swim in abundance were changed into a competent maintenance And lastly So as all opinion of satisfaction and supererogation were removed I do not see why monasteries might not agree well enough with reformed devotion So then Henry the eighth at the time of his secession from Rome and long after even so long as he lived was neither friend nor favourer of the ensuing reformation nor ordinarily of Protestants in their persons As may yet more manifestly appear by that cruel statute of the Six Articles which he made after all this in the one and thirtieth year of his raign as a trap to catch the Lives of the poore Protestants A Law both writ in blood and executed in blood But suppose that Henry the eighth had been a friend to Protestants what shall we say to all the Orders of the Kingdom what shall we say to the Synods to the Universities to the four and twenty Bishops and nine and twenty Abbats who consented to this Act were all these Schismaticks were Heath Bonner Tonstall Gardiner Stokesley Thurleby c. all Schismaticks If they were then Schismaticks were the greatest opposers of the reformation the greatest enemies of the Protestants and the greatest pillars and upholders of the Roman religion These were they that granted the Supremacy to King Henry the eighth Archbishop Warham told him it was his right to have it before the Pope These were they that preached up the Supremacy of the King at S. Paul's Crosse and defended his Supremacy in printed books These consented to the Acts of Parliament for his Supremacy and the extinguishing of the power of the Roman Bishop in England These were they who helped to make the oath of Supremacy and took it themselves and all others of any note throughout England except onely Fisher Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas Moor who were in prison before it was enacted for opposing the Kings Marriage and the succession of his Children to the Crown after it was ordained in Parliament And wise men have thought that the former had taken it if he had not been retarded by the expectation of a Cardinals hatt which was come as far as Calice Or rather what shall we say to the whole body of the Kingdome if we may believe the testimony of Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester a learned person of very near relation to King Henry and in all other things a great Zelot of the Roman Catholick party in his book of true obedience published with a Preface to it made by Bishop Bonner Thus he No forrein Bishop hath authority among us All sorts of people are agreed with us upon this point with most stedfast consent that no manner of person bred or brought up in England hath ought to do with Rome A full confession of an able adversary to which I see not what can be excepted unlesse it be said of him as it was of Aeneas Sylvius Stephanus probavit Wintoniensis negavit Doctour Gardiner approved it but the Bishop of Winchester retracted it Admit it were so as it was indeed what is that to the stedfast unanimous consent of the whole Kingdome which appears not onely from hence but from Tonstal's Epistle to Cardinal Pool and Bekenshaws Commentary of the Soveraign and absolute power of Kings As likewise of the difference between Kingly and Ecclesiastical power And lastly and principally by a book set forth by the English Convocation called The Institution of a Christian man And to shew yet further that Ireland was unanimoâ—â—â—â—erein with England we find in the three and thirtieth year of Henry the eighth which was before all thoughts of reformation not the Irish only as the O Neales O Relies O Birnes O Carols c. but also the English Families as the Desmonds Barries Râ—ches Bourks whose posterities do still continue Zealous Romanists did make their submissions by Indenture to Sir Anthony Sellenger then chief Governour of that Kingdom wherein they acknowledged King Henry to be their Soveraign Lord and confessed the Kings Supremacy in all causes and utterly renounced the Iurisdiction of the Pope So the Bishop of Winchester might well say that there was an Universal and stedfast consent in the separation from Rome The second exception weighes so little that it scarce deserveth an Answer Admitting but not granting that any or all the calumnies of that party against Henry the eighth were true whereof divers by their impossibility and by the contradiction of their authors do carry their own condemnation written in their foreheads And although Henry the eighth had been our Reformer as he was not yet all this would signifie nothing as to this present question God doth often good works by ill agents Iehu's heart was not upright towards the Lord yet God used him as an Instrument to reform his Church and to punish the worshippers of Baal We have heard of late of an aggregative treason not known before in the world But never untill now of an aggregative Schisme The addition of twenty sins of another nature cannot make that to be Schisme which is not Schisme in it self We are sorry for his sins under a condition that is in case they were true which for part of them we have no great Reason to believe But we are absolutely without condition glad of our own liberty The truth is God Almighty did serve himself of a most unlawful dispensation granted by the Pope to King Henry the eighth to marry his brothers Wife as an occasion of this great work I say unlawful because it was after judged unlawful by the Universities of England France Italy after mature deliberation and some of them upon oath and by above an hundred forrein Doctours of principal reputation for learning The coales of the Kings suspicion were kindled in Spain France and Flanders no enemies to the Pope and blown by Cardinal Wolsey for sinister ends But it was Cranmer that struck the nail home And God disposed all things to his own glory To their third exception That to withhold obedience is Schismatical as well as to withdraw it I answer first that they cannot accuse us as accessaries to Schisme until they have first condemned their own great Patrons Champions and Confessours for the principal Schismaticks Did Roman Catholicks themselves find right and sufficient reason to turn the Pope out of England at the foredoor in fair daylight as an intruder and usurper And do they expect that Protestants who never had any relation to him should let him in again by stealth at the back-door Turpius ejicitur quam non admittitur hospes It is true Queen Mary afterwards gave him houseroom again in England for a short time But he raged so extreamly and made such bonefires of poor innocent Christians in every corner of the Kingdome that it is no marvail if they desired his room rather then his company I have often wondred how any rational man could satisfie himself so as to make
is not to be doubted of but that after the year six hundred after that Pope Boniface had quitted his Patriarchal dignity by assuming a more lofty title of universal Bishop The succeeding Popes by the connivence leave or consent of our Kings did sometimes more sometimes lesse upon pretence of their universal Jurisdiction by degrees thrust in their sickle into the Ecclesiastical affaires of England Whosoever shall ponder duly with what a depth of prudence the Roman Court hath mesnaged all occasions and occurrences to the advantage and advancement of that See and consequently to the improvement of their own authority whosoever shall weigh seriously with what art and cunning the Papacy as it now is was tacked into the Church contrary to wind and weather and how their beginning of unity was scrued up to an omnipotence and universality of power whosoever shall duly consider what advantage they made to that See and therein to themselves by the onely countenancing of Phocas his base and bloody murther or of Charles Mà rtel his more glorious and successeful revolt will not wonder to observe how they did watch their times when we had Princes of weak Judgments or necessitous or superstitious or of unjust or Litigious titles to wind themselves into Britain Nay rather he will admire that they did not radicate themselves more deeply and more firmly therein which without doubt they had effected but for their exorbitant rapines whilest they thought that like Foxes they might prey most boldly farthest from their own Kennel Anglia verè hortus noster deliciarum puteus inexhaustus est ubi multa abundant multa de multis extorqueri possunt That England indeed was his garden of delight a Well that could not be drawn dry And where many things did abound out of much much might be extorted But first this intrusion was manifest usurpation and tyranny This was the Gangrene of the Church which no subsequent possession or submission could warrant no tract of time or prescription sufficiently confirm Quod ab initio fuit invalidum tractu temporis non convalescit That which is not onely unjust but invalid in its beginning can never be made valid by the empty pretense of a following custome or prescription Neither do I find in truth that any of the petite Saxon Kings or their Subjects though some of them indebted to S. Gregory for their first conversion and all of them much weakned by their Sevenfold division for at first of Seven Kings there was but onely one who was a Christian namely the King of Kent Neither was it any of his progeny who did afterwards unite the Heptarchy into a Monarchy much lesse that any of the succeeding Kings of England or of great Brittain united did ever make any Solemne formal or obliging acknowledgment of their submission to the Bishop of Rome But on the contrary when Austin first arrived in England he staied in Isle of Thanet untill he knew the Kings pleasure and offered not to preach in Kent until he had the Kings License for him and his followers to preach throughout his Dominions So not onely their Jurisdiction but even the exercise of their pastorall function within that Realm was by the Kings leave and Authority The donation and resignation of King Iohn whereby he went about to make a free Kingdom servile and feudatary to the Pope did concern the Crown more then the Miter and was soon hissed out of the world to the perpetual shame and infamy of such mercenary Pastors yet to obtain this Ludibrious act the power of the Keyes was abused and the Kingdom of England stood interdicted by the space of six years and three Months The Popes in later times had some power in England of courtesy not of Duty but never that omnipotence which they gaped after Sometimes they sent their Nuncios or Legates into England So they did of old into other Patriarchates Sometimes they admitted appeales from England to Rome So they did of old from Africk Sometimes they excommunicated the English Subjects So did Pope Victor long since excommunicate all the Asiaticks But neither Asia nor Africk for all that did acknowledge the Popes Jurisdiction On the other side sometimes their Legates were not permitted to enter into the Realm or after their arrival thrust out of the Realm unless they woâ—ld give caution by oath for their good demesnour Sometimes their Bulls and excommunications were slighted or damned and they who procured them soundly punished for their labours Sometimes all appeales to Rome were prohibited under most severe penalties and their decrees rejected All this while our Kings and Bishops called Councells the one under civil punishments the other under Ecclesiastical made Ecclesiastical lawes and constitutions in their Synods and Parliaments yea expresse constitutions against the Court of Rome it self with as much tartnesse and vehemency as King Henry the Eighth And with this onely difference that they indeavoured to draw the people out of the Popes clawes at home and he thought it more expedient to throw the Pope over the Brittish Sea once for altogether The old and lawful Patriarchal power of the Roman Bishops within their own destricts had been renounced long before by themselves Their new universal Monarchy erected by themselves was not capable of prescription or if it had yet such a dubious unquiet possession as the Popes did hold in England at the mercy and discretion of the right owners was not sufficient to make a legal prescription or to justifie their pretended title or to render them bonae fidei possessores lawful and conscionable possessours This is that which I am now to demonstrate in this second ground The most famous I had almost said the onely appellant from England to Rome that we read of before the Conquest was Wilfride Arch-Bishop of York who notwithstanding that he gained sentence upon sentence at Rome in his favour And notwithstanding that the Pope did send expresse Nuncios into England on purpose to see his sentence executed yet he could not obtain his restitution or the benefit of his sentence for six years during the Raignes of King Egbert and Alfrede his son Yea King Alfrede told the Popes Nuncios expresly That he honoured them as his Parents for their grave lives and honourable aspects but he could not give any assent to their Legation Because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councel of 〈◊〉 English should be restored upon the Popes Letter If they had believed the Pope to be their competent Judge either as universal Monarch or so much as Patriarch of Brittaine or any more then an honourable Arbitrator which all the Patriarchs were even without the bounds of their proper Jurisdictions how comes it to passe that two Kings successively and the great Councels of the Kingdome and the other Arch-Bishop Theodore with all the prime Ecclesiasticks and the flower of the English Clergy did so long and so
