John his base râ—signation exercise over England a particular authority that after the Reformation and the shaking of the papal voke the Oath of Supremacie was brought in to exclude all forraign Iurisdiction and reinstate the King is his Civill Authority That Henrie the 8th did indeed set up a Civill Papacie but the Reformation of England was never dated from his breach with Rome that the Oath of supremacie was never designed to take away the Churches intrinseck Power or to make the power of Ordination of giving Sacraments or of Discipline to flow from the King that however because the generality of the words might suggest scruples they are explained in an Act of Parliament of Q. Elizabeth and in one of the 29. Articles and morefully by B. Usher with King Iames approbation And lastly since we have this oath from England none ought to scruple the words being sufficiently plain and the English meaning ours This is the full and clear account which you promise But who knows not these poor and insignificant pretenses King Iohn's resignation was indeed so base that by all disinterested it was ever held to be invalid and in after times scarce ever mentioned let be pleaded It is therefore the Pop's general tyrannie and what it was and whether abolished in these Kingdomes or in effect only transferred from him to the Prince that we are here to consider And I think I may take it for granted that you judge the Pope's exorbitant usurpation specially his assumming to himselfe not an external assisting oversight which we grant to be the proper right of Princes but by way of an intrinseck and direct power the sole and uncontrolable care of the Church her ministry and ministers with his arrogating an architectonick power in the ordering of Gods Worship so that in all Ecclesiastick meetings and matters therein proposed he may enact what canons he pleases to be parts of the Papal tyranny not only as in him but in all men under our Lord Jesus Christ unwarrantable and antichristian nay some of these are points of so high a nature that the greater part even of the members of the Romish Church do reclaim against them Now questionlesse if this power be to the Pope unlawful and incompetent all secular persons and Princes are therefore much more excluded in asmuch as the Pope being at least in shew a Church-man and according to the hypothese even of your Hierarchy the first Bishop of the westerne if not of the whole Church he is fortified by certain seeming pretenses of which the clame of civil Princes is wholly destitute To come then to our purpose that after the Reformation the Popish yoke not only as to the particulars above mentioned but also as to his forreign Jurisdiction unlawfully usurped over Church-men in civills to the prejudice of the King's Soveraignity was righteously shaken off and the King re-instated in his Civil authority over all Persons and also in all Causes in so far as they are committed to his royal direction and tuition is not at all denyed If that matters had here sisted and upon the abolition of the Papal domination the things of God and of Caesar had been equally restored who could have gain-said it But that on the contrary by the Pop's exclusion and in place of this righteous restitution the King under pretence of the vindication of his own Supremacy did procure to himself a very formal and full translation of what the Pope had not only usurped from him but arrogate from God specially in the things above-specified both the occasion of this change and the manner how this Supremacy hath since been exercised do aboundantly declare And for clearing the occasion it may be remembred 1. That the Peter-pence called in the beginning the King's almes imposed by on Ina King of the West Saxons was discharged by Act of Parliament in the reigne of Edward the Third and the contention anent the exemption of Church-men from the King's Courts most hotly agitate in the reigâ—es of Henry Second and King Iohn was composed many years before the dayes of Henry the Eight So that neither that exaction nor this old debate and far less King Iohn's most invalide resignation not worth the naming could be the cause of King Henry his acclaiming the Supremacy 2. The only motive that we find in History whereby Henry was instigat to reject the Pope and to declare himself to be supreme in causes Ecclesiastick aswell as civil was his purpose of divorce from Queen Katharine wherein finding himself abused by the Pope and his Legates their delayes he discharges all appeals to Rome appointing them to be made from the Comissary to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and from the Archbishop to the King and is thereafter first called by the Clergy and then declared by the Parliament to be Supreme head of the Church in liew of the Pope whose authority was abrogat by the same Act These things then being certain and you your selfe acknowledging that King Henry did set up a civil Papacy It is easy to determine that this change was not a bare exclusion but a plain translation of the Popes usurped power We know the Reformation of England was never dated from that breach with the Bishop of Rome But what then Can you deny that this was both the rise and establishment of the Supremacy which being transmitted to Edvard the sixth and then renounced by Queen Mary and again restored to the Pope was by Queen Elizabeth reassumed and so continueth untill this day It is true that after the breaking up of the more clear light of Reformation whereby not only Rom's Superstition bot also the