall Constitution of the Kingdome Now then let us take a view of this very Law By divers old authētick histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared that this realm of England in an Empire and so hath been accepted in the world governed by one supreme head and King c. unto whom a body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty owe next to God a naturall obedience he being instituted by the goodnesse of God with plenary power to render finall justice for all matters You see plainly that this Statute looketh both wayes forward and backward and doth not onely create new Law but also declare what hath been what is and what ought to be the perpetuall Law of England By diverse old authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared c. then it is manifest that this is a declarative Law He saith I quote the Schismaticall King himself and the Schismaticall Parliament to speake in their own behalf By his leave he is mistaken I ground not my reason upon the Authority of the King and Parliament but upon the form or tenour of the Statute whether these words doe contain the form of an Enactive Statute or a Declarative Statute Secondly if I did so yet he hath no reason to complain of it who maketh the Pope and his Councell to be the last Iudge in his own case Thirdly I shall be bold to scrue up this pin a note higher and tell him that if Henry the eight did make himself the last Iudge in those differences between him and the Papacy which concerned the Church and Kingdome of England he did no more then many other Christian Kings and Princes have done before him as I have shewed in the Empire Spain Italy Brabant c. Fourthly if that which was decreed in this Law was decreed in former Lawes standing in full force and unrepealed then it is not Enactive of new Law but Declarative of old Law but I have produced him the Lawes themselves wherein the self same things have been decreed and he turneth his back upon them and referreth us to the Canonists for an answer Lastly it is so far from being true that those Statutes made by Henry the eighth were new Lawes tha◠those ancient Statutes of Clarendon of Carlile the Articles of the Clergy the Statutes of Provisors were no new Lawes when they were made but new declarations of the Fundamētall Lawes of England or of the Originall Constitution of the English Empire as appeareth undeniably by the Statutes of Clarendon the Statute of Carlile and the Statutes of Provisors wherein the same truth is affirmed as positively as I can do it But now Reader wilt thou see a convincing proofe of the extreme carelesnesse and unconscionable oscitance of this great Champion who writeth his answers at Randome and never so much as readeth what is objected against him I cited two Statutes the one of 24. Hen. 8. cap. 12. the other of 16 Ric. 2. cap. 5. The Printer citeth them right i◠the margent but a little confusedly but when Mr. Serjeant commeth to answer them he confoundeth them indeed attributing Richard the seconds Statute to Henry the eighth And lest any man should excuse him and say it was the fault of the Printer heare him he alledgeth another Statute made in the 24. of Henry the 8 Yes well guessed otherwise called the 16. of Richard the second And a little after what maters it what this Statute sayes being made two yeares after his unlawfull marriage with Anna Bullen I know not where he learned this except it was from the old Puppet player who would have Queen Dido to be Richard the thirds Mistresse he might perchance have such another odde Fancy that Richard the second was Anne Bullens Servant That which I observe in earnest is this that he answereth at Random to he knoweth not what and never peruseth that which is objected against him If it had been some rare piece that was cited that he could not have come by it it had bene the more pardonable but it is an English Statute which he might have found in every Bookebinders Shop in every Lawiers Study in every Iustice
the Lawes and histories of his native Country If he had perused them diligently he might have observed how the Court of Rome and Crown of England were long upon their Gards watching one another and the one or the other gained or lost mutually according to the Vigour of their present Kings or Popes or according to the exigence of the times His seventh Objection that the like Lawes to ours in England were made in the Papacy it self but those could not be against the Popes Headship of the Church and his tenth Objection that then there never was a Papist Country in the world because equivaleÌ„t Lawes to ours were made in France Spaine Italy Sicily Gormany Poland c and his answer to my demand what law full Iurâ—sdiction could remaine to the Pope in England where such and such Lawes had force The same that remaines still to him in France Spaine Italy where the like lawes are in force in his last paragraph are a dish of unsavoury mushromes all sprung up from his own negligent mistake or wilfull Falsification let him chuse whether he will in confounding the Lawes of Mortmain with the other Lawes against the Popes Vsurpations Which I distinguished exactly both at the beginning of that discourse the Statute of Mortmain justified and at the Conclusion But to leave this Digression But besydes this grosse errour there want not other inconsequences and fallacies in his discourse as in his seventh Objection from the Popes particular Headship of his own Church to an Vniversall Headship over the Catholick Church and from an Headship of order to a Monarchicall Headship of power and in his tenth Objection from like lawes to the same Lawes from Lawes made to Lawes duely observed We had Lawes made against Non-conformists in England will he conclude thence that we have no Non-conformists in England the Argument would hold better the Contrary way Ex malis moribus bonae leges And in his last Paragraph from Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court to Iurisdiction purely Spirituall in the Court of Conscience and from Coactive Iurisdiction with the leave of the Prince to the same without Leave Wee see all Roman Catholick Countries doe stint the Popes Coactive Iurisdiction over their Subjects more or lesse according to their severall Liberties which they could not doe at all if he held it by Christs own Ordination His eighth Objection that upon this new Law made by Henry the eighth England stood at another distance then formerly from Rome is a Fallacy non causae pro causa when a false cause is assigned for a true cause Our just Lawes are not the right cause of our distance from Rome but the Popes unjust Censures and that Character which some of our Countrimen give of us But this distance is greater among the Populacy then between the Estates who do not much regard the Popes Censures either in making or observing of Leagues To his ninth Objection in his order and his last in my order that this Posiâ—â—on takes away the Question and makes all the Controvertists in England on both sides talke in the aire because it makes the Pope to have had no Authority there to be cast out I answer I wish it did but it doth not The Pope had Authority there and Authority usurped fit to be cast out notwithstanding our former good Lawes But yet I must confesse this Position doth much change the Question from spirituall Iurisdiction in the inner Court to Coactive Iurisdiction in the exteriour Court and makes him and many other such Controvertists talk in the aire who dispute onely about Headships and First Moverships when the true Controversy lieth in point of Interest and profit Sect. 4. That the Britannick Churches were ever exempted from forrein Iurisdiction for the first six hundred years and so ought to continue After I had shewed the Equality of the Apostles except onely a Priority of Order and that the Supremacy of power did not rest in any single Apostolicall College that Nationall Patriarchs were the highest Order constituted by the Apostles in the Church and how some Patriarchs came to be advanced above others with the true dignity or Preheminence of Apostolicall Churches the summe of all the rest of this Section might be reduced to a Syllogisme Those Churches which were exempted from all forrain Iurisdiction for the first 600 years cannot be subjected to any forrain Iurisdiction for the future against their own wills But all the Britannick Churches were ever exempted from forrain Iurisdiction for the first six hundred yeares The Major Proposition was proved by me undeuiably out of the first Generall Councell of Ephesus to which Mr. Serjeant hath objected nothing Next I proved the Minor First by Prescription Affirmanti incumbit probatio The burthen of the proofe in Law resteth upon the Affirmer but they are not able to shew so much as one single act of Iurisdiction which ever any Bishop of Rome did in Brittaign for the first six hundred yeares Secondly I proved it from the Antiquity of the Britannick Church which was ancienter then the Roman it self and therefore could not be subject to the RomaÌ„ from the beginning Thirdly because the Britannick Churches sided with the Eastern Churches against the Roman and therefore were not subject to the Roman Foâ—rthly because they had their Ordinations ordinarily at home which is an infallible sign of a free Church subject to no Forrein Iurisdiction Lastly because they renounced all Subjection to the Bishop of Rome I am forced to repeat thus much to let the Reader see the contexture of my discourse which Mr. Serjeant doth whatsoever he can to conceale or at least to confound and disjoint Out of this he picketh here and there what he pleaseth First he pleadeth that my Title is the Vindication of the Church of England but the Church of England can derive no title from the Britannick or Scottish Churches He never read or quite forgetteth the State of the QuestioÌ„ I will help his memory Let him read the Vindication by the Church of England we understand not the English Nation alone but the English dominion including the British and Scotish or Irish Christians So at unawares he hath yielded the Bishopricks of Chester Hereford Worcester for all these were Suffragans to Carleon Wales Cornwall Ireland Scotland with all the adjacent Ilands that is to say two third parts of the English Dominion Secondly he pleadeth that for this many hundred yeares they acknowledged the Popes Authority as well as the Church of England I answer that this will doe him no good nor satisfy the Generall Councell of Ephesus at all which hath decreed expresly in the case of the Cyprian Prelates and they Command the same to be observed in all Provinces that no Bishop occupy another Province which formerly and from the beginning was not under the power of him or his Predecessors and if any doe occupy another Province that in this case let him restore it
OppressioÌ„s and ExtortioÌ„s of the Court of Rome in points of Fact Secondly their grosse and grievous usurpations in point of Right Thirdly the malignant influence of forrain discipline in point of Policy It is he that huddles them together because they are so foule and so evident that he dare not take a view of them singly much lesse repeat them and so they might be buried in Oblivion for him unlesse the Reader be pleased to take a review of them I shall not willingly adde a word more either to the Extortions or Malignant Influence because I Iudge in Charity that all good men doe wish them amended as well as I And for the Vsurpations being matter of perpetuall right I hope I have cleared them sufficieÌ„tly in this Treatise throughout the first SectioÌ„ But what is his answer to all this That it is disputable between Canon and Civill Lawiers whether many of these were abuses or just rights of which kind of Controversy he neither thinkes me nor himself competent Iudges Adding that these Questions doe not concern our present quarrell How not concern our Quarrell They are all the Quarrell we have and not a Primacy of Order or any power purely spirituall in the Court of Conscience If he have nothing to doe with these why doth he meddle to no purpose whatsoever power was given by Christ or is recorded in Scripture is expresly excepted out of our Law And once more Reader observe and wonder that these men who called upon us often for the Grounds of our Seperation must be called on as often for a faire answer He promised to shew the Readers a Monster in this Section for pence a piece It seemeth by his bogling he seeth something that he is affraid to meddle with I doubt he will prove a true Prophet of himself that all the Readers satisfaction for their money will be to tell them that he hath abused them But it may be he is better at his sword then at his Buckler at opposing in Generalls then defending himself from Particulars Althoâ—gh he hath not given us one particular answer to the truth or falshood of the Crimes and inconvenieÌ„ces objected yet he giveth in seven generall Exceptions but it is with as much hast as the dogge by Nilus which runnes and drinkes First he saith those inconveniences which I mention if they had been true are abuses in theâ— Officer