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
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
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
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
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
with Sâ— Peter nor with any other about the privileges of St. Peter Let him be First Chiefe or Prince of the Apostels in that sense wherein the Ancient Fathers stiled him so Let him be the First Ministeriall Mover And why should not the Church have recourse to a prime Apostle or Apostolicall Church in doubtfull cases The learned Bishop of Winchester of whom it is no shame for him to learn might have taught him thus much not onely in his own name but in the name of the King and Church of England Neither is it questioned among us whether St. Peter had a Primacy but what that Primacy was And whether it were such an one as the Pope doth now Challenge to him self and you challenge to the pope But the King doâ—h not deny Peter to have been the prime and prince of the Apostles I wonder how it commeth to passe that he who commonly runneth over in his expressions should now on a suddain become so dry upon this Subject If this be all be needed not to have forsaken the Communion of the Church of England for any great Devotion that he beareth to St. peter more then wee But yet wee dare not rob the rest of the Apostles to cloath St. Peter Wee say clearly with St. Cyprian Hoc erant utique caeteri Apostoli quod fuit petrus pari consortio praediti honoris Poâ—estatis sed exordium ab Vnitate proficisciâ—ur Primatus Petro daâ—ur ut una christi Ecclesia una caâ—hedr a monstretur The rest of the Apostles were even the same thing that Peter was endowed with an equall Fellowship both of honour and power but the beginning commeth from Vnity the primacy is given to Peter to signify one church and one chaire It is wel known that St. Cyprian made all the Bisshop ricks in the World to be but one masse Episcopatus unus est Episcoporum multorum concordi numerositate diffusus whereof every Bishop had an entire part cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur All that he attributeth to St. Peter is this beginning of Vnity this primacy of Order this preheminence to be the Chief of Bishops To be Bishop of the principall Church from whence Sacerdot all Vnity did spring Yet I esteem St. Ciprian as fauorable an Expositor to the See of Rome as any they wil find out of their own Chaire that was no more interessed in that See This primacy neither the Ancients nor wee doe deny to St. Peter of Order of Place of preheminence if this first Movership would serve his turn this controversy were at an end for our parts But this Primacy is over leane The Court of Rome have no Gusto to it They thirst after a visible Monarchy upon earth an absolute Ecclesiasticall Soveraignty A power to make Canons to abolish Canons to dispense with Canons to impose pensions to dispose dignities to decide Controversies by a single Authority This was that which made the breach not the innocent Primacy of St. Peter as I shall demonstrate by evident proofes as cleare as the noone day light Observe Reader that Mr. Serjeant is making another Vagare our of the lists to seeke for his Adversary where he is sure not to find him here after if he have a mind to employ his pen upon this subject and not to barke at the Moonshine in the water let him endeavour to demonstrate these foure things which wee deny indeed First that each Apostle had not the same power over the Christian world by virtue of Christ Commission As my Father senâ— mee so send I you which St. Peter had Secondly that St. Peter ever excercised a single Iurisdiction over the persons of the rest of the Apostles more then they over him besides and over and above his Primacy of Order or beginning of Vnity Thirdly that St. Peter a lone had his Commission granted to him by Christ as to an Ordinary Pastour to him and his Successors And all the rest of the Apostles had their CoÌ„missions onely as Delegates for term of life This new hatched Distinction being the foundation of the present Papacy I would be glad to see one good author for it who writ within a thoâ—sand yeares after Christ. Lastly that the Soveraignty of Ecclesiasticall power and Iurisdiction rested in St. Peter alone and was exercised by him alone and not by the Apostolicall College During the hystory of the Acts of the Apostles Now let us proceed from St. Peter to the Pope which is the second part of his rule of Government And that the Bishops of Rome as Successors of St. Peter inherited from him this Privilige in respect of the Successors of the rest of the Apostles And actually exercised this power in all the Countreyes which kept Communion with the Church of Rome what Privilege To be the first Bishop the Chiefe Bishop the principall Bishop the first mover in the Church just as S. Peter was among the Apostles we have heard of no other Privilege as yet If a man would be pleased ou of meer pitty to his starving cause to suppose thus much what good would it doe him Doth he think that the pope or the court of Rome would ever accept of such a Papacy as this or thanke him for his double diligence He must either be meanly versed in the Primitive Fathers or give little credit to them who will deny the Pope to succced St Peter in the Roman Bishoprick or will envy him the Dignity of a Patriarck with in his just Bounds But the Breach between Rome and England was not about any Episcopall Metropolitical or Patriarchall rightes A Patriarch hath more power in his proper Bishoprick then in his province and more in his province then in the rest of his Patriarchate But papall power is much greater then any Bishop did ever challenge in his own Diocesse In my answer to his Assumtion I shal shew sufficiently who they were that Brake this Bond of Vnion and are the undoubted Authors of Schisme But before I come to that I would know of him how the Pope did inherit all those Privileges which he claimeth from S. Peter or how he holds them by Christs own ordination in holy Scripture First all the Eastern Churches doe affirm Confidently that the most of these Privileges were the Legacyes of the Church representative not Christ or St. Peter And it seemeth to be very true by that of the Councell of Sardica Si vobis placet Sancti Petri memoriam honoremus If all these Priuileges were the popes inheritance it was not wel done of old Osius to put it upon a Si placet content or not content and to assigne no better a reason then the memory of a Predecessour It semeth likewise to be true by the Councel of Chalcedon which attributeth the primacy of the Bishop of Rome to the Decrees of the Fathers and the dignity of that imperiall City And when the popes
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
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
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
legislative power in England was a grosse Vsurpation and was suppressed before it was well formed But they are affraid of the old Rule Breake ice in one place and it will crack in more If they did confesse one Errour they should be suspected of many If their Infallibility was lost all were gone And therefore they resolve to bear it out with head and shoulders and in place of disclaiming a single power to make Ecclesiasticall Lawes and to give them a coactive obligation in exteriour Courts they challenge a power to the Pope some say ordinarily others extraordinarily some say directly other indirectly to make and abrogate Politicall Lawes throughout Christendome against the Will of Soveraign Princes They who seem most moderate and Cautelous among them are bad enough and deserve right well to have their workes inserted into the Rebells Catechisme If a Civill Law be hurtfull to the Soules of Subjects and the Prince will not abrogate it If another Civill Law be healthfull to the Soules of the Subjects and the Temporall Prince will not enact it The Pope as a Spirituall Prince may abrogate the one and establish the other For Civil power is inferiour and consequently subject to Spirituall power And The Ecclesiastick Republâ—ck ought to be perfect and sufficient to atteine its end But the power to dispose of things Temporall is necessary to atteine Spirituall ends And It is not lawfull to chuse an Infidel or Hereticall Prince but it is the same danger or dammage to chuse one who is no Christian and to tolerate one who is no Christian and the determination of the Question whether he be fit to be tolerated or not belongs to the Pope In good time From these premisses wee may well expect a necessary Collusion Who ever see such a Rope of Sand so incoherent to it self and consisting of such Heterogeneous parts composed altogether of mistakes Surely a man may conclude that either nocte pinxit The learned Author painted this Cypresse tree in the night or he hath a pittifull penurious Cause that will afford no better proofes But I hope the quarrel is dead or dying and with it much of that Animosity which it helped to raise in the World At least I must doe my Adversaryes in this cause that right I find them not Guilty of it Let it dye and the memory of it be extinguished for ever and ever Sect. I. Cap. VII So I passe over from the Popes Legislative power to his Iudiciary power Perhaps the Reader may expect to find something here of that great Controversy between Protestants and Papists whether the Pope be the last the highest the infallible Iudge of Controversies of faith with a Councell or without a Councell For my part I doe not find them so well agreed at home who this Iudge is All say it is the Church but in Determining what Church it is they differ as much as they and wee Some say it is the Essentiall Church by reception whatsoever the Vniversall Church receiveth is infallibly true Others â—ay it is the Representative Church that is a Generall councell Others say it is the Virtuall Church that it is the Pope Others say it is the Virtuall Church and the Representative Church together that is the Pope with a Generall Councell Lastly others say it is the Pope with any councell either Generall or Patriarchall or Provinciall