resolutely oppose so many Sentences and Messages from Rome and condemn him twice whom the Pope had absolved Consider that Wilfride was an Arch-Bishop not an inferiour Clerk And if an appeal from England to Rome had been proper or lawful in any case it had been so in his case But it was otherwise determined by those who were most concerned Malmesbury supposeth either by inspiration or upon his own head that the King and the â— Arch-Bishop Theodore were smitten with remorse before their deaths for the injury done to Wilfride and the slighting of the Popes Sentence Letter and Legates But the contrary is moâ—â— apparently true for first it was not King Alfrede alone but the great Councel of the Kingdom also nor Theodore alone but the main body of the Clergy that opposed the Popes Letter and the restitution of Wilfride in that manner as it was decreed at Rome Secondly after Alfrede and Theodoret were both dead we find the Popes sentence and Wilfrides restitution still opposed by the surviving Bishops in the Raign of Alfredes son To clear the matter past contradiction let us consider the ground of this long and bitter contention Wilfride the Archbishop was become a great pluralist and had ingrossed into his hands too many Ecclesiastical dignities The King and the Church of England thought fit to deprive him of some of them and to confer them upon others Wilfride appealed from their sentence unto Rome The Pope gave sentence after sentence in favour of Wilfride But for all his sentences he was not he could not be restored untill he had quitted two of his Monasteries which were in question Hongesthill deane and Ripon which of all others he loved most dearly and where he was afterwards interred This was not a conquest but a plain waving of his sentences from Rome and a yeelding of the question for those had been the chief causes of the controversie So the King and the Church after Alfredes death still made good his conclusion That it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councel of the English should be restored upon the Popes Bull. And as he did not so neither did they give any assent to the Popes Legation So unfortunate were appeales to Rome in those daies And as unfrequent as unfortunate for from that time untill Anselmes daies after the Norman Conquest in the Raign of Henry the first we do hardly meet with another appeal Then Pope Paschalis the second had devised a new Oath for Arch-Bishops when they received their Pall An oath much wondered at in all places as a strange innovation Significasti reges Regni majâ—res admiratione permotos c. You signified unto me that Kings and Nobles were moved with admiration that the Pâ—ll was offered unto you by our Ministers upon condition that you should take an oath which they brought you written from us c. This oath was that which animated Anselme to contest so hotly with the King The main controversie was about this very question of Appeales to Rome The King pleaded the fundamental Lawes and Customes of the Land consuetudo Regni mâ—i est à Patrâ— meo instituta ut nullius praeter licentiam Regis appelletur Papa Qui consuetudines regni tollit potestatem quoque coronam Regis violat c. It is a custome of my Kingdome instituted by my Father that no Pope may be appealed unto without â—the Kings License He that takes away the Customes of the Kingdome doth violence to the power and Crown of the King It is to be noted that the Lawes established by his Father that was William the Conquerour were no other then the Lawes of Edward the Confessor that is to say the old Saxon Lawes So he might justly say both that it was an ancient immemorial custome of the Kingdom and also that it was instituted or established by his Father So Hoveden tells us that at last he yeelded to the request of his Barons c. that was by his authority to confirm the Lawes of King Edward But the best was that though Anselme the Archbishop was obliged by oath to the Pope yet the Bishops were not so soon brought into the same bondage And therefore the former Authour tells us that In his exequendis omnes Episcopi Angliae Primati suo suffragium negarunt In the execution of these things all the Bishops of England did deny their suffrage to their Primate So unanimous were they in this point Which unanimity of the whole Realm both Clergy and Laity doth appear yet more evidently by the Statute of Clarendon made in the Raign of the grand-child of this King when all the Prelates and Peeres of the Realm did confirm the former ancient Brittish English custome not onely by their consents but by their oathes whereof we shall have occasion to speak more hereafter And upon this custome was that Law grounded which our Histories do make mention of Si quis inventus fuerit literas vel mandatum ferens Domini Papae c. capiatur et de eo sicut de Regis traditore regni sine dilatione fiat justitia If any one be found bringing in the Popes Letter or Mandate let him be apprehended and let justice passe upon him without delay as a traitor to the King and Kingdom And generally every man is interdicted or forbidden to appâ—al to the Pope And the Legations from Rome were almost as rare as appeals to Rome during the raigns of all the Brittish and Saxon Kings untill the Norman conquest As Gregory Bishop of Ostium the Popes own Legate did confess That he was the first Roman Priest that was sâ—nâ— into those parts of Bâ—iâ—tain from the time of S. Austin And those Legates were no others then ordinary messengers or Embassadors sent from one Neighbour to another Such a thing as a Legantine Court or a Nuncios Court was not known in the Brittish world in those ages and long after It is not enough to shew that one Roman Bishop did once send over one or two Doctors to help to propagate or confirm the faith or to lend their helping hands to Religion fainting This may well set forth their devotion and our obligation But further as to the present question it signifies just nothing Favours cease to be favours when they are done on purpose to deprive men of their ancient liberties The Brittish Bishops and English also have done as much for other Nations over whom they did never challenge any Jurisdiction The French Church sent over Germanus Lupus to help to root up the relicks of Pelagianisme in Brittain yet did never pretend thereby to any authority over the Brittaines Add to this that during all the time from St. Gregory to the conquest it was usual for the Brittish Saxon and Danish Kings with their Clergy or great Councel to make Ecclesiastical lawes and to regulate the external discipline of the Church within their
imperandi innocentem subditum ordo serviendi The Prince may be unjust in his commands and yet the Subject innocent in his obedience Take the case at the worst it must be doubtful at the least the Popes Soveraignty and the Jurisdiction of the Roman Court being rejected by three parts of the Christian world and so unanimously shaken off by three Kingdoms And in such a case who is fittest to be Judge the Pope the People or the King Not the Pope he is the person accused And frustra expectatur cujuslibet authoritas contra seipsum It is in vain to expect that one should imploy his authority against himself Not the people would a Judge take it well that a Gaoler should detain the Prisoner from execution untill he were satisfied of the justice of his sentence Or a Pilot that he may not move his Rudder according to the alterable face of the heavens but at the discretion of the ordinary Marriners No whensoever any question hath been moved between any kingdom or Republick of what Communion soever and the Court of Rome concerning the liberties and priviledges of the one or the extortions and incroachments of the other they have evermore assumed the last Judicature to themselves as of right it doth belong unto them The Romanists themselves do acknowledge that Soveraign Princes by the Law of God and nature not only may but are in justice obliged to oppose the tyranny of Ecclesiastical Judges and to protect and free their subjects from their violence and oppression Parsons himself wondreth that any man should deny this power to Kings in their own kingdomes But we are fully satisfied and assured that that universal power which the Pope claimes by Divine right over all Christians and particularly over the Britannique Churches without their consents And much more that Jurisdiction which de facto he did or at least would have exercised there and lesse then which he would not go to the destruction of their natural and Christian liberties and priviledges was and is a tyrannical and oppressive yoak If all Christians were as well satisfied of the truth of this our assumption as we are this controversie were at an end And thus far all Roman Catholicks not interessed nor prepossessed with prejudice do accord fully with us that by whomsoever Papal power was given whether by Christ or his Apostles or the Fathers of the Church in succeeding ages it was given for edification not for destruction And that the Roman Court in later dayes hath sought to impose grievous oppressive and intolerable burthens upon their subjects which it is lawful for them to shake off without regarding their censure as we shall see in the next proposition But because all are not so well satisfied about the just extent of Papal authority and power we must search a little higher Secondly we do both agree that Soveraign Princes may by enabled and authorized either by concession or by prescription for time immemoriall perhaps it were more properly said by vertue of their Soveraign authority over the whole body politique whereof the Clergy are a part â—o exercise all external acts of Ecclesiastical coercive Jurisdiction by themselves or at least by fit delegates praecipiendo suis subditis Sacerdotibus ut excommunicent rebelles contumaces And this is asserted in the case of Abbesses which being women are lesse capable of any spiritual Jurisdiction The truth is that as all Ecclesiastical Courts and all Ecclesiastical coercive jurisdiction did flow at first either from the Bounty and goodnesse of Soveraign Princes to the Church or from their connivence or from the voluntary consent and free submission of Christians Volenti non fit injuria consent takes away errour I except alwayes that jurisdiction which is purely spiritual and an essential part of the power of the Keies whereof Emperours and Kings are not capable So whensoever the Weal-publick and the common safety of their people doth require it for advancement of publick peace and tranquillity and for the greater ease and convenience of the subject in general according to the Vicissitude and conversion of humane affairs and the change of Monarchies they may upon well grounded experience in a National Synod or Councel more advisedly retract what their predecessours had advisedly granted or permitted And alter the face and rules of the external discipline of the Church in all such things as are but of humane right when they become hurtful or impeditive of a greater good in which cases their subjects may with good conscience and are bound in duty to conforme themselves to their Lawes Otherwise Kingdoms and Societies should want necessary remedies for their own preservation which is granted by both parties to be an absurdity Weigh all the parts of Ecclesiastical discipline and consider what one there is which Christian Emperours of old did not either exercise by themselves or by their delegates or did not regulate by their Lawes or both concerning the priviledges and revenues of holy Church the calling of Councels the presiding in Councels the dissolving of Councels the confirming of Councels concerning holy Orders concerning the patronage of and nomination to Ecclesiastical benefices and dignities concerning the Jurisdiction the suspension deposition and ordering of Bishops and Priests and Monks and generally all Persons in holy orders concerning Appeales concerning Religion and the Rites and Ceremonies thereof concerning the Creeds or common Symbols of faith concerning Heresie Schisme Judaisme the suppression of Sects against Swearing Cursing Blaspheming Prophanenesse and Idolatry concerning Sacraments Sanctuaries Simony Marriages Divorces and generally all things which are of Ecclesiastical cognisance wherein he that desires satisfaction and particularly to see how the coercive power of Ecclesiastical Courts and Judges did flow from the gracious concessions of Christian Princes may if he be not too much possessed with prejudice resolve himself by reading the first Book of the Code the Authentiques or Novels of Iustinian the Emperour and the Capitulars of Charles the great and his successours Kings of France We have been requested said Iustinian by Menna the Archbishop of this City beloved of God and universal Patriarch to grant this priviledge to the most reverend Clerkes c. in pecuniary causes referring them first to the Bishop and if he could not compose or determine the difference then to the secular Judge And in criminal causes if the crime were civil to the civil Magistrate if Ecclesiastical to the Bishop By the Councel of our Bishops and Nobles said Charles the great we have Ordained Bishops throughout the Cities that is we have commanded and authorized it to be done And do decree to assemble a Synod every year that in our presence the Canonical decrees and Lawes of the Church may be restored I beseech you what did our King Henry and the Church of England more at the reformation It is true Soveraign Princes are not said properly to make Canons because they do not prescribe them