not faults in the Office which ought not to be taken away for them Intolerable extortions and grosse Vsurpations are no more with him then inconveniences This Objection was answered by me before it was moved by him if he had not thought fit to smother it where I distinguish between the personall faults of Popes and faulty principles or Lawes and shew how farre the one and the other doe warrant a Seperation The former onely from the faulty person to preserve ourselves from participating with him in his Crimes The latter from the faulty Office so farre as it is faulty untill it be reformed Neither have we taken away any Office but onely abuses and Vsurpations Secondly he excepreth that some of these pretended abuses are onely my own Deductions which I shew not evidently ouâ— of the Science of Politicks but out of two or three matters of Fact I answer that experience is the Polititians best Schoolmaster and that every man findeth where his own Shoe wringeth him much better by wearing it himself then by hearing others discourse of it But I thanke him for his Memento and the next time I have occasion to make use of it I shall demoÌ„strate to him out of the ScieÌ„ce of Politicks that Forrain IurisdictioÌ„ is uselesse and chargeable to the Subject Dangerous and destructive to the King and Commonwealth a Rack and Gibbet to the Conscience by subjecting it to two Supremes who may possibly clash one with another and altogether opposite to the Ecclesiasticall Policy of the Primitive times which conformed the bounds of Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction to the Civill Thirdly he pleadeth that I doe not prove that some of these pretended abuses were not just rights but onely shew that such and such things were done and that either party had learned Lawiers for them and that sometimes the Kings renounced their pretenses as in point of Investitures I answer that the Opposition of King and Kingdome to any branch of Papall power sheweth evidently that they did not believe that the Pope had any right to it divine or humane and clearly destroieth his Foundation of immediate Tradition How should they leave that to their Children as a Legacy of Christ or his Apostles which they themselves rejected Our Kings never renounced their right of Investitures onely they consented that they should not give Investitures in their own persons but by a Bishop still reteining both the right of Patronage and their Feudall Oaths Fourthly he saith that these temporall Lawes which I cite concluder not evidently a right and reason gives more particular respect to Ecclesiasticall lawes then to temporall I answer though such Lawes doe not alwaies prove a right Yet they alwaies prove the common consent of the Kingdome what they esteem to be right they alwayes disprove the Popes Prescription But he is wholy mistaken many of those Lawes which I cited were Ecclesiasticall Lawes And the Popes Decretalls which he intimateth for Lawes are no Lawes nor ever were held for Lawes in England without the reception of the Church and Kingdome Reason gives more respect to the Sanctions of Bishops then of Kings in cases purely spirituall but more respect to the Lawes of Kings then of Bishops in the Externall Regiment of the Church within their own dominions Fifthly he chargeth me for saying that the Pope usurped most injustly all right Civill Ecclesiasticall Sacred Prophane of all Orders of men Kings Nobles Bishops c. Which he calleth a lowd â—outhed Calumny By his favour he doth me wrong and himself more with his foule Language when he is not provoked at all I said not all right in the abstract but all rights in the concreâ—e Hath he forgotten that which every boy in the Vniversity knoweth to distinguish betwixt singula generum and genera singulorum Some of all sorts and all without exception My words onely signify some rights of all sorts as is evident by the words following Civill Ecclesiasticall sacred prophane of all Orders of men Kings Nobles Bishops c. which is an ordinary and proper expression and cannot possibly be extended to all rights without exception Sixthly he urgeth that grant all these abuses had heen true was there no other remedy but division Had not the Secular Governours the sword in their hand Did it not lye in their power to chuse whether they would admit things destructive to their rights I answer that it doth not alwaies rest in the power of the Civill Magistrate to doe that which is best in it self especially in seditious times when the Multitude as a good Authour saith doe more readily
Order not a supremacy of power They made him a beginning of Vnity to all particular Churches Yet subjected him to the Vniversall Church They looked upon him as Highest Bishop and Successour of St. Peter but they believed that a Generall Councell had power to shake his Candlestick and remove it if they found it expedient for the good of Christendome If he come so far short of divine right in his faire pretensions by what right will he seek to justify all his foule Vsurpations and enchroachments which have no decree of any Oecumenicall councell to warrant them no Imperiall Institntion to authorise them which have no foundation but the Popes own decretalls But â— reserve a full account of this for the next part of my Answer Onely Reader be pleased to take notice that it behooved Mr. Serjeant to have proved his Traditions clearly and distinctly as to those parts of Papall power which are controverted between us in earnest with the Vniversality of it and the perpetuity of it This he neither doth nor attempteth to doe nor in deed is he or any other able to doe but meerly presumeth it and slubbereth over the mater in deceitfull Generalls Sect. I. Cap. III. Wee are come now to the last part of his demonstration which was the Minor or Assumtion of his former Syllogisme That the Church of England in Henry the eighths dayes did breake these Rules of Vnity upon probable reasons not convincing grounds Which being the main question he should have fortifyed with proofes but he according to his Custome thinkes to carry it with confidence and clamours Does not all the World grant and hold that King Henry denyed the Popes Supremacy Does not all the World see that the pretended Church of England stands now otherwise in Order to the Church of Rome then it did in Henry the sevenths dayes c. Was Papall power cast out before was it not in actuall force till and at that time Wee beg nothing gratis but begin our Processe upon Truth acknowledged by the whole World What Papall power king Henry did cast out and what Papall power we hold out I shall demonstrate to the World not confusedly but distinctly by such proofes as are not to be gainsaid for matter of fact But before I gird my self to the worke it will not be amisse for the freeing of the Cause from future Cumber about them to give Satisfaction to his two Circumstances that wee did it onely upon probable reasons And in the dayes of king Henry the eighth For the first he keepeth a great stirre and bustling every where about our probable reasons and tbe nature of our Exceptions And he would make his reader believe that I have omitted this part of his wordâ— Guâ—lefully All which discourse is superfluous and impertinent For if he could make good his Conclusion that wee have cast out that which Christ himself did ordein in holy Scripture no reasons nor exceptions can be sufficient or so demonstrative and convincing as to justify a wilfull violation of Christs own ordination Every Plant saith our Saviour which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooâ—ed up But if this be Christs own Plant which he himself hath planted to goe about to root it up were plainly to fight against God We renounce all reasons and all exceptions against Christs own ordination His very intimation that wee might doe what we did upon demonstrative reasons is an implicit Confession that it was not against Christs own ordination There was no need why I should meddle wich mine own exceptions here That was his office in the position of the Case That case is meanly and partially stated which is stated but on one side he ought to have included my Exceptions in his case Besides I was sure to meet wich my exceptions in every Section and therefore reserved them for their proper-places as being loath to offend the Reader wich twice sodden Coleworts But let him not feare that I will relinquish my Exceptions I shall maintain them to be demonstrative of the Popes Vsurpations in England and leave them freely to try it out with his Demonstrations The second Circumstance is concerning the time when the breach is supposed to have been made In the dayes of Henry the eighth And it is thus far true that then the breach was declared and the War proclaimed to all the World but this breach was making long before Henry the eighth was born form the dayes of Pope Hildebrand for about four hundred yeares There was no open hostility indeed between the Court of Rome and the Church and Kingdome of England but they were still upon their Gards and still seeking to gaine ground one upon another as appeareth by the decrees and Lawes and Machinations of those times A breach in a strong Tower is long making before the Walls tumble visibly down A Scathfire is long kindling before it breake out in an universall flame A Cronicall disease is long gathering and forming before the certain Symptoms there of doe appeare We use to say the second blow makes the fray but the first blow makes the Battery and the guilt All that time that they were forcing their grosse usurpations upon us the Breach was making I have done wich his two Circumstances The Substance of his Assumtion remaineth But before I grapple with him about that give me leave to lay down four grounds or Considerations so indifferent that no rationall man can deny them The first is that every one who is involved materially in a Schism is not a formall Schismatick no more then â—hee that marrieth after long expectation believing and having reason to believe that her former Husband was dead is a formall Adultresse or then he who is drawn to give divine Worship to a creature by some misapprehension yet addressing his devotions to the true God is a formall Idolater A man may be Baptisatus voto as S. Ambrose said baptised in his desire and God Almighty doth accept it why may he not as wel Communicate in his desire and be accepted with God likewise If S. Austin say true of Heresy that He who did not run into his Errour out of his own overweening presumption nor defends it pertinaciâ—asly but received it from his seduced parents and is carefull to search out the truth and ready to be corrected if he find it out he is not to be reputed among Hereticks It is much more true of Schism that he who is involved in Schism through the errour of his Parents or Predecessors who seeketh carefully for the Truth and is prepared in his mind to embrace it whensoever he finds it he is not to be reputed a Schismatick This very Bond of Vnity and preparation of his mind to peace is an implicit â—enunciation and abjuration of his Schism before God This is as comfortable a ground for ignorant Roman Catholicks as for any persons that I know Who are hurried hoodwinked in to
