of the DEPOSING Power than any thing said by their Writers hath been and no doubt but when any more such close Attacks shall be made upon them by our Writers as have been since his Majesties Reign to charge the Allowance of the Deposing Power on their Church they will not neglect to Crave Aid from what you have said in that your Historical Account of that Peace I assure you it was no easie Task to give so Critical and so Impartial an account of the factum of that Peace as you have done and so much for the Advantage of the Papists and whereby you have Merited much more from them than their Favorite of our Church Dr. Heylin did by Writing of the Outrages that accompanyed the Reformation And your occasional rectifying the Mistake of a considerable Writer of the Church of Rome and of such another of the Church of England here in the Negotiation of that peace hath shewed the Niceness and Difficulty of stating it exactly as you have done The Author of the Novelles de la Republique des Lettres for the Month of November last past giving an account of Dr. Burnets 2d Part of the Hist. of the Reformation being Beyond-Sea lately Printed in French doth there in p. 1250 give the World a fresh view of the Horrour of the Lateran Council by rendring our Queen Mary as prompted by that Council to the Persecution of her Protestant Subjects But you having in your Discourse with the Exquisite Artifice of Oratory mentioned some Passages in her Reign not commonly known and that on the Foundation you lay'd so low in the Rubbish of her Reign you might with more Advantage support the whole Super structure of your Judging that any Roman Catholick Prince that should inherit the Throne here would perfectly Decline her politicks and likewise in your Preface particularly fortified the Minds of People against the Fears and Jealousies of such a Prince that might be Occasioned by the Lateran Council did very seasonably thereby advance the measures of Loyalty and Mens more chearful adherence to the Lineal Succession And the Truth is that among the many Pamphlets Writ with most Artifice and ill apply'd Learning ad faciendum populum and to pervert them to the Exclusion I observing the Lateran Council so much insisted on cannot but Judge your undeceiving them in that point to have been the more necessary The Pamphlet you shew'd me in 4 to Pr for Ianeway in the year 1681. and called A Moderate Decision of the Point of Succession humbly proposed to the consideration of the Parliament doth harp much on that Council And another Pamphlet Printed in the same year for the same Person and called The Case of Protestants in England under a Popish Prince c. did there among the many Quotations out of the Canon Law and Canonists councils and Popish Divines and School-Men making for its purpose in p. 5. and 27. trouble us with the Lateran Council and mentions Bellarmines calling it the Papists great and most Famous Council Your having in your Discussion so succesfully combated the obligatoriness of that Council upon Papists was of great use for the unblundering many nominal Protestants as your term is in their fancying it so necessary for the quiet of Christendom that Princes and their Subjects should agree in the Belief of the Speculative points of Religion as your expressions are and whereupon you promise the Age your publication of the fact of the Munster Peace and its Consequences and which promise you have in your Preface so well and fully perform'd The Author of the Answer to the Book call'd A Papist Misrepresented doth refer to Lessius his Discussio decreti magni Concil Lateran and saying that the Churches Authority would not be maintain'd without the Deposing Power and in p. 104. making the Councils of Lateran under Alex. 3. and Innocent 3. to be general ones And in the Reflections on the Answer nothing is mentioned to deny it But your having in your Discussion cited Cardinal Peron for having so strenuously asserted that Councils being a general one and yet not thinking it Obligatory for the Exterminating the Persons of Hereticks from France where their number was so great and your having cited Cardinal D' Ossat partly to the same effect and further shewing this their Doctrine Incarnate in the Lives of so many Roman-Catholick Crown'd Heads and their Empires after all the dismal effects that the contrary practices produced and that the Voice of Nature did in the Storm their Country 's were in and when it was so necessary to have many Hands speak it as plainly concerning Heretical Subjects continuing with them as St. Pauls words were to the Centurion and to the Soldiers viz. except these abide in the Ship ye cannot be saved and your shewing that pursuant to the Munster Peace they did abide in the Ship and thereby saved themselves and it was time by you very nobly spent in your helping Men to See how far Nature had by its powerful Hands effectually delivered People from their Fears of the Lateran Council and which time was to much better purpose spent than that of some Roman-Catholick Apologists for any harsh thing Decreed by General Councils and saying that they are not declared as Doctrinal points and that the Decrees relating only to Discipline and Government come short of being Articles of Faith as the Author of the Reply to the Reflections upon the answer to a Papist Misrepresented and Represented oâ—â—erves and as to which he there further in p. 54. quotes the Vindication of Dr. Sherlocks Sermon for saying that to Decree what shall be done includes a Virtual Definition of that Doctrine on which that Decree is founded But such little Arts the great Cardinal you mentioned forbore to use in the point of the Lateran Council And 't is not Art but Nature that can satisfie the Curious in this inquisitive Age and by the great prospect of Nature you have shew'd Men appearing in the Munster-Peace they will be naturally untaught their Fears of that Council now they know its Sting is pluck'd out what ever humming about their Ears it may still make by the help of any Writers The Learned Author of the Seasonable Discourse in his other Book of the difference between the Church and Court of Rome consider'd in p. 21. speaking of the Lateran Council and how his Roman-Catholick Antagonist had Cited one Iohn Bishop who in a Book Written in the time of Queen Elizabeth affirmed that the Constitution of the Lateran Council on which the whole Authority of Absolving Subjects from their Allegiance and Deposing Princes is founded is no other than a Decree of Pope Innocent the 3 d and was never admitted in England Yea that the said Council was no Council at all nor any thing at all there Decreed by the Fathers doth in the following Pages substantially Confute his Adversary and sets up the Authority of Cardinal Peron and of the Council of Trent against
Canon Law giving the Pope a power to receive Appeals from the Dominions of Soveraign Princes and States Mastertius in his Book de justitiâ Legum Romanarum in the Summaries of his 20 th Chapter sets it down That 1. Ridetur Pontifex ab ipsâ Romanâ Curiâ 2. Credentes Constitutioni Pontificis a Regibus liberisque populis laesae Majestatis damnantur 3. Iterum dissentit a Pontifice Romana Curia 4. Mira pontificis caecitas notatur 5. Intellectus L. à proconsulibus 19. Cod de appellat 6. Ius Canonicum malè damnat in expensas tantum appellantem perperam Under which he saith Infelix fuit Romanus Praesul in Cap. 7. Cap. de priore 31. Cap. Ad audientiam 34. Cap. dilecti 52. Ext. de appellat quibus constituit adversus L. Imper. in princip D. de appellat licere pulsatae parti relictis medijs pontificalem cognitionem invocare nam ipsa Romana Curia id Iuris tanquam omnem bonum ordinem invertens ex merâ dissentiendi libidine promanans explosit neque procedit Canonistarum glossema quo videtur id constituisse pontifex ob specialem suae sedis praerogativam quâ fidelium omnium competens est Iudex Cap. si duobus 7. ibi D. D. ext de appellat Concil Trident. sess 24. Cap. 20. de reformat Nam cum id falsum sit totius Christiani Orbis Reges liberique populi laesae Majestatis reos agunt qui vel immediatè vel ab ipsorum sententiâ ad pontificem praesumunt appellare Eodem candore defert appellationi rei minimae iterum reluctante Romanâ Curiâ requirente ut litis aestimatio sit ut minimum coronatorum decem Praesec in praxi Episcop p. 2. Cap. 4. Art 15. N. 8. Mechlinensi 50. Flor. D. Zypaeus de Iure Pontif. novo tit de appellat N. 8. Mihi videtur quod pontifex de industria se voluerit risui propinare nam hic defert appellationi rei minimae suprà relictis mediis implorationi Pontificialis auditorij evocando Belgam aut Anglum in Causâ aliquorum obolorum ad urbem Romanam experiundi sui Iuris gratiâ But there is another use we may now well make of the publication of this Rescript of the Vniversity of Oxon and that is to observe how awkwardly and unseasonably the Author of The Papist Misrepresented and Represented hath thought fit to Represent the Pope as now deducing a Claim to a Higher Power here by the Word of God than what our Roman-Catholick Universities allowed him in Henry the 8 th's time For in his 18 th Chapter he tells us That the Papist believes that there is a Pastor Governor and Head of Christs Church under Christ to wit the Pope or Bishop of Rome who is the Successor of St. Peter to whom Christ committed the Care of his Flock c. and now believing the Pope to enjoy his Dignity he looks on himself obliged to shew him the Respect Submission and Obedience which is due to his place And afterward in this manner is he ready to behave himself towards his CHIEF PASTOR with all Reverence and Submission never scrupling to receive his Decrees and Definitions such as are issued forth by his Authority with all their due Circumstances and according to Law in the concern of the whole Flock His Answerer doth well reply to him in that point and with a Candour suitable to the Pacifick State of the Realm you have predicted under any Prince of the Roman-Catholick Communion say viz. How doth it appear that Christ ever made St. Peter Head of the Church or committed his Flock to him in contradistinction to the Rest