the time of his health and upon his death-bed for which he was stiled Romanorum malleus The hammer of the Romans whereby he so much irritated the Pope that he would have deposed him and accursed him in his life time if he had not been disswaded by his Cardinals in respect of the learning and holinesse and deserved reputation of the Bishop And after his death would have had his Corps disinterred and buried in a dunghill but that the Bishop appeared to him the night before and gave him or seemed to give him such a shrewd remembrance partly with words and partly with his crosier staffe that the Pope was much terrified and half dead so that he could neither eat nor drink the day following The Pope excommunicated Sewalus the Archbishop of York with Bell Book and Candle But non curavit voluntati papale relicto Iuris rigare muliebriter obedire Quapropter quantâ— magis praecipient Papa maledicebatur tanto plus a populo benedicebatur tacite tamen propter metum Romanorum He cared not to submit womanishly to the Popes will leaving the streight rule of the Law wherefore the more he was accused by the Popes command the more he was blessed of the People but secretly for fear of the Romans In his last sicknesse he summoned the Pope before the Tribunall of the high and incorruptible Judge and called Heaven and Earth to be his witnesses how unjustly the Pope had oppressed him Dixit Dominus Petro c. The Lord said unto St. Peter feed my sheep not clip them not flea them not unbowell them not devoure them They who desire to know what opinion the English had of the greedinesse and extortion of the Court of Rome may find them drawn out to the life by Chaucer in sundry places Such thriving Alchymists were never heard of in our daies nor in the daies of our fore-Fathers that with such ease and dexterity could change an ounce of lead into a pound of gold So they had great reason to say of England that it was a Well that could not be drawn dry And England had as much reason to whip these Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple This complaint is neither new nor particular as we shall see further in due place The second ground of our Ancestors separation of themselves from the Court of Rome were their most unjust usurpations and daily incroachments and intrenchments and extream violations of all sorts of rights civill and Ecclesiastical sacred and prophane They indeavoured to rob the King of the fairest flowers of his Crown As of his right to convocare Synods and to confirm Synods within his own dominions of his Legislative and judiciary power in Ecclesiasticall causes of his Politicall Jurisdiction over Ecclesiastical persons of his Ecclesiasticall Feuds and Investitures of Bishops of his just Patronages of Churches founded by his Ancestors and of the last appeals of his subjects And as if all this had been too little taking advantage of King Iohns troubles they attempted to make the royall Scâ—pter of England Feudotary and tributary to the Crosier staffe of Rome at the annuall rent of a thousand marks Neither is this the case of England alone seeing they make the like pretensions in matter of fact almost to all Europe To say nothing now of that Dominion which some of them have challenged indirectly others directly over Soveraign Princes Nos imperia regna principatus et quicquid habere mortales possunt auâ—erre et dare posse We have power to take away and to give Empires Kingdoms Principalities and whatsoever mortal men can have because I confesse that it is not generally received by the Roman Church Mr. Blackwell made Archpriest of England by Clement the eighth cites Cardinall Allen with much honour to his memorie but much scandalized at his doctrine that none can be admitted King of England without the Popes leave His words are these Without the approbation of the See Apostolique none can be lawfull King or Queen of England by reason of the ancient accord made between Alexander the third the year 1171. and Henry the second then King when he was absolved for the death of St. Thomas of Canterbury That no man might lawfully take that Crown nor be accounted as King till he were confirmed by the Soveraign Pastor of our souls which for the time should be This accord afterwards being renewed about the year 1210. by King Iohn who confirmed the same by oath to Pandulphus the Popes Legate at the speciall request and procurement of the Lords and Commons as a thing most necessary for preservation of the Realm from unjust usurpation of Tyrants and avoiding other inconveniences which they had proved and might easily fall again into by the disorder of some wicked King To which he adds with the like disapprobation a like testimony of Stanislaus Christa novic a Polonian author who infers upon the former ground that the Pope may depose the King of England as being but a tributary King his words are these Illud impie Legislatores per jusjurandum extorquent a Catholicis c. The law-makers do impiously by an oath extort this from Catholicks to deny that the King may be deposed by the Pope and his Kingdomes and Countries by him disposed of For if by an Honourable and pious grant the Kingdome hav become tributary to the Pope why may he not dispose of it Why may he not depose the Prince being refractory and disobedient Thus a bold stranger altogether ignorant of our histories and of our lawes shoots his bolt at all adventures upon the credit of a shamefull fiction but from whom did they learn this lesson even from the Pope himself Bishop Grosthead had been a little bold with the Pope for his extorting courses calling him Antichrist and murtherer of Souls and comparing the Court of Rome to Behemoth that putteth his mouth to the river Jordan thinking to drink it up and stiling the oppression of the English Nation an Aegiptian Bondage He had good reason for the Court of Rome in those daies was grown past shame rubore deposito and consequently past grace The Pope irritated with this usage breaks out into this passionate expression Nonne Rex Anglorum noster est Vasallus et ut plus dicam mancipium Is not the King of England our Vassal or rather our Slave Or rather are these fit guests to be entertained in a Kingdom that make no more of our Soveraign Princes then their Vassals and Slaves who can neither be admitted to the Crown without their leave nor hold it but by their grace This relation of Cardinal Allen brings to my remembrance the question of Neoptolemus to Vlisses when he should have taught him the Art of lying how it was possible for one to tell a lie without blushing The Arch-Priest is much more ingenuous affirming that the assertions touching both the said Kings for matter of fact
were untrue That Henry the second never made any such accord with Alexander the third for ought that he could ever read in any Chronicle of Credit Then the oath which Henry the second did take for himself not for his heires was this that he would not depart from him or his successours so long as they should intreat him as a Catholick King That the fact of King John is of more probability but of as little truth which he confirmes by the testimony of Sir Thomas Moore a Lord Chancellour of England a man of Extraordinary learning of great parts of so good affections to the Roman See that he is supposed to have died for the Popes Supremacy and is commended by Cardinall Bellarmine to Mr. Blackwell as a Martyr and a guide of many others to Martyrdom cum ingenti Anglica nationis gloria certainly one who had as much means to know the truth both by view of records and otherwise as any man living Thus writeth he If he the author of the beggars supplication say as indeed some writers say that King John made England and Ireland tributary to the Pope and the See Apostolique by the grant of a thousand Markes we dare surely say again that it is untrue and that all Rome neither can shew such a grant nor ever could And if they could it were nothing worth For never could any king of England give away the Realm to the Pope or make the Land tributary though he would As to that of Henry the second without doubt the Archpriest had all the reason in the world for him Cardinall Allen did not write by inspiration and could expect no more credit then he brought authority There is a vast difference between these two that no man shall be accounted King of England untill he be confirmed by the Pope And this other that the King in his own person would not desert the Pope so long as he intreated him like a Catholick King The former is most dishonourable to the Nation and Diametrally opposite to the fundamental Lawes of the Land The later we might take our selves without offence to God or our own consciences But to make our Kings their vassals aud their slaves to impoverish their Realm and to commit all those exorbitant misdemeanours against them which we have related in part and shall yet describe more fully was neither to intreat them like Catholick Kings nor like Christian Kings nor yet like political Kings And for his Saint Thomas of Canterbury we do not believe that the Popes Canonisation or to have his name inserted into the Calender in red letters makes a Saint We do abhominate that murther as Lawlesse and Barbarous to sprinkle not onely the pavements of the Church but the very altar with the blood of a Prelate And we condemn all those who had an hand in it But we do not believe that the cause of his suffering was sufficient to make him a Martyr namely to help forraignâ—rs to pull the fairest flowers from his Princes Diadem by violence and to perjure himself and violate his oath given for the observation of the Articles of Clarendon All his own Suffragan Bishops were against him in the cause and justified the Kings proceedings as appeareth by two of their letters one to himself the other to Pope Alexander the third The Barons of the Kingdom reputed him as a Traitor quo progrederis Proditor Expecta et audi judicium tuum Whither goest thou Traitor stay and hear thy judgment This is certain The first time that ever any Pope did challenge the right of investitures in England was in the dayes of Henry the first and Paschal the second was the first Pope that ever exacted an oath from any forraign Bishop above Eleven hundred years after Christ. Before that time they evermore swore fealty to their Prince de Homagiis de Feudis de sacramentis Episcoporum Laicis antea exhibitis There was great consultation about the homage and Fealty and oaths of Bishops in former ages sworn to Lay-men These new articles of faith are too young to make Martyrs Concerning the secoÌ„d instance of King Iohn though I attribute much to the authority of Sir Thomas More in that case who would never have been so confident unlesse he had supposed that he had searched the matter to the bottom yet his zeal to the Papacy and his unwillingnesse to see such an unworthy act proceed from that See might perhaps mislead him for I confesse sundry authours do relate the case otherwise That there was a Prophesie or Prediction made by one Peter an Hermite that the next day to Ascension sunday there should be no King in England That Pope Innocent the third being angry with King Iohn excommunicated him interdicted the Kingdom deprived him of his Crown absolved his subjects from their allegiance animated his Barons and Bishops against him gave away his Realm to Philip King of France sent Pandolphus as his Legate into England to see all this executed The King of France provides an Army accordingly But the crafty Pope underhand gives his Legate secret instructions to speak privatly with King Iohn And if he could make a better bargain for him and draw him to submit to the sentence of the Pope he should act nothing against him but in his favour They do meete King Iohn submits The Pope orders him to resign his Crown and Kingdomes to the See of Rome so they say he did and received them the next day of the Popes grace as a feudatary at the yearly rent of a thousand Marks for the Kingdoms of England and Ireland And did homage and swear fealty to Pope Innocent But whereas the Cardinal adds upon his own head that this was done at the special request and procurement of the Lords and Commons it is an Egregious forgery and well deserves a whetstone for all the three Orders of the kingdom Bishops Barons and Commons did protest against it in Parliament notwithstanding any private contract that might be made by King Iohn And that they would defend themselves by arms from the temporal Jurisdiction of the Pope But the other answer of Sr. Thomas More is most certain and beyond all exception that if either Henry the second or King Iohn had done any such thing it was not worth a rush nor signified any thing but the greedinesse and prophanenesse of these pretended vicars of Christ who prostituted and abused their Office and the power of the Keies to serve their base and avaritious ends and lets the world see how well they deserved to be thrust out of doores What That no man might be crowned or accounted King of England untill he were confirmed by the Pope By the Law of England Rex non moritur the King never dies And doth all acts of Soveraignty before his Coronation as well as after They robbed the Nobility of their patronages Those Churches which their Ancestours had founded and
Religion to the See of Rome and to the rights of Holy Church notwithstanding the municipal Lawes and immemorial customes of the Empire and notwithstanding any Oathes taken for the observation thereof Yet the Emperour and the Princes of Germany stand to their contracts assert the municipal lawes and customes of the Empire And assume unto themselves to be the onely Judges of their own priviledges and necessities Thirdly Henry the eighth challenged to himself the patronage of Bishopricks and investitures of Bishops within his own Dominions The Emperours did more Adrian the fourth taxed Frederick the first for requiring homage and fealty of Bishops Et manus eorum sacratas manibâ—s tuis innectis and that he held their consecrated hands in his hands The Emperour denyed it not but justified it Ab his qui regalia nostra tenent cur homagium regalia Sacramenta non exigamus why may we not require homage and Oathes of Allegiance from them who hold their Lands of our Imperial Crown The Ecclesiastical Lords in their letter to Innocent the third do acknowledge that the fees which they held from the Empire they had received at the hands of Otho the fourth and had done him homage and sworn fealty to him And this before his Imperiall Coronation at Rome Henry the fifth goes yet further and accuseth Pope Paschal that without any hearing he sought to take away from the Empire the investitures of Bishops which the Emperours his predecessours had enjoyed from the time of Charlemain by the space of 400 yeares and upwards A fair prescription But this is not all The Emperours did long injoy the patronage of the Papacy it self and the disposition of the Roman Bishoprick Adrian the first with the whole Clergy and people of Rome quitted all their claim right and interest to Charles the Great as well in the elections of the Popes as investitures of Bishops And Leo the eighth did the like to Otho the first which is a truth in history so apparent that no man can deny it with his credit nor question it with reason Fourthly the Kings of England suffered no appeales to Rome out of their Kingdoms nor Roman Legates to enter into their Dominions without their License No more did the Emperours though they acknowledge the Roman Bishop to be their Patriarch which we do not Hadrian the fourth complained of Frederick the first That he shut both the Churches and the Cities of his Kingdom against the Popes Legates à latere And more fully in his letter to the German Bishops that he had made an edict that no man out of his Kingdome should have recourse to the Apostolique See To the former