affirm That neither the King of England nor the Church of England neither Convocation nor Parliament did breake his two Necessary Bonds of Christian Vnity or either of them or any part of either of them But that the Very Breakers and Violaters of these Rules were the Pope and Court of Rome They did breake his Rule of Faith by adding new points to the Necessary Doctrin of saving Truth which were not the Legaceyes of Christ and his Apostles nor delivered unto us by Universall and perpetuall Tradition The Pope and Court of Rome did breake his second Rule of Vnity in Discipline by obtruding their excessive and intolerable usurpations vpon the Christian world and particularly upon the Church of England as necessary Conditions of their Communion It appeareth plainly by comparing that which hath been said with his positioÌ„ of the case that after all his Bragges of undeniable evidence and unquestionable certeinty he hath quite missed the question We joine with him in his rule of Faith Wee oppose not St. Peters Primacy of Order and he him self dare not say that St. Peter had a larger or more extended power then the rest of his Fellow Apostles And though wee cannot force our understandings to assent that after the death of S. Peter Linus or Cletus or Clemens or Anacleâ—us were Superiours to S. Iohn and had actuall Iurisdiction over him who had as large a commission immediatly from Christ as S. Peter himselfe and larger then any succeeding Romane Bishop ever had Yet to shew him how little wee are concerned in it and for his clearer conviction wee are willing to suppose that they were his Superiours and give him leave to make all the advantage of his second Rule which he can in this cause And here if I regarded not the satisfaction of my self and the Reader more then his opposition I might withdraw my hand from the Table But I am so great a Friend of Ingenuity that I will for once discharge his Office and shew the World demonstratively and distinctly what Branches of Papall power were cast out of England by Henry the eighth upon which consideration the weight of the whole Controversy doth lye For it is agreed between us that if it appeare by rigorous Evidence that all those Branches of Papall power which were renounced and cast out of England by Henry the eight were grosse Vsurpattons then his renouncing was no eriminall Breach but a lawfull self enfranchisement And by undeniable consequence the Guilt of â—chism resteth upon them who made the Vsurpations that is the Pope and Court of Rome I adde further upon the equity of my second Ground that although Henry the eight had cast out something more then be ought yet if wee hold not out more then wee ought and be ready to admitt all which ought to be admitted by us then we are innocent and free from the Guilt of Schism and it resteth soly upon them who either will have more then their due or nothing Wheresoever the fault is there the Guilt of Schisme is If the fault be single the Guilt is single if the fault be mutuall the Guilt is mutuall And for rigorous Evidence There cannot possibly be any Evidence more demonstrative what Papall power was cast out of England then the very Acts of Parliaments themselves by which it was cast out Let us view them all The first Act made in the Reign of Henry the eight which hath any referente to Rome is the Act for holding Plurality of Benefices against the lawes of the land by dispensation from the Court of Rome making licenses for non Residence from the Court of Rome to be voide and the party who procureth such Licenses for Pluralityes or Non-residence to forfeyt twenty pounds and to lose the profits of that Benefice which he holdeth by such dispensation It were a pretty thing indeed if the Church and Kingdome should make necessary lawes and the Pope might give them liberty to break them at his pleasure The second Act is that No person shall be cited out of tâ—e diocesse where he dwelleth except in certain cases Which though it may seem to reflect upon the Court of Rome yet I do not find that it is concerned in it but the Arches Audience and other Archiepiscopall Courts within the Realm The third Act is meerly declarative of the law of the land as well the Common lawes as the Statute lawes and grounded wholy upon them as by the View of the Statute it self doth appeare So it casteth out no forraine power but what the lawes had cast out before The summe of it is this That all Causes Matrimoniall Testamentary or about Tithes c. shall be heard and finally judged in England by the proper Iudges Ecclesiasticall and Civill respectively and not elswhere notwithstanding any forrein Inhibitions Appeales Sentences citations suppensions or Excommunications And that if any English Subject procure a Processe Inhibition Appeale c. From or to the Court of Rome or execute them to the hinderance of any processe here he shall incurre the Penalties ordained by the Statute of provision or premunire made in the sixteenth yeare of King Richard the second against such as make provision to the See of Rome This law was eâ—larged afterwards to all causes of Ecclesiasticall cognisance and all appeales to Rome forbidden The fourth Act is an Act for punishing of Heresy Wherein there are three clauses that concern the Bishop of Rome The First is this And that there be many Heresies and paines and punishments for Heresies Declared and ordained in and by the Canonicall Sanctions and by the Lawes and Ordinations made by the Popes or Bishops of Rome and by their Authorities for holding doing preaching of things contrary to the said Canonicall Sanctions Lawes and Ordinances which be but humane being meer repugnant and contrarious to the royall Prerogative Regall Iurisdiction Lawes Statutes and Ordinances of this Realm The second Clause is that No License be obtained of the Bishop of Rome to Preach in any part of this Realm or to doe any thing contrary to the Lawes and Statutes of this Realm or the Kings Prerogative Royall The third Clause followeth That the Decrees of the Bishops of Rome not confirmed by Holy Scriptures were never commonly attested to be any Law of God or man within this Realme And that it should not be deemed Heresy to speak or doe contrary to the pretended power or Authority of the Bishop of Rome made or given by Humane Lawes and not by Scriptures nor to speake or Act contrary to the Lawes of the Bishop of Rome being contrary to the Lawes of this Realm The Fifth Act is an Act concerning the Submission of the Clergy to the Kings Majesty The scope of it is this that the Clergy shall not assemble in Convocation nor make or proniulge any new Canons without the Kings License Hitherto there is nothing new in point of Law Then that the King should have
them cited at large by King Iames in his Apology for the Oath of A legiance But these Oaths land Homages and Regal Investitures as thâ—y were a Bond of Peace and Vnity between the King and his Clergy so they were a great Eyesore to the Bishops of Rome because they crossed their maine Designe to make them selves the onely Liege Lords of the Ecclesiasticks As appeareth by that severe Check which Adrian the fourth gave Frederick the first for Requiring Homage and Fealty of Bishops who are Gods and for holding their sacred hands in his hands It staied not here That Homage and Oath of Fidelity which Gregory the seventh and Calixtus did rob the King of their immediate Successour Paschalis the second did assume to himself as wee find by the unanimous consent of all Historiographers and by the Canon of Paschalis himself recorded by Gregory the ninth Significasli c. Thou signifiedst that Kings and the Peers of the Kingdome were moved with Admiration because the Pall was offered to Thee by our Apocrisiaries upon Condition to take that Oath which they brought Thee written from us c. The Admiration sheweth the novelty of it He confesseth there that the Oath was not established by the Canon of any councell but by Papall Authority and â—ustifieth it For feare of further evill That is Apostaring from the ObedieÌ„ce due to the Apostolick See The very Title doth assure us that it was an Oath of Fidelity and Obedience What manner of assurance can Soveraign Princes promise themselves of those Subjects who have sworn Allegiance and Obedience to a forrein Prince This Form at First was modest and moderate bounding the Obedience of Arch-Bishops by the Rules of the holy Fathers as wee find in the old Roman Pontificall but it was quickly changed from Regulas Sanctorum Patrum to Regalia Sancti Petri as wee find in the new Pontificall The Change in Letters was not great but in the Sense abhominable Semel falsus semper praesumitur falsus He who is apprehended in palpable forgery is alwayes deservedly suspected of forgery With what Face can Mr. Serjeant tell us that where the Method of immediate Tradition hath place it is impossible for encroachments to gaine Admittance Where were see such Hocus Pocus tricks plaid before our eyes in their Pontificall Bellarmine would perswade us that in St. Gregory the firsts time there was such an Oath of Obedience fully made to the Bishop of Rome But he doth either abuse him self or seeketh grossely to abuse us First the Oath mentioned in Saint Gregory was not an Oath of Obedience or allegiance but promissio cujusdam Episcopi haeresim suam anathematiz aniâ—s A promise of a Certeine Bishop anathematizing his haeresy or an Oath of abjuration Secondly the Oath mentioned by Saint Gregory was not imposed by his authority but taken freely by the converted Bishop to satisfie the world and to take away all suspicion of Hypocrisy ne non pura mentâ— seu simulate reversus existimer dictated to his owne Notary by the advise of his Clergy Notario meo cum consensu presbyterorâ—m Diaconorum atque Clericorum scribendum dictavi It was no Common Case of all Bishops neither did it comprehend any such obligation to mainteine the praetended royallties of S. Peter And as they extended the matter of their Oath so they did the Subject about an hundred yeares after in the time of Gregory the niuth enlarging it from Arch-Bishops to all Prelates Bishops Abbats Priors And now what remaines but to cry up the Authority of the Canons above all Imperiall Lawes Cedant Arma Togae concedat Laurea Linguae As Bellarmine doth who denyeth the superiority of Princes above Clergymen Principes Seculares respectu Clericorum non sunt Principes Princes are no Princes of Clerkes c. Politicall lawes have no coactive obligation over Clerkes but onely directive The Civill lawes of Emperours must give place to the Canons of Popes What new Monster is this To receive Protection from the Lawes of Princes aud to acknowledge no Subjection to the Lawes of Princes If Princes should put Church men out of their ProtectioÌ„ as Bellarmine exempts them from all Coactive Obligation to the Lawes of Princes They would quickly find their Errour It is an honour to Princes to preserve to Church men their old Immunities but is it a Shame to Churchmen like Swine to eat the Fruit aud never looke up to the Tree from whence it falleth Wee have viewed the spoile Committed evidently when and by whom He whose office it was to praeserve all others from spoile could not preserve himself It is a Rule in Law Ame omnia Spoliaâ—us restiâ—ui debet Before all other things he that is spoiled ought to be restored to his Right And our old English Lawes are Diametrally opposite to these new Papall Vsurpations in all the parts of them First though the Kings and Kingdome of England were alwayes carefull to preserve the Privileges of Holy Church In all our Great Charters that was the first thing was taken Care for yet not as due by Divine Law and much lesse by the Lawes of the Pope which they never regarded but as Graces aud Privileges granted by the Kings of England aud therefore they excluded from benefit of Clergy such sort of delinquents as they thought fit as Proditores Traitours against the Person of the King Insidiatores viarum such as lay in wait to doe mischief upon the High-wayes Depopulatores agrorum such as depopulated the Land And the most severe Lawes that ever they made are the Statutes of Premunire and Provisors against Church-men for siding with the Bishop of Rome in his Vsurpations even to the forfeiture of their Goods and Lands their Losse of their Liberty and the putting them out of the Kings Protection Secondly our Lawes doe acknowledge every where that Homage and allegiance is alwayes due to the King from all Clergymen what soever Edward the first injoined all the Prelates upon their faith or Allegiance which they ought him They know no Fidelity or allegiance which is due to the Pope from any English man either Clergy man or Lay man but the just contrary that they are bound by their allegiance to fight for the King against the Pope for the redresse of these and such like Vsurpations In the fourteenth Yeare of Richard the second all the Spirituall Lords did answer unanimously That if any Bishop of England were excommunicated by the Pope for having executed the sentences and commandements of the King The same is against the King and his Crown And they will and ought to be with the King in these Cases lawfully and in all other Cases touching his Crown and his Regality as they be bound in their Allegiance Our Lawes know no Oath of Allegiance or Fealty due to any person but the King they make the King to be Advowee Paramont Supreme Lord and Patron Guardian Protector and Champion of thâ—