or I thinke his College of Cardinalls may serve the turne And concerning his infallibility all men confesse that the Pope may erre in his Iudgement and in his Tenets as he is is a private Doctor but not in his Definitions SecoÌ„dly the most men doe acknowledge that he may erre in his Definitions if he Define alone without some Councell either generall or Particular Thirdly others goe yet higher that the Pope as Pope with a particular Councell may Define erroneously or heretically but not with a Generall Councell Lastly many of them which goe along with others for the Popes Infallibility doe it upon a Condition Si maturus procedat consilium audiat aliorum Pastorum If he proeeed maturely and hear the Counsell of other Pastors Indeed Bellarmine saith that if any man should demand Whether the Pope might erre if he defined rashly Without doubt they would all answer that the Pope could not define rashly But this is meer presumption without any colour of proofe I appeale to every rationall man of what communioÌ„ soever he be whether he who saith The Pope cannot erre if he proceed maturely upon due advise doe presume that the Pope cannot proceed immaturely or without due advise or not rather that he may proceed rashly and without due advise Otherwise the condition was vainly and suâ—eâ—fluously added frustra fit perplura quod fieri potest per pauciora But the truth is wee have nothing concerning this Question nor concerning any Iurisdiction meerly Spirituall in all the Statutes of Henry the eighth They doe all intend Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court of the Church Yet although nothing which he saith doth constrain me I will observe my wonted Ingenuity Wee give the Supreme Iudicature of Controversies of Faith to a Generall Councell and the Supreme Power of Spirituall Censures which are Coactive onely in the Court of conscience but if the Soveraign Prince shall approve or confirm the Acts of a generall Councell then they have a Coactive power in the Exteriour Court both Politicall aud Ecclesiasticall There is nothing that wee long after more then a generall Councell rightly called rightly proceeding or in defect of that a free Occidentall Councell as Generall as may be But then wee would have the Bishops to renounce that Oath which hath been obtruded upon them and the Councell to declare it void I. A. Bishop c. will be faithfull to St. Peter and to the Holy Apostolicall Church of Rome and to our Lord Pope Alexander c. I will be an assistent to retein and to defend the Roman Papacy and the Royalties of St. Peter Where this Oath is esteemed Obligatory I doe not see how there can be a Free Councell But I retire my self to that which concerneth our present Question and the Lawes of Henry the eyghth concerning Iudiciary Power in the Exteriour Court of the Church The First Branch of this third Vsurpation s Whether the Bishop of Rome can receive Appeales from England and send for what English Subjects he pleaseth to Rome without the Kings leave The First President and the onely President that we have of any Appeale out of England to Rome for the First thousand yeares after Christ was that of Wilfrid Arch-Bishop of Yorke though to speak the truth that was rather an Equitable then a Legall appeale to the Pope as the onely Bishop of an Apostolicall Church in the west and an honorable arbitrator and a Faithfull Depositary of the Apostolicall Traditions not as a Superiour Iudge For neither were the Adverse Parties summoned to Rome nor any witnesses produced both
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
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
advanceth the Papacy above the Representative Church is no worse then their Virtuall Church the Pope and the Court of Rome with all their adherents they who have the Keys in their hands such a party as he dare not say his soule is his own against them nor maintain the Contrary that a Generall Councell is above the Pope He urgeth that I ascribe no more to S. Peter and the Pope for their first Movership but onely Authority to sit first in Councell or some such things I ascribe unto the Pope all that power which is due unto him either by divine right or humane right at the Iudgement of the Church but I doe not hold it meet that he should be his own Carver And for S. Peter why doth he not leave his wording of it in Generalls and fall to work with Arguments in particular if he have any We offer him a faire tryall for it that S. Peter never enjoyed or exercised any greater or higher power in the church then every one of the Apostles had either extensively or intensively either in relation to the Christian world or the Apostolicall College except onely that Primordium Vnitatis or Primacy of Order which he scoffeth at every where Yet neither do we make his first Movership void of all Activity and influence as he accuseth us First we know he had Apostolicall power which was the highest spirituall power upon Earth As my Father sent me so send I you Secondly some power doth belong to a First Mover even by the Law of nature besides the First seate As to convocate the Members to preserve Order to propose such things as are to be discussed to receive the Votes to give the Sentence and to see it executed so far as he is trusted by the Body What the Church of England believeth of the Popes inheriting St. Peters Privileges and the exercise of that power before the Reformation and how the breach was made and when I have shewed abundantly already Wee have seen his rare skill in the discovery of a Falsification or a ContradictioÌ„ now let us see if his sent be as good to find out an Absurdity He maketh me argue thus The Pope did not exercise St. Peters power because he exercised St. Peters power and much more which is as much as to say totum est minus parte aud more does not contain lesse and then he Crowes out his Victory aloud a hopefull Disputant who châ—seth rather to run upon such Rocks c. What Rocks doth he mean I hope none of the Acroâ—eraunia those ridiculous things which he calls Rocks are soapy bubbles of his own Blowing This inference is none of mine but his own Is it not possible for this great pretender to sincerity to misse one Paragraph without Falsifications Give him leave to make Inferences and Periphrases which is as much as to say and Africa did never abound so much with Monsters as he will make the most rationall writing in this world abound with Absurdities I desire the Courteous Reader to view the place and either to pitty his Ignorance or detest his Impudence The words which I answered were these That the Bishops of Rome actually exercised St. Peters power in all those Countries which kept Communion with the Church of Rome that very yeare when this unhappy Seperation began My answer was that this Assertion did come far short of the truth in one respect for the Popes exercised much more Power in those Countries which gave them leave then ever St Peter pretended to Here is no other inference but this The Pope exercised more power then ever St. Peter pretended to therefore this Assertion that he exercised St. Peters power came short of the truth which consequence is so evideâ—t that it can admit neirher denyall or doubting What hath this to do with his whole is lesse then the part or more does not contain the lesse But now suppose I had said as he maketh me to say on his own head that in this case the whole is lesse then the part or more does not contain the lesse what had he to carpe at Hath he never heard or read that in morality the half is more then the whole Hath he forgotten his Ethicks that he who swerveth from the Meane or strict measure of virtue whether it be in the excesse or in the defect is alike Culpable and commethshort of his Duty If the Pope as Successour to S. Peter did usurp more power then S. Peter had right to no man in his right wits can call it the actuall exercising of S. Peters power The second part of my answer was that as the Pope exercised more power then was due to him in some places where he could get leave so in other places no lesse then three parts of foure of the Christian World that is all the Eastern Southern and Northern Churches his Vniversall Monarchy which he claimed was Vniversally rejected For this I am first reviled Are moderate expressions of shamelesnesse sufficient to Character this man c. If better was within better would come out But Stultis the saurus iste est in linguasitus ut discant male loqui melioribus And then when he hath first censured me he attempteth to answer me as well as he is able that the Pope exercised his power over them by excommunicating them as Revolters As Revolters In good time They were Christians and had Governours of their own before either there was a Church of Rome or Bishop of Rome and never acknowledged themselves to be his Subjects untill this day nor regarded his Excommunicatious upon that score at all If they were Revolters the Apostolicall Age and all succeding Ages were joined in the Revolt These are his rigorous demonstrations to prove the Popes single Iurisdiction by divine right from his own impotent Actions If the Pope have a Supremacy of Power by divine right he hath it over the world but that we see evidently he never enjoyed from the beginning if he did did not enjoy it universally from the beginning then certainly it cannot be an Apostolicall Tradition I doe begin with the Eastern Church because their case is plainest as having Proto-patriarchs of their own and Apostolicall Churches of their own but when that is once acknowledged I shall be contented to joine issue with him in the West First for our Britannick Churches and next even for the Church of Rome it self that the Popes Vniversall Monarchy and plenitude of Soveraign power by divine right was neither delivered from Parents to Children by perpetuall Tradition as a Legacy of Christ and his Apostles nor received by the Sonnes of that Individuall Church as a matter of Faith but onely a Primacy of Order or beginning of Vnity which we do not oppose nor yet those accessions of humane power which Christian Emperours and Oecumenicall Councells have conferred upon that See provided they be not exacted as a divine right His First Movership and