of the Apostles This is so far from being evident by Scripture that the Learned Men of their Church are ashamed of the places commonly produced for it c. And afterward saith ' We need not insist on the Proof of this since the late mentioned Authors of the Roman Communion have taken so great pains not only to prove the Popes Supremacy to be an Encroachment and Usurpation in the Church but that the laying it aside is necessary to the Peace and Unity of it And until the Divine Institution of the Papal Supremacy be proved it is to no purpose to debate what manner of Assistance is promised to the Pope in his Decrees It was I think an undertaking that none but a very Sanguine Man could suppose fesable to engage us to believe in this Age that the Pope was by Divine Right Head of our Church under Christ. I say in this Age so generally Learned and when a Layman furnished but with an ordinary Library can shew that the Churches of the Brittish Islands England Scotland and Ireland as my Lord Primate Bramhal shews in Chap. 5. of his Iust Vindication of the Church of England by the Constitution of the Apostles and by the Solemn Sentence of the Catholick Church are exempted from all Foreign Iurisdiction and that if it be objected that the Bishop of Rome was ever our Patriarch that all Patriarchal Jurisdiction is of Human Institution and by the Statute of 35 C. 1. it was declared that the Holy Church of England was founded in the State of PRELACY not of Papacy within the Realm of Eng. not without it by the Kings and Peers thereof not by the Popes and when in the time of our late Civil Wars the Presbyterian and Independent Divines had by their Claims of Ius Divinum for their Models of Church-Government so much exercised the understanding of the People in general that at the time of his late Majesties Restoration restoring to our Church the best Constituted Government in the World many of our Virtuosi and Latitudinarians could not be brought expresly to own its excellence on an Universal Ius Divinum praeceptivum and would say that in any Church Government that by Divine Right would bind all Churches there must be not only praxis but institutio apostolica The Pryers into the Rabbinical Learning of the Iews have not been forced more to observe their Criticising on the Divinity of the Fire which burn'd the Sacrifices on the Brazen Altar as coming from Heaven both when the Tabernacle was erected and when the Temple was built and making the fire in the first Temple to be Divino-Divinus altogether Holy and the fire in the second Temple to be Divino-Humanus Human Holy as being kindled as our fire though still kept in as the fire of the first Temple was and the third fire that Nadab and Abihu offered to be Humanus and likewise called by them alienus as strange fire then the Readers of the late Controvertists of the Ius Divinum of several Forms of Church-Government among us have been forced to take notice of their nicety in distinguishing it And now after the Bishop of Rome had before Henry the 8 th's time made the figure of the fire Divino Humanus and whose Authority was then Extinguished for so the Style runs of the Act of
a Man the Frankness of a Gentleman and Charity and Compassion of a Christian to the Persons of many Papists and others and doing as I did in the late Conjuncture would occasion designing Papists and some perverse Nominal Protestants as you call them to make a Papist of me and did therefore esteem it in you whom I never had opportunity to oblige a Favour to do me Justice therein as you have in the former part of your Discourse and of which I think the Sheets were sent me printed within a Month or two's time after the old Date they bear But a long fit of Sickness afterward seising you and you then signifying to me that you resolved that the same should not be published till you added the following part wherein for the Encouragement of so many Protestants who were so much Dispirited with imaginations of Popery's coming to be the paramount Religion and of Protestancy's being Extirpated you endeavor'd to shew the impossibility of the same Humanly speaking and till you had likewise finished your Casuistical Discourse of the Obligatoriness of our Oaths as to the King his Heirs and Successors I was easily satisfied with your taking your own time for the Publishing the whole as knowing that the Torrent of Shamm and Calumny by which the Reputations of many Loyal Persons were born down was too violent to be of any long continuance and considering likewise that your incorporating the Character of my Life into a Work so full of various exquisite Learning of all sorts and particularly of that now so much in request Namely the reducing Political Matters by Calculation ad firmam as you call it that by the Course of Nature must be immortal and probably pass Christendom in some Language more general than the English would in time Render me a sufficient gainer by the false Affidavit which an angry House of Commons so unwarily dispersed with their Votes throughout this Kingdom The truth is you having been the first Person who took the pains to find out by the Records of the Pole Bills and the Bishops survey the Number of the People of England have highly Merited the thanks of your Country thereby as having necessarily rendred its Figure and Alliances in the World the more considerable And it was the more proper to be done by reason of De Leti having Published it that that Learned Person and my Worthy Friend Monsieur Van Beuninghen had Judged the People here to be but two Millions and because as you have Cited it out of Dr. Vessius his Book of various Observations Dedicated by him to his late Majesty that the Doctor there hath Estimated the People in England Scotland and Ireland to be but two Millions I remember not in all the Books I have read to have found so much and so various Political Calculation as in this your Discourse And because you intend a Review thereof I think it will be in any who have the Custody of Records that may be of use to you a kindness to the publick to be communicative of them to you Though I need not observe to any Reader of your Discourse the height of your Eloquence and great unaffected Wit and the Nervous way of Argumentation appearing therein yet I am obliged to acquaint you that in some particular passages therein my Observations of Men and Things have been different from yours But all of which I hold my self likewise obliged not to trouble the World or you with at this time for your having mentioned your intended Review to be Published in a Volum by it self I who have received so much kindness from you am to do you the Iustice to stay a while in expecting your Second thoughts and without boding ill of your being any way partial therein yet shall here at present acquaint you that as I am a Member of the Church of England as now by Law Established I will not Recede a Iot from its Doctrine by Judging the Papacy not to be Antichrist or by judging the Worshipping the Host not to be formal Idolatry as my Honoured Friends Dr. Hammond and Bishop Taylor as you say have done And shall here observe to you that tho' Bishop Taylor in his Liberty of Prophecying pronounced Worshiping the Host to be not FORMAL Idolatry yet afterward upon more Mature thoughts he in his Disswasive against Popery did make it FORMAL Idolatry I shall likewise tell you that Bishop Sanderson whom you so often quote and whose Judgment you so deservedly Celebrate doth amongst his Sermons printed Anno 1657. in the fifth Sermon Ad Populum p. 287. in plain Terms call the Pope the Man of Sin the Text of the Sermon is 1 Tim. 4.4 The Bishop there represents the Church of Rome as injurious to our Christian Liberty whom St. Paul in this passage saith he hath branded with an indelible note of Infamy in as much as those very Doctrines wherein he gives an instance as Doctrines of Devils are the received Tenets and Conclusions of that Church not to insist on other prejudices done to Christian Liberty by the intolerable Vsurpation of the Man of Sin where he refers in his Margent to 2 Th. 2 3. who exerciseth a Spiritual Tyranny over Mens Consciences as opposite to Evangelical Liberty as Antichrist is to Christ. Let us a little see how she hath fulfilled St. Pauls Prediction in teaching Lying and Divelish Doctrines and that with seared Consciences and in Hypocrisie in the two Specialties mentioned in the next verse viz. Forbidding to Marry and commanding to abstain from Meats And then the Bishop saith Marriage the Holy Ordinance of God is yet by this purple Strumpet forbidden and that Sub Mortali to Bishops Priests Deacons c. and he there for that Appellation of purple Strumpet refers in his Margent to Rev. 17.13 And as I have here cited this great B. for this purpose so I may likewise refer you to the work of our B. of Lincoln called Brutum Fulmen as proving the Pope to be Antichrist contrary to the Assertions of Grotius and Dr. Hammond and others I never think of this Bishop and of his Incomparable Knowledge both in Theology and Church-History and in the Ecclesiastical Law without applying to him in my Thoughts the Character that Cicero gave Crassus viz. Vir non unus é multis sed unus inter omnes propè singularis And I desire here to own my beholdingness to his communicative Disposition for assisting me with quotations and his Judgment when I have occasion to Crave his Aid therein as you know I have lately done and shall be glad that the learning in such Letters as I have received from him wherein there are many excellent Notions which I had no occasion to quote may sometime see the light But I am in the next place with Justice to acknowledge it to you that you have in your Reflections on the Vsurpations of the late times acquainted the World with several things useful to be inserted in