part of the charge the Emperour answers Cardinalibus vestris clausae sunt Ecclesiae non patent civitates quia non videmus eoâ— praedicatores sed praedatores non pacis corroboratores sed pecuniae raptores non orbis reparatores sed auri insatiabiles corrasores Our Churches and Cities are shut to your Cardinals because we do not see them Preachers but robbers not confirmers of peace but extorting catchers of money not repairers of the world but insatiable scrapers together of gold Thus much he writ to the Pope himself To the second part of the charge he answers That he had not shut up the entrance into Italy or the passage out of Italy by edict nor would shut it up to travellers or such as had necessary occasions and the testimony of their Bishops for their voyage to the Sea of Rome but he intended to remedy those abuses by which all the Churches of his Kingdome were burthened and impoverished That the whole body of the Empire were of the same mind it appeares by the Advises of Ments And by the hundred grievances of the German Nation which the Princes and Peeres of the Empire protested that they neither could nor would indure any longer Fifthly the Kings of England declared the Popes Bulls to be void They had good reason for they were not under his Jurisdiction nor within the sphere of his activity The Emperours did not so generally but yet they took upon them to be Judges whether the Popes key did erre or not Pius the second by his Bull condemned all appeales from the Pope to a General Councel as erroneous detestable void and pestilent and subjected all those who should use them after two moneths to execration ipso facto of what condition soever they were Emperours Kings or Bishops Yet long after this Charles the fifth appealed from Clement the seventh to a Generall Councel Ad sacri Generalis Concilii totius Christianitatis cognitionem et judicium remittenda censuimus Illiqque nos et omnia quae cum S. vestra habere possumus aut deinceps habituri sumus omnino subjicimus Wherein he did but insist in the steps of his predecessours Lewis the fourth did the same to Iohn the 22th And in the Dyet of Frankford decreed them all that should assent to the Popes Bull to be guilty of treason and to have forfeited all their fees which they held of the Empire because the sentence of a Pope contrary to God or to holy Scripture or to that due obedience which a Subject owes to his Prince is of no moment or validity And such the Princes and Peeres of the Empire did unanimously declare the Popes Bull to be contra Deum justitiam juris ordinem contrary to God contrary to holy Scripture and contrary to due order of Law Sixthly Henry the eighth deprived the Pope of his Annates tenths and first fruits in England of his pall-money and other extorted revenues What did the Emperour and the Germans lesse then he In the advises of Ments it is concluded that the Pope shall receive nothing either before or after for confirmations elections admissions collations provisions presentations holy order palles benedictions c. upon pain that the transgressour thereof either in exacting or giving or promising should incurre the punishment due to a Simoniacal person And though these were but Advises yet the King of the Romans and Electors did covenant mutually to assist and defend one another in the maintenance of them against all men And yet further procured them to be confirmed and inlarged in the Councel of Basile by the addition of investitures bulls annates first fruits c. This was too sweet a morsel for the Pope to lose willingly when the Archbishop of Ments paid for his pall worth about sixe pence thirty thousand Florens By the Concordates or accord made between the Emperour and Princes of Germany and Nicholas the fifth the Annates are in part remitted or taken away The Estates of the Empire assembled at Nurenberge represented to Adrian the sixth that Annates were given for maintenance of the war against the Turks and how comely a thing it were that they should be restored to the same use The Princes
communion of any particular Church whatsoever even the Roman it self so far forth as it is Catholick but onely from their errours wherein they had first separated themselves from their predecessours To this I adde that it was not we but the Court of Rome it self that first separated England from the communion of the Church of Rome by their unjust censures excommunications and interdictions which they thundered out against the Realm for denying their spiritual Sovereignty by Divine right before the Reformation made by Protestants Secondly we are charged with Schismatical contumacy and disobedience to the decrees and determinations of the General Councel of Trent But we believe that Convent of Trent to have been no General nor yet Patriarchal no free no lawfull Councel How was that General where there was not any one Bishop out of all the other Patriarchates or any Proctours or Commissioners from them either present or summoned to be present except peradventure some tltular Europaean Mock-Prelates without cures such as Olaus Magnus intituled Archbishop of Vpsala Or Sir Robert the Scottish-man intituled Archbishop of Armagh How was that Generall or so much as Patriarchal where so great a part of the West was absent wherein there were twice so many Episcopelles out of Italy the Popes professed Vassals and many of them his hungry Parasitical pensioners as there were out of all other Christian Kingdoms and Nations put together How was that general wherein there were not so many Bishops present at the determination of the weightiest controversies concerning the rule of faith and the exposition thereof as the King of England could have called together in his own Dominions at any one time upon a moneths warning How was that general which was not generally received by all Churches even some of the Roman Communion not admitting it We have seen heretofore how the French Ambassadour in the name of the King and Church of France protested against it And untill this day though they do not oppose it but acquiesce to avoid such disadvantages as must insue thereupon yet they did never admit it Let no man say that they rejected the determinations thereof onely in point of discipline not of doctrine for the same Canonical obedience is equally due to an acknowledged General Councell in point of discipline as in point of Doctrine And as it was not General so neither was it free nor lawfull Not free where the place could afford no security to the one party where the accuser was to be the Judge where any one that spake a free word had his mouth stopped or was turned out of the Councel where the few Protestants that adventured to come thither were not admitted to dispute where the Legates gave auricular Votes where the Fathers were noted to be guided by the spirit sent from Rome in a male where divers not only new Bishops but new Bishopricks were created during the sitting of the Convent to make the Papalins able to over-vote the Tramontains Nor yet lawfull in regard of the place which ought to have been in Germany Actor debet rei forum sequi A guilty person is to be judged in his Province And the cause to be pleaded where the crime was committed And likewise in regard of the Judge In every Judgment there ought to be four distinct persons The accuser the witnesse the guilty person and the Judge But in the Councel of Trent the Pope by himself or his Ministers acted all these parts himself He was the right guilty person and yet withall the accuser of the Protestants the witnesse against them and their Judge Lastly no man can be lawfully condemned before he be heard But in this Councel the Protestants were not allowed to propose their case much lesse to defend it by lawful disputation Thirdly it is objected and here they think they have us sure locked up that we cannot deny but that the Bishop of Rome was our Patriarch and that we have rebelled against him and cast off our Canonical obedience in our Reformation To this supposed killing argument I give three clear solutions First That the Bâ—itish Islands neither were nor ought to be subject to the Jurisdiction of the Roman Patriarch as hath been sufficiently demonstrated in my third conclusion For all Patriarchal Jurisdiction being of humane institution must proceed either from some Canon or Decree of a General Councel or of such a Provincial Councell as had power to oblige the Britons to obedience Or from the grant or concession of some of their Sovereign Princes or from the voluntary submission of a free people Or lastly from custom and prescription If they had any such Canon or Grant or submission they would quickly produce it but we know they cannot If they plead custome and prescription immemorial the burthen must rest upon them to prove it But when they have searched all the Authours over and over who have written of British affaires in those daies and all their Records and Registers they shall not be able to find any one Act or so much as any one footstep or the least sign of any Roman Patriarchal Jurisdiction in Britaigne or over the Britons for the first 600 years And for after-ages the Roman Bishops neither held their old Patriarchate nor gained any quiet settled possession of their new Monarchy Secondly I answer That Patriarchal power is not of Divine right but humane institution And therefore may either be quitted or forfeited or transferred And if ever the Bishops of Rome had any Patriarchal Jurisdiction in Britaigne yet they had both quitted it and forfeited it over and over again and it was lawfully transferred To separate from an Ecclesiastical authority which is disclaimed and disavowed by the pretenders to it and forfeited by abuse and rebellion and lawfully transferred is no Schisme First I say they quitted their pretended Patriarchal right when they assumed and usurped to themselves the name and thing of universal Bishops Spiritual Sovereigns and sole Monarchs of the Church and masters of all Christians To be a Patriarch and to be an universal Bishop in that sense are inconsistent and imply a contradiction in adjecto The one professeth humane the other challengeth divine institution The one hath a limited Jurisdiction over a certain Province the other pretendeth to an unlimited Jurisdiction over the whole World The one is subject to the Canons of the Fathers and a meer executour of them and can do nothing either against them or besides them The other challengeth an absolute Sovereignty above the Canons besides the Canons against the Canons to make them to abrogate them to suspend their influence by a non-obstaâ—te to dispence with them in such cases wherein the Canon gives no dispensative power at his own pleasure when he will where he will to whom he will Therefore to claime a power paramount and Sovereign Monarchical Royalty over the Church is implicitely and in effect to disclaime a Patriarchal
or consecration Who so proper to chuse a Bishop as the Chapiter So was that Convent until the Reformation Who so proper to Ordain as the Bishop For neither Derry nor the Isles did ever want a Bishop from their first conversion So referendo singula singulis the words of Bede are plain the Chapiter named and the Bishop Ordained Fourthly they mistake the subjection The Abbat was the Lord of the Manour and so the Bishop was subject to the Abbat in temporalibus But the Abbat was every where subject to the Bishop in spiritualibus who did annually visite both the Abby and the Abbat as by the visitation-rolles and records if these intestine wars have not made an end of them may appear You see upon what conjecturall grounds Criticks many times build new paradoxes which one latent circumstance being known is able to disperse and dissipate with all their probable presumptions If it had not been thus It is no new thing for an Abbat to challenge Episcopal Jurisdiction or to contend with his Bishop about it What is this to meer Presbyters qua tales Lastly they contradict Venerable Bede He saith it was ordine inusitato by an unusuall order They say it was in a manner the common rule of all the English And this they say upon pretence of a decree of the Councel of Hereford that such Bishops as had voluntarily professed Monkery should perform their promised obedience Which is altogether impertinent to their purpose Doth any man doubt whether Bishops might freely of their own accord enter into a religious Order or that they were not as well obliged to perform their vow as others Some Emperours have done the same Yet no man will conclude from thence that Emperours are inferiour to Abbats Such mistakes are all their instances except they light by chance upon an unformed Church before it were well settled As if a man should argue thus There have been no Bishops in Virginia during the Reigns of King Iames and King Charles therefore the Clergy there were Ordained by Presbyters We know the contrary that they had their Ordination in England So had the Clergy in unformed Churches forreign Ordination This is part of that which we have to say for a proper Patriarchate and for our exemption from the Jurisdiction of the Roman Court from which our separation is much wider then from the Roman Church Other differences may make particular breaches but the Roman Court makes the universal Schisme between them and all the rest of the Christian world and hath been much complained of and in part shaken off by some of their own communion I could wish with all my heart that they were as ready to quit their pretended prerogatives which not we alone but all the world except themselves and a great part of themselves privately so condemn as we should be to wave our just priviledges and if need were to sacrifice them to the common peace of Christendome This was a more noble and a more speedy way to a reâ—union then a Pharisaical compassing of Sea and Land to make particular Proselytes of all those whom either a natural levity or want of judgment or discontent or despair to see the Church of England re-established or extream poverty and expectation of some supply have prepared for their baits whom they do not court more untill they have gained them then they neglect after they think they have them sure as daily experience doth teach 〈◊〉 CHAP. X. Th Conclusion of this Treatise THis is the Treatise of Schisme intimated in my answer to Monsiâ—ur de