spake with honour of the Bishops of England I derived the Episcopal dignity from the very cradle of the Church I condemned Aerius I affirmed that St. James was Bishop of Hierusalem from whom the succession of the Bishops of that City was derived by a long row of Bishops Mr. Blondel in his needless Apology for St. Hierome made a very necessary Apology for himself and sent it to Mr. Rivet to be added as an Appendix to his Book in the Impression of it by whose neglect it was omitted And now having mentioned Doctor Rivet I shall make bold to add that he himself did intreat a Noble Earl yet living to procure him a dignity or Prebend in England as his Brother Mouline and Vossius had The Earl answered that he could not hold any such place in England without subscribing to Episcopacy and the Doctrine and Discipline of the English Church And he replied that he was most ready to subscribe to them both with his hand and heart I conclude that all Divines throughout the Christian World who maintain a necessity of Holy Orders ever were and still are Episcopal Divines except some weaker and wilful Brethren who for their Antiquity are but of Yesterday and for their Universality come much short of the very Donatists in Africk condemned by all moderate and rational persons of their own Communion And therefore Mr. Baxter might have done better to have given his pretended Designers a lower and more distinctive name than that of Episcopal Divines It will not help him at all which he saith pag. 21. It is not all Episcopal Divines which I suspected of a compliance with Grotius and Cassander no not all of the later strein c. I extended it to none of the new Episcopal Party but such as I there described His distinction of Episcopal Divines into Old and New is but a Chimera of his own brain without any ground neither doth he bring one grain of reason to make it good And by his plain Confession here it appeareth that this great design is but his own suspicion To accuse men of a design to introduce the Pope into England meerly upon suspicion is a liberty or rather license to be abhorred of all conscionable Christians Yet of the old Episcopal Divines he nameth many Bishop Jewel Pilkinson Hall Carlton Davenant Morton Abbot Usher Potter Downham Grindal Parker Hooper Farrar Cranmer Latimer Ridley and forty more Bishops here p. 103. as if so many names blended together confusedly in an heap as an hotchpotch were able like a Medusas head to transform reasonable men into stocks and stones If he had made his forty up an hundred he might have found instances enough to have made it good and sundry of them no way inferiour to any whom he nameth and superiour to many In commemorating some and pretermitting others he sheweth sometimes want of judgement always respect of persons What his description was of New Episcopal Divines I do not know having never seen any Treatise of his but this of the Grotian Religion neither should I have meddled with that if he had not brought me publickly upon the Stage neither do I much regard But howsoever he describeth them he instanceth in no man but my self either because he is not able to name any or because he thinks it easiest to leap over the hedge where it is lowest Have I not great reason to thank him for being so mindful of me in my absence As for my part I profess ingeniously before God and Man I never knew of any such design I am confident there never was any such design and I am certain that I neither had nor could have an hand in any such design either for Italian Popery or French Popery or any Popery unless he call the Doctrine and Discipline of the Primitive Church Popery unless our Holy Orders and Liturgy and Articles be Popery Other Popery he shall never be able to prove against me nor I hope against any true Episcopal Divines His design like the Phoenix is much talked of by himself but never was seen I know as little of any such distinction between Old and New Episcopal Divines All the World seeth evidently that all the material differences which we have with them are about those Holy Orders and that Liturgy and those Articles and those Rites which we received from those Old Episcopal Divines Non tellus cimbam tellurem cimâ—a reliquit We have not left our Predecessors but They have left both us and our Predecessors and the Church of England And it fareth with Mr. Baxter as it doth with new Sailers who by the deception of their sight suppose that the Land leaveth them terraeque urbesque recedunt when in truth it is they themselves that leave the Land In a word his supposed design and his pretended distinction are meer fansies which never had any being in the nature of things Where did these designers ever meet together to contrive their Plot They are never likely to do any great actions who want sinews to knit them together When or where had ever any of them any intercourse or correspondence with Rome or any that belonged to Rome by word or writing It was a sensless silly Plot to design the Introduction of the Pope into England without his own