his First Governourship are but generall unsignificant Termes which may agree as well to a beginning of Vnity or Primacy of Order as to an absolute Monarchy or plenitude of power If he will say any thing to purpose he must say it particularly particulars began the breach particulars must stop rhe breach I have given him an account what particular Differences we have with him concerning St. Peter what particular Differences we have with him concerning the Pope let him apply him self to those aud not make continuall Excursions as he doth out of the Lists When I acknowledged an Authority due to the Roman Bishop in the Church as a Bishop in his Diocesse as a Metropolitan in his Province as the Bishop of an Apostolicall See and Successour of St. Peter I expected thaÌ„kes there are many that will not yield him one inch of all these steps without a new conflict But behold the evill natures or evill manners of this Age I am accused for this of frivolousnesse and insincerity Yet I will make bold to tell this Apprentice in Theology that whensoever the case commeth to be solidly discussed it will be found that the principall grounds if I had said the onely grounds I had not said much amisse of the Popes pretended Monarchy are the just rights and Privileges of his Patriarchateship his Protopatriarchateship and his Apostolicall Chaire mistaken for Royalties for want of good Distinction I know the Court of Rome who have been accustomed in these latter times to milke the purses of their Clients doe not love such a dry Primacy as he phraseth it but where they have no more right and other Churches have a care to preserve their own Privileges they must have patience perforce His Parallel between the King of England and the Pope will be then to some purpose when he hath first proved that the Pope hath a Monarchy untill then it is a mere begging of the Question what a grosse Solecisme that is in Logick he cannot chuse but know But since he is favourably pleased to dispense with all men for the extent of Papall power so they believe the Substance of it and yet he himself either cannot or dare not determin what the Substance of Papall power is he might out of his Charity have compassion and not stile us Mountebankes who know no difference between Roman Catholiks and our selves about the Papacy but onely about the extent of Papall power Although he stile us hereticks now yet he was lately one of us himself and would have continued so longer if he had understood himself better or the times bene less Clowdy Let him call it Substance let him call it extent let him call it what he will I have given him our Exceptions to their Papacy let him satisfy them as well as he â—an and let truth prevaile We have not â—enounced the substance of the Papacy exâ—ept the substance the Papacy doe consist â—n Coactive power I side with no parties â—ut honour the Church of England and welcome truth wheresoever I meet it Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine habetur He telleth his Reader that I grant the whole question where I affirm that the Bishop of Rome had Authority all over as the Bishop of â—n Apostolicall Church or Successor of St. Peter Much good may it doe him As if every Bishop of an Apostolicall Church were straight way an universall Monarch or as if Authority did alwaies necessarily imply jurisdiction or every Arbitrator or Depositary were a legall judge I had reasoÌ„ to place a Bishop of an Apostolicall Church in my Climax after a Patriarch for the larger extension of his Authority every where not for the higher intension of his jurisdiction any where I urged that if the Bishop of Rome did succeed St. Peter by the ordinance of Christ in this Privilege to be the Prince and Soveraign of the Church endowed with a single Soveraignty of power that the Great Councell of Chalcedon was much to be blamed to give equall Privileges to the Patriarch af Constantinople with the Patriarch of Rome and to esteem the Imperiall City more then the Ordination of Christ. To the second part of this Argument that the great Councell of Chalcedon did ground the Advancement both of Rome and Constantinople upon the Imperiall Dignity of those two Cities and to much more which is urged there against him he is as mute as a Fish but to the former part he answereth that for any thing I know to the Contrary Rome might remain superiour in Iurisdiction though they had equall Privileges Very pretty indeed He would have his Readers to believe that a Soveraign and his Subjects have equall Privileges Equalls have no power one over another there may be a Primacy of Order among Equalls but Supremacy of power taketh away Equality Doth not he himself make it to be S. Peters Privilege to be Prince of the Apostles And doth not he tell us that this Privilege descended from S. Peter upon the Bishop of Rome Then if the Bishop of Constantinople have equall Privileges with the Bishop of Rome he is equall to him in this Privilege which descended froÌ„ S. Peter Let him listen to the eight and twentieth Canon of that Councell where having repeated and confirmed the decree of the Generall Councell of Constantinople to the same purpose they conclude thus for the Nicene Fathers did justly give Privileges to the See of old Rome because it was the Imperiall City And the hundred and fifty Godly Bishops in the Councell of Constantinople moved with the same consideration did give equall Privileges to the See of new Rome Rightly judging that that City which was the Seat of the Empire and the Senate should enjoy equall Privileges with the ancient Imperiall City of Rome and be extolled and magnified in Ecclesiasticall affaires as well as it being the second in Order from it And in the last sentence of the Iudges upon the Review of of the Cause The Archbishop of the Imperiall City of Constantinople or new Rome must enjoy the same Privileges of honour and have the same power out of his own Authority to ordain MetropolitaÌ„s in the Asiatick Pontick and Thracian Diocesses That is as much in Law as to say have equall Iurisdiction for all other rights doe follow the right of Ordination But he knoweth right well that this will not serve his turn his last refuge is to deny the Authority of the Canon telling us that it was no free Act but voted tumultuously after most of the Fathers were departed And miscalling it a Bastard issue pinned to the end of the Councell Which is altogether as false as any thing can be imagined to be It was done before the Bishops had their License to depart It had a secâ—nd hearing and was debated by the Popes own Legates on his behalf before the most glorious judges and maturely sentenced by them in the name of the Councell This was one of those four
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
were ordeined at home and therefore the Bishop of Rome could have no jurisdiction over them I said no more of Phocas but this that the Popes preteÌ„ses were more from Phocas then St. Peter He referreth me to his answer to Doctor Hammond And I refer him to Doctor Hammond for a reply as Impertinent to my present businesse When I did first apply my thoughts to a sad Meditation upon this Subject I confesse ingenuously that which gave me the most trouble was to satisfy my self fully about the Popes Patriarchate but in conclusion that which had been a cause of my trouble proved a meanes of my â—inall Satisfaction For seing it is generally confessed that the Bishop of Rome was a Patriarch I concluded that he could not be a Spirituall Monarch The reasons of my Resolution I have set down and received no answer Yet it shall not seem irksome to me to repeat them as desiring nothing but the discovery of the truth First I argue thus The Soveraign Government and the Subordinate Government of the same person in the same Society or body Politick or Ecclesiastick is inconsistent But the Popes pretended Monarchy or Supremacy of power over the whole Church and his Patriarchall Dignity in the same Church are a Soveraign and Subordinate Government of the same person in the same body Ecclesiastick The reason of the Major is because Soveraign power is single of one person or Society but this subordinate power is conjoint of fellow Patriarchs Soveraign Power is Vniversall but this subordinate power is particular And therefore as a Quadrangle cannot be a Triangle nor a King a Sherif of a Shire or a President of a Province within his own Kingdome so neither can the same person be an Vniversall Monarch and a particular Patriarch Secondly the Spirituall Soveraignty of the Roman Bishop is pretended to be by divine right his Patriarchall power is confessedly by humane right but a Spirituall Soveraignty by divine right and an inferiour dignity by humane right are inconsistent As it is absurd to say that God should make a man a Prince and after the people make him a Peer or God should give him a Greater Dignity and afterwards the people coÌ„ferre a lesse upon him Thirdly a Soveraignty above the CanoÌ„s besides the Canons against the Canons to make them to abrogate them to suspend them with a Non obstante to dispense with them at pleasure where the Canon gives no dispensative power and a Subjection to the Canons to be able to do nothing against them are inconsistent But suâ—h a Soveraign Power is above the Canons and such a Patriarchall power is subject to the Canons Therefore they are inconsistent All the answer he offereth to these two Instances the one that Bishop Vsher was at once Bishop of Armagh and as such the Bishop of Derries superiour I answer first he mistaketh much The Primacy of Ireland and the Archbishoprick of Armagh are not two diâ—â—inct dignities but one and the self same dignitie but the Monarchicall power of the Pope by divine right and his Patriarchall power by Humane right are two distinct dignities Secondly the Primate of Ireland is not indowed with Monarchicall power but all the difficulty here lieth in the Conjunction of Monarchicall power and Subordinate power His other Instance must a person leave of to be Master of his own Family because he is made King and his Authority extendeth over all England I answer