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
Clarendon by the Popes Mandate they had interdicted the Lands of Earl Hugh and had published an Excommunication without the Kings License which the Pope had given out against him All these Lawes continued still in force and were never repealed in England neither before Henry the eighth began the reformation nor since by Queen Mary but have ever continued iu full force untill this day Lastly for Legates and Legantine courts there could be no Appeale in Eugland to any Legate or Nuncio without the Kings leave but all Appeales must be from the Archdeacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop from the Archbishop to the King as we see expresly by the statute of Assise of Clarendon formerly cited The Kings of England did ever deem it to be an unquestionable right of the Crown as Eadmerus testifieth to suffer none to excercise the Office of a Legate in England if the King him self did not Desire it of the Pope upon some great quarrell that could not be so well Determined by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops Which Privilege was consented unto by Pope Calixius By the Lawes of England if a Legate was admitted of Courtesy he was to take his Oath to doe nothing Derogatory to the King and his Crown Henry the sixth by the counsaile of Humphry Duke of Gloster the Protector protested against Pope Martin and his Legate that they would not admit him contrary to the Lawes and Libertyes of the Realm and dissented from whatsoever he did And when the Pope had recalled Cardinall Pooles Commission of Legate for England and was sending another Legate into England Queen Mary being very tender of her Kinsmans Honour for all her good affection to Rome was yet mindfull of this point of old English Law to cause all the Seaports to be stopped and all Letters Briefs and Bulls from Rome to be intercepted and brought to her Shee knew this was an old English not a new protestant Privilege Neither would she ever admit the new Legate to appeare as Legate in her presence Now let us see how these old English Customes doe agree with the French Liberties The Pope cannot send a Legate a latere into France with power to Reform Iudge Collate dispense except it be upon the desire or with the Approbation of the most Christian King Neither can the Legate execute his Charge untill he hath promised the King under his Oath upon his holy Orders to make no longer use of the Legantine power in the Kings Dominions then it pleaseth him That he shall attempt nothing Contrary to the Liberties of the Gallicane Church And it is lawful to Appeale from the Pope to a future Councell Another Liberty is The Commissions and Bulls of Popes are to be viewed by the Court of Parliament and registred and published with such Cautiōs as that Court shall Iudge expedient A third Liberty is Papall Bulls Sentences Excommunications and the like are not to be executed in France without the Kings command or Permission Lastly neither the King nor his Realm nor his Officers can be Excommunicated nor Interdicted by the Pope And as England and France so all the seventeen Provinces did enjoy the same Privileges as appeareth by the Placaet of the Councell of Brabant dated at Bruxelles May 12 An. 1653. Wherein they declare that it was notoriously true that the subjects of those Provinces of what State or Condition soever that is the Clergy as well as the Laity cannot be cited or convented out of the Land no not before the Court of Rome it self And that the Censures Excommunications c of that Court might not be published or put in execution without the Kings Approbation It seemeth that if the Pope had any judiciary power of old he must seek it nearer Home People had no mind to goe over the Alpes to seek for Justice And that Ordinance of Sainct Cyprian had place every where among our Ancestours Seing it is decreed by all and it is equall and just that every mans cause be heard there where the Crime was committed and a Portion of the Flock is assigned to every Pastor which he may rule and govern and must render an account of his Actions to the Lord It behoveth those whom wee are over not to run up and down nor to knock Bishops who agree well one◠against another by their Cunning and deceitfull Rashnesse but to plead their Cause there where they may have both Accusers and Witnesses of their Crime Vnlesse the Authority of the African Bishops who have Iudged them already seem lesse to a few desperate and lost persons c. To say S. Cyprian meant not to condemne appeales but onely the bringing Causes out of Africk to Rome in the first Instance is a shift as desperate as that of those Fugitives For St. Cyprian telleth us plainly that the cause was already Iudged and sentence given in Africk The first Instance was past and this Canon was made against Appeales out of Africa to Rome Sect I. Cap VIII So from his Iudiciary power I come to Papal dispensations the last of the grosser Vsurpations of the Bishops of Rome Where I have a large Field offered me to expatiate in if I held it so pertinēt to the present Controversy The Pharisees did never dilate their Philacteries so much as the Roman Courtiers did their dispensative power The Pope dispenseth with Oathes with Vowes with Lawes he looseth from Sinnes from Censures from Punishments Is not this a strange Key which can unlock both sinnes and censures and Punishments and Lawes and Oaths and Vowes where there are so many and so different wards It is two to one that it proveth not a right Key but a Picklock Their doctrin of Dispensations was foule enough especially in such cases as concern the Law of God or Nature as Oaths Vowes Leagues Marriages Allegiance For either they make the dispensation to be onely Declarative and then the Purchaser is meerly Cheated who payes his money for nothing Or else they make all Contracts Leagues promises to be but Conditionall If the Pope approve them which destroyeth all mutuall trust and humane Society Or thirdly they make the Popes Dispensations to be a taking away of the matter of the Vow or Oath that is the Promise as if the Papall power could recall that which is past or make that to be undone to day which was done yesterday or that not to be promised which was promised Or lastly they doe dispense with the Law of God and Nature as they doe indeed what soever they pretend to the Contrary or all this kind of dispensations signify nothing But the Practise of Dispensations was much more foule Witnesse their Penitentiary Taxe wherein a man might see the Price of his Sin before hand Their common Nundination of Pardons Their absolving Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Their loosing of Princes from their solemne Leagues of Married people from the Bonds of