diligenza con amore con fortuna is what I find in your page 217 and 218. For 't is there that in your great picture of His Late Majesty as an Agonist and laying the Crown of Righteousness before him eo nomine and as Contending for the Succession You have interweaved the picture of your own Loyalty and Contention for it with such bold Touches as I shall not name but refer the Reader to them which it was pitty but your Index had done with a hand in the Margent There is no doubt but the very Curiosity of the Calculations in your Discourse would have brought it into the late Kings Cabinet and to his perusal had he lived till its Publication and your great Majestick Insinuations of perswasive Arguemnt there brought apparently wâ—th a Design to fortifie his great Mind against any possible further Batteries from Members of any of the three Estates to occasion his consenting to the Exclusion must necessarily have been soon perceiv'd by so quick an Apprehension as his Majesties and could not but have made deep impressions on him for the continuance in his former purpose And I will hereupon say that if any Loyal Roman-Catholick would not on the Account of what you have said in those two pages absolve you from his severe Censuring of the warmest passages against Popery in your whole Discourse he would injure his own Judgment And the Truth is Arch-Bishop Hutton's minding Queen Elizabeth so boldly from the Pulpit though yet with a Salvo to the Rules of Modesty and Decorum of what in Justice concerned her as to K. Iames's Succession which you have mentioned and which was by her so well taken was not a harder Task to be performed than what you presented to the consideration of his Late Majesty from the Press in the Affair of his preserving the Lineal Succession of his present Majesty As it is natural to Men on the sight of any Combatants or Wrestlers whom they had never before seen to wish better to the one than the other and to have their Fancy's by the Current of Nature constantly carryed along to favour the Fortunes of this or that Contender whom yet they never saw so I have during the course of our long acquaintance observed in you on all occasions a natural and constant tenderness in your Wishes of Happiness and good Success to his present Majesty when Duke of York And had not you on grounds of Nature and so like a Philosopher expressed the same and from the Knowledg of things in particular founded your Conjectural measures of Englands future Happy State if under his Government but had only presaged well of his Reign in general one might have thought that your natural Affection and Honour for his Person might have byassed you that way as a praedicter rather than the natural knowledge of things especially considering what you have well hinted that the very praediction of things is often a Natural cause in some degree of Men's being Animated to bring them to effect And indeed I receiving many of your printed Sheets during our late Fermentation when so many Writers seemed Associated in the praediction of the worst of Events under a Popish Successor was the more pleased to find one Man that was not like a dead fish carryed down with the stream of the Times as to the point of ill boding to the publick and the strength of whose fancy mixt with his great Reason and Judgment might be able to help to turn that stream And God be thanked that by his Majesties coming to inherit the Throne of his Ancestors with almost as equal Peace and Ioy of the People as his Royal Brother was Restored to the same and for your Description of the Figure I made in which latter or to speak more properly of my Duty I discharged therein I return you my Just Acknowledgments and by his so early and voluntary Gracious Declaration of his defending the C. of E. and the Civil Government as by Law Established and so publickly owning the Loyalty of the Principles of that Church and by his continuance of the prosperity of that Church and the Peace and Prosperity of the Kingdom while the whole Creation as I may say groans under the pressure of some of our Protestant Brethren abroad you have hitherto appeared so much a True Praedicter as you have I am likewise glad hereby that another Learned Person of our Church I mean Dr. Thomas Sprat the Lord Bishop of Rochester taking his view of the Future State of England in his History of the Royal Society and there saying as you have Cited it that we may safely conclude that what ever vicissitude shall happen about Religion in our time it will probably be neither to the advantage of implicit Faith nor of Enthusiasm has hitherto appear'd so fortunate in that praediction God be thanked that such as in the late Conjuncture troubled us with the being Lachrymists in another and the imagin'd nubecula est c. as to persecution have had some cause to be ashamed of their Fears And that you have hitherto had no more cause to be ashamed of praedicting Englands future pacifick State though yet we have had a * Monmouths Rebellion since But as to that it may be properly said that that persecution against the Throne nubecula fuit transivit We have had presently after the Kings coming to the Throne a little Cloud of Calumny cast on the Reputations of four of the most Eminent Divines of our Metropolis by some of their fellow Subiects supposed Roman Catholicks but it soon passed off And God brought forth their Righteousness as the Light and their Iudgment as the Noon-Day And the thing scarce deserves to be remembred that after they had thus misrepresented four such Protestant Divines with so much falshood some others of those published a Book called The Papist Misrepresented and Represented and which is lately answer'd with that Candour and Strength of Reason that ought to be in Theological Writings and wherein as the Lord Falkeland who was then Secretary was wont to say it was as absurd to mingle angry reviling expressions as to do so in a Love-Letter There was a despicable Childish Pamphlet and Writ with too much petulant insolence called An Address from the Church of England to both Houses of Parliament and which was by many of the Fathers of that Church held not worth the taking notice of And because it is very Ridiculous for any now to think to Re-Baptize the present Church of England with the Name of ROMAN Catholick I have here thought fit in pursuance of what you mentioned in p. 70. to let you and others have a Copy of the Rescript or Iudgment of the Vniversity of Oxford to Henry the 8 th whereby the Bishop of Rome was pronounced to have no more power here by the Word of God than any other Foreign Bishop I Judge that that Old Book of Dr. Iames's you refer to is
called A Manuduction or Introduction unto Divinity containing a Confutation of Papists by Papists c. by Tho. James Doctor of Divinity late fellow of New-Colledge in Oxford and Sub Dean of the Cathedral Church of Wells printed at Oxford 1625. The Book is full of great Learning and Dedicated to the then Lord Keeper Bishop of Lincoln And there under his third proposition viz. the King is not Subject to any Foreign Iurisdiction he tells us in p. 40. that K. Henry the 8th being at Variance with the Pope a Parliament was called within two years and a Motion was made therein that the King should be declared Head of the Church But his Majesty refused till he had Advised with his Universities of that point And whilst the Parliament Sate God in whose Hand the Hearts of Princes are so disposing it the King reflecting belike on Wickliffs former Articles directing his Letters to the University of Ox. about Electing the Bp. of Lincoln into the Chancellorship of the University of Oxford in the room of Arch-Bishop Warham lately Deceased After the Accomplishment whereof saith the King our Pleasure and Commandment is that ye as shall beseem Men of Vertue and profound literature diligently intreating examining and discussing a certain question sent from us to you concerning the Power and Primacy of the Bishop of Rome send again to us in writing under your common Seal with convenient Speed and Celerity your mind Sentence and assertion of the Question according to the mere and sincere Truth of the same willing you to give Credence to our Trusty and Well-beloved this bringer your Commissary As well touching our further pleasure in the premisses as for other matters c. Given under our Signet at our Mannor of Greenwich the 18 th Day of May. 'T is there said in the Margent Ex Registro Act. in archivis Academiae Oxon. Ad Ann. Dom. 1534. p. 127 c. The Doctor then thus goeth on Upon the Receipt of these Letters the University at that time for ought we know consisting all of Papists being assembled in Convocation Decreed as followeth That for the Examination Determination and Decision of this question sent unto them to be Discuss'd from the Kings Majesty whether the Bishop of Rome had any greater Jurisdiction Collated upon him from God in the Holy Scripture than any other Foraign Bishop that there should be Deputed thirty Divines Doctors and Batchelors of Divinity to whose Sentence Assertion or Determination or the greater part of them the Common Seal of the University in the Name thereof should be annexed And then sent up to his Majesty And the 27 th of June in the year of our Saviour 1534. this Instrument following was made and sent up Sealed with the Common Seal of the University The Instrument it self is in Latin but is in English thus To all the Sons of our Mother the Church to whom these present Letters shall come Iohn by the Grace of God Chancellour of the Famous University of Oxon and the whole Assembly of Doctors and Masters Regents and not Regents in the same greeting Whereas our most Noble and Mighty Prince and Lord Hen. the 8 th by the Grace of God of England and France King Defender of the Faith and Lord of Ireland upon the continual Requests and Complaints of his Subjects Exhibited unto him in Parliament against the intolerable exactions of Foreign Jurisdictions and upon divers Controversies had and moved about the Jurisdiction and Power of the Bishop of Rome and for other divers and urgent Causes against the said Bishop then and there expounded and declared was sent unto and humbly desired that he would provide in time some fit Remedy and satisfie the Complaint of his dear Subjects He as a most prudent Solomon minding the good of his Subjects over whom God hath placed him and deeply pondering with himself how he might make good and wholsom