first his Argument is a transition into another kind or an excursion from one kind of power to another from Politicall power in the Commonwealth to an Oeconomicall power in the Family Secondly it is one thing to make an inferiour person a King and another thing to make a King a Constable or to make Soveraignty and Subordination consist together When a King doth discharge the place of a Generall of an Army he acquireth no new dignity or power or place no man calleth him my lord Generall but he doth it as a King by his Kingly power to which no higher or larger power can be added but the Bishop of Rome did not doth not exercise Patriarchall power by virtue of his Monarchy by divine Ordination but by humane right first by Custome or prescription and then by authority of the Councell of Nice All the world seeth and acknowledgeth that the Bishop of Rome hath more power in his Bishoprick then he hath out of it in the rest of his Province aÌ„d more power in his Province then he hath out of it in his Patriarchate and more power in his own Patriarchate then he hath in anothers Patriarchate but if he had a Soveraignty of Power and Iurisdiction by Christs own Ordination he should have the same power every where if he had a Soveraignty of Power and Iurisdiction by Christs own Ordination then all Patriarchall power should flow from him as from the Originall Fountain of all Ecclesiaasticall honour But the Contrary is most apparent that all the Patriarchs even the Roman himself did owe their Patriarchall power to the Customes of the Church and Canons of the Fathers These are the reasons why I conceive Monarchicall Power and Patriarchall power to be inconsistent in one and the same persoÌ„ But the Pope was coÌ„fessedly a Patriarch therefore no Monarch The next thing which commeth to be observed is his ExceptioÌ„s to Dionothus the learned Abbat of Bangor his aÌ„swer to Austin professing Canonicall Obedience to the Archbishop of CaerleoÌ„ in his own name aÌ„d the name of the British Church and disclaiming all ObedieÌ„ce except of Brotherly love to the Bishop of Rome His first exception was the naming of the Bishop of Rome Pope without any Addition of Name or place contrary to the use of those times For aÌ„swer I committed him and his Friend Bellarmine together WheÌ„ the word Pope is put alone the Bishop of Rome onely is to be understood as appeareth out of the Councell of Chalcedon the most blessed and Apostolicall man the Pope doth command us this without adding Leo or Rome or the City of Rome or any other thing He sleighteth Bellarmine and rebuketh me for folly to think that Catholick writers cannot disagree and answereth the Councell that thought the word Pope be alone without Addition Yet which is equivalent the Comitant Circumstances sufficiently indigitate the person For the words were spokeÌ„ by Boniface the Popes Vicegerent As if there were not the same indigitating CircuÌ„stances here as well as there the words being spoken by Austin the Popes Legate and Vicar as well as Boniface in the name of Pope Gregory to the Britons which were answered here by Dinoth His second exception to Dinoths Testimony is that there was no such Bishoprick as Caerleon in those dayes the See being removed from Caerleon to Menevia or S. Davids fifty yeares before this That it was removed before this I acknowledge but how long before this is uncertain Some Authors make S. Gregory and S. David to have died
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
rejected be the Legacies of Christ or Papall VsurpatioÌ„s is not capable of such rigorous Demonstration but dependeth upon Testimony which Logicians call an Inartificiall way of arguing But if by rigorous Demonstration he uâ—derstand convincing proofes those grounds which I offer in this Section do contain a rigorous Demonstration That Discipline which is brimfull of intollerable Rapine and Extortion and Simony and Sacrilege which robbeth Kings and Subjects Ecclesiasticall and Secular of their just rights which was introduced into the Church of England eleven hundred yeares after Christ which hath a Malignant Influence upon the Body Politick which is Destructive to the right ends of Ecclesiasticall Discipline which in stead of securing men in peace doth thrust them into Manifest and manifold Dangers both of soule and body which is contrary to Generall Councells and the ancient Liberties of particular Churches qua talis as it is such is no Legacy of Christ but ought to be purged and reformed from all such abuses and VsurpatioÌ„s But such is that Papall Discipline which the Bishop of Rome excercised in EnglaÌ„d before the Reformation and lesse then which they will not goe and such are all those Branches of Papall power which we have cast out The truth of this AssertioÌ„ I have made manifest in my Vindication c. 6 and this is the place of a further examination of it if he did discharge the part of a faire solid Disputant to leave his windy Invectives which signify nothing to the cause but to his own shame and to proceed closely and ingenuously to the investigation of truth without prejudice or partiality But on the Contrary he minceth my grounds and concealeth them and skippeth over whatsoever disliketh him and choppeth them and chaÌ„geth them and confoundeth them that I caÌ„not know mine own Conceptions againe as he hath dressed them aÌ„d disordered them and mutilated them I proposed five distinct Grounds of our ReformatioÌ„ aÌ„d casting out so many Branches as we did of Papall power if he dealt like a just Adversary he should pursue my Method step by step but he reduceth my five grounds into three that between two Methods he may conceale and smother whatsoever he hath no disposition to answer as he dealeth with many points of weight and moment and particularly with all those Testimonies and instances I bring to prove the intolerable extortions and manifold Vsurpations and malignant Influence of the Roman Coutt upon the Body Politick and Ecclesiastick being much the greater part of my discourse But I doe not altogether blame him for they are so foule that a man can find small credit or contentment in defending them For once rather then loose his Company I will pursue his Method Let us give him the hearing He reduceth my five grounds to three first such as entrench upon Eternity and Conscience May not any Heretick object that the Church imposed new Articles of faith c. or complain of new Creeds when she addeth to her publick Professions some points of Faith held formerly Might not he Complaine of perill of Idolatry as your Brother Puritans did for Surplesses c Might not he pretend that all Hereticks and Schismaticks were good Christians and that the Church was Tyrannicall in holding them for excommunicate Might he not shuffle together Faith with Opinion and falsly allege as you doe here you were forced to approve the Popes Rebellion against Generall Councells and take Oaths to maintain Papall Vsurpations This is all the Answer I get of this brave Disputant as if the unjust complaints of the Puritans did satisfy the just exceptions of the Protestants It is probable enough that he him self was one of our Brother Puritans in those dayes otherwise he could not well have talked so wildly of perill of Idolatry from Surplesses His discourse is so sleight and impertinent that I will not vouchsafe any answer but leave it to the Reader to compare my Vindication and Reply with his Rejoinder That they have added new Essentialls to Faith is fully evinced against them in this Treatise Sect. 1. cap. 11. What our Iudgement is concerning their Idolatry he shall find exactly set down in my answer to Militier Pa. 133. As for the Oaths of Fidelity which every Bishop must make to the Pope he may satisfy him self Sect. 1. Cap. 5. and see the From of it cap 7. Or if he Desire to see a later form let him take this I Henry Archbishop of Canterbury will be faithfull and Obedient to St. Peter from this houre as formerly and to the holy Apostolick Church of Rome and to my Lord Pope Alexander the sixth and his Successours I will give no counsaile nor consent nor act any thing towards the losse of their lifes or members or liberty I will discover their Counsailes to no man to their prejudice which they have communicated to me by themselves or their Messengers I will help them to retein and defend the Roman Papacy and the Royalties of St. Peter saving my Order against all men I will entertein the Popes Legates honorably going and comming and help them in their necessities I will visit the Papall Court every yeare if it be on this side the Alpes and every two yeares if it beyond the Alpes unlesse the Pope dispense with me So help me God and the Holy Gospell What fidelity can a King expect from a Subject who hath taken this Oath if the Pope please to attempt any thing against him If the Popes Superiority above a Generall Councell be but held as an indifferent Opinion in their Church and not a point of Faith as he intimateth yet it is such an Opinion as he dare not contradict it is fere communis it is almost the Common OpinioÌ„ of all RomaÌ„ Catholicks if Bellarmine say true and fere de fide almost a point of Faith upoÌ„ which modern Popes and Councells are accorded It is determined expresly in their last Generall Councell of LateraÌ„ that the Bishop of Rome alone hath Authority over all Councells Were these all the grounds he could find which entrench upon Eternity and Conscience He might have found more that by means of Papall abuses there described hospitality was not kept the poore not susteined the word not preached churches not adorned the Cure of soules neglected divine Offices not performed Churches ruined He might have found Oaths Customes writings grants statutes rights privileges to have been not onely weakened but exinanited by the Popes infamous Messenger called Non obstance And all this attested by the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and the whole Common-wealth of England But it is no matter whether he take notice of it or not whilest he answereth nothing He faith my second sort of Grounds are those which relate to Temporall inconveniences and injuries to the State by reason of the Popes pretended encroachments which I huddle together in big Terms Do I huddle theÌ„ together Nay I haÌ„dled them distinctly under three heads or notions First the intolerable