Popes usurpation and tyranny in many things was upon better reasons rejected and especially after the succession of Queen Elizabeth to whose Sexe the former title of headship for all the smoothings that had been before used was nevertheless construed not to be so agreeable Many explications were adhibite for qualifying the Supremacy both in answer to the opposition of Papists and for removing the offence of the Protestant Churches But the truth is these explications though more sound in their grounds yet in their explication were nothing conclusive as to the present debate and their Authors arguing for the Supremacy from the examples of reforming Kings and Emperours acting not by vertue of an assumed prerogative but only from that extraordinary power which the necessity of the end upon the failzour of other midses doth measure out to Princes first and to others also if in a competent capacity did rather infer the justification of the work then conclude the approbation of the Supremacy notwithstanding it was therein imployed Nay while by these their reasonings they went about from such extraordinary interpositions only warranted by the exigence of necessity and the rectitude of the work thereby effectuat to establish to the Prince a constant setled authority properly conversant about these matters the argument is far more
King 's pretending to an arbitrary and absolute disposal of these previleges thus granted to be an injurious invasion and usurpation Yet in order to the Church and her rights and immunities they are not ashamed to cut off â—o even and just a parallel and deny so evident a consequence in behalf of her righteous liberty But wisdome is justified of her children And how much were it to be wished that at the least the children of light were as wise as the children of this world are in their generation 3. Beside the invasion threatened to the Church in its power of administration and the usurpation from the Church of the power of Government which this Supremacy imports it further attributes to the Prince according to our Parliaments late explication an illimited power in matters of Religion proper and reserved to God alone To enact whatever a man thinketh fit in Ecclesiastick meetings and maâ—â—ers I am certain is that which the Lord did never allow to any meer man under heaven and yet that this power is assumed and how by vertue thereof old unwarrantable superstitions have been retained new rites and ceremonies in Divine Worship devised and Churches turned and overturned according to mens pleasure is sufficiently known without my condescendence And therefore seing the King by vertue of his Supremacy doth not only intermedle by giving his civill sanction and confirmation to the intrinseck powers of the Church by you mentioned as you do allege or by acts imperate as others in contradistinction to elicite acts in these matters doe use to express it but doth lay claime to an absolute power in and over all Church-matters and persons the filly pretense whereby you go about to smooth it is not worthie of any mans notice In the next place you tell us of some explications provided for removing of the scruples which the generality of the words of the oath of Supremacy might suggest And to this it may suffice for answer that seing these explications are certainly confined to England and by no publick Act received or owned among us your allegeance with your childish ground that we have this oath from them is wholly impertinent as to our releifeâ— But seing the setting down of these explications contained in the English act and Articles above cited Which you do counningly omit will not only by comparing therewith the far different practices of the Kings of that Realme discover the inadequatnesse not to say the slightnesse of these sensings in effect meerly devised to palliat an excess in it self nowise justifiable but more fully manifest the strange extravagance both of the practical acceptation and late express interpretation of this Supremacie You may read them as follows the words of the Act in quinto Elizab. Declare her power and Authority to be a soveraignity over all manner of persons borne within the Realme whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal so that no forreigne power hath or ought to have any superiority over them and these of the Articles run thus Art 37. We give not to our Princes the ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the injunctions also lately set forth by Elizab our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only prerogative which we see to have been given alwayes to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himselfe that is that they should rule all Estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the civill sword the stubborne and evill doers These being the termes of these explications what consonancie the medlings of their Princes in imposing rites ceremonies and formes of Worship enjoyning their own dayes and profaning God's commanding what Doctrine Ministers should forbear permitting excomunication in their own name jointly with the Lords and finally by sitting and ruling in the Temple of God as in their own Court do hold therto is obvious to the first reflection Only this I must say that if the Kings of England their Ecclesiastick actings be indeed sufficiently warranted by the foregoing explanations the Author of the late discourse of Ecclesiastick policy who in prosecution of the King's Supremacie doth plainly annexe unto it the Authority of the preisthood and