Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bishop_n	church_n	succession_n	2,569	5	10.4652	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A32857	The religion of Protestants a safe way to salvation, or, An answer to a book entituled, Mercy and truth, or, Charity maintain'd by Catholiques, which pretends to prove the contrary to which is added in this third impression The apostolical institution of episcopacy : as also IX sermons ... / by William Chillingworth ...	Chillingworth, William, 1602-1644.; Chillingworth, William, 1602-1644. Apostolical institution of episcopacy.; Chillingworth, William, 1602-1644. Sermons. Selections.	1664 (1664)	Wing C3890; Wing C3884A_PARTIAL; ESTC R20665	761,347	567

on our Saviour's promise to S. Peter from which a general rule and ground ought to be taken for all Ages because Heaven and Earth shall (w) Mat. 24.35 pass but the word of our Lord shall remain for ever So that I here conclude that seeing it is manifest that Luther and his followers divided themselves from the Sea of Rome they bear the inseparable Mark of Heresie 20. And though my meaning be not to treat the point of Ordination or Succession in the Protestants Church because the Fathers alleadged in the last reason assign Succession as one mark of the true Church I must not omit to say that according to the grounds of Protestants themselves they can neither pretend personal Succession of Bishops nor Succession of Doctrin For whereas Succession of Bishops signifies a never-interrupted line of Persons endued with an indelible Quality which Divines call a Character which cannot be taken away by deposition degradation or other means whatsoever and endued also with Jurisdiction and Authority to teach to preach to govern the Church by laws precepts censures c. Protestants cannot pretend Succession in either of these For besides that there was never Protestant Bishop before Luther and that there can be no continuance of Succession where there was no beginning to succeed they commonly acknowledge no Character and consequently must affirm that when their pretended Bishops or Priests are deprived of Jurisdiction or degraded they remain meer lay persons as before their Ordination fulfilling what Tertullian objects as a mark of Heresie To day a Priest to morrow (x) Praescr cap. 41. a Lay-man For if here be no immoveable Character their power of Order must consist only in Jurisdiction and authority or in a kind of moral deputation to some function which therefore may be taken away by the same power by which it was given Neither can they pretend Succession in Authority or Jurisdiction For all the Authority or Jurisdiction which they had was conferred by the Church of Rome that is by the Pope Because the whole Church collectively doth not meet to ordain Bishops or Priests or to give them Authority But according to their own doctrin they believe that the Pope neither hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm which they swear even when they are ordained Bishops Priests and Deacons How then can the Pope give Jurisdiction where they swear he neither hath or OUGHT to have any Or if yet he had how could they without Schism withdraw themselves from his obedience Besides the Roman Church never gave them Authority to oppose Her by whom it was given But grant their first Bishops had such Authority from the Church of Rome after the decease of those men Who gave Authority to their pretended Successours The Primate of England But from whom had he such Authority And after his decease who shall conferr Authority upon his Successors The Temporal Magistrate King Henry neither a Catholique nor a Protestant King Edward a Child Queen Elizabeth a Woman An Infant of one hours Age is true King in case of his Predecessor's dec●ase But shall your Church lie fallow till that Infant-King and green Head of the Church come to years of discretion Do your Bishops your Hierarchy your Succession your Sacraments your being or not being Heretiques for want of Succession depend on this new-found Supremacy-doctrin brought in by such a man meerly upon base occasions and for shameful ends impugned by Calvin and his followers derided by the Christian world and even by chief Protestants as D. Andrews Wotton c. not held for any necessary point of Faith And from whom I pray you had Bishops their Authority when there were no Christian Kings Must the Greek Patriarchs receive spiritual Jurisdiction from the Great Turk Did the Pope by the Baptism of Princes lose the spiritual Power he formerly had of conferring spiritual Jurisdiction upon Bishops Hath the Temporal Magistrate authority to preach to assoil from sins to inflict Excommunications and other Censures Why hath he not power to excommunicate as well as to dispense in Irregularity as our late Soveraign Lord King James either dispensed with the late Archbishop of Canterbury or else gave commission to some Bishops to do it And since they were subject to their Primate and not he to them it is clear that they had no power to dispense with him but that power must proceed from the Prince as Superiour to them all and head of the Protestants Church in England If he have no such authority how can he give to others what himself hath not Your Ordination or Consecration of Bishops and Priests imprinting no Character can only consist in giving a Power Authority Jurisdiction or as I said before some kind of Depuration to exercise Episcopal or Priestly functions If then the Temporal Magistrate conferrs this power c. he can nay he cannot chuse but Ordain and Consecrate Bishops and Priests as often as he conferrs Authority or Jurisdiction and your Bishops assoon as they are designed and confirmed by the King must ipso facto be Ordained and Consecrated by him without intervention of Bishops or Matter and Form of Ordination Which absurdities you will be more unwilling to grant than well able to avoid if you will be true to your own doctrins The Pope from whom