Laws for the Government of his Common-Wealth and above all things taking care that nothing be there resolved upon against the Holy Scriptures which he is and ever will be ready to Defend with Hazard of his Dearest Blood out of his deep Wisdom and after great pains taken hereabouts hath Transmitted and sent unto his University of Oxon a certain question to be Disputed viz. whether the Bishop of Rome hath any greater Jurisdiction granted to him from God in the Holy Scriptures to be exercised and used in this Kingdom than any other Foraign Bishop and hath commanded us that disputing the question after a diligent and mature Deliberation and Examination of the premisses we should certifie his Majesty under the Common Seal of our University what is the true meaning of the Scriptures in that behalf according to our Judgments and Apprehensions We therefore the Chancellor Doctors and Masters above Recited daily and often remembring and altogether weighing with our selves how good and godly a thing it is and Congrous to our Profession befitting our Submissions Obediences and Charities to foreshew the way of Truth and Righteousness to as many as desire to tread in her steps and with a good sure and quiet Conscience to Anchor themselves upon Gods Word We could not but endeavour our selves with all the possible care that we could devise to satisfie so Just and Reasonable a Request of so great a Prince who next under God is our most Happy and Supream Moderator and Governor Taking therefore the said question into our Considerations with all Humble Devotion and due Reverence as becometh us and Assembling our Divines together from all parts taking time enough and many days space to Deliberate thereof diligently religiously and in the fear of God with zealous and upright Minds first searching and searching again the Book of God and the best Interpreters thereupon disputing the said questions Solemnly and Publickly in our Schools have in the end unanimously and with joynt consent resolved upon the Conclusion that is to say That the Bishop of Rome hath no greater Jurisdiction given unto him in Scripture than any other Bishop in this Kingdom of England Which our Assertion Sentence or Determination so upon deliberation maturely and throughly discussed and according to the Tenor of the Statutes and Ordinances of this our University concluded upon publickly in the Name of the whole University we do pronounce and testifie to be sure certain and consonant to the Holy Scripture In witness whereof we have caused these our Letters to be written Sealed and ratified by the Seal of our University Given in our Assembly House the 27 th of the Month of Iune in the year of Christ 1534. I took care formerly to satisfie the Curious by my taking a Copy of this Rescript out of the Records in the Registry of the Vniversity of Oxford and which I not being able at present to find among my Papers have sent you this English Translation of it as Printed in that Book of Dr. Iames's That Book of his any one may see in the Catalogue
of the Bodleian Library and of which Library he was the Head-keeper And in that Office very Diligent and Careful and was a Person of great Learning and Probity The Knowledge of this Rescript of that Vniversity and likewise of the other of Cambridge is necessary to all who will be Masters of the Knowledge of the History of those times For the Author of a Book in Quarto Printed in Oxford in the year 1645. called the Parliaments power in Laws for Religion having there in p. 4. said that the third and Final Act for the Popes Ejection was an Act of Parliament 28. H. 8th c. 10. entituled an Act extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome Saith it was usher'd in by the Determination first and after by the practice of all the Clergy for in the Year 1534. which was two years before the passing of this Act the King had sent this Proposition to be agitated in both Vniversities and in the greatest and most famous Monastery's of the Kingdom That is to say An aliquid authoritatis in hoc Regno Angliae Pontifici Romano de Jure competat plusquam alii cuicunque Episcopo extero By whom it was Determined Negatively that the Bishop of Rome had no more power of Right in the Kingdom of England than any other Foraign Bishop which being Testified and return'd under their Hands and Seals respectively the Originals whereof are still remaining in the Library of Sir Robert Cotton was a good preamble to the Bishops and the rest of the Clergy Assembled in their Convocation to conclude the like And so accordingly they did and made an Instrument thereof Subscribed by the Hands of all the Bishops and others of the Clergy and who afterward confirm'd the same by their Corporal Oaths The Copies of which Oaths and Instruments you shall find in Foxes Acts and Monuments vol. 2. fol. 1203. and 1211. of the Edition of John Day An. 1570. And this was semblably the ground of a following Statute 35. H. 8. c. 1. Wherein another Oath was devised and ratified to be imposed upon the Subject for the more clear asserting of the Kings Supremacy and the utter exclusion of the Popes for ever Which Statutes though they were all Repeal'd by one Act of Parliament 1st and 2d of Phillip and Mary C. 8. Yet they were brought in force again 1 Eliz c. 1. My Lord Herbert in his History of Henry the 8 th under the year 1534. and the 26 th year of his Reign p. 408. telling us that it was Enacted that the King by his Heirs and Successors Kings of England should be Accepted and Reputed the Supream Head on Earth of the Church of Eng. called Ecclesia Anglicana c. saith that that Act though much for the manutention of the Regal Authority seem'd not yet to be suddenly approved by our King nor before he had consulted with his Counsel c. and with his Bishops who having discussed the point in their Convocations declared that the Pope had no Iurisdiction warranted to him by Gods Word in this Kingdom which also was seconded by the Vniversities and by the Subscriptions of the several Colledges and Religious Houses c. Most certainly Hen. the 8 th's gaining this point that the Bp. of Rome hath no more power here by Gods Word than any other Foraign Bishop was of great and necessary use in order to the effectual withstanding the Papal Usurpations and was re verâ the gaining of a Pass and for which end he made use of intellectual Detachments from his Vniversities And suitably to the Wisdom of our Ancestors here in Henry 8 ths time any Popish Prince abroad who intends effectually to Combat the Papal Usurpations must first gain that Pass For the effect of the common sayings in Natural Philosophy that Natura non conjungit extrema nisi per media and that Natura non facit Saltum must likewise obtain in Politicks when the Nature of things is operating there toward a Reformation of Church or State And this weighty Rescript of the Vniversity of Oxford not being Printed in Dr. Burnets excellent Historical Books of the Reformation nor yet in Fox his Martyrology and now Published here as set down in English by Dr. Iames may perhaps serve usefully to illuminate the World abroad about the way of its Transitus from Popery But here I shall observe that though I find in Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments Printed in 3 Volumes in London for the Company of Stationers An. 1641. the Iudgment of the Vniversity of Cambridge is there set down in p. 338. and relates to the same year with the Oxford Rescript namely the year 1534. yet it doth not there appear to be a Rescript to King Henry 8 th by way of return to a Letter from his Majesty and it begins thus Vniversis sanctae Matris Ecclesiae filijs ad quos praesentes literae perventurae sunt Caetus omnis Regentium non Regentium Academiae Cantabrigiensis salutem in omnium Salvatore Iesu Christo. Cum de Romani Pontificis potestate c. And then follows the Translation of the whole in English and which makes about half of that page 338 and wherein the same Judgment for substance is given with that of the Oxford Rescripts That the Bishop of Rome hath no more State Authority and Iurisdiction given him of God in the Scriptures over this Realm of England than any other extern Bishop hath That Instrument hath not there the Date of any Month to it as the Oxford Rescript hath But in the Body of the Instrument 't is mentioned that the Iudgment of that Vniversity was therein required though not by whom and towards the Conclusion of it 't is Styled an Answer in the Name of that Vniversity and 't is probable that the Iudgment of that Vniversity might have been required by some of the Ministers of King Henry 8 th and by his Order whereas the Oxford Rescript mentioned his Majesties having himself required the Iudgment of that Vniversity in that point What I have here mentioned of the Iudgment of our two Vniversities gives me occasion to take notice of an Oversight of my Lord Herbert in this place of his History by me Cited For he in this p. 408. makes the Vniversities Determining that the Pope had no Iurisdiction warranted to him by Gods Word in this Kingdom whereas he should have Represented their Sense of his not having more here than any other Foraign Bishop And thus you truly express the Sense of their Judgment in this Case when you say p. 70 th of your Book that the Popes Cards were by the Clergy that plaid his Game thrown up as to all claim of more power here by the Word of God than every other Foraign Bishop had And both our Vniversities sent their Iudgments about the same thing to the K. which methinks might make our Papists approach a little nearer to us without any fear of Infection For we allow the Bishop of Rome