la militiere but not promised by me who know nothing of the impression nor should have judged it proper to give an English answer to a French Author Howsoever being published I own it except the errors of the Presse Among which I desire the Christian Reader to take notice especially of one because it perverts the sense It is noted in the margent They who have composed minds free from distracting cares and meanes to maintain them and friends to assist them and their books and notes by them do little imagine with what difficulties poor Exiles struggle whose minds are more intent on what they should eat to morrow then what they should write being chased as Vagabonds into the mercilesse world to beg relief of strangers An hard condition that when the meanest creatures are secured from that fear of wanting necessary sustenance by the bounty of God and nature that onely men the best of creatures should be subjected to itâ— by undeserved cruelty Peruse all the Histories of the latest wars among Dutch French Swedes Danes Spaniards Poles Tartars and Turks and you shall not meet with the like hard measure Did the King of Spain conqner a Town from the Hollanders He acquired a new Dominion but the property of private men continued the same Did the Hollanders take in a Town from the Spaniard they made provision for the very Cloisterers during their lives So did our Henry the eighth also at the dissolution of the Abbies Violent things last not long Or if Exiles can subsist without begging yet they are necessitated to do or suffer things otherwise not so agreeable to them Wherein they deserve the pity of all good men When Alexander had conquered Darius and found many Grecians in his Army he commanded to detain the Athenians prisoners because having meanes to live at Rome they chose rather to serve a Barâ—arian And the Thessalians because they had a fruitfull Countrey of their own to till But said he suffer the Theâ—ans to go free for we have left them neither a City to live in nor fields to till This is our condition When the free exereise of the Roman Religion was prohibited in Eâ—gland and they wanted Seminaries at home for the education of their youth and means of Ordination Yet by the bounty of forreign Princes and much more by the free contribution of our own Countrey-men of that communion they had Colledges founded abroad for their subsistance So careful were they to propagate and perpetuate their Religion in their native Countrey The last age before these unhappy troâ—bles was as fruitful in works of piety and charity done by Protestants as any one preceding age sinâ—e the conversion of Britaignâ— And although we cannot hope for that forreign assistance which they found yet might we have expected a larger supply from home by as much as our professours are much more numerous then theirs were Hath the sword devoured up all the charitable Obadiahs in our Land Or is there no man that layes the affliction of Ioseph to heart Yet God that maintained his people in the Wildernesse without the ordinary supply of food or rayment will not desert us untill he turn our captivity as the rivers in the South Where humane help faileth Divine begins But to draw to a conclusion We have seen in this short Treatlse how the Court of Rome hath been the cause of all the differences
A IVST VINDICATION OF THE Church of England FROM The unjust Aspersion of Criminal SCHISME WHEREIN The nature of Criminal Schisme the divers sorts of Schismaticks the liberties and priviledges of National Churches the rights of Sovereign Magistrates the tyranny extortion and Schisme of the Roman Court with the grievances Complaints and opposition of all Princes and States of the Roman Communion of old and at this very day are manifested to the view of the World By the Right Reverend Father in God Iohn Bramhall Dr. in Divinity and Lord Bishop of Derry Pacian in ep ad Sempron My name is Christian my sirname is Catholique By the one I am known from Infidels by the other from Hereticks and Schismaticks LONDON Printed for Iohn Crook at the sign of the Ship in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1654 THE Contents of the particular CHAPTERS CHAP. I. THe Scope and summe of this Treatise Pag. 1. CHAP. II. The stating of the question what is Schisme who are Schismaticks and what is signified by the Church of England in this question p. 6. CHAP. III. That the Separation from the Court of Rome was not made by Protestants but Roman Catholicks themselves p. 31 CHAP. IV. That the King and Kingdome of England in their Separation from Rome did make no new Law but vindicate the ancient Law of the Land pag. 54. CHAP. V. That the Britannick Churches were ever Exempted from all forreign Iurisdiction And so ought to continue pag. 87 CHAP. VI. That the King and Church of England hâ—d both sufficient authority and sufficient grounds to withdraw their obedience from Rome p. 1â—6 CHAP. VII That all Kingdomes and Republicks of the Roman Communion Germany France Spain Portugal Sicilly Brabant Venice do the same thing in effect when they have occasion p. 160 CHAP. VIII That the Pope and Court of Rome are many waies guilty of Schisme and the true cause of the Dissensions of Christendome Pag. 229 CHAP. IX An Answer to the Objections of the Romanists p. 245 CHAP. X. The Conclusion of the Treatise p. 275. Courteous Reader BY reason of the Authour's Absence and difficulty of the written Copy severall Errata's have past the Presse which you are desired to amend and among the rest these following Page 7. in Margine Act. leg Art p. 13. line 17. Lyne leg kind p. 13. in marg Manrit leg Maurit p. 14 l 1 Schimse leg Schisme p. 15 l. 15 Creed leg Creeds p. 18 l. ult legemachies leg logomachies p. 21 l. 8. qui leg quis p. 22 l. 4. teach for touch p. 35 l. 8. these for those p. 39. l. 31. dele little p. 42 in margine modo for nodâ— p. 65 in margine 78 for 787 p. 67 Hesâ—is for Hosius in marg p. 74 l. 1 sepultura for sepulchra p. 79 l. 4 Asseâ—tie for Asserio p. 85 l. 30 the for his Legates p. 102 l. 25 as for or p. 113 in marg lais for Caiet p. 119 l. 2 novum for nonum p. 121 l. 11 no for had p. 140 for 138 p. 141 for 139 p. 144 for 142 p. 145 for 143 p. 914 for 149 p. 129 l. 23 chink for klink and l. 25 despensations for dispensations p. 130 l. 10 Simoniae for Simonia and l. 20 21 aliam and nummam for alium and nummum p. 131 l. 1 conscivit for consuevit p. 132 l. 16 singulta for singultu and lin 20 speculiem for speculum p. 133 l. 28 papale for papali l. 29 rigarâ— for rigore line 30 praecipient for praecipiente p. 138 l. 6. for then the oath read then that the oath p. 142 l. 5 sweare for sware And in the margent Hoops for Harps p. 153 l. 15 provisos for provisors And in the marg theops for the copy p. 164 l. 10 deest not p. 165 l. 30 thar for that p. 186 l 32 which leg wherewith p. 199 l. 14 Redimendum leg Redimendam p. 214 l. 4 leg Placaert l. 27 but for but p. 217 in marg Imprss. leg Impress A JUST VINDICATION OF THE Church of England CHAP. I. The Scope and summe of this Treatise 1. NOthing hath been hitherto or can hereafter be objected to the Church of England which to strangers unacquainted with the state of our affaires or to such of our Natives as have onely looked upon the case superficially hath more Colour of truth at first sight then that of Schisme that we have withdrawn our obedience from the Vicar of Christ or at least from our lawful Patriarch and separated our selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church A grievous accusation I confesse if it were true for we acknowledge that there is no salvation to be expected ordinarily without the pale of the Church 2. But when all things are Judiciously weighed in the Ballance of right reason when it shall appear that we never had any such forrein Patriarch for the first six hundred years and upwards And that it was a grosse Violation of the Canons of the Catholick Church to attempt after that time to obtrude any forrein Jurisdiction upon us That before the Bishops of Rome ever exercised any Jurisdiction in Brittain they had quitted their lawful Patriarchate wherewith they were invested by the authority of the Church for an unlawful Monarchy pretended to belong unto them by the institution of Christ That whatsoever the Popes of Rome gained upon us in after-ages without our own free consent was meer tyranny and usurpation That our Kings with their Synods and Parliaments had power to revoke retract and abrogate whatsoever they found by experience to become burthensome and insupportable to their Subjects That they did use in all ages with the consent of the Church and Kingdom of England to limit and restrain the Exercise of Papal power and to provide remedies against the daily incroachments of the Roman Court so a Henry the Eighth at the reformation of the English Church did but tread in the steps of his most renowned Ancestours who flourished whilest Popery was in its Zenith And pursued but that way which they had chalked out unto him a way warranted by the practise of the most Christian Emperours of old and frequented at this day by the greatest or rather by all the Princes of the Roman Communion so often as they find occasion When it shall be made evident that the Bishops of Rome never injoyed any quiet or settled possession of that power which was after deservedly cast out of England so as to beget a lawful prescription And lastly that we have not at all separated our selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church nor of any part thereof Roman or other qua tales as they are such but only in their innovations wherein they have separated themselves first from their Common Mother and from the fellowship of their own Sisters I say when all this shall be cleared and the Schisme is brought home and laid at the right door then we may safely conclude that by how much we should turn more Roman
the reformation and the Church of England after the reformation are as much the same Church as a garden before it is weeded and after it is weeded is the same garden or a vine before it be pruned and after it is pruned and freed from the Luxuriant branches is one and the same vine yet because the Roman Catholiques do not object Schisme to the Popish Church of England but to the reformed Church Therefore in this question by the Church of England we understand that Church which was derived by lineal succession from the Brittish English and Scottish Bishops by mixt ordination as it was legally established in the daies of King Edward the sixth and flourished in the raigns of Queen Elizabeth King Iames and King Charles of blessed memory and now groanes under the heavy yoke of persecution whether this Church be Schismatical by reason of its secession and separation from the Church of Rome and the supposed withdrawing of its obedience from the Patriarchal Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop As for other aspersions of Schisme of lesser moment we shall meâ—â— with them in our answers to their Objections CHAP. III. That the separation from Rome was not made by Protestants but by Roman Catholicks themselves THis being the state of the Question I proceed to examine the first ground or proposition That the English Protestants were not the first authors of the separation but principall Roman Catholiques great Advocates in their dayes and Pillars of the Roman Church Whether the Act or Statute of Separation were operative or declarative creating new right or manifesting or restoring old right whether the power of the Roman Court in England was just or usurped absolute and immutable or conditional and changeable whether the possession thereof was certain and settled or controverted and unquiet though no man throughly versed in our Lawes and Histories can reasonably doubt of these things This is undeniably true that the secession and substraction of obedience was not made by our reformers or by any of their friends or favourers but by their capital Enemies and persecutors by Zelots of the Roman Religion And this was not done secretly in a corner but openly in the sight of the Sun disputed publickly and determined before-hand in both our Universities which after long deliberation and much disputation done with all diligence zeal and conscience made this final resolution and profession Tandem in hanc sententiam unanimiter convenimus ac concordes fuimus videlicet Romanum Episcopum majorem aliquam Iurisdictionem non habere sibi à deo collatam in sacra Scriptura in hoc Regno Angliae quam alium quemvis externum Episcopum That the Roman Bishop had no greater Iurisdiction within the Kingdome of England confeâ—red upon him by God in holy Scripture then any other forrein Bishop After this the same was voted and decreed in our National Synods and lastly after all this received and established in full Parliament by the free consent of all the Orders of the Kingdom with the concurrence and approbation of four and twenty Bishops and nine and twenty Abbats then and there present To passe by many other Statutes take the very words of one of the main Acts it self That England is an Empire and that the King as Head of the body politick consisting of the spirituality and temporalty hath plenary power to render final Iustice for all matters c. First England is that is originally not shall be by vertue of this Act what is it an Empire If it be an Empire then the Soveraignes thereof have the same priviledges and prerogatives within their own Dominions which the old Emperours had in theirs If the King be head of the body politick consisting of the spiâ—ituality and temporalty then in England the King is the political head of the Clergy as well as of the Laity So he ought to be and not he onely but all the Soveraign Princes throughout the World by the very Law of Nature What becomes now of that grand exception against Protestants for making their King the Head or Soveraign Governour for these two are convertible terms of the English Church or Clergy A title first introduced by Roman Catholicks and since waved and laid aside by Protestants not so much for any malignity that was in it as for the ill sounds sake because it seemed to intrench too much upon the just right of our Saviour and being subject to be misunderstood gave offence to many well affected Christians And what doth this Law say more then a great Cardinal said not