Court of the Church whereby men are compelled against their wills by Exteriour Meanes This the Apostles had not froÌ„ Christ nor their Successours froÌ„ them Neither did Christ ever assume any such power to him self in the world My Kingdome is not of this world And Man who made me a Iudge or divider over you Yet the greatest Controversies at this day in the Ecclesiasticall Court are about Possessions as Glebes Tithes Oblations Portions Legacies Administrations c. And if it were not for these the rest would not be so much valued in Criminibus non in Possessionibus potestas vestra quontam propter illa non propter has accepistis Claves regni Caelorum Saith St. Bernard well to the Pope Your power is in Crimes not in possessions for those and not for these you received the Keys of the kingdome of Heaven But suppose the Controversy to be about a Crime Yet who can summon another mans Subjects to appear where they please and imprison or punish them for not appearing without his leave All that power which Ecclesiasticall Iudges have of Externall Coaction they owe it wholy either to the Submission of the parties where the Magistrate is not Christian as the Iewes at this day doe undergoe such Penitentiall Acts as are enjoined them by their Superiours because the Reverence of them who obey doth supply the defects of their power who Command Or where the Magistrate is Christian they owe it to his Gracious Concessions Of which if any Man doubt and desire to see how this Coactive power how these externall Privileges did first come to be enjoyed by Ecclesiasticall persons Let him read over the first booke of the Code and the Authenticks or Novels of Iustinian And for our English Church in Particular let him consult with our best Historiographers Eadmerus was one whom they need not suspect of partiality as being Pope Vrbanes own Creature and by his speciall appointment placed over Anselm at his own intreaty as a Superviser to exercise his Obedience Whose injunctions had so much power over him that if he placed him in his Bed he would not onely not rise without his Command but not so much as turn him self from one side to another Vt cum Cubili locasset non solum sine praecepto ejus non surgereâ— sed nec latus inverteret What Marvell is it if the ancient Liberties of the English Church went first to wrack in Anselms Dayes about the Yeare of our Lord 1000 for he died Anno 1109 who being a Stranger Primate had so totally surrendered up his own reason to the Popes Creature Yet this Eadmerus saith of Lanfranke His wisdome recovered other Customes which the Kings of England by their Munificence had granted to the Church of Canterbury in ancient times and established them for ever by their sacred Decrees that it might be most free in all things All externall exemption and Coaction is Politicall and proceedeth originally from the Soveraign Prince This is that which S. Paul teacheth us The weapons of our warfare are not Carnall The weapons of the Church are Spirituall not worldly not externall But Citations and Compulsories and Significavits and Writs ad excommunicatum capiendum which are not written by the Bishops own hand yet at his beck and Apparitors and Iaolers c Are Weapons of this world and tend to externall Coaction For all which the Church is beholden to the Civill power to whom alone externall Coaction doth properly and originally belong This is that which St. Chrysostome observed in his comparison between a Bishop and a Shepheard It is not lawfull to cure men with so great Authority as the Shepheard cureth his Sheep For it is free for the Shepheard to bind his sheep to drive them from their meat to burn them to cut them But in the case of the Bishop the Faculty of curing consisteth not in him who administreth the Phisick but in him that is sick c. St. Chrysost. speaketh of power purely Spirituall which extendeth it self no further theÌ„ the Court of conscieÌ„ce where no man can be cured against his will But Soveraign Princes have found it expedieÌ„t for the good both of the Church and of the Commonwealth to strengthen the Bishops haÌ„ds by imparting some of their Politicall authority to him from whose gracious indulgence all that externall coactive power which Bishops have doth proceed Now to apply this to our purpose Wheresoever our Lawes doe deny all Spirituall Iurisdiction to the Pope in England it is in that sense that wee call the exteriour Court of the Churâ—h the Spirituall Court They doe not intend at all to deprive him of the power of the Keys or of any Spirituall power that was bequeathed unto him by Christ or by his Apostles when he is able to prove his Legacy Yea even in relation to England it self Our Parliaments never did pretend to any power to change or Abridge divine right Thus much our very Proviso in the body of our Law doth testify that it was no part of our meaning to vary from the Articles of the Catholick Faith in any thing Nor to vary from the Church of Christ in any other thing declared by the holy Scripture and the word of God necessary to salvation If wee have taken away any thing that is of divine right it was retracted before it was done Then followeth the true Scope of our Reformation Onely to make an Ordinance by Pollicies necessary and convenient to represse Vice and for good Conservation of the Realm in peace unity and tranquillity from ravine and spoile insuing much the ancient Customes of this Realm in that behalf That wich professed it self a Politick Ordinance doth not meddle with Spirituall Jurisdiction If it had medled with Spirituall Iurisdiction at all it had not insued the ancient Customes of the Realm of England In summe that externall Papall power which we rejected and cast out and which onely we cast out is the same which the English Bishops advised Aâ—selm to renounce when it was attempted to be obtruded upon the Kingdome But know that all the Kingdome complaineth against thee that thou endeavourest to take away from our Common Maister the Flowers of his Imperiall Crown Whosoever takes away the Customes which pertein to his royall dignity doth take away his Crown and Government together for we prove that one cannot be decently had without the other But we beseech the consider and cast away thy Obedience to that Vrban who cannot help the if the King be offended nor hurt thee if the King be pacified Shake of the yoke of Subjection and freely as it becomes an Arch-bishop of Canterbury in all thy Actions expect the Kings pleasure and Commands What soever power our Lawes did divest the Pope of they invested the King with it but they never invested the King with any Spirituall power or Iurisdiction witnesse the Injunctions of Queen Elisabeth witnesse the publick Articles of
whole Circuit of Cathage with a Bulls hide by her art so he within his First Movership can comprehend the Patronage of the English Church and the right to Convocate and dissolve and confirm English Synods and to invalidate old Oaths and to impose new Oaths of Allegiance and to receive Tenths and first fruits and all Legislative Judiciary and dispensative power Coactively in the exteriour Court of the Church over English Subjects He cannot plead any Charter from England we never made any such Grant and althoâ—gh we had yet considering how infinitely prejudiciall it is to the Publick Tranquility of the Kingdome we might and ought more advisedly to retract what we unadvisedly once resolved And for Prescription he is so far to seek that there is aâ— cleare Prescription of eleven hundred Yeares against him So there is nothing remaineth for him to stick to but his empty pretense of divine Right which is more ridiculous then all the rest to claime a divine right of such a Soveraign power which doth branch it self into so many particulars after eleven hundred Yeares which for so many Ages had never been acknowledged never practised in the English Church either in whole or in part We cannot believe that the whole Christian world were Mole-eyed or did sit in darknesse for so many Centuries of years untill Pope Hildebrand and Pope Paschalis did start up like two new Lights with their Weapons in their hands to thumpe Princes and knock them into a right Catholick beliefe And indeed this Answer to his pretended demonstration by a reall demonstration where the true Controversie doth lye and who are the true innovators doth virtually answer whatsoever he hath said So I might justly stop here and sâ—spend my former paines but that I have a great mind to try if I can find out one of those many Falsifications and Contradictions which he would make ns believe he hath espied in my discourse if it be not the deception of his sight First he telleth us that our best Champions doe grant that our faith and its grounds are but probable Surely he did write this between sleeping and waking when he could not well distinguish between necessary points of faith and indifferent Opinions concerning points of faith Or to use Cajetans expression between determinare de fideformaliter and determinare de eo quod est fidei Materialiter Between points of faith necessary to be believed And such Questions as doe sometimes happen in things to be believed As for Essentialls of faith the Pillars of the Earth are not founded more firmly then our beliefe upon that undoubted Rule of Vincentius Quicquid ubique semper ab omnibus c. Whatsoever we believe as an Article of our faith we have for it the Testimony and Approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and therein the Church of Rome it self But they have no such perpetuall or Vniversall Tradition for their twelve new Articles of Pope Pius This Objection would have become me much better then him Whatsoever we believe they believe and all the Christian World of all Places and all Ages doth now believe and ever did believe except condemned Hereticks But they endeavour to obtrâ—de new Essentialls of faith upon the Christian World which have no such Perpetuall no such Vniversall Tradition He that accuseth another should have an eye to himself Does not all the World see that the Church of England stands now otherwise in order to the Church of Rome then it did in Henry the sevenths dayes He addeth further that it is confessed that the Papall power in Ecclesiastical affaires was cast out of EnglaÌ„d in Henry the eights dayes I answer that there was no Mutation concerniâ—g faith nor concerning any Legacy which Christ left to his Church nor concerning the power of the Keys or any Iurisdiction purely Spirituall but concerning coactive power in the exteriour Court concerning the Politicall or Externall RegimeÌ„t of the Church concerning the Patronage or civill Soveraignty over the Church of EnglaÌ„d and the Legislative Iudiciary and Dispensative power of the Pope in EnglaÌ„d over English Subjects Which was no more then a Reinfranchisement of ourselves from the upstart Vsurpations of the Court of Rome Of all which I have shewed him expresly the first source who began them when and where before which he is not able to give one instance of any such Practises attempted by the Bishop of Rome and admitted by the Church of England Who it is that lookes asquint or awry upon the true case in Controversy between us let the ingenuous Reader Iudge I doe not deny nor ever did deny but that there was a reall separation made yea made by us from their Vsurpations but I both did deny and doe deny that there was any SeparatioÌ„ made by us from the Institution of Christ or from the Principles of Christian Vnity This Separation was made long since by themselves when they first introduced those novelties into the Church and this Seperation of theirs from the pure Primitive Doctrine and Discipiine of the Church doth acquit us and render them guilty of the Schisme before God and man And therefore it is a vain and impertinent Allegation of him to tell us that Governours may lawfully declare themselves publickly and solemnly against the renouncers of their Authority by Excommunication unlesse he could shew that the Bishop of Rome hath such an absolute Soveraignty over us as he imagineth extending it self to all those Acts which are in Controversy between us And that in the exercise of the power of the Keys they proceded duely in a legall manner And especially that they did not mistake their own Vsurpation for the Institution of Christ as we affirm and know they did His whole Discourse about immediate Tradition is a bundle of uncertain presumptions and vain Suppositions First he supposeth that his Rule of so vast a multitude of Eye-witnesses of Visible things is uniform and vniversall but he is quite mistaken the practiâ—e was different The Papalms made Lawes for their Vsurpations and the three Orders of the Kingdome of England made Lawes against them To whom in Probability should our Ancestors adhere to their owâ— Patriots or to Strangers Secondly he presumeth that this uniform practise of his Ancestors was invariable without any shadow of Change but it was nothing lesse First Investitures were in the Crown and an Oath of Fidelity made to the King without any Scruple even by Lanfranke and Anselm both Strangers Afterwards the Investitures were decried as profane and the Oath of Fidelity forbidden Next a new Oath of Allegiance was devised of Clergimen to the Pope First onely for Archbishops then for all Prelates And this Oath at first was moderate to observe the Rules of the holy Fathers but shortly after more Tyrannous to maintain the Roâ—alties of Sainct Peter as their own Pontificalls the old and the new do witnesse First when they tooke away Investitures from the Crown they were all