Parliament I mentioned of 28 of H. 8 th viz. An Act for Extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome and as to whose Authority we are told by More 463. that all the power of the Pope was not by the 25 of H. 8th given to the King but was extinct in Holy wells Case for any Writers without the Heat and Light of much clear Learned Argumentation to rekindle that extinguished ignis alienus a strange fire of Foreign power in our Beliefs will I may modestly say be a strange Attempt and not to be Effected by any Rhetorical Representer But here I cannot forbear observing that the Author of the Papist Misrepresented c. doth in his Reflections upon the Answer to his Book in p. 13. refering to Dr. Hickes his Iovian call him a Worthy Divine and Cite him for saying that in Case a Popish Julian indeed should Reign over us he should believe him uncapable of Repentance and upon that Supposition should be tempted to pray for his Destruction and then in seeming Charity to the Church of England deny that because the Doctor used those Words it is honest hence to blacken the Church of England with this Disloyal Principle as if she allowed her Members though not to fight against yet to pray for the Destruction of such a Prince The Doctor whose great Learning and Pains taken in doing right to the Succession you have so particularly Represented in your Preface and whereupon if we reflect on the little or nothing ex professo writ by any Romanists against the Exclusion it will be no Complement to â—ay that he hath therein laboured more abundantly than THEY all might if it had pleased this Representer have been deservedly referred to by him with a higher Character And if in any expressions warmer than ordinary against the principles of Popery he had erred by any little Transports in any of his Books he sufficiently Merited from any Roman Catholick Criticks their mildest Representation of them And it had been but Justice in the Representer to have Cited the former part of the Doctors Sentence viz. and if it should please God to plague the Church with such a Spightful Enemy of Christ c. And if he had done so it would have invited the Reader to look back to what the Doctor had written from the 140 th page to the passage which he Cites and then his Reflection would have come to nothing By what I have heard of the Doctors Loyalty I believe him to be one who with Effectual Fervent Prayers doth Importune Heaven for his Majesties long and prosperous Reign and doth his Duty of praising God for his Majesties being so far a Nursing Father to the Church of England And I have that opinion of the largeness of his Christian Charity and Justice that he is ready to retaliate with the Representer in not blackning the whole Church of Rome with the principles lately held by some Iesuits and others Casuists referred to in the Popes Decree of March 2 d. 1679. in § 13 14 15. by the 1 st of which it is rendred no Mortal Sin to be troubled for the Life of another so it be done with due Moderaton and by the second it is made Lawful to desire the Death of ones Father by an absolute desire and by the 3 d. Lawful for a Son to rejoyce at the same and perpetrated by a Son in Drunkenness I suppose you could not but take notice how that Answerer of the Papist Mis-represented c. reflects on the unlucky instance there in Caiaphas and saying was not Caiaphas himself the Man who proposed the taking away the Life of Christ at that time was he assisted in that Councel Did not he determine afterward Christ to be guilty of Blasphemy and therefore worthy of Death For you have well observed the ill Luck that the Famous Hosius as he is called by you had in this case of Caiaphas as to which Dr. Crackanthorp exclaims against Hosius O Hominem Sacrilegum ac Blasphemum Illene reus Mortis qui innocens innoxius vitam dedit An Blasphemus etiam Ea judicij pars You may in Bishop Iewels Apology find this blot of Hosius hit where speaking of the Pope p. 151 152. of the London Edition in the â—ear 1581. he saith Petrus quidem á Soto ejus astipulator HOSIVS nihil dubitant affirmare concilium illud ipsum in quo Christus Iesus adjudicatus est morti habuisse spiritum propheticum spiritum sanctum spiritum veritatis Nec falsum aut vanum fuisse quod Episcopi illi dixerunt Nos habemus Legem secundum legem debet mori illos judicasse Sic enim scribit HOSIVS judicij veritatem omninóque justum fuisse illud decretum quo ab illis pronuciatum est Christum dignum esse qui moreretur Mirum verò est non posse istos pro se dicere propugnare causam suam nisi uná etiam Annae Cajaphaeque pratrocinentur Nam qui illud ipsum concilium in quo filius Dei ad crucem ignominiosissime condemnatus est legitimum dicent fuisse ac probum quod tandem illi concilium decernent esse vitiosum Tamen qualia sunt istorum concilia ferè omnia necesse illis fuit ut ista de Cajaphae Annaeque concilio pronunciarent c. He there had Cited in the Margin Hosius contra Brentium lib. 2. But if so great a Divine as Hosius who was a Polonian Bishop and Cardinal of Rome and one of the Popes Legates in the Councel of Trent did thus err in this point the mistake of an other therein who was of an inferior Character is not to be much wondered at However as I am an Honourer of Learned Men I Derogate not from the Talents of Wit and Learning shewn in his Book and do suppose that somewhat of the Moderation he shews therein may be attributed to the Candour of that Church he was first Educated in And am sorry that he should find any Cause in his Papist Misrepresented Chapter 31. Of wicked Principles and Practices to say take but a view of the Horrid practices She i. e. the Church of Rome hath been engaged in of late years consider the French and Irish Massacres the Murder of Hen. the 3 d. and 4 th Kings of France the Holy League the Gunpowder Treason the Cruelty of Queen Mary the Firing of London the late Plot in the year 1678. to Subvert the Government and destroy his Majesty the Death of Sir Edmund Godfrey c. And then tell me whether that Church which hath been the Author and Promoter of such Barbarous Designs ought to be esteemed Holy c. and let never so many pretences be made yet 't is evident that all these Execrable practices have been done according to the known Principles of this Holy Church and that her greatest Patrons the most Learned of her Divines her most Eminent Bishops her Prelates Cardinals and even the Popes themselves have been
something under-board and from thinking there MAY BE something they will think it is very LIKELY there is something and from LIKELY THERE IS they will conclude THERE IS surely there is some PLOT working hath still since inclined me to be cautious how in my most private thoughts I charged any Men and especially any great Bodies of Men with PLOTS And I think the Author of the Papist Mis-represented c. will find enough Protestants as ready as you and my self to avoid troubling them with the Witnesses Plot. But since the Author hath in this case thought fit to invite us to a view of the Principles APPROVED and Conform to the Religion taught by his Church I shall reflecting on the Principles approved by so many in that Church tell him I cannot but Judge them short of that unconditional Loyalty you have so clearly asserted in your Discussion and shall judge as the L. Falkland the Secretary did in the Letter to Mr. Mountague I before referred to where his Lordship on Mr. Mountagues making POPERY the way to Obedience having had these words viz. I cannot but say that though no Tenet of their whole Church which I know makes at all against it yet there are prevailing opinions of that side which are not fit to make good Subjects when their Kings and they are of different perswasions and having quoted D' Ossat for saying that it is the Spaniards Maxim that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks and more that the Pope intimated as much in a Discourse intended to perswade the King of France to forsake the Queen of England and that they hold at Rome that the Pope to avoid a probable Danger of the encreasing of Heresy may take away a Territory from the true owner and dispose of it to another and many also defend that he hath power to Depose an Heretical Prince and of Heresy he makes himself the Judge His Lordship with a profound Charity and Iudgment thus goeth on viz. So that though I had rather my Tongue should cleave to the Roof of my Mouth than that I should deny that a Papist may be a good Subject even to a King whom he accounts an Heretick since I verily believe that I my self know very many very good Yet Popery is like to an ill Air wherein though many keep their Healths yet many are Infected so that at most they are good Subjects but during the Popes pleasure and the rest are in more danger than if they were out of it Moreover as to the firing of London which the Author referreth to in his Papist Misrepresented as well as the Death of Godfrey I was always as careful as you were to charge no more Papists with the Odium of it than such as the Justice of the Nation Criminated therewith Moreover if any one will have it that Hubert and Peidelow were not Papstis I shall not account it tanti to contend with him about it and as you told me lately that you would not I remember when we were long since Discoursing of that fire you shewed me a Book of Vigelius a Civilian who treating de praesumptionibus quaestionum facti laid it down as a particular Rule viz. Si de causâ incendij quaeritur culpâ inhabitantium praesumitur factum and saith quae regula approbatur l. 3. § 31. ff de officio praefecti vigilum ubi Paulus plerumque inquit incendia fiunt culpâ inhabitantium Moreover you once shew'd me it represented as a Rule in Magerus his Advocatia armata that damnum quod ignoratur à quo provenerit ab inimico illatum esse praesumitur which doth partly agree with the presumption of the causer of the damage mentioned in the parable of the tares an enemy hath done this And you have with Candour in the Papists behalf in p. 180. to shew that the Pope was not the inimicus Homo helped them to the Testimony of an adversary I mean of Marvil in his growth of Popery You have likewise done Iustice to the Papists in p. 181. Exploding the great popular Argument of London being designedly fired by many Popish Persons because of the flames breaking out at once in several places distant from one another An Argument that the Author of Pyrotechnica-Loyolana printed in London in the year 1667. doth in p. 130. lay great stress on and saith that as at Cracow in Poland which he had before accused the Iesuits for having fired the flames did break out there