because no reason doth permit that such an Assembly should be made in an Imperiall City without the leave of the Lord of the place Thirdly because Generall Councells were made then at the Publick Charge He might have added that Councells did receive their Protection from Emperours and they who sit in Councells were the Subjects of Emperours In the second place he erreth in this also that we have taken away the meanes of assembling Generall Councells We have taken away no power from the Pope of convocating any Synods except onely Synods of the King of Englands Subjects within his own dominions without his leave which Bellarmine himself acknowledgeth to be agreable to reason If the Pope have any right either to convocate Generall Councells himself or to represent to Christian Soveraigns the fit seasons for Convocation of them either in respect of his Beginning of Vnity or of his Protopatriarchate we do not envy it to him since there may be a good use of it in respect of the division of the Empire so good caution be observed Bellarmine confesseth that that power which we acknowledge that is that though the Pope be no Ecclesiasticall Monarch but onely chief of the Principall Patriarchs yet the right to convocate Generall Councells should pertein unto him But it may be this is more then Mr. Serjeant did know My last Ground was the Exemtion of the Britannick Churches from forrein Iurisdiction by the Generall Councell of Ephesus As to the Exemtion of the Britannick Churches he referreth himself to what he had said formerly and so do I. To the Authority of the Councell of Ephesus he answereth that howsoever Cyprus and some others are exemted from a Neighbouring Superiour falsly pretending a Iurisdiction over them yet I shall never shew a Syllable in the Councell of Ephesus exemting from the Popes Iurisdiction as head of the Church Not directly a maÌ„ may safely sweare it for the Councell never suspected it the world never dreamed of it the Popes themselves never pretended to any such headship of Power and Vniversall Iurisdiction over the whole Church in those dayes All that the Primitive Popes claymed by divine right was a Primacy of Order or Beginning of Vnity due to the Chaire of St. Peter all that they claimed by humane right were some Privileges partly gained by Custome or Prescription and partly granted by the Fathers to to the See of Rome because it was the Imperiall City But there is enough in this very Canon collaterally to overthrow all the Vsurpations of the Roman Court There is no need that Britain should be named particularly where all the Provinces without exception are comprehended Let the same be observed in other Diocesses and in all Provinces There is no need that the Bishop of Rome should be expressed where all the Bishops are prohibited That no Bishop occupy another Province which formerly and from the beginning was not under the power of him or his Predecessours If the Fathers were so tender of pride creeping into the Church in those dayes or of the danger to lose their Christian Liberty in the case of the Bishop of Antioch who pretended neither to divine right nor Vniversall Iurisdiction what would they have said or done in the present case of the Bishop of Rome who challengeth not onely Patriarchall but Soveraign Iurisdiction not over Cyprus onely but over the whole world not from Custome or Canons but from the institution of Christ If Maister Serjeant be in the right then the Bishop of Antioch was quite out to sue for the Iurisdiction of Cyprus which beloÌ„ged more to the Bishops of Rome then to him Then the Bishops of Cyprus were quite oâ—t to challenge the Ordination of themselves and Iurisdiction over one another as a proper right belongiâ—g to themselves which they hold onely by Courtesy and favour from the Bishop of Rome Then the holy Synod was quite out to Determine so positively that not onely Cyprus but every Province should enjoy its rights and Customes inviolated which it had from the beginning without a Salvo or saving the right of the Bishop of Rome or a restriction so long as he pleaseth to permit them and to doe it in such Imperiall Terms It hath pleased the holy Synod or such is our pleasure Lastly the Pope himself was out to ratify the Privileges and exemptions of the Cyprian Bishops not onely from the Patriarch of Antioch but from himself also and to suffer his divine right to be trampled under foot by Customs and Canons which are of no force without him But this is the least part of the passages in the foure First Generall Councells which are repugnant to the Popes pretensions of a Generall Monarchy The Eastern Churches doe still adhere firmly to the Primitive Discipline and for this cause the Pope hath thought fit to excommunicate them Si violandum jus est regnandi causâ violandum est Against all our Grounds the most intolerable extortions that ever were heard of most grievous Vsurpations malignant Influence both upon the State Politick and Ecclesiastick and undoubted Privileges he produceth nothing but immediate Tradition and you must be content to take his bare word for it for he is altogether unfurnished of proofes Some men by telling strange Stories over and over do come at last to believe them It may be he believeth there was a Tradition for those Branches of Papall power which we cast out but we deny it altogether and require him to prove first that there was such a Tradition in England next that a particular Tradition is a sufficient proofe of divine Institution We admit readily that the Vnity of the Church is of great importance and the breaking of it an heinous Crime and that no abuses imaginable are sufficient excuse for a totall desertion of a just power Thus far in the Thesis we agree but in the Hypothesis we differ That which is a sufficient ground for a reformation is not a sufficient Ground for an extirpation So many so grievous so unconscionable extortions and Vsurpations and malignant influences as we complain of and prove are without all peradventure a sufficient ground of Reformation which is all our Ancestours did or we defend though not a sufficient cause of the extirpation of any just Authority Our Grounds are sufficient for a Reformation of abuses and encroachments which we acknowledge and which is all we did at the Reformation but for the abolition of any just power it is his fond Imagination we disclaime it altogether We have cast out all Papall Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court as being Politicall not Spirituall but for any Papall Iurisdiction either purely spirituall or justly founded we have not medled with it Those things which we have cast out are onely abuses and Vsurpations So there is no need of that Consideration which he proposeth whether the abuses were otherwise remediable or not for our Reformation is that very Remedy which he himself hath prescribed to
Opinions of the Romanists and yet some of my Instances were in Cardinall Richlieus dayes and since very lately Adding that I contradict myself yet once more affirming that I hope those seditious doctrins at this day are almost buryed What Satisfaction doth this man owe to his Reader to conceale from him all the Presidents Lawes Sentences of Emperours Kings Common-wealths Vniversities and to present him nothing but such Fopperies as these I will not vouchsafe to spend any time about them but onely give the Reader an Ariadnes clew to guide him out of this Imaginary Maze I have shewed him what these seditious Opinions were where they were hatched and when namely in the beginning of Queen Elisabeths Reign And though some few of my Instances were after that time yet the maine body of them was much more ancient as in the Empire from Charles the great to Charles the fifth and in France from Carolus Calvus downward So I might truely say that the Instances cited by me were long before those disloyall Opinions were hatched and yet they are not so lately hatched but I hope they are almost buried at this day A man would have thought that I deserved thankes for my Charity not to be traduced But it is all one let the Reader judge who it is that trippeth up his own heeles When I said It was great Pity that he was not one of Christs Counsaâ—lers when he formed his Church It did not suppose that Christ had any Counsailers but to taxe him who takes upon him so Magisterially to dictate what was necessary then for Christ to doe This I called sawcinesse and justly Good Christians as I told him formerly ought to argue thus Christ formed his Church thus Therefore this is the best Forme not thus This is the best Forme therefore Christ Formed it after this manner The onely reason why I cited that text of St. Paul One Body one Spirit one Hope one Lord one Faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all was this that St. Paul reckoning up seven Bonds of Vnity should omit this which Mr. Serjeant makes to be the onely Bond of Vnity namely unus Papa One Pope or one Bishop of Rome Christ saw it necessary to make a Bond of Vnity between the Churches And that for this reason he gave the Principality to St Peter and Consequently to the Bishops of Rome All this he supposeth on his own head but doth not goe about to prove any thing if St. Paul had been of the same mind that was the proper place to have recorded it and doubtlesse he would not have omitted it This Argument which onely I used he doth not touch but fancieth that I make these seven Bonds of Vnity or Obligations to Vnity or meanes of Vnity to be seven markes of those which be in the Church which I never dreamed of And therefore I passe it by as impertinent Onely adding that our Ground for Vnity of Faith is our Creed and for Vnity of Government the very same forme of Discipline which was used in the Primitive Church and is derived from them to us When I wished that he had expressed himself more clearly whether he be for a beginning of Order and Vnity or for a single head of Power and Iurisdiction I spake of St. Peter of whoÌ„ the case is cleare