fourth Custome was this that when an Arch Bishoprick Bishoprick Abbacy or Priory did fall void the Election was to be made by such of the Principall Dignitaryes or Members of that respective Church which was to be filled as the king should call together for that purpose with the kinges consent in the kings own Chappell And there the person elected was to doe his Homage and Fealty to the King as to his Liege Lord The Pope had no part to Act neither to collate nor consent nor confirm nor Institute nor induct nor ordeine The Second Law is the Statute of Carlile made in the time of Edward the First The summe of it is this That the king is the Founder of all Bishopricks and ought to have the Custody of them in the Vacancyes and the right of Patronage to present to them And that the Bishop of Rome usurping the Right of Patronage giveth them to aliens That this tendeth to the annullation of the State of holy Church to the Disinheriting of Kings and the Destruction of the Realm And they ordained in full Parliament that this is an Oppression that is as much as an entroachment or Vsurpation and should not be suffered The third law was made in the 15th yeare of Edward the third called the Statute of Provisors wherein they affirm that Elections were First granted by the Kings Progenitors upon a certain form or Condition to demand Licenfe of the King to chuse and after the Election to have his Royall Assent Which Conditions not being kept the thing ought by reason to resort to his First nature And there fore conclude that in case Reservation Collation or Provision be made by the Court of Rome of any Arch Bishoprick c. Our Soveraign Lord the King and his Heirs shall have and enjoy the Collations for the same time to the said Arch Bishopricks Bishopricks and other dignityes Elective which be of his Aavowre such as his Progenitors had before the free Election was granted They tell the King plainly that the Right of the Crown of England and the Law of the Land is such that the King is bound to make remedyes and Lawes against such mischiefes And they acknowledge that he is Advowée Paramont immediate of all Churches Prebends and other Benifices which are of the Advowry of holy Church That is as much as Soveraign Patron of the Church Where no Election can be made without the Kings Congé d' Estire or leave antecedent nor stand good without his subsequent consent it is all one as if the Crown did Collate I come next to the second Branch of the First Question about the Patronage of the Church Who hath power to Convocate and Dissolve Ecclesiasticall Assemblyes and whether the Crown or the Pope have usurped one upon another in this particular I cannot tell whether Henry the eighth or Paul the third did mistake more about that Aiery title of the head of the english church Henry the eight supposing that the right to convocate and dissolve Ecclesiasticall Assemblyes and to receive Tenths and First fruits did esseÌ„tially follow this Title And Paul the third declaringe it to be Hereticall and Schismaticall To be head of the English Church is neither more nor lesse then our Lawes and Histories ancient and Modern doe every where ascribe to our English Kings To be Governers of Christians To be the Advocates of the Church To be Patrons and Advowées Paramont of all Churches To be Defenders of the Faâ—h there Professed And to use the Words of the Convocation it self Ecclesiae Anglicanae Protectores singulares Vnicos Supremos Dominos The same body may have severall heads of severall kinds upon Earth as Politicall and Ecclesiasticall and then that which takes care of the Archirectonicall end to see that every member doe his Duty is alwayes Supreme That is the Politicall head This truth Cardinall Poole did see clearly enough and reconcile the seeming difference by distinguishing between a Regall head and a Sacerdotall head This truth the French Divines see wel enough and doubt not to call their King the Terrene head of the Church of his Realme without attributing to him any Sacerdotall right Wee had our Sacerdotall heads too in EnglaÌ„d without seeking for theÌ„ so far as Rome As the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Reigns of our English Monarchs who of old was Nullius unquam Legati ditioni subjectus Never subject to the Iurisdiction of any Legate When the Pope sent over Guy Archbishop of Vienna into England as his Legate throughout Britaigne for the Apostolicall See It was received with wonder and Admiration of all men Inauditum scilicet in Britannia cuncti scientes quemlibet hominum super se vices Apostolicas gerere nisi solum Episcopum Cantuariae All men did know that it was never heard in Britagne that any Man whatsoever had Apostolicall power over them but onely the Archbishop of Canterbury And accordingly the new Legate did speed so it followeth Wherefore as he came so he returned received as Legate by no man nor having exercised any part of his Legantine power This was the ground of that Letter of the English Bishops to the Pope That the Church of Canterbury might not be deprived of its dignity in his times and that he would neither Diminish it him self nor suffer it to be diminished As appeareth by the Popes acknowledgment in his answer But to come up close to the Difference The Question is not whether â—he Bishop of Rome have Authority to call Synods He is a Bishop a Metropolitan a Patriarch a Prince in his own Dominions As a Bishop he may Convocate his Diocesse As a Metropolitan his Province As a Patriarch his Patriarchate under the pain of Ecclesiasticall Censure more or lesse compulsory according to that Degree of Coactive power which hath been indulged to him in these Distinct Capacities by former Soveraigns And as a Prince he may convocate his Subjects under Politicall paines The more these two powers are united and complicated the more terrible is the Censure And therefore our kings would have their Bishops denounce spirituall paines also against the Violaters of their great Charters Spirituall paiues are more heauy then Politicall but Politicall most commonly are more speedy then Spirituall And more certain Spirituall paines doe not follow an erring Key but Politicall doe Neither will I dispute at praesent whether the Bishop of Rome by his reputed Primacy of Order or Beginning of Unity may lawfully call an Oecumenicall or Occidentall Councell by power purely Spirituall which consists rather in Advise then in Mandates properly so called or in Mandates of Courtesy not Coactive in the Exteriour Court of the Church considering the Division and Subdivision of the ancient Empire and the present Distractions of Christendome it seemeth not altogether in convenient Wee see the Primitive Fathers did Assemble Synods and â—ake Canons before there were any christian Emperours but that was by aurhority meerly spirituall they
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