knowledge or consent upon terms never accorded never so much as treated upon Thus have we seen melancholick persons out of a strong fantasie imagine that they see Ships and Minotaures in the Clouds The proofs of such accusations as this is ought to have been clearer than the Noon-day light not ungrounded or ill grounded jealousies and suspicions of credulous and partial persons CHAP. V. This Plot was as weakly fathered upon the Bishop of Derry ANd as he erred in fathering his imaginary Plot upon Episcopal Divines in general so he made an ill choice of me the meanest of those Episcopal Divines for his only instance who have only read so much of Grotius as to enable me to judge that Mr. Baxter doth him wrong I hope unwittingly If ever I should attempt the reconciling of Controversies among Christians it must be in another way then Grotius taketh I mean more Scholastical I will confess that freely which Mr. Baxter neither doth know nor ever could know but by me that about thirty years since when my body was stronger and my wits fresher when I had some Books and Notes of mine own and could have had what supply soever I desired and opportunity to confer with whomsoever I pleased I had then a design indeed to do my weak endeavour to disabuse the Christian World by the right stating and distinguishing of Controversies between the Church of Rome and us And to shew First How many of them are meer Logomachies or contentions about words without any just ground Secondly How many of them are Scholastical subtleties whereof ordinary Christians are not capable and consequently no points of Faith Thirdly How many of them are not the
return to the ancient and Apostolical simplicity a thing very easie and very practicable were not Interest and Ignorance engaged against it Not that he was so vain or so presuming as to hope to see it effected in his own days He too well understood with how many invincible Prejudices it was obstructed he therefore only designed to declare his Iudgment to the Wise and the Unprejudicate and so to leave it to Posterity and some happy Iuncture of Affairs to accomplish what he could only advise and wish for But by this plain dealing with all Parties it is not to be doubted because it always so happens in the like cases but that he must displease and disoblige all but more especially he raised the Choler and enraged the Zeal of the Geneva Faction that Waspish Sect being according to the humour and spirit of their Founder never able to bear the least Affron or Contradiction And then immediately there was no gainsaying but that he must be as arrant a Papist as Antichrist himself This cry they smels of a Spanish-Popish-Iesuitical-Arminian Plot. It is a plain Prosecution of the Cardinal of Lorrains design that allowed annual Pensions even to the Lutheran Ministers themselves to revile and preach down Mr. Calvin thereby to reduce the People to Popery That crafty Statesman knew well enough that he was the only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to their Mystery of Iniquity and were he but once removed out of the way the Apostolical Chair would quickly be restored to its ancient Empire and Soveraignty over the Christian World And hence the Alarm is given to the People both from the Pulpit and the Press to stand upon their Guard against such dangerous and Babylonish Attempts These moderate and lukewarm men are but the Forerunners of the man of Sin and do but prepare the ways for his Entrance by removing the strongest and most stubborn Opposition against him And what though he deal as roundly and much more severely with the Church of Rome that is but a meer disguise for his present turn those hard Conditions are easily shaken off when once the Protestant cause and interest is utterly expired And therefore he and his Partizans may publish as many Books as they please against their present abuses and corruptions but the most charitable design they can be supposed to aim at is to bring in a more refined and a more cunning Popery And when this surmise is once voted and noised abroad and vouch'd by publick fame or their own vulgar Tales it is in vain to remonstrate to their rudeness and disingenuity It is not no it cannot be doubted of by any but such as are either privy or at least well-wishers to the design such indeed may pretend or counterfeit a Disbelief to cover their intentions and to escape suspicion And by this Artifice they begin first to seize upon all men in their Wits either for madmen or for parties in the Plot. And then the common people dare not but believe it in their own defence lest they should be suspected to have lost their Understanding as well as their Religion And by this rude and boiterous Confidence are they able as oft as they please to raise any disingenuous and spiteful surmise into popular Reputation and by strength of face and forehead to bear out the credit of the largest and most abusive Lyes And it is well known what strange and monstrous stories they obtruded upon the Multitude against the King the Bishops and the