power over the conscience at least the obedience of men in matters of Religion in place of that applause wherwith he is generally received at Court deserves rather to be demeaned as the highest calumniator and depraver of his Majesties government But not to trouble you further with these double English senses viz that pretended by their Acts of Parliament and Articles which I grant to be more sound and such wherewith many godly men have rested satisfied and the other more true received and followed by their Court and Clergie nor yet to insist upon your incomparable and blessed Who now hath mens persons in admiration Bishop Usher his more full interpretation equally redargued by what I have alreadie said Let us consider our Scots most excessive though more ingenuous explanation and although I do apprehend the words of the Oath of Supremacie to be in themselves capable of a sound sense and that by understanding supreme Governour of this Kingdomeâ— not to be a limiting designation but a plain qualification of the nature of the government as being in order to its correlat this Kingdome in it selfe civil and only in this notion to be extended to persons and causes ecclesiastick all difficulties may be salved yet when to the rise and manner of this Supremacie above declared I adde how of late it hath been made the ground of the King his restoring of Bishops and framing their government to an absolute dependence upon himselfe granting of the high Commission appointing the constitution of a National Synod and of other strange acts before touched and especially that as the Act Parl. 1592. expresly and justly limiting this Supremacy was by the first Act 〈◊〉 2. Parl. 1661. Wholly abrogate and made voidâ— so by the first Act of the Par. 1669. The same Supremacie is assâ—rted to that absurd hight as doth import a plain surrender of Conscience and submission of all Matters of Religion for as to civills we are not so rash to his Majesties pleasure in a more absolute manner then ever to this day hath been acclaimed either by Pope or general Council These things I say being weighed I think I may safely conclude that I look upon the Supremacie not only as a civill Papacie but an height of usurpation against our Lord King in Zion whereunto never Christian Prince nor Potentate did heretofore aspire And here your N. C. seconding my assertion tells you that this Supremacie clearly makes way for Erastianisme To which you answer That this is one of our mutinous arts to find out long hard names and affixe them to any thing displeaseth us But passing the childishness of this conceite as if either a long or hard name were more odious then a short in my opinion
that happens to be promoted and that the order or institution it self destitute of divine warrant and promise and clearly occasioned by evil contention and introduced into the house of God by humane invention could not at first have any thing in it recommendable and hath since produced most corrupt â—ruits Neither the existence of Many excellent and great men in this degree nor the laudable yea extraordinary advantages that the Church hath received from them in the concret can now justify and maintain the Order it self in the abstract If this arguing were good able and well qualifyed men vested with such a power or placed in such a condition have proven and may prove notable instruments of Good therefore it is reasonable and expedient that such a constant order should be erected we might not only have Bishops but most of the Monastick Orders of the Roman Church We finde Peter with the singular benefite of the Church exercing a power of Life and Death and that given him from above and not assumed could therefore an order of Church-men pretending to the like Authority be rationally thence maintained in the Church No wayes Accidental advantages do not commend unwarranted institutions much less can they justle out our Lords express constitution But it is he the perfect orderer of his own house who hath positively defined and blessed its Officers and their power and not left the matter Arbitrarie to the probable contrivances of apparent benefite farre less to the dissembling pretenses of mens Lusts and corrupt Interest 8. It is to be noted that although the great measure of Grace given to the Primitive Church and the hard and frequent persecutions wherewith it was exercised did for a time hinder that strange depravation and incredible â—ruption of wickedness whereunto the setting up of the Ancient Prostasia the rudiment of your Prelacie did from its first beginnings secretly and covertly bend Yet this is most evident that so soon as the Church of God obtained the countenance and was favoured by the more fond in many things such as excessive Doâ—ations and Grants of privileges then prudently pious benevolence of Secular Princes this Prelatick order which in its depression had been indeed honoured with many shining lights and Glorious Martyres attaining then to its ascendent did not only debauch the Lords Ministers for the most part unto idleness avarice and luxurie but continually climb up according to its proper Genius of Ambition until the Devils design in its rise and progress was fully discovered and consummate in the revelation of the Son of perdition 9. This being the rise progress and product of Prelacie in the first Churches as may be clearly gathered from the writtings of these times how it was introduced in other Churches thereafter gathered and brought in may be found in their Histories Only this is certain that as