their fore fathers to be the infallible voice of the Church At other times he maketh the extent of Papall power to be a matter of Indifferency wherein every Church is free to hold their own Opinions In his Rule of Discipline he maketh St. Peter onely to be the Head the Chiefe the Prince of the Apostles the First mover in the Church all which in a right sense we approve or do not oppose Why doth he not acknowledge him to be a visible Monarch an absolute Soveraign invested with a plenitude of power Soveraign Legislative Iudiciary Dispensative All the rest of the Apostles were First Movers in the Church even as well as St. Peter except onely his Primacy of order which we allow When your men come to aâ—swer this they feign the Apostles were all equall in relatioÌ„ to ChristiaÌ„ people but not in relatioÌ„ to one another Yes even in Relation to themselves and one another as hath beeÌ„ expresly declared long since in the First Generall Councell of Ephesus not now to be contradicted by them Petrus Ioannes aequalis sunt ad alterutrum dignitatis Peter and Iohn were of equall Dignity one towards another A Primacy of Order may confist with an Equality of Dignity but a Supremacy of power taketh away all Parity Par in parem non habet potestatem He is blind who doth no see in the History of the Acts of the Apostles that the supremacy or Soveraignty of power did not rest in the person of any one single Apostle but in the Apostolicall College These indefinite Generalities he stileth Determinate points It may be Determinate for the generall truth but Indeterminate for the particular manner about which all the Controversy is Yet he who never wanteth Demonstrative Arguments to prove what he listeth will make it evident out of the very word Reformation which we own and extoll that we have broken the Rule of Unity in Discipline If he doe he hath good luck for by the same reason he may prove that all the Councells of the Christian world both Generall and Provinciall have broken the Bond of Vnity by owning and extolling the very word Reformation both name and thing As for the points of our Reformation I doe not referre him to Platonicall Ideas to be found in the Concave of the Moone but to our Lawes and Statutes made by all the Orders of our Kingdome Church and Commonwealth not as they are wrested by the tongnes and pens of our Adversaries Malice may be a good informer but a bad judge but as they are expounded by the Genuine and Orthodox Sons of the English Church by our Princes by our Synods by our subsequent Parliaments by our Theologians by our most Iudicious Lawiers in their Injunctions in their Acts in their Canons in their writings which he may meete with if he have such a mind in earnest without any great search in every Library or Stationers shop Sect I. Cap. XI We doe not suffer any man to reject the 39. Articles of the Church of England at his pleasure yet neither doe we looke upon them as Essentialls of saving Faith or Legacies of Christ and of his Apostles but in a meane as pious Opinions fitted for the Preservation of Vnity neither doe we oblige any man to believe them but onely not to contradict them Yet neither is the Bishop got into a wood nor leaveth his Reader in another further from knowing what these Doctrines of saving Faith are then he was at first It is Mr. Serjeants Eyesight that failes him through too much light which maketh him mistake his ancient Creed for a wood and the Articles for trees persons who are gogle eied seldome see well wherein all things necessary to be believed are comprehended And although he inquire Where are the processions of the Divine Persons the Sacraments Baptism of Children the Government of the Church the acknowledging there is such a thing as Scripture to be be found in the creed The Bishop is so far from being gravelled with sâ—ch doughty Questions that he pitieth his simplicity aÌ„d returneth him for answer that if he be not mopâ—eyed he may find the Procession of the Divine Persons in his Creed that the Sacraments and Discipline of the Church are not to be reckoned amoÌ„g the Credenda or things to be believed but among the Agenda or things to be acted and the Holy Scripture is not a particular Doctrin or point of Faith but the Rule wherein and whereby all Fundamentall Doctrins or points of Faith are comprehended and tried So still his truth remaineth unshaken that the Creed is a Summary of all particular points of saving faith which are necessary to be believed He proceedeth that the Protestants have introduced into the Church since the Reformation no particular Form of Government in stead of that they renounced A grievous accusation We had no need to introduce new formes having preserved the old They who do onely weed a Garden have no need to set new Plants We have the Primitive Discipline of the Church and neither want Spirituall nor Ecclesiasticall nor Politicall Government If you have any thing to say against it cough out and spare not And although we want such a free and generall Communion with the Christian World as we could wish and such as Bishops had one with another by their formed Letters Yet we have it in our desires and that we have it not actually it is principally your faults who make your Vsurpations to be Conditions of your Communion And so I leave him declaiming against Libraries of Bookes filled with dead words and thousands of Volumes scarcely to be examined in a mans whole life time and quibling about Forefathers and inheriting and Reformation and Manasseh Ben Israel and repeating the same things over and over againe as if no man did understand him who did not heare him say over the same things an hundred times He Chargeth me that having granted that They and we do both maintain his Rule of Vnity yet I do immediatly disgrace it by adding that the Question is only who have changed that Doctrin or this Discipline we or they We by substraction or they by Addition Which is as much as to say the pretended Rule is no Rule at all When he and his Merry Stationer were set upon the Pin of making Contradictions doubtlesse this was dubbed a famous Contradiction or an absurdity at least As if a man might not hold one thing in his Iudgement and pursue another in his Practice professe one thing in words and perform another in deeds Video melior a proboque Deterior a sequor Medea see that which was right and approved it but swerved altogether from it in her Practise They professe saith St. Paul that they know God but in workes they deny him The Church of Rome professeth in words to adde nothing to the Legacies of Christ and his Apostles but in their deeds they doe adde and adde
Surrejoinder together in this one short Section and give sentence readily who is the Mountebanke and Prevaricatour And first I challenge this great Champion of downright Cowardise as great as ever his Predecessour Thraso shewed in the Comedy in smothering and concealing palpably and shamefully his Adversaries reasons and declining the heat of the assault The maine subject of this Section was to shew that the ancient Kings of England did assume as much power in Ecclesiasticall affaires as Henry the eighth did that the Lawes of Henry the eighth were no new Lawes but onely renovations and Confirmations of the ancient Lawes of England which had never bene repealed or abrogated in the dayes of his Predecessors but were of force in England at that very time when he made his Lawes As the Statutes of Clarendon The Statute of Carlile The Articles of the Clergy The Statutes of Provisors and other old Lawes made in the time of Henry the first Henry the third Edward the first and Edward the third Richard the second Henry the Fourth all of them dead and gone many ages before Henry the eighth was born I shewed particularly that they suffered not the Pope to send for any English Subject out of England to Rome without leave nor to send any Legate into England without leave nor to receive any Appeale out of England without leave They made it death or at least the forfeiture of all a mans estate to bring any Papall Bulls or Excommunications into England They called Ecclesiasticall Councells made Ecclesiasticall Lawes punished Ecclesiasticall persons prohibited Ecclesiasticall Iudges received Ecclesiasticall Appeales made Ecclesiasticall Corporations appropriated Ecclesiasticall Benifices rejected the Popes Lawes at their pleasure with a Nolumus wee will not have the Lawes of England to be Changed or gave Legislative Interpretations of them as they thought fit All this I have made evideÌ„t out of our ancient Lawes our Records our Historiographers in my Vindication in my Reply and in this Treatise And therefore I might well retort upon him his own Confident bragge that it is as cleare as the suns shining at noone day or that the same thing cannot be and not be at once that our Ancestours who did all this and much more then this did acknowledge no Monarchicall power of the Pope in the Exteriour Court by Christs own Ordination as Mr. Serjeant asserteth and that they did exercise as much power in the externall Regiment of the Church as Henry the eighth did and that Henry the eighths lawes were no new lawes devised by himself but were the lawes of these ancient Kings renewed by him or rather the Fundamentall Lawes and Liberties of England exposed by these ancient Kings as a Buckler against the Encroachments of the Roman Court. Now to all this cleare evidence what answer doth Mr. Serjeant make Iust Thraso-like when the matter comes to push of pike he sneaketh away post principia into the securest place he can find Speak the truth in earnest did Pyrrhus use to doe thus It is not possible to squeese one word of particular answer out of him onely in generall he saith I bring divers allegations wherein the Popes pretenses were not admitted c. And so proceedeth doe we professe the Pope can pretend to no more then his right c. Lawes and Records are but bare Allegations with him and prohibiting under pain of Death or Confiscation of Goods is no more but not admitted Speake out man and shame the devill whether did the Pope pretend more then is right or not whether were the ancieÌ„t English Lawes just Lawes or not This is certain his Pretensions and these Lawes cannot both be just The very substance of his Monarchicall power in the exteriour Court is prohibited by these Lawes his Soveraign power or Patronage of the English Church his Iudiciary Power his Legislative Power his dispensative Power all are lost if these Lawes stand All which Mr. Serjeant blancheth over with this generall expression such and such things Will the Court of Rome thank such and such an Advocate who forsakes them at a dead lift I trow no. And although I called upon him in my reply for a fuller and more satisfactory answer to these Lawes yet he giveth none in his Rejoinder but shuffleth up the matter in Generalls As for his particularities entrenching on or pretended to entrench on the Popes Authority whether they were lawfully done or no how far they extended in what Circumstances or cases they held in what not how the Letter of those Lawes are to be understood c. all which the Bishop Omitts though he expresse the bare words it belongs to Canon and Secular Lawiers to scuffle about them not me I hold my self to the Lists of the Question and the limits of a Controvertist Yes even as Thrasoheld himself to the Lists when he stole behind the second wards This is neither more nor lesse but flat running away and crying to the Canonists for help If the subject be improper for him why did he undertake it and not try first Quid ferre recusent Quid valeant humeri Why did he undertake it with so much youthfull Confidence and insulting scorn and petulance to accuse his adversary of impudence And as if impudence were too moderate a Character for him as a profest and sworn enemy of truth shame and honesty making him worse then a mad man or born foole And all this for pretending that Henry the eighth did no more against the Papacy then his Ancestour Kings had done before him and now when his Cavills are thrust down his own throat when the impudence is brought home to him and laid at his own doore when the very Lawes of his Ancestours are produced wherein they provided the same remedies for the Roman Court that Henry the eighth did he would with draw his own neck oâ—t of the Collar and leave the defence of his cause to the CanoÌ„ and Secular Lawiers to scuffle about the sense of these ancieÌ„t Lawes and whether they were law fully done or no and how far they extended and in what cases they hold in what not And this is all the answer which he vouchsafeth to these ancient English Lawes that is as much as to say he knoweth not what to answer or it doth not belong to him to answer and this he calleth holding himself to the Lists of the Question but all other men call it leaping out of the Lists of the Question and a shamefull deserting the cause he had uâ—dertaken to defend I ever acknowledged that Henry the eighth made sundry new Staâ—utes against the Vsurpations of the Court of Rome but I adde that these Statutes were declarative of old Law not Enactive of new Law This is as cleare as his noone day-light And I proved it by the Authority of two of our greatest Lawiers Fitz Herbert and my Lord Cooke persons sufficient to know the difference between a Statute declarative of old Law and a Statute Enactive of new