Church of England in defyance even to common sense and the most undenyable Experience But no man was more vehemently charged and more confidently condemned of this Attempt than this Reverend Prelate partly because he was a zealous and resolute Assertour of the publick Rites and Solemnities of the Church against all their wild and fanatick Pranks partly because he expunged some of their dear and darling Articles not only from the Christian Faith but from the Protestant Cause in that they were so far from being or pretending to be of Apostolical Antiquity that they were much younger than the Reformation it self or at best were but the Opinions of some private Doctors and were never establish'd into Articles by any publick Laws or Councils or if they were voted for Orthodox Doctrines in any meeting in Germany or Geneva they were never received for such in the Church of England and therefore ought not to be charged upon the Protestant Cause as such much less upon the English Reformation when it was never any part of its design to model new Bodies of Orthodoxy nor to exchange the old School-Doctors for Calvinian Systems and Syntagms but meerly to clear the Christian Faith of all Corruptions and innovations and reform it into its primitive and uncorrupted simplicity And if any Errours or fond Opinions should have escaped her first Observation she reserves a power in herself to review her own Decrees and either to ratifie or abolish them as they shall upon mature deliberation appear consonant to this Rule and agreeable to this design This was ever the Doctrine of the sober and intelligent men of the Church of England as well as her own declared sense They would never submit to any Authority of a later date than the four first general Councils and as for all forrain Churches of the modern stamp they were so far from being determined by them that they censured all their proceedings and rejected all their Doctrines that fell short of or went beyond their own standard of Prudence and Moderation But this was not to be endured by the fierce and fiery Calvinists to have all their Orthodox stuff cut off at one blow had they spent so much pains and gained so much reputation by their skill in Polemick Theology and must they now throw away all their Problems Subtilties and Distinctions and must all their deep and solid Learning be at last despised as a silly and impertinent piece of Duncery This certainly must needs be very grievous and somewhat provoking to great Clerks Men care not to be convinced that they have wasted so much Oyl and Sweat to no purpose And though they are not able to justifie the Follies and Errors of their Education yet being flush'd with the Glory that they have gain'd among their own party by their skill and ability in contending for their Opinion it is easie to imagine how stubbornly they will struggle in its defence rather than quit the support of their pride and self-conceitedness This Itch is so incident and delightful to humane Nature that where it is not over-ruled by an habitual Integrity and Discretion it is the most powerful not to say the only motive of all our Actions and has such a strict and undiscernable Influence upon our most serious thoughts that if well-meaning men are not very careful or very curious in observing and preventing its inward motions it will quickly prevail over their Understandings insinuate into all their designs and poyson
introducing any Popish errours into England who looked upon the Church of England as the right medium of reconciliation Neither were there any genuine Sons of the Church of England who thought upon any change either in Doctrine or Discipline We may fafely take our Oaths of the truth thereof It was his own Party only his own Party who were plotting and contriving a change underhand and cried out against other mens feigned innovations to conceal their own real innovations But how doth he make it appear that Grotius had such a Party of followers in England who sought to reconcile us to the Pope If it be sufficient to accuse no man can be innocent Let him speak out distinctly we fear not his charge would they reconcile us to the Pope and Papacy as it is now established Let him not say it for shame they abhor it Or would they reduce the Pope to what he was from the beginning and so reconcile us All good Christians joyn with them in so pious an Act. If his own meaning do agree with his words he himself doth not quarrel the Pope for his just rights but for his Innovations If he mean it not it is a double shame His first Reason to prove that there was such a Party of Grotians in England who nourished such a Design is taken from Grotius his own words P. 96. Paris knows and many throughout France many in Poland and Germany not a few in England quiet persons and lovers of Peace that Grotius his labours for Peace have not displeased many moderate persons He addeth that Rivet agreed better with the Brownists than with the Bishops of England For pity sake let him shew us wherein the strength of his Argument doth