that he had no more power over his Fellow Apostles then they had over him and that the Supremacy of Power rested in the Apostolicall College All that St. Peâ—er had was a beginning of Vnity What St. Peter had the Pope may pretend a claime to what he had not the Pope hath no pretence for Neither Iohn Patriarch of Constantinople nor any other ancient Bishop nor yet St. Gregory himself did ever dream of such a singular Headship of Power as he mentions that is that no Bishop in the Church should have Power but he Although the Court of Rome and their adherents come very near it at this day deriving all the power of Iurisdiction of all other Bishops from the Pope That Power which Iohn affected and St. Gregory impugned then and we impugne now is the Power of Vniversall Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court If that were an Heresy in him as he confesseth let them looke to themselves Neither is the Bishops Primacy of Order so dry a Primacy as he pretendeth nor destitute of those Privileges which belong to a Primate of Order by the Law of Nature To call Assemblies sub paena spirituali or to intimate the necâ—ssity of calling them to propose doubts to receive Votes and to execute so farre as he is trusted by the Church This is the single Power of a Primate of Order but besides this he hath also a conjoint power in the Government of the Church What he saith to the prejudice of Generall Councells I have answered formerly He askes me What other Successour St. Peter had who could pretend to an Headship of Order except the Bishop of Rome I answer that I did not speake of what St. Peter had but what he might have had or may have whensoever the Representative Church that is a Generall Councell should give the Primacy of Order to another Bishop Since he is so great a Friend to the Schoole of Sorbon he can not well be ignorant what their learned Chancellour hath written expresly upon this Subject in his Booke de Aâ—seribilitate Papae not the taking away of the Papacy but Removall of it And what Bellarmine confesseth that neither Scripture nor Tradition doth prove that the Apâ—sâ—olicall See is so fixed to Rome that it cannot be removed He urgeth that then the Church should remaine without this Principality at the death of every Pope untill all the Churches in Iapan China and India had given their consent yet I acknowledge it to be of perpetuall necessity First he doth me wrong I did not say positively that it is of perpetuall necessity but that I like it well enough and the reason being of perpetuall necessity seemeth strongly to imply the necessity of the thing Secondly I answer that there is no need to expect such far fetched Suffrages so long as the Primacy may remaine fixed where it is unlesse a Generall Councell or one as Generall as may be think fit to remove it and if a Generall Councell remove it it will take order for the future succession And this same reason doth clearly take away his answer to my instance That as the Dying of such a Bishop Lord Chancellour of England doth not perpetuate the Chancellourship to that Bishoprick because there is a Soveraign Prince to elect another so the dying of St. Peter Bishop of Rome doth not perpetuate the Primacy to that Bishoprick because a Generall Councell when it is in being hath power to transferre it to another See if they find it expedient for the publick good The Bishop knoweth right well that the Church of Christ is both his Spouse and his Family both the Governesse and the
that Authority which he doth challenge and not wave the extent as a thing Indifferent If he challenge it out of Prudentiall Reasons it ought to be considered whether the Hopes or the Hazards the Advantages or Disadvantages the ConvenieÌ„ces or Inconveniences of such a Form of Government particularly circumstantiated doe over ballance the one or the other And the surest tryall of this is by experience It will trouble him to find so many Advantages which the Church and Kingdome of England have received from Papall Iurisdiction I speak not of the Key of Order as may overweigh all those Disadvantages which they have susteined by the Extortions and Vsurpations and Malignant Influence of the Papacy If he attribute no more power to the Pope then all Roman Catholicks universally do approve which is the onely Rule that he giveth us to know what is the Substance of Papall Authority he need not be so impetuous this Question is near an end He askes whether wee and the Eastern Southern and Northern Christians be under the Government of Patriarchs or any other Common Government I answer wee and they are under the same Common Government which the Primitive Church was under from the Dayes of the Apostles long before there were any Generall Councells that was the Government of Bishops under Primates or Patriarchs For as I have said formerly a Protarch and a Patriarch in the Language of the Primitive Church are both one We have as much Opportunity to Convocate Synods as they had then before there were Christian Emperours and more yet by such Councells as they could Congregate though they were not Generall they governed the Church If there be not that free Communication of one Church with another that was then either by reason of the great distance or our mutuall misunderstanding one of another for want of the old Canonicall Epistles or Literae Formatae the more is the Pity We are sorry for it and ready to contribute our uttermost endeavours to the Remedy of it With these western Churches which have shaken of the Roman Yâ—ke we have much more Communion by Synods by Letters by Publishing our Confessions aÌ„d we might justly hope for a much nearer union yet both in doctrine and Discipline if God would be graciously pleased to restore an happy Peace That we have it not already in so large a measure as we might is their onely Faults who would not give way to an Vniform Reformation Sometimes they accuse us for having too much Communion with them at other times they will not grant us to have any at all Concerning the rest of the Western Churches which submit to the Papacy we have the same Rules both of Doctrine and Discipline which they had We have the same that they have saving their Additionall Errours We have broken no Bonds of Unity either in Faith or Discipline we have renounced no just Authority either Divine or Humane we adhere to the Apostles Creed as the ancient and true Rule of Faith into which alone all ChristiaÌ„s that ever were have been baptised and we renounce the upstart additionall Articles of Pius the fourth We are willing for peace sake to give the Pope the same Primacy of Order which St. Peter had above his Fellow Apostles but the Supremacy of power was not in St. Peter but in the Apostolicall College neither is now in the Bishop of Rome but in a Councell of Bishops He saith we maintein a larger Brotherhood then they but never goe about to shew any visible Tye of Government We shew them the same Badge or Cognisance of our Christianity that is the same Creed and the same Discipline or Government that is the same Colours derived down from the Apostles by an uninterrupted Succession The same Doctrine and the same Discipline is Tye enough To take an exact View it is necessary the Organ should be perfect the Medium fit and the Distance convenient if any one of these were Defective in Mr. Rosses View he might well mistake but I may not doe him that wrong to trust your Testimony without citing his words He urgeth If Christ have left any Vnity of Government in his Church and Commanded it to be kept and we have taken a Course to leave no such Vnity then we have rebelled against Christ and his Church and falsly pretend to have him our Spirituall head I admit this now let him Assume But you Protestants have taken a Course to leave no Vnity of Government in the Church which Christ left and Commanded to be kept I deny his Assumtion altogether and he saith not one word to prove it This is his Enthymematicall manner of Arguing He procedeth That to have a Generall Councell for an Ecclesiasticall Head is to confesse that there is no Ordinary Vnity of Government in Gods Church but extraordinary onely when a Councell sits I deny this Proposition altogether and the reason is Evident because besides a Generall Councell which sitteth but rarely neither is it needfull that it should sit often Nisi dignus Vindice nodus inciderit there are particular Councells which in lesser Exigents serve the turn as well as Generall There are Patriarchs and Bishops which are Ordinary and perpetuall In an Aristocracy it is not necessary that the Governours should be evermore actually Assembled In the first three hundred yeares there were no Generall Councells held there was lesse hope of ever holding them then then now yet there was an Ordinary Vnity of Government in Gods Châ—rch in those dayes for which they were not indebted at all to any visible Monarch Bâ—t when a Generall Councell doth sit the Supreme Ecclesiasticall power rests in it He wonders why I should make the King onely a Politicall Head Contrary to our Common Assertion It seemeth that though he hath been bred among us yet he hath not been much versed in our Authors No man that ever understood himself made him otherwise Yet this Politicall Head hath a great Influence upon Ecclesiasticall Causes and persons in the Externall Regiment of the Church He demandeth is there any Orderly Common Tye of Government obliging this Head to Correspond with the other head If not where is the Vnity I answer yes the direction of his Spirituall Guides that is his Bishops and Synods If this Method be so great a Rarity with him it is his own fault He had said more properly to Correspond with the other Heads then Head He saith It is false to say that they have sometimes two or three heads since there can be but one true or rightly chosen Pope True but the Election may be uncertain that no man living can know the true Pope so whether there be three Popes or one Pope and two pretenders yet if the right Pope cannot be made appeare it is all one relatively to the Church If the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to the Battell He telleth us further that when the See of Rome is vacant the Headship is