in almost no Church it can be shewed to have been coëvous with Christianity and in all the western Churches where it obtained place was ever a sprig of Romes Hierarchie propagate by her ambition and deceit and the like practices So the Church of Scotland in special was in the beginning and for some centuries thereafter instructed and guided by Monks without Bishops until palladius from Rome did set up Prelacie among us as many Authors witness Nay we may finde it on Record that even in the 816. year a Synod in England did prohibite the Scots any function in their Church because they gave no honour to Metropolitans and other Bishops By these observations having in some sort delineate the mysterious and crooked windings of this excrescing Power in its first motions and setting forth and very clearly and naturally traced its progressions and thence deduced that most prodigious production of the Antichristian Papacie as any considerate man may thereby easily perceive not only how it might but how de facto it hath crept into the whole Church without an Apostolicall introduction notwithstanding of all your contrarie insinuations so I am confident that what ever other advantages these primitive times had above our latter dayes yet our discovery made after so full a revelation compared to the obscure appearances of this wickedness in the first ages of the Church cannot be thereby rationally disproved and your scurrile disparaging of the latter times of reformation as the fagg end oâ— sexteen hundred years doth with little less success plead for the Pope and Antichrist then for your Anâ—ichristian Prelacie As for the rest of your discourse wherein you tell your N. C. that though the ancient Bishops were better men then either Bishops or Presbyters alive Yet in Presbyteries Specially in the matter of Ordination they were sine quibus non and what ever be the present abuse of the Episcopall power Yet it is a rational and most necessary thing that the more approven and gifted be peculiarly incharged with the inspection of the Clergie an order of men neâ—ding much to be regulate and seing all humane things and Presbytery also are liable to be abused the common maxime remains to be applied remove the abuse of Bishops but retain their use In answere hereto I need not inlarge he who knows Church History best will easily grant that as for the first Centurie and an half we have no vestige upon record of your Prelatick power So when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had place their concurrence in Presbyteries was only for order as being the Modâ—rators a consideration of the same exigence and effect whether they be fixed or unfixed and not from any peculiar power proper to them as a superior order A thing so certainly disowned by the primitive Church that even after the Bishops thought themselves well stated in their Prelacie and were beginning to contend among themselves for the Papacie Hierom doth plainly deny them any such prerogative above Presbyters and was not therefore contradicted by any How much more then doth this condemn that sole power both of Ordination and Jurisdiction whereunto your Bishops do pretend As for your alledged reason and necessity of promoting the better gifted over the unruly Clâ—rgie whatever application it may have to that naughty Company of your insufficient and profane Curats or Conformity to the Court yea the worlds prejudice against our Lord Jesus his Ministers and all his followers Yet these two things are most evident 1. That as that lowely and ministerial Government appointed by Christ in his own house admitting no superiority or inequality of power among Ministers is not subjected to and alterable at the arbitriment of humane reason so the advantage of Gifts whereupon you would found it doth so little favour your conclusion that the direct contrarie is recommended by our Lord as its best evidence and fruit he that will be chief among you let him be your Servant and that not only as to the grace of humility but in plain opposition to that superior Authority exercised in Secular Rule whereof the imitation in this place is expresty
absurd then if because a Governour may in a manifest incident disorder falling for example in a Family repone the Father and head thereof to his paternal oversight one should thence conclude to the same Governour a proper power and faculty of placeing and displaceing Heads of Families and appointing the Rules thereof at his pleasure Now that thus it fell out in England after the Reformation and that the same if not a more exorbiâ—ant power taken from the Pope was transferred and setled upon the Crown as a perpetual privilege thereof is in the second place by the manner of its exercise and its ensuing fruits veâ—y evidently held out For proofe whereof the office and actings of the Lord Cromwell as Vicare General appointed by Henry the eight over the spirituality though by the good providence of God ordered to be a notable mean for advance of the Reformation is an undeniable argument And as to the continuance of the same usurpation in order to other effects in themselves evill and not to be justified there needeth no curious search the frequent practices of after Princes laying claime to this power namely Elizabeth Iames and Charles in their ecclesiastick medlings but especially of his Majesty now regnant in his interposing in Church-matters and thereby overturning a true Gospe-â—ministry introducing a new model of Church-government absolutely dependent upon himselfe reviving vain groundless