of Peaces Closet And yet he is as confident as Gawen the best Statute he could pick out you may be sure How doth he know that We all see he never read it nor knoweth whether it be a Statute or no. Then he telleth us there is not a Syllable in it concerning Spirituall Iurisdiction Well guessed by Instinct but for once his Instinct hath deceived him if Excommunication be any part of Spirituall Iurisdiction there is more then one Syllable of Spirituall Iurisdiction in it But concerning our English Statutes both ancient and new which concern the casting of Papall Authority out of the Kingdom I have given him a full satisfactory account formerly to which I refer him We have seen how carelesse he is in reading over Lawes before he answer them Now let us observe the same Oscitance or want of Ingenuity towards his Adversary that he may learn what he gets by his Falsifications Nempe hoc quod Veneri donatae a virgine puppae Reall falsifications retorted upon him instead of his feigned ones He answered that to limit an Authority implyes an admittance of it in cases to which the Limitation extends not I replyed that these ancient Lawes of England did not onely limit an Authority but deny it that is deny it in such and such cases mentioned in the Lawes deny it Coactively in the exteriour Court without the leave of the Soveraign Prince So the Lawes may differ the restraints may differ the leave may differ in degrees according to the difference of places notwithstanding this denyall That which he beateth at is this that we deny all Papall power whatsoever but other Churches do onely limit it I answer we doe not deny the Bishop of Rome all manner of power We deny him not the power of the Keys we deny him not any power purely Spirituall we deny him not his beginning of Vnity if he could he contended with it but we deny him all Coactive power in the Exteriour Court over the Subjects of other Princes without the Soveraigns leave If some Princes give more leave then others as finding it more expedient for their affaires we doe not envy it But he urgeth that I do not deny equivalent Lawes in France Spain Germany Italy I neither deny it nor affirm it or I affirm it onely in part Yes there are some such Lawes in all these places by him mentioned perhaps not so many but the Liberties of the French Church are much the same with the English Some such Lawes not so many much the same are no proofes of Equivalence or if he will call them Equivalent it is onely secundum quid not simpliciter respectively in some cases not vniversally in all cases But he hath another place which striketh home where I affirm that the likâ— lawes may be found in Germany Poland France Spaine Italy Sicily and if we will trust Padre Paolo the Papacy it self But did either I or Padre Paolo speak of those ancieÌ„t English lawes by me cited made to restraine the Vsurpations of the Bishops of Rome So he saith but it is a grosse Falsification I did neither speake of them in that place nor Padre Paolo but we both speake of another Law of a quite different nature from these that is the Law of Mortmain a Law meerly Politicall to restrain men from giving Lands to the Church without License Of this I said there are found like Lawes to it in Germany Poland France Spain Italy Sicily and Padre Paolo addeth in the Papacy it self What an Adversary have I to deale with who either understandeth not what the Law of Mortmain is or regardeth not how he falsifieth his Adversaries words But from these mistaken and mishapen premisses he draweth ten Conclusions every one of them driving me to a Contradiction or Absurdity at least The first second third and fourth are the same in effect or all comprehended in the first that it is opposite to the generall opinion of the whole world Catholicks Protestants Puritans Secondly that it is against the profession of the Protestants who extoll that happy time when England was freed from the yoke of Rome Thirdly that it contradicts our Reformation in the point of the Popes Supremacy there could be no Reformation of that which was not otherwise before and therefore Henry the eighth added something of his own to these ancient Lawes Fourthly he saith that Doctor Hammond acknowledgeth that Papall power was cast out of England in Henry the eights dayes And the sixth is that this Position is particularly opposite to the Common â—onsent of the Catholick Countries who all looked on Henry the eighth and the Church of England ever since as Schismaticall Doubtlesse he meaneth Roman Catholick Countries Was it not enough to say that it was Contrary to the Generall opinion of the whole world unlesse he added Protestants and Reformers and Doctor Hammond and Roman Catholicks as if they were none of the world Reader I undertooke to prove that HeÌ„ry the eighths Lawes against the Vsurpations of the Roman Bishop were no new Lawes but ancient Lawes of England I have done it by producing the ancient Lawes themselves five or six hundred yeares old and I am yet ready to shew further that they were no new Lawes then but the Fundamentall Lawes of England derived from the first founding of the British and English Churches as to the substance of them To all my premisses or particularities as he calleth them he hath been able to answer nothing but leaves them to the Canon and Secular Lawiers to scuffle about them but he utterly denyeth my Conclusion what an absurdity that is he is not ignorant But alas what doth the world know of the Municipall Lawes of England untill we instruct them better and what Opinion can Forreiners have of us but what they learn from him and his Fellowes We acknowledge with Doctor Hammond that Papall Vsurpations were cast out of England in Henry the eights time but we adde not by the Creation of new Lawes but by the vigorous execution of the ancient Lawes being first renewed and confirmed by himself We acknowledge that Henry the eighth did finally shake of the yoke of Rome which could not have been done if there had been nothing to have been shaken of or reformed but this doth not hinder but that his Predecessors did attempt to shake it of long before even at the first appearing of it yea and did actually shake it of for a time in a great part His fifth Objection is that according to me the Lawes made by Henry the eighth did no more then the former Lawes Where did I say so untill he is able to shew it me which I shall expect at the Greek Calends I shall score it up among his lesser Falsifications And for his inference which he makes that he never heard it pretended that they did shake of the Roman yoke in part or for a time therefore they did it not it sheweth but his ignorance in
that the Canons of the Fathers be not sleighted But they who never exercised one Act of IurisdictioÌ„ in the Brittannick Iland for the first 600 years cannot pretend that it was under their power in the time of the Councell of Ephesus or long after It was not for nothing that he concealed the words of the Councell Yet he asketh what do the Scots concern the Church of Englands Vindication Do they not Are not the Scots a part of the Britannick Ilands and so comprehended under the name of the Church of England in this Question Besides he must know that I challenge some Interest among the Irish Scots from whom I derive my Episcopall Orders Against the Irish Ordination never any man had any pretense of Exception to this Day The Irish were the ancient and principall Scots and the Britannick Scots a Colony derived from them That they are the ancient Scots who did join with the Britons in not submitting to the See of Rome I shall shew him clearly from the Authority of Lawrence Successor to S. Austin in his Archbishoprick and the other English Bishops of that Age in their Letter to the Bishops of Scotland To conclude he tooke not onely Care of the new Church collected of the English but of the old Inhabitants of Britain and also of the Scots who inhabit Ireland the next Island to Britain For assoone as he knew that their life and profession in their Country was like that of the Brittons in Britany not Ecclesiasticall c. That is to say not Roman He seeth I had some reason not to â—eave out the Scots Besides the Britons the Scots and the Irish I urged that the great Kingdomes of Morcia and Northumberland were converted by the Scots and had their Religion and Ordination first from the Scots afterwards among themselves without any forrein dependence and so were as free as the Britons He saith all the force lieth in these words without any Forrein dependence wich I obtrude â—pon them without any proofe His mistakes are infinite my proofe is Demonstrative They who had their first Ordination from the Scots and ever after were Ordeined among themselves never had any Ordination from the Bishop of Rome and consequently were never subject to the Iurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome For it is a Maxime in the Law and is most evident in the case of the Cyprian Bishops in the Councell of Ephesus that the right of â—urisdiction doth follow the right of Ordination And if it were not so yet what man in his right wits could Imagin that the Scots who were the Converters should renounce Subjection to the Bishop of Rome themselves and teach their Converts the Mercians and Northumbrians to submit to the Bishop of Rome But if I had said no more but onely that they were without any forrein dependence it had been enough on my part It belongeth not to me to prove a Negative and such a continued Negative as this is but the burthen of the proofe resteth wholy upon him both in reason and Law to prove his Affirmative that the MerciaÌ„s and Northumbrians did depend upon the Bishop of Rome in those dayes in point of practise for Ordination and Iurisdiction which he is not able to doe What he addeth that I said Ordination is nothing at all to Iurisdiction is for want of Vnderstanding because he is not able to distinguish between the right of Ordination and the Act of Ordeining We attribute to the Scots the Act of Ordeining not a Superiour right of Ordination In the next place I urged that a world of British Christians staid behind among the Saxon Conquerours every where all over England such whom they had no cause to feare for their power Activity or Influence upon others which poore Conquered Christians had a right to the just Privileges of their Ancestours He would perswade us First that all of them or all except some few fled into Wales or Cornwall What to do To be repacked there as herrings Or like Camelions to live upon the aire and leave all the rest of the Kingdome desolate It was not ten or twenty nor a hundred nor aâ— thousand little Vessells could bring over Saxons enough with their wifes and Children and Servants to plant the Kingdomes of England We see dayly that the very Armies of such Conquerours doe consist for the greater part of Natives and that it is not their forrain Numbers but their Military Skill and resolution which gaineth them the Victory Looke upon all the Kingdomes of the world Italy Spain France England c. and what are they but mixed Societies of Forreiners and Natives Conquerers and Conquered persons now iâ—corporated with little or no distinction by long Tract of time After the Norman Conquest hundreds of English inhabited England for one Norman In the beginning of the late Insurrection in Ireland notwithstaÌ„ding those great nâ—mbers which came over daily into Ireland and Scotland to seeke for Plantations for thirty or forty yeares together yet there were ten Irish for one English and Scotch and yet we do not find that these Saxon warres were so bloudy as the Irish warres or that either they persecuted the persons of the Britons with Cruelty or so much as demolished their Churches But he supposeth that if there were any such British Christians yet they became subject to the Pope I believe some of them were subject to the Pope as to the Bishop of their Mother Church and all of them as to the Bishop of an Apostolicall Church that is to be guided by his grave advise and direction but I deny that ever the Saxon Bishops were subject to the Pope as to an absolute Monarch by Christs own ordination or that the Pope enjoyed the Soveraign Patronage of the Saxon Church or the Supreme Legislative Iudiciary or dispensative power over it This the Saxon Kings and their Bishops under theÌ„ ever enjoyed as the Britons did before them and this is all which our Kings desire or we claime for them If he have any thing to say to this point let him bring Authorities not words He saith This is all one as if some few men setling by accident in France should pretend an exemption from the French Lawes and expect English Privileges Nay it is cleare contrary as if some French men comming into Britaine and planting and propagating there should expect the British Privileges to their Posterity So the Saxons planting in Britain so soone as their Posterity was capable of them by becomming Christians might justly claime the Liberties and Privileges of British Christians I said the Saxon Conquest gave them as good title to the Privileges as to the Lands of the Britons He stileth it a rare reason as if I meant that Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction were a thing of that nature to be won by the sword Or rather as if he meant Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court and Iurisdiction purely Spirituall which Christ left unto his Church is all one I