lie He may as well perswade us that we see a Dragon flying in the air as that there is any design of introducing the Pope couched in these words Doth the strength of his Argument perhaps lie in this that there were lovers of Peace in England So there were all over Christendom before Grotius was born France Germany Poland all Christendom shake hands with us in this He himself professeth that he is resolved to speak for Peace whilest he hath a tongue to speak and to write for Peace whilest he hath an hand to write p. 6. Or doth the strength of his Argument lie in this that Rivet agreed better with the Brownists than with the Bishops of England Whether he did or did not whether it be true or false what doth this concern Episcopal Divines Such are his proofs against Grotius always halting on one side most commonly on both sides I am afraid this great mountain-design will prove but a ridiculous Mouse in the conclusion He asketh What if he had named Bishop Goodman and all the rabble described in the Legenda lignea which are more than Doctor Vane and Doctor Goffe and Doctor Baily and H. P. de Cressie c. p. 99. I answer First If he had named these for Episcopal Divines of the Church of England of whom he held it necessary to admonish his Readers that they might beware of them as Promoters of the Grotian design he had made himself guilty of one of the grossest and silliest calumnies that ever was For some of these were dead and all of them apostated to the Church of Rome before he gave his warning And Bishop Goodman in particular was branded by the Church of England for his inclination to Roman Errours Secondly I answer that if he had named these he had wounded his own Party more than Episcopal Divines Abate only Bishop Goodman whom I did never know and of the rest whom he nameth not one was throughly a genuine Episc pal Divine Excuse me for telling the truth plainly many who have had their education among Sectaries or Non-Conformists have apostated to Rome but few or no right Episcopal Divines Hot water freezeth the soonest He addeth That Grotius himself assures him whom he hath reason to believe that there were not a few such among the Prelatical men How not a few such as these who have apostated from the Church of England For ingenuities sake let him tell us where Grotius saith any such thing Grotius hath not one word to his purpose when it is duly examined But this it is to confute Books in less time than wise or modest men would require to read them Hitherto he is not able to shew us any tolerable reason of his warning But he sheweth us the occasion p. 82. Those that unchurch either all or most of the Protestant Churches and maintain the Roman Church and not theirs to be true do call us to a moderate jealousie of them This is farr enough from proving his bold suggestion that they have a design to introduce the Pope into England So though all he say were true yet he can conclude nothing from thence to make good his accusation or insinuation I wish he would forbear these imperfect Enthymematical forms of arguing which serve only to cover Deceit and set down both his Propositions expresly His assumption is wanting which should be this But a considerable Party of Episcopal Divines in England do Unchurch all or most of the Protestant Churches and maintain the Roman Church to be a true Church and them to be no true Churches I can assent to neither of his Propositions nor to any part of them as true sub modo as they are alledged by him First I cannot assent to his major Proposition That all those who make an ordinary personal uninterrupted succession of Pastors to be of the integrity of a true Church which is the ground of of his exception have therefore an intention or can be justly suspected thereupon to have any intention to introduce the Pope The Eastern Southern and Northern Churches are all of them for such a personal succession and yet all of them utter enemies to the Pope Secondly I cannot assent to his minor Proposition that either all or any considerable part of the Epispal Divines in England do Unchurch either all or the most part of the Protestant Churches No man is hurt but by himself They Unchurch none at all but leave them to stand or fall to their own Master They do not Unchurch the Swedish Danish Bohemian Churches and many other Churches in Poloma Hungaria and those parts of the World which have an ordinary uninterrupted succession of Pastors some by the names of Bishops others under the name of Seniors unto this day I meddle not with the Socinians They unchurch not the Lutheran Churches in Germany who both assert Episcopacie in their Confessions and have actual Superintendents in their practice and would have Bishops name and thing if it were in their power Let him not mistake himself those Churches which he is so tender of though they be better known to us by reason of their Vicinity are so far from being all or the most part of the Protestant Churches that being all put together they amount not