the searcher of all hearts that what I say is true and his accusations are groundlesse Calumnies But as to the merit of the cause he addeth that these unusuall expressions were onely these that Christ had two distinct persons and no distinct natures Thus he saith but what Authours what Authority doth he produce that any of these Churches are guilty of any such expressions None at all because for all his good intelligence he hath none to produce nor ever will be able to produce any and so his good intelligence must end in smoke and stinke as his most faithfull protestation did before I will conclude this point to his shame with the Doctrin of the English Church Art 2. That the two Natures Divine and Humane are perfectly and inseperably conjoined in the Vnity of the person of Christ. Doth this agree with his counterfeit expressions Christ hath two distinct persons no distnct natures When I used this expression the best is we are either wheat or chaffe of the Lords Floore but their tongues must not winnow us these words the best is had no such immediate Relation unto the words immediatly following we are either wheat or Chaffe but to the last words their tongues must not winnow us making this the complete sense we are either wheat or chaffe but the best is whether we be wheat or chaffe their tongues must not winnow us What poore boyish pickquering is this In my Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon occasionally I shewed the Agreement of the Greek Churches with the Church of England in the greatest Questions agitated between us and the Church of Rome out of Cyrill late Patriarch of Constantinople which he taketh no notice of but in requitall urgeth a passage out of Mr. Rosse in his booke called a View of all Religions It is an unequall match between Mr. Rosse a private Stranger and the Patriarch of Constantinople in a cause concerning his own Church I meddle not with Mr. Rosse but leave him to abound in his own sense I know not whether he be truly cited or not but with Mr. Serjeant I shall be bold to tell him that if he speaketh seriously and bona fide he is mistaken wholy Neither doe the Greekes place much of their Devotion in the worship of the Virgin Mary and painted Images Heare Cyrill the Patriarch we give leave to him that will to have the Images of Christ and of the Saints but we disallow the Adoration and worship of them as prohibited by the Holy Ghost in Holy Scripture And another They give great honour to the Virgin Mary the Mother of Christ but they neither adore her nor implore her aide And for the Intercession prayers help and Merits of the Saints taking the word Merit in the sense of the Primitive Church that is not for Desert but for Acquisition I know no Difference about them among those men who understand themselves but onely about the last words which they invocate in their Temples rather then Churches A Comprecation both the GreciaÌ„s and we do allow an ultimate invocatioÌ„ both the Grecians and we detest so do the Church of Rome in their Doctrine but they vary from it in their practise It followeth They place IustificatioÌ„ not in Faith but in workes Most Falsly Heare Hieremy the Patriarch We must doe good workes but not confide in them And Cyrill his Successour VVe believe that man is justified by Faith not VVorkes Before we can determine for whom those Eastern Southern and Northern Christians are in the Question concerning the Sacrifice of the Masse it is necessary to know what the right state of this Controversy is I have challenged them to goe one step further into it then I do and they dare not or rather they cannot without Blasphemy The next instance concerning Purgatory is so grosse and notorions a mistake that it were a great shame to confute it They believe that the soules of the Dead are bettered by the prayers of the living Which way are they bettered That the soules of damned are released or eased thereby the Modern Greeks deny and so do we That there are any soules in Purgatory to be helped they deny and so do we That they may be helped to the Consummation of their Blessednesse and to a speedier Vnion with their Bodies by the resurrection thereof they do not deny no more do we We pray dayly Thy Kingdome come and Come Lord Iesus come quickly and that we with this our Brother and all other departed in the Faith may have our perfect Consummation and blesse both in body and Soule They hate Ecclesiasticall Tiranny and lying supposititious Traditions so do we but if they be for the Authority of the Church and for genuine Apostolicall Traditions Gods blessing on their hearts so are we Lastly the Grecians know no feast of Corpus Christi nor carry the Sacrament up and down nor elevate it to be adored They adore Christ in the use of the Sacrament so do we They do not adore the Sacrament no more do we Yet from hence he inferreth that there is not a point of Faith wherein they dissent from the Church of Rome except that one of the Popes Supremacy It is well they will acknowledge that Yet the Grecians agree with us and differ from them in his two Rules or Bonds of Vnity In the Rule of discipline the Grecians and we have the same Government of Bishops under Patriarchs and Primates Secondly in the Rule of Faith the Grecians and we have both the same Canonicall bookes of Scripture both reject their Apocryphall Additions from the Genuine Canon They and we have both the same Apostolicall Creed both reject the new Additions of Pius the fourth In summe they and wee doe both deny their Transubstantiation their Purgatory their Iustification by workes in sensu forensi their doctrine of Merits and Supererogation their Septenary number of the Sacraments their Image worship their Pardons their private Masses their half-Communion And to be briefe the Grecians doe renounce and reject all those Branches of Papall power which we have cast out of the Church of England As the Popes Soveraignty over the Catholick Church by divine Right as Nilus saith It is intollerable that the Roman Bishop will not be subject to the Canons of the Fathers since he had his Dignity from the Fathers Secondly his Legislative power as Peter Stewart Vice-chanceller of Ingolstad witnesseth that the Grecians object it as an errour to the Latines that they make the Popes Commandements to be their Canons and Lawes Thirdly his Iudiciary power equalling the Patriarch of Constantinople to the Patriarch of Rome or rather preferring him Lastly his dispensative power accusing his Pardons and Dispensations as things that open a gaâ—e to all Kind of Villany I am glad that Nilus is in his good grace to be stiled by him one of the gravest Bishops and Authors of that party for one moderate expression wherein he saith no more then we say
I will find an English Law that sixty Members is a sufficient number to make a lawfull Parliament I have done his Commands and I know no such law nor he neither and then he must be a very confident man to cite such a Law Perhaps he hath heard of some Ordinance of the House of Commons how many members at the least must be present at doing of some inferiour Acts but neither is this Ordinance an English Law â—or that House an English Parliament He saith I excepted against the superproportioned multitude of Members out of one Province which never lawfull Parliament had Superproportioned indeed where there were double the Number of Italian Bishops to all the other Bishops of the Christian world this is no equall representative and these assembled thither not to dispute as he fancieth vainly but meerly to overvote the Tramontanes A few Bishops had sufficed to relate the Beliefe or Tradition of Italy as well as the rest of the world but that had not sufficed to doe the Popes worke that was to overswey the rest of the Christian world with his Superproportioned multitude of Italian Bishops He saith perhaps I will pretend that had the Catholick Bishops out of their Provinces been there they would have voted against their Fellow Catholicks in behalf of Luther and Calvin which were a wise answer I heed not much what he calleth wise or foolish I doe not onely pretend but I see clearly that If the Bishops of other Countries had been proportioned to those of Italy they had carried the Debate about Residence and the Divine right of Episcopacy and that had done the bâ—sinesse of the Western Church and undone the Court of Rome But he quite omitteth the most materiall part of my Discourse concerning his resemblance between a Parliament and a Generall Councell That the absence of whole Provinces and the much greater part of the Provinces either of England or of Christendome for want of due Summons doth disable such a Parliament or such a Councell from being a Generall Representative of the whole He might even as well say that an Assembly of the Peers and Burgesses of Wales upon Summons without any appearance or summons of all the rest of the Kingdome of England was a lawfull Parliament of all England as say the Councell of Trent was a Generall Representative of the Christian world which was never summoned I proved that the Councell of Trent was no Generall Councell because it was not Generally received no not among the Occidentall Churches particularly by the Church of France in point of Discipline He answereth that notwithstanding They acknowledge it to be a lawfull Generall Councell and receive it in all Determinations belonging to Faith Adding that the Disciplinarian Lawes of a Generall Councell doe bind particular Countries onely in due Circumstances and according to their Conveniences But the Contrary is most apparent that Councells truly Generall being the Supreme Tribunalls of the Catholick Church doe bind particular Churches as well in point of Discipline as of Faith The Generall Councells of Constantinople and Chalcedon did set the See of Constantinople before AlexaÌ„dria and Antioch And equall it to Rome notwithstanding the Popes Opposition What OpinioÌ„ the King and Church of France had of the Councell of Trent in those Dayes appeareth by the solemne Protestation of the French Ambassadour made in the Councell in the name of his Master and the French Church that