and antiqâ—â—â— ceremonies appointing and imposing new Religions Dayes and Forms And lastly giving Rules to Ministers their doctrine what points to preach and what to omit all according to the device of his own heart are an obvious demonstration which things are in themselves so evident that I strange you should accuse Henry the Eight of a civil Papacy and so inconsequently acquit al his Successors Whereas in effect they not only acted in Church-matters after the same method by him observed using the same prerogative in the grant of their High Commissions and in other acts which he exercised in his vicarious deputation but he is the Prince who waving his haltings upon the other side and considering the necessity there was at that time of an extraordinary remedy for the good things that he did seemeth to have employed their usurped Supremacy most excusably and also very advantageously for the promoving of the Reformation Bot you tell us that the Oath of Supremacy was never designed to take away the Churches intrinseck power or to make the power of Ordination of Sacraments and of Discipline flow from the King It is answered seing the many evill effects of this Supremacy do so plaâ—â—ly evince its direct and proper tendency and its late explanation by Act of Parliament doth put its nature and extent beyond all controversy to tell us what at first it was or was not designed for is but a vain suggestion And therefore according to these â—urer grounds I must now tell you 1. That although the King not likely to be tempted by such an empty curiosity hath neither expresly declared in his own favour nor assumed to himselfe the exercise of this power of administration yet that by vertue of his Supremacy as it now stands explained he may do both or either when he pleaseth is not to be doubted I need not reminde you that any Church-power not acknowledging a dependence upon and subordination unto the Soveraign Power of the King as Supreme is abrogate and discharged But pray Sir he who may enact what he thinketh fit concerning all Ecclesiastick meetings and matters may he not if he think fit declare himself to have the power of the ministerial function Nay what may he not do But 2. admitting that this was not meaned by the Parliament in their explanation and that in probability the King will never affect the imployment yet that the intrinseck power of Government belonging to the Church both as to a Society of our Lords erection and by his express gift and concession is by the Supremacy taken away I beleeve it will be so far from being disowned that it is rather vaunted of as its principal end and advantage But referring the truth and evidence of this point anent the power of Government given by our Lord immediatly to his Church to what hath been very fully by others declared and is by me above hinted at I verily think that though we had no other argument save the sad changes that of late have ensued upon the usurpation of this Supremacy the usefulness and excellency of this intrinseck Government is thereby rendered apparent beyond the evidence of any further confirmation And really when together with the authority of its founder I consider the undeniable necessity and expedience of an internal power of Government in the Church as the most significant mean for making all its other gifts powers offices effectual And how much it is commended by the signal usefulness of a proper Government in every Society but more especially to our adversaries by that high yea sacred estimat which they so much inculcat of that Civil-government and all its punctilios whereupon their interest depends and when on the other hand I reflect upon the peâ—â—â—â—ous and woful influences that in all ages have constantly attended either the suppression or usurpation of this great divine ordinance I cannot sufficiently regrete that the pride ambition and vanity of men in setting up and advancing this Supremacy should be so sinfully subservient to the Divell 's great design of crossing the progress of the Gospel and propogating irreligion Which evil is the more to be lamented that nothwithstanding that our own experience of its wretched consequences doth evidently redargue this usurpation yet these men who in the matter of Civil government make every circumstance sacred and exclaime against the smallest innovation as if all confusion were imminent can and do in the business of Ecclesiastick government with a more then Gallio indifferency and coldness slight all its concerns in opposition to their carnal designes as questions of meer outward forms and the skirts and suburbs of Religion far removed from its life and substance Whereas it is very certain that eternal life and salvation the great end is not more preferable to temporal peace and outward tranquillity then our zeal for the government of God's House institute by himselfe in his Church in order to our everlasting welbeing ought to exceed our regard to Civil government which in this respect are but the ordinances of man in order to our temporal interests Nay so apparent is the lukwarmness hypocrisy of mens reasonings in behalfe of this Supremacy that though in the supposition that our Lord had by himselfe immediatly erected in any Kingdom a Society or incorporation with masters laws and a competent jurisdiction in order to some temporal advantage as he hath in the acknowledgement of all institute his Church with Ordinances Officers and Government suited to its great ends all rationâ—â— men let be the members of that Society would judge the