originally you must beg your Succession of Bishops never received nor will nor can acknowledge to receive any Spiritual Jurisdiction from any Temporal Prince and therefore if Jurisdiction must be derived from Princes he hath none at all and yet either you must acknowledge that he hath true Spiritual Jurisdiction or that your selves can receive none from him 21. Moreover this new Reformation or Reformed Church of Protestants will by them be pretended to be Catholique or Universal and not confined to England alone as the Sect of the Donatists was to Africa and therefore it must comprehend all the Reformed Churches in Germany Holland Scotland France c. In which number they of Germany Holland and France are not governed by Bishops nor regard any personal succession unless of such fat-beneficed Bishops as Nicholas Amsfordius who was consecrated by Luther though Luther himself was never Bishop as witnesseth (y) In Millenario sexto Pag. 187. Dresserus And though Scotland hath of late admitted some Bishops I much doubt whether they hold them to be necessary or of divine Institution and so their enforced admitting of them doth not so much furnish that Kingdom with personal succession of Bishops as it doth convince them to want succession of doctrin since in this their neglect of Bishops they disagree both from the milder Protestants of England and the true Catholique Church And by this want of a continued personal Succession of Bishops they retain the note of Schism and Heresie So that the Church of Protestants must either not be universal as being confined to England Or

by the President of it the Cardinal S. Cruce And yet he hath written that the Councel in this Decree meant to pronounce this Translation free not simply from all Error but only from such Errors out of which any opinion pernitions to faith and manners might be collected This And radius in his defence of that Councel reports of Vega and assents to it himself Driedo in his Book of the Translation of holy Scripture hath these words very pregnant and pertinent to the same purpose The See Apostolike hath approved or accepted Hierom 's Edition not as so wholly consonant to the Original and so entire and pure and restored in all things that it may not be lawful for any man either by comparing it with the Fountain to examine it or in some places to doubt Whether or no Hierom did understand the true sense of the Scripture but only as an Edition to be preferred before all others then extant and no where deviating from the Truth in the rules of faith and good life Mariana even where he is a most earnest Advocate for the Vulgar Edition yet acknowledges the imperfection of it in these words ●●o E●●t vulg c. 21. p. 99. The faults of the Vulgar Edition are not approved by the Decree of the Councel of Trent a multitude whereof we did collect from the variety of Copie And again We maintain that the Hebrew and Greek were by no means rejected by the Trent-Fathers And that the Latine Edition is indeed approved yet not so as if they did deny that some places might be translated more plainly some more properly whereof it were easie to produce innumerable examples And this he there professes to have learnt of Laines the then General of the Society who was a great part of that Councel present at all the Actions of it and of very great authority in it 77. To this so great authority he adds a reason of his opinion which with all indifferent men will be of a far greater authority If the Councel saith he had purposed to approve an Edition in all respects and to make it of equal authority and credit with the Fountains certainly they ought with exact care first to have corrected the Errors of the Interpreter which certainly they did not 78. Lastly Bellarmine himself though he will not acknowledge any imperfection in the Vulgar Edition yet he acknowledges that the ●ase may and does oft-times so fall out B●ll de ver●e D●●d 2. c. 12. p. 120. that it is impossible to discern which is the true reading of the Vulgar Edition but only by recourse unto the Originals and dependance upon them 79. From all which it may evidently be collected that though some of you flatter your selves with a vain imagination of the certain absolute purity and perfection of your Vulgar Edition yet the matter is not so certain and so resolved but that the best learned men amongst you are often at a stand and very doubtful sometimes whether your Vulgar Translation be true and sometimes whether this or that be your Vulgar Translation and sometimes undoubtedly resolved that your Vulgar Translation is no true Translation nor consonant to the Original as it was at first delivered And what then can be alledged but that out of your own grounds it may be inferred and inforced upon you that not only in your Lay-men but your Clergy-men and Scholars Faith and Truth and Salvation and All depends upon fallible and uncertain grounds And thus by ten several retortions of this one Argument I have endeavoured to shew you How ill you have complyed with your own advice which was to take heed of urging Arguments that might be returned upon you I should now by a direct Answer shew that it presseth not us at all but I have in passing done it already in the end of the second retortion of this Argument and thither I refer the Reader 80. Whereas therefore you exhort them that will have assurance of true Scriptures to fly to your Church for it I desire to know if they should follow your advice how they should be assured that your Church can give them any such assurance which hath been confessedly so negligent as to suffer many whole Books of Scripture to be utterly lost Again in those that remain confessedly so negligent as to suffer the Originals of these that remain to be corrupted And lastly so careless of preserving the integrity of the Copies of her Translation as to suffer infinite variety of Readings to come in to them without keeping any one perfect Copy which might have been