to so great a proportion as the Britannick Churches alone And if one secluded out of them all those who want an ordinary succession without their own faults out of invincible ignorance or necessity and all those who desire to have an ordinary succession either explicitely or implicitely they will be reduced to a little slock indeed But let him set his heart at rest I will remove this scruple out of his mind that he may sleep securely upon both ears Episcopal Divines do not denie those Churches to be true Churches wherein salvation may be had We advise them as it is our duty to be circumspect for themselves and not to put it to more question whether they have Ordination or not or deserve the general practice of the universal Church for nothing when they may clear it if they please Their case is not the same with those who labour under invincible necessity What mine own sense is of it I have declared many years since to the World in print and in the same way received thanks and a publick acknowledgment of my moderation from a French Divine And yet more particularly in my Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon Pref. p. 4. and cap. 1. p. 71. Episcopal Divines will readily subscribe to the determination of the learned Bishop of Winchester in his Answer to the second Epistle of Molineus Nevertheless if our form of Episcopacie be of Divine Right it doth not follow from thence that there is no salvation without it or that a Church cannot consist without it He is blind who does not see Churches consisting without it he is hard hearted who denieth them salvation We are none of those hard-hearted persons we put agreat difference between these things There may be something absent in the exteriour Regiment which is of Divine Right and yet salvation be to be had This mistake proceedeth from not distinguishing between the true nature and essence of a Church which we do readily grant them and the integrity or perfection of a Church which we cannot grant them without swerving from the judgment of the Catholick Church The other part of his assumption is no truer than the former We do acknowledge the Church of Rome to be Metaphysically a true Church as a Thief is a true Man consisting of soul and body so did Bishop Morton Bishop Hall Bishop Davenant old Episcopal Divines so did Mr. Primrose and other Presbyterian Divines so doth he himself in this very Treatise What a weakness is it to accuse Episcopal Divines of that which he himself maintaineth But we all denie that the Church of Rome is morally a true Church because it is corrupted and erroneous we make it to be a living Body but sick and full of ulcers So we neither destroy the body out of hatred to the ulcers nor yet cherish the ulcers out of a doting affection to the body And therefore he had no reason in the world to suspect Episcopal Divines of a plot or design to introduce Popery into England which they look upon as the very Gangrene of the Church He pleadeth a reason why he doth not name those Episcopal Divines who had this design for fear of doing them hurt Sect. 70. As if it were not less hurtful to discover the nocent if he knew any such than to subject the innocent both to suspition and censure by his general descriptions I cannot excuse his first intimation of such a design because he had no ground at all for it but I can easily excuse his silence now upon another reason because I am confident there neither are nor ever were any such designers among the Episcopal Party Whereas he ought to prove his intention that there was such a design in the place thereof he gives us some symptomes or signs whereby to know the designers This is one great fault in his Discourse But the worst is they are all accidental notes which may either hit or miss there is not one essential mark among them His first mark is They are those that actually were the Agents in the English illegal Innovations which kindled all our troubles in this Land and were conformable to the Grotian design Those last words and were conformable to the Grotian design were well added though they be a shameful begging of the question and signifie the same thing by it self A strange kind of proof for without these words all the World will take him and his Party to be the illegal Innovators and no body but them The Episcopal Divines hold their old Canons their old Articles their old Liturgy their old Ordinal still without any change They took the Protestation against Innovations without any difficulty and are ready to take it over and over again Their fault was that they could not swallow down New Covenants to innovate His Party have changed Canons Articles Liturgy all things and yet have the confidence cry Innovators first His second mark is They bend the course of their Writings to make the Roman Church honourable and to vindicate them from Antichristianism and to make the reformed Churches odious This is a poor note indeed as if men were obliged out of hatred to the Church of Rome to deny it that honour which is justly due unto it or out of affection to the Protestant Churches to justifie their