seeing all things were done at Rome rather then at Trent and the decrees there published were rather the decres of Pius the fourth then of the Councell of Trent We denounce said he and protest before you all that whatsoever things are decreed and published in this Assembly by the mere will and pleasure of Pope Pius neither the most Christian King will ever approve nor the French Church ever acknowledge to be the decrees of a Generall Councell That the Councell of Trent was not a free Councell I proved first by the Testimony of Sleidan secondly by the bitter complaint of the Fathers in the Councell of Trent that it was guided by the Spirit sent from Rome in a Male thirdly by the Popes creating â—ot onely new Bishops but new Bishopricks in the time of the Councell to make his party able to overvote their Opposers To the first he saith that Sleidan was a notorious lying Authonr of our own side Who fitter to relate the Grievances of the Protestants then a Protestant which he did not say in a Corner but published to the world in print when they might have refuted it if they could To the second he answereth that it was a jeering expression Yes it was biting as well as jeering Ridiculum acri Fortius melius magnas plerumque secat res The French Ambassador whom he thought to passe by in silence did not jeere yet he said the same thing in sad earnest To my third Argument he saith â—t is nothing to the purpose How nothing to the purpose for the Pope when his affaires were going retrograde and his party like to be overvoted to create new Bishopricks to ordaine new Bishops and pack them away presently to the Councell to assist his party and by that means to gaine a plurality of Voices Is this nothing to the purpose in his Opinion It may be he thinkes that Italy had not Bishops enough there yet they had two thirds of the Councell before or that these new Bishops did understand the Tradition and Beliefe of Italy better then all the rest If it be his mind to wave the Popes Patriarchall power I am contented otherwise his proofe will not weigh much unlesse we admit strangers who know little or nothing of our Privileges more then we know the Cyprian Privilege before the Councell of Ephesus to be competeÌ„t judges and will interpret a Western Patriarch to be the onely Patriarch of all the west The Archbishop of Yorke is Primate of EnglaÌ„d and yet all England is not subject to his Iurisdiction Forfeiture and Quitting are two distinct Charges an Office is Forfeited by abuse and quitted by assuming a new Office inconsistent with the former as I have shewed the Papacy and a Patriarchate that is a Soveraign and Subordinate power to be But a Patriarchate and a Bishoprick being both subordinate to a Generall Councell are not inconsistent and much lesse the Office of a King and Master of a Family the one being Politicall the other Oeconomicall But an Vniversall Monarchy by divine right and the Presidency of a Particular Province by Humane right are inconsistent I gave him my reasons for it and he taketh no notice of them He excepteth against my styling Patriarchall Authority a Patriarchall Aristocraticall dignity which he calleth my thrice repeated non sense It is well he did not make it a Contradiction His reason is because a Patriarchaâ—e is a Government by one an Aristocracy by many The answer is Obvious and easy a Patriarch is a Monarch in the Government
Councell then there will need no turning out Secondly he objecteth So a man may reject all Government of the Church the Procession of the Holy ghost all the Sacraments all the Scriptures and yet continue a Member of Gods Church Why so When I said the Creed was a â—ufficient Rule of Faith or Credendorum of things to be believed I neither said nor meant that it was regula agendorum a Rule of such things as are to be practised such as the Acts of discipline and of the Sacraments are The Creed conteined enough for Salvation touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost before the words Filioque were added to it and there is great cause to doubt that the Contentions of the Eastern and Western Churches about this Subject are but a meer Logomachy or strife about words The Scriptures and the Creed are not two different Rules of Faith but one and the same Rule dilated in the Scripture contracted in the Creed the end of the Creed being to contein all Fundamentall points of Faith or a summary of all things necessary to Salvation to be believed Necessitate medii But in what particulaâ— writings all these fundamentall points are conteined is no particular fundamentall Article it self nor conteined in the Creed nor could be conteined in it since it is apparent out of Scripture it self that the Creed was made and deposited with the Church as a Rule of Faith before the Canon of the new Testament was fully perfected Arrians and Socinians may perhaps wrest the words of the Apostles Creed to their Hereticall Sense but not as it is explained by the first foure Generall Councells which all Orthodox Christians doe admit He saith they and we differ about the sense of two Articles of the Creed that is the descent of Christ into Hell and the Catholick Church but setteth not down wherein we differ He hath reason to understand our Differences having been of both Churches but I for my part do rather believe that he understandeth neither part right Howsoever it be the Different Sense of an Article doth make an Heretick after it is defined by the Vniversall Church not before He saith he hath already shewed in the foregoing Section that the Protestant Grounds have left no Order and Subordination of Vniversall Government in Gods Church But he hath neither shewn it in the foregoing Section nor any where else nor is able to shew it We have the same subordination that the Primitive Church of Inferiour Clergy men to Bishops of Bishops to Archbishops of Archbishops to Patriarchs and of Patriarchs to a Generall Councell or as Generall as may be Let him shew any one linke of this Subordination that we have weakened I said we acknowledge not a Virtuall Church or one man as infallible as the Vniversall Church He rejoineth Nor they neither I wish it were so Generally but the Pope and Court of Rome who have the power of the Keys in their hands whoÌ„ onely we accuse in this behalf do maintain the Contrary that a Generall Councell without the Pope may erre that the Pope with any Councell Generall or particular cannot erre that the infallibility of the Church is radicated in the Pope by virtue of Christs prayer for S. Peter that his faith should not faile not in a company of Counsailers nor in a Councell of Bishops that the Pope cannot define temerariously in matters of Faith or good manners which concern the whole Church What a Generall Councell is and what the Vniversall Church is and who ought to be excluded from the one or the other as Hereticks I have shewed already namely all those and onely those who doe either renounce their Creed the badge of their Christianity the same Faith whereinto they were baptised or who differing about the sense of any Article thereof have already been excluded as Hereticks by the sentence of an undoubted Generall Councell Howsoever he sleighteth the Controversies which they have among themselves concerning the last resolution of Faith as if they were of no moment yet they are not of so little concernment to be so sleighted What availeth it to say they have the Church for an infallible Iudge whilest they are not certain or do not know what the Church is or who this infallible Iudge is May not a Man say unto them as Elijah said unto the Israelites Why halt ye between two Opinions Or rather why halt yet betwixt five or six Opinions If the Pope alone be infallible Iudge follow him If a Generall Councell alone be this infallible Iudge follow it If the Essentiall Church be the infallible Iudge Adhere to it If the Pope and a Generall Councell oâ— the Pope and a particular Councell or the Pope and his Conclave of Cardinalls be this infallible Iudge follow them He telleth us that their Vniversall Church is as Visible as the sun at Noone day to wit those Countryes in Communion with the See of Rome Without doubt they are Visible enough but it is as Visible that they are not the Vniversall Church What shall become of all the rest of the Christian world They are the elder Christians and more numerous fower for one both Patriarchs and people It is against reason that one single Protopatriarch should cast out fower out of the Church and be both party and Iudge in his own Cause But here it ends not If the Pope will have his Visible Church to be one Homogeneous body he must cast out a great many more yet and it is to be suspected this very Dispatcher himself among the rest for all his shewes They flatter the Pope with Generall Terms of Head and Chief Governour and First Mover which signify nothing but in reality they would have the Pope to be no more then the Duke of Venice is in the Venetian Common wealth that is lesse then any single Senatour Or that which a Generall Maister is in a Religious Order Above all Priours and Provincialls but subject to a Congregation Generall Wherein doe these men differ from us Sect. 8. That all Princes â—nd Republiques of the Roman Communion doe in effect the same thing whicâ— Henry the eighth did when they have Occasion or at least doe plead for it This was the Title and this was my scope of my Fifth ground which I made good by the Lawes and decrees of the Emperours with their Councells and Synods and Electorall College by the Lawes of France the Liberties of the Gallican Church the Acts of their Parliaments and declarations of their Vniversities By the practise of the King of Spain his Councells his Parliaments in Sicily in Castile in Brabant and Flanders By the sighs of Portugall and their bleaâ—ings and the Iudgement of the Vniversity of Lisbone By the Lawes and Proclamations of the Republick of Venice This I made good in every particular branch of Papall power which we have cast out of England the Patronage of the English Church The right to call and confirm Synods to conferre Bishopricks to
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