doe not mean that power purely Spirituall is to be won by the Sword but I believe that exemtion from Coactive power in the exteriour Court is to be won by the sword So the Scots eased the Archbishop of York of the trouble of a great part of his Province◠So just Conquerours may and doe often change the Externall Policy of the Church for the publick good He bids me shew that the English Bishops were impowered by the British Bishops or else let me confesse that they could inherit no Privileges from them I can shew him that I my self was impowered and did receive my Episcopall Ordination from the ancient Scotch Bishops by an uninterrupted Succession And many English Bishops have received their orders mediatly or immediatly from the British Bishops I said most truely that before he can allege the Authority of the Councell of Sardica for Appeales to Rome he must renounce the divine institution of the Papacy or at least the divine right of the Bishop of Rome to the Papacy because that Canon submitted it to the good pleasure of the Fathers and grounded it upon the Memory of St. Peter not the Institution of Christ. The reason of this Consequence is most evident For the Councell of Sardica would not nor could have submitted that which is the Popes right by Christs own Ordination to the good pleasure of the Fathers whether he should have it or not nor would have assigned their respect to the Memorie of Saint Peter for a ground of that for which they had the Commandement of Christ But the Councell of Sardica did submit the Popes right to receive Appeales to the good pleasure of the Fathers Placetne doth it please you that we honour the memory of St. Peter Therefore they did not hold this right of the Pope to receive Appeales to be due to the Pope by Christs own Ordinance or Commandement This he is pleased to call a flat Falsification of the Councell there being not a word in it either concerning Papall power it self or its institution but concerning Appeales onely I am grown pretty well acquainted with his Falsifications Did I say there was any thing in the Councell concerning the Papacy or Institution of it If I did let him tell us where and when or els it is his own Falsification But by his own Confession there is something in the Councell concerning Appeales to the Pope and this is submitted by the Councell to the good pleasure of the Fathers and no higher ground assigned for it then the respect to the Memory of St. Peter yet this right of receiving Appeales is made by him and all his Partakers an Essentiall Branch of Papall power Therefore if he and his Partakers say true the Councell of Sardica did submit an Essentiall Branch of Papall Power or Papall power in part to the good pleasure of the Fathers which is as much as to say they held it not to be of divine Institution By this time I hope he understandeth my meaning better He presumeth that some British Bishops sate in Councell of Sardica it may be Athanasius intimateth as much He presumeth that they assented to the Sardican Canon about Appeales It may be or it may not be I should rather assent to their voting to acquit Athanasius who testifieth of them that they were right to the Nicene Faith But surely among all the Subscibers in the Sardican Councell there is not one British Bishop named And in the Synodall Letters of the Councell it self wherein they reckon all the Provinces Britain is not named But what is the right of receiving Appeales to an Vniversall Monarchy or the decree of a Councell to Christs own Ordination If we would be contented to abrogate our old Lawes and give the Bishop of Rome leave to execute that power which the Sardican Fathers did give him he would scorn it and much more their manner of giving it Si vobis placet if it please you or of it seem good to your Charity let us honour the Memory of St. Peter as both the Latin and the Greek Edition have it I said that the Councell of Sardica was no Generall Councell after the Eastern Bishops were departed not out of any ill will to Athanasius or favour to the Arrians as for Arrianisme the Sardican Fathers did no more then the Nicene had done before them but out of another Consideration because the presence of the five great Patriarchs with their respective Bishops or at least the greater part of them was ever more held necessary to the being of a Generall Councell as Bellarmine himself confesseth that the seventh Synod judged the Councell of Constantinople against Images to have been no General Councell because it had not Patriarchs enough If the Councell of Sardica had been a Generall Councell why doe St. Gregory the great Isiodore and Venerable Bede quite omit it out of the number of Generall Councells Why did St. Austin Alypius and the African Fathers sleight it And which is more then all this why doe the Eastern Church not reckon it among their seven Generall Councells nor the western Church among their eight first Generall Councells To Conclude why did the English Church leave the Sardican Councell out of the number of Generall Councells in the Synod of Hedtfelde in the yeare 680 and embrace onely these for Generall Councells untill that day The Councell of Nice the first of Constantinople the first of Ephesus the Councell of Chalcedon and the second of Chalcedon Here he may see a plain reason why I say the Councell of Sardica was never incorporated into the English Lawes I would know whether he or I be of the old English Religion in this point The five First Generall Councells were incorporated into the Law of England but the Councell of Sardica was none of them Therefore no Generall Councell I have given him a further account concerning this Councell Sect. 1 c. 7. to which I refer him I said and I said most truely that the Canons of the Sardican Councell touching Appeales were never received in England nor incorporated into our English Lawes For proofe hereof I bring him an evident demonstration out of the Fundamentall Law of England as it is recorded in that famous Memoriall of Clarendon All Appeales in England must proceed regularly from the Archdeacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and if the Archbishop failed to doe Iustice the last complaint must be to the King to give Order for redresse Our Ancestours had not so much respect for Pope Iulius nor thought appeales to Rome any honour to the Memory of St. Peter I said the Canon of the Councell of Sardica was cōtradicted after by the Great Councell of Chalcedon He rejuneth that I neither thought the words worth citing nor the Canon where the Abrogation of the Sardican Canon is found worth mentioning Pardon me I said nothing of Abrogation but I did say it contradicted it and for proofe of the
Apostolicall Bishop and his Primacy of Order so loÌ„g as the Church thought fit to continue it to that See if this would content him To my third reason he excepteth If Monarchy be of Divine Institution the Venetians and the Hollanders are in a sad case I am glad when I find any thing in him that hath but a resemblance of matter more then wind and empty words although they weigh nothing when they come to be examined The Venetians and Hollanders may be in a sad Condition in the Opinion of such rash Censurers as himself is who have learned their Theology and Politicks but by the halues Who taught him to argue from the Position of one lawfull forme of Government to the Deniall of another All lawfull Formes of Government are warranted by the Law of Nature and so have their Institution from God in the Law of Nature The Powers that be are ordained of God whether they be Monarchicall or Aristocraticall or Democraticall Man prepareth the Body God infuseth the Soule of Power which is the same in all Lawfull Formes But though all lawfull Formes of GovernmeÌ„t be warranted by the law of nature yet not all in the same Degree of Eminency There is but one soule in the body one Sun in the heaven one Maister in a Family and anciently one Monarch in each Society all the first Governours were Kings The soule of Soveraign Power is the same in all Formes but the Organ is more apt to attain its end in one Form then another in Monarchy then in Aristocracy or Democracy And we say God and Nature doe alwaies intend that which is best Thus it is in the Law of Nature which is warrant sufficient for any form of Government but in the Positive Law of God he never instituted or authorised any form but Monarchy In the last Paragraph where I say that the Popes Headship of Iurisdiction is not of divine Institution he excepteth that it is my bare saying and my old â—rick to say over againe the very point in dispute between us If this be the very point in dispute beâ—ween us as it is indeed it is more shame for him who letteth the very point in dispute alone and never offereth to come neare it especially having made such lowd bragges that he would charge the Crime of Schisme upon the Church of England with undeniable Evidence and prove the Popes Headship of Iurisdiction or Power by a more ample cleare and continued Title then any right of Law or Humane Ordinances can offer Quid tanto dignum tulit hic promiss or hiaâ—u As for my part I know my Obligation whilest I am upon the defensive to make good my ground and when it is my turn to assault I shall discharge my duty If he have any thing to say to the Huguenots of France they are at age to answer him themselves Our Controversy is onely concerning the Church of England SECT 6. That the King and Church of England had sufficieÌ„t grounds to seperate from the Court of Rome I had reason to wonder not at our Grounds but their sileÌ„ce that having so long so ofteÌ„ called for our grounds of Seperation and charged us that we have no grounds that we could have no grounds now when sufficient Grounds are offered to them two of them one after another should passe by them in deep silence And this Dispatcher being called upon for an answer unlesse he would have the cause sentenced against him upon a Nihil dicit with more haâ—â— then good speed gives us an answer and no Answer like the Title of an empty Apothecaries Box. If there be any Monster the Reader may looke for it on that side not on our side He may promise the View of a strange Monster in his Antepasts and Postpasts and blow his Trumpet to get pence a piece to see it as he phraseth it but if the Readers expect till he shew them any such rare sight they may wait untill Dooms day and all the remedy he offers them is to say he hath abused them as he doth often Now roome for his Case or his two Principles of Vnity which are evermore called in to help at a dead lift But his case is not the true case and his Rules are leaden Rules they might be streighâ— at the beginning but they have bended them according to their self Interest Both his case and his Principles have been sufficiently discussed and fully cleared so that I will not offend the Reader with his sleight dish of Coleworts sodden over and over againe He is angry that I make our seperation to be rather from the Court of Rome then from the Churcâ— of Rome and stileth it perfect Impudence So my Assertion be evidently true I weigh not his groundlesse Calumnies Let any man looke upon our GrievaÌ„ces and the Grounds of our Reformation 1. the intollerable extortion of the Roman Court 2. the unjust Vsurpations of the Roman Court 3. the malignant influence of the Roman Court upon the body politick 4. the like malignant influence of the Roman Court upon the body Ecclesiastick 5. and lastly the Violation of ancient Liberties and Exemtions by the Roman Court and he can not doubt from whence we made our Separation All our sufferings were from the Roman Court then why should we seek for ease but where our Shoe did wring us And as our GrievaÌ„ces so our ReformatioÌ„ was onely of the Abuses of the Roman Court Their bestowing of prelacies and dignities in England to the prejudice of the right patrons Their Convocating Synods in England without the Kings leave Their prohibiting English Prelates to make their old Feâ—dall Oaths to the King and obliging them to take new Oaths of Fidelity to the Pope Their imposing and receiving Tenths and First fruits and other arbitrary Pensions upon the English Clergy And lastly their usurping a Legislative Iudiciary and Dispensative Power in the exteriour Court by Politicall Coaction These are all the Branches of Papall power which we have rejected This Reformation is all the Separation that we have made in point of Discipline And for Doctrine we have no Difference with them about the old Essentialls of Christian Religion And their new Essentialls which they have patched to the Creed are but their erroneous or at the best probable Opinions no Articles of Faith He is still bragging of his Demonstrations yet they are but blind Enthymematicall Paralogismes wherein he maketh sure to set his best legge formost and to conceale the lamenesse of his Discourse as much as he can from the eyes of the Reader and still calling upon us for rigorous Demonstration I wish we knew whether he understaÌ„d what rigorous Demonstration is in Logick for no other Demonstration is rigorous but that which proceedeth according to the strict Rules of Logick either a priore or a posteriore from the cause or the effect And this Cause in Difference between us whether those Branches of power which the Pope claimeth and we have