defects What reward did ever any English Protestant get from Rome for doing them this honour I know no man who honours the Church of Rome more than himself He calls Cassander Thaulerus Ferus Blessed souls with Christ He esteems the French Nation to be not only an erroneous but an honourable part of the Church of Christ p. 10. Episcopal Divines have learned to distinguish between that great Antichrist and lesser Antichrists between the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome which he confounds I dare not swear that the Pope is that great Antichrist but I dare swear that I never had any design to bring Popery into England I hope I never shall have and that all genuine Episcopal Divines may take the same Oath His third note of distinction whereby to know an English Grotian is this They labour to prove the Church of Rome a true Church because of their succession and the Reformed Churches to be none for want of that succession Sect. 71. This note is already answered Elsewhere he presseth this point further thus that he would gladly know what Church hath power to make a new Canon the observation whereof shall be essential to a Church or Pastor I answer that he doth doubly mistake the question which is not whether the Catholick Church can make new Essentials but whether it can declare old Essentials Not whether the Canons of the Universal Church of this Age have divine Authority but whether they do oblige Christians in conscience and whether it be not timerarious presumption for a particular person or Church to slight the Belief or Practice of the Universal Church of all succeeding Ages His fourth note
in the Kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark and the thing under another name of Superintendents in Germany The Confession of Saxony is subscribed by seventeen Superintendents Harm Conf. Sect. 19. p. 290. The Snevick Confession complaineth of great wrong done to their Churches as if they did seek to reduce the power of Ecclesiastical Prelates to nothing Sect. 11. p. 65. And in Chap. 33. Of the Rights of the Civil Magistrate they declare most plainly for the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Bishops There cannot be a more luculent Testimony for the Lutherans approbation of Bishops than the Augustine Confession it self cap. 7. de Potest Eccles. It is not now sought that the Government be taken away from Bishops but this one thing is desired that they will suffer the Gospel to be purely taught and release some few observances which cannot be kept without sin And the Apologie for the same Confession Cap. de numero usu Sacrament This our will shall excuse us both before God and all the World that it may not be imputed to us that the Authority of Bishops was taken away by our means I need not say any thing of the Britannick Churches He knoweth well they never wanted Bishops from their first Conversion until these late Tumults wherein our Native Country was purpled with the Blood of English Subjects to take them away by force and Rebellion The next Reformation was the Zuinglian or Helvetian in Switzerland wherein as they erected no new Bishopricks so they pulled down no old ones There was a kind of necessity laid upon them to want Bishops in their own Territories because the Bishop of Constance under whose Jurisdiction they were was of another communion and lived out of their Territories But they would gladly have had him to have continued their Bishop still They made their addresses to him they courted him they besought him to joyn with them or but to tolerate them For proof of this I produce that famous Letter written by Zuinglius himself and ten others of their principal Reformers to the same Bishop of Constance recorded in the Works of Zuinglius in all humility and observance beseeching him to favour and help forward their beginnings as an excellent work and worthy of a Bishop They call him Father Renowned Prelate Bishop They implore his clemency wisdom learning that he would be the first fruits of the German Bishops to favour true Christianity springing up again They beseech him by the common Christ by one Christian Liberty by that Fatherly affection which he did owe unto them by whatsoever was divine and humane to look graciously upon them or if he would not grant their desires to connive at them so he should make his Family yet more illustrious and have the perpetual tribute of their praises so he would but shew himself a Father and grant the requests of his obedient sons They conclude God Almighty long preserve your Excellency The last Reformation of those which he approveth was that of Calvin How farr Calvin and his Party were Episcopal or Anti-Episcopal in their desires let their own testimonies bear witness First Calvin himself acknowledgeth that he subscribed the Augustine Confession formerly mentioned or the Apology for it both which are for Bishops And in his 190. Epistle to the King of Polonia he representeth Episcopal Government as fittest for Monarchies where having shewed the regiment of the Primitive