as the Standard and Polycletus his Canon to correct the rest by So that which was the true reading and which the false it was utterly undiscernable but only by comparing them with the Originals which also she pretends to be corrupted 81. But Luther himself by unfortunate experience was at length enforced to confess thus much saying If the wordlast longer it will be again necessary to receive the Decrees of Councels by reason of divers interpretations of Scripture which now raign 82. And what if Luther having a Pope in his belly as he was wont to say that most men had and desiring perhaps to have his own interpretations pass without examining spake such words in heat of Argument Do you think it reasonable that we should subscribe to Luther's divinations and angry speeches Will you oblige your self to answer for all the assertions of your private Doctors If not Why do you trouble us with what Luther says and what Calvin says Yet this I say not as if these words of Luther made any thing at all for your present purpose For what if he feared or pretended to fear that the infallibility of Councels being rejected some men would fall into greater Errors than were imposed upon them be the Councels Is this to confess that there is any present visible Church upon whose bare Authority we may infallibly receive the true Scriptures and the true sense of them Let the Reader judge But in my opinion to fear a greater inconvenience may follow from the avoiding of the less is not to confess that the less is none at all 83. For D. Covel's commending your Translation What is it to the business in hand Or how proves it the perfection of it which is here contested any more than S. Augustine's commending the Italian Translation argues the perfection of that or that there was no necessity that S. Hierom should correct it D. Covel commends your Translation and so does the Bishop of Chichester and so does D. James and so do I. But I commend it for a good Translation not for a perfect Good may be good and deserve commendations and yet Better may be better And though he says that the then approved Translation of the Church of England is that which cometh nearest the Vulgar yet he does not say that it agrees exactly with it So that whereas you infer that the Truth of your Translation

a man may perswade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the foresaid truths upon the foresaid motives without any dependance upon any succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this phancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretique but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretique whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in our own power therefore our being or not being Heretiques depends not on it Besides What is more certain than that he may make a straight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the world had made any before and why then may not he that believes the Scripture to be the word of God and the Rule of faith regulate his faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his word believed he by his Providence must take order that either by succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserv'd and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Bar do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined of times make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroncous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formerly alledged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men otthodox in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Heretical 39 When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelibe Character be any reality or whether it be a creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a word whether our Bishops and Priests have it not as well as yours and whether some mens perswasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more than a mans perswasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Layman by just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Heretiques that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferr'd on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Pope's right or an usurpation If it were his right Whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only Whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose it those that deprived him of it had power to make it from him Or if not Whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it until good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present Government established be as unlawful to go about to restore it Whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude Because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an usurp'd Authority commanding unlawful things Whether the Roman Church might not give authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his sword to his Praefect with this Commission that If he governed well he should use it for him if ill against him Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to preach against her corruptions in manners And if so Why not against her errors in doctrin if she had any Whether she gave them not authority to preach the whole Gospel of Christ and consequently against her doctrin if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or woman that has ability to perswade others by word or by writing from errour and unto truth And why this liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other commission or vocation than that of a Christian to do a work of charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without any unnecessary disturbance of order to perswade men out a false unto a true way of eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assur'd us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain Others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not consecrate a Metropolitan of England as