our desire of Vnion yet God Almighty sets a greater value upon it He is not out of the Church who is within it in the desires of his heart and implicitly in the preparation of his mind Observe Reader who are the procreative and conserving Causes of this Schisme They frighted us from them with new Articles and Vsurpations they thrust us from them with new Censures and Excommunications and if we had a mind to return they tell us it were absurd in Government to readmiâ— us But my chiefest wonder is that he who was the other day by his own vote an Arâ—h rebell should talk so suddainly of hanging Suddain Changes are alwaies dangerous and for the most part personated He asketh whether our Ancestours did renounce the Popes Authority as Head of the Church If he mean a Head of Order they did not no more do we if he mean a Head of Soveraign power they did and so do we What I granted once I grant alwaies it is for Turncoats to take their swings I write semper idem of the same religion wherein I was baptised can he do the same But he urgeth that I make it the top of my Climax that our Ancestours threatned to make a wall of Seperation between the Court of Rome and them which sheweth that they did it not but it is evident that we have done what they onely threatned to doe and plead for our excuses that we have more experience then our Ancestours had I made it the top of my Climax indeed honest mens words are as good as deeds But doth he thinke that our Ancestours did onely make counterfeit Grimaces and threaten that which they could not Lawfully have performed Absit The Lawes and the threatning are easily reconciled Our Ancestours made very severe Lawes against the Vsurpations of the Court of Rome as I have shewed in particular throughout but they did not execute them so rigorously but connived at many innocent or not pernicious encroachments in hope the Court of Rome and their Emissaries would have kept themselves within some tolerable bounds of moderation But they found by experience and we by much longer and surer experience that all our Hopes were vaine that the Avarice of the Roman Court was not to be satiated or to be stinted that if we give them leave to thrust in their head they would quickly draw in their body after And therefore our Ancestours finding this true in a great part did threaten them to make a wall of Seperation that is to execute their Lawes rigorously to use no more indulgence or connivence to take away their Coactive power in the Exteriour Court altogether which the Lawes have taken away before sufficiently And we being confirmed by much longer and surer experience have accomplished what they threatned So this threatned Wall of Seperation is no new Law bâ—t a new Mandate to execute the old Lawes and our experience and our Ancestours materially is the same but ours is more grounded and more sure their seperation and ours was the same to point of Law but not of Execution And the reason why our Ancestours remedies were not Soveraign or sufficient enough was not want of virtue in the Remedy but want of due application Thus all Mr. Serjeanâ—s hopes are vanished and his Contradictions tumbled to Dust Great is Truth and prevaileth Yet he keepeth a great stirre and bustling about our Experience more then our Ancestours and praieth me in his scoffing manner Good my Lord tell us what this new experiment was and despairing as it were of successe in his request he addeth Since you are resolved to make a secret of this rare Experiment Now I have told him the secret what good will it doe him as much as he may put in his eye and see never a jot the worse I told him this rare secret before in these words We have more experience then our Ancestours had that their Remedies were not Soveraign or Sufficient enough that if we give him leave to thrust in his head he will never rest untill he have drawn in his whole body after whilest there are no Bonds to hold him but Nationall Lawes But I was not bound both to write him a Lecture and find him eyes Now Readers looke to yourselves out commeth the great Monster that hath been so long threatned as he phraseth it scurrilously in the likenesse of a Drunken Dutchman making Indentures with his Legges so saith he my discourse staggers now to the one now to the other far distant side of the Contradiction The Reader shall find that the fault is not in the innocent Dutchman who goeth straight enough but in the Prevaricators eyes who seeth double Either he did never know or he hath forgotten what a Contradiction is The Itch or humour of Contradicting hath so far possessed him that he regardeth not what the Rules of Contradiction are The first Contradiction is That the Lawes of our Ancestours were not remedies sufficient enough yet I maintein stoutly that in the Seperation no new Law was made That is as he collecteth the same Lawes were both sufficient and not sufficient Is this the monstrous Contradiction which he promised to shew the Readers for pence a piece The same Lawes were not sufficient in the dayes of our Ancestours and yet the same Lawes were sufficient in the Dayes of Henry the eighthâ— hath no shew of a Contradiction in it nor of any the least opposition which ought alwaies to be made according to the Rules of Logick at the same time I will shew him a hundred of these ContradictioÌ„s every day in the week for nothing Mr. Serjeanâ— was no Roman Catholick Mr. Serjeant is a Roman Catholick is just such another Contradiction or the same Plaister was not sufficient to cure such a sore at one time yet it was sufficient at another time when the Body was better disposed All his Contradictions end in smoke and laughter The second Contradiction is that I said the Lawes of other Countries were equivalent to those of England but I acknowledge elswhere that the Lawes of other Countries were sufficient and here I say that the Lawes of Eâ—gland were insufficient So they were equivalent and inequivalent Here is another Contradiction like the former The same Lawes proved sufficient to France yet proved insufficient to England It is another rule in Logick Opposition ought to have the same Subject and the same Predicate without ambiguity but here the Predicate is diverse sufficient for France not sufficient for England and ambiguity more then enough He might as well argue The same Medicine will work upon a child which will not work upon a Man therefore the same Medicine is not equivalent to it self The third Contradiction is that I say All Catholick Countries did maintein their Privileges inviolate by meanes which did not maintein them or by Lawes which were not sufficient to do it Where did I say this It is his Collection not my Assertion but let it
receive Tenths and First fruits and Oaths of Fidelity and concerning the Supreme Legislative Dispensative and Iudiciary power in all things perteining to the Externall Regimeut of the Church To all this neither the Bishop of Chalcedon nor Mr. Serjeant either in his former Answer or in this rejoinder although provoked have offered one word of Answer This Plea doth utterly destroy their pretense of Divine right and of uninterrupted Tradition for all these Branches of Papall power Can any man be so stupid as to Imagin that to be of divine right which was first tacked into the Church with so much Opposition after eleven hundred yeares or that to be grounded upon perpetuall and Vniversall Tradition which hath been opposed in all Ages since it was devised in all places by all sorts of persons Kings and their Parliaments and Councells Synods and Vniversities Divines and Lawiers What shamefull Tergiversation is this which no ingenious Adversary could be guilty of but out of invincible necessity Thus he served me where I produced all our old English Lawes Thus he served me where I produced their own Authours to testify the intolerable extortions and Vsurpatiōs of the Romā Court Thus he serveth me here and in place of so many lawes and Proclamations and Placaets and Synodall Acts and Iudgements of Vniversities he shuffleth in so many of his fiddle-faddle Contradictions which are not all worth a deafe Nut. If it were not that I have proceeded so far already and Toto devorato Bove turpe est in Cauda deficere I would not Vouchsafe to answer them but with Contempt Thus he begins Nine or ten self Contradictions in one Section He speaketh modestly if there be one there are nine hundred This word in effect saith he deserves a Comment It hath a Comment wherein his feigned Contradictions were satisfyed before they were hatched by him the more uningenuous person he to take no notice of it He may find it in my reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon cap. 7. s. 2. pa. 243. Other Princes of the Roman Communion have made lawes as well as we to renounce and abrogate all those branches of Papall Authority which we cast out that is onely Papall Vsurpations but neither they nor we ever defined against Essentiall right We deny not to the Pope a Superiority of Order above the Archbishop of Canterbury but we deny him a Superiority of power in the Exteriour Court that is we deny him the supreme Iudiciary Power so did they King Henry the eighth abolished the Iurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome within his Dominions but the Emperours did not so If they did not so yet if they pleaded for it or justified it it is as much as I said And if they did it by parcells as I have shewed they did though they did it not in grosse it is the same thing in effect Our Ancestours threatned the Pope to make a wall of Separation between him and them not by making a new Law for it was the Common Law of England but by declaring the Law by executing the Law And though they had threatned him to make one generall Law against all his Vsurpations in grosse yet formerly having made single Lawes against the same in particular it was but the same in effect This sucking Contradiction hath been answered sufficiently in the last Section He saith our Controversy is not about the extent of Papall Power but about the right it self The just Contrary is true Our Controversy is onely about the extent of Papall Power or about those particular Branches of Papall power which we have cast out He loves to hover in Generalls but we shall bring him willingly or against his will to descend to particulars He taketh notice here of my complaining that they answer not particulars and I assure the Reader that if their cause would have born it they would have answered them Observe but how tame he is upon this Provocation that useth to be so fierce without any Provocation All the Answer it doth extort from him is Was ever man so ignorant of the common Lawes of Disputing Needs any more answer to be given to particulars which one yields to then to say he grants them If he be over much acquainted with the Lawes of disputing Reddat mihi Minam Diogenes Let him who tanght me Logick give me my Money again But it is well we have his Concedo omnia c We grant all his particular Instances of these Contests between Kings and Popes Yet not so very well neither for what he granteth with one hand he taketh away with the other Not entring into that dispute how farre they were done Iustly how farre unjustly which is little to our purpose since the Authority it self is acknowledged on both Sides It is little to their purpose indeed but it is much to ours Is the Papall Power acknowledged where the Popes Soveraign Power his Legisllative power his Iudiciary Power his dispensative power are all opposed Much good may his dry Papacy as he pleaseth to call it sometimes do him In every one of these Instances besides meer matter of Fact there is an Inference to matter of right The Common Lawes of Disputing require that he should have answered that as well as granted the other If his Dispatches be such as this he may dispatch more answers in a day then St. Austin could have made Oppositions in a yeare When I said what is the Ground of his Exception Nothing but a Contradiction he urgeth that I make account a Contradiction is a matter of nothing No but I meant that his vain Objecting of Imaginary Contradictions is a matter of nothing Twenty of them will not amount to one Fleabiting and I shewed him that this ridiculous Contradiction which he bringeth here is such an one The pretended Contradiction is this that their Doctrin concerning the Pope is injurious to Princes and prejudices their Crownes and yet that they hold and doe the same in effect against the Pope that Protestants doe A doughty Contradiction both parts are as true as can be referendo singula singulis referring what I said to the right Subject as I applied it The Doctrin of the Pope and Court of Rome is injurious to Princes of whom I speake expresly and no others and yet soveraign Princes and their Councells have held and done the same things against the Pope in effect that Protestants doe Iust such another Contradiction as this The Guelphes are for the Pope against the Emperour yet the Gibellines are for the Emperour against the Pope and both Factions Roman Catholicks Thus he changeth Subjects and Predicates and times and respects and all Rules to make a Contradiction But his defence is more ridiculous then his pretended Contradiction That the substance of the Popes Authority is the point which belongs to me to impugn So the Contradiction lieth not in what I did say but what I should have said or rather what he would have had me to have said