Church by Patriarchs Primats Bishops in these words Indeed the ancient Church instituted Patriarchs and gave certain Primacies to particular Provinces that Bishops might remain bound one to another by this bond of Concord He proceedeth thus As if at this day one Arch-bishop should be over the illustrious Kingdom of â—olonia c. And farther there should be a Bishop in each City or Province to attend peculiarly to the preservation of Order as nature itself doth dictate to us that in every Colledge one ought to be chosen upon whom the principal care of the Colledge should rest And in his Institutions having described at large the Regiment of the Primitive Church and shewed the end of Arch-bishops and the constitution of Patriarchs he concludeth that some called this kind of Government an Hierarchy by a name improper or at least not used in the Scripture But if we pass by the name and look upon the thing itself we shall find that the ancient Bishops did go about to devise no other form of governing the Church than that which God hath prescribed in his Word lib. 4. Inst. c. 4. Sect. 4. And in his Answer to Cardinal Sadolet on the behalf of the City of Geneva as it is cited by Archbishop Bancroft for I cannot procure the first Edition at present and in the later Editions they have made a shift to purge it out Talem nobis Hierarchiam c. If they make tender of such an Hierarchie to us wherein Bishops may retain their eminence so as they refuse not to be under Christ and have their dependence upon him as their only Head and refer themselves to him and observe such a brotherly society among themselves and be bound together with no other bond but the truth then I confess that they deserve all sorts of curses or anathemas if there be any who do not observe it with reverence and the highest obedience Lay all these together If the Law of Nature which is divine Law written in our hearts by God himself and needing no other promulgation do dictate that in every Society there ought to be one upon whom the principal care of the Society should rest If the ancient Bishops devised no other form of governing the Church by Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops than that which God had prescribed in his Word If they deserve the severest curses and anathemas who shall not regard such an Hierarchy with reverence and obedience where Christ is acknowledged to be the only Head of his Church where the Pastors are freed from all Oaths and Obligations to the Bishop of Rome let him be his own Judge what they deserve who have destroyed the Church of England Before Calvin Farellus offered the Bishop of Geneva terms to retain his Bishoprick if he would give way to the Reformation Beza his Successor was not for the divine Right of Bishops in express terms by the Evangelical Law But he was for the precedencie of one Clergy man above the rest by the Law of Nature From Geneva let us pass over into France where we find Monsieur Mouline as high or higher than any of them in his third Epistle to the Bishop of Winchester I am not so brazen-faced as to give sentence against those lights of the ancient Church Ignatius Polycarpus Cyprian Augustine Chrysostom Basil the two Gregories Nissene Nazianzene Bishops as against men wrongfully created or as usurpers of an unlawful Office The venerable antiquity of those Primitive Ages shall always weigh more with me than any mans new-fangled Institution And a little after in the same Epistle I
of Rome about a Primacy of order but about a Supremacy of Power I shall declare my sense in four conclusions First that St. Peter had a fixed Chair at Antioch and after that at Rome is a truth which no man who giveth any credit to the ancient Fathers and councils and Historiographers of the Church can either deny or well doubt of Secondly that St. Peter had a Primacy of order among the Apostles is the unanimous voice of the primitive Church not to be contradicted by me which the Church of England and those old Episcopal Divines whom he pretendeth to honour so much did never oppose The learned Bishop of Winchester acknowledgeth as much not only in his own name but in the name of the Church and King of England both King and Church knowing it and approving it Resp. ad Apol. Bellar. cap. 1. Neither is it questioned among us whether St. Peter had a Primacy but what that Primacy was and and whether it were such an one as the Pope doth now challenge to himself and you challenge to the Pope But the King doth not deny Peter to have been the prime and Prince of the Apostles He who should trouble himself and others to oppugn such a received innocent truth seemeth to me to have more leisure than judgement But on the other side it is as undoubtedly true and confessed by the prime Romanists themselves that St. Peter had no supremacy or superiority of power and single Jurisdiction over any other Apostle To this purpose I have laid down these four grounds in my Book of Schisme Garded pag. 27. First that each Apostle had the same power by virtue of Christs Commission Secondly