in several places of the City at the Tops of Houses so here the fire did break first out at the Tops of several Houses which were every way at a considerable distance from the contiguous burning in the main Body c. And therefore on the Account of the thing you mentioned and which is obvious enough in Nature a fire first caused in London or Cracow culpâ inhabitantium might afterward appear breaking out in several distant places thereof And I have several times told you how I was in the behalf of the Roman Catholicks troubled at the Votes of the House of Commons that threw the Guilt of the fire of London on the Papists in general and likewise at what was spoke by an Eminent Son of our Church and Minister of his late Majesties that at the Condemnation of the Lord Stafford in effect did so for there as you have truly said in p. 179. the Evidence did not rise High and Clear enough for the charging any Papist with it Nor need I now tell you that I was in the year 79 sorry to find that a Pamphlet against Popery that charged the Papists in general with the Fire of London and with that particularly of the Temple caused by a Non-Papist Debauchè who was burn'd in it was then Licenced by a very Loyal and Learned Licenser But since our Roman-Catholick Author in his Papist Misrepresented doth partly found the Mis-representation on these execrable practices having been done according to the known Principles of the Church of Rome I shall take this occasion he hath given me to offer it to him to consider how far any known principle founded on the Papal Usurpations and approved either BY or IN that Church might have Legitimated a practice of the like Nature As for Example the Firing of the Heretical Villages at the Massacre of Merindol affirm'd by Heylin and Maimbourg and the designed one of the City of Westminster in the Gunpowder-Treason And shall leave it to the ingenious Author to Recollect whether any Divines or Divine of the Church of England he withdrew from and much more whither any of its Canons approved any princiciple of that extravagant Nature Whatever Impressions it may make on his Thoughts or those of the Gentleman you refer to in p. 173. and there mention with Honour and as one though having forsaken the Communion of the Church of England yet being a Pious and Learned Roman Catholick and of a nice tenderness of Conscience and a lover of Truth as such
live in Bondage I am far from desiring to entrench on this liberty for Papists in matters or Tenets properly denominable by the Term of Religionary ones according to the expression by you frequently used and do suppose though there were no such thing in the World as a Pope or Patriarch that the Religionary Tenets of Transubstantiation and Purgatory c. may continue to be believed by many and if any one shall contrary to the Sense of the Government and of Acts of Parliament in Henry 8 ths time believe as the Representer doth that the Bishop of Rome hath here in Spirituals more power by the Word of God than other Foraign Bishops I shall not endeavour by any severity to impose on him the contrary Belief But yet shall still by virtue of that Sacred Word think my self bound and that particular passage in it cited by Dr. Iackson not to be a Servant of Men as to any Doctrinal Impositions and to forbear external Communion with any Church that would impose upon my Belief I know of none of the Church of England who hath avowed the practice of more Indulgence to Papists in the Confession of their Religionary Principles than I have done And I thank God that my practice in this kind hath not been by Fits or Starts or Turns of Times or Humours but that my Life hath in this Point of doing Just and Charitable Offices to all Consciencious and Loyal Papists been as I may say a Thred even spun upon every Wheel of Providence Your self can tell of the Signal good Offices I did to many Papists and to others that a Clamorous Common Fame would have run down as Popishly Affected when you applyed to me then in their behalf during the Season of some of the late Narratives and I am able further to do you the Justice as to remember what you have long ago told me and what I had reason to believe that when the figure you made in another of his Majesties Realms allowed you Virtute officij to have made many thousands of them groan under the Burden of the Penal Laws you held your self in Conscience obliged not to do it but on the contrary to rescue them from the least Hardship thereby But I shall here take occasion to tell you that I have scarce in any thing more shewed my Friendliness to the Persons of some of my Roman Catholick Friends than by my Advice to them that they would apply to the Writers of their Church to forbear troubling our English World with new Models of Reconciliation of Churches And indeed Nature doth now Loudly enough tell us that the Real Peace of Kingdoms ought not to be troubled by projects of a Chimerical one between Churches The best Men are Reconciled to one another and the Reconciling of all the worst Men in the World together would make their Association more troublesom to Mankind And when we know that the Bigots of the Church of Rome can stir no further from the Councel of Trent than our Soldiers in Africa could from their Garrison of Tangier before the Peace there is no thinking of their Travelling far to meet us And if any one suppose that they would meet us half way yet notwithstanding he might likewise according to the Principles of Nature suppose that the other Moiety of the Theological Controversies not agreed in would occasionally render Mens Spirits more Tempestuous toward each other and the publick as we usually see Storms to be most violent about the Season of the Equinoctial Moreover they who give themselves the Office of Reconcilers general or intrude into the Station of the Publick Mediators appearing thereby hot and unquiet in their own tempers rendring themselves always liable to disquiet from abroad by attacks from all parties are of all Men the most unlikely to be universal Peace-Makers or to gain any Blessing by being such And as you have in your Discourse Studiously declined the use of the little Names of Distinctions of three differing Parties in the State so shall I likewise do but can easily give you occasion to guess which of them refers to Men most Hated and most Impolitick by Minding you how the Systematical Writers of Politicks do often call neuters Middle Region Men and such as being Lodged in the Middle Rooms are annoyed with the droppings from above and smoak from below You have expressed your self in your Preface and Discourse as so much agreeing with me in this Subject that I shall be but Just to you in owning my Belief that your varying from some of the Measures of the Church of England in some Points tended not to encourage others to undertake the Thankless Office of being Match-Makers of Churches I know very well what my Lord Primate Bramhall in order to shewing that the Sons of the Church of England are not Slaves to its Articles saith In his Iust Vindication of the Church of England and how Mr. Chillingworth in his Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation tells us that by the Religion of Protestants he understands not the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melanchton nor the Articles of the Church of England c. But that wherein they all agree and which they all Subscribed c. as a perfect Rule of their Faith and Actions that is the Bible the Bible I say the Bible only is the True Religion of Protestants c. And therefore what ever freedom you justly claim by the Charter of the Bible to confess any Religionary Tenets however different from those I own I am not to envy you But do know that I am bound to pitty you or any else of Mankind that I shall think to err therein though it should be in any Religionary Tenet of Popery it self or in the Power of the Bishop of Rome in Imposing Creeds or Rules of Divine Worship on Men by Divine Right as part of your Description of Popery runs and as to which I think there may be occasion in your Review of it to avoid giving more Offence both to the Church of England and that of Rome thereby than you perhaps intended I have observed a late French Writer to avoid the Censure of describing the Communion of the Church of Rome or the Faith of that Church by a doubtful Name having used the Term la Catholicitè But as to your Description of Popery I may mind you that according to your Quotation in p. 318. out of Ames of the Seven Venetian Divines who in that most Iudicious Tractate of theirs as Ames calls it of the Papal Interdict affirmed that a Christian ought not to obey any Command of the Popes unless he had first examined the Command as far as the Subject Matter required whether it were convenient lawful and Obligatory and that he Sins who Implicitly obeys it those Divines though adhering to la Catholicitè firmly enough did thereby throw off the Power of the Bishop of Rome in imposing Creeds and Doctrines and Rules of