long after One that was as near the Papacy as any that ever mist it and was thought to merit the Papacy as well as any that had it in his daies I mean Cardinal Pool in his Book de concilio Hoc munus Imperatoribus Christi fidem professis Deus ipse Pater assignavit at Christi filii dei vicaâ—ias partes gerant God the Father hath assigned this office to Christian Emperours that they should act the part of Christ the Son of God in General Councels And yet more fully in his answer to the next question Pontifex Romanus ut caput sacerdotale Vicarias Christi veri capitis partes gerit at Caesar ut caput regale c. The Pope as a Priestly head doth execute the Office of Christ the true Head but we may also truly say that the Emperour doth execute the office of Christ as a Kingly Head And so he concludeth Christ said of himself All power is given me both in heaven and earth In utraque ergo potestate c. Therefore we cannot doubt but Christ hath his Deputies for both these powers The Pope in the Church the Emperour in the Common-Wealth Thus writes the Popes own Legate to his Brother Legates in the Tridentine Councel when he desired to favour his Master as much as he could But I proceed to our Statute The King of England hath that is already in present by the fundamental constitution of the Monarchy not shall have from henceforth plenary power without the License or help or concurrence of any forrain Prelate or Potentate pleâ—ary not solitary To render final Iustice that is to receive the last appeales of his own Subjects without fear of any review from Rome or at Rome for all matters Ecclesiastical and temporal Ecclesiastical by his Bishops Temporal by his Judges There is great difference between a Kings administring Justice in Ecclesiastical causes by himself and by his Bishops Listen to the Canon of the Milevitan Councel It hath pleased the Synod that what Bishop soever shall request of the Emperour the cognisance of publick judgment in some cases he be deprived of his honour But if he petition to the Emperour foâ— Episcopal judgment that is to make Bishops his Deputies or Commissioners to hear it it should â—not prejudice him They forbid a Bishop of his own accord in these daies and in some cases to make his first
Dominions Witnesse the lawes of Ercombert Ina Withred Alfrede Edward Athelstan Edmond Edgar Athelred Canutus and Edward the Confessor among whose lawes one makes it the office of a King to govern the Church as the Vicar of God Another implyes a power in the King and his Judges to take cognisance of wrong done in Ecclesiastical Courts It was to this Holy King Edward the Confessor that Pope Nicholas the second by his bull for him and his Successours granted this ensuing priviledge to the Kings of England for ever Namely the Advocation and protection of all the Churches of England and power in his stead to make just Ecclesiastical constitutions with the advise of their Bishops and Abbats This grant is as full or fuller then that which Vrban the second made to Roger Earl of Sicily from whence the Kings of Spain at this day do not onely Challenge but enjoy in a manner all Ecclesiastical power in Sicily If the Pope had ever had any such right as he pretends this onely Bull were sufficient to justifie our Kings But they injoyed this very power from the beginning as an essential flower of their Crownes without any thanks to the Pope To make just Ecclesiasticall constitutions in the Popes stead saith the Bull. To govern the Church as the Vicar of God saith the law of the Land The Bishops of Rome have ever been very kind in granting those things which were none of their own and in making deputations and delegations to them who stood in no need of their help being lawfully invested before hand by another title in that power and dignity which the Popes pretended out of their goodnesse to confer upon them but in truth did it onely for the reputation of their See and for maintaining the opinion of their own Grandeur Whether the deputation were accepted or not they did not much trouble themselves So they dealt with 〈◊〉 president in the Councell of Nice So they dealt with the Patriarch of Iustiniana Prima so they served Good King Edward and many others This Legislative power in Ecclesiastical causes over Ecclesiasticall persons the Norman Kings after the conquest did also exercise from time to time with the advice and consent of their Lords spiritual and temporal Hence all those Statutes concerning Benefices Tythes Advowsons Lands given in Mortmain prohibitions consultations praemunires quare Impedits priviledge of Clergy extortions of Ecclesiasticall courts or officers and regulating their due fees wages of Priests Mortuaries Sanctuaries Appropriations and in summe all things which did belong to the externall subsistence regiment and regulating of the Church and this in the raigns of our best Kings long and long before the reformation Othobone the Popes Legate under Vrban the fifth would have indowed Vicars upon appropriated Rectories but could not But our Kings by two Statutes or Acts of Parliament did easily effect it With us the Pope could not make a Spiritual corporation but the King The Pope could not exempt from the Jurisdiction of the ordinary but the King who by his charter could convert Seculars into Regulars The Pope could not grant the Priviledge of the Cistercians and other orders to be free from the payment of Tyths but the King The Pope could not appropriate Churches but the King we find eight Churches appropriated to the Abby of Crowland by the Saxon Kings three Churches appropriated to the Abby of Battell by the Conquerour and twenty by Henry the first to â—â—e Church of Sarisbury The King in his great Councel could make void the certificates of Ordinaries in cases of Ecclesiasticall cognisance and command them to absolve those persons who were judged by his authority to be unjustly excommunicated The Pope could not translate an Arch Bishoprick or a Bishoprick but the King The disposition of Ecclesiastical preferments upon lapse accrued not to the Pope but to the King a plain evidence that he was the Lord Paramount And the King onely could incurre no lapse Nullum tempus occurrit Regi because the law supposed that he was busied about the weightie affaires of the Kingdom The revenewes of a Bishoprick in the vacancy belonged not unto the Pope but to the King which he caused to be restored sometimes from the time of the first vacancy sometimes from the time of the filling of the Church with a new Incumbent according to his good pleasure The Canons of the Pope could not change the Ecclesiastical Lawes of England but the King whose lawes they were He had power in his great Councel to receive the canons if they were judged convenient or to reject them and abrogate them if they were judged inconvenient When some Bishops proposed in Parliament the reception of the Ecclesiastical Canon for the Legitimation of Children born before marriage without such a reception the Canon was of no force in England All the Peers of the Realm stood up and cryed out with one voice Nolumus leges Angliae mutari We will not have the lawes of England to be changed The King and Parliament made a Legislative exposition of the Canon of the Councel of Lyons concerning Bigamy which they would not have done unlesse they had conceived themselves to have power according to the fundamental constitutions of the kingdom either to receive it or reject it Ejus est legem interpretari cujus est condere He that hath authority to expound a law Legislatively hath power to make it The King and Parliament declared Pope Vrban to be the right Pope in a time of Schisme that is in relation to England their own Kingdom not by determining the titles of the Popes but by applying the matter to the one and substracting it from the other All these are so many evidences that when Popery was at the highest the Bishops of Rome had no such absolute Ecclesiasticall Soveraignty in the Church and Realm of England And that what power they exercised at any time more then this was by connivence or permission or violent usurpation And that our Primates had no forraign Superiour Legally established over them but onely the King as he was the Supream head of the whole body politick To see that every one did his duty and injoyed his due right Who would not suffer one of his Barons to be excommunicated from Rome without his privity and consent No Legate de latere was allowed by the law in England but the Archbishop of Canturbury And if any was admitted of courtesy he was to take his oath to do nothing derogatory to the King and his Crown If any man did denounce the Popes excommunication without the assent of the King by the law he forfeited all his goods Neither might any man appeale to Rome without the Kings License In the year 1420 the Pope translated the Bishop of Lincolne to York But the Dean and Chapter absolutely refused to admit him and justified their refusal by the Laws of the Land And
Hosius proposed in the Occidental Councel of Sardis in favour of the See of Rome Doth it please you that we should honour the memory of St. Peter Or from the more powerfull principallity of the City which is alledged by the Councel of Chalcedon as a reason of the greatnesse both of the Sees of Rome and Constantinople because they were the seats of the Emperours Secondly the Canons of the Fathers either without custome or against custome Thus the Bishop of Hierusalem an Apostolical See was raised above the Bishop of Cesarea an Imperial City notwithstanding the contrary custome Thus Constantinople because it was newly made the seat of the Empire was equalled to an Apostolical See that is Rome and preferred before all the rest by the general Councels of Constantinople and Chalcedon notwithstanding the opposition of the Bishop of Rome by his Legats who grieved the more to see Thracia which he conceived to belong to his own Jurisdiction to be annexed to a rival See Lastly the Edicts of Soveraign Princes who out of favour either to the place of their Birth or of their residence or of their own foundation or forthe Weal-publick and better accomodation of their subjects have enlarged or restrain 〈◊〉 Patriarchates within their own Territories and raised up new Primats or Patriarchs as they thought fit But of this more in my next conclusion Fifthly notwithstanding the preheminence of the five great Patriarchs of Rome Constantinople Alexandria Antioch and Hiâ—rusalem and their great power and authority in the Church especially in general Councels yet there were many other Protarchs or Patriarchs who had no dependance upon them at all out of Councel nor ought them any obedience but onely a precedence and honourable respect Ruffinus a Priest of the Romane Church who lived not long after the councel of Nice And one who understood the ancient proper bounds of the Romane Patriarchate as well as any man doth limit it to the Suburbicary Churches that is a part of Italy and three Islands Sicily Sardinia and Corsica Africk had a Primate of their own at Carthage the rest of Italy at Millaine France at Arles or Lions Germany at Vienna Brittaine was removed far enough out of this account But this appears most clearly in the case between the Patriarch of Antioch and the Cyprian Bishops sentenced in the general Councel of Ephesus The Patriarch of Antioch challenged the ordination of the Cyprian Bishops and consequently a Patriarchal Jurisdiction over them for all other Rights do follow the right of ordination They denied both his right of ordination and jurisdiction The difference was heard The witnesses were examined for matter of fact And a sentence was given not onely in favour of the Cyprian Bishops but of all others which were in the same condition Among which number were our Brittannique Churches as shall evidently appear in this ensuing discourse But first let us listen to the words of the Councel Since common diseases do need greater remedies because they bring greater damage If it be not the ancient custome that the Bishops of Antioch ordain in Cyprus as the Councel is sufficiently satisfied The Cyprian Praelates shall hold their rights untouched and unviolated according to the Canons of the holy Fathers and the ancient custome ordaining their own Bishops And let the same be observed in other Diocesses and in all Provinces That no Bishop occupy another Province which formerly and from the beginning was not under the power of him or his predecessors If any do occupy another Province or subject it by force let him restore it that the Canons of the Fathers be not sleighted nor pride creep into the Church under the praetext of worldly power lest by little and little that liberty be lost which Christ purchased for us with his blood Therefore it hath pleased the Holy Synod that every Province injoy its rights and customs unviolated which it had from the beginning These words from the beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are twice repeated It is no marvel if some addicted to the interest of Rome have gone about by Slight of hand but very unsuccessefully to shuffle this Canon out of the Acts of the Councel If the Fathers in that Holy and oecumenical Councel were so tender and sensible of pride creeping into the Church in those daies and of the danger to lose their Christian liberty in the case of the Bishop of Antioch who neither pretended Divine right nor universal Jurisdiction nor superiority above Councels what would they not have said or done in this present case of the Bishop of Rome who challengeth not onely the right of ordaining but the grace of ordination and Soveraign Jurisdiction not over Cyprus only but over the whole Christian world not from custom or Canons or edicts but from the institution of Christ who makes all the validity of the decrees of those oecumenical Councels which his Predecessours received and reverenced as the Gospell to depend upon his own confirmation To apply this home to the question The Generall Councel of Ephesus declared that no Bishop should occupie any Province which before that Councell and from the beginning had not been under the Jurisdiction of him or his Predecessours And that if any Patriarch usurped any Jurisdiction over a free Province he should quit it for so it pleased not the Pope but the Holy Synod that every province should injoy its ancient rights pure and inviolate Now if it shall evidently appear that the Bishops of Rome never exercised any manner of Jurisdiction over the Britannique Churches from the beginning no nor yet before the general Councel of Ephesus nor for six hundred years after Christ that is untill they themselves had disowned their Patriarchal right when Pope Boniface the third who entred into the Roman See about three years after the death of Gregory the great obtained from Phocas an usurping Emperour to be universal Bishop that is to say an usurping Monarch over the Church which fell out so soon after the arrivall of Austin in England that there wanted time to have settled the Roman Patriarchate in Brittain though the Brittons had been as willing to receive it as they were averse from it and if no true general Councel since that time hath ever subjected Brittain unto the Roman Court Then the case is clear that Rome can pretend no right over Brittain without their own consents nor any further nor for any longer time then they are pleased to oblige themselves Then the subsequent and violent usurpations of the Roman Bishops cannot render them Bonae fidei possessores lawfull owners but that they are alwaies bound to quit their incroachments and the Brittannique Churches and those who derive by succession from them are alwaies free to vindicate and reassume their ancient rights and priviledges In this controversy by law the burthen of the proof ought to rest upon them who affirm a right and