that St. Peter never exercised a single Jurisdiction over the rest of the Apostles Thirdly that St. Peter had not his Commission granted to him and his Successours as any ordinary Pastor and the rest of the Apostles as Delegates for term of life Fourthly that during the History of the Acts of the Apostles the Soveraignty of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction rested not in any single Apostle but in the Apostolical Colledge Hitherto there is no cause of controversie between him and me or between any persons of judgement and ingenuity My third assertion is that some Fathers and Schoolmen who were no sworn vassals to the Roman Bishop do affirm that this Primacy of order is fixed to the Chair of St. Peter and his Successours for ever As for instance Gerson for a Schoolman that learned Chancellour of Paris who sided with the council against the Pope and left his enmity to the innovations of the Court of Rome as an hereditary legacy to the School of Sorbone Auferibilis non est usque ad consummationem saeculi vicarius sponsus Ecclesiae The vicarial Spouse of the Church this was the language of that Age whereby he meaneth not the person of any particular Pope but the Office of the Papacy ought not to be taken away untill the end of the World And among the Fathers I instance in St. Cyprian whose publick opposition to Pope Stephen is well known who seemeth not to dissent from it In his Epistle to Antonianus he calls the See of Rome the place and Chair of Peter Ep. 52. And in his 55. Epistle to Cornelius They dare sail and carry Letters from Schismatical and profane persons to the Chair of Peter and the principal Church from whence Sacerdotal unity did spring And in his De unitate Ecclesiae Although he give equal power to all his Apostles after his Resurrection c. Yet to manifest an unity he eonstituted one Chair and by his own authority disposed the original of that unity beginning from one And a little after The Primacy is given to Peter to demonstrate one Church of Christ and one Chair Every one is free for me to take what exceptions he pleaseth to the various lections of any of these places or to interpret the words as he pleaseth Always there seemeth to be enough to me in St. Cyprian to declare his own mind without taking any advantage from any suppositious passages Whether it be a truth or an error it concerneth not me I am sure it is none of mine error if it be one who neither maintain nor grant such a Primacy of order to be due to the Chair of St. Peter and his Successours by the institution of Christ. But only dispute upon suppositions that although there were such a beginning of unity which Calvin and Beza require in all Societies by the Law of Nature And although the Bishop of Rome had such a Primacy of order either by divine right or humane right yet it would not prejudice us nor advantage them at all Neither in truth is it worth contending about or to be ballanced with the peace of the Church and of the Christian World They who undervalue the Fathers may stile their sayings untruths when they please I have weighed my grounds over seriously to stumble at a Straw My fourth and last conclusion is that supposing still but not granting that any such Primacy of order or beginning of unity about which we have no Controversie was due to the Chair of St. Peter by divine right or much rather by humane right yet this supposed Chair of St. Peter is not fixed to Rome As for divine right we have the plain consession of Bellarmine it is not to be sound either in Scripture or Tradition that the Apostolick See is so fixed to Rome that it cannot be removed Bell. de Rom. Pont. l. 4. c. 4. And for humane right there needeth no proof For whatsoever is constituted by humane right may be repealed by humane right This is my constant way everywhere I do altogether deny a supremacy of Power and Jurisdiction over us in the exteriour Court which only is in controversie between us and the Pope And whatsoever Jurisdiction he hath elsewhere I regulate by the Canons of the Fathers I suppose a Primacy of order but grant it not farther than it hath been granted by the Canons of the Catholick Church And as it was acquired by humane right so it may be taken away by humane right To confound a Primacy of order with a Supremacy of Power divine right with humane right a legislative Power with an executive Power is proper to blunderers So in his two first Exceptions I suffer two palpable injuries In the first Exception he chargeth me upon suspicion directly contrary to my assertion In the second Exception he confoundeth a Primacy and a Supremacy order and power and maketh me to fix that to the See of Rome which I maintain to be unfixed His third Exception is this That the Pope should hold to himself and his Church his last 400. years determinations and so continue as the Bishop here concludes to be no Apostolical Orthodox Catholick Church nor to have true Faith is an unlikely thing to stand with the unity and concord which he mentioneth We shall cement but sorrily with such a