well as the Cardinals do the Pope Whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the government in their hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonical exception Whether the Doctrin that the King is Supreme Head of the Church of England as the Kings of Judah and the first Christian Emperours were of the Jewish and Christian Church be any new found doctrin Whether it may not be true that Bishops being made Bishops have their authority immediatly from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the King's authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has authority immediately from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the authority of the Cardinals Whether you do well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more authority in ordering the affairs of the Church than the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdom and yet not be capable of doing it himself as well as a Bishop may give authority to a Physician to practise Physick in his Diocess which the Bishop cannot do himself Whether if Nero the Emperour would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to preach the Gospel of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have question'd his Authority to do so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited King JAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his Injunction upon them to do any thing that is lawful Whether a casual irregularity may not be lawfully dispens'd with Whether the Pope's irregularities if he should chance to incur any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a character and ours doth not Whether the power of consecrating and ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of architecture and had it immediatly by infusion from God himself yet if they were the King's subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a Fortress for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himself yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his subjects that has this power to ordain any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it do not follow that whensoever the King commands an house to be built a message to be delivered or a murtherer to be executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Archirect messenger or executioner As well as that they are ipso facto ordain'd and consecrated who by the King's authority are commended to the Bishops to be ordained and consecrated Especially seeing the King will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to do what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should do so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himself nor any body else would esteem the person Bishop upon the King's designation Whether many Popes though they were not consecrated Bishops by any temporal Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopal function in this or that place And whether the Emperours had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants do indeed pretend that their Reformation is universal Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you do not forget your self and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of divine institution be Schismatical and Heretical for thinking so Whether your form of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essential to the constitution of a true Church Whether the forms of the Church of England differ essentially from your forms Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other man Lastly Whether any one kind of these external forms and orders and government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives whatsoever it be All these questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogism and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Major That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresie which for the present remains both unprov'd and unprobable 40 Ad § 23. The Fathers you say assign Succession as one mark of the true Church I confess they did urge Tradition as an Argument of the truth of their doctrin and of the falshood of the contrary and thus far they agree with you But now see the difference They urg'd it not against all Heretiques that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their doctrin and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leaf before the words by you cited Nay they urg'd it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not be found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did mean wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said we speak wisdom amongst the perfect So Irenaeus

Church which we pretend may deviate from the Ancient but such a Tradition which involves an ●●ndence of Fact and from hand to hand from age to age bringing us up to the times and persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their doctrine to be true Thus you Now prove the Canon of Scripture which you receive by such Tradition and we will allow it Prove your whole doctrine or the infallibility of your Church by such a Tradition and we will yield to you in all things Take the alleaged places of S. Athanasius and S. Austin in this sense which is your own and they will not press us any thing at all We will say with Athanasius That only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the Holy and Catholique Church understand of all Ages since the perfection of the Canon have so determined 54. We will subscribe to S. Austin and say That we also would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholique Church did move us meaning by the Church the Church of all Ages and that succession of Christians which takes in Christ himself and his Apostels Neither would Zwinglius have needed to cry out upon this saying had he conceived as you now do that by the Catholique Church the Church of all Ages since Christ was to be understood As for the Councel of Carthage it may speak not of such