indulgences and other Alchymistical devices out of his Kingdoms until time should teach them to content themselves with moderate things which endure long Or untill either a free Oecumenical Councel or an Europaean Synod should settle controversies and tune the jarring strings of the Christian world In the mean time we pitty their errours pray for their amendment and long for a re-union Now the just grounds of such subduction or separation are of two sorts either the Personal faults of the Popes or their Ministers as in the case of Simony and Schisme which ought in justice to reflect upon none but the persons who are guilty Or else they are faulty principles and rules as well in point of Doctrine as of Discipline such as the obtruding of new Creeds the pressing of unlawful oathes and the palpable usurpation of the undoubted rights of others And these do justifie and warrant a more permanent separation that is untill they be reformed Wherefore having taken a view of the sufficiency of the authority of our Princes to reform In the next place it is worthy of our serious consideration what were the true grounds of the separation of the Kingdom and Church of England from the Court of Rome And secondly whether in the subduction or substraction of their obedience or Communion they observed due moderation The grounds of their separation were many first the intolerable extortions and excessive Rapine of the Court of Rome committed in that Realm by their Legates and Nuncios and Commissioners and Collectors and other inferiour Officers and harpies enough to impoverish the kingdom and to drain out of it all the treasure that was in it and leave it as bare as a Grashopper in winter by their indulgences and pardons for all kind of sin at a certain rate Registred in their penitentiary taxe Yea as Ticelius the Popes pardoner made his bragg in Germany though a man had ravished the Mother of God yet so soon as the money did but chink in the bottom of the Bason presently the soul flew out of Purgatory To these we may add their despensations of all sorts and Commutations and Absolutions and Contributions and Reservations and Tenths and first Fruits and Appeals and Palles and a thousand other Artifices to get money As Provisions Collations Exemptions Canonisations Divolutions Revocations Unions Commendams Tolerations Pilgâ—images Jubilees Nulla hic arcana revelâ— saith Mantuan Venalia nobis Templa Sacerdotes altaria Sacra coronae Ignis thura preâ—es coelum est venale deusqque Temples Priests Altars Myters holy Orders Prayers Masses Heaven and God himself are salable at Rome It is no marvel they that buy must sell And whilest I am writing these things comes fresh intelligence of a Book lately set forth de Simoniae praesentis Pontificis they say not penned but dictated by such as know right well the most secret Cabales and Intriques of the Conclave Nam propius fama est hos tangere Divos which I can easily impute more to the fault of the place then of the man The oblation of the body and blood of Christ is sold fastings and penitentiary works are sold qui non potest jejunare per se potest jejunare per aliam vel potest darâ— nummam pro jejunio The merits of the Saints being alive are sold their relicks being dead are sold Scapulars and Monastick garments are sold. The Iewes with their Oxen Sheep and Doves were but petty Merchants in comparison of these great bankers Did any man desire a pall the Law it self did direct them what to do pallium non datur nisi fortiter postulanti The Pall would not be given but to those that knocked hard with a silver hammer Was any man a Suppliant to the Court of Rome Matthew Paris puts him into a right way Tunc sedes clementissima quae nulli deâ—sse conscivit dummodo albi aliquid vel rubei intercedat prescriptos Pâ—ntifices Abbates ad pristinas dignitates misericorditer revocavit Then the most pittiful See which is not accustomed to be wanting to any suppliants so they bring white or yellow advocates along with them did mercifully restore the said Bishops and Abbats to their former dignities It is almost incredible what a masse of treasure they collected out of England in a short time onely from investitures and some other exactions from Bishops in foure years no lesse then an hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling as was â—ound by inquisition Archbishop Cranmer paid for his Bulles that concerned his Consecration and Pall nine hundred Ducats To such an height were the extortions of the Roman Court mounted Ex ungue leonem Judge by this what the Popes yearly income or revenue out of England might be by all these arts which we have formerly mentioned and many more Sometimes under pretense of recovering the holy Land Sometimes to relieve the poverty of the Roman Court Sometimes in palfries Sometimes in forged bills of Exchange Sometimes in extorted subsidies Sometimes to a certain summe Sometimes to the fift part of their goods Sometimes to the third part of Residents and the half of non-residents Sometimes in yearly revenues as two Prebends of every Bishop and the value of the maintenance of two Monks from every Abbat Sometimes out of the goods of rich Clergy men who died intestate Sometimes a years wages for paiment of Souldiers some five some ten some fifteen according to their estates Sometimes in Jewels of all which he that desires to be more fully informed needs but to read Matthew Paris who describes the abuses and extortions of the Roman Bishops Graphically throughout his History And in one place he bemones the condition of England in these words Erat igitur videre dolorem praecordialem genas sanctorum irrigare querelas erumpere suspiria multiplicare dicentibus multis cum singulta cruentato melius est nobis mori quam videre malagentis nostrae Sanctorum Vae Angliae quae quondam princeps provinciarum domina gentium speculiem Ecclesiae religionis exemplum nunc facta est sub tributo conculcaverunt eam ignobiles facta est in praedam de generibus c. Therrfore a man might see sorrow of heart water the eielids of holy men complaints break out and grones multiplied many saying with bloody sighs It is better for us to die then to see the misery of our Nation and of holy persons Wo be to England which once was the Princess of Provinces the Lady of Nations the glasse of the Church a pattern of Religion but now is become tributary Ignoble fellowes have troden her under foot And she is made a prey to base persons Neither was this the complaint of the Vulgar onely All conscientious men were of the same mind Who hath not heard of the bitter complaints and free declamations of Grosthead the learned and Religious Bishop of Lincolne against the Tyranny and Rapine of the Roman Courts both in
Church may be restored Ludovicus Pius convocated a Councel at Aquisgrane to reform the abuses of the Clergy and confirmed the same and commanded the constitutions thereof to be put in execution as appeareth by his own Epistle to Arno Archbishop of Salzburge Otho the first called a Councel at Rome and caused Iohn the 12th to be deposed and Leo the eighth to be chosen in his place The sentence of the Councel was Petimus magnitudinem Imperii vestri c. VVe beseech your Imperial Majestie that such a Monster may be thrust out of the Roman Church And the Emperour confirmed it with a placet we are pleased Henry the fourth called a German Synod at VVormes And another of Germans and Italians at Brixia wherein sentence of deprivation was given against Gregorie the seventh and confirmed by the Emperour Quorum sententiae quòd justa probabilis coram Deo hominibúsque videbatur c. egoâ—quoque assentiens omne tibi Papatûs jus quod habere visus es abrenuncio c. Ego Henricus Rex Dei gratiâ cum omnibus Episcopis nostris tibi dicimus Descende descende To whose sentence because it seemed just and reasonable before God and men I also assenting do declare thee to have no right in the Papacy as thou seemest to have I Henry by the Grace of God King of the Romans with all our Bishops do say unto thee Descend from thy Seat descend So Frederick the first called a Councel at Papia to settle the right succession of the Papacy wherein Roland the Cardinal was rejected and Victor declared lawful Bishop of Rome And all this was done with due submission to the Emperour Christianissimus Imperator c. The most Christian Emperour in the last place after all the Bishops and Clergy by the advice and upon the petition of the Councel received and approved the election of Victor I will conclude this first part of the parallel with the words of the same Emperour in the same Councel Quamvis noverim officio ac dignitate Imperii penes nos esse potestatem congregandorum Conciliorum c. Although I know that by vertue of our office and Imperial dignity the power of calling Councels rests in us especially in so great dangers of the Church For both Constantine and Theodosius and Justinian and of fresher memory Charles the Great and Otho Emperours are recorded to have done this Yet I do commit the authority of determining this great and high businesse to your wisdome and power that is to the Bishops there assembled But it may be objected that the Emperours with their Synods never made any such Schismatical reformation as that which was made by the Protestants in England I answer First that the Schisme between the Roman Court and the English Church other Schisme I know none on our parts was begun long before that reformation in the daies of Henry the eighth and the breach sufficiently proclaimed to the world both by Romish Bulls and English Statutes We could not be the first separatours of our selves from them who had formerly thrust us out of their doors It is not Schismatical to substract obedience from them to whom it is not due who had extruded us out of their Society but it is Schismatical to give just cause of substraction Secondly I answer That there was a great necessity of Reformation both in Germany and England For proof whereof I produce two witnesses beyond exception the one a Pope the other a Cardinal The former is Adrian the sixth in his instructions to his Legate in the year 1522. which the Princes of the Empire take notice of in their auswer His words are these Scimus in hac Sancta sede aliquot jam annis multa abhominanda fuisse c. VVe know that for some by-past yeares many things to be abominated have been in this holy See abuses in spiritual matters excesses in commands and to conclude all things out of order c. wherein for so much as concerns us thou shalt promise that we will use all our endeavour that first this Court from whence peradventure sure enough all the evil did spring may be reformed that as corruption did flow from thence to the inferiour parts of the Church so may health and Reformation To procure which we do hold our selves so much more strictly obliged by how much we do see the whole world greedily desire such a Reformation O Adriane si nunc viveres The other witnesse is Cardinal Pool who makes two main ends of the Councel of Trent The one the reconciling of the Lutherans The other quo pacto ipsius Ecclesiae praecipua vel potiùs omnia ferè membra ad veterem disciplinam instituta à quibus non parùm declinârunt revocentur To consider how the principal members of the Church or rather almost all the members might be reduced to their ancient discipline and Ordinances from which they had swerved much Yet when himself was sent afterwards by Paul the fourth to reform the Church of England it seemeth that he had forgotten those great deviations of the principall members and those very representations which he himself with eight other selected Cardinals and Prelates had made upon oath to Paul the third Then he saw that this lying flattering principle that The Popâ— is the Lord of all benefices and therefore cannot be a Simoniack was the fountain ex quo tanquam ex equo Trojano irrupere in Ecclesiam Dei tot abusus et tam gravissimi morbi c. from which as from the Trojan horse so many abuses and so grievous diseases had broken into the Church of God and brought it to a desperate condition to the derision of Christian Religion and blaspheming of the Name of Christ And that the cure must begin there from whence the disease did spring by taking away all abuses in dispensations of all kinds and ordinations and collations and provisions and pensions and permutations and reservatitions and coadjutorships and expectative graces and unions and non-residence and exemptions and absolutions and all such pecuniary artifices because it is not lawful by any means to reap any gain from the exercise of the power of the Keyes Tollantur say they hae maculae c. Let these spots be taken away to which if any entrance be given in any Common-wealth or Kingdom whatsoever it must needs fall headlong instantly or very shortly to ruine Thirdly I answer that the Emperours and the German Church did not onely desire a reformation as appeareth by the Letter of Sigismond the Emperour to the King of France Maximo desideâ—io jamdudum tenebamur c. We have long desired greatly to see the onely Spouse of Christ the Catholick Church happily reformed in our daies but after we were assumed to the Imperial Government our desire passed into command c. And the advises of Constance conceived by the Deputies of the German Nation in