Divine Worship on Men as much as your Description doth And the Venetians particularly opposing the Popes Interloping in their Jurisdiction that other thing referred to in your Description is sufficiently known But if by your Description of Popery you intend only to give us a Dictionary of your Sense of the word generally as used by you and that you intend by the Extermination of Popery the Banishing only of those Principles of it that are Irreligionary out of Mens Minds namely the Principles that tend to the Popes Spiritual and Temporal Vsurpations I am not to quarrel with your expressing your own meaning But as I Judge several Roman-Catholick Writers using the Term Popery to intend thereby the Religion of the Church of Rome as for example the Author of the Compendium saying what I before referred to that nothing but Popery or at least its Principles can make the Monarchy of England again emerge or lasting yet as to which a Divine Sentence was in the Mouth of the King when in his Gracious Expressions in Council concerning the Church of England he Judged otherwise and said I know the Principles of that Church are for Monarchy c. and meaning by Popery what was called la Catholicitè I shall say that according to the common acception of the Word Popery were I to explain what I usually mean by it I would declare that I mean not only the Power of the Bishop of Rome but of any General Councils in Imposing Creeds and Doctrines c. on me And I desiring to have all Religionary Errors banished out of my understanding and Loving my Neighbour as my self will desire they may be so out of his and particularly if after he knoweth he is bought with a price he shall think it lawful for him to be a Servant of Men And will not only weigh the Commands and Decrees of any Bishop But of any General Council whatsoever And if in Matters that Import my Salvation I find them contrary to the Bible with a Salvo to the Reverence I owe to all Lawful General Councils I will desire them to excuse me from obeying them Were it not for what you have so well in p. 48. said that the Protestant Religion not making the intention of the Preist essential to the Sacrament of the Eucharist is more strongly assertive of the Real presence there than the Popish Hypothesis and for that great and excellent Notion of yours in your Discourse viz. That Papists and others being bought with a Price that therefore they ought not to be the Servants of Men and my Judging that according to what I have mentioned out of Dr Iackson that you would separate your self from any Church that imposed any thing Magisterially on Mens Faiths I might think that perhaps had you lived in the Reign of Henry the 8 th you would not have separated from the Ecclesia Anglicana as then by Law Established And therefore when by your warm Expressions in p. 47. after you have said that the Protestation that the Protestant Religion requires is such a continual one as is Reiterated upon every fresh Act and Attempt of the Papal Religion upon ours and whereby it would impose Creeds and Doctrines on us contrary to the Liberty of the Church of England as now by Law Established You tell us that We are to shew no Mercy to these Principles of Popery that disquiet the World and on the several occasions offered protest against the Damages that both our King and Country may have from the Rage of Popery I may tell you that this PROTESTANCY amounts to no more than what we read of in the Review of the Council of Trent where in Book 1. and 12 th Chapter the Author refers to the French King by his Embassadors causing a PROTESTATION to be made against the Council of Trent and as appeared by the Oration there made by Mr. Arnold de Ferriers the 22 d. of September 1563. where among other things having mentioned many grievances he saith that according to the Commands of the most Christian King they were constrained CONCILIO INTERCEDERE VT NVNC INTERCEDEBANT by the same Token that that Book relates how thereupon a certain Prelate of the Council of Trent not well understanding the Propriety of the Word Intercedere which the Tribunes were wont of Old to use when thay made their Oppositions and Hinderances asked his Neighbour PRO QVO ORAT REX CHRISTIANISSIMVS But of the French Kings Embassadors protesting not only against Grievances in the Council of Trent but against it self as a Grievance and of some occasions thereof it will come in my way to speak hereafter Nor was there ever any Instrument or Paper Writ with more sharpness of Anger and Scorn in the way of Defiance against Papismus or Popery than H. the 8 ths Protestation against the Council of Trent and yet inclusive too of another Protestation I mean of his Adherence to the Faith then called Catholick That long Protestation calls the Pope by the Name of Bishop of Rome and saith surely except God take away our right Wits not only his Authority shall be driven out for ever but his NAME also shall be forgotten in England Nor did ever any Protestant Writer in Queen Elizabeths or King Iames the First 's time or in our late Fermentation so zealously press the Exterminating of the Papal Power as Henry the 8ths Proclamation about the Abolishing the same Triumph at its being here done And where he saith We have by Good and Wholsom Laws and Statutes made for this purpose EXâ—IRPED ABOLISHED Separated and Secluded out of this our Realm the Abuses of the Bishop of Rome his Authority and Iurisdiction of long time Vsurped c. And the King there Orders all manner of Prayers Oraisons Rubricks Canons of Mass-Books and all other Books in the Churches wherein the Bishop of Rome is NAMED or his Presumptuous and proud Pomp and Authority preferred utterly to be Abolished Eradicate and Razed out and his NAME and Memory to be never more except to his Contumely and Reproach remembred but perpetually suppressed and obscured The Act of 28 of Henry the 8 th before spoken of called an Act for Extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome was here referred to and which Act and other Acts of Parliament Establishing the Kings Supremacy and Excluding the Pope for ever I mentioned as revived in Queen Elizabeths time after their being repeal'd in Queen Mary's I need not observe to you how this present French King hath likewise lately shewn a very Commendable Zeal for the Exterminating the Vsurpations of the Papal Power in the Business of the Regalia and that the Case of that Kings Power is much altered for the better since D' Ossat Writ to Villeroy from Rome with so much Joy for his having found out an expedient as to the difference between Henry the 4 th and the Pope about the granting to one a Church Dignity in France Namely to have the Words put
and their Estates and many of which Estates were Church-Lands notwithstanding the Popes Declaration of the Nullity of that Peace supported by his Present Majejesty and as I doubt not but it always will be as well as by other Roman-Catholick Crown'd Heads And the figure the present French King made in the Munster Treaty in the year Forty Eight and in the Restauration of its effects and Vigor in Christendom in the year Seventy Nine is a sufficient Demonstration of his thinking it lawful for the Lateran Council to be Disobey'd by Popish Princes as to the point of Exterminating their Heretical Subjects I do therefore account this your Manly way of Confuting the Fears and Iealousies founded on that Council to have been at this time the more opportune and the more worthy of your Loyalty because as you have mentioned it after the End of your Discussion It may seem the Design of some People in the World abroad to encrease our Divisions and the popular hatred against Papists and Popery here by the usage that Protestants meet with there as if the Religion of Popery did necessarily Cause the same You have therefore well reputed it the opus diei here in England to shew the contrary and have done it more effectually than any late Writer of the Church of Rome I know here hath done or perhaps was able to do And your quoting for this purpose in p. 208. D' Ossats Speech to the Pope and wherein he so Argumentatively both like a Divine and a States-Man asserted the Lawâ—ulness of Henry the 4 th's of France observing the EDICTS in favour of his Protestant Subjects and wherein he mentioned how other Roman Catholick Princes had done what was tantamount to it and how that the Pope made no Reply to him thereupon may much help to shew our Timid and Iealous People that the Religionary part of Popery or Doctrine of the Church of Rome doth not oblige Roman-Catholick Princes to make the Lives of their Protestant Subjects uneasie to them It here falls in my way to acknowledge to you that the great Instances you have given in your Discourse concerning the Consummat Loyalty of great numbers of Henry the 4ths Popish Subjects to him while a Protestant and under the Popes Excommunication have been very useful for the enlarging Peoples Charitable Thoughts as to the Persons of some Papists and the tendency of their Principles to Loyalty and to the shewing that though in the Great Lateran Council wherein were 1215 Fathers it was Synodically and Categorically concluded that the Pope might absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance that yet great Numbers of Henry the 4ths Roman-Catholick Subjects knew and Practised better things and that their great Absolute and Unconditional Loyalty to him lives in the Records of the Impartial Thuanus And that notwithstanding any principles Chargeable on the Church of Rome the Faith of many particular persons in it hath by its Works shewn it self very perfect for Loyalty But here I am likewise obliged to gratifie you by my Complaisance with your Temper in differing somwhat in Opinion from you for you say you are better pleased in Conversation with those who in many points differ from you than with those who in all agree with you and am frankly to tell you that tho' I am sufficiently satisfied with your discharging of the Moral Offices of Honouring all Men and giving Honour particularly to some Roman Catholicks to whom it was due and particularly where in p. 360. You have with so great a Height of Expression Celebrated the Virtue of the Queen Dowager and from whom I had the Honour to receive Thanks by the late Earl of Ossory for the Justice I did her Majesty in a late Conjuncture Yet there is one thing at the end of your Discourse and another after the end of your Discussion wherein you are pleased to give your Judgment concerning the Papists here in geral as I would not have given mine in the Case You say in p. 285. That after the Various Intervals in which the Discourse was Written it having happened that the Papists are to the General Satisfaction of Impartial Judges of Men and things become as sound a part of this Nation as they were and are of the Dutch States and as throughout the Discourse you always supposed them Capable of being and in p. 361. You say that it is with Justice to be by all Men to our Popish Fellow Subjects acknowledged that what ever petulance some of them were formerly guilty of or of any Ambitious Design of making too great a Figure in the Internal Government of the Nation yet that the Deportment of the Generality of them hath lately appeared with such a Face not only of Loyalty but of Complaisance with his Majesties Measures in imploying the Hands and Heads of Protestants of the Church of England in the Management of great Matters of State as is necessarily Attractive of our Christian Love and Compassion c. But tho' I account my self Morally obliged to Judge several Papists of my Acquaintance to abound in Loyalty and to be such whose Moderation is known to all Men and to be no Exorbitant Affecters of making too great a Figure in the Internal Government of the Kingdom and do hope that many others are so with whom I am not acquainted and will Judge no particular Papist to believe or practise Principles of Disloyalty without particular grounds and tho' on the account of the Trite Rule that Interest never lyes I will hope that the generality of them will in his Majesties Reign and afterward be neither Disloyal nor Heady nor High-Minded nor affecters of Preheminence Yet if I were required to give my present Judgment in short of the present Temper of the generality of them as to the Qualifications about which you have given your Judgment in the Case and that too relating to future times I considering the Formulary of the Letters denoting Judgment given in the Mode of the Old Roman Laws viz. A. and C. and N. L. would not presume either to Absolve or Condemn the gross of their Numbers as to those Qualifications but would interpose the Non Liquet in their Case and much less will I Condemn your Judgment of Charity to them and say that some of your Sharp Reflections on Popery and some Papists have favoured of the Common way of some Partial Judges Byassed with an intent to bring off some Criminals Namely to make some disobliging rough Language previous to the obliging them with their Sentence at last But taking every thing in the best Sense it will bear shall suppose that your Information of the Temper of the Generality of them might be what arrived not at my Knowledge and that therefore you pronounced thereof as you have done And moreover your Discourse being Writ before the Late Kings Death I shall account it was for several Reasons a strengthening of Loyalty and weakening of the Fears of Timid Protestants for you
Aristophanes whom you had said you had found Cited for that Sense of the word at the end of Cloppenburg de Sacrificiis and who Citing Aristophanes his Comedy of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aves where the Birds threaten Iupiter with a Holy War shews that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was meant Avis Seminilega and that the Athenians thought St. Paul would despoil the Altars of the Gods of the Provisions of their Offerings And in Fine you said that such various readings of that word would certainly meet in any ones being thought a Babler by those of the Religion Established if he would interlope in their Maintenance I doubt not but you have heard of the late Candidate Beyond-Sea for the Office of the Reconciler of Churches I mean the Author of TVBA PACIS ad universas Dissidentes in Occidente Ecclesias seu Discursus Theologicus de unione Ecclesiarum Romanae Protestantium nec non amicâ Compositione Controversiarum sidei inter hosce Caetus per Matheum Praetorium Memela Prussum Printed at Collen An. 1684. and which that Author Dedicates to the Emperor and to the Kings of Poland France England Denmark Sweden severally and to the Electors and other Princes of the Empire And just before he blows his Trumpet he warne thus of the two Old Pronouns that have so long troubled the World viz. Meum and Tuum and which will always continue so to do till all Men shall be of St. Francis his mind whom when a Fryar told that he came à cellâ tuâ St. Francis when he heard the word tuâ said he would Lodge no more there The Author tells us in his 10. Chapter Tentavit quidem Compositionem Vir ob studium pacis a plurimis principibus viris Longè Laudatus Georgius Cassander sed non fausto Successu Contradicentibus partim Romanis partim protestantibus and tells us there of the like Event that Marcus Antonius de Dominis and his Work for that purpose had But our Author had the Fortune to Catch a Tartar of an Objection in the last Paragraph of his Book save one viz. At dicet aliquis si unio nostrarum Ecclesiarum Cum Romanâ Ecclesiâ sieret Romanus Pontifex jus suum repeteret tot bona olim Eccliastica quae jam per pacta transacta in manus serenissimorum principum Cessere quae nunquam principes in aerarij sui damnum adimi sibi patientur And to this Objection he returneth this Answer viz. Respondetur Omninò aequum est Ius suum Cuique tribuere nec Romano Pontifici illud derogandum quod ipsi legitimè Competit Bona Ecclesiastica quae olim fuerunt nunc autem aerario principum adscripta jure gladij pactorum acquisita NON PVTAMVS Romanum Ponti ficem pro suâ quâ pollet prudentiâ repetiturum Frui Concedet ijs ad quaâ— admissi sunt possessionibus Nihil ijs vel decedere vel adimi cupiet This the good Man in his Embassy Speech to the World as its Reconciler tells us of this Pope but without shewing his Credentials either from the Pope or any one else And I believe on the account of what you have shewn of the Munster-Treaty the Princes and Electors of the Empire to whom he hath Dedicated his Book will not fear this Popes being either able or willing to give them any disturbance in their Church-Lands Nor need any of us in England more fear the Popes being able or willing to hurt our possessions of the Church-Lands We are sufficiently shewn it out of Mores Reports f. 1.282 that the Popes Bulls giving Monasteries to Wolsy with the consent of the King and the Surrender of the Priors to Wolsy would not serve the turn and that nothing but an Act of Parliament would alter the Property You have here an instance of our present Foraign Reconcilers of Churches being very poor Middle Region Men in Comparison of Cassander and Antonius de Dominis and others as our late little Reconcilers likewise have been Compared with the unfortunate ones of the Old Conjuncture The question of what will this Babler say is properly applicable to them from all Parties But one thing I cannot but here observe to you that as I was very well pleased with your Design that you Communicated to me after you had begun this long VOYAGE of your THOVGHTS as I may call it and writ the former part of your Discourse namely that because in your occasional Conversation with People of all sorts you have found that Mens Fancies were as you said Nail'd to POPERY and their Tongues Ty'd up as to any thing but POPERY and that they could not go beyond the Tedder of that in their Discourse and that POPERY's Monopolizing so much of their Discourse had been one of its VSVRPATIONS you intended to try to divert them from it and make them pass ad autres by laying before them such various Matters of Calculation relating to their own Country and many places of Christendom as might give them somewhat beside POPERY and PLOTS to think and speak of in Company So I am much better pleased with your Performance of that your Curious Enterprize and do think that your Book by containing in it so many MISCELLANEA must eo nomine prove highly useful to our English World in this Conjuncture It here occurs to me to observe to you that after an Erratum of the Press in Page 38. of your Discourse Namely where you referred to P. 325 in the Advocate of Conscience Liberty instead of Page 225 you make the last Letter of D'Ossats to be from Rome An. 1596 and I suppose you happened to do so by casting your Eye on the Old Date of the last Letter but one Printed in the Volume of his Letters in Folio of the Paris Edition An. 1625. and finding it to be An. 1596. But it came not into your Mind then to observe that the last of his Letters as they are Ranged in Order was the 199 th and in the End of Book 9 th and which was to Villeroy from Rome March the 6 th An. 1604 and in which Year he dy'd as you rightly refer to his Epitaph to shew But it seems after that last Letter in Book 9 th of the Paris Edition the Publisher saying that he had recovered some others of his Letters Prints them without respect to the Order of time and there makes the Date of the last Letter save one in the Volume to be in the Year 1596. as you have there done But however this Derogates not from the Iustice of your Animadversion in page 38. on the Roman-Catholick English Priest for making D' Ossat to have known the Gun-Powder Treason Plot to be a Sham one Eight Years before it was to be Executed For the Letter of D' Ossat that that Priest alledged to prove what I now mentioned was Dated as you justly say from Rome March 29 th An. 1596 and he never read the Letter that can find any thing of the Gun-Powder Treason in it I shall here take occasion to make my Excuse to the Reverend Divines of our Church assuring them that by adding Observations on the Writings of the Author of the Papist Misrepresented and Represented I intended not to Derogate from the Sufficiency of the Learning and Reason they have shewed in their Answers thereunto But the â—ruth is though as in our Parliaments frequently when â—ny have moved for some Additional Branch to be setâ—â—ed on the Revenue here afâ—er the Example of somewhat of the like Nature in France the Naming of France â—n the Case then for a Preâ—ident hath been observed â—o make many speak against the Vnseasonableness of the Motion who otherwise would not have done it so the writing of any thing that was contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England and after the Mode of the Bishop of Condom and the Acts of the French Clergy just at this time of Day was a thing that I could not but shew my Resentment against as very much unseasonable And moreover according to the saying that one ought not tâ— be Patient under charge of Hesie I may justifie the warmth of my Resentments against the Acts of the French Clergy charging some of ours both with Heresie and Calumny and bringing up our Whitaker and Downham there in the Van of the Calumniators under the first Article and our Raynolds under the Sixth I Remain SIR Your Affectionate Friend and Servant ANGLESEY FINIS