Books only as were certainly Canonical and for the regulating of Faith but also of those which were only profitable and lawful to be read in the Church Which in England is a very slender Argument that the book is Canonical where every body knows that Apocryphal books are read as well as Canonical But howsoever if you understand by Fathers not only their immediate Fathers and Predecessors in the Gospel but the succession of them from the Apostles they are right in the Thesis that whatsoever is received from these Fathers as Canonical is to be so esteemed Though in the application of it to this or that particular book they may haply erre and think that book received as Canoniel which was only received as profitable to be read and think that Book received alwaies and by all which was rejected by some and doubted of by many 55. But we cannot be certain in what language the Scriptures remain uncorrupted Not so certain I grant as of that which we can demonstrate But certain enough morally certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear So certain we may be and God requires no more We may be as certain as S. Austin was who in his second book of Baptism against the Donatists c. 3. plainly implies the Scripture might possibly be corrupted He means sure in matters of little moment such as concern not the Covenant between God and Man But thus he saith The same S. Austin in his 48. Epist cleerly intimates (a) Neque enim sic poturt integrit as atque notitia literarum quamlibet illust is Episcopi castodiri quemadmodum Scritura Canonica tet linguarum literis ordine successione celebrationis Ecclesiasticae custoditur contra quam non desuerunt tam●n qui sub nominibus Aposiolorum multa consiagerent Frustra quidem quia illa sic commendata sic celebrata sic nota est Verum quid possit adversus literas non Canonica authoritate sundatas etiam hinc demonstrabit impiae conatus audaciae quòd adversus cos quae tanta notitiae mole firmatae sunt sese erigere non praetermisit Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent cont Donat. Rogat That in his judgement the only preservative of the Scriptures integrity was the translating it into so many Languages and the general and perpetual use and reading of it in the Church for want whereof the works of particular Doctors were more exposed to danger in this kind but the Canonical Scripture being by this means guarded with universal care and diligence was not obnoxious to such attempts And this assurance of the Scriptures incorruption is common to us with him we therefore are as certain hereof as S. Austin was and that I hope was certain enough Yet if this does not satisfie you I say farther We are as certain hereof as your own Pope Sixtus Quintus was He in his Preface to his Bible tells us (b) In hac germani textus pe●vestigatione satis perspicue inter omnes constat nullum argumenum esse certius ac sirmius quàm antiquorum probatorum codicum Latinorum fidem c. sie S●xtus in Praef. That in the pervestigation of the true and genuine Text it was perspicuously manifest to all men that there was no Argument more firm and certain to be relied upon than the Faith of Ancient Books Now this ground we have to build upon as well as he had and therefore our certainty is as great and stands upon as certain ground as his did 56. This is not all I have to say in this matter For I will add moreover that we are as certain in what Language the Scripture is uncorrupted as any man in your Church was until Clement the eighth set forth your own approved Edition of your Vulgar Translation For you do not nor cannot without extream impudence deny that until then there was great variety of Copes currant in divers parts of your Church and those very frequent in various lections all which Copies might possibly be false in some things but more than one sort of them could not possibly be true in all things Neither were it less impudence to pretend that any man in your Church could until Clement's time have any certainty what that one true Copie and Reading was if there were one perfectly true Some indeed that had got Sixtus his Bible might after the Edition of that very likely think themselves cock-sure of a perfect true uncorrupted Translation without being beholding to Clement but how foully they were abused and deceived that thought so the Edition of Clemens differing from that of Sixtus in a great multitude of places doth sufficiently demonstrate 57. This certainty therefore in what language the Scripture remains uncorrupted is it necessary to have it or is it not If it be not I hope we may do well enough without it If it be necessary What became of your Church for 1500 years together All which time you must confess she had no such certainty no one man being able truly and upon good ground to say This or that Copy of the Bible is pure and perfect and uncorrupted in all things And now at this present though some of you are grown to a higher degree of Presumption in this Point yet are you as far as ever from any true real and rational assurance of the absolute purity of your Authentique Translation which I suppose my self to have proved unanswerably in divers places 58. In the sixteenth Division It is objected to