I answer that obedience to a just Patriarch is of no larger extent then the Canons of the Fathers do injoyn it And since the division of Britaigne from the Empire no Canons are or ever were of force with us further then they were received and by their incorporation became Britannique Lawes Which as they cannot noâ— ever could be imposed upon the King and Kingdome by a forreign Patriarch by constraint so when they are found by experience prejudiciall to the publick good they may as freely by the same King and Kingdome be rejected But I shall wind up this string a little higher Suppose that the whole body of the Canon Law were in force in England which it never was yet neither the Papall power which we have cashiered nor any part of it was ever given to any Patriarch by the ancient Canons and by consequence the separation is not Schismatical nor any withdrawing of Canonical obedience What power a Metropolitan had over the Bishops of his own Province by the Canon Law the same and no other had a Patriarch over the Metropolitans and Bishops of sundry Provinces within his own Patriarchate But a Metropolitan anciently could do nothing out of his own Diocesse without the concurrence of the Major part of the Bishops of his Province Nor the Patriarch in like manner without the advice and consent of his Metropolitans and Bishops Wherein then consisted Patriarchal authority In ordaining their Metropolitans for with inferiour Bishops they might not meddle or confirming them or imposing of hands in giving the Pall in convocating Patriarchal Synods and presiding in them in pronouncing sentence according to the plurality of voices That was when Metropolitical Synods did not suffice to determine some emergent difficulties or differences And lastly in some few honorary priviledges as the acclamation of the Bishops to them at the latter end of a General Councel and the like which signifie not much In all this there is nothing that we dislike or would seek to have abrogated Never any Patriarch was guilty of those exactions extortions incroachments upon the civil rights of Princes and their Subjects or upon the Ecclesiastical rights of Bishops or of those provisions and pensions and exemptions and reservations and dispensations and inhibitions and pardons and indulgences and usurped Sovereignty which our Reformers banished out of England And therefore their separation was not any waies from Patriarchal authority I confesse that by reason of the great difficulty and charge of convocating so many Bishops and keeping them so long together untill all causes were heard and determined And by reason of those inconveniencies which did fall upon their Churches in their absence Provincial Councels were first reduced from twice to once in the year and afterwards to once in three years And in processe of time the hearing of appeales and such like causes and the execution of the Canons in that behalf were referred to Metropolitans untill the Papacy swallowed up all the authority of Patriarchs and Metropolitans and Bishops Serpens serpentem nisi ederet non fieret draco Peradventure it may be urged in the fourth place That Gregory the Great who by his Ministers was the first converter of the English Nation about the six hundreth year of our Lord did thereby acquire to himself and his Successours a Patriarchal authority and power over England for the future We do with all due thankfulnesse to God and honourable respect to his memory acknowledge that that blessed Saint was the chief instrument under God to hold forth the first light of saving truth to the English Nation who did formerly sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death whereby he did more truly merit the name of Great then by possessing the chair of Saint Peter And therefore whilest the sometimes flourishing now poor persecuted Church of England shall have any being Semper honos nomenque suum laudesque manâ—bunt But whether this benefit did intitle Saint Gregory and his Successours to the Patriarchate of all or any part of the British Islands deserves a further consideration First consider that at that time and untill this day half of Britaigne it self and two third parts of the Britannique Islands did remain in the possession of the Britons or Scottish and Irish who still continued Christians and had their Bishops and Protarchs or Patriarchs of their own from whom we do derive in part our Christianity and holy orders and priviledges Without all controversie the conversion of the Saxons by Saint Gregory could not prejudice the just liberties of them or their Successours Secondly consider that the half of Britaigne which was conquered and possessed by the Saxons was not soly and altogether peopled by Saxons A world of British Christians did remain and inhabit among the Conquerours For we do not find either that the Saxons did go about to extirpate the British Nation or compell them to turn Renegadoes from their Religion or so much as demolish their Churches But contented themselves to chase away persons of eminency and parts and power whom they had reason to suspect and fear And made use of vulgar persons and spirits for their own advantage This is certain that Britaigne being an Island whither there is no accesse by land all those who were transported or could have been transported by Sea on such a suddain could not of themselves alone in probability of reason have planted or peopled the sixth part of so much land as was really possessed by the Saxons And therefore we need not wonder if Queen Bertha a Gallâ—ise and a Christian did find a Congregation of Christians at Canterbury to joyn with her in her Religion and a Church called Saint Martins builded to her hand And stood in need of Lethargus a Bishop to order the affaires of Christian Religion before ever Saint Austine set foot upon English ground Neither did the British want their Churches in other places also as appears by that Commission which the King did give to Austine among other things to repair the Churches that were decayed These poor subdued persons had as much right to their ancient priviledges as the rest of the unconquered Britons Thirdly consider That all that part of Britaigne which was both conquered and inhabited by the Saxons was not one intire Monarchy but divided into seven distinct Kingdoms which were not so suddenly converted to the Christian faith all at once but in long tract of time long after Saint Gregory slept with his fathers upon several occasions by several persons It was Kent and some few adjacent Counties that was converted by Austine It is true that Ethelbâ—rt King of Kent after his own conversion did indeavour to have planted the Christian faith both in the Kingdomes of Northumberland and the East Angles with fair hopes of good successe for a season But alas it wanted root Within a short time both Kings and Kingdoms apostated from Christ and forsook their Religion The Kingdoms of the West Saxons
and of the South Saxons under Kingils their King who did unite the heptarchy into a Monarchy were converted by the preaching of Berinus an Italian by the perswasions of Oswald King of Northumberland Oswâ—ld King of Northumberland was baptized in Scotland and Religion luckily planted in that Kingdome by Aidan a Scottish Bishop Penda King of Mercia was converted and christened by Finanus Successour of Aidan by the means of a marriage with a Christian Princesse of the Royal Family of Northumberland Sigibert King of the East Angles in whose daies and by whose means Religion took root among the East Saxons was converted and christned in France All these Saxons which were converted by Britons or Scots may as justly plead for their old immunities as the Britons themselves We acknowledge Saint Gregory to have been the first that did break the ice And yet we see how small a proportion of the inhabitants of the British Islands do owe their conversion to Rome in probability not a tenth part Fourthly consider that the conversion of a Nation to the Christian faith is a good ground in equity all other circumstances concurring why they should rather submit themselves or a General Councel assign them to that See that converted them then to any other Patriarchate As was justly pleaded in the case between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople about the right of Jurisdiction over the Bulgarians But the conversion of a Nation is no ground at all to invest their converter presently with Patriarchal authority over them or any Ecclesiastical superiority especially where too great a distance of place doth render such Jurisdiction uselesse and burthensome And most especially where it cannot be done without prejudice to a former owner thrust out of his just right meerly by the power of the sword as the British Primates were Or to the subjecting of a free Nation to a forreign Prelate without or beyond their own consent In probability of reason the Britons ought their first conversion to the Eastern Church as appeareth by their accord with them in baptismal rites and the observation of Easter Yet never were subject to any Eastern Patriarch Sundry of our British and English Bishops have converted forreign Nations yet never pretended to any Jurisdiction over them Fifthly and lastly consider That whatsoever title or right S. Gregory did acquire or might have acquired by his piety and deserts towards the English Nation it was personal and could not descend from him to such Successours who both forfeited it many waies and quickly within four or five years after his death quitted their Patriarchate and set an higher title to a spirituall Monarchy on foot whilest the most part of England remained yet Pagan when Pope Boniface did obtain of Phoeas the usurper an usurping Pope from an usurping Emperour to be universal Bishop Their Canon-shot is past that which remains is but a small volly of Muskets They adde that we have schismatically separated our selves from the Communion of our Ancestours whom we believe to be damned That we have separated our selves from our Ecclesiastical predecessours by breaking in sunder the line of Apostolical succession whilest our Presbyters did take upon them to Ordain Bishops and to propagate to their Successours more then they received from their predecessours That our Presbyters are but equivocall Presbyters wanting both the right matter and form of Presbyterial ordination To extinguish the order is more schismatical then to decline their authority And lastly that we derive our Episcopal Jurisdiction from the Crown First for our natural Fathers the answer is easie We do not condemn them nor separate our selves from them Charity requires us both to think well and speak well of them But prudence commands us likewise to look well to our selves We believe our fathers might partake of some errours of the Roman Church we do not believe that they were guilty of any heretical pravity but held alwaies the truth implicitely in the preparation of their minds and were alwaies ready to receive it when God should be pleased to reveal it Upon these grounds we are so far from damning them that we are confident they were saved by a generall repentance He that searcheth carefully into his own heart to find out his errours and repenteth truly of all his known sins and beggeth pardon for his unknown errours proceeding out of invincible or but probable ignorance in Gods acceptation repenteth of all Otherwise the very best of Christians were in a miserable condition For who can tell how oft he offendeth The second accusation of Priests consecrating Bishops is grounded upon a senselesse fabulous fiction made by a man of a leaden heart and a brazen forehead of I know not what assembly of some of our Reformers at the sign of the Nags-head in Cheapside or rather devised by their malicious enemies at the sign of the Whetstone in Popes-head-Alley Against which lying groundlesse drowsie dream we produce in the very point the authentick records of our Church of things not acted in a corner but publickly and solemnly recorded by publick Notaries preserved in publick Registers whither every one that desired to see them might have accesse And published to the world in Print whilest there were thousands of eye-witnesses living that could have contradicted them if they had been feigned There is no more certainty of the Coronation of Henry the eighth or Edward the sixth then there is of that Ordination which alone they have been pleased to question done not by one as Austine consecrated the first Saxon Prelates but by five consecrated Bishops Let them name the person or persons And if they were Bishops of the Church of England we will shew them the day the place the persons when and where and by whom and before what publick Notaries or sworn Officers they were ordained And this not by uncertain rumours but by the Acts and instruments themselves Let the Reader chuse whether he will give credit to a sworn Officer or a professed adversary to eye-witnesses or to malicious reporters upon hearsay to that which is done publickly in the face of the Church or to that which is said to be done privately in the corner of a Tavern These authentick evidences being upon occasion produced out of our Ecclesiasticall Courts and deliberately perused and viewed by Father Oldcorn the Jesuit he both professed himself clearly convinced of that whereof he had so long doubted that was the legitimate succession of Bishops and Priests in our Church and wished heartily towards the reparation of the breach of Christendome that all the world were so abundantly satisfied as he himself was Blaming us as partly guilty of the grosse mistake of many for not having publickly and timely made known to the world the notorious falshood of that empty but far spread aspersion against our succession As for our parts we believe Episcopacy to be at least in Apostolical institution approved by Christ himself in