if you will needs comprehend all those Churches which want succession you must confess that your Church doth not only communicate with Schismatical and Heretical Churches but is also compounded of such Churches and your selves cannot avoid the note of Schismatiques or Heretiques if it were but for participating with such heretical Churches For it is impossible to retain Communion with the true Catholique Church and yet agree with them who are divided from her by Schism or Heresie because that were to affirm that for the self same time they could be within and without the Catholique Church as proportionably I discoursed in the next precedent Chapter concerning the communicating of moderate Protestants with those who maintain that Heresie of the Latency and Invisibility of Gods Church where I brought a place of S. Cyprian to this purpose which the Reader may be pleased to review in the fifth Chapter and 17 Number 22 But besides this defect in the personal Succession of Protestant Bishops there is another of great moment which is that they want the right Form of ordaining Bishops and Priests because the manner which they use is so much different from that of the Roman Church at least according to the common opinion of Divines that it cannot be sufficient for the Essence of Ordination as I could demonstrate if this were the proper place of such a Treat●fe and will not fa●l to do if D. Potter give me occasion In the mean time the Reader may be pleased to read the Author (z) See Adam Tannerum tom 4. disp 7. quaest 2. dub 3. 4. cited here in the margent and the compare the form of our Ordination with that of Protestants and to remember that if the form which they use either in consecrating Bishops or in ordaining Priests be at least doubtful they can neither have undoubted Priests nor Bishops For Priests cannot be ordained but by true Bishops nor can any be a true Bishop unless he first be Priest I say their Ordination is at least doubtful because that sufficeth for my present purpose For Bishops and Priests whose Ordination is notoriously known to be but doubtful are not to be esteemed Bishops or Priests and no man without Sacriledge can receive Sacraments from them all which they administer unlawfully And if we except Baptism with manifest danger of invalidity and with obligation to be at least conditionally repeated so Protestants must remain doubtful of Remission of sins of their Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and may not pretend to be a true Church which cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests nor without due administration of Sacraments which according to Protestants is an essential note of the true Church And it is a world to observe the proceeding of English Protestants in this point of their Ordinations For first An 3. Edw. 6. cap. 2. when he was a Child about 12. years of age It was enacted that such (a) Dyer fol. 234. term Mich. 6 7. Eliz. form of making and consecrating of Bishops and Priests as by six Prelates and six other to be appointed by the King should be divised mark this word devised and set forth under the great Seal should be used and none other But after this Act was repealed 1. Mar. Sess 2. in so much as that when afterward An. 6. 7. Reg. Eliz. Bishop Bonner being endicted upon a certificate made by D. Horn a Protestant Bishop of Winchester for his refusal of the Oath of Supremacy and he excepting against the indictment because D. Horn was no Bishop all the Judges resolved that his exception was good if indeed D. Horn was not Bishop and they were all at a stand till An S. Eliz. cap. 1. the Act of Edw 6. was renewed and confirmed with a particular proviso that no man should be impeached or molested by means of any certificate by any Bishop or Archbishop made before this last Act. Whereby it is clear that they made some doubt of their own ordination and that there is nothing but uncertainty in the whole business of their Ordination which forsooth must depend upon Six Prelates the great Seal Acts of Parliament being contrary one to another and the like 23 But though they want Personal Succession yet at least they have succession of Doctrin as they say and pretend to prove because they believe as the Apostles believed This is to beg the Question and to take what they may be sure will never be granted For if they want Personal Succession and slight Ecclesiastical Tradition how will they perswade any man that they agree with the doctrin of the Apostles We have heard Tertullian saying I will prescribe (b) Sup. c. 5. against all Heretiques that there is no means to prove what the Apustles preached but by the same Churches which they founded And S. Irenaeus tells us that We may (c) L. 3. c. 5. behold the Tradition of the Apostles in every Church if men be desirous to hear the truth and we can number them who were made Bishops by the Apostles in Churches and their Successors even to us And the same Father in another place saith We ought to obey (d) L. 4. c. 43. those Priests who are in the Church who have Succession from the Apostles and who together with Succession in their Bishopricks have received the certain gift of truth S. Augustine saith I am kept in the Church (e) Cont● epist Fundam c. 4. by the succession of Priests from the very Sea of Peter the Apostle to whom our Saviour after his Resurrection committed his sheep to be fed even to the present Bishop Origen to this purpose giveth us a good and wholsome Rule happy if himself had followed the same in these excellent words Since there be many who think (f) Praef. ad lib. Periarchon they believe the things which are of Christ and some are of different opinion from those who went before them let the preaching of the Church be kept which is delivered by the Apostles by order of Succession and remains in the Church to this very day that only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagrees from the Tradition of the Church In vain then do these men brag of the doctrin of the Apostles unless first they can demonstrate that they enjoyed a continued succession of Bishops from the Apostles and can shew us a Church which according to S. Austin is deduced by undoubted SUCCESSION from the Sea (g) Cont. Faust cap. 2. of the Apostles even to the present Bishops 24 But yet nevertheless suppose it were granted that they agreed with the doctrin of the Apostles this were not sufficient to prove a Succession in Doctrine For Succession besides agreement or similitude doth also require a never-interrupted conveying of such doctrine from the time of the Apostles till the dayes of those persons who challenge such a